Stupid Cartoon Questions
Sorry no movie today. I spent all day at our new office/warehouse and am totally beat. However, while sorting and folding a huge pile of cartoon t shirts like our friend Marvin the Martian here a bunch of the questions that have been cluttering up my cerebral cortex regarding cartoons popped up. I thought I would post them here in case any of you have any kind of insight. Here are a few of the most poignant.
Road Runner-this question seems pretty obvious, but it is perplexing: if Wile E Coyote could afford to order all those thing from Acme, couldn’t he just as easily afford to order a pizza or something? Same thing with Sylvester and Tweetie. They seem to live in an urban enviroment. You mean to tell me there is not Church’s or Chick Fil A within a reasonable distance? You would think after the fourth or fifth frying pan to the face Sylvester would have gotten the message.
Duck Tales-Why does Scrooge McDuck keep all his money in a giant money bin as a target for the Beagle Boys? If he is smart enough to earn all that money why isn’t he smart enough to figure out how to put his money in a bank? Not only would it be safer (and earn interest), it would be federally insured and if the Beagle Boys tried to rob it that would be a Federal Offense. That is a level of pain beyond the pale. Sure, he would not be able to go swimming in his money, but given that 99% of his stress is related to getting robbed wouldn’t that be worth it? For that matter how the hell does he swim in all that money? I’ve never had enough coins and bills to fill even a bath tub, but I have a Sparklets jug half full of loose change and I can say that if I dove head first into it I would probably break my neck.
Speed Buggy-if Tinker is smart enough to make a dune buggy that can think, fall in love, and control itself, isn’t he smart enough to create one without a major speech impediment?
Scooby Doo-the list of questions I have on this show would fill a library (most of them having to do with what exactly is in those Scooby Snacks?) but the one that bugs me the most is why is it the gang always finds someone trying to scare everyone away with a ghost pirate costume in order to smuggle diamonds, and never guys smuggling drugs across the border who scare meddling kids off with bullets? Also, shouldn’t the gang be roped into weeks if not months of testimony at the trial of every crook they catch, not bouncing off to their next adventure? For that matter what the hell do they do for money? There always seems to be pizza money. There is a dark part of my soul that secretly hopes the gang is into the sex trade and the Mystery Machine is some kind of rolling pimp wagon.
Winnie the Pooh-yes, I am recycling this one from my movie review, but it is still bugging me. Where is Roo’s father? Is Kanga a widow, or is her husband a deadbeat? Maybe he was abusive and she escaped to the 100 Acres Woods to hide out from him. Also, of you are a kangaroo why would your mom name you Kanga and you then in turn name your son Roo? That’s like if my name was Hu and I named my son Man. Everyone else has a fairly normal name.
I think that’s enough Zen conundrums for one evening. Odds are I will return to this on another slow night, as I have a ton of these. If you have any answers feel free to message me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or post a comment here. If you have specific questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. I will be finally seeing Pirates tomorrow so look for a review on that later. Thanks for reading. Talk to you later.
Dave
Attack of the Eyebrows
I was looking at some posters for the upcoming Spider Man movie and I realized the kid they got to play Peter Parker, Andrew Garfield, has big bushy eyebrows. This would not really be worth mentioning were it not for the fact that this guy seems to just be the latest in a long run of young actors considered hot who come from the caterpillar school of eyebrow growth. The obvious one is Robert Pattinson, the Lord God of Eyebrows, but the list includes Chase Crawford, Josh Hartnet, Joe Jonas, Daniel Radcliffe, the Jonas Bros, Charlie Simpson, Pete Wentz, and Jesse McCartney who all seem to have been grown in a tube in the same laboratory by a mad scientist who’s goal is to make eyebrows insanely popular as some kind of plot to conquer the world.
I don’t think it’s a big deal, although I tend to find them distracting. The funny part will come when they develop cosmetic eyebrow hair plugs so guys who are less well endowed in the brow department can feel good about themselves. Eventually all hot guys are going to look like the Lorax. I am sure women will enjoy laughing at that.
This Spider Man image is from Dave’s Marvel Comic T Shirts. I do like Silver Age style art.
Jason
Dark Shadows Review
Q: How much Johnny Depp/Tim Burton schtick can they stuff into 113 minutes? A: A lot.
Last night when I told my friends I was going to see Dark Shadows at midnight they made me promise to watch 30 minutes of the original series. I did so (thanks iPhone) and understand what they were trying to get me to see. The soap opera Dark Shadows was campy and kind of dumb, but what it wasn’t was a schticky comedy.
If a movie were a car than Johnny Depp would be a powerful V8 engine pumping out more horsepower than a rodeo on speed. However, this particular car, while pretty with a nice glossy coat of paint, seems grossly underdeveloped in the wheels, seats, windows, and other accoutrements that make a comfortable automobile. The entire movie serves only as a vehicle to deliver Johnny Depps performance and baroque 17th century mannerisms. His character is a schizophrenic two dimensional dry humor joke machine; everyone else is a one dimensional sounding board from which to bounce one liners off of; the script wanders aimlessly from plot point to plot point without really locking onto anything (and it’s kind of boring); the humor seems at the same time highly predictable and out of place; and the ending they dredged up from the deep bowels of the writers…well, bowel.
All that being said, if you are a Johnny Depp fan you will probably enjoy his performance immensely. He managed to make the scenes cool and funny (he also manages to not sing at any point, a fact that made me very happy). However, his fish-out-of-water jokes wore thin after about 50 minutes and he was not enough to keep the entire movie alive solo.
I think this was a serious mistake on the part of Tim Burton (and it pains me to say this). Sure, Depp is an amazing actor and can deliver a stellar performance in his sleep, but the cast of this film was chock full of talented people. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the matron of the family, and while it is easy to hate her for her part in Batman Returns you still have to like her for Scarface. Of course she also did New Years Eve so I don’t know. Psycho witch Helen Bonham Carter (Fight Club, the King’s Speech, Sweeney Todd) plays the psychiatrist. The extremely hot Eva Green (Casino Royale, the Dreamers, Perfect Sense) plays the evil witch who cursed Barnabus. Bella Heahcoate (In Time, Glen Owens Dodds, Beneath Hill 60) plays the nanny. For Carolyn they even got Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick Ass, Hugo, Let Me In) who is a great young actress. Seems like any one of them could have added something to the story had they been allowed.
Anyway, the story. Barnabus Collinis rejects his maid Angelique. She kills his parents and fiance, cursing him to be a vampire (live forever with super speed and strength? I think the writers need to buy a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word “curse”) and gets the local townsfolk to form a torch-and-pitchfork mob to bury him in a coffin. Flash forward 196 years where a construction crew digs up his coffin and in a really stupid move opens it up (sorry, if I found a coffin shaped box with massive chains around it the first thing I would not do is call for bolt cutters. Maybe a power drill, along with a bible and a Super Soaker full of holy water). Barabus jumps out and slaughters 11 innocent construction workers, a fact that does not even rate more than passing mention from the local police or news media. These sorts of thing happen all the time in Maine I guess.
Anyway, he rejoins his family now consisting of his great great grand something (? Seriously, how was he related to these losers? His family moved here from Liverpool when he was a child. His parents died. He was an only child and never had kids), her brother, her daughter, and her nephew who live in the huge super creepy mansion his father built. He discovers that they are barely holding on and the family business is in shambles. Turns out Angelique, the witch who “cursed” him, has spent the last 200 years working to destroy his family financially (? She really had nothing better to do? Spend centuries stalking people who never even knew the guy who rejected you?).
Barnabus spends the next 80 minutes or so beating the fish-out-of-water jokes deep into the ground. He dedicates himself to restoring the family home and business and does so with remarkable ease. Along the way he slaughters a bunch more people.
Let me go on an aside here briefly and talk about one of the most disturbing things about the Barnabus Collins character. The fact is, most of the movie he was funny, witty, and charming and then every once in a while would kill a bunch of completely innocent people. It’s like if you bred a dog with a porcupine (dorkupine?) that you could totally pet and be cool with except every once in a while you would hit a patch of spines and get a fistful of them in the palm of your hand. I found it really distracting and every time he would do it my sympathy for him and my appreciation of the humor would drain from the film like spaghetti in a colander. I found it especially gruesome when he would apologize to his victim before draining them dry. (Buffy Staked Edward image courtesy of the Horror Movie T Shirt category)
Anyway, as the story plods along and you get less enthralled with Barnabus the movie gets more and more boring. The ending was hamhanded and chock full of deus ex machina. Stuff that possibly should have been hinted at or developed in the first 1/3rd of the film crops out of nowhere and solves problems with little to no effort on Barnabus’s part.
The stars. Johnny Depp was pretty amazing as Barnabus Collins. Two stars. Dialog for the most part was excellent. One star. Eva Green was driving me crazy through most of this. One star. Even though they didn’t get to show their talents much, I will give a star for Helen Bonham Carter and Chloë Moretz. One star. Costumes and visuals were generally very good. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes. The script felt really unfocused and lethargic. Kind of like they tried to take an entire season of a soap opera and compress it into one movie. One black hole. Burton should have realized that after a while the audience would reach its saturation point on fish-out-of-water jokes. One black hole. Johnny Depp so eclipsed everyone else that no other performances were even possible, and all the other characters were left to wither on the vine. One black hole. The repeated shifting in tone for the main character from lighthearted witty fellow to murderer. One black hole. The Alice Cooper scene went on way too long. One black hole. The whole movie shifted gears in the last 20 minutes from horror/comedy to horror/tragedy. Overall the ending sucked. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of one black hole. Not great, but not irredeemable. If you happen to be a big Johnny Depp or Tim Burton you might enjoy it, and if you think they make magic together then definitely. Nothing visually that demands a theater, so wait to stream it. Date movie? Meh. She won’t find much offensive. On the other hand Johnny Depp with an accent is really hard to be compared to, so maybe give it a pass. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere, but if I had to pick the two scenes that stand out are the Alice Cooper musical tribute or the Barnabus/Angelique sex scene. In both cases the movie diverges from the only redeeming thing in the film-Johnny Depp delivering good dialog-and trust me when I say you will not see anything memorable.
Thanks for reading. I don’t know if I will get to see anything else this weekend. Maybe Pirates. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or post comments here. If you have specific questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Have a nice day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Batman hates the Bay Area?
So I heard that they are doing a tour with the Tumbler Batmobile and got really excited. I think the Tumbler is the best Batmobile they have ever come up with, even better than the original. However, I have discovered that they are completely ignoring the Bay Area on their 26 city tour. Here is the list in case you want to see it:
Is a Star Wars TV show really the way to go?
Unlike Dave, who has very strong opinions on what he calls the “whoring out of Star Wars ” by Lucas, I am honestly wondering. On the one hand, it can definitely be said that Lucas has milked so much out of his one cow that he should have enough dairy products to feed the nation. Between the six movies, all the comics, books, and video games you would think that eventually he would get tired of beating the same dead horse.
On the other hand, when I think about this I can’t help but think back to another mediocre movie that later was turned into an amazing TV show: Stargate SG1. The movie was definitely weak, but the show was amazing. Even if you don’t like it you can’t argue with the success of a show that went ten full seasons. Given the possibilities I think this could actually go somewhere, especially since they have announced that the TV show is going to be focused on the criminal elements for the Star Wars universe. In my head I see Boardwalk Empire in space, with the Hutts being the criminal kingpins.
However, Lucas doesn’t have a particularly good track record when it comes to doing something good while exploiting the only two good movies he made, so the possibility of this to suck is pretty high. I will watch it, and odds are have to listen to Dave bitch about it week after week. We’ll see.
This Japanese Star Wars image I got from Dave’s Star Wars T Shirt collection. It seems extremely cool.
Jason
13 Assassins
My friend showed this last night at movie night and as I expected, it was awesome. I am not going to do an actual review for it as the movie has been out for a while and also, since it was so awesome, it would just be 800 words of me gushing on about how great martial arts movies are. If you don’t like Martial Arts movies that I am sure you will enjoy a nice quiet evening in with Teddy Ruxpin.
By the way, for an image I was all set to pull one of the Martial Arts or Bruce Lee shirts, but then came across this gem from the Funny T Shirt category and once I stopped laughing decided I had to roll with it.
Anyway, the first thing I want to talk about from 13 Assassins is the cultural differences in the aesthetics of death. In Western movies deaths of characters are really formulaic. Either they are bad guys who fall over nicely dead after one punch or bullet, or they are heroes who die relatively peacefully after imparting some sage last words to the other characters. What you do not ever see in Western films is characters crawling through the mud, writhing in agony as their disemboweled guts spill out. You don’t see bad guys crawling along the floor or begging for their lives as they try to get away from the “good” guys (unless it’s Kill Bill). However, 13 Assassins showed all that and did so with more blood than you will ever see in a Hollywood film. I don’t know if it’s actors in Hollywood demanding that their faces be seen cleanly and relatively pristinely (aside from the occasional artistic smear of grease or dirt) or if this is something that Hollywood producers think the American audiences needs for our soft brains, but in this film every character has enough blood, mud and guts on their face to fill a biohazard bag of medical waste. It’s like they were all wrestling chainsaw juggling bear/porcupine hybrids (borcupine?).
The second thing I noticed from a film production point of view was the difference in action segmentation from Western to Eastern films. What do I mean by that? Basically in Western films even long, extended action sequences are punctuated by moments of relative calm wherein the heroes collect their breath, express feeling for each other, or just stand looking around a bit while the camera pulls back to pan around the amazingly wrecked set they have produced. Again, I think these are more evidence of producers having no respect for American audiences and feeling like we need a break in order to collect our breath and prepare for the next action barrage. Some movie producers go so far as the interject the action with a more mundane or slower sequence (defusing the bomb, trying to save the life of an injured person, etc) or simply mash multiple action scenes together into a horrible murky soup (cough cough Lucas cough cough).
In this film once the final action starts it is 55 minutes of swords and blood. Every time the good guys kill off all the bad guys in sight instead of a break they get…more bad guys. Instead of blasts of action it’s like trying to move forward while someone shoots a fire hose into your chest, but in a good way. I don’t know if this style will catch on here as it is entirely possible the American movie producers are right and Western audiences actually do need short breaks between action in order to properly process our emotions, but I found it fun and interesting.
Finally, and this point will seem very obvious to anyone who has studied feudal Japan and the Samurai culture, but it was interesting to see the nature of duty explored from the Japanese perspective. There was no debate or discussion of what everyone’s duty was. Each character had an absolutely clear, black-and-white job to do and never had to debate or hesitate. Even the few times it came up it was almost an insult to even discuss it. Very cool in my opinion.
Anyway, the movie rocks. If you enjoy Martial Arts films or Kurosawa than this is a must see. Watch it sub titled as a lot of the emotions behind the action is transmitted via voice and tone. I don’t think dubbed would do this film credit.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see a midnight movie tonight (Dark Shadows, I think) and review it tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or post a comment here if you have seen this movie and would like to make a point. If you have suggestions or specific questions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Have a great day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
I am Number 7
I know. I promised to see a movie last night and write it up this morning. I got really into working and didn’t get to see anything. I apologize. I will try to see a midnight showing of something Thursday and write it up Friday morning. Probably Dark Shadows.
However, I learned something cool today and felt like bragging a little. After this weekend’s performance at SAWS Warhammer GT where I placed 5th overall (honestly, I got ripped off for first but that is neither here nor there) I am now ranked 7th nationwide according to Rankings HQ and am now the number 1 Daemons of Chaos player. Kudos to me. If any of you ladies are at all impressed or (more importantly) know what the hell I am talking about by all means please contact me.
Props also to my good friend Mike who is now Numero Uno. Well done, sir.
(Game Over image from Dragon’s Lair courtesy of the Video Game T Shirt category)
That’s it. Sorry I don’t have more to write, but I am slammed today and have to go buy some new socks. I am seeing 13 Assassins tonight at a friends house and will probably wax poetic about my love of martial arts movies tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or send me an email with questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Post Production 3D Blues
I don’t share the same amount of hatred of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek with Dave, and while I kind of wonder how they are going to remake the Wrath of Khan when the first movie pretty much made it so that Space Seed never happened, I kind of expect it to be pretty good. I do have one opinion in common with Dave and that’s post production 3D sucks.
JJ Abrams has announced he is going to shoot the whole thing in 2D and let Paramount 3D it up post production. I don’t think this has ever produced a good effect. All the best 3D movies are shot in 3D, and generally make for really good films. Whenever it is done in 2D and ramped up later the 3D is almost not even noticeable and the film makers never seem to look for the right opportunity to show the 3D effects. Basically it turns into a huge waste of film.
Dave is more the Trek fan and has a lot of strong opinions about JJ taking over the franchise and rebooting it. I just enjoyed the film and am not that worried about sticking to canon. I am looking forward to listening to Dave bitch about it when he is writing the review however.
This Khan shirt I found in Dave’s Star Trek t shirt collection. Good episode IMO.
Jason
The reason why the Wrath of Khan is the best of the Star Trek movies.
J.J. Abrams I can only hope you one day read this.
I need to thank my friend Dave for suggesting this theory and helping me flesh it out. You will have to search long and hard to find a guy with more nerd credibility. Anyway, he and I have been discussing Star Trek for years and are both of the opinion that the most recent Star Trek, while definitely more polished, is still not as good as TWOK. Yes, I know. It has better special effects, casting, and arguably acting. It’s just not as good a story (also they made the bridge look like a giant Apple store, a move that I think will prove to be a lot less timeless than they might think, especially in a couple years when Apple opts to redecorate all their stores). All the other movies do not even bear considering in the same discussion. What is it, then, that makes Khan so much better than everything else?
It all boils down to scope. You see, almost all the other movies some how have the fate of the Earth or the universe in the balance. In Star Trek it’s vengeful Romulans from the future dropping black holes onto planets. In Nemesis it’s Picard’s clone bent on the destruction of the Federation. Out of the basics of human decency I won’t mention anything about Insurrection, but First Contact was about the Borg trying to go back in time and wrecking humanity. Generations was about Malcolm McDowell destroying an entire planet and civilization to live in the ultimate virtual reality. Undiscovered Country was about a conspiracy to cause a massive war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The Final Frontier had something about discovering God(?). The Voyage Home was about whales destroying Earth. The Search for Spock was of less galactic import, but the religious overtones (Spock as Jesus, etc) kind of expanded the scope of the film. Even The Motion Picture had V’ger hell bent on wrecking the universe.
The Wrath of Khan, however, was the story of a personal vendetta against Kirk and his crew and their desperate struggle to survive against massive odds. This sounds decidedly unimpressive until you remember that something like 99% of the greatest episodes from any of the five TV shows were about the captain and crew in a desperate struggle to survive against massive odds. Very rarely did they have to save the entirety of the Federation or humanity and even when they did it was as part of a larger effort (Errand of Mercy, for example). Sure you could argue that the Doomsday Machine would have eventually reached Earth or the failure to stop the Romulan Bird of Prey in Balance of Terror would have plunged the galaxy into war, but it was never a matter of stopping a dumb rocket with seconds to spare from wrecking a planet.
The fact is, Star Trek has always been less about the story and more about the characters, which is why thousands of people go to conventions every year and dress as the one they most identify with. When the story is about a giant planet of people you never see and can’t really care that much about you don’t get invested in the outcome. All the Romulan black holes in the universe dropped on any number of populated planets can’t compare to watching Spock stick his face in a radioactive warp drive in order to save the lives of his friends and crew. It just has more impact. Furthermore, the animosity the villain displays gets spread too thin when directed at the universe in general, or even more than a few people. If you were to take all the hatred and bile from all the assorted villains from all the movies it wouldn’t compare to one minute of the intensity that Khan displayed whenever interacting with Kirk. His laser like focus just burned hotter.
It’s not just Star Trek. I can name any number of other good examples of movies that rule when it is personal and tend to suck when the hatred gets shared around. Die Hard is a perfect one. The first movie had John McClane fighting to save his life and the lives of a few hostages (most importantly his wife) but the second had him running around an airport trying to save hundreds of people flying in the sky above. The best of the Star Wars movies, The Empire Strikes Back, was a personal journey for each of the characters in a dangerous universe while the Return of the Jedi was the struggle of the Rebellion against the Empire. Speed 2, Matrix Revolutions, Predator 2, Mad Max Beyond Thuderdome; in almost all cases the films lost focus on the characters the audiences cared about and expanded them into something bigger and so ridiculous that we kind of lost interest to an extent.
The fact is more is not always more. What does this mean for the Star Trek franchise? Not much, unless Abrams or one of the writers happens to be reading this. If that is so, then please consider the fact that the Enterprise doesn’t always have to save the universe from yet another ridiculous form of impending doom. Sometimes it’s OK to show them struggling to save their own asses and see how they interact in the face of almost certain death. Maybe it’s space pirates who want to steal the Enterprise’s warp core. Perhaps Spock’s family is involved in some kind of personal feud against another family (Vulcan Hatfields and McCoys) and the Enterprise gets sucked in. Also, just because someone has s personal vendetta against someone in the crew does not mean he or she has to also want to destroy the universe. Back off, lighten up, and repeat the mantra “less is more”.
TWOK image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category, by the way.
Thanks for reading. I hope at least some of you agree with me, but if not feel free to comment here. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a specific question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. I will try to see something tonight and write a review for it tomorrow morning. Have a great day.
Dave
More stupid movie decisions: Jessica Chastain bails out on Iron Man 3
There is something I love about watching otherwise successful people commit career suicide. Jessica Chastain, apparently feeling pretty good about her career after starring in Tree of Life, has announced she will not be in the upcoming Iron Man 3. What’s the matter, Jessica? Is the whole Iron Man/Avengers franchise not successful for you? Seriously? The Avengers nailed $207.4 million dollars this last weekend. Tree of Life grossed $13.3 million in it’s entire run, and based on Dave’s review of it I don’t know if it rated that much.
Honestly, when faced with the chance to hitch your wagon to the most successful team in the world I think it would be worth while to maybe be willing to take less money in return for the opportunity to promote yourself. I can’t imagine what kind of roles the stars of this film are being offered on a daily basis right now. Sounds like you could write your own ticket. Of course, traditionally the third movie in a series tends to feel the suck, so maybe Jessica knows something about the script we are all missing.
This very cool Iron Man I found in Dave’s Marvel Comic T shirts. I have to say I like the retro looking Iron Man from the first movie and early comics. Kind of Ming the Merciless meets Battle Bots.
Jason
