Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 79 Turnabout Intruder
It’s been a little slow in the movie department lately, and I have been looking for something to blog about that doesn’t take five hours to do (those movie reviews aren’t just spewed from my brain stem stream of consciousness style in spite of how they may appear. I actually do think about them and believe it or not watch the film itself). I had a lot of fun recapping the assorted TOS episodes when I did my best and worst lists, and thought I could do something for all of them.
So what I plan to do is go through each episode in turn and talk about my thoughts on it and what it meant to me in my childhood. Also if any relevant thoughts as it relates to current events or things in my personal life crop up I will be sure to share them. I know you are fascinated. Also since this blog kind or runs backwards I will be doing them from last to first, so we start off with Episode 79 Turnabout Intruder.
This is the last episode of the dreaded season 3 and was originally scheduled to be aired on the day Eisenhower died. It tells the story of a crazy woman (Sandra Smith) who blames her gender for her failing to achieve command of a star ship and uses an alien device to trade bodies with Kirk. She then lives up to every negative stereotype with regards to women by bungling things up majorly, including her attempt to kill Kirk in her former body.
Little did I know that this episode would be my introduction to gender politics, a subject that would haunt me for many years. In art school the main focus of our department was marginalization and gender issues and most of my teachers, grad students, and peers did not have a lot of kind words for the hapless Y chromosome. Ironically by being one of three straight white males in the entire program I was more marginalized than anyone else, but had I suggested that at the time I would have gone through my own male-to-female transformation with the help of a belt sander.
The payback I would suffer for being born male was destined to continue for the rest of my life, as exhibited by the way I am treated by the women I date. There is no way they aren’t all in some conspiracy to make me suffer as much as possible. (You Lost me at Hello, the phrase I’m pretty sure all women are thinking when they first meet me, comes from the Funny T-Shirt category BTW)
I’m kind of torn as to whether this story can be counted as a success or failure in the name of women’s liberation. The female personality failed as captain in Kirks body, which implies that it is actually the strength of character that makes for a command officer, not gender. However she manages to exhibit every negative helpless female stereotype during the course of it, and the fact is TOS was pretty short on female commanding officers (for the record I think the highest ranked female was Lt. Uhura) in general. TNG made up for it (sort of). A less enlightened viewer might say that the inherent strength of Kirk as the male comes from his lifetime of experience as a man, not the few days he spent as a woman. Also I’m going to call shenanigans on the fact that I sincerely doubt a true epicurean such as Kirk would pass up on the opportunity to have sex with himself.
Speaking of male-to-female transformation my good friend A. just complete hers and is recovering nicely. Congratulations!
That’s pretty much it. Tomorrow is All our Yesterdays, an episode that confused the hell out of me as a kid.
Dave
Planes Movie Review
I often find in myself certain animal characteristics. In Warhammer I combine the vicious savagery of a tiger with the cleverness of a monkey (tonkey?). When faced with obstacles in life I usually charge forward ignoring them confident in my bull like ability to batter them aside with my horns and thick skull. I tend to look like a giant bear (size, not body hair), am stubborn like a mule, and (apparently) have all the sex appeal of a rancid roadkill armadillo.
When it comes to movie reviews I think the animal I most channel is the coyote. For those of you who did not grow up in an area with coyotes let me tell you they are not dogs or wolves. They are something in between. They can attack when desperate enough but really only go after animals that are mostly dead already. Scavengers, basically. I, like a coyote, often salivate at the sight of a wounded movie that has already failed to meet studio expectations and will in all fairness truly suck. Sure it’s painful to watch but afterwards I have a whole smorgasbord of dead animal parts to fill my critical tummy.
This is why I sometimes go back and see films that have been out for over a month. It has been a little slow (and I think I need to steel myself to see Battle of the Year) so this is the perfect time to drop back and pick up any scraps I missed. Thus we come to Planes. If you were stupid enough to think this film was going to be anything other than Cars with wings then I’m pleased to announce you have won an ocean cruise that starts when you stick your head into your own toilet and flush yourself to Acapulco.
This film wasn’t so awful that I found myself looking for the door to the projection room in order to do bad things to the projectionist, but I was definitely eyeballing the exits. I actually see this film as a sign of the contempt that certain studios have for their fans. It seems to be pretty clearly designed to suck money from the hapless parents of kids while providing nothing in return except 91 minutes of peace and quiet (maybe. Some of the kids in the theater were pretty rambunctious. On a side note, I purposely saw a late showing in order to not be up to my ass in rug rats. Why are you parents taking your children to see a movie at 10pm? Shouldn’t your kids be locked in their sleep cages by then?). When I imagine the executives of certain studios discussing their fans I imagine them treating us like the robots treated humans in the Matrix.
There was one thing that bugged me about this film (and the whole Cars franchise) and about halfway through the film the answer struck me like a tornado touching down in a trailer park. The main character, Dusty Crophopper, is a crop duster (see what they did there? Clever.). He spends all day dusting crops of corn and has done so his entire life. His older buddy has done it for decades. Yet no where do we see anyone capable of eating and digesting the corn. There was some discussion of corn oil being used as a new kind of fuel but it looks like corn has been raised centuries so that is no explanation. Why are they growing corn???
Once I notice that I started seeing a bunch of other stuff. At the airports they kept running into giant commercial passenger planes, complete with the row of windows for passengers to look out of. There is a whole network of passenger planes and yet no sign of passengers. One of Dusty’s sidekicks is selling souvenir whistles, yet most of the cars and planes don’t really have arms to put the whistle up the their grill. Why would anyone need a whistle if you were created with a horn? The mystery of no humans yet stuff that only humans could need really ground on me until finally the answer struck me.
Sentient, autonomous machines? No sign of humans yet the vestigial remnants of human society? Machines mimicking human behavior? All of a sudden I realized that what we are seeing in the world of Cars is the post-human world in the wake of the robot revolution! This is the world after Skynet has won! It’s really the only explanation, and as cute as this movie is I’m sure at some point during his racing Dusty was flying over mass human graves and the broken battlefields filled with bones crushed under mighty robotic war machine treads. Is this really what you want to show your children?
(Obey Robot image courtesy of the Funny Political T Shirts category)
Also, what is the deal with forklifts? You see, cars and planes lack anything resembling limbs, so forklifts are now the only functional working machines in this society, and there are a lot of them. Way more than you would imagine in proportion to other vehicles. I had a job at a warehouse once and while the parking lot had 50-60 cars in it we only had two forklifts. Also, in the movie when you see the viewing stands at the race finish (no double very expensive seats) they are filled with cars and planes but you only see forklifts when it is time to do some form of technical task or labor. Clearly the forklifts represent the post-human proletariat. Karl Marx would have a field day with this movie. Power to the Forklifts! Join the Forklift Revolution! Study the Bourgeois Automobile Intelligentsia’s Methods of Struggle Against the Forklifts!
Anyway, the story. Just rent Cars and stick magnetic wings onto all the characters if you want to skip my recap. Good to go. Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook-Mr. Brooks, Dan in Real Life, My Best Friends Girl) is a crop duster who dreams of being a racer. He is aided by his dopey gas truck buddy Chug (Brad Garrett-Everybody Loves Raymond, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo) and his forklift mechanic (and possible revolutionary. The concept is never really explored) Dottie (Teri Hatcher-Tomorrow Never Dies, Coroline, Desperate Housewives). He enters a local qualifying race and barely squeaks in. He seeks training from local war hero Skipper (Stacy Keach-American History X, the Bourne Identity, the New Mike Hammer), a Corsair (which, in my opinion, was the coolest looking aircraft of WWII) with a troubled past.
Honestly just grab the kids movie cliche checklist and start checking stuff off. Dusty makes friends with a Mexican lucha libre plane (Carlos Alazraqui-Happy Feet, Reno 911, Toy Story 3) who acts as his goofy sidekick in the air. The Mexican also has a sub plot of unrequited love with a Canadian plane (Julia Louis-Dreyfus-Seinfeld, a Bug’s Life, Deconstructing Harry). There’s the obligatory love interest for Dusty (can someone tell me how planes actually have sex, and to what purpose? I’m honestly curious) in the slightly-less-than-racially-sensitive plane Ishani (Priyanka Chopra-Fashion, Barfi, Don!). There’s the stuffy British guy (John Cleese-A Fish Called Wanda, Monty Python) just in case you hadn’t quite filled up on stereotypes yet, and of course the obligatory reigning champion and all around jerk to what he considers a lower class working plane (aha! More less-than subtle Communist rhetoric!) Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith-Wreck It Ralph, Resident Evil 5, Assassins Creed).
Just write it out the story your head before I type this. Dusty starts off sucking, but over time starts winning. Ripslinger feels threatened by him and does him dirty with the help of his two hench-planes Echo and Bravo (obviously counter-revolutionaries, the both of them. Anthony Edwards-Zodiac, Top Gun, Revenge of the Nerds and Val Kilmer(WTF???)-Real Genius, Heat, Top Gun). I don’t want to spoil the ending but if you thought you were going to be surprised, prepare to be surprised.
As per usual for kids movies I won’t dissect it with my stars/black hole rating system. I judge these films by how the kids in the audience are reacting and to be honest, it seems like a lot of the kids were more than a little bored. They were climbing all over the seats and running up and down the stairs more than I see in most kids films. I guess I’m going to have to unrecommended this film for your beloved tikes. They will get as much or more out of a viewing of Cars at home and you yourself won’t be subjected to this mind numbing cliche pap.
So I guess that’s it for this movie. Based on the trend I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we see another movie set in the Cars world involving some other type of working class vehicle that dreams of being a racer. Perhaps a tug boat or garbage scow in a movie with some kind of watercraft related name? However, there is some promise for this franchise in that I would really, really want to see either the Cars prequel featuring the destruction of the human race or the film of the inevitable forklift revolution (Lifts?). I dream of a world where studios develop the sack to take fun chances like that (also a world where I’m surrounded by hot women who play Warhammer topless and there is bacon on every form of food).
Thanks for reading. There are a couple more movies out this week that I will try to grind through but I am not looking forward to them. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this movie or my review here, or send me an email at [email protected] if you have an off topic question or suggestion. Talk to you soon. Have a great day.
Dave
Prisoners Movie Review
A feel good experience it ain’t.
I think that’s a fair warning. I don’t believe all movies need happy endings. In fact I kind of like the dark and twisted stuff, and this movie never marketed itself as a come-from-behind-happy-ending type film. It’s just a little surreal to see a non-horror mainstream movie that doesn’t have a Disneyfied all is roses and rainbows happy ending.
Actually, let me rephrase that. It’s not so much surreal as it is refreshing. Eating too many sweet happy endings can definitely lead to movie diabetes.
So this movie was pretty good, at least if you find your life lacks intensity and questionable moral choices. You definitely remain focused on the screen, and there are a few cool twists and a story that assumes your IQ is higher than the speed you drove on your way to work this morning. If you are looking for a movie to motivate you to cuddle up with your spouse or significant other this one will do the trick (be sure to email me and let me know what that experience is like. Not that I’m bitter).
On the other hand it wasn’t a brilliant movie. It’s always a little frustrating when you can clearly see what scenes were cut out of the film in order to make the run time (at 153 minutes they were already pushing the envelope so I don’t know if I would really want them re-inserted, but it’s pretty clear the director created a 200 minute movie and then the studio took a pruning sheers to it). The biggest chunk missing seems to be the back story and motivation for the main police character Detective Loki. There is a scene where he is eating Thanksgiving by himself at a Chinese restaurant, and a few other references to his work habits and drive but you are left with the feeling one of your limbs was amputated while you slept and then all memory of it erased. You can feel and understand that there is something there but you just can’t feel or enjoy it.
It’s especially unfortunate since Loki was the most interesting character and the one I was most curious about. The main character Keller Dover was good, but he was very linear and clear in his motivation. He was the locomotive pulling the train along very clear tracks, while Loki could have been the gang of train robbers riding along side and adding some cool excitement.
Another issue I found was the lack of connectivity in the story. These days in a crime story such as this we have become accustomed to seeing some cool CSI style crime investigation, with interesting tidbits of information coming from hair or fabric fibers stuck to the bottom of the suspects shoe. Instead this movie relies on really crappy coincidences and gawd-awful tropes on the order of “The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime” and the like. The investigation kind of ran back and forth with none of the investigative progression we see in most crime films. (CSI image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category)
It is a crime film and I did enjoy it so I will be avoiding any spoilers. This will of course mean a shorter than usual recap but I think you will thank me for it. The film starts off with Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman-X-men, Reel Steel, Les Miserables) and his family (Maria Bello-a History of Violence, Payback, Secret Window; Dylan Minnette-Let Me In, Saving Grace, the Year Without Santa Claus; Erin Gerasimovich-Orange is the New Black, Awakened, Delivery Man) heading over to Thanksgiving dinner with the their neighbors the Birch’s (Terrance Howard-Red Tails, Crash, Iron Man; Viola Davis-the Help, Solaris, Won’t Back Down; Zoe Borde-All of Us, Read Between the Lines; Kyla Drew Simmons-Parental Guidance, Santa’s Boot Camp, Soul Ties). There is a beat up RV parked on the street. During the afternoon the two little girls disappear, sparking a search.
Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal-End of Watch, Source Code, Donnie Darko) is part of the arrest of the RV driver. It turns out to be mentally challenged Alex (Paul Dano-There Will be Blood, Looper, Little Miss Sunshine). He holds up under questioning due to his inability to understand the questions and his RV checks out, causing him to be released back into the custody of his aunt (Melissa Leo-Oblivion, the Fighter, Frozen River).
In the interest of not spoiling anything I will gloss over the remainder. The rest of the film is a gritty mystery, with Keller facing some tough moral choices. Loki is a bloodhound and turns up some interesting stuff. A decent story if you can mentally gloss over all the deus ex machina.
The stars.
The story was written to at least a high school graduate level. Two stars. Great acting from pretty much everyone, especially Jake and Hugh. Two stars. In spite of the movie length the pacing was dead perfect and the film never seemed to drag. One star. In an extremely rare occurrence I found myself actually caring about all the characters and sincerely hoping they ended up all right (this is the sign of a director who knows what characters are about and can make them resonate with the audience). Two stars. A crime film the does not rely on action and violence in order to get the point across. One star. Overall worth my time and money. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes.
I left the theater really wanting to know more about Detective Loki. One black hole. Deus ex machina up the butt. One black hole. While the main characters were relatively easy to identify with I had a hard time locking onto the antagonist (when you see the film you will realize why). One black hole. I know this is petty, but the deus ex denouement is initiated by a single word said by one character in a hospital bed and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the hell the word was. I ended up the last 20 minutes of the movie trying to figure out how we got to where we were and it was kind of infuriating. Either bad sound editing or just bad writing. One black hold. Total: four stars.
A grand total of six stars. Not bad at all. Worth your time in my opinion. Date movie? Sure. In fact I recommend it. The story is one of those creepy ones that is not an overt horror film but will motivate anyone to not sleep alone that night. Your date will want to someone to hold on to after seeing this. God knows I was squeezing my pillow extra hard (have I mentioned that my dating life sucks in the last 100 words?). Bathroom break? Actually most of the scenes in the dilapidated apartment building after the first couple are entirely missable. You won’t want to miss them but once the plot point is established you really don’t need to keep having it beaten into your head.
Thanks for reading. I will see something tonight and write it up tomorrow. Feel free to comment here on this film or my review, or if you have off topic suggestions or questions can email me at [email protected] (single brunette women in the 28-38 year range who like opinionated nerds with bitter sarcastic senses of humor are especially welcome). Talk to you soon.
Dave
We’re the Millers Movie Review
Miller Time is Fun Time.
I’d love to say I came up with the idea of using Miller Time as a joke for this review but the film actually did their own Miller Time joke. In fact it fit in so seamlessly I’d be willing to bet the movie title came about as a result of the joke being written. Sort of an egg being born before the chicken. Anyway, this movie was a lot of fun and I found myself laughing my ass off, something of a rare occurrence given the deluge of bad comedy that I am force to operate in every day. It was certainly more funny and entertaining than the other family based movie I reviewed this week, the Family.
(I’d also like to claim creative credit on doing these two movies back to back as sort of a family movie theme week but actually my best friend Dave suggested it when I asked him which film he’d like to see me review next. Thanks Dave, and yes he is a real human being not my imaginary friend or alternate personality. Sometimes best friends can have the same name).
So this movie is the story of a guy who hires a stripper and two local teenage losers to pretend to be his family. Based on my ongoing date success (got another “let’s be friends” speech tonight. B- for originality, C- for sincerity, and A+ for timing) this actually sounds like a viable plan, and certainly less painful than to keep putting myself through the darkened corridor of whirling knives and groin height kicking machines known as dating. I suppose I could have picked up on the fact that she wasn’t that interested in my when she spent a lot of time with her eyes drawn to the television, but I just hoped she was an avid baseball fan. Also, my amazing powers of perception of human motivation seem to go blind whenever an attractive girl is involved. There’s probably a deep seated psychological reason behind it, but that is a deep dark pit I really don’t want to go spelunking in.
So Meet the Millers. I have to say really impressive. Rated R comedies are tricky beasts, and writing them can be like wrestling with an octopus. Too often the “humor” is lowered to the 2nd grade bathroom level and all pretense of cleverness or good story is left to rot on the vine (cough cough the Change Up cough cough). This one is more like a good Melissa McCarthy film in that the rated R humor is a tool to enhance the humor rather than the decrepit three legged mule that is supposed to drag the entire movie.
On the other hand, if I had the president of New Line Cinema’s home phone number I would probably make an obnoxious call right at dinnertime to bitch about the fact that we have a rated R comedy who’s main female character is a stripper yet somehow have not a single frame of actual female nudity. I’m not asking to see Jennifer Aniston nude (well, actually I am and have been for about 19 years, but I need to stay realistic) but can’t they find some other girl or two to run around topless in the club? Hell, the managed to find an excuse to show some nudity in Riddick, and that film had no (known) strippers in it. Having your film earn an R rating for “crude sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and brief graphic nudity” and then have the brief graphic nudity be grossly deformed man genitalia should be a crime punishable by being beaten with a garden hose while force to watch Gigli, the Garbage Pail Kids Movie, and Battlefield Earth (Dutch angles a-go-go!) back to back.
On a related note, rated R comedy film makers please understand there is nothing remotely appealing or funny about a mans frank and beans. Can we call a moratorium on showing it? In my experience even people who like man junk don’t like looking at it, whereas even people who don’t like women like looking at breasts. And to those of you who accuse me of maintaining a double standard I say shut up.
So the story. David Clark (Jason Sudeikis-Horrible Bosses, the Campaign, SNL) is a small time pot dealer. He lives in a building with his super hot neighbor Rose (Jennifer Aniston-Friends, Office Space, the Iron Giant) who works as a stripper. He has a goofy kid Kenny (Will Poulter-Wild Bill, the Chronicles of Narnia; the Voyage of the Dawn Treader) as another neighbor and a runaway girl Casey (Emma Roberts-Aquamarine, Nancy Drew, Wild Child) as a homeless street rat in the neighborhood. The two of them get David robbed by some local jerks, taking all his pot and money.
This gets him into trouble with his hilarious boss Brad (Ed Helms-the Office, the Hangover, the Lorax), a very preppy yet sociopathic villain done Ed Helms style. Brad tells David the only way out of the money he now owes is to run down to Mexico and pick up some pot. David is understandably nervous about smuggling drugs across the border and figures out the clever scheme of looking like typical Midwestern dork family. To that end he hires Rose, Kenny, and Casey to be his family.
The group crosses over the border in their giant rented RV and arrive at the local drug kingpin’s stronghold. There they meet local muscle One-Eye (that’s how he’s credited. Matthew Willig-Year One, the Benchwarmers, the Employer) who fills their RV from stem to stern with giant bricks of pot. They leave but it turns out Brad was actually stealing the pot and when the real kingpin shows up (Tomer Sisley-Sleepless Night, the Heir Apparent, the Burma Conspiracy) he and the muscle tear off after the Millers.
At that point it’s National Lampoons Vacation mixed with the Road Warrior and the Hitcher. Honestly the story isn’t that critical and merely serves as a vehicle for some really funny situations (actually the story is pretty damned predictable for most of the film). 
The group meets up with the Fitzgeralds (Nick Offerman-Parks and Rec, 21 Jump Street, Sin City; Kathryn Hahn-How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Step Brothers, Anchorman; and super cute Molly C. Quinn-Castle, Finding Hope, Hansel and Gretel get Baked. Parks and Rec image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category) who are salt of the earth types (with a secret). Rose has to prove she’s a stripper, Kenny has a really tragic accident, and Casey meets the lowest human being in the history of the human race.
The stars:
Really, really funny. I was laughing out loud frequently and with gusto. Two stars. All the acting and characterization was brilliant. I thought Jennifer Aniston and David Clark were particularly good. One star. I love Ed Helms as a preppy bad guy. One star. The story made sense, in that at no point did any of the characters do something blatantly stupid to pull the audience out of the film experience. One star. The scenes involving Jennifer Aniston in her stripper clothes were about as amazing as you can imagine. She has a great physique and appears to like to show it off. Plus the other two girls were pretty hot too. One star. There were some running gags that seemed to really flow naturally. Overall well written. One star. In general a fun movie experience. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes:
The story will not be winning a Nobel Peace Prize for Originality. If you have ever seen any Cheech and Chong and/or Vacation movies you should have the whole thing down already. One black hole. Stripper + Rated R movie + no actual nudity = one black hole. I’m going to ding them one more time for showing us a particularly painful scene (from a straight male who loves his own genitalia perspective) not once but twice. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of six stars, a very good score. Should you see it? Yes, if you like to laugh, don’t mind some blue humor, and want to see Jennifer Aniston dance around a stripper pole. This film is worth your time and money. Date movie? Sure. In spite of what it appears to be on the surface this film has a weird, wholesome quality that might trigger your date’s sex drive or something (although really, based on my success rate what do I know? Take her to see the Evil Dead for all I actually understand about women. Hell, take her to a local dog fight. You honestly couldn’t fail more doing that than I do trying to do all the right things). Bathroom break? There isn’t a lot here I would want to miss. Each scene has something funny in it. On the other hand it’s 110 minutes so you might need a break. I’d say there’s a scene towards the end where Casey is on her date with the worst human ever (you will know what I mean) that’s fairly low in priority. Hurry though.
Thanks for reading. No real plans this weekend so I should be able to see at least two films. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to post comments about this film or my review here, and if you have an off topic question or suggestion email me at [email protected]. Have a great day.
Dave
The Family Movie Review
Dysfunctional.
I guess I can finally say that my appreciation of Luc Besson as a film director is at an end. True, he has done some decent films. Three to be precise. 
The Professional, Fifth Element, and Taken (Fifth Element image courtesy of the Sci Fi T Shirt category). However, pretty much everything else he does is stupid schlock, lacking in anything beyond guns and explosions. Taken 2 was an embarrassment, Colombiana a chance to show what what happens when you really just want to masturbate to your leading lady, and Lockout the perfect opportunity to show the world he never took physics in high school. Some people might argue that the Transporter was a decent series, but I just see it as car porn (sorry Liz).
I suppose that one could just take the fact that all his recent movies have sucked as a sign that Luc emptied his good movie magazine early in his career and is left with only some practice rounds and an unlimited supply of spitwads. Unfortunately this cavalcade of mediocrity has forced me to look again at my beloved three movies with a more critical eye and note the lame “Bessonisms” in each that had previously flown under the radar. (WARNING: if you are a fan of Luc’s earlier work skip ahead a couple paragraphs. I don’t want any responsibility for ruining these films for you)
Remember in the Professional how Leon opted to bellow madly at…nothing just after shoving Mathilda and his plant down the vent shaft? Remember how it sounded like he was about to go on a mad rampage only to lie among the corpses? How about how evil for no apparent reason Gary Oldman was? If I were reviewing that movie there would be a black hole for that. Evil for evil’s sake is a lazy filmmakers tool. How about the death of the kid, or the teenie bopper sister? Killing a kid to give a character motivation is pretty ham handed. The movie is still great but like a weird mole being the early warning sign of melanoma these little glitches were the seeds that would later grow into a spreading plant of lameness, destined to occlude the entire screen. If you look at the Fifth Element you can see things like love being the fifth element, or Mr. Zorg (Gary Oldman again) also being evil because…? It advances the plot? Again, great movie but you can’t help but look back and see warning signs.
I guess Taken is pretty flawless. I don’t have any issues there, at least until the sequel surfaced like a bloated corpse finally rising to the surface of a murky scum covered pond.
“So what’s wrong with the Family, Dave?” I’m glad you asked. There are a few problems, but main issue is the main character, Giovanni Manzoni, with whom we are supposed to identify and care about, is the most reprehensible human on the planet. I have a hard time feeling sympathy for a character whom I just saw lower a man live into a vat of acid, or beat a hapless plumber almost to death for trying to gouge a little, or drag a corporate executive behind my car for (maybe) causing the local water to turn brown. The movie starts off with the dead body of a fish seller being hauled out of the trunk and buried in the back yard for selling some less than fresh lobsters. Giovanni in all ways acts like the villain, whereas the actual villains are barely present. We are expected to like him because he is Robert DiNiro and is trying to do some comedy, but that all drains like water from the pocket of your swim suit when you see him plant a homemade bomb and all you are left with is an unrepentant multiple murderer, torturer, and all around serial criminal who’s only regret is he is not still back in Brooklyn killing people.
I suppose some sympathy could be generated for the family, but honestly there is no actual dynamic going on and they are all four identical in character. When you see a family drama featuring contentious Italians the natural expectation is that they will have different personalities and fight like cats and dogs but in the end show they love and support each other when faced with a common enemy. In this film they get all get along famously, saying how much they love each other constantly and never really even have a disagreement. The wife nags Giovanni a bit but really that’s all. In addition they are all three in their own way reprehensible: the wife blows up a grocery store and possibly kills a half dozen innocent people because the shopkeeper was rude, the girl in a classic sociopath who revels in beating the hell out of other students and the seduces the substitute teacher (remember all that skin crawling pedophile romance in the Professional? I guess statutory rape is a thing for Luc as he has another episode in this film), and the son is a classic racketeer who dreams of following his father into a life of crime. I had a hard time caring about any of them, and my sense of moral outrage secretly hoped they’d all get some kind of punishment.
Then there’s the fact that this was an attempt at comedy. Here’s the thing. A movie needs to have tone. Tone is what tells you the movie is about. The Godfather is about a mafia family that kills people. You don’t have any slapstick comedy going on. Ace Ventura is a comedy about a guy who investigates animal crimes. You don’t have a horrific torture/murder scene. It’s true that some movies mix a little comedy into the drama, but like adding the right amount of salt to a cake you need a finite amount and a delicate hand. In a film like this it’s hard to laugh at a funny scene when you just saw a hit man execute a completely innocent family, or cut someone’s finger off. It’s jarring and hurts your brain. The comedy isn’t funny and the drama isn’t serious.
Another problems in spite of the fact that Martin Scorsese somehow got roped into being a producer in this film and they actually show the movie Goodfellas to Giovanni’s character in the film it seems pretty apparent that Luc Besson has never watched Goodfellas. Remember at the end of the film whan Henry Hill is living like a schnook in Bumblef$*@ Arizona as part of the witness protection program, and how miserable he was? Well, Luc took that and decided that what the Federal Witness Protection Plan really does is take families and move them into fabulous villas in Normandy, supporting them all the way. If I could be moved to the south of France as a reward for being a snitch sign me up. Also, the program has to turn a blind eye to the fact that their star witness (who, by the way, seems to do nothing by way of testifying) is still a murdering sociopath. It’s again jarring and took me out of the theater.
There are a few other issues, but I have things to do and I haven’t even started on the story recap. The movie starts off with the Manzoni family-now renamed the Blakes-travelling across France to their new home in Normandy. Giovanni (Robert DiNiro-Goodfellas, Meet the Parents, the Godfather) is an ex mobster. His wife is Maggie (MIchelle Pfeiffer-Scarface, Batman Returns, Dark Shadows) and his kids Belle (Dianna Agron-Glee, I am Number Four, Burlesque) and Warren (John D’Le0-Brooklyn’s Finest, Wanderlust, the Wrestler) are with him, along with the corpse of a fish monger. They arrive at their French villa and set up home. Giovanni tells the neighbor he is a writer (oh, yeah. The Luc Besson Witness Protection lets people make up any old story they like) while Maggie blows up a store and the kids raise hell with their new classmates. They family is protected by FBI agent Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones-Men In Black, No Country for Old Men, Small Soldiers) and two BBS’s (Jimmy Palumbo-Beer League, Man on a Ledge, Margin Call and Dominick Lombardozzi-the Wire, S.W.A.T, Phone Booth).
They throw a big BBQ for the locals and are something of a hit. Giovanni is given the task of finding out why the tap water is brown and does so by putting several people in the hospital and blowing up a local chemical plant (no one presses charges, of course). Meanwhile the mafia figures out where they are and flies to the village, murdering all the local police and firefighters (the yucks are rolling, let me tell you). The whole situation is headed towards a major showdown but instead the big final fight is over in like five minutes with nary a scratch on any of the family, all of whom deserved to have something bad happen to them (the girl is a maybe on that). In the end nothing is really resolved, none of the characters really learn anything, and no one pays any kind of consequences.
The stars:
The Italian hit man was pretty bad ass, and there is a scene where he and the rest of the hit crew get off a train that I thought was really, really good. One star. I can’t fault Robert DiNero for acting. He was as great as he always is. It’s just the script that sucked. One star. Same for the rest of the crew. One star. Dianna Agron is pretty damned easy on the eyes. One star. If you were to cut away all the lame attempts at humor you might have a decent crime movie. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes:
This film couldn’t decide what kind of movie it wanted to be when it grew up: comedy or mafia film. One black hole. The characters were all two dimensional stereotype copies of each other. One black hole. The idea that the FBI can even afford to fly four people to France and set them up in a beautiful villa. Also for the record the FBI has zero power outside of the USA, yet these cowboys were armed to the teeth. One black hole. There is a scene towards the end where Giovanni is tapped as a famous writer in spite of the fact that he is barely literate and has never published something in his life (no one in France has heard of Google?) for a film festival. It is a flimsy excuse to show him Goodfellas and let him spout off about it (the joke of Robert DiNero playing a character watching himself in a movie is not lost on me. I just think it really lame). One black hole. I was never really given a reason to care if Giovanni lived or died (once you see someone lowered head first into a barrel of acid your sympathy for the lowerer dissolves pretty quick (haw!)). The family was marginally better but honestly they could have easily been cast as the bad guys. As a matter of fact it might have been a better film if they had all died in the last fight. Sort of a criminal last stand. Remember how Leon dies at the end of the Professional? One black hole. While I’m on the subject the family escapes without a scratch, no doubt to travel to the next town to blow up, beat up, and murder the locals like an evil A Team. One black hole. Rated R and no nudity. Can you throw boobs like me a boob goddammit? For sitting through your flick I deserve something. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
A grand total of two black holes, a solid “meh” score. This is the prefect film for one night when you are sitting around with nothing to do but drink beer and eat cold pizza. Not something worth making a big production over watching. Date movie? Another “meh”. I think the issues I had liking a sadistic sociopath might be even harder for most girls. Don’t take the chance. Bathroom break? The clear winner here is the film festival. It’s not only worthless but kind of insulting.
Thanks for reading. I’m lined up to see something else tonight so look for another review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Have a good night.
Dave
Riddick Movie Review
Riddickulously awesome.
I admit it. Somehow without ever being a Vin Diesel fan I am a Riddick fan. I own the DVD’s of all three movies (ohh, you say? You didn’t know there was an animated film with his voice connecting Pitch Black to the Chronicles of Riddick? No fan you) and played Escape from Butcher Bay front to back several times. There is something about his character that absolutely rocks. I enjoy every aspect of his character, and will probably see every film ever made with him in it.
So this movie. Saw it last night and enjoyed every second of it. Sure, if you are looking for the things that make a movie great like story, originality, great acting, character development, or good dialog you might be marginally disappointed. To the critics that I have read who are harping on about those things I say do you go to a Mexican restaurant and complain to the cook about the quality of his sushi? Riddick isn’t about making Citizen Kane in space. Riddick is about watching a bad ass bald guy who can see in the dark kill as many aliens and humans as you can fit into a shot, and as such the latest film delivers in spades.
That being said, if you are not a Riddick fan this film will seem like a massive self indulgent overly macho campy Pitch Black remake (and yet, I still defy you to find something wrong with it). Derivative it certainly is, but honestly if Pitch Black was the movie that made you a Riddick fan why would you not want to see the Aquaman version of it? Again, if you are a fan than the actual story is merely a vehicle to deliver alien ass kicking.
I will say to the writers credit they really did manage to tie the other films into this one. It’s obvious they knew this movie was for the fan boys and they threw lots of tasty crumbs to us, with references to both films that made sense in a way that George Lucas should be green with envy. Just referencing something in a past movie sucks, but to make it into a critical and worthwhile plot point is excellent work. However, if you haven’t seen Pitch Black or the Chronicles you might very well be lost for quite a bit.
I’m also going to spout off on the special effects/CGI. Honestly really good, especially the dog Riddick domesticates. I’d like to say that good special effects are the standard in science fiction these days. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. Even now when any kid with a decent Macbook and about an hour’s worth of YouTube instructional video can create a CGI monster running down the hall of his Jr. High we still get CGI and special effects that look like it was done using film scratch techniques (Google it). These days creatures in Sci Fi films should not look like they were added in using Colorforms on the playback monitor. The point is the CGI for this film was really good, and the creatures all looked awesome.
The story starts off with Riddick (Vin Diesel-Saving Private Ryan, the Fast and the Furious, xXx) left for dead on a barren world. He is badly injured and is constantly being attacked by local wildlife including some very large dog-like creatures. We find out from a series of flashbacks that he was betrayed by the Necromongers (those silly kids!) including head guy Vaako 
(Karl Urban-Dredd, Star Trek, the Bourne Supremacy. Dredd image courtesy of the comic book t shirts) and dropped off a cliff. The first part of the film is his struggle to survive, splint his leg, and find a safe place to heal. He does so and sees a land ahead with more resources. Unfortunately the way is blocked by a creature that looks like a cross between a chicken, a scorpion, and a barracuda (but awesome) that lives in a pool of water he has to cross. He manages to build weapons and get by it (while building a tolerance to the creature’s poison), rescuing the puppy he domesticated on the way.
He finds his way to a mercenary station but on the way observes a rain storm in the distance. Turns out the creatures he got by (chirpionuda?) hibernates most of the time and only comes out when the ground is wet (cough cough Pitch Black with rain cough cough). At that point he opts to get out of town and calls for help. Naturally two teams of bounty hunters show up looking for him.
The first team is a typical bunch of low life losers all looking for the bounty on Riddick, including shot caller Santana (Jordi Molla-Bad Boys II, Columbiana, Blow) and big bad boy Diaz (Dave Bautista-the House of the Rising Sun, the Man with the Iron Fists, WWE Smackdown. By the way, I really liked him in this film. Since when did WWE become the source for all the best new action stars like him and Dwayne Johnson?) plus a few other minorities. The other team is lead by a mysterious guy (Matt Nable-Killer Elite, 33 Postcards, the Final Winter) and seconded by non other than Starbuck from BSG, although in this film she is called Dahl (Katee Sackhoff-Battlestar Galactica, White Noise: the Light, Campus Killer) plus a couple other guys. Riddick tells them to give him one of the ships and leave or die there.
At that point you can pretty much guess the rest. Riddick kills a few of the bounty hunters until they catch him with super tranq bullets. It starts to rain and chirpionuda hell breaks loose. Since Riddick has stolen critical components of each ship they now have to help him run through the wet darkness to get off the planet. Crosses are doubled, and the mysterious guy leading the second team has an agenda with Riddick that references Pitch Black in a very cool way.
The stars:
Duh. Riddick movie in every sense of the term. Two stars. Great sci fi action. One star. All the characters were cool and none of them annoyed me. One black hole. Excellent CGI and creature design. Two stars. The bounty hunters had these jet bikes that are second in coolness only to a super hot girl who wants to have sex with me (in other words, I can now dream about two things I really want that don’t really exist). One star. Speaking of which, the film had a couple of totally gratuitous nude scenes, including a side boob shot of Katee Sackhoff that has earned a permanent place in my personal spank bank. It might have been good body double and/or more great CGI, but I really don’t care. Thank you, Riddick, for understanding what rated R is supposed to be about. One star. While I can’t really give them credit for a particularly good story, I do have to give them props for nicely tying in the other two movies. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes:
I suppose if I must. The film really doesn’t deviate much from Pitch Black, and I would be a total hypocrite if I didn’t ding them for being so derivative. One black hole. Deus ex Machina doesn’t accurately describe the ending. One black hole. Total: two stars.
A grand total of seven stars. Should you see it? If you are a fellow Riddick fan, have at least seen both of the prior films, and/or are a fan of sci fi action then yes. Absolutely. If you are not and think Vin Diesel as the toughest most macho guy in the universe is a ridiculous idea than go see the new Woody Allen film. I’m sure your life is not boring in any way. Date movie? You’re probably going to want to give your prospective future girlfriend/wife a pass on this one. Unless she is herself a fan there is too much awesomeness for most girls to handle, and in truth she will think lesser of you for enjoying it. This is the perfect movie to sneak out of work early one day with a couple of your buddies and see without her. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt you. Bathroom break? There isn’t a lot you want to miss here but the scene where they have Riddick chained up and are interrogating him are a little more disposable, especially if you never saw Pitch Black. Try to hold it IMO.
Thanks for reading. Like I said, this film was fun and I enjoyed writing it up. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and like us on Facebook. If you have comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Blue Jasmine Movie Review
Blue is the word to describe it.
Before I get into this review I have a question. The first thing we saw when the opening credits starting rolling were the words “Sony Pictures Classics”. Is it fair to call a movie out for a month a classic? Is it automatically a classic just because it’s a Woody Allen film? Does that mean Zelig is a classic? I don’t think that one will make anyone’s top 1,000 classic movies. The hubris of it just struck me as the film opened. I’m sure there is some corporate reason (i.e. Sony Pictures Classics is a separate entity from Sony Pictures, etc.) but it might seem a little less cocky if they had gone with “Sony Pictures” and added the word classics for the DVD release.
It is the mark of a great artist that he or she never falls into the trap of recreating past success over and over again. In other words, a truly creative soul creates something new every time. I start with this statement to help me get my head around the fact that this movie is truly a bummer, and based upon the fact that Woody Allen’s last two movies that I saw were kind of upbeat I was really caught off guard. The two movies I saw recently were Match Point and Midnight in Paris, both of which kind of had upbeat endings.
Woody Allen is a master of characters, and more importantly in casting. I don’t know what bug crawled into his ear to cast Andrew Dice Clay as a serious blue collar laborer but having seen it I have to say brilliant move. In fact all of his castings are great, with Kate Blanchett as the neurotic upper class socialite, Alec Baldwin as her cheating, thieving husband, and Sally Hawkins as her put upon working class adopted sister. Each person seemed perfect for the role they were given.
And yet it’s the characters where this film most fall apart, at least contextually. This film was supposed to be Woody Allen doing a film set in San Francisco and while his location scouts did a great job picking out scenic Bay Area spots I can say having lived here for the last 12 or so years all of his “San Francisco” characters are New York characters that happen to be filmed in San Francisco. The working class characters are all pretty clearly New Jersey transplants. The dentist character came from I-don’t-know-where (maybe 1958?) and the love interest lacked all kinds of depth (that might have been a conscious decision by Woody, but it’s hard to tell). About half the film takes part in flashbacks to New York and honestly I couldn’t see any difference in any of the people in any way. He might as well just had the whole thing happen in New York and saved on his travel budget.
While I’m sure the subtle character differences will not even be noticed by 99% of the non-Bay Area movie goers as a part of that 1% I found it de-immersive and distracting. On the other hand, maybe I’m just being overly sensitive.
Anyway, the movie. It’s the story of Jasmine (Cate Blanchett-LOTR, Hanna, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), a formerly wealthy snobby NYC housewife and social climber who finds herself destitute after her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin-30 Rock, Rock of Ages, the Departted) is caught by the FBI cheating people and hangs himself in a prison cell. She flies to San Francisco to stay with her adopted sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins-Happy-Go-Lucky, Layer Cake, Never Let Me Go) and her two boys. Turns out Hal managed to rip off Ginger and her now ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay-the Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Pretty In Pink, Dice Rules) for their life savings. He’s bitter but she doesn’t blame Jasmine. Ginger has a new boyfriend auto mechanic Chilli (Bobby Cannavale-Parker, the Station Agent, Win Win) who wants to move in with Ginger but has to put his plans on hold when Jasmine takes up the space.
At that point the stage is more or less set for the combined slow motion mental break down with the very, very typical reverse Beverly Hillbillies “rich person learns how to survive with the rest of us dregs of humanity” (a plot premise that somehow always kind of infuriates me). She meets a perfect man to be her next husband (I can’t figure out his credit. IMDB fail) but he dumps her when he figures out she has been lying to him about her past. Ginger has an affair with a guy she met at a party (Louis C.K.-Louis, Down to Earth, Pootie Tang). Jasmine tries to connect with her estranged son Danny (Alden Ehrenreich-Stoker, Tetro, Beautiful Creatures). I don’t want to spoil this film for anyone but if you didn’t read the first two paragraphs of this review don’t be expecting to feel good on the way out the door.
The stars.
Brilliant casting. I especially liked Dice Man. Two stars. Woody Allen is in the business of creating characters, and he does a wonderful job with Jasmine. Two stars. I managed to find a reason to connect with and care about all the main characters (except for Jasmine’s boyfriend. He was kind of a non-entity). One star. The story of Hal and his business failings were delivered in a series of non-linear flashbacks that I really thought clever and very well done. Two stars. Brilliant job with the makeup for Kate. Sometimes she looked stunning and sometimes she looked like a bag lady. Brilliant. One star. About as clever and sophisticated as one expects from a Woody Allen film. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes.
The whole thing about doing a film set in San Francisco but populating it with all New York personalities grated. One black hole. A couple of the characters didn’t do much and kind of annoyed. I thought Jasmine’s son Danny was a particularly whiny bitch. One black hole. The film felt about 10 minutes too short. I was still waiting for the denouement when the credits started rolling. One black hole. At the end of the film I was left with a weighty “What was the point?” feeling. The movie was good but really what message was being delivered? 
That being broke and having a nervous breakdown sucks even for beautiful women? That a good man is hard to find? That we all sow the seeds of our own self destruction? All of these seem a little trite and prosaic for a Woody Allen film. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to really see the point, but that is how I left the theater. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
(Well Adjusted image courtesy of the Funny t-shirt category)
A grand total of five stars. A credible score, and well worth watching if you have hit your action and explosion saturation point (if you haven’t this movie might drag for you). Not his best work (I know I’m alone in this but I still love Sleeper) but if I weren’t distracted by the whole San Francisco/character thing I probably would have enjoyed it a great deal more. Date movie? I will give that question a tentative yes. If she identifies you with Chilli than you will gain credit for being a blue collar honest dude. If she identifies you with Hal the frozen legions of Frosty the Snowman will have conquered Hell before you see her naked (unless you are as rich as Hal was, but in that case why are you even taking her to a movie?). Bathroom break? Most of the scenes are pretty good by themselves, and it’s hard to identify one that is not kind of critical to the plot. Most of the flashbacks are really important and come without warning. I’d say hold it. It’s only 98 minutes.
Thanks for reading. I have tickets to see Riddick in about two hours so look for that tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to post any comments on this review or the movie here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions email them to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Grandmaster Movie Review
Occasionally I will get someone asking me how I came up with the name of my nerd t-shirt selling website, NerdKungFu.com. The first part is painfully obvious to anyone who talks to me for more than 5 minutes (especially if they make the mistake of asking me how I feel about the new Star Trek reboot). But why kung fu? Have I studied martial arts? Am I a disciple of the kung fu philosophy? Once in a while I’ll get some wing nut who asks me if I sell martial arts supplies and uniforms.
The truth is much lamer than any of those. As a kid the thing I watched second only to Star Trek was Kung Fu Theater. My best friend and I had the schedule worked out where we could watch six hours back to back. I love them. Naturally I am a huge fan of the great Bruce Lee, but if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of of what kung fu films are about you have to get into the hard core Wu Tang stuff. Master of the Flying Guillotine will always be my favorite, but you can’t go wrong with the Five Deadly Venoms, Drunken Master, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, or Five Fingers of Death (by the way, if you want to watch any of these I found this great site WatchKungfu.com. Awesome. I think when I am done writing this I will watch 36th Chamber again).
Kung fu movies are fairly formulaic (the good ones at least). Typically an everyman hero is wronged by bandits or local officials. He travels to find a martial arts master (often ending up at the Shaolin temple) where he goes through a very cool series of training exercises in order to become a deadly martial arts master. He then travels home and kicks some ass. In some movies the martial arts hero dies to save other people (these film are all a product of Communist China and therefore have a very strong social and egalitarian slant. The hero is usually the one protecting people from Imperialist oppression).
Bruce Lee films take these to the next level, with all the above plus the fact that Bruce Lee is amazing. The point of this long intro was I went to this film hoping to see a kung fu movie and was a little disappointed. It was more of a documentary of the great Master Ip Man, the original trainer for Bruce Lee.
I don’t really want to do the full black holes/stars thing for this. When it comes to reviewing this I am up the cultural river without a paddle. I’m sure many of the issues I noticed would look totally cool to someone living in China. The film just didn’t have a lot of weight behind it. The martial arts sequences were abreviated, and I was kind of disappointed to see them using the quick cut action sequencing that has been plaguing Western movies for years now. In other words, instead of amazingly choreographed fight sequences (like in the Raid: Redemption) we get a lot of 1-5 second shots (still an improvement on most Hollywood films, where the cuts are 1-1.5 second) shots edited together. The film also didn’t have the amazing camera work I have come to expect from modern Chinese martial arts movies like in Hero. However, the story, while kind of flat, was interesting and there was actual martial arts action in it.
I think the best way to appreciate this film is as a cultural study with kung fu in it. There were some intriguing decisions made by the main characters that wouldn’t make a lot of sense here in America but when taken with the Chinese culture in mind are kind of cool. And don’t get me wrong. There are some great fight sequences (the first fight in the rain at the beginning and later between Gong Er and Ma San at the train station in particular).
I think my frustration with this film is it is really hard to nail down. It doesn’t have enough fighting or the fanciful story to be a true kung fu movie; the story is too flat and broken up into documentary style vignettes to be a great drama; and the camera work is not lavish enough to be an artistic piece. Ip Man is of course a great character but I the film glossed over the dramatic turns in his life (leaving his family, dealing with the invasion of the Japanese, etc.) leaving me with a hard time identifying with him. I had a better connection to his love interest Gong Er, but even her story arc was flat. I did enjoy this film a great deal, but there were parts I found myself wishing for a fast forward button for.
The story is of course about Master Ip Man of the Wing Chun school of Kung Fu. He is selected to match up against the Northern martial arts head. He wins the challenge (by literally breaking bread) but is challenged also by the Northern Masters daughter Gong Er. They fight and Gong Er wins on a technicality. During the fight the two both feel amazing chemistry for each other, but Ip Man has to go home to his wife and kids.
Ip Man and Gong Er plan to meet up and spar again but before they can the Japanese invade. Ip Man is forced to take up work as his family starves. Meanwhile Gong Er’s father Gong Yutian is betrayed and killed by his pupil Ma San, now a Japanese collaborator. Gong Er hunts him down and they fight at a train station. Eventually Ip Man travels to Hong Kong to find work, only to be cut off from his family when the Communist government closes the border. He meets up with Gong Er and thinks to rekindle their relationship but she has sworn an oath of celibacy. Eventually he opts to open a Wing Chun school in Hong Kong in order to make kung fu available to the general public and there trains young Bruce Lee. Thanks to him Wing Chun is the most widely used school of kung fu.
I’m not going to get into the stars and black holes on this one. Like I said, I don’t think I have the proper cultural basis to properly appreciate it. I’ve discovered that once I get any film onto my autopsy table I tend to find birth defects and cancers I didn’t even see while watching it, and I don’t want to do treat this film that way. Besides, the answer to the question should you see it or not is very simple. If you are a fan of Bruce Lee or kung fu movies then absolutely. If you are not then feel free to give it a pass. The quick cut action means you can probably get away with seeing it at home so wait for NetFlix.
Sorry about the lame review, but this film kind of defies my reviewing power. I will be seeing Blue Jasmine later tonight so look for that review tomorrow. I have a couple hours to kill before the movie so I am going to watch 36th Chamber of Shaolin (aka Shaolin Master Killer) and enjoy every second. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this movie or my review post them here, and off topic questions or suggestion can be emailed to [email protected]. Have a great night.
Dave
P.S. Riddick tomorrow night. Stop pestering me about it.
Getaway Movie Review
Films like this will definitely make you want to get away.
I like to believe that movies should be like DNA or fingerprints in that no two should be the same. This is an attitude that runs into some rough spots when I see clear remakes like Red Dawn or Footloose, but I am more interested in the idea that each movie, for good or ill, has something to make it distinct from all the other movies out there.
The distinguishing characteristic of this film (and the best way to describe it) is lazy. I don’t think I have seen a film this consistently lazy in years. This isn’t the kind of lazy one finds in someone who wants to take the afternoon off so he can take a nap in the park while work is piling up. That’s amateur lazy as far as this film is concerned. This is the kind of lazy you find in someone who wallows in a pigsty composed of his own filth and dead skin cells, refusing to move unless there is actual danger of death and keeping his mouth open in hopes of a fly or spider crawling down his throat, saving him the effort of picking up nearby dead cockroaches and actually masticating them.
Everything that smacks of effort is avoided like a plagued skunk. A believable story and motivation is hard to write, so let’s just write down of the ramblings of the homeless meth addict down the street, run it through Google translator, and call it a day. Stunt driving choreography is hard work, so we’ll just shoot a bunch of cars driving and flipping and edit together later. Hiring people who speak with a Bulgarian accent (or even Bulgarian) might take more than 10 minutes so lets just hire the usual suspects with perfect American accents (even the wife who is supposed to be Bulgarian). Acting coaches cost money so we’ll just run on the assumption that all of our actors can pull any scene needed just by looking good. Good direction costs is expensive too, especially when a decent director wants to re-shoot bad scenes (hey, film doesn’t grown on trees you know) so we’ll just hire whatever bozo is drinking free coffee at SAG headquarters (for the record I just made that up and really don’t know anything about director Courtney Solomon. He may secretly be another Scorsese but his only two other directing credits are an American Haunting from 2006 and Dungeons and Dragons from 2000. These films garnered a 12% and 10% Rotten Tomatoes rating respectively so I guess the joke is on me).
Ethan Hawke seems to have adopted the Star Trek approach to film career in that he alternates between really great and really toxic projects. He goes from Before Midnight to this medical waste. I first saw him in one of my favorite movies, Training Day, only to have to see him do Daybreakers. He is the Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde of movie careers, and this one is clearly a Mr. Hyde experience.
Selena Gomez was obviously included in this film in an attempt to draw young viewers (and capitalize on the freakish and inexplicable success of Spring Breakers, the movie equivalent of whooping cough) but my God did she feel forced into this film. I am in almost all ways a fan of hot women in films so you can imagine how grating for me she had to be for me to say I absolutely hated her character with the force of 10,000 wet concrete tsunamis. Every scene with her felt fake as hell and she ground on my last raw nerve like a cheese grater. I’m sure she’s a lovely person and I know she has had some great Disney success, but she just can’t pull “street” in any way. Also, if the movie is already PG-13 it’s OK to have her or any other human female show more than 2% of their skin. She was literally in a hoodie the entire film. If she isn’t down with showing a little skin (something I can say based on past films she probably doesn’t have a problem with) then find some beach scene to show us for no reason. It would not be any more out of place than any other scene in this film, and there is only so much Ethan Hawke’s face and/or Budapest police cars flipping I can take in one sitting.
Speaking of the police in this film, it looks they all trained with Roscoe P. Coltrane at the Hazzard County School of Police Driving (Dukes image courtesy of the Retro TV Show t shirt category). Somehow they can’t drive down a road without flipping a car, and it appears the city of Sofia has an inexhaustible supply of police cars and a religious aversion to setting up road blocks or spike traps. The car chase scenes (or rather, the majority of the film) got so ridiculous that after a while I had to make the film more tolerable by pretending that instead of driving around the main guy had telekinetic powers and was flipping the cars around with his mind (if you watch this bomb it actually makes it a better film).
I suppose at some point I should get into what can laughingly be called the story, but let me talk a minute about the villain. All great action films are based around the antagonist, and the more engaging and interesting the hero’s enemy is the better the film. In this film the villain is a faceless, motivation-less voice on the phone who seems to be being a dick just because…honestly I don’t know. I can’t even say he’s just a dick since we learn absolutely nothing about him. The lack of a villain made this film extremely hard to latch on to. Also what was the deal with this guys plan? He needs Ethan Hawke’s character to drive around causing havoc and his whole multi billion dollar plan is centered around this, but then he gives Brent (Hawke’s character) about a million chances to mess up and ruin the whole thing. First off Brent has to steal the car from a high security garage where it had been left for him to use. What if the mirrors had been misaligned and Brent ran the thing into a wall? Every scene is a perfect chance for this car to hang itself on a guard rail or break it’s suspension driving down some stairs, but Brent doing all this is critical to the plan to steal steal 2 billion Euros? Why did he even need to extort Brent into doing this anyway? He managed to hire guys to impersonate him and take the fall, probably incurring decades of prison time and a few other guys to murder policemen and die in horrific motorcycle accidents. Why not just hire a couple of good drivers? The whole plan was a steaming pile of stupid, and without knowing anything about the villain you can’t understand why this plan is anything but the adolescent fantasies of two 16 year old guys who play way too much GTA.
Of course. I just checked IMDB and the two writers have no other writing credits. When did script writing become something you called the local temp agency to get done in an afternoon?
Ugh. The story. Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke-Training Day, the Purge, Gattaca) has to steal a specific car because his Bulgarian wife (Rebecca Budig-Guiding Light, All My Children, Batman Forever) has been kidnapped. (For the record his Bulgarian wife speaks flawless English). He steals the Chevy Cobra and finds it covered in cameras. The voice on the phone tells him to go on a pedestrian mall driving rampage and escape the inept police. He then is told to wait in a garage where Selena Gomez (her film credit lists her character as the Kid, but I refuse to cater to that level of sloth. Oh, yeah. Selena Gomez-Another Cinderella Story, Spring Breakers, Monte Carlo) jumps in the car and holds a gun on him. He gets the gun away and finds out that the car was hers before it was stolen and rather than let the police handle it she opted to find a gun and take care of business (also for the record, she has a face that belongs on the Disney channel. Seeing her try to be some kind of bad ass is painfully laughable).
Anyway, at that point the voice (credited as the Voice, to my mounting frustrating) orders Brent to kill her but then when he refuses tells him she is integral to his plan (see what I mean about stupid? What if Brent was a little more cold blooded, or she had reminded him of an ex girlfriend who dumped him and he capped her? How does the plan progress?). Anyway, imagine about an hour of watching someone play Grand Theft Auto for another hour and you have all of Act II down. The plan is to steal data related to off shore accounts so the Voice can pocket it all. Brent and Selena eventually sort of turn the tables but then it turns out it was all part of the Voice’s incredibly complex plan anyway. In the end everyone wins (except for the guy the Voice paid to take the fall and rot in prison for years).
The stars.
Umm. Hmm. I could say the car was pretty cool, but I am more of a classic muscle car guy. This is awkward. I honestly can’t think of anything, and I really am trying. A film with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Zero stars.
The black holes.
The only way the story could have been more juvenile and ass backwards would be if it had been written by a group of 12 year old boys who had all recently suffered severe blunt trauma to the head. Three black holes. The disparity of a hot girl that I hate so much in the Selena Gomez character might have finally turned me gay (I wish. Unfortunately I am still into women. I say unfortunately because it seems like none of them are into me). Two black holes. The villains plan was so stupid and ridiculously complicated that it would have failed had Brent farted at the wrong time. One black hole. The villain sucked. One black hole. The driving action sucked on the side of ridiculousness. One black hole. No driving stunt choreographer to speak of. It seems like the director was programmed with “10 Police Car Drives. 20 Police Car Flips Over. 30 GOTO 10”. One black hole. Quick cut action sequencing. One black hole. There was one long sequence towards the end that was clearly sped up footage. One black hole. The fact that they filmed the entire movie in Sofia, Bulgaria but had no one in the film speak Bulgarian or even with a real accent. One black hole. The “plot twist” at the end can be summed up with the statement “Remember that bad guy you were chasing? Well, the guy you caught is not the bad guy and the real bad guy is still in a club around the world. Surprise!” (oops. Spoiler alert). One black hole. Dialog so bad you will wish you were deaf and only spoke in ASL. One black hole. Overall a tremendous waste of time and brain cells. Two black holes. Total: sixteen black holes.
A total of sixteen black holes!!! Possibly a new record. Is this film really this bad? I can say without qualm or hesitation yes. It is grindingly awful. It has a 2% score on Rotten Tomatoes and even that feels generous. It is 90 minutes you will regret losing and never see again. Pass. Date movie? Only if your date is a Real Doll and even then she will probably be bored. Bathroom break? Since the writers and director seem to have just gone to the bathroom all over the screen odds are this film could be considered one long break.
Thanks for reading. Almost done with my last convention for a while so more to see soon. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments here on this film or my review. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Review
Ever wonder what the illegitimate love child of Harry Potter and Twilight would look like? Wonder no more.
It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I suppose that is true in some circumstances. Having worked for years in the t-shirt business I can tell you there is a lot of flattery going on when t-shirt companies rip off designs from each other with alarming regularity. However, this is something that people say when someone imitates your idea and comes out with something better (or at least competitively equal). What we have here is less imitation than it is repetition (or perhaps regurgitation).
I have been told by several of my more literate friends that author Cassandra Clare is a writer who borders on competent and who’s books actually have something of interest rather than being uber trite brain damaging garbage spewed out from her fingertips, unlike a certain author who shall go nameless in this review but whose name may or may not sound like Mephanie Steyer. Apparently her main character in this series is more than a two dimensional, bland cute chick with all the appeal of moldy bread and her love interests are more than sizzle chested man/boys who cover the screen with metrosexual good looks and estrogen. This may or may not be true, but if it is then she has been done very badly by director Harold Zwart (the Karate Kid, One Night at McCools, Agent Cody Banks (really??)) and screenwriter Jessica Postigo (no prior film credits). The two of them look like they swallowed the Twilight punch and have set up a franchise distribution business. Does this sound familiar? A cute but otherwise unremarkable (in literally every sense of the term) chick discovers a world of mythical creatures and magic where she is torn between the love of a safe and familiar friend and a hot and dangerous magical newcomer who wants to induct her into his world while fighting against evil super villains. Oh, yeah. There are vampires and werewolves in here too.
Let me talk for a minute about the screenwriter Jessica Postigo as she relates to a phenomenon you only see in Hollywood (for the record I don’t know her or her work. For all I know she could be the next William Shakespeare, although based on my one experience with her writing I sincerely doubt it. Zombie Shakespeare is from our zombie t shirt category). If I had a budget of $60,000,000 (this film’s estimated budget) to build a new business and someone came to me and said “We have a person who has never done anything like this in your industry and has no track record whatsoever but we think she would be great at it” I would have that person killed and his or her head placed on a pike outside of my office as a warning to all the rest of the idiots to not waste my time. Yet somehow in movie making multi million dollar productions find people with no experience whatsoever and give them the keys to this Exxon Valdez. Honestly, take $1,000,000 and hire a team of the best writers in movie history to make your film. Writing should not be treated like a minor technical position.
Anyway, this turd. The issues are extensive and since I have no life I will list them all in detail. The biggest one is that this film suffers from the condition known as Nocluus Nocarrus. In other words, if you didn’t read the book you have no idea what the hell is going on and therefore will never care. What grinds is they had not just one but two perfect opportunities to explain everything through extensive fish-out-of-water exposition with the main character and her man-friend eunuch. What do demons really hope to accomplish? Do they have super powers or are they just gross? They seem to go down pretty easy to swords and knives. Do Shadowhunters have super powers? How to those tattoos work? Do they drain your life force or have a cool down, or can you just use them with impunity? If so why would you not cover your body with them? Are vampires super human too? They also seem to go down to a quick knife in the gut pretty easy too. Are vampires and demons immune to guns? If not why are you idiots running around with swords instead of Kalashnikovs? Especially when in the last half of the film one of the Shadowhunters starts running around with a m-f-ing flamethrower! If flamethrowers work why don’t you all carry them? For that matter how does a flamethrower work against demons who seem to made from molten lava? Why did Jocelyn not take the magic cup and create like 10,000 Shadowhunters to kill Valentine? Again, what does being a Shadowhunter do for you other than make you think BDSM Goth is the fashion to go with?
Sigh. Next up up characters. The only character I felt even the slightest connection to was Simon, Clary’s man friend, and that was only because he got punched in the face with the let’s-be-friends speech so hard I think his parents felt it. Having suffered through more than a few reiterations of that speech (by a couple orders of magnitude. Just this week a girl I have been attracted to for a long time told me how she went out last week, had a couple beers, and hooked up with some random dude. Let’s just say the next Warhammer player who crosses my path will suffer for that) I felt his pain, but other than that he was another drip in a sea of drips. The main character is a bland little whiner who contributes next to nothing to the film except to give the camera something to focus on. The “hero” is a blond pretty boy you will hate from his very first scene. He looks like exactly the dude who shows up at your party, drinks all your booze, smokes a bunch of pot in your living room, vomits into your bed and pulls the covers over it, and then cuts out with the pizza and the girl you were into five minutes before the cops show up. He has two facial expressions: I’m Bored and I Just Sharted But Secretly Don’t Care. He’s also the guy I really hope to run into at my next Fight Club as I know in spite of his washboard abs (shown extensively) and the fact that he’s at least 20 years younger than me I could break him like a tongue depressor. Too girly to really be an action movie guy. The mother is a non-entity and her man friend (I’m starting to get a clear understanding of the male relationships Cassandra Clare has in her life) is a werewolf (yep) who is basically there to provide the red shirts. The other Shadowhunters are The Angry Chick and The Angry Dude, although I will give this movie props for having a couple of gay characters.
Then there is the costuming. The costume designer obviously gets a discount at Hot Topic, as Goth is the word of the day. Ever wonder why martial artists wear loose cotton gi’s? If you ever tried to kick someone in the face wearing leather pants and thigh high boots, or fallen onto your studded leather jacket you will understand why. If these kids are more or less invisible why not walk around in full body armor? Also the Shadowhunters all have symbolic tattoos that give them powers that (I’m not kidding) look like they were drawn on with a Sharpie. Once I noticed it I couldn’t help but look for it in every scene and it was driving me nuts.
Naturally the CGI sucked, which is weird as I hardly see that anymore in any film with more than a couple mil budget. It’s something of a novelty these days. It has been years since I saw the sideways pool of water as a magical portal trick (1987, to be exact. Prince of Darkness by John Carpenter), and the rest of it nothing to write home about.
And finally, the story. OMG awful. Nothing seems to have a reason for anything. The romance felt completely forced and unnatural, like Joseph Stalin’s attempt to breed ape human super warriors (no joke. Google it). Most of the scenes were expository dialog, but instead of explaining what the hell was going on it was all bad romance and tertiary crap. The secondary plot seemed even more worthless than the first. And the whole thing ground on for an agonizing 130 minutes.
Another film where I am 1380 words in without even getting to the story. Clary (Lily Collins-the Blind Side, Mirror Mirror, Priest) is a teenage girl living with her artist mother Jocelyn (Lena Headey-Dredd, the Purge, 300) in NYC. She is haunted by a symbol of some kind and keeps drawing it, something of concern for her mother and mother’s man friend Aleric (Harry Van Gorkum-the Karate Kid, Batman and Robin, Gone in 60 Seconds). She goes out with her own man friend Simon (Robert Sheehan-Misfits, Cherrybomb, Season of the Witch) to a suicide poetry reading (in other words, listening to this poetry makes you want to commit suicide) and on the way home stop off at a club. They are let in by a Goth guy who turns out to be a demon, but before they can talk to him the demon is killed by Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower-Sweeney Todd, Rocknrolla, Twilight), a Shadow Hunter.
The next morning Jace tracks down Clary and talks to here while her mother is kidnapped by some Goth thugs (the fact that her mother has been kidnapped is pretty much forgotten by Clary for most of the rest of the film). Jace takes Clary and Simon to their castle in NYC where she meets the other two Shadowhunters (Kevin Zegers-Dawn of the Dead, Wrong Turn, Frozen and Jemina West-Lines of Wellington, the Messenger, Play it Like Godard) and the head guy Hodge (Jared Harris-Natural Born Killers, Lincoln, Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows).
Bleh. Recounting this story is giving me a rash. I’ll speed up. The bad guy Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers-Match Point, Bend it Like Beckham, August Rush) wants the magic Shadowhunter cup that Jocelyn hid in order to do something (?) with demons. Everyone else wants the cup for some other unspecified reason. Clary has her memory blocked by her mother and they have to visit the Wizard of Brooklyn (Godfry Gao-101 Proposals, All About Women, the Queen of SOP). Simon gets kidnapped by vampires, who in this film don’t speak and are pretty much evil henchmen for someone (?) and go down by the bucketful. They are rescued from the vampires by werewolves (who are good henchmen also for someone(?)). Stuff gets blown up, there are a couple of obvious twists, Jace temporarily gets possessed by the spirit of Moe from the Three Stooges, Clary is revealed to be the magic queen of bad tattoos and two dimensional hiding stuff (as well as two dimensional acting), and a lame plot twist is revealed that makes the romance possibly even more creepy and contrived than it already was.
The stars.
I suppose I have to give the film credit for at least having action happen often enough to earn it’s PG-13 rating. One star. Lily is super cute, and at one point (for literally the most contrive reason of all time) they find an excuse to dress her as a super hot hooker. One star. I did glean some amusement when characters (appropriately) made fun of all the Goth clothing (I can’t decide if that’s the movie sincerely poking fun at itself or just an attempt to draw in kids who don’t think vampires are super sexy). One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes.
Where to begin? The fact that the writers assumed that we the audience each wrote a PhD thesis on the book and know every detail going into the theater. One black hole. I hated all the characters in this film (some more than others) and was really hoping they would all die (and ironically, none of them did. Hope I didn’t just spoil the film for you). One black hole. A bonus black hole for the blond man/boy, whom I especially hated. One black hole. The romance in this film made me wish for the sweet, sweet kiss of chemical castration. One black hole. The Goth clothing was nothing short of ridiculous. The costumes the Strangers wore in Dark City looked more real, functional, and believable. One black hole. Crappy story that I couldn’t care less about. One black hole. Crappy CGI. One black hole. Tattoos that looked like they were bought out of a vending machine at Denny’s. One black hole. Twilight rip off, complete with vampires and werewolves. One black hole. A million blatantly ignored questions. One black hole. A bunch of sub plots hinted at and then ignored as well (again, maybe if I had read the book). One black hole. Paced like watching old people f…requent a local dining establishment (what did you think I was going to say there?). 130 mind numbing minutes. One black hole. Overall a complete failure to entertain me or give me the slightest reason to care. The entire cast and crew could fall into a sink hole and it wouldn’t phase me one bit. Two black holes. Total: fourteen black holes.
A grand total of 11 black holes. A crap score for a crap movie. I don’t know. From what I hear the source material is better than this so perhaps they could have done better, but it looks like the studio had Twilight fever and this is the result. Any reason to see it at all? Sure, if you read the book and/or love Twilight and wish to return to robot love and machismoly challenged “men”. Perhaps you just had brain surgery and need to avoid thinking too much and/or non dark images gives you a migraine. Do you work at Hot Topic and want to feel like your life and job are not a complete drain on American culture? Write a bitter little movie review blog and are looking for something to make fun of for a couple hours in order to make up for your feelings of inadequacy? These are all perfectly valid reasons to see this film. Otherwise give it a pass. NetFlix is fine on this one. Date movie? Sure, if she loved Twilight. If she suggests it you can probably convince her that after suffering through this bomb the least she can do is reward you with a sexual experience. Bathroom break? At 130 minutes you will probably need it, if only to vomit. Any of the romance scenes would be great, especially the Three’s Company-esque moment when Jace is walking Clary back to her bed and finds Simon in it. Actually your brain would thank you for missing that whole sequence starting with the walk in the roof garden so take a few minutes to make sure you got everything out, grab a smoke, and run upstairs to punch the projectionist in the head.
Plenty more to see soon. Too late tonight so maybe tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this movie or my review (please comment if you disagree on this one. I love a good laugh) feel free to post here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Have a great night.
Dave
P.S. Where the hell did the title of this movie come from? They mentioned the City of Bones like once and looked at it for about 20 seconds. The rest of the time this film was all about the City of New York. Lame.
D.
P.P.S. I just checked and this film flopped badly its opening weekend. The theater I was in was pretty empty for a Saturday on opening weekend, so I’m not surprised. Most of the audience was laughing at things I’m pretty sure the director didn’t really think was funny. Also I forgot to black hole this film for really horrible dialog, so I guess they get a pass on that one.
D.
