LOL Dave is going to freak out when he has to review the new Twisted Metal movie.
I think he has talked about it on some of his blogs or descriptions, but in case you didn’t know this Dave, who is a fully grown 6’5″ 250lbs guy, is deathly afraid of clowns. Mimes too, but clowns really freak him out. Some friends of ours showed this movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space a couple years ago and I thought he was going to pass out. The image comes from his Movie T shirts, but I don’t know how he managed to force himself to order these shirts. He must have been drunk to get through the process.
The reason this is funny is the video game Twisted Metal, which I played the crap out of, has some of the coolest and scariest clowns of all time. These are clowns possessed by Satan and amped up on crystal meth. Sweet Tooth was my favorite, but Doll Face was cool and of course, who can’t but love Calypso?
The other part about this that is funny is Dave sucks at pretty much all driving games and I have kicked is ass at Twisted Metal many times. He is better at RTS and point-and-click MMORP crap like WOW, but can’t touch me on anything with a steering wheel. I think I will go to this movie with him just to see the blood drain from his face.
Jason
The Academy Award Nominations: my thoughts and comments.
I know all you readers out there are rigid in eager anticipation on my thoughts regarding the 2012 Academy Nominations, and believe me they are legion. I don’t want this post to go 1,000,000 words, so rather than write my usual clever and scintillating intro will dive right in. I will also include links to all the reviews I wrote for these so feel free to check those out.
Best Picture Nominations
The Artist-didn’t see it, and I know that is a failing on my part. However, it seems a move nominated for Best Picture should be considered outstanding on all aspects of the film, including dialog and sound. Honestly, not having spoken dialog seems like an unfair advantage; it’s like a blind person having his or her hearing enhanced by focusing so much energy on it. By not having to worry about the sound performance of the actors the director can focus on the other visual aspects of the film and make them that much better. The Descendants-I can’t really argue with this one. While I had a couple minor issues with it (having to do with lack of tone) I can say it probably deserves to win. Really good, considering the complete lack of gunfights, chase scenes, or explosions (or perhaps because of that). Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close-I was surprised this even got a nomination. Way too soon in my opinion, and by that I mean during my lifetime. Also, while the kid did a great job as a kid actor, his performance isn’t really going to set the world on fire. I predict no actual award for this one. 
Hugo–I have a feeling the Academy couldn’t let Martin Scorsese do a film and not throw him something. Visually impressive, but the story kind of meanders at points (Hugo image courtesy of the Movie Tshirt category). Midnight in Paris-fun and whimsical, but not really Oscar worthy in my opinion. The Help–if this film had been based on a true story I think it might have been a real contender, but as it was a fictional book (and the fact that it was based on a white woman coming to help the oppressed minorities rather than them helping themselves) I think it won’t win anything. Moneyball-probably my second choice for Best Picture, and if I actually had a vote in the Academy the one I would actually vote for. War Horse-good movie, but I think the lack of an actual protagonist you can really connect with, combined with horrific scenes of animals in extreme pain, makes this one not really a choice. Tree of Life-oh God are they kidding? I’d give it the Academy Award for the Most Worthless and Pretentious Picture of the Year. The very fact that this random collection of home movies chewed up, partially digested, and then vomited all over the screen got a nomination tells me that Hollywood is desperate to prove to the world that they have some form of artistic merit, but I studied art and there is surrealist art that makes a point and then there is weird just to be weird, and this film fits firmly into the second category, except for the fact that it was also one of the laziest productions I have ever scene. If this dog wins it will not only prove once and for all that the Hollywood intelligentsia has their head firmly lodged where the sun doesn’t shine, but will make me question my desire to ever see another movie again.
Best Actor
George Clooney, The Descendants. He probably should win. Jean Dujardin, The Artist. Didn’t see it. Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I thought he was good, but I also don’t think it really a stretch of his acting ability to play a deadpan British man who shows no emotion throughout the film. Kind of robotic. Brad Pitt, Moneyball. He was good, but I really think George Clooney has it this year. Demian Bichir, A Better Life. Didn’t see it, although in doing some research on it kind of wish I had.
Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs. Not only did I not see this one, I wasn’t even aware it existed. Another triumph in film marketing. Viola Davis, The Help. If you want to talk about emoting and delivering a range of emotions, Viola really did a great job. I would seriously consider her for this award. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. You know, I really enjoyed this film and Rooney’s portrayal of Lisbeth. However, she really seems to have locked on to that character and not exercised much divergence. I have little to no acting ability myself (and am also a terrible poker player) but it seems to me that playing an angry young adult is not that challenging an acting roll. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady. I’m torn on this one. I thought Meryl did an exceptional job in portraying young Lady Thatcher as a powerful world leader. However, I found her performance as a decrepit dementia victim a little contrived and unfortunately that is where the director decided to focus. In my review I talked about how unfortunate it is that a great actress like Meryl Streep is not given the room she needs to show her acting strength in this film. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn. Didn’t see it, and to this day I don’t regret that choice.
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn. Didn’t see it. Jonah Hill, Moneyball. I will say this about Jonah Hill. He plays a fish out of water better than anyone I have seen in a long time. Nick Nolte, Warrior. I don’t see an alcoholic abusive father as much of stretch for Nick’s acting ability. Christopher Plummer, Beginners. Didn’t see it. Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. In spite of my issues with this movie, I actually really like Max in this film. I’d probably give it to him.
Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo, The Artist. Didn’t see it. Jessica Chastain, The Help. Meh. Plus I’m still annoyed at her for helping make Tree of Life happen. Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids. You know, I wouldn’t have thought to nominate her, but now that it has been done I have to say I would probably say she deserves to win. She is an exceptional actress. Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs. Didn’t see it. Octavia Spencer, The Help. Another great performance. I’m actually torn between her and Melissa McCarthy.
Best Director
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. Maybe. This movie was good, but it’s no Match Point. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist. Didn’t see it. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life. Not only should he not get an award, but after the ceremony the Academy should take him out back and beat him with a garden hose full of sand. Alexander Payne, The Descendants. Yeah, this one should get it. Martin Scorsese, Hugo. I’m pretty sure Mr. Scorsese did this film in order to learn how to do 3D.
Best Original Screenplay
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. Actually, this screenplay was actually pretty good. I think it would be a good choice. JC Chandor, Margin Call. Missed it. Did anyone even know it existed? Asghar Farhadi, A Separation. What is the deal with candidates for Best Screenplay all having Worst Marketing Campaign? Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist. Didn’t see it. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, Bridesmaids. I don’t know about this. I enjoyed the movie, but one of my criticisms was that the screenplay felt more like 11 skits rather than a single movie.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxton, Jim Rash, The Descendants. Probably the winner. John Logan, Hugo. Meh. George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, The Ides of March. Sorry, but I thought the screenplay was one of the major problems with this film. Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian, Moneyball. Maybe. Not as good as the Descendants. Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughn, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. If the book this movie is adapted from is as good as I have heard, than this might be the all time worst adaptation.
I didn’t see many animated films that are up for awards, and don’t have a strong enough opinion on the technical items to really have an opinion on Best Score or Cinematographic achievements, so I will not comment on those.
That’s pretty much it. Feel free to agree or disagree here or on Twitter @NerdKungFu. New movies coming out this weekend so look for some new movie reviews soon. Thank you for reading. Have a great day.
Dave
Johnny Depp as Tonto?
I guess this is old news, as the announcement was made last November, but I just heard this and it’s kind of blowing my mind. Johnnty Depp, shown here as the Mad Hatter from the Movie T Shirts, has been cast as Tonto in the next remake in the “We are all out of creativity in Hollywood” tour, the Lone Ranger. Are Native American actors so hard to find? How about all the guys from Windtalkers? I mean, sure he did a decent job and looked kind of Ethnic as Captain Sparrow in Pirates of the Carribean, and according the the Interweb he is part Cherokee, but I think if you need makeup to look like an ethnicity maybe they should have cast someone more closely associated with that ethnicity.
However, this isn’t really what has my boxers in a knot. What does is the interview he did when they announced the roll. He apparently has said that he wants to remake Tonto into the star rather than the sidekick. While I appreciated the desire to maybe not play such a stereotype, Tonto is the ultimate sidekick, even more than Robin from Batman. If you look up “sidekick” on the Interlink the Wikipedia article about it lists him third on their short list of examples. In the show Tonto’s job was to get his ass kicked so the Lone Ranger would have an excuse to come into town and shoot some guys. Seems a pretty simple formula.
Jason
Dr. Strange movie: To Suck or Not to Suck, That is the Question
So it looks like Marvel is going ahead with a bunch of it’s B level super heroes for movies, and one of the ones they are considering is Dr. Strange. To go with a B level hero they are running with B level writers, specifically Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer who wrote the remake of Conan the Barbarian. The movie was kind of crap, and a lot of that blame sits right in the writers laps. Conan image from the Movie T Shirts, by the way.
What can we do, you ask? Well, in this post I am going to list a few major mistakes these two guys could make in hopes that they might read this and pick something up. First of all, Dr. Strange is gay. There, I said it. You don’t need to hide that fact, and more specifically you don’t need to write in a female love interest.
Second of all, Dr. Strange has all kinds of mystical powers but really isn’t much for physical. You don’t have to have him punch some guy out. He uses his brains and powers to defeat bad guys, not a gun. For that matter, his villains tend to be more than the run of the mill bank robbers, so let’s try to keep things nice and occult.
I’m sure there are other ways to suck this one up. If I think of any I will mention it, but I feel like hell tonight and need to get to bed. Have a good one.
Jason
Haywire Movie Review
Maybe I’m just not cut out to review spy movies.
This is the second spy movie in a row that I spent a lot of asking what the hell was going on. However, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the complexity was the result of a poor adaptation of what is reportedly a great, complex spy novel aggravated by the fact that everyone in the movie looked the same. In Haywire it feels like they just added complexity to give an otherwise simple story a thin veneer of sophistication.
Here’s how I define good movie complexity verses bad movie complexity. Good movie complexity has you pulled in and intrigued by the cleverness of the action. Bad movie complexity is when you find yourself asking “Why didn’t they just…and win?” This movie generates it’s complexity by not explaining anything to the audience ever and adding layer after layer of bad guys who appear on screen long enough have you wondering who the hell the are and how they got involved in all this and then vanish into the void.
That’s not to say this movie is bad. I was really impressed by newcomer Gina Carano (Ring Girls, American Gladiators, Blood and Bone). She is an accomplished MMA fighter and it shows in the action sequences. It is amazing how good fight scenes are when you don’t resort to doing .5 to 1.5 second cut sequences in order to make up for the remarkable inadequacies of the actors martial skills and/or the lack of a qualified fight choreographer. Each of the fight scenes was brutal, cool, and believable without being over the top. Gina shows her skills and manages to use techniques that seem to make up for the fact that she is fighting against guys who weigh 100lbs more than her. I was also really impressed by her acting ability. Coming from the MMA world you wouldn’t think acting was a honed skill but she seems to have some.
The problems with this movie are twofold. The first being the unnecessary levels of pointless complexity for complexity’s sake. The second is the movie was flat for it’s entirety, at least for me. There never seemed to be any kind of buildup or climax. The pacing was as regular as a metronome. Fight-coffee-fight-drive-fight-phone call-fight-shoot guys-fight-meeting-fight-spy stuff-fight. There is no moment I can pinpoint as the climax, introduction, or conclusion. There are no acts in this movie. It’s like a 93 minute steady 3.4 Ricter scale earthquake. Enough to to feel (or, as we say in California, enough to stir your coffee) but not enough to excite you.
I am not going to get into the story too much as it is a spy/mystery one, but let me say none of it really caught me by surprise. The story is of a ex Marine (Mallory-the aforementioned Gina Carano. I anticipate seeing her in other roles soon) who works for a private mercenary spy company (?). She is sent off on a mission and ends up being betrayed in a plot so complex Tolkien would have trouble following it. She tells the story flashback style to a hapless goof (Michael Angarano-Sky High, Almost Famous, Red State) she sort of carjacks after beating the hell out of her former partner Aaron (Channing Tatum-Step Up, the Eagle, Dear John) in a crappy diner. Her former employer Kenneth (Ewan McGregor-Star Wars prequils, Trainspotting, Big Fish) is after her. Somehow two other guys played by Michael Douglas (Falling Down, the Game, Basic Instinct) and Antonio Banderas (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Zorro) are involved, and she runs into a fellow mercenary/spy played by Michael Fassbender (X-Men First Class, Inglorious Basterds, 300) who gets sucked into the complexity.
Anyway, spy action hijinks ensues. Guys get their asses beaten by a girl (a kick ass girl). People get shot. Not a lot of explosions, which I thought was cool. The completely even keel movie motors its way to a completely even keel ending.
The stars. Excellent fight sequences, with a bonus star for not making me suspend my disbelief too much. Three stars. Gina Carano was good, and shows a lot of talent. One star. 
A really good cast of extremely talented actors with a lot of nerd cred, including the great Bill Paxton (“Game over, man! Game over!” Alien image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) as Mallorys father. One star. Decent camera work. The people on this film know how to shoot fights. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Overly complicated for no reason. Two black holes. In spite of being an action film, the tick-tock pacing never actually had me excited. Two black holes. As I wrote this review I had to struggle to remember the plot or any of my relevant points. Forgetability is never a good thing in a movie (although in truth there are several that I wish I could forget (cough cough Lucas cough cough)). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of one star, and yet another bland middle of the road film. 2012 has not really started off great for films. The problem I am really having with this film is it’s another one that had all the elements to be one of the greatest spy movies of the last 10 years. Excellent action, excellent cast, massive potential. However, the truth is in the execution and this movie fell apart in the editing room, in my opinion. Too bad.
Sorry for the short, kind of boring review but these middle of the road films tend to leave me lacking in inspiration. If you want something really entertaining you have to give me a movie that is either really good or really bad to sink my teeth into. Bland films result in bland review, I guess. Thanks for reading. Still a ton of movies to see, and tonight is $5 night, so look for something tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review
Not as depressing as I thought it would be.
This is a good lesson relearned about not listening to people about movies before going to see them. A lot of my friends have read the book, and told me horrific stories about how depressing and chock full of rape it was. To be honest, I was at times disgusted and horrified, but at other times really, really interested and intrigued. It was a good story with good direction that kept me hooked even when it did what I would call running off the rails in a lesser film.
I just did a little research and suddenly realized a major reason why I liked this movie. The director, David Fincher, also directed my all time favorite movie, Fight Club. He also directed Se7en, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the Social Network, movies that I have avoided but now will have to seriously take a look at. If you are male and have not seen Fight Club then order one of those memory improvement courses to try to remember what your testicles look like. (Fight Club image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category)
Anyway, this movie is a perfect example of what happens when you take a great book and make a movie of it without tweaking the story too much to suit your own needs or inflated ego. Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Layer Cake) plays Mikael Blomkvist, Swedish journalist who has just been disgraced by a libel case involving a rich businessman. His situation has caught the attention of another rich businessman, Henrick Vanger (Christopher Plummer-Up, a Beautiful Mind, the Sound of Music), who hires him to to investigate the disappearance and presumed murder of his granddaughter Harriot 40 years before. Prior to hiring Mikael Vanger had him investigated by Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara-the Social Network, Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Youth in Revolt. Weird. She’s the daughter of the owner of the New York Giants. I should hate her for being born rich and then having an acting career, but I like her in this movie a lot), a troubled young girl who is extremely anti social but a brilliant technical investigator, who incidentally has a dragon tattoo.
I’m not going to get into the story too much, as this is a mystery movie and dropping even a hint of a spoiler would quality me for the third level of Hell. Lisbeth gets drawn into the investigation. There are about eight different subplots that not only don’t detract or fragment the main story, but actually greatly enhance it. There is one extremely brutal rape scene that I literally closed my eyes for parts of. I don’t need to see stuff like that. However, it was kind of integral so I won’t hit them too harshly on it. Otherwise, really interesting and intelligent investigation with a cool ending. The other strange thing is once the movie seems over, it keeps going for 2o minutes. Normally that drives me nuts, but it worked really well here. I guess it has to do with the fact that this movie is about the girl, not Daniel Craig really. Once you wrap your head around that fact you can let the run on story go.
The stars. Rooney Mara was unbelievable as the Girl. Two stars. Daniel Craig was good too. One star. In fact all the supporting cast was really good. One star. Great story that expanded as the story progressed. Two stars. Mystery films often times suffer from a lack of proper pacing (fast slow slow slow FAST done etc.) but this one was very well paced. Two stars. No attempt to dumb it down for idiots. One star. I don’t know what the deal is, but Lisbeth started the movie really unappealing, both physically and socially, but I was totally in love with her character by the end of it. One star for excellent character development. Some nice nudity not involving rape. One star. Overall great film, well worth watching. Two stars. Total: fourteen stars.
The black holes. Brutal rape scene, as well as a lot of other discussed and implied rape. It seemed like every woman in Sweden gets raped. Two black holes. A certain amount of frustration with some of the resolution by the end of the movie. One black hole. No one could settle on an accent to run with. Some had Swedish. Some had British. Some had American. Seemed a roll of the dice every time you found a new character. One black hole. Again, the movie is going to pay for my soft American brain, but during the investigation I found it hard to keep track of which suspect was doing what. There were a huge number of old photographs used and honestly I couldn’t tell one suspect from another in them. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a grand total of nine stars. This movie is pretty amazing. I think everyone should see it. It is good in the theater, but if you happen to miss it it will be almost as good on a large TV screen. Definitely not a good date movie, what with all the rape and everything. Also, while it is not as depressing as I thought it was going to be, it was definitely depressing. I am especially glad to have seen it as I know there are two more coming in the series. I am looking forward to them.
Thanks for reading. By the way, I saw the trailer for the Avengers and it looks pretty amazing. I hope I’m not being sucked in by good marketing. On the other hand, the rumors I keep hearing from the new Batman movie are giving me the chills. Please, Christopher Nolan, don’t choke on this one. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Young Adult Movie Review
There’s Something About Mary meets Leaving Las Vegas.
We were supposed to see Mission Impossible last night, but it sold out two hours before the showing. We then bought tickets for The Sitter, but thought about it and realized we’d rather drive bamboo slivers under our fingernails. We finally settle on Young Adult, and to be honest I kind of wish we’d seen the Sitter.
I don’t know. Was it bad? Not really. Was it funny? In parts, if macabre gallows humor dispensed by despicable people is your thing. So what’s my problem with it?
I guess I had two problems. SPOILER ALTER. First off, the main character, Mavis Gary (Charlize Therone – the Devil’s Advocate, Monster, Hancock, the Italian Job) doesn’t so much as describe a story arc as loop in a full circle. In other words, in a movie filled with personal realizations and sudden moments of clarity, she manages to end the movie in exactly the same place, after spending 90 of the 94 minutes moving towards a change in life. She starts the movie a stuck up, shallow, self centered, addicted, psychotic prom queen living a miserable life by herself in Minneapolis and more or less ends up there. As a guy with bitter memories of high school I have a certain fondness for the popular kids finally getting their comeuppance, but after a few awkward moments she kind of just keeps chugging along. The second issue is the lack of tone from the film. Half the time it is a dark comedy with clever, interesting people and the other half of the time it is a woman screaming a desperate cry for help that all the people around her manage to completely miss. One could say the humor was there to facilitate the dark story, but one could also say the darkness was to enhance the comedy. I couldn’t decide if I should be laughing or crying through most of it.
Anyway, the story. Mavis is a ghost writer for a young adult novel series that it is pretty obviously about herself in high school. She is miserable and alone, except for one night stands, and it is established early on that her life is circling the drain. She gets the announcement that her ex BF just had a baby and decides the sane thing to do is to go back to the small town she grew up in and stalk him away from his wife and child. Once in town she runs into one of the geeks she never talked to in high school, Matt (Patton Oswalt – Ratatouille, King of Queens, Magnolia), who was crippled in a hate crime in high school. She gets hammered and tells him her plan. He is the only voice of reason in this entire movie as he constantly tells her she is crazy and needs help. Stalking hijinks ensue. 
Her ex BF Buddy (Patrick Wilson – Watchmen, Hard Candy, Insidious. I know. I should have gotten a Nite Owl image, as he played Nite Owl. I just like Dr. Manhattan better. Image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) seems completely oblivious to her ham handed approaches and hangs out with her. Oblivious seems to be the word to describe most of the characters in this film, as his wife also seems to miss everything, as well as the parents, even when Mavis flat out says “I have a drinking problem” to their faces.
The stars. I will say Charlize Theron can play a bitch. One star. In fact, all the acting was good. One star. Dialog well written. One star. There were many humorous moments that, when taken out of the context of the movie message, were very funny. Two stars. They managed to capture the small Midwestern town extremely well. One star. And one more star for what is probably a decent movie going experience. Total: six stars.
The black holes. The whole lack of tone thing. One black hole. The story arc that went from nowhere to nowhere. One black hole. Every supporting characters incomprehensible motivations (why exactly would the wife invite the ex-GF to anything involving their family?) and inability to see a problem that is slapping them in the face. One black hole. The lack of consequences for Mavis’s pretty reprehensible behavior. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Two stars total. You can always spot when I am conflicted on a movie when I don’t give a lot of stars or black holes. I don’t know. Decent movie? Yes. Will you feel good watching it? No. There is nothing in the end to really feel good about. Also either you were popular in high school and will hate what is happening to the popular girl or you were like me and will hate that she doesn’t pay for it. Probably a decent date movie, as none of the guys are over the top amazing and she will probably appreciate the main characters motivations more than you will. Nothing in here really requires a large screen, however, so just wait for NetFlix.
That’s it. It’s late and I played Warhammer all day, so I am beat. I am going to watch an episode of Breaking Bad and go to sleep. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Top 25 Coolest Movie and TV Vehicles
I forget how I got onto this. I was talking to a friend and the idea hit me. There are some super cool vehicles out there, including a few that seem to be ignored by other list makers. I was originally going to go with top 10, but after talking it over with several groups realized I can’t cut it down that far. 25 it has to be. I’ll keep each blurb to a minimum.
25. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I have often wished my 2005 Ford Crown Vic would somehow gain the ability to both fly and float. Six of these were made, custom with a Ford 3000 V6 engine.
24. Herbie from the Love Bug. I have to toss a nod to this one, even though Beetles bug me, mainly because the guy across the street drove one and I’d have to push start it every time we wanted to go somewhere. Also, one time he ran over my foot while I was trying to push it. 1963 Volkswagon Beetle Type 1.
23. Goblin Truck from Maximum Overdrive. This movie definitely taught me to look both ways before crossing the street. Also, to fear goblins. 1977 White-Western Star 4864.
22. Van from Cheech and Chong. Living in Oakland as I do, movies about the illegality of marijuana have kind of lost steam given there are medicinal shops on every block. However, a great movie. Ironically, when they edited it for television the pot mysteriously transformed into diamonds. 1963 Chevrolet P-10 Step Van.
21. Shaggin Wagon from Dumb and Dumber. Remember when Jim Carrey did really funny movies that didn’t involve dancing penguins? 1984 Ford Econoline (Dumb and Dumber image courtesy of the Movie T-Shirts category)
20. Coupe from American Graffiti. I am disinclined to give any kind of props to George Lucas for reasons that should be obvious to any thinking nerd, but this movie was pretty cool and the car even cooler. 1932 Ford Coupe.
19. ETC01 from Ghostbusters. I loved this movie, and when I saw the car converted drive out of the firehouse I laughed my ass off. 1591 Cadillac Miller-Meteor.
18. Batmobile from 1989 Batman. I know, everyone loves the Tumbler, but I think this was the coolest car they did for any of the more recent movies. The fact that it had twin Gatling guns is a huge plus. Custom made out of two Impala Chassis, Chevy V8 engine, and a ton of custom body work.
17. Greased Lightning from Grease. There aren’t many dance/singing movies I can stomach, but this is one of them. 1948 Ford De Lux.
16. Gran Torino from Starsky and Hutch. Bet you thought I was going to say from the movie Gran Torino. This car has been the cool car from a bunch of different movies. It was also the beater car in the Big Lewbowski. 1976 Gran Torino.
15. Ferrari from Ferris Bueller. Another flashback to when a guy had a film career. This car not only ruled in being cool but also in how it finally met it’s end. 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider.
14. A Team van from the A Team. It always amazes me that I enjoyed this show so much, when you really consider how bad it really was. If I recall correctly this fan was BA’s personal property and got totally wrecked in pretty much every episode. 1983 GMC G Series.
13. Bluesmobile from the Blues Brothers. I drive a car often used by police, and get a lot of cop car jokes from my so called friends. However, there is no way my car could ever be as cool as this one. 1974 Dodge Monaco Sedan.
12. K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. If I had a car that could drive itself, that would make texting while driving a lot easier. Heck, I’d probably play video games. 1982 Pontiac Trans Am.
11. the Spinner from Bladerunner. Who doesn’t want a flying car? Original design.
10. Batmobile from the Batman TV show. OK, if any one vehicle can encompass the entirety of camp and ridiculousness that was the show, it was the car. 1955 Ford Lincoln Futura (concept car).
9. Pussywagon from Kill Bill. Not only was it a killer truck, but she didn’t just dump it first chance she got. 1997 Chevrolet 2500 Silverado Fleetside.
8. Deathmobile from Animal House. Remember when this car got totally wrecked on the road trip and then broke out of the parade float as carnage incarnate? 1964 Lincoln Continental MK2.
7. Pork Chop Express from Big Trouble in Little China. Cool truck, cool logo. 1988 FLC120 Freightliner.
6. AT-AT from Empire Strikes Back. Never said this was all cars. It’s obvious the good director before Lucas took over said “I want something slow, menacing, and terrifyingly ominous, like a slow moving tidal wave”. Looks like he got his wish. Of course, than can be taken down with string, so kind of disappointing in that regard. Kuat Drive Yards AT-AT.
5. General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard. Honestly, even more than Knight Rider this is the car that defined the show. I always wondered why Bo and Luke never opened the doors, however. 1969 Dodge Charger RT.
4. M577 Armored Personel Carrier from Aliens. Too bad they never got to fight with this bad boy. Really cool. M577 APC.
3. Christine from Christine. Ever want to be afraid of a car? 1958 Plymouth Fury.
2. DeLorean from Back to the Future. What’s better than a car that flies? How about a car that flies and can travel through time? 1981 DeLorean DMC12.
1. MFP Interceptor from the Road Warrior. I know, there are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this, but if ever I became rich through luck, crime, or hard work, this is the car I would reproduce and tool around in, including the fuel tanks. 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe (only sold in Australia).
I was going to include the tank from Tank Girl, but then realized that it was a Patton when she found it and turned into a Sherman when she was driving around. Continuity issues bug me.
That’s it. I have a headache and want to go play Minecraft. Thanks for reading. More reviews coming up this week. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading.
Dave
Ever wonder about the Goonies?
I am kind of slammed this week and don’t have time to work on the new Star Trek post, but over the weekend was working on inventory and came across this movie t shirt and it got me thinking about the Goonies again. I saw it for like the 10th time a few months ago, and every time I see it or something like this shirt there is a question that constantly bugs me.
Here it is. One Eyed Willie, the pirate captain who’s treasure the kids are going after, looked to have been one of the most successful pirates of all time based on the massive pile if “rich stuff” he had on his ship. If so, why would he not go off and actually spend some of the money on rum and wenches? Why, instead, did he spend the last 30 years of his life or so building death traps to keep inquisitive kids from getting to his massive pile of gold? And then, in the all time greatest move dedicated to proving a worthless point, he uses his own corpse to build his final self destruct trap? I mean, really. Does he not have any life besides building death traps? And with all that money, couldn’t he have bought material for traps more elaborate than rocks, vines, and sticks? How about some iron hinges?
It actually gets you thinking about buried pirate treasure in general. Why would a pirate with a huge chest of gold bury it and then leave it where any random idiot could potentially stumble upon. How about taking some of that treasure, using it to buy an island, build a castle on it, and buy the most impenetrable safe the 18th century can produce? Hire a bunch of scurvy sea dogs and turn them into land dogs to watch your treasure.
Actually, that kind of makes me think about Scrooge McDuck. He has a massive money bin where he rolls around in his dough instead of spending it on things he might enjoy in life. For that matter, how does a huge pile of cash in a vault actually keep him rich? Has he never heard of a bank? Some of them actually pay you money for keeping your money in them. It’s called interest. For that matter, you could potentially invest your money and make even more money, although these days a big pile of cash in a vault doesn’t sound like the dumbest plan ever. That reminds me of a Richie Rich comic I read where the family had a problem of too much cash and not enough room to store it all. Even as a kid of appropriate age for Richie Rich I understood the concept of banks. Just kind of annoying, really.
Back to the Goonies. Remeber at the end of the movie when One Eyed Willies ship sailed off uncrewed into the sunset, leaving the kids with some gems they lifted? No one in that shanty town owned a power boat? If reports got out of a boat floating in the ocean loaded with “rich stuff” there would be about 100,000 guys in rowboats looking for the damned thing.
Sorry for the weird tangential rant, but these are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. I really gotta run. Post here if you have any answers to these questions, and follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Movie stuff next time, I promise. Talk to you soon
Dave
I am Singh Movie Review
Like this movie, I am at a loss when trying to come up with a clever point.
So this weekend has been one of the worst for new movies. I guess all the studios simultaneously decided this was the weekend to not really bother. Honestly, a mistake in my opinion. None of the recent movies have what I perceive as real theater staying power, and a good release this weekend would have probably dominated. I suppose Breaking Dawn might still be pulling in idiots, but that’s about it.
So, when the mainstream field is left fallow, that is my opportunity to visit my old friend, foreign and independent films. Honestly, I like a lot of the more “indy” films, but you are really rolling the dice, especially when presented with any Bollywood films. They rarely just produce a moderately good entertaining film. Either you get something brilliant, or you get a script generated by the “million monkeys on a million typewriters” school of story telling.
However, the last Bollywood film I saw was Robot, so I figured “How bad could I am Singh really be?
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into the film I was praying for an attack by a giant snake made up of hundreds of identical robots. This movie presents me with a conundrum, however. On the one hand, it’s like the writers hacked into my brain, downloaded my personal list of boneheaded movie moves that really bug the hell out of me, and used that as the script. Bad voice over monologues that don’t contribute, 4th wall breaking monologues that also don’t explain things, beating an already beaten dead horse into the ground, trying to make me feel guilty for stuff I had nothing to do with and directly oppose, wooden acting from the English speaking actors, stereotypes ground so far into the earth that they resurfaced just outside Beijing, really bad grammar in the foreign language to English subtitles, really bad grammar in the English to English subtitles (yes, they did that), casting that blatantly points out the director’s obvious fetish for a particular type of woman (basically, blondes who look like Sharon Stone. There were seven different white women I counted who looked so much alike I wasn’t sure if they weren’t all played by the same woman with different hair, including two lawyers, a doctor, a stripper, and a cop), choreographed song and dance numbers with surreal lyrics dutifully subtitled, pointless flash-somethings (I can’t call them flash backs or flash forwards. More like a flash sideways, to people and events that had nothing to do with the story), a courtroom drama that seems to indicate that the writers have no idea how American courts work (or, for that matter, have ever seen another courtroom drama on TV or movies), sluggish story with long, fairly pointless speeches that rhymed remarkable with “tating the sobvious”, forcing me to watch the Twin Towers fall down again, using 9-11 to sell a story, and casting British actors who can’t really bury their accents deep enough to play Americans. On the other hand, when I could put all that behind me and treat this movie as an insight into Indian and Sikh culture, as well as a look at how India might perceive America, it actually got kind of interesting. It’s like a big cake made out of mixed bark and soap chips covered with a delicious frosting.
Anyway, the movie. I think I can sum it up by saying “Don’t discriminated against all Muslims and Sikhs because they wear turbans like the terrorists responsible for 9-11”. The story starts off with an guy living a pretty cushy life in India when he is woken up by a call from his mother telling him his brother is dead and his father is in the hospital. He flies to LA and discovers they have all been the victims of a brutal hate crime by Neo Nazis so cartoonish and over the top I thought they might be CGI generated. He embarks on a quest to find his brother’s killer and also locate his other brother, who is missing. He runs into immediate, pointless resistance from the Pasadena police force in the form of another cartoonish racist cop and finds that his brother was arrested, suspected of killing his brother in spite of witnesses to the contrary. He runs into some of his bother’s friends, who tell him about a rash of hate crimes perpetrated against anyone Muslim or wearing a turban.
I’m going to do an aside here and talk a little about the months immediately following 9-11. There were a number of hate crimes perpetrated, but in all cases that I know of the local police and FBI were relatively quick to investigate and intervene. Maybe it’s because I live in California and never really saw anything grievous here, but since this story is set in California I think it OK to have an issue with this. In no cases do I know of the local police aiding and abetting the criminals.
Anyway, misinterpreted American culture hijinks ensues. The racists surface occasionally only to prove how cowardly they are. We get subjected to the same speech over and over again. The Sikhs and Muslims remain true to the non violent tenants of their beliefs. A number of sub plots that are really all just rehashing of the main plot surface. A few cool messages about he importance of friendship and family, justice, and racial and religious tolerance are forced down our throats, pumped out, and the forced down again ad nauseum.
The stars. I’ll usually give a star for a foreign or independent film, so one star. Those good messages I talked about, while rubbed into our faces for a monstrous 150 minutes, were actually delivered. One star. A somewhat good insight into Indian and Sikh culture. One star. An idea of how India and perhaps some of the rest of the world perceives America was handed out. One star. I kind of liked the Sikh cop character, even if he was as over the top as the rest of them. One star. I always enjoy seeing white people portrayed as the bad guy. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. I am going to try to be kind in these, as I understand a lot of them could be the result of different cultural perspectives, but I have to be honest. Driving a painfully obvious point home, parking it’s car, and making it dinner. One black hole. American stereotypes so painfully obvious it literally hurt my brain. One black hole. The directors obvious blonde fetish. One black hole. The opening and closing monologues made me wish someone would fly a plane into the theater I was in. One black hole. Long, boring, repetitive speeches that just kept on repeating the main theme. One black hole. The film maker failed to hire a single native English speaker to view the movie once to make sure the sub titles weren’t developmentally disadvantaged. One black hole. The American acting and dialog looked and felt like they were also speaking a foreign language (the fact that they subtitled the English into poorer grammar English contributed to this). One black hole. All the weird flash somethings. I’m sure they would be far more significant and less black hole worthy if I were actually Indian, but I spent most of them asking “What the f…?”. One black hole. Three different song and dance numbers. One black hole. Use of odd camera angles that at first looked kind of brilliant but by the end of the film made my eyes cross. One black hole. A complete lack of research into how the American criminal justice system works. One black hole. Using 9-11 to sell the story and forcing me to watch the towers collapse again (I watched it live on the news, and really try not to think about it. That day still haunts me). One black hole. Overall lacking more than the most obvious point. One black hole. Total: thirteen black holes.
So a total of seven black holes. Slumdog Millionaire it is not. I don’t really see a reason to watch this in a theater. Honestly, I don’t really see a reason to see it at home, unless you are really into Bollywood and Indian culture. This could be something to throw on the TV while folding your laundry or whatever. Unfortunately the subtitles require you to stay focused on the screen. I don’t really have a read how this would work as a date film. Might be OK if your date is more hippy 
dippy and appreciates your cultural open mindedness, but if not she could be really bored with it and by extension you. Take her to see Hugo IMO (Hugo Automaton image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
That’s it for now. Not sure what I will do next. I should probably finish up my Star Trek Retrospective. I was thinking about it and am going to probably skip Insurrection, mainly because the entire movie plays like a an extended episode of TNG and, to be honest, I really can’t remember much about it one way or another. I will instead dive into Nemesis, a film I have some definite opinions on, and will finally finish up with the 2009 Star Trek and explain why anyone who likes that movie the best out of all the Star Trek franchise is either not a true fan or is a true idiot, or both.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
