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
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
Turbo Movie Review
Sigh…
This may come as something of a surprise to any regular reader but the fact is in spite of my incessant bitching about the sewage outflow that passes for Hollywood mainstream movies I am a fan of film. Movies are my escape from reality into worlds of wonder and excitement. I love theaters, and find the whole cinema experience magical. I even love popcorn.
Even bad movies have their place in my heart. A bad film gives me perspective, and occasionally takes the audience in a hilarious new direction that the writer and director never saw coming. Those films are the crown jewel of bad films, but even the mediocrely bad films can at least claim Bedazzler rhinestone status.
The point is it’s extremely rare that I come across a film that for all its merits or detractions feels like a complete waste of my time. Unfortunately Turbo has fallen onto that rare precipice. It is hard to put my finger on what makes it feel so worthless, but that is the ethereal nature of such films. 
It is easy to pick out the details that make a great film great or a bad film bad, but when faced with a truly worthless film it seems like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal is the rule of the day (Heisenberg image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirt category).
This film tanked as hard as a film can and is causing the bookkeepers at Dreamworks a huge number of problems (such as their printers can’t print pink slips fast enough). If anyone at Dreamworks is still puzzled by that failure in spite of a massive marketing campaign I have a few thoughts that may help solve the mystery:
1. The movie is about a SNAIL THAT WINS THE INDY 500! The tragic assumptions made here is that kids really are that stupid. Kids are inexperienced and ignorant, but for the most part they tend to be pretty quick on things they understand. The idea that snails are slow and race cars are fast is a concept absorbed by kids by kindergarten age. Thinking back to my own childhood (chronologically a long time ago, but mentally shorter than most of my acquaintances would assume) I really think presented with a movie concept like that I would find it pretty stupid. I see this as a sign of secret contempt for the audience on the part of the studio.
2. The main character is a SNAIL! Look, I know the Little Mermaid opened the door for invertebrate cartoon characters, but every kid knows that snails are gross slugs with shells and leave icky trails where ever they go. As a kid I can remember going outside after a rain storm and almost throwing up after accidentally stepping on a snail. I honestly can’t think of a worse kids character than a gastropod, unless they wanted to do a film about a cute, cuddly family of parasitic worms (and honestly I think I would by one of those plushy’s for my kid before a snail).
3. Kind of tying into the last point, when a kid sees a movie he or she wants to be one of the main characters. Girls want to be Ariel and boys want to be Woody or Buzz Lightyear. If there is a kid out there who dreams of being a snail I foresee major self esteem issues in his or her future.
4. All those issues that I just listed go tenfold for the parents who have to sit through this dross. Creators of kids film sometimes forget that there are adults who are forced to watch these films with the kids and if the film is painfully stupid or gross then they are very likely to just bust out a Incredibles DVD and call it an afternoon.
I am going to stop harping on Ryan Reynolds. Two bombs back to back is tough for anyone to take, and even I get tired of clubbing baby seals after a while. Honestly there is very little you can do to hold a voice over actor responsible for a films performance. Either they are truly brilliant (Mark Hamill) or at least average. Unless he or she has some kind of speech impediment there isn’t much you can do to screw up. I keep waiting for Ryan to do something amazing to help make up for the Green Lantern, but instead I think I am just going to stop out of pity.
On the other hand with his looks and fame he can probably score with more hot chicks in a week than I will in my lifetime, and he still has a ton of money (broke again this week. Top Ramen city for me!). Suck it Ryan Reynolds!
The story. Turbo (Ryan Reynolds-R.I.P.D., Safe House, the Change Up) is a garden snail who dreams of going fast. He got the idea by watching footage of Indy racer Guy Gagne (Bill Hader-Superbad, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) on a TV in the garage next door. His brother Chet (Paul Giamatti-Saving Private Ryan, Rock of Ages, the Ides of March) advises him to keep on working in the humble tomato factory but his dreams power him on. He falls into an intake manifold and he gets injected with nitrous oxide, making him glow blue and be super fast (as well as develop a radio, headlights, backup lights, and other car paraphernalia). He gets caught by local Mexican stereotype Tito (Michael Pena-End of Watch, Shooter, 30 Minutes or Less) and entered into the snail races. He discovers his power and wins big.
Meanwhile Tito’s brother Angelo (Luis Guzman-Carlito’s Way, Boogie Nights, the Last Stand) has a taco stand (really?) that is in dire need of more customers. Tito comes up with the idea of entering Turbo into the Indy 500 based on the tried and true principal that if something is not specifically outlawed than it must be legal (for the record, the rules for vehicles entered into F1 competitions are extremely specific and exacting. Also just because something is not illegal does not make it allowed. I doubt there is a specific rule against having sex with a train car coupling but I really wouldn’t want to explain that to a judge). He cajoles the rest of the stereotypes in the crappy strip mall his brother shares into coming up with the entry fee.
Honestly, if you have a brain you know how this goes. Gagne turns out to be a secret jerk. Turbo enters the race. I am not going to spoil the film by giving away the ending but if you thought it might be interesting to see a film that highlights the concepts of a noble effort that still fails a la Rocky or the Bad News Bears prepare to be disappointed.
I don’t do stars and black holes for kids movies but instead judge it by the kids in the audience. Unfortunately the theater I saw it in was kind of a ghost town with not a kid in sight so I am going to have to channel my inner child and say that I thought the film was visually stimulating enough for a toddler but otherwise too dumb for anyone old enough to speak in sentences. A kid might enjoy this film but it will not stand out as a cherished childhood memory. Parents bringing kids to this film should pack extra gauze for when their brains start dribbling out their ears.
Thanks for reading. I’m headed to Las Vegas Tuesday morning and while out there will try to see and review Elysium, but really won’t have a lot of time. If you are going to the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention please stop by my t-shirt booth and say hi (6’5″, dark hair, goatee, strong dislike of the JJ Abrams Trek films). If you don’t feel like telling me what kind of an idiot I am to my face feel free to post comments here regarding this film or my review. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected], and you can always follow me on Twitter for the 2-4 Tweets I do per week (I suck at social media). Talk to you soon.
Dave
Pacific Rim 3D Movie Review
Giant robots and Godzilla movie rejects? Sign me up!
It is rare that a movie trailer gets me excited to see the actual movie. I see so many of them (and usually the same ones over and over again) that they tend to loose all impact. They usually to do one of two things for me: either they help me compose a mental shopping list of upcoming things to see or perform the same function as my doctor telling me in excruciating and graphic detail (with visual aids) exactly what to expect during my upcoming colonoscopy during a big anesthesia shortage. Basically a list of upcoming work and/or unbearable dread.
This film broke that mold in that every time I saw it I got more excited to see it. I mean, it’s a movie about giant monsters fighting giant robots! Based on that description alone I could be suffering from simultaneous projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea and I would still enjoy it (I can’t really say how the other audience members would feel in those circumstances however). I mean, how badly can you screw up giant monsters and robots?
Well, yes. Gozilla 1999 and most of Transformers. I suppose it can be done. However, I have faith in Guillermo del Toro. This is the man who did Hellboy, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Megamind, and Pan’s Labyrinth. Some of these movies might not have gotten critical acclaim, but they rank up there as personal favorites. My faith in him was justified in this movie.
I don’t want to say this film is the Citizen Kane of science fiction films. It was chock full of plot holes, scientific “facts” that would have my eighth grade science teacher beating his fists raw against the wall in frustration, and acting so robotic I was partially convinced the actors were miniature Jaegers with tiny humans inside controlling them. In a film that wasn’t about giant robots and monsters this would have been the equivalent of a cow walking up to me in a slaughterhouse and handing me a sledgehammer. However, if you are going to this film for the story, scientific content, or acting you must be the type to order a lobster at a restaurant and proceed to eat only the shell. I was also comforted by the fact that every time I thought to myself “Wow this acting is wooden” or “CO2 slows down acidic reactions???” in a few minutes I was going to see giant robots fighting giant monsters.
The good news is I don’t have to worry too much about spoilers as if you have seen the trailer and have an IQ in the mid-80s you should be able to discern the entirety of the plot as the opening monolog is rolling out. That being said SPOILER ALERT. I was pleased during this film as it game me a chance to practice my burgeoning powers of psychic precognition. As soon as I saw that the first Jaeger pilots were two brothers I said “One of these two guys is going to get killed and the new pilot the surviving brother has to team up with will be a hot chick” and by Nostradamus’s sack was it so! A while later when I realized the only black guy in the whole movie was a retired Jaeger pilot I said “Yep. That guy is going to have to come out of retirement at some point and will end up sacrificing himself for the greater good” and once again gave myself a gold star for pattern recognition.
Because I enjoyed this film a lot I am not going to harp on the bad science and plot holes, but I have a few questions that kept popping into my head. The main one was are the Jaegers piloted by neural interface or not? They spent a ton of time talking about it and how the two pilots “drift” into each others memories and minds in order to control the Jaeger (and how it is almost impossible and brain damaging to try to pilot one solo) yet they spend the entire time in the Jaegers strapped into full body analog controls. What’s the deal here? Also, if the aliens want to conquer the planet why do they keep sending the big monsters through one at a time? I’m no brilliant tactician but it seems the trick would be to save up like 20 of them and send them through at the same time.
How does the scientist guy keep a monster brain chunk alive in a tank for months and connect his brain to it and then 30 minutes later be presented with a very recently killed intact brain and tell everyone they have five minutes until the brain is too dead to connect to? For that matter why does he act like monster samples (for the record the monsters are called kaiju) are rarer than a piece of the true cross when each one weighs a couple thousand tons and they have killed dozens of them? They should be up to their giant robot asses in kaiju parts. Why would the military opt to abandon the Jaeger program just because they are losing a few? Why not build bigger and better Jaegers? Or for that matter more of them? Instead of sending one Jaeger out after one big kaiju why not send out like 10? And their plan is to defend the world with a giant wall? How does that kill kaiju’s? You see this is one of those situation where the great military/industrial complex would actually be to our benefit. Why do jet pilots feel the best way to kill a kaiju is to fly into tentacle range? How did the commander keep the Jaegers running after he got his funding cut? Those things do not look cheap to keep fueled.
For that matter how does a local crime lord have the resources to harvest a kaiju faster than the military, as well as more knowledge of kaiju’s than the world’s leading scientist? Also last time I look the Pacific Ocean was thousands of miles across, yet as soon as they detect a kaiju at the breach they have like five minutes before it gets to a big city. I understand that the cities on the Pacific Rim are the ones being attacked, but other than that the movie really had no reason to be called Pacific Rim. Also if kaiju only attack cities on the Pacific Rim why doesn’t everyone just leave? Personally I would be parked on the right side of the Rocky Mountains.
Ok, I feel better for getting that out. Let’s get into the movie, shall we?
The film starts off with a monolog explaining how giant monsters come through the breach on the floor of the Pacific and attacking cities. In order to beat them we had to make giant robots. Skip forward a few years and Jaeger pilots Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam-Sons of Anarchy, Cold Mountain, Deadfall) and Yancy Beckett (Diego Klattenhoff-After Earth, Unconditional, Falling Skies) go into battle against a biggun and more or less get their asses handed to them. Yancy dies. Skip forward five more years and Raleigh has quit the Jaeger program and now works on the big wall that is supposed to save us. He gets recruited back into the program by Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba-RocknRolla, 28 Days Later, Pandora) and meets the only female in the film Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi-the Brothers Bloom, the Sky Crawlers, Norwegian Wood). He needs to be paired up with a partner and after a long and pretty unnecessary selection process (in spite of needing to fight together it all boils down to a fight against each other) ends up paired with Mako. Meanwhile dorky scientists Newt (Charlie Day-It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses, Monsters University) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman-Layer Cake, Torchwood, the Dark Knight Rises) argue about which scientific approach to take. Gottlieb thinks the magical power of statistics will do something while Newt wants to hook his brain to one of the kaiju.
Mako bones up the first test run in the Jaeger and they get taken off duty. The plan is to sneak a nuke into the breach and blow it up from the other side. Two huge kaiju attack and kill two of the four remaining Jaegers and disable a third one. Mako and Raleigh jump in the last one and save the day. At that point Stacker climbs into his Jaeger for his meet with destiny and he and the other Jaeger grind the story to an ending so pat and happy it’s at Cheese Level Limburger.
The stars.
Duh. Giant robots fighting giant monsters. Three stars. The Jaegers were so freaking awesome the only way they could have been cooler would be if they each had giant breasts and created deep fried bacon wraps as a waste byproduct. 
(Bacon image courtesy of the funny t shirt category). I know what I’m building first after I conquer this pathetic planet. Two stars. The kaiju are also extremely cool. One star. The action was super good. If there is any move better than hitting a monster in the head with a cargo ship I don’t know what it is. Two stars. Pacing was generally good. One star. Film work and CGI were great. Two stars. The crime lord in charge of the black market kaiju parts was Ron M-F-ing Perlman. One star. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes.
This film suffered from the same issue that continues to plague the Transformers series and that is too much humans, not enough robots kicking ass. One black hole. That laundry list of questions I had a few paragraphs ago, plus another science fiction movie that treats science like fiction. Two black holes. The Jaegers generally emoted more than the humans. One black hole. The story was about as predictable as watching the floor lights light up sequentially on an elevator ride, and if it weren’t for the whole robots/monsters thing would have been painfully cliche. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of seven stars. A decent score, but honestly it and my recommendation are completely irrelevant. If you think giant robots and monsters are cool you will go see this and love it. If you want character arcs, complex stories, and human actors you will not. Go with your instinct when you first saw the trailer. I will say this movie absolutely needs to be seen on the biggest screen you can find, so don’t wait for it to come out on DvD or NetFlix. Date movie? For the love of all that is holy no. If you don’t go see this with a bunch of your guy friends and then go home and play manly video games and drink beer afterward check under your pillow to see if the Testicle Fairy left you a pair of quarters. Bathroom break? Any of the scenes with just humans in it are fair game. I think the couple of scenes where Raleigh tries to convince Stacker that Mako is not incompetent are particularly good.
Thanks for reading. I won’t be doing much for the next couple weeks as I have a big Warhammer tournament this weekend, Comic Con next weekend (and the week leading up), and a business trip right after that. I will be posting notes and images from Comic Con on my Twitter account so follow me @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
White House Down Movie Review
White House Dumb.
I know. I said I would be kinder to Channing Tatum’s next movie after the sense of humor he displayed in his role in This is the End, but when faced with a lame horse the kindest thing you can do is deliver a bullet quickly. I’ll try to be nicer in his next one.
I’m really curious as to what exactly the Secret Service did to piss off Hollywood, because this is the third movie in the last two months where terrorists successfully take over the White House in order to control this countries nuclear arsenal and portrays the Secret Service as about as effective as a troupe of septuagenarian crossing guards. I find this more than a little offensive. I am a Secret Service fan. They are super cool and quiet about it. You will never know they exist until you do something to attract their attention, at which time they will truly make you regret it. Movies that put them on the same level as Paul Bart Mall Cop are truly unfair, especially given the dedication they exhibit.
I guess I kind of get it. President Obama has closer ties with Hollywood than any other president and so a lot of Hollywood types are having encounters with the Secret Service. This is probably where the inspiration for this dross comes from, and showing the Secret Service in action as they really should be shown 
(someone opts to mess with the White House and leave ten minutes later feet first. People like Me image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) might make for a shortish film (I would see it. Sounds cool to me). I guess they need to ramp down their competence in order to make for some kind of drama, but honestly that’s just lazy. A smart writer would develop better villains rather than dumber agents, but writing stuff is hard work (anyone else remember In the Line of Fire? There’s a villain worthy of the Secret Service).
So, White House Down. I suppose you could enjoy it if you can buy the fact that the White House can be taken down with a half dozen guys who start with one pistol between them. If all you want is guys shooting stuff this one could work for you. The are explosions, a tank, helicopters crashing, my dream girl Maggie Gyllenhaal (for the love of God, someone invent a time machine so I can go back to before she was married and get rejected by her. At least I can say I tried. No self esteem issue here), and like all other films of this particular ilk the fate of the world boils down to a fist fight between two meat heads. The plot holes run thick and fast but if there is one thing I know the film industry seems cool with it is a script that can double as a colander.
If you have seen Olympus Has Fallen skip the next few paragraphs. This film starts out with President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx-Django Unchained, Collateral, Ray) announcing his controverseal plan to withdraw all troops from the Middle East and getting pressure back from the military industrial complex (no secret message, agenda, or wishful thinking here folks). Meanwhile Capital Policeman Cale (Channing Tatum-21 Jump Street, Magic Mike, The Vow) is protecting the Speaker of the House Raphelson (Richard Jenkins-the Cabin in the Woods, Step Brothers, Jack Reacher). He wants to be in the Secret Service for an ill defined reason and gets his chance. His 11 year old daughter (Joey King-Crazy, Stupid Love, the Dark Night Rises, Oz the Great and Powerful) is a fan girl for the President and the White House and he brings her along.
He gets to interview with Agent Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal-Won’t Back Down, Donnie Darko, Stranger than Fiction) who tells him in no small terms why he is patently unqualified to work for the Secret Service. She then goes to a retirement party for head agent Walker (James Woods-Casino, Videodrome, Once Upon a Time in America), who’s son died on a military mission recently. Meanwhile, a group of white trash trouble makers get into the White House cleverly disguised as a entertainment system installation crew (since when do you need 14 guys to install an projection camera? For that matter it is later established that four of these guys are on the top of the Secret Service watch list. Don’t they do background checks on guys working in the White House? No face recognition software? No cameras in the hallways showing a bunch of guys executing security guards? No locks on the armory doors? How do you use an ICBM to shoot down a passenger jet? The list goes on and on).
The crew takes on the White House and with some inside help manages to kill every Secret Service agent and security guard in like three minutes with no casualties of their own (their amazing shooting and bullet dodging abilities go right out the window as soon as they start shooting at Channing Tatum). Cale was taking a tour with his daughter and manages to rescue the President. At that point it’s just a run and gun action film. Cale and the President sneak around and at one point are driving on the White House lawn, where the National Guard has apparently forgotten how to shoot. Stuff blows up, including a Delta Team that was written to be as stupid as the Secret Service (if one of three attack helicopters gets shot down with surface to air missiles perhaps you should get on the ground and disgorge your men rather than hovering over the roof waiting for more). Turns out the bad guys want to nuke Iran (sort of. Seems like each bad guy had a different goal) which will get us into a nuclear war.
The stars.
Action was decent. One star. Maggie Gyllenhaal. One star. In spite of their choice in scripts I kind of like Channing Tatum and definitely like Jamie Foxx. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes.
Portraying the Secret Service (and the military, for that matter) like they were all still drunk and hung over from a weekend long party in Columbia. One black hole. Being pretty much a copy of a couple other films. One black hole. Big plot holes. One black hole. The whole premise is weak, and no effort was make to strengthen it. One black hole. Overall I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning a lot. Two black holes. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of three black holes. Not “praying for a merciful death” bad. Not even waste of time and money bad. If you just want some action without a lot of brain activity this will work. I would say this film is perfect for a quiet evening at home with your NetFlix account (or illegal download site). Date movie? Meh. Most girls are not going to really enjoy this film. See it with a guy friend (or a bottle of Scotch). Bathroom break? Any time they cut back to the control center with Maggie Gyllenhaal or the military general that’s your signal that it’s time to cut out and take care of business. Nothing ever seems to happen then.
Thanks for reading. Lots to see this long weekend so hopefully something is good. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or my review can be left right here, and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Purge Review
Binge worthy.
Once again I am disappointed that a movie with a title so ripe for puns should it prove sucktastic actually being decent. Just rolling into this film I was coming up with hilarious name jokes like “The film wasn’t the only thing in that theater that felt like purging” or “The purge should have started with the writer.” (Anorexia joke courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) Damn James DeMonaco for being surprisingly talented (the surprise really stems from the fact that the rest of his filmography doesn’t exactly shine like a diamond).
Actually I have hit a long string of decent movies, which means either I’m burning up my good movie karma early and will spend the rest of the year watching films that could be considered a crime against humanity or hit my head a few weeks ago and am lying in a pleasant coma in a hospital somewhere dreaming this life up. Honestly I think I would prefer the later scenario.
Anyway, the Purge. Not bad, really. Kind of Straw Dogs meets Logan’s Run. The story was weirdly believable given the premise and the actions of the main characters more or less made sense (except for a couple of really bad choices early on). On the other hand this film was rancid with social commentary. I don’t think James DeMonaco has much faith in humanity or human nature. Nor does he have much respect for American culture and capitalistic values. This unfortunately divides the audience into three separate camps: the people who agree with him and think this movie is great with an amazing message; the people who vehemently disagree with him and therefore hate this film; and the people who really don’t care and are just trying to watch a film where people shoot each other.
Fortunately I fall into the third camp (along with what I believe to be the majority of the audience). The message is not lost on me. I just think it a little prosaic and ham handed in its delivery.
The film starts off with security system salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke-Gattaca, Daybreakers, Training Day) coming home on the eve of the Purge. The Purge is a 12 hour period once a year where all laws and emergency services are suspended and the country either goes out for a chance to hunt down and kill each other or cowers in their houses hoping no one notices them. James has just sold more security systems than anyone else and is ready to start cowering. He comes home to find his wife Mary (Lena Headey-300, Dredd, Game of Thrones) preparing dinner. His younger son Charlie (Max Burkholder-Daddy Day Care, Friends with Money, Parenthood) is a creepy emo kid with a metrosexual haircut and an inclination to making the weirdest looking drone ever. I guess his parents aren’t too hip on the whole “noticing a secret cry for help” business. The daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane-Goats, Power Rangers R.P.M., Pretty Tough) is super hot but too young for her meat head boyfriend Henry (Tony Oller-As the Bell Rings, Beneath the Darkness, Gigantic), whom she is making out with in her room.
The family buttons down for the night after some typical dysfunctional family stuff (oh, the teenage girl is dissatisfied with her life and her parents! Don’t flatten me with the weight of your originality). Zoey goes upstairs to sulk in her room but finds her boyfriend Henry has hidden in the house. Meanwhile, the son Charlie doesn’t understand the need or validity of the Purge (with good reason. Most of it seems an excuse for rich people to hunt down and execute poor people. There’s that social commentary I mentioned). He sees a homeless man (Edwin Hodge-Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Red Dawn, Big Momma’s House) trying to escape a bunch of young people in masks and opts to let him into the house. Meanwhile Henry tells Zoey that he intends to speak man to man with James but instead pulls a gun to kill him.
These are the three points that stuck out as being really kind of stupid. There is no clear motivation for Charlie to let the guy in, and no comprehension of why James didn’t take more precautions to be sure his 11 year old kid wouldn’t get upset and open the door. Sorry but as much as I may or may not love my hypothetical child until he or she is old enough to drive a car I won’t trust them with anything that could potentially kill my entire family. The third point is how does Henry think killing his girlfriends father going to endear him to her? I am not really that bugged by these as I know 18 year old kids are idiots and parents can often be very trusting of their children, but it was just annoying enough if you know what I mean.
Anyway, James kills Henry just as a gang of creepy mask wearing dudes headed up by their even creepier polite leader (Rhys Wakefield-Santum, the Black Balloon, Home and Away) arrive and demands they cast out the homeless guy. He is hiding somewhere in the house and it is up the the Sandins to find them. They spend time looking for him (Charlie is helping him, BTW) but eventually decide they cannot be part of it and opt to fight the kids.
At that point it’s Straw Dogs all over. The gang breaks in and it’s up to the family to kill them in nice small batches. Everyone has a chance to prove their worth and the neighbors get involved as well.
The stars.
I have to admit I liked both the premise and the story, social commentary aside. Two stars. The main characters were very believable, if a little underdeveloped. One star. The action was actually pretty good. No one turned into Rambo and each fight was an individual struggle. One star. Rhys Wakefield managed to nail the polite psychopath quite well. One star. She was looking pretty bad in Dredd but I have to say Lena Headley cleans up nicely, and Adelaide Kane is a heart breaker (she’s 23, for those of you who are going to tell me I’m creepy). One star. Overall a fun time watching. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes.
Very didactic (what does didactic mean? It means you need to go back to school). One black hole. Those three points kind of ground on me. I think had more time been spent on the characters prior to the action they might not have been so annoying. One black hole. Once the premise was set and the action started the movie was fairly predicable. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Like I said, not bad. Worth your time, especially if you are bored on cheap movie night. Date movie? Not really, especially given how polarizing the message really was. If she happens to belong to the camp that hates this film you can blow off your chance of getting anywhere. Bathroom break? There is an extended sequence where James and Mary are creepy crawling through the house with flashlights looking for the homeless guy while he is trying to find a place to hide that could be skipped with impunity.
Thanks for reading. More to see this weekend, and I hope one of them sucks enough for me to purge (haw!) the built up bile for a change. If I were a betting man I’d bet on White House Down, although it looks like the Heat could give it a run for it’s money. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (for the love of God please follow me. I have very few and it makes my ego thump on the inside of my skull). Post comments on this film or my review here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Man of Steel 3D Review
Movie of Steel.
This film is in all ways a good, solid, and exciting flick. There are some definite issues (which I will delve into with a secret sense of petty glee shortly) but in general it is everything I could have hoped for in a Superman movie.
Of course that could be taken as relative praise. Superman is one of the comic book heroes I just don’t really dig that much. He is too powerful and too flawless. All great heroes are tragic heroes, and in order to be a tragic hero you have to start from tragedy. Everyone I bring this up with always says “His home planet blew up”. Sorry, but he was an infant at the time and even if he had memories of it he really didn’t have the time to bond with his parents or planet. He grew up in small down America with the Kents in a bucolic, Norman Rockwell-esque paradise. You can’t compare that to watching your parents get gunned down by a mugger right next to you at age 10, or having your uncle get killed by the very man you let escape earlier that evening.
This film manages to inject some tragedy into the Superman upbringing, which I appreciate. I’m going to avoid spoilers but there was something that makes Superman’s life decisions all that more weighty (although in truth he could have easily avoided the bad situation. After all, he is Superman). However, any connoisseur of comic books or comic book movies will tell you that the strength of a film always resides in the strength of the villain, and in this case the new General Zod hit it out of the park. He is in all ways cool and dedicated, and even more tragic in that he is not motivated by just being a power hungry dick but rather by a desire to save his people. Tragic heroes are great, but tragic villains are awesome. The also managed to avoid the issue most origin stories have where they spend half the movie giving the guy his powers and the rest fighting some bad guy excaped from the deep recesses of the writers ass that we don’t care about (cough cough Green Lantern cough cough). They accomplished this by integrating Zod into the story from the very beginning. Well done IMO.
The part I was looking forward to is while I am not really a Superman fan I am definitely a Zach Snyder fan. 300, Sucker Punch, and the Watchmen are among my personal favorites and I knew he wouldn’t let me down even given less than optimal source material.
However, the film is not flawless and it would not be one of my reviews if I did not find a few things to nit pick. First off how many freaking times to we need to see the Superman origin story? I understand that Hollywood is terrified of anything that remotely smacks or originality or creativity, but the first Superman comic book came out in 1938 and has been running monthly ever since. That’s 75 years of original story telling (over 900 issues) from which to derive something. You are telling me that there isn’t a single story in all those comics that is worthy of fleshing out into a movie script. I’m sure executives look at past movies and decide that if they can’t guarantee numbers close to the last movie they had better just regurjitate the same old song and dance. Chocolate cake is great, but you would be surprised how quickly you can get sick of it if that’s all you eat every meal (in my experience it’s 5 days and 17 hours). Origin stories redone are the chocolate cake every meal of movies.
There are of course the typical plot holes most mainstream movies seem obligated to insert under law. If the Kryptonians have a galaxy spanning star empire why did the not have a few ships lying around for at least some people to escape? What exactly killed all the off world Kryptonians? If they have the resources of the universe at their disposal why did they need to remove their planet’s core for energy? If the Kryptonians know that living on a planet with a yellow sun gives them super powers why didn’t they all move to one millenia ago? Apparenlty they were on Earth 20,000 years ago. How is it a random scout ship just happens to have a Superman costume on board featuring the family crest of the -el family?
These plot holes were weighty and distracting, and had the pace of the movie stayed the same in the last half as the first half they would have been the lighter fluid to ignite my barbeque briquettes of hate. Fortunately once the action started the movie went from a plodding 4.5 to a rock hard 9.8. It’s hard to find a movie slow when someone is throwing a freight train at another guys head.
The last thing I’m going to bitch about comes from our good friend science. I can’t believe I’m explaining this again (this is like the 5th movie that made this same mistake) but saying something is made up of an unknown element not found on this planet makes you sound like a moronic Neanderthal puzzled by the invention of fire. A high school chemistry class will tell you that elements are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Each element is assigned an atomic number that corresponds to the number protons in the atom. Thus Hydrogen has one proton, Helium 2, etc. Between 1 and 118 there are no unknown elements, and at the higher the number the more unstable and difficult to produce. Ununoctium, atomic number 118, has only had 3 atoms produced ever. The idea that a whole ship is created from an element that is unknown yet still functional (not super heavy, super unstable, super radioactive, or a gas) is laughable, and would have been easily avoided just by substituting “alloy” or “compound” in place of element (remember transparent aluminum?).
Electron image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category.
All these aside, really good film. Let’s get into the story, shall we? There are some spoilers incoming, so skip ahead to the stars if you find them annoying.
The film starts off on Krypton, a harsh planet that looks suspiciously like the cities from John Carter of Mars. Jor-el (Russell Crowe-L.A. Confidential, Gladiator, Master and Commander) has figured out that the planet is going to blow up but can’t find a ship big enough for him and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer (why does that name sound more Kryptonian than Lara? I got rejected by a girl named Lara a few months ago right here on Earth)-Vantage Point, Munich, Angels & Demons) but hey happen to have a baby buggy sized ship perfect for young Kal-el, who just got born. Jor-el infuses Kal-el with some kind of genetic blueprint for the entire Kryptonian race (they are all cloned. Kal-el’s birth is the first natural child birth in centuries). Meanwhile General Zod (Michael Shannon-Take Shelter, Vanilla Sky, Pearl Harbor) is trying to lead a coup against the ruling council. He gets shut down and sentenced to the Phantom Zone.
Cut forward 33 years and Clark Kent (Henry Cavill-the Immortals, the Tudors, Stardust) is drifting across the world, helping people upon occasion but generally trying to stay out of trouble. His childhood is revealed in a series of flashbacks but if you really need me to tell you the Superman origin story let me know what Buddhist monastery you grew up in. He shows up at a ship stuck in a glacier from 20,000 years ago. Turns out to be a Kryptonian scout ship where he learns his origin from his holographic father. He also meets Lois Lane (Amy Adams-the Muppets, Catch Me if You Can, Enchanted), who later tracks him down at his family farm.
Meanwhile, Zod has escaped from the Phantom Zone and want’s Superman’s DNA literally. He also wants to xenoform (the term used in the movie was terraform, but that is completely incorrect. When we turn an alien planet into something resembling Earth it’s terraforming. When aliens turn Earth into an alien environment it’s xenoforming. I know. I’m a prickly hedgehog, but these things make me sad in the face) Earth into another Krypton, resulting in the death of all humans. Superman gets his ass kicked but later comes back and whales on some Kryptonian baddies. Really that’s it. The story is pretty linear.
The stars.
Superhero action on par with the Avengers. Also during the course of the film the collateral damage is astronomical. More than once you see Superman or Zod get punted through three or four skyscrapers only to have them collapse completely. Awesome. Three stars. Henry Cavill did really well as Superman. One star. I liked all the stuff on Krypton, which kind of made up for the fact that they were forcing me to watch the Superman origin again. One star. General Zod was pretty amazing. Two stars. Looking at the broader cultural impact of an alien on Earth was pretty cool. One star. I was particularly pleased with the scene where the military is trying to attack the Kryptonians and gets their asses handed to them. One star. Actual excitement for a change. One star. The ending while was pretty cool, and it wasn’t all Superman. One star. Overall a great time watching. Two stars. Total: Thirteen stars.
The black holes.
Superman origin and General Zod again?? One black hole for blowing out their originality fuse. I know it’s petty, but that alien element thing really bugs. I will roll it together with the xenoforming issue and give one black hole for crappy science. I’ll throw in the other plot holes as well. One black hole. I really didn’t like Amy Adams as Lois Lane. She just didn’t have the grit I expect from Lois Lane. Sorry Amy. You are hot. One black hole. The PG-13 rating was an anchor around the neck of the action. The really went out of their way to hide the horrible things that were going on. There was no way Superman and Zod had the fight they did in Metropolis without killing a half million people. One black hole. Pacing dragged in the first half, and I was feeling every one of the 143 minutes on my bladder. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of eight stars, and my rousing endorsement of this film. If you can avoid all the petty issues that grind on me like a sandpaper jock strap you will enjoy the hell out of it. Date movie? Only if you have a cool girl who wants to see this. She will probably enjoy it, but this film will neither help nor hinder you getting her clothes off. Bathroom break? Any of the scenes involving Martha Kent in the last half of the film are pretty expendable. I liked her but she did not contribute much to the character development after the mid point.
Thanks for reading. Movies like this make me glad I got into doing reviews. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this film or my review here, and if you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Review: A Big Wedding
…and Four Big Funerals.
During the course of seeing and reviewing so many movies over the last four years I believe I have managed to develop an appreciation for films outside of my preferred genres. Chick flicks are no longer as alien to me as the actual women who watch them and I am secure enough in my own manhood to watch and enjoy a good “feel good” movie without feeling like my man parts are being absorbed back into my body. I believe this has given me the perspective to fairly judge a good chick flick from a bad one.
Thus I hope you trust me in that my dislike of this film does not stem from my massively overpowering machismo but rather from the fact that is is a crap movie. It is essentially a mediocre Three’s Company episode stretched out into 89 minutes and padded with some big name actors. For some bizarre reason they opted to go for an R rating with cuss words and one (granted, highly appreciated) nude scene. For the life of me I can’t figure out the logic behind that. The target demographic for this film appears to be sexagenarian women (possibly with Alzheimer’s, although I don’t know if that part was intentional) and I couldn’t imagine a group more likely to be offended by the occasional (and fully superfluous) F bomb.
More than anything this movie reminded me of the stupendously bad New Years Eve, even more so because it starred Robert De Niro and Katherine Heigl (I am a De Niro fan, and actually like Katherine a lot. I think she is a talented actress and is shockingly hot. She just seems attracted to bad movie scripts like a fly to a pest strip). It had the same issues of multiple stories involving grossly underdeveloped characters, coma inducing plots, motivations that made it seem like the entire cast were all Barbie dolls being played with by the worlds stupidest giant little girl, and happy endings pulled from the darkest nether regions of the writers ass. I have no problem with happy endings (a fact that may come as a shock to many of my friends) but having everyone just forgive each other in the last 10 minutes like someone pumped the room full of aerosol Ecstasy bugs.
This isn’t the sort of bad that has me transform into a critic werewolf and shred it from stem to stern (Werewolf image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). It is more the type of bad that has me wishing they would let me watch these films prior to the final cut and listen to my advice (while the producers and director were all wearing a dog shock collar that I controlled). The acting was actually very good from everyone (with this cast I don’t know how you could get a bad performance), there were a few funny moments, and the one nude scene was like opening a Christmas present that you thought was going to be more socks but turned out to be a really hot nude scene. If this had been a made for TV movie it would have been perfectly adequate.
Before I go on I’d like to say that while the acting was really good there isn’t a single character in this film I didn’t hate with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. Each one was more annoying than the last. Even the hot women I wanted to see suffer horribly. They collectively had the believability and likability of used car salesman who moonlights as a cannibal serial killer (hmm. Interesting movie idea…). If the film had found a reason to call in an airstrike on the wedding itself I would have called this the best movie of 2013.
The story. Ellie (Diane Keaton-the Godfather, Murphy Brown, Annie Hall) returns to her former home (accompanied by a monolog that sticks around just long enough to really annoy but then disappears forever. Kind of a lose/win) for her adopted sons wedding. There she interrupts her ex husband Don (Robert Di Niro-Goodfellas, the Godfather, Meet the Parents) in the middle of an intimate act with his long term girlfriend Bebe (Susan Sarandon-Thelma and Louise, Dead Man Walking, the Rocky Horror Picture Show). He is an unlikable dirt bag. Anyway, their kids Lyla (Katherine Heigl-One for the Money, New Years Eve, Knocked Up), Jared (Topher Grace-Spider Man 3, Predators, the Giant Mechanical Man (?)), and adopted son Alejandro (Ben Barnes-the Chronicles of Narnia, Dorian Grey, Easy Virtue) show up with their assorted sub plots. Lyla is a bitchy lawyer who can’t have babies and is going through a divorce (but doesn’t drink and is vomiting in what could be one of the lamest in movie spoilers ever), Jared is a hot 29 year old doctor virgin (remember when believability was a crucial element to a plot point? The writers of this film don’t). Alejandro (Al) is getting married to a super hot girl (Amanda Seyfried-Les Miserables, In Time, Mamma Mia) whose parents are rich (sort of) racist WASPs (although technically they are Catholic).
Meanwhile Al’s birth mother Madonna (Patricia Rae-Maria Full of Grace, Swim Fan, Detachment) is a hard core Catholic (oh, I see what they did with her name. Not as clever as they thought it was IMO) who views divorce as a cardinal sin so Al has to get his parents to pretend they are married much to the dismay of Bebe. She arrives with Al’s super hot sister Nuria (Ana Ayora-Marley & Me, In the Presence of Evil, Meddling Mom) who wants to get laid while in America and targets Jared.
Ugh. The plot threads twist and intertwine in a way that would embarrass a soap opera writer. Jared decides that now is the perfect time to lose his virginity just as Ellie convinces Nuria that she needs to be romanced (involving poetry, apparently). Ellie and Don hook back up for no apparent reason. Turns out Ellie cheated on Don first but Don also cheated on Ellie with Bebe. Missy’s mom Muffin (no joke. Christine Ebersole-One Life to Live, Mac and Me, Amadeus) is a lesbian and her husband is the guy Ellie cheated with. Bebe and Ellie were best friends before. Jared finally gets with Nuria while Al and Missy elope and Lyla reconnects with her husband in the last ten minutes. Gah. My brain hurts just trying to recall all this garbage.
The stars.
Acting was pretty damned good all around. Everyone seemed willing to give a lame script their best efforts and I applaud them for their work ethic. One star. The nude scene was like a much needed bathroom break on a long, long road trip. One star. The priest was played by Robin Williams and he was freaking brilliant (as usual). Had this film had the wit to focus more on him it would not have been such a crapfest. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes.
Convoluted, twisty plot threads that annoyed the hell out of me and never gave the audience any one thing to really sink their teeth into. In addition each plot painfully predictable. Two black holes. Character motivation that was as believable as a homeless guy panhandling outside of a liqueur store trying to tell you he needs money for food. One black hole. The characters to a man and woman made me hate the human race (at least all the parts of it involved with the production of this film). As much as I am a fan of De Niro his character in particular had me chewing on my arm rest. Two black holes. A bonus black hole for the 29 year old virgin doctor. One black hole. None of the characters got even close to adequate development, leaving us with a bunch of people we are moderately familiar with and don’t give a damn about. One black hole. The curse words that helped this film earn it’s R rating felt forced and unnecessary. One black hole. Charging me money for a film I should be seeing on Lifetime mid afternoon when I stay home sick with the flu. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A grand total of six black holes. Anything redeeming here? Like I said, Robin Williams was funny and there were a few amusing moments. If your grandmother was a hippy in the 60’s and still talks like it she might think this amusing. I am not going to recommend this one for my mother. If you do want to see it this thing has NetFlix written all over it in giant neon letters. Date movie? If your date is a huge Love Boat and Thelma and Louise fan maybe. Should she suggest it agree since if she has the slightest shred of humanity she will feel guilty for subjecting you to this dross and will most likely give you compensatory sex. Bathroom break? Try to not miss any of the Robin Williams scenes but other than that go at any time. There is only one nude scene so once you are past that the opportunities are endless.
Thanks for reading. I have tickets to a late night showing of Iron Man tonight and am really excited. Having just watched this will only enhance my viewing experience so hopefully I will have a massive glowing review for you tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film I pity you as it means you have seen it but feel free to leave them at the bottom. Off topic questions and suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Scary Movie V Movie Review
Stupidly funny.
It’s ironic, since in most cases when I say something is stupidly funny I generally mean it as a criticism with some slightly redeeming qualities. 
Usually movies that are stupidly funny generally are trying to to only be just funny (or in some tragic cases actually serious) but the writers somehow suffer synapse failure and come out with the movie equivalent of Paris Hilton trying to be taken seriously as an actress. It’s funny in the same tragic way watching guys get hit in the nuts on YouTube is funny, but rarely what the creator wanted his or her legacy to be. (Brain Today image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Scary Movie V is rare in that they intended to be stupid, and did so in a way that actually required a lot of intelligence to execute. It takes some real talent to have a audience laughing their asses off at a baby getting accidentally set on fire, or a woman having sex with a vacuum cleaner. Getting people to laugh at something intentionally stupid is actually pretty hard.
That being said, I think there are a few problems with this film, and the main one was I saw it the night before last and am struggling to remember anything about it. A few scenes stick out and I remember laughing quite a bit but if I were required to give more detail than “It was a spoof of a bunch of horror movies. Oh, yeah Charlie Sheen and Lindsey Lohan had a sex scene that was pretty funny” I’d be in trouble. Most of it seems to have wafted through my brain like a fart on a windy day. Good thing I don’t have to write a review or anything.
Oh damn I do. Thank god for Google. Another issue with this movie (and the entire franchise) is that the jokes are really trapped in this moment. I remember seeing one of the previous ones years ago where they made a Callista Flockhart joke that was really funny. The problem is these days who really remembers Callista Flockhart (Ally McBeal)? Even those of us who do (like me. I think she was super hot if you like skinny) the joke just doesn’t pack the same punch any more. A joke about Lindsey getting arrested is funny as hell right now, but five years from now when she has done years of rehab and found Jesus it just won’t be funny. This is why you never saw much demand for Murphy Brown reruns. Political jokes just sound dumb even six months later.
While the actually Scary Movie movies are not timeless, the formula used definitely is. If you have seen any of them and have the wit to plug in jokes about current celebrities you can probably give the new ones a pass. Basically they take a half dozen current horror films and revamp them into something temporarily hilarious. In this case the movies used were Mama, the Evil Dead, Black Swan, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes with some Charlie Sheen, Lindsey Lohan, and Honey Boo Boo thrown in for flavor. If that seems a little shallow in the source material to you than you and I agree. They kept coming back to those four movies like vultures circling four rancid corpses, and like the vultures the movie had to struggle harder and harder to find the edible bits as time passed.
The story is barely present. The entirety of of the film plays out like a series of Saturday Night Live skits spoofing current movies held together with tissue paper and snot. It starts off with Charlie Sheen hooking up with Lindsey Lohan for a wild sex scene that will have you laughing before Charlie is killed by a mysterious figure in black. Charlies three children go missing and are found by Snoop Dogg (I though it was Lion now? He’s credited as Dogg) and Mac Miller. They are taken in and more or less follow the story of Mama, with Simon Rex (Sexy and I Know It, Sperm Donor, Slightly Single in L.A.) as the uncle and Ashley Tisdale (Donnie Darko, High School Musical, Phineas and Ferb) as the punk rock girlfriend. Simon is a researcher at a lab trying to give apes super intelligence (Planet of the Apes) while Ashley is a ballerina trying to do Swan Lake (Black Swan). Turns out the evil ghost was created with an evil book (Evil Dead).
That’s all you really need to know about the story. There isn’t much else.
The stars:
I was honestly laughing a lot during the course of this film, although damned if I know at what specifically. Two stars. Some of the spoofs were pretty clever. One star. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed Snoop Dogg playing himself in this. Granted the role was of himself as a stoner gangster (not exactly an acting stretch) but I thought he was funny. One star. The rest of the cast understood how to deliver comedy, and there were some recurring jokes that were pretty good. One star. Overall I enjoyed the film and laughed a lot. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes:
Really forgettable. This time next week I will have a hard time even remembering seeing it. One black hole. If they could have sourced a few more movies, or just chosen a couple that were easier to fit in together it probably would have made for a better film. One black hole. Nothing really by way of a plot. One black hole. Total: three stars.
So three stars. Before I recommend this film you should probably understand that this film is as low brow as they get without being about homeless people boxing each other. It so happens that that sort of humor tickles my funny bone, thus making me kinder in my review of it. If you think films like this are stupid, or have seen one of the other Scary Movie movies and are only curious to see how this one is different you can probably pass. If this sort of thing is funny to you go for it. Date movie? Probably not, unless your date is turned on by apes throwing feces in which case depending on your own disposition you have either found your soul mate or need to run screaming into the night. Bathroom break? Since there is no story to speak of there any time is a fine time. I found the film funniest in the first half and kind of grindy towards the end, so any time past the middle should work out fine.
Thanks for reading. I’m more or less caught up on the movies I care about. Maybe I’ll find something indy or artsy to see tonight. I also have a list idea I am working on for all the sci fi fans out there. Follow me on Twitter @NerdkungFu.com. Comments on this film or my review can be left here, although I get a lot of spam so be sure to mention the name of the movie in the first line or I might delete it. Off topic question or suggestion can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Admission Movie Review
I admit I expected to laugh more.
OK, I saw this film almost a week ago and have been putting off the writing of the review. Not that the movie was bad. In fact if it were bad I would have jumped right on it. Nothing cleanses the palate of a bad movie like vomiting the dark bile of your bitter soul all over it. No, the fact is this is the worst kind of movie for me to review in that it was so middle of the road mundane.
We are in a bit of a dry spell for movies at the moment. I just did Evil Dead (awesome) and already have my tickets for Iron Man 3, but as I look at Fandango I don’t see much I haven’t already seen or have any interest in. This weekend should be better with 42 and Scary Movie 5, both of which I am looking forward to, but right now I am having to grind through second stringers like this one.
OK, here it is. I am a fan of Tina Fey, and as such expected a clever, intelligent, and above all funny story. This film had the intelligence covered and was clever in that horrible New Yorker Magazine sort of way, but honestly while I have to acknowledge that sort of humor is technically funny (“the best kind of funny”) it just doesn’t get me laughing. Tina Fey on 30 Rock is really funny. Tina Fey as an actor in a character study film (which is precisely what this movie is) is entertaining-ish, but just not engaging.
I also don’t really give a damn about the admissions process of a school so uptight and pretentious it would be a pleasure to punch it collectively in the face. Sorry if you went to Princeton and think that having that special piece of paper adds value to your life but most of America would struggle to care less. (Collage image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirt category)
Let’s get this over with. Tina Fey (30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, Mean Girls) plays Portia, an admissions officer at Princeton. It is established early on that Princeton is the hardest school to get into ever and rejects like 99.99% of its applicants. Her life is dull and mundane, with a lame live in boyfriend (Michael Sheen-Midnight in Paris, Frost/Nixon, Underworld)) and is the most boring couple ever. Anyway, as part of her job she has to run around to high schools encouraging students to apply. While traveling around she goes to a new hippy school where she meets the principal John (Paul Rudd-Role Models, the 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up). He is eager for her to meet one of his students (Nat Wolff-New Years Eve, Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, Stuck in Love) who is something of a prodigy. He suspects the kid is Portia’s son given up for adoption. He tells her this and it kind of rocks her world. She heads home to find out her boyfriend is leaving her for a bitchy blond (Sonya Walger-All the Kings Men, Flash Forward, the Mind of the Married Man). She has a freak out session but eventually decides to do whatever she can to get her kid into Princeton. This puts her at odds with her boss Clarance (Wallace Shawn-The Princess Bride, Toy Story, Eureka) and a coworker Corinne (Gloria Reuben-Nick of Time, Timecop, Lincoln).
She goes through the process while trying to bond with the kid and dealing with her schools arduous admissions process. Meanwhile romance blooms between her and John while her mother (Lily Tomlin-I Heart Huckabees, the Magic School Bus, 9 to 5) does whatever she can to estrange their relationship. Drama and character development unfold, and the ending honestly surprised me a little by being not what I expected.
The Stars:
Tina Fey was indeed good if not what I expected. She can actually act. One star. The rest of the cast was also very good. One star. The ending wasn’t the usual Hollywood pap. One star. There was a funny trap door plot mechanic for the actual admissions process I found entertaining. One star. A reasonably complex and intelligent story. One star. Total: five stars.
The Black Holes:
As complex as the story was, there was a kind of weird predictability to it. Even the surprises didn’t really come as a surprise. One black hole. Like I said before, the intricacies of college admissions don’t really hold my interest and therefore the film seemed to drag quite a bit. One black hole. I’m not going to ding this film for not being as funny as I expected as that is on me. In truth by this time I should know not to expect anything. That’s the first step to disappointment. Expecting a comedy and getting a drama is my misinterpretation of the trailers. I really should only expect a film to not physically injure me, and therefore will only be disappointed once in a while. Total: two black holes.
So three stars total. Kind of a mundane score, but it’s honestly kind of a mundane movie. If it weren’t for the sets and cast this would be a Lifetime made for TV movie. If you are bored as hell and looking for something to do it won’t be a total waste of your time. Nothing will be lost if you wait for Netfilx. Date movie? Sure, why not? However, while this film will not hurt I don’t know if it will help you in your quest to see your date naked. Bathroom break? Towards the end there is a really long montage sequence of the admissions committee going over each student in turn and either accepting or rejecting them that kind of beats the point (we are dicks and are looking for the slightest reason to drop you) home for an extended period of time.
Thanks for reading. I am very hopeful for this weekends movies (again, mistake number one) so check back in a couple days. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.com. Comments on this movie or my review can be left here at the bottom. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
