Johnny English Reborn Review
Comedy through repetition.
This movie was something of a landmark for me, in that this is the first movie I have seen in years (and most definitely since I started doing these reviews) wherein I can pinpoint the exact moment it officially started to suck. Most movies either start off sucking, like walking into a boring political theory lecture where the professor insist on calling everyone Mr. or Ms. So and So, or they start off looking like something almost decent but the suckage steadily builds pressure like an impending bowel movement at a giant swap meet where the only toilets are Porto-Potties that haven’t seen a cleaning hose in many a moon. You keep trying to deny the need to express the suckage, but eventually you have to bite the bullet and admit that what you have been watching for the last 45 minutes has been total garbage.
No, this movie picked an exact moment to shift from stupid/funny to just plain old stupid. In case you were wondering, it’s when Johnny English is flying a helicopter to get a dying man to a hospital and decides the best way is to follow the road. At a height of two feet. Until then it was definitely dumb, but dumb in a funny way. After that the funny was smothered by the pillow of stupidity.
That’s kind of a lot of analogies for two paragraphs, but it has been that kind of day. Anyway, Johnny English Reborn. Yes, it is a sequel and no, I did not see the first one. Does that make me unqualified to review the sequel? Probably. However, unless the first one was the Citizen Kane of physical comedies, I am pretty sure I got the gist of what this character is about. He’s a cocktail made with equal parts James Bond, Jacues Cousteau, and Austin Powers filtered through a dog hair colander and left underground for a few months to ferment into comedy kim chee. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so.
Anyway, between the last movie and this one Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson – Mr. Bean, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Johnny English, the Lion King) was disgraced in Mozambique for letting the new president get assassinated. He has spent the last five years living with Tibetan monks learning how to get kicked in the balls. For no reason whatsoever a former CIA operative has some kind of top secret information and says he will only give it to Johnny, in spite of the fact that they both act like they never met each other. Johnny gets pulled back into MI7 (which is now partnered up with Toshiba, a running gag that probably looked a lot funnier on paper) by a long lost dream woman of mine, Gillian Anderson (Scully was in many ways the perfect woman. Hot, super smart, red headed, carried a gun, and used handcuffs. What more could a guy ask for?). He is partnered up with Tucker, a young agent (Daniel Kaluuya. His filmography feels a bit on the sparse side), who goes with them to meet the CIA guy. A Chinese sexagenarian hit/cleaning woman (Pik Sen Lim, and the only character who I consistently liked) with a killer vacuum kills his contact, but Johnny learns of a secret team of assassins called Vortex, who are out to kill the Chinese Prime Minister. Johnny gets one of the three key parts absolutely needed for Vortex to accomplish their goal but loses it in a bumbling scene that would embarrass Cousteau.
Anyway, he gets in trouble. More assassins are uncovered. He goes through a really long and drawn out chase scene in a powered wheelchair through London. A super hot blond falls in love with him for no apparent reason. Some not really funny running gags get beaten into the ground until you literally want to gag. More Austinteaubondian hijinks ensue. The plot twists feel more like gentle bends on a freeway, and are in almost all circumstances facilitated by the general stupidity of not just English but the entire cast.
The stars. There were some funny moments, especially some of the physical comedy. That is one thing Rowan Atkinson can really do. One star. Gillian Anderson. One star. The Chinese cleaning woman/assassin was funny. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. The biggest problem is the movie couldn’t decide if it was a comedy action spy movie or an action spy movie with comedy elements. The story and plot were too serious to be a good vehicle for slapstick, and the slapstick was too over the top to allow you to take the story seriously. One black hole. Rated PG, not even PG13. At this point I don’t think PG13 has ever hurt a movies’ gross. Put a curse word in there somewhere. One star. Beating multiple dead horses. One black hole. Not even an attempt to make the movie remotely smart or clever. I expect more from movies that feature British accents. One black hole. All the characters were hand picked from the shelves of Stereotypes-R-Us. One black hole. At the end of this comedy, I just didn’t find it very funny. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of three black holes. Look, it’s pretty obvious what happened here. The first Johnny English bombed horribly here in the US, but did phenomenally well overseas. Rowen Atkinsons physical comedy translates well, and we see a lot of it here, including a one-hand-against-the-other fight scene lifted almost frame for frame from the Evil Dead 2 (Ash image courtesy of the horror movie t shirts). I don’t think the producers of this film expect to have lightning strike so much as they are going to milk the international cow. This sort of thing makes money, I guess. It just seems that if you are going to go to the effort of making a film that you plan to release in the US anyway, why not put some effort into it and make it work here too?
I’d say don’t see this film until it shows up on NetFlix streaming, and at that point smoke a lot of pot while watching it. It won’t hurt your brain. If you have kids the PG rating makes it very appropriate, and it is funny enough and entertaining enough to keep mom and dad from clawing out their eyes while watching. Otherwise let’s just throw it on the pile.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I have no idea what’s coming up this weekend. I think I will do another Star Trek retrospective tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Ides of March Movie Review
All the elements of a great movie except a plot.
This is a good movie in many regards. Acting was great from everyone, dialog was quick, clever, and well delivered, and the pacing appropriate for a movie based on a relatively sluggish subject, election primaries. However, the plot, which started off relatively strong, gets mired in betrayal, twists that seem more like shock paddles for a cardiac victim than legitimate story moving points, and a mounting sense that in spite of good, popular actors and well developed characters you are going to end the movie liking none of them. The movie ends with the feeling that, in spite of a bunch of stuff being resolved, nothing is resolved. The overall movie felt like I was trying to catch bubbles.
The story. Ryan Gosling (Drive, Lars and the Real Girl, Half-Nelson) plays Stephen Meyers, a campaign manager for the front runner in the Democratic primary, Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, Oceon’s Eleven, Up in the Air, the Peacemaker), a charismatic, passionate liberal like most Democrats wish Obama could be. His boss is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Big Lebowski, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, Moneyball), veteran campaigner who knows all the ins and outs of Washington. Morris’s rival is Pullman, whom we never really see. Who we do interact with is Pullman’s campaign manager Tom Duffy (Played by the great Paul Giamatti, whom I have heard several times interviewed on the Howard Stern Show. Good interview IMO. Saving Private Ryan, Sideways, Cinderella Man), another ruthless campaign manager. 
They are aided by hot young intern Mollie (Evan Rachel Wood, the Wrestler, True Blood, and a bunch of small stuff. True Blood image from the horror movie t-shirts) who shows up on screen with a huge blinking neon sign saying “Trouble” as far as I was concerned.
Anyway, Morris is in the lead but there are a number of issues that could derail his campaign. Meyers makes the mistake of meeting with Duffy in a move that Paul will see as a betrayal. Meanwhile, he hooks up with Mollie in what looks like the easiest seduction of all time (God it must be easy for guys who look like Ryan Gosling. If you look like that I hope you get your face caught in a tree shredder at some point and get to see what life is like for the rest of us). Anyway, that is kind of where the plot starts to fall apart. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but some kind of obvious stuff goes on. Turns out everyone betrays everyone and, while appearing to be moral good guys, are all kind of bastards. Somehow the Republicans never surface in any significant way, making the overriding campaign feel as good as watching two brothers beat the hell out of each other. The movie ends without ever really giving the audience something tangible to grab on to.
There are two other problems plaguing this film in my opinion. One is that no one really cares about primaries, especially for fictional candidates that have no apparent commonality with any of the actual candidates. The in fighting between men who theoretically should be allies is annoying and frustrating, and that’s in real life. Had this movie actually been during the real election between the Republican and Democratic candidates than I think the audience might have cared more. As it is the whole movie had the same impact I would have watching two candidates for Homecoming Queen back stab and connive against each other as they campaign.
The other problem compounds the first one and that is a lack of passion from any of the characters. I thought Ryan Gosling was playing a deadpan robot in Drive as a plot device, but it turns out that all he is capable of delivering. He doesn’t show any emotion in pretty much the entire movie, even when presented with situations wherein a normal person would (getting betrayed and fired, having someone close to you die, etc). This deadpan delivery spreads out from him and infects pretty much every other actor in the film, except for the young intern Mollie. Paul Giamotti is great when he is yelling and screaming at people, but never gets the chance. Hoffman gives a long speech about loyalty and betrayal to Gosling before firing him and he could have been discussing which pet groomer he brings his dog to for all the emotion he had. I actually lay this firmly at the feet of director George Clooney. He gets his actors to sink their teeth into the dialog in a very real delivery, but then doesn’t let them show anything when spitting it back out. Might be a reflection of his own acting style, which tends towards the dry.
Anyway, the stars. Excellent casting and acting, except for the emotionless stuff. Two stars. Great dialog. One star. I don’t know if the term to use is really character development, as there was less development and more just revealing previously hidden aspects of each characters personality, but a decent arc and character development. One star. Pacing and camera work were good. One star. Paul Giamotti. One star. George Clooney did manage to deliver a great performance as a presidential candidate. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The plot got stuck in the mud halfway through the film and stayed there. Two black holes. Dry, emotionless acting from most everyone. One black hole. There was never a reason given for the audience to really care about anything that was going on. One black hole. By the end of the movie every character seemed like a different kind of bastard and I liked none of them. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of two stars, kind of a middle of the road score and about what I left the theater feeling. If you like political drama, George Clooney, or Ryan Gosling go see it (although, as my friend who was with me was quick to point out, no bare chested Gosling scenes). If you are looking for something exciting or well developed, give it a pass. Not a great date film in my opinion, as it might end up seeming really dry. There is absolutely nothing visually motivating you to see it on a big screen, so I think it totally doable on NetFlix.
That’s it for now. New stuff coming out soon, but unfortunately (for me) it mostly looks like crap. I’m working on a new list that I will put out tomorrow that I think is pretty funny. Follow me on Twitter. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Top 10 Nerd Movies of all Time
Sort of. You see, when someone says top 10 nerd movies of all times, it always devolves directly into the Lord of the Rings, Batman Returns, and Empire Strikes Back. However, those types of lists are so pedestrian and have been done to death. Instead, I want to do the top 10 movies with nerds in them. Specifically, nerds who act as I have known nerds in real life and who end up kicking ass.
The thing is I am going to try to avoid movies that paint nerds as charactertures of nerds. When I first suggested this topic last night a friend of mine said “Oh, you mean like Revenge of the Nerds.” No. Movies like that (or Napoleon Dynamite) are designed to make fun of nerds and their nerdishness, while instilling a bit of feel good when the geeky underdog wins in the end over the moronic jocks. I actually don’t like that, as all it really does is reinforce the negative stereotypes that I and my nerd friends have been laboring under for years. Even movies that I really enjoy like Weird Science manage to paint nerds as total geeks who eventually get a lucky break. I don’t want to add to the problem.
So what I am focused on are movies that feature nerds who are in no way apologetic or ashamed of being a nerd, and use their nerd skills to advance themselves and their agenda. I like to see this as a little window into a perfect world where nerds rule everything and the jocks all dig ditches for a living.
10. Shawn of the Dead. Honestly, this one almost didn’t make my list, as an argument could be made that Shaun doesn’t really qualify as a nerd in the true sense of the word. He has a cute girlfriend, doesn’t really work with computers or technology other than to sell it, and starts the movie without a clue how to fight zombies. However, he is an avid video game player, and manages to survive a zombie apocalypse, so I think I will include it, albeit at the very bottom of my list. Of course, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are among the biggest nerds on the planet, so anything they do is worth consideration. (image courtesy of the horror movie t shirts category)
9. Office Space. Revenge of the cubical gnomes. Yes, the main characters in this film are nerds in every sense of the term, and while they fail miserably at least attempt to use some nerd skills to stick it to the man. Also, did I ever mention I have had a huge crush on Jeniffer Aniston for years?
8. Spiderman. Yes, Peter Parker is a super nerd. Geeky, glasses, into science. What more could be asked for? I almost stuck Superman in here as well, but realized that Clark Kent is actually Superman pretending to be a nerd to hide his identity, while Peter Parker is a nerd who gained super powers.
7. Ghostbusters. These guys are nerds, especially Egon Spengler, and don’t care who knows it. Also, the amount of geek credibility this movie gets for not only casting the great Sigourney Weaver as the love interest but also showing us one of the best thigh shots in nerd movie history is astronomical. By the way, if you ever are looking for a definition of nerdy/sexy, just take a look at Annie Potts as the receptionist in this film.
6. Darkman. Yes, there are those who say this movie sucks, but I beg to differ. Liam Neeson as Peter Westlake is a total nerd. Besides, which of us nerds has never dreamed of being a scientist and having a horrible accident give us both super powers and a thirst for revenge? Hell, when I got my laser eye treatment I was praying for a freak accident that would give me the ability to shoot lasers OUT of my eyes.
5. the Matrix. Neo is a computer hacking nerd, in spite of looking like he works at Abercrombie and Fitch. One of the issues I have with the second and third Matrix (among several dozen) is the fact that they kind of drop the idea of him as an obsessed computer nerd and just make him into a cheesy pretty boy action hero.
4. the Incredibles. Yes, my favorite Pixar movie (Steve Jobs, thank you). You might think there is no nerd in this one, as Mr. and Mrs. Incrdible are pretty cool, at least at the start of the movie. However, you are forgetting the biggest nerd out there, Syndrome (formally known as Buddy). He is a complete and utter scientist nerd and could not care less if you thought so. He gets rejected in a way all nerds my age remember having happen as a kid and uses his brain to get his revenge. Awesome.
3. Back to the Future. Dr. Emmet Brown was a complete nerd who was willing to go toe to toe with terrorists in order to advance his science. Also, Marty McFly was pretty geeky too. Of course, a real geek would understand how the Butterfly Effect would make it almost impossible for Marty to mess around in the past and still exist. Even a slight altering of his parents time line would most like cause one of the other several million sperm cells to fertilize his mom’s egg, giving him a completely different genetic structure. But I digress.
2. Real Genius. Nerds doing what nerds do in the best way possible. This movie rules, and if you haven’t seen it stream it tonight to increase your nerd credibility. These guys had nothing to apologize for, and used their brains to totally screw with people. The only issue I had was the idea of a super hot woman who’s only goal in life was to sleep with the 10 smartest men on the planet. If women actually exist who are attracted to intellect rather than looks and/or money please point them in my direction. I have yet to meet one.
1. Wargames. David Lightman is an early hacker computer nerd who totally screwed with the defense department and almost blew up the world. What else can a true nerd dream of? Except for the underwear in his room he made no apologies for his lifestyle and managed to outsmart any number of jockish military types. This movie was the first one to really show what a true nerd is potentially capable of, and since I was starting high school that year I could have only wished that my so called peers might have picked up a warning from it. Unfortunately, their limited intellect prevented them from understanding the dangers of messing with someone with a superior intellect. Savor the irony with me for a moment.
Anyway, that’s my list. I had a bunch that almost made it, but I feel good about this. Feel free to disagree or point out any movies I might have missed by commenting here or via Twitter @NerdKungFu. You can follow me too if you like.
I’m kind of dreading this weekend, as the first movie I will probably have to see will be Footloose and I’m viewing that with all the anticipation of a root canal. No movies tomorrow as Thursday is my regular Warhammer night. If you like my writing I have been doing more descriptions on the commercial site, so check out some of the ones on the home page. Most of them are pretty funny, in my opinion. Thanks for reading, and have a great night.
Dave
Movie Review: Don’t be Afraid of the Dark
Kind of a surprising week. I thought I was going to love Colombiana and was really disappointed. I kind of thought this was going to be yet another dumb ass horror movie and loved it.
Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is, in my less than humble opinion, the best horror movie this year. It is super creepy, the terror builds up over time, and you honestly care about the characters and are worried about what is going to happen to them. Best of all, it does not at all rely on slasher gore or body count. There is actually very little death, and yet somehow it comes across as more horrible than some maniac running across town with a chainsaw.
This actually got me thinking quite a bit about horror and why movies like this work so well when every teenage slasher film leaves me bored (Texas Chainsaw Massacre image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category). Some good examples of movies low body count thinking horror would be the Shining and the Ring. I think it is several levels. First of all, when we are introduced to 10 different teenyboppers who are all destined to die on the edge of a machete we can never really develop any kind of connection with them. The movie starts off with us knowing that most of them are going to die in ridiculous ways and the only thing we do is try to figure out which of them is going to survive (typically the hottish, nerd girl. See, ladies? There are serious advantages to being a girl nerd. Join us on the nerd side). In a movie where we are only given a couple of characters and have to interact with them throughout the film, especially when one of them is an innocent and troubled child or equally sympathetic character, we the audience really start to care and worry about them. I was on the edge of my seat hoping the little girl in this film made it out OK.
The other thing that makes films like this work my personal theory of concept horror verses hind brain horror. A maniac running around killing people with a glove full of knives is more of a hind brain, adrenalin rush film that is designed to trigger your fight-or-flight response. The problem is you get desensitized to it pretty quick. The spiky adrenalin rush you feel from Freddy’s first kill fades to almost boredom by the tenth, and then if you see the next sequel in turn (or even another slasher film) you are more or less over the whole idea and at that point you are more into seeing what kind of creative ways the director can come up with for the next kill. In most cases it devolves into almost comedy. In a concept horror film, the director lets your own imagination terrify you. We are always better at scaring ourselves when given the chance. As a child I was absolutely convinced there was a crocodile living on the floor of my room at night and he would bite off any part of my body I dared stick beyond the edge of my bed (my parents had him relocated to a zoo as my eleventh birthday present. Thanks, mom and dad). That is real horror. In films like this the story presents you with a creepy situation and then lets your imagination run with it. What are those monsters? What do they really want? What are they going to do with that girl? Your brain keeps feeding you worse and worse scenarios.
Not that this movie doesn’t have it’s problems. For one thing, the main bulk of the story we have all seen before. A lonely and troubled child in a huge, creepy mansion is beset by supernatural terrors while her parents remain blithely and almost willfully ignorant. Another thing is the creatures, who start off terrifying and mysterious, get more and more exposed as the film progresses and take on a comedic aspect. Fortunately by that time your connection with the young girl and the two adults is strong enough to carry through. Not even sure they could have avoided that, as they had to show them sometime. Finally, while I was extremely sympathetic and liked the little girl a lot, she was dumber than a sack of hammers. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I can’t think there was ever an age where I was dumb enough to stick my head into a dark culvert in a super creepy basement just because some evil sounding voice told me to. Of course my childhood is no barometer for average children’s behavior, but still.
Anyway, the move. A very young Sally (played brilliantly by Bailee Madison. Where do these great child actors keep coming from? I predict impressive things from this young lady coming up) is being sent off by her more or less negligent party mother to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce, the Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential, Momento) and his girlfriend Kim (played by Scientology weirdo Katie Holmes. You know, I always thought she would have a more impressive film biography, but except for Batman Begins and Dawsons Creek she has been in nothing but crap. Oh, wait. Thank you for Smoking was pretty good too) in their super creepy fixer-upper mansion. Sorry, but if some real estate agent shows you a house and the front door is carved to look like a giant Japanese Manga squid monster attacking, punch him in the face and then try to run him over in your car as you leave. This place made the House on Haunting Hill look like Peewee’s Playhouse (also kind of creepy, but for other reasons). Anyway, Alex is some kind of architect who is down on his luck and has invested every dime in restoring this old house in an attempt to get it on the cover of Architectural Digest. We are never told why his career tanked or how this magazine cover will save it and, to be honest, it kind of bugged me. Kim is his interior decorator/live in girlfriend who is trying to form an attachment with Sally, who really wants nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, you hear creepy voices and see the green glowing eyes of dozens of rat sized creatures in a metal grate in the even creepier basement. They convince Sally to open the grate. They are afraid of bright light, so we are treated to all kinds of cool lighting for effect shots. They want to kidnap and probably kill Sally. The entire rest of the film is them stalking Sally while her dad and Kim believe she is having some kind of mental breakdown. Honestly, there isn’t much more I want to tell you about the story, as it would be quite the spoiler and I think you should all see this.
The stars. Super, duper, awesomely terrifying and creepy. Three stars. Amazing camera and lighting effects. Two stars. Bailee Madison was freaking awesome. Two stars. The creatures, once you saw them, were really cool and creepy with good CGI. One star. A horror movie that relies on story and great camera work rather than body count to make the horror happen. One star. The set was really well done also. One star. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes were both pretty good. One star. A rated R movie that didn’t need gore and/or nudity (although I was hopeful). One star. Great ending with a cool twist. One star. Two more stars for a great movie experience. Total: fifteen stars.
The black holes. Sally’s bad decision making process kind of bummed me out. One black hole. The fact that we never find out why Alex is in such desperate straits with regards to his career when it is such a critical plot point that they remain in Creepy Mansion was annoying. One black hole. We also never find out what was up with party mom, which was also a key plot point. One black hole. Alex’s inability to listen to the serious needs of his child (even if she were imagining the creatures and they weren’t really alive, this is some serious crap any responsible parent would have to at least pay attention to her) really made me lose most of my sympathy for him. One black hole. There was a definite moment where any rational person would have bugged the hell out and set fire to the place as they left, but they didn’t. One black hole. Too much exposure to the creatures made them lose a lot of their menace towards the end. One black hole. Total: six black hole.
In the irksome category I will say this film is extremely derivative of a bunch of other films, particularly the Shining. This doesn’t get a black hole because it is an extremely good derivative and, honestly, there are so many movies out these days that it is nigh impossible to come out with something that doesn’t smack of something else.
A grand total of nine stars, a great score and at least 4-5 higher than I would have thought it would get when I was waiting on line to get my popcorn. I highly recommend you all see it if you are looking for a thrill. This, by the way, is a great date film in that it is not a slasher, has a very sympathetic little girl, and if your date isn’t clutching your arm and/or climbing into your lap by the end of it I would check her afterward to make sure her robot batteries are fully charged.
By the way, follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Fun!
Movie review: Dylan Dog, Dead of the Night
So I am doing this review by request from my best friend Dave (yes, my best friend is ALSO named Dave. He does exist, and just because none of my other friends have ever met him or can tell you what he looks like in no way implies that I made up an imaginary friend and gave him the same name in some kind of schizophrenic ego boost. By the way, Dave is watching you right now and thinks that t-shirt you are wearing is pretty cool). He has been reading the Dylan Dog comic for years and tells me it is both bloody and chock full of gratuitous nudity. It is written Tiziano Sclavi in Italy. He says it is great, and wanted to get my opinion of the film.
Actually, I can’t help but feel like the lab monkey on this one, or the kid the other kids get to eat something first. However, I have been looking for a bad movie to review for a while and, to be honest, was usually the first one to try something as a kid, so I don’t mind. In fact, if you have a movie you would like to see a review from feel free to post a response to any of my review or send me an email at [email protected] or send me a message on Twitter and I will see what I can do.
Also, I don’t know if this is at all significant, but in addition to Italy and USA Dylan Dog is published in Croatia, Serbia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Turkey. I’m kind of at a loss as to what kind of observation I can make based on that list, but somehow it seems more than a little weird.
Anyway, Dylan Dog the movie. Honestly, I am a little repulsed by movies like this not because it’s particularly bad or good but because it is so bland. I mean, it definitely sucks on many levels, but it doesn’t suck enough to make it really fun and interesting. I think the best way to describe it is confused. It can’t really decide what it is. Is it a monster hunting Buffy the Vampire slayer flick or a true horror movie? One minute you are seeing some really decent (given the budget they probably were working with) CGI werewolf transformation and in the next seeing a guy in a rubber suit that looks like it escaped from the set of Creature from the Black Lagoon. Are vampires and werewolves faster and more powerful than mortals, or can an ordinary human kill mass numbers of them with impunity? 
Are zombies creatures of horror, or are they cheesy comedy relief? Are vampires sexy creatures of the night (Twilight sucks) or are they primitive, savage killers? It is all so disjointed. However, from what I have seen I can’t really blame the comic. These issues I lay firmly at the feet of the director and producers.
(Lugio Fulci Zombie image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category)
SPOILER ALERT! I don’t really expect many of you to see this film, so I am going to let myself go nuts on the story details. If you plan to see this film and feel that me telling you the ending might detract from the subtle nuances of the film maybe you should skip to the final two paragraphs of this review. I don’t think I will be annoying many people.
Anyway, the story. Honestly, if you have ever read any of the Dresden Files than you pretty much know the story already (Dylan even drives an old Volkswagon), although Dylan Dog preceded Jim Butchers novels by about 10 years, so I guess it’s possible Butcher borrowed from Dylan. Dylan is a private investigator that used to specialize in the paranormal, although he claims to be retired and now does divorce investigations. A hot chick with a really annoying Scandinavian accent hires him to investigate the death of her father, who was killed by a werewolf. He refuses, but agrees after his best friend (who managed to deliver a homoerotic undercurrent with Dylan) is also killed (for no reason that makes sense to me) and comes back as a zombie. Zombies in this movie are not mindless, soulless flesh eaters. Instead they are relatively normal with their intellects intact, except for the fact that they keep rotting and have to eat worms, grubs, and hot dogs (actually that made me laugh). They are also pretty much the comic relief of the film, with a market selling replacement body parts and so on.
Dylan also used to be the mortal intermediary between vampires and werewolves, which is how he got into this business. He lost his job when he went nuts and killed a bunch of older vampires with wooden bullets (?? Honestly, wood does not sound like it makes the most accurate projectile, and the human heart is about the size of your fist. If you have ever been to a gun range you know how hard it is to hit on a paper target that isn’t moving, but somehow Dylan manages to hit every vampire he shoots at in the movie in the heart with surgical precision). After his friend gets killed he takes the case. The movie kind of gets confusing at that point. The dad at one point had a silver cross that could summon some big bad ass monster and everyone wants it. The vampires seem to get the bad guys, but they tend to look a lot like the werewolves, and somehow they have a giant zombie working for them who also looks like a werewolf. Undead action hijinx ensues (sort of). Some civilians are killed, including two cops, but no one seems to care. At the end the girl who hired Dylan turns out to be from a family of monster hunters and wants to summon the big monster herself. The monster is summoned and then more or less stupidly kills himself (it was established multiple times that the only way to kill the big bad would be to kill the person who summoned him. Why then would he take the girl who summoned him and toss her across the room, then leave to let the werewolves literally eat her). Dylan really has nothing to do with the ending and could probably have stayed home and not gotten an ass beating.
First the stars. Comic book movie. One star. Zombies. One star. Vampires that burst into flame in the sunlight, not sparkle (Twilight sucks). One star. Some episodes of decent CGI. One star. There is good chemistry between Dylan and his zombie sidekick that wanders aimlessly into the entertaining zone. One star. Total: five stars.
Now for the sweet, suc(k)culent black holes. Throughout the movie Dylan Dog does a detective noir voice over monolog that made me want to run upstairs and murder the projectionist. One black hole. The acting from all characters except for the zombie comedy relief dismally sucked. One black hole. Dylan Dog, in spite of trying to appear a grizzled private dick, looked and sounded like the really annoying version of Superman (not a coincidence, as Brandon Routh played Superman in the last film). One black hole. The directer couldn’t find a tone for his movie (Horror? Comedy? Grindhouse? Detective film? Two part Buffy episode?). Two black holes. The film really bent time and space in order to maintain that PG-13 rating. No real gore, and absolutely no nudity in spite of the source content. I swear they might have gotten a PG rating if they tried. The movie felt like the vampire version of the Goonies. One black hole. There was no appeal for the protagonist or his romantic interest. The only character worth watching was the zombie sidekick. One black hole. The movie established early on that Dylan would suffer no consequences from the bad stuff by falling off a second floor and landing on a table only to jump up to fight, making the action painfully boring. I found myself struggling to stay awake during some of the action sequences. One black hole. The boss monster, while kind of cool looking, was really dumb in letting his mortal connection die easy. One black hole. In spite of having the strength of 10 men and otherwise being superhuman, the vampires seem to die in droves at the hands of humans. One black hole. In spite of the clues spoon fed to us by the Dylan Dog monolog the story was pretty confusing. One black hole. The “hot girl” was not that hot, seemed to have issues showing anything more than a shoulder blade, and had an annoying accent. One black hole. The makeup for the werewolves is really amateurish. I have seen better on YouTube videos. One black hole. Total: 13 black holes.
So a grand total of eight black holes, which is kind of worse than I thought it was going to end up with. It seems to suffer from the director wanting to cram about five years worth of comics into one movie. I don’t think it is in real danger of turning into a cult movie. That being said, a decent evening could be had with beer and pizza watching it online.
It might be pretty obvious to most savvy readers, but I am kind of new to the whole internet promotion thing and social media. I probably should have been putting this into my blogs months ago, but you can follow me on Twitter at @nerdkungfu. My Facebook page is pretty pathetic, so I will forgo posting it here, but you can find me if you look hard enough. I’m headed to a weekend Warhammer tournament and probably won’t post anything until Sunday night, but will be updating things on Twitter. Thanks everyone for reading this and your support.
Movie Review: The Green Hornet
OK, I admit I have been holding back on seeing this movie because I was hoping to bring a certain girl with me. Last night it happened and we had fun, although I don’t know where the whole dating thing is going, so I will have to see. I am sure one way or another it will turn into a future blog post for you folks. I do like the girl a lot so I am very hopeful.
So I saw the Green Hornet last night in 3D. I normally would have not seen it so as 3D often gives me a headache, but I wanted to see this movie at it’s best potential in hopes that the 3D effect would greatly enhance the experience. Sadly, it did not. The movie is, honestly, no better for being in 3D and truly the 3D effects are not really all that great. I think the producers just went with brand X of 3D rather than the premium brand. It looks like it was filmed in 2D and had 3D added in post production.
Anyway, the synopsis. Seth Rogan loses about 80 pounds to play Britt Reid, the spoiled decadent son of a rich newspaper owner. His father, in the about 30 seconds he was alive and on the screen, is a controlling, abusive jerk who somehow is still cool with funding Britt’s extravagant hedonistic lifestyle instead of cutting him off and making him work for a living like a responsible parent would. His two interactions with Britt mostly involve telling him what a loser and disappointment he is. He dies, Britt inherits everything, and Britt meets Kato (Jay Chao), his father’s mechanic and apparent martial arts expert. They accidentally rescue some couple from trouble, decide to become superheros while pretending to be villains (???), Britt takes over his father’s empire Beverly Hillbillies style, they run across the world worst criminal kingpin (the great Christopher Waltz, from Inglorius Bastards, and the only character in the movie I remotely liked), and chaos ensues. Guns, explosions, car chases, and every attempt to make the LAPD look like complete morons follow course (I guess Seth Rogans years of ducking the police while trying to score pot played a hand in the script writing). Cameron Diaz shows up in a completely unnecessary role as the super hot temp worker (how many of those do we run into every day?) who happens to have degrees in Journalism and Criminal Justice and plays yet another comic relief character.
I say another comic relief character but the fact is they were all comic relief characters. What this movie needed was an action relief character. Honestly, the super hero in a comic movie should not be the funny one. His side kick should be. Instead, Britt was a moron throughout the film showing no ability in any regard to actually be a hero other than having a capable assistant and being freakishly lucky. His main plan sucked like Hitler’s to invade Russia, and all his lesser plans sucked too. Kato was supposed to be the straight man, I guess, but he couldn’t help but be funny as well. Cameron Diaz was eye candy if you are into waifish blond women and was funny too. Even the villain, who started out kind of serious, got to be a joke by the end when he decided the thing to do to fight a super hero was to become some kind of campy super villain. Enough with the humor. Is it so much to ask that super hero movies at some level take the story at all seriously? I found myself not rooting for anyone in the movie. I didn’t want to see the Green Hornet fail and die, but honestly couldn’t be bothered to care if he lived and succeeded.
Lets do the stars. Super hero movie. One star. The Green Hornets car is truly amazing and bad ass, even without the machine guns and stuff. Two stars. They shot some of Kato’s fight scenes using a cool “inside his mind’s eye” technique that was pretty neat. One star. While the story kind of sucked, most of the dialogue was pretty good. One star. In spite of wanting an action movie there were scenes and dialogue that made me laugh out loud. One star. They didn’t try to baby up the story by having the heroes operate under the burden of never killing anyone. One star. Cameron Diaz was pretty hot. One star. The fight choreography was decent, and they paid tribute to Bruce Lee by having Kato repeat the famous “One Inch Punch.” One star. Cinematography, sets, props, and special effects were all at least good. One star. Total: 10 stars.
Now the black holes. There was no understanding of any single characters motivation at any level. Britt had no real compulsion to become a super hero. Kato didn’t need to be his sidekick. The villain did all kinds of things that made no sense. Two black holes. The story had gaping holes in the plot you could drive a Mack truck through. One black hole. The 3D was mediocre and added nothing to the movie. One black hole. The characters were yucking it up for laughs the whole time. One black hole. The “hero” was a spoiled little moron with all the abilities of a hydroponically grown hemp plant. One black hole. The whole script was trying to seamlessly merge Batman Returns with the Three Stooges meet Frankenstein. One black hole. About half the action strained my suspension of disbelief so much I think it gave it a double hernia. One black hole. Total: 9 black holes.
So a net of one star. Overall I’d say the movie was stupidly entertaining, but only if you don’t expect to get much from it. You and your life will not in any way be enhanced for having seen it, so if you have two hours and a few excess brain cells to kill go for it. Otherwise go see the other color/animal movie out there, Black Swan.
As for last posts who-would-win question, prom superstar Carrie versus super hot teen queen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I am going to have to go with Buffy. While Carrie has great abilities and an awesome dress, the fact is Buffy has beaten any number of villains with similar or greater powers. Sorry, Carrie (image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category).
As long as I am in the mode of girl on girl fights, I present the question of who would win, Buffy the Vampire Slayer versus Xena, Warrior Princess?
Nerd Dating: Spotting crazy girls early pt 5
OK, I’ve reached the point in this series that it might have been easier to just list the ways you can spot non-crazy girls (I hesitate to use the word “sane” in this circumstances) but it seems you have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding that extremely rare creature. What this really is is how to spot girls crazy enough to severely complicate your life and/or cause you physical harm. The ones who will only cause you emotional pain I consider entirely datable. All things in life are relative. Here are a few more spotting tips.
16. Excessive tattoos and piercings. Personally I actually find it really these really attractive, but that is my own cross to bear. I also had a thing for my own piercings back in the day, but I think when I first started this whole dating advice blog I mentioned that I personally make a lousy boyfriend, so take that for what you will. Women (and men) who feel the need for multiple visible piercings and tattoos tend to have all kinds of “Pay attention to me” issues. I kind of see 
them as showing different symptoms of the same mental issues that strippers suffer from.
(Pinhead says “Pay attention to me as we tear your soul apart”. Image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category)
17. Excessive cosmetic surgery, makeup, and elaborate hair styles. Another train wreck. Women who go for this sort of thing have massive self esteem issues. Again, you have to look for the excessive. A girl who has a mole removed or a bad scar worked on is not excessive. Nose, lips, and eyelids really is. A girl who gets a breast enhancement to make her body more proportional I don’t consider excessive. A girl who gets a breast enhancement so big that comparisons to sporting utensils bigger than a billiards ball become functional is excessive (think _____ball-sized). A perm is not excessive. A blowout that takes an hour or more every morning is. Also, watch out for women with excessively trimmed eyebrows. If it looks like her eyebrows were drawn on with a pencil stay away. This goes triple for girls who have their eyebrows plucked out and replaced by tattoos in their place.
18. Does she talk about her private grooming practices early on? Girls who feel the need to tell you exactly when and what kind of bikini wax she got are fishing around to see if they can get a reaction from you in order to better mess with your mind. There is also a very good chance she feels you aren’t paying enough attention to her, and there is an extremely good chance that you can never in your life pay enough attention to her.
I gotta run. Something just came up. More tomorrow.
Interview with Firefly veteran Danny Nero part 4
Continuing my interview with Danny Nero, stand in extraordinaire. The photo on the left is Danny in full demon attire with Angel star Andy Hallett (the Host) at a Angel charity posting board party. I’m sure you know Andy tragically passed away in 2009.
D: Most of the outdoor filming for Angel happened in downtown LA. I used to live near there, and it’s always fun to recognize a particular piece of wrecked transit building or warehouse on the show. They also filmed The Crow down there. However, I know from personal experience that the neighborhood is 
one step up from a demilitarized zone. One thing I admire about Joss is his dedication to his personal vision. I guess a few crack dealers and gang members will not stop him from filming late at night in a terrible neighborhood. Have you found that such concerns are truly not an impediment to his getting the shot he wants? What are some of the most bizarre, dangerous, or just out of the way locations he has dragged the whole crew to? (Crow image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category)
Danny: If you are familiar with the series, Angel’s first season hang out was a rather cramped underground lair that proved to be a difficult set to shoot in so by the end of season 1, it was blown up with the best pyro demonstration I’d ever witnessed! The explosion on the exterior of the building took place at about 3am on the Brooklyn street at Paramount and although it didn’t make a lot of noise (that was all added in later) it did send some huge fireballs out in all directions. One unintended effect was the trigger of the fire sprinklers in the soundstage directly behind the facade which flooded one of “Roswell’s” sets. I’ll bet that was costly!
The whole crew wished we had a convenient all-purpose alley set on the back lot to use but no we had to make many trips to downtown L.A. for so many of those all-nighters. There were plenty of real live rats that didn’t enjoy us being there but they didn’t bother me. I did pause one time when a medium size rat was running toward me one night and then it vanished into a hole in front of me covered by some rags. The alleys were always disinfected by the locations guys but sometimes that wore off before the sun came up and we had to resort to Vick’s around the nostrils.
There were resident’s of lofts in some of those neighborhoods that weren’t happy to see us. We all did our best to stay quiet late at night but it’s tough when you have a small army working carrying equipment and shining bright lights and talking on walkies. Some locals painted large camera symbols with red circles and slashes through them on brick walls where we needed to shoot. One night, I was standing on DB’s mark for a lighting setup when I was drenched with water tossed from above. I really considered myself lucky that it was ONLY water! We had heard stories of other nasty things being tossed down on unsuspecting crews.
The actors were mortified that I was a target and all graciously offered their trailer shower’s for me if I wanted but I just found some dry clothes and was
good to go.
So as much as I loved the “Angel” cast & crew, when I got wind of “Firefly” in the works sometime during season 3 of “Angel”, I asked the powers-that-be to send me. We were working in the soon-to-be-razed Ambassador Hotel kitchen fighting off small creatures called “sluks” when I told DB that I was going into space with Joss and that set him off. I was one of several crew from both “Angel” and “Buffy” that were making the jump and he stopped everything for a moment to ask “And who ELSE is going over to Firefly?” God bless my dear friend Andy Hallett raised his green hand and jumped up and down which broke everyone up. I can’t tell you how much I miss Andy!
We really had become good friends and getting the call from his Dad early one morning last year was such a horrible blow. I flew back East to Boston with Dayne Johnson who did Andy’s make up and Mark Lutz who played the Grooselug and we drove down to the small Cape Cod village to be pall bearers for Andy. We who were lucky enough to know him will never forget him.
Interview with Special F/X guru Shane Saucedo Part 3
This morning I conclude my interview with Shane Saucedo from Hellbent Studios.
Dave: Have you seen an increase in smaller, independent films since the advent of easily accessed editing and filming resources?
Shane: Yes!!! And better quality.
Dave: Very cool. What tips would you have for someone looking to produce an independent horror short and looking to get some inexpensive special effects going?
Shane: Plan it out carefully and to the point of being call anal, then find someone with experience and willingness to answer questions for the how to parts. Then do a film on the fly, quick shooting and so on. Try to equal the quality. Above all, have fun with it and let people do their respective jobs. Keep an open mind and keep it simple.
Dave: Words to live by in any occupation. If someone were interested in getting into special effects, what would be the best thing to start with?
Shane: Hmmm…I am self taught, but there are some excellent schools out there to get you started in makeup. The thing I would suggest is to get involved with your local film scene, find someone open to mentoring you and be willing to do the thankless work for a while. All the greats have done this and it seems to help put it all into perspective. As well as finding out if you are apt and willing to do the work. It’s not for everyone and takes a certain type of personality as well.
Dave: What projects are you working on currently? Anything exciting you can give us a hint about that will be coming out soon?
Shane: Two features I can’t even say the names of (sorry, contractual) and a lot of smaller stuff for WWII re-enactors and some Star Wars prosthetics, as well as we are developing the Halloween props, masks, makeup, and products line for our company. We are always interested in working on Indy films or just answering questions on how to stuff as well. We do a lot of fan props and commission type work for small business and the haunt industry. We are doing a test market on etsy.com/hellbentlabs to see response to the different props we are starting out with and a couple appliances.
Dave: How can readers follow or contact you?
Shane: Feel free to contact us @: facebook.com/Hellbent Fx. Our website is under construction and going to be updated as soon as our tech is free. 
Www.hbsfx.com but its not much to look. (LOL)
(Facebook image courtesy of the horror movie t shirts)
Dave: Thanks Shane. This was awesome.
Shane: I want to give a special thanks to Dave here at Nerd Kung fu, it was a pleasure to meet you and we most definitely look forward to the next one!
Dave: Thanks for your time, Shane. I hope to see more stuff from you guys soon.
That’s it. I found Shane to be a very chill guy, and the masks and props they were selling at the show were of extremely high quality, so if you have a project you want some help with, be sure to contact him.
Next post I’ll be back on budget dating, but I am working on an interview that I think will be extremely cool, so keep checking back for that.
Interview with Special F/X guru Shane Saucedo part 1
I’m going to take a break from the dating advice to publish an interview I did with Shane Saucedo from Hellbent Studios, a special effects studio that specializes in horror effect, although from talking to Shane it sounds like they can do almost anything. I met Shane at the Horror Convention in Sacramento last month and his business seemed fascinating to me, so I figured I would share that with you all.
Dave: Tell me how you got started in all this.
Shane: I started makeup effects at a very young age. In high school I wanted to be a firefighter, and after graduation I followed through with that. After ten years in the fire service I followed my interests in makeup fx. I did do fx work while working as a firefighter but chose to walk away as I didn’t see the future for me there. So I took the chance and walked away from the fire service to start working in a small animatronics shop in Las Vegas. There I was allowed to learn the animatronics side of things. That led me into moldmaking and other disciplines of the trade. I followed then went freelance and then opening my shop, Hellbent Studios.
I am able to keep the price down on all fx work due to a low overhead Sometimes I just love the project and that drive me too! We travel everywhere to work on an array of different features and projects and that really keeps it fresh and new. My partner Dave and I love to travel.
Dave: Right on. How did you get your first start in learning special effects?
Shane: My father was fascinated with the 50’s sci fi films and movies in general. He also grew tired of me stealing his tape and anything else out of the garage to make masks and body parts. I was 8 when he had enough and drove me to the local theater costume shop. That was my start to the world of makeup fx.
Dave: How long have you been doing it?
Shane: Since I had control over my hands. I got my first mask when I was 6 and immediately started the scaring.
(Hellraiser image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category)
Dave: When did you found Hellbent Studios?
Shane: I always say in 1974 but truly company started in 2000.
Dave: What films have you and your studio worked on?
Shane: I will refer to the studio as the group within: we go as far back as the Blackhole for the older guys, Cherry 2000, Casino, Buckeroo Banzai, Urban Commando, and more indy films than I can list here.
Dave: Wow that is so cool. You just named one of my favorites as well as an all time classic in Cherry 2000. I could only hope to one day find a robot girlfriend. What types of special effects is your studio particularly adept or well known for?
Shane: Not sure really. I have never thought of it. I guess I would say our prop work. LOL!
Dave: What has been the hardest special effect for you to pull off to date?
Shane: Hmmm, I would have to say burning an old Jeep Wagoneer. The director didn’t really allow time to prep the vehicle for the burn, so we had no time to remove shock bumpers, battery, etc. We ended up increasing the accelerant to a super hot mix of av-gas and Lacquer thinner mixed with Diesel and one other ingredient to create the look the director wanted. It was a hard gig because of the safety of it.
Dave: Which clip are you most proud of?
Shane: I would have to say a 30′ T-Rex we built for a museum peice. A lot of work ends up on the cutting room floor in film.
(continued tomorrow)
