Movie Review: The Immortals 3D
This movie was actually shot in 3B. 3 beers and it looks pretty good.
Thank you Doug and Bob Mackenzie. So I haven’t done a lot of reviews lately mainly because I was broke all last week. On a completely unrelated note does anyone know how an amateur movie review can get free screenings from the studios or theaters? If you happen to have a clue let me know. However, yesterday was pay day and I celebrated by seeing the Immortals 3D, another Greek epic staring shirtless, chest hairless pretty boys and Mickey Roarke.
I can honestly say I wasn’t disappointed, mainly because I kind of expected it to suck. Yes, I know it was produced by Mark Canton, the producer of the 300, but he also produced Red Planet, Piranha 3D, and Jack Frost. Honestly, 300 is the only credit worth anything, and I didn’t see any other guys crossing over, so assuming lightning is going to strike twice for the same guy (without Frank Miller, by the way) is kind of like assuming you can remake the amazing tasting margarita you had last week when all you have is the ice. The trailers made it look more like another Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief than the 300, which it more or less was. The lack of an amazing, Frank Miller-esque story kind of turned all the rated R action into more of a joke than anything else (the only credit the writers have worth anything was the Royal Tenenbaums, but that doesn’t exactly scream epic battle movie).
(300 image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
The movie was plague by issues. For a story that drove straight ahead like a freight train, it was shockingly lacking a point. The acting played out like a civil war in the Screen Actors Guild between the oppressive monotone Valium cartel and the plucky, scenery chewing over the top acting revolutionaries. The CGI scenery and backdrops looked like they were all photocopied from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine (there’s a 70/80’s nerd reference), and the 3D effects were laughable and actually hurt the visuals. Honestly, if you are going to make a 3D movie do us a favor and shoot it in 3D. Don’t 3D it up in post and charge me more money for a souvenir pair of headache inducing glasses.
Anyway, the story. I might go a little spoiler heavy here, so skip a couple paragraphs if that bothers you. Micky Roarke plays King Hyperion, the evil king of some country who is bent on destroying the gods for the death of his family. Ironically, in spite of the fact that he was supposed to be evil I found him to be the most appealing character, the one with the most development, and in the end the guy I was rooting for. At least he had a motivation I could relate to. He intends to do so by releasing the Titans, ancient enemy of the gods who are imprisoned in a BDSM cage. How he assumes an old enemy the gods beat once are going to kill them the second time around is beyond me, as is the motivation for the gods to keep the Titans alive after defeating them. Anyway, this is all foretold by the Virgin Oracle (Freida Pinto, the super hot veterinarian from Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and her three decoys. Anyway, Hyperion is tearing ass across Greece and about to come to a village nestled cozily into the side of a massive cliff. This is home of Thesius, the “hero” (played by Henry Caville, the next Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel where, is a shocking fit of originality, he goes toe to toe with General Zod). For the rest of this review I shall refer to Thesius as Blandy McBlanderson (Blandy son of Bland), as his acting, notability, and screen presence could not only put you to sleep but possibly induce a coma. He should have been a Navy Seal, as he so blends in with the scenery you completely forget he is on screen.
Anyway, Blandy is a bastard (literally) and lives in poverty with his mother in the cliff village. I normally talk about dues ex machina when I see the hand of God pushing the plot along, but in this movie the gods not only do what they can to help but have speaking and action rolls. Hyperion conquers the village, kills Blandys mother, and casts him into the salt mines or something. Meanwhile there is some kind of subplot involving Lysander (Joseph Morgan, from the Vampire Diaries), who betrays the Greeks and joins Hyperion only to be rewarded by being castrated and having most of his face torn off. It seems like there is something going to happen but then it just ends with no point. Blandy goes to work carrying beams and, like all filthy slaves, is allowed to drink from a beautiful, crystal clear fountain right next to the very beautiful Virgin Oracle, who is Hyperions prisoner. She is so valuable (she apparently knows where the magic bow that can release the Titans is located) that Hyperion assigns like three guys to watch her and the slaves in this one tower village. Naturally, they all escape. Greek battle hijinks ensues. The good guys somehow survive a tar tsunami. The Virgin Oracle gives it up to Blandy so fast it makes your eyes spin (as does the completely gratuitous nude scene. Ever seen a bare ass closeup on a screen 40 feet tall? Kind of weird, actually. Pretty sure it was a body double). Meanwhile her decoys suffer horribly. The gods apparently have some rule against helping mortals (that doesn’t sound like Greek mythology to me. Back then the gods were in mortals business like a nosy church lady living next door) that Zues enforces with lethal enthusiasm. Apparently he posed as an old man and trained Blandy, but that doesn’t count. The one thing he wants Blandy to do is keep the Titans from escaping, which Blandy fails miserably at. Lots of “Immortals” die. You spend the final simultaneous three fight scenes more or less rooting for both sides (Micky Roarke has a lot more appeal than Blandy, the Titans have been in serious bondage for thousands of year and the gods are complete jerks, and the Greek mortals are such non-entities that you couldn’t care less who won that fight).
Anyway, the stars. Greek mythology movie. One star. Mickey Roarke. One star. The action was pretty good (could have used more of it IMO). Two stars. Super hot Frieda Pinto, and a nice nude scene. One star. The sneaking suspicion that had I been even a little drunk or stoned this movie would have seemed brilliant. Two stars. In spite of the lack of specific stars, the movie overall was at least sort of entertaining. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Story without a point. One black hole. None of the characters made me feel any kind of connection or appeal except for Mickey Roarke, and he was supposed to be the bad guy. One black hole. Set design as done by a twelve year old. One black hole The CGI and 3D effects were actually kind of lame, and really hurt the action. One black hole. The gore was clearly fake, and kind of hurt the action. I honestly think they could have done better with clay and fake blood. One black hole. Really, really, really, really dumb costume designs. Seriously. The people on screen were either wearing slave rags, armor, or hats that would embarrass a troupe of drag queens on LSD. One black hole. While I understand the need to have everything in English (although for some reason the four Oracle girls spoke Greek), no attempt was made to make the language or wording appropriate for the subject matter. All the actors sounded like customers at the Beverly Center. One black hole. A bunch of “oh, duh” moments and the inspirational speech Blandy delivers to the Greeks toward the end had me laughing. It was also pretty pointless. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
So a perfect zero. Not surprising based on how I felt leaving the film. If your local theater is down the street from a bar and or you can down a sixer of Shiner Bock before heading into the movie you should really enjoy it. If you ARE going to see it I would say go to a theater, as the battle scenes will get lost on a smaller screen. However, don’t waste your money on the 3D. Not a good date movie at all. See it with your drunk friends.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. My movie budget is nicely expanded this week, so I should get more in soon. Talk to you later.
Dave
Tower Heist Movie Review
I was very pleasantly surprised. I guess I should have had faith in Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy’s ability to pick a script that didn’t suck, but honestly the trailers made this look like a bad 48 Hours remake and given the fact that for the past few years Eddie has been doing Daddy Daycare and the like, I was expecting something painful. Not in the least.
The fact is, this movie is well written, clever, and above all funny without being goofy schtick. The humor is subdued enough to make you appreciate it, as well as the acting ability of the main characters as they deliver the lines. Eddie Murphy’s character Slide does borrow heavily from Reggie Hammond, but does not reprise the character entirely and makes this one less clever and sophisticated, but much more street smart and, to be honest, believable. In fact, all the characters are 
extremely believable, especially Josh Kovacs, played by one of my favorite actors Ben Stiller, star of the great Zoolander (Derek Zoolander Center for Children who can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
The story is of Josh Kovacs, manager and majordomo of the most plush building in all of Manhattan, the Tower. While working for some of the richest people on the planet he is living in a slum and gets hassled by Eddie Muphy’s character Slide as he goes to work every day. He is aided by a dedicated staff of doormen, security personal, and cleaning staff including his brother-in-law concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck – Good Will Hunting, Gone Baby Gone), veteran doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson – Everyday People, the Good Heart, Keane), new elevator operator Enrique Dev’Reaux (Micheal Peña – Shooter, Million Dollar Baby, Crash), and maid Odessa (Gabourey Sidebe – Precious. That’s it. Glad to see her adding to her filmography). Their richest resident is Arthur Shaw (cough cough Bernard Madoff cough cough), played excellently by the great Alan Alda (Mash of course. A few others but Mash is more than enough), who gets arrested for securities fraud after taking every employees pensions and life savings.
I’d like to add a thought here on the brilliance of casting Mr. Alda for this. If there is one thing the otherwise weak Schwarzenegger film the Running Man taught us is that if you take a beloved American icon and cast him in the role of a villain, he somehow seems much more evil. It worked for Richard Dawson, and in all ways works great for Alan Alda here.
In comes FBI agent Claire Denham (played by the one time love of my life, Téa Leoni. If you want to see why I loved her set the way back machine to 1992 and watch a short lived comedy called Flying Blind. She also starred in Deep Impact, Jurassic Park III, and the Family Man. She was also married to sex addict David Duchovny. She has gotten older, but still looks super hot), who caught Shaw and now has to see him under house arrest in his fabulous penthouse. She gets hammered one night and tells Kovacs that Shaw must still have a secret stash of money somewhere in his place. That is when Kovacs decides to rob Shaw. He just got fired for going nuts on Shaw and recruits evicted former tenant Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Glory, Godzilla 1998 (eww)), Charlie, Enrique, and Odessa. They quickly realize they don’t have the skill set required and recruit career criminal Slide, who aids them in the robbery while forcing them to prove they have what it takes to rob someone in humorous ways.
Crime comedy hijinks ensues. I don’t want to give away much of the plot, as I liked it a lot and hope you all go see it, but at one point the ridiculous meter dips so deep into the red it actually hits infrared. Other than that the movie is fun, super entertaining, and ends in what I thought was the most appropriate way.
The stars. Great, fun story well told. Two stars. I would like to give a star for every great actor in this film, but that would actually skew it too far in the star direction. It’s a good movie, but it’s no Wrath of Khan. Murphy, Stiller, Alda, Leoni, even Matthew Broderick would be five stars. I’ll just give three for great casting. Very real characters. One star. Dialog and direction were great. One star. No annoying subplots or unnecessary characters. Even the weird Russian girl (Nina Arianda – Midnight in Paris) had a significant role. One star. An ending that made sense (mostly) and didn’t have any sugar frosting smeared on it to make it more palatable to the unwashed morons of this country. One star. Two bonus stars for an overall pleasant movie experience that exceeded my expectations. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. For a movie that seemed to work hard to stay funny in the real world, when they got to the actual robbery they went in a really stupid direction and completely blew out my suspension of disbelieve circuit (sorry, but elementary violations of the laws of physics even a grade school child could spot grinds me like sandpaper underwear). Two black holes. The humor, which until the robbery had been pretty low key and subtle, took a left turn down Three Stooges alley and cruised there for most of the rest of the movie (ever see the one where they are skyscraper construction workers?). Tonal shifts 3/4ths of the way through the movie rarely work. One black hole. There was a romantic undercurrent that felt really undeveloped. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
I will say that this movie was rated PG-13 and in all ways worked at that rating. It was one that didn’t need to go any deeper into R. Kudos to director Brett Ratner (who managed to insert a speaking cameo). However, Brett, you are going to have to come up with a few more great movies to make up for X-Men Last Stand and Rush Hour.
So a total of seven stars, a great score. Should you see it? Absolutely. Do you need to see it on a big screen? Not really. There are a couple scenes towards the end that benefit from being on a bigger screen, but like most comedies this one will do just fine on a TV. Good second date film, IMO, in that it is funny, but not super sexual. Also, none of the people in this movie are super Hollywood hot, so unless she has a thing for Eddie Murphy you won’t lose anything in comparison.
Thanks for reading. I fell way behind in my movie watching this last week and will try to nail a few more down this week. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. By the way, I did great the first day at the Warhammer Tournament and got my ass beat on the second by a guy I hate like I hate the Star Wars Holiday Special, so kind of a bummer weekend. I probably would have done better sitting on my ass at home writing more.
Dave
Footloose Movie Review
While personally painful for me, if you like paint-by-numbers remakes and think a teenagers right to dance is of critical importance, go for it.
Well, it’s time to declare 2011 the official Year of the Movie Remake. Given that there are two this weekend alone, and any number so far this year, it really looks like Hollywood has thrown in the towel and is admitting they have run out of creative ideas for movies.
So, Footloose. I have any number of issues with this movie, both this remake and the original. As I have stated in other reviews (Bad Teacher, I think), high school plus dancing sets my mind into a mode I like to call “homicidal violent mayhem”. However, that is my issue, and I will try to keep it separate from this review. There are any number of other things to complain about, mostly having to do with the fact that the entire premise of this movie was stupid in 1984 and hasn’t gotten any smarter with age.
The weird thing is, I actually like the song Footloose. At one point in my life I lived with the super hot niece of Kenny Loggins (no joke) and that was something we kind of bonded over. Although truth be told, I think I’m All Right from Caddyshack is a better song. (Bushwood Country Club image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). I find his music weirdly infectious, which is kind of at odds with my normal preference for old school punk rock. I’m sure this says something about me psychologically.
Anyway, Footloose. I don’t want to get into the story too much because if you have seen the 1984 movie you have seen this one. It is like they dusted off the old script and just reshot it. I will do a quick symapsis. Kids get killed while driving home drunk from a dance. Rather than passing laws to help curtail underage drinking, drunk driving, or curfew violations the hick town decides to outlaw dancing. Some guy (Kenny Wormald – You Got Served, Clerks II, Center Stage Turn it Up) moves in with his uncle from Boston and instead of getting his ass kicked like any normal big town guy moving to a hayseed burg movie manages to make friends for life in like a week and his love of dancing compels him to fight the ban. Meanwhile, the super white trash daughter (Julianne Hough, who has been in nothing previously. I think she was on Dancing with the Stars and is dating Ryan Seacrest, which actually makes her a lot lamer in my book) of the preacher (Dennis Quaid – the Day After Tomorrow, Any Given Sunday, Vantage Point, which I liked) who pushed the ban falls in love with him. He makes an impassioned speech to the city council. People dance. He gets into a fight with the local color, including the even white trashier ex boyfriend of the preachers daughter. The movie ends with everyone dancing.
There are a few differences, but most of them were kind of stupid (and when I say kind of, I mean really). The whole tractor chicken scene is now replaced by a bus racing demolition derby that was just plain dumb. The ex BF challenges Rem to a bus death race wherein 4 buses get wrecked. It is supposed to be for some upcoming event but there are all of ten people watching. Even junk buses cost money.
The main issue I have with this entire movie (aside from the dancing, the fact that with only one exception the high school is filled with super models, and the complete remake thing) is the basic premise behind the film. How does the city council think banning dancing is going to save lives? Why do they care that much? Does the local law dog have nothing better to do than enforce dancing ordinances? How about curtailing the rampant meth problem plaguing the South?
By the way, this is my chance to prove to the world what an old man I am by laying down some insights to my teenage readers. Ever wonder why no one ever works to curtail the laws specific to young people, like not drinking until you are 21, curfews, and so on? It’s because that is something you really care about until the day you turn old enough to not care. If on my 18th birthday they had passed a law requiring all underage teenagers to wear leather gimp masks during the day I wouldn’t have cared. In fact, when someone turns 21 and can start drinking the first thing they think of is “I had to wait this long. Why shouldn’t everyone else?”
This review seems to be kind of hard for me to keep on course. Let’s get into the stars.
Well acted all around, even from Ryan Seacrests girlfriend. One star. I supposed a argument could be made that they kept it scene for scene in order to maintain the integrity of the original vision or something. One star. Both the girls were super hot, especially the supporting brunette IMO (Ziah Colon – Road Trip Beer Pong, Drop Dead Diva, Sparkles and Smiley Kill the Internet (???)). One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. Pretty much a photo copy of the original. One black hole. Stupid premise for a movies. One black hole. In spite of being a copy of the original, they somehow managed to lose a lot of the emotional impact the first one had. One black hole. High school dance movie. One black hole. Everyone in the movie was one of the super cool kids in high school I hated. One black hole. There was a sub plot about the dopey hick sidekick with the super hot girlfriend having to learn how to dance that dragged on and on to no benefit. One black hole. In spite of the fact that Kenny Wormald is an accomplished dancer they couldn’t get away from the one second cut editing technique that sucks so bad for fight scenes and even more for dancing. One black hole. They really milked every small town hick stereotype possible. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
I have a couple irksome but not black hole worthy points as well. While the music was pretty much true to the original score, it was definitely modernized and glitz’d up to its detriment. Also, he was supposed to be from Boston, but I sometimes found Kenny Wormald’s accent a little grating. Not really bad by itself, but in contrast with all the southern accents it really felt out of place.
So a total of five black holes. I don’t know. A lot of my black holes related to my own personal issues. It wasn’t claw-your-own-eyes-out bad. If I were less of a bitter soul I might have enjoyed parts of it. If you liked Glee, high school romance doesn’t infuriate you, are easily entertained by brightly colored objects, or you just like dance you might enjoy it. I will say this is an excellent date movie, as it has a lot of elements girls might like. Actually I’ll give you a move to make with this. Take a girl out to see this movie. Assuming you don’t end up hooking up with her that night, tell her you enjoyed it but the original was much better. That is an open invention to getting her to come over to your place to see the 1984 Footloose in your recently cleaned apartment. You are welcome.
I would like to share one more observation about this movie that perplexes me. In all the posters and images they show the logo for the movie as a cursive neon blue sign spelling Footloose. However, one of the “o”s in loose is always unlit, making the sign spell Footlose. Was that on purpose, as some kind of inside joke? Or just some marketing director’s subconscious mind manifesting his or her real secret feelings for this movie? That question is kind of bugging me.
Anyway, thanks again for reading. I am sorry I haven’t done more recently, but things have gotten super busy. I will see the Thing tomorrow to continue Remake-a-paloosa 2011, and maybe Ides of March early next week. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Movie Review
It’s not every day you get to spend 97 minutes praying for a merciful death.
Can someone give me a clue what exactly happened to Adam Sandler? Did he fall on his head? Stop taking his funny medication? Been abducted by aliens and replaced with a doppelganger, human in all appearances but intellectually and culturally an extraterrestrial, from an alien planet where they find semen jokes funny and not at all cringe-worthy? He has had 24 different film and TV roles since the Waterboy and none of them are even remotely funny. A case could be made that Punch Drunk Love was an attempt at a serious career, but I found the movie disjointed and honestly funnier than You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. The trailers for his upcoming movie, Jack and Jill, where he plays his own twin sister (always a winning move), makes being trapped Chilean coal mine for months look like a pleasant alternative. I love the fact that he calls his production studio Happy Madison, in an attempt to make you think one of his current movies is on par with two of his decent ones.
So, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. Adam is not in it, but wrote it and you can smell his hands all over the script. The story is of young Bucky Larson (Nick Swardson, who has been in a ton of junk. The only thing that caught my eye was 30 Minutes or Less and a bit role in Blades of Glory. Otherwise it’s all stuff like Just Go With It), a bucktoothed hayseed from Iowa with a salad bowl haircut. He discovers his parents were porn stars in the 70’s and decides he needs to move to LA to follow in their footsteps (Debbie Does Dallas image courtesy of the movie t shirts).
God, even recounting the story is painful. I’m going to blaze through it. Turns out Bucky has a micro phallus. He meets a director who discovers everyone loves him as a star because he is so small he makes ordinary guys look huge. He meets a super hot waitress (Christina Ricci – Sleepy Hollow, Speed Racer (ugh), Grey’s Anatomy, Pan Am) who works in a crappy diner, dreams of being a waitress, and has a fear of soup. She is also a virgin and yet somehow totally cool with Bucky getting into porn. There is some kind of antagonist, but the conflict is so non-consequential it doesn’t even register. An awkward romance progresses, and the only issues in it have nothing to do with any of the normal crap and more to do with a misunderstanding. Love reigns supreme at the end. My brain feels like I lost 8 IQ points as the movie progressed.
The stars. Umm. Geez. Christina Ricci was hot, although her character made me want to projectile vomit. One star. There were a couple secondary characters who were 100 times more engaging than Bucky, his girlfriend, and his parents put together. Specifially the porn director, his nephew, the porn producer, and the antagonist porn star (Don Johnson, Tyler Spindel, Ido Mosseri, and Stephen Dorff respectively). One star. There was some bare breast, but in a movie about porn there was hardly any, and it was mostly eclipsed by having to look at Bucky’s face all the time. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. Forced me to look at the Bucky Larson face the whole movie. Sorry, but that is not something that gets easier over time. It actually gets worse. One black hole. Having to see Bucky naked full frontal. One black hole. About 100,000,000 micro phallus jokes. One black hole. There was no real story at all. Once Bucky got to LA there was no real conflict or issues. Two black holes. Bucky’s parents were super annoying in all regards. One black hole. Bucky’s friends made me wish that bullying was still cool. As a group they all deserved about 100 wedgies a day. One black hole. Christina Ricci’s character was so unbelievable in all regards that she made the giant penguin from Billy Madison look like a viable supporting character. One black hole. The dialog was painful. One black hole. The story had little to do with any kind of reality. One black hole. The ending flew out of the ether. One black hole. Two more black holes for completely wasting two hours of my life. Total: 13 black holes.
So a total of ten black holes. Do not see this movie. Do not rent this movie. If you happen to be walking by a theater showing this movie and you see it is on fire, do not call 911. Trust me, odds are anyone watching it would rather burn to death and you are doing them a favor (I’m kidding, of course. Please call 911. Just don’t expect the people inside to thank you). Just let it rot on the pile of bad Adam Sandler films like Big Daddy, the Zookeeper, and Grown-ups.
Good sized Warhammer tournament coming up this weekend, and I’m pretty sure my friends are all planning on drinking afterwards, so I don’t know if I will get any movies watched. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I have been doing more Tweets, a lot of them nerd movie related.
I think tomorrow I might do more of my Star Trek retrospective. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Warrior Movie Review
Shoot at the walls of heartache Bang! Bang!
Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. It was either that or “Warriors! Come out and playyyay.” Anyway, last night’s date ended early, which may or may not bode ill, although given my current track record is not a promising sign, and I stopped off at Jack London Square to watch this movie. I had seen trailers and it looked like a bad Rocky remake, only with MMA. I have not been a huge MMA fan to date. I mean sure, like any primitive testosterone enhanced American male I enjoy watching guys beat the hell out of each other, but I don’t actively follow it. I would rather watch that than boxing, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. (Drago image courtesy of the movie t-shirt category, and is kind of appropriate given this movie features a scary Russian fighter too).
So I went into this film not expecting much. I mean, Nick Nolte is an actor I enjoy, but the other guys looked kind of dopey and the title alone was enough to give me the bad review writing itch. But then, as the movie progressed and led to the climax, I experienced one of the rarest things an embittered, soulless movie critic such as myself can: excitement.
Yes, this movie was exciting. I got totally drawn in to the characters. I found myself rooting for both of the main protagonists, wondering how each was going to beat their next, progressively nastier opponent, and even the sub plot dealing with Nick Nolte’s character trying to reconcile his relationship with is two estranged sons had me in neck deep. I followed the training sequences avidly (this isn’t a stretch for me. Any martial arts movie should have training sequences) and even bought the wife and stupid high school kids as really decent supporting characters.
I don’t know why we are having so many good movies coming out in late August/early September. Traditionally this is the doldrums of movie making.
Anyway, the story. Muscle bound Tom Hardy (actually really good film biography here. I was surprised. Inception, Layer Cake (great film), Rocknrolla) as Tommy Conlon shows up on his father’s (Nick Nolte) door after being gone for 15 years or so. He left with his mother, who died penniless, and now blames his father for her death. The father, Paddy, trained Tom and his brother Brendon in wrestling. They have some awkward, mumbling conversation and Tommy bails out. Meanwhile, his estranged brother Brendon (Joel Edgerton – less impressive biography here. You might remember him as young Uncle Owen from Star Wars Episode II and III. Other than than kind of junk) is a high school physics teacher in danger of losing his house to the bank after financing heart surgery for his daughter. He is making money fighting at local strip bars and gets suspended for it. They both hear about the biggest MMA fight in the world with a $5MM prize and decide to train for it (turns out Tommy is committed to helping out the family of his friend killed while they both served in Iraq in the Marines). Tommy trains with Paddy and Brendon with an old friend Frank (Frank Grillo – Guiding Light, Minority Report, Edge of Darkness). Brendon is dealing with his hot wife ((Jennifer Morrison – House M.D., Star Trek 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) who doesn’t want him to fight, as he got hurt doing it before.
Anyway, there is a big montage of training that works really well. The sub plots weave kind of seamlessly into the story without getting in the way or being annoyingly distracting. Both guys are fighting for a noble cause, and you end up not sure who you want to see win. I found myself rooting for both. The story is a little on the predicable side, but the action and characters are exciting enough to keep your mind off that.
The stars. Really, really exciting (most exciting for since Unstoppable). Two stars. Even though all the guys spoke like they had a mouthful of marbles, they still (or because of) managed to deliver very real characters whom I firmly believed. Well done IMO. One star. Good supporting characters. One star. Good sub plots. One star. Nick Nolte. One star. I know this probably has a lot to do with my own history, but the whole father/son reconciliation thing really spoke to me. One star. The fight sequences toward the end were very well shot and drew the audience in. You really felt the hits. One star. The ending really worked, and didn’t at all try to get sappy. One star. Overall the story never bugged me too much, and made sense. One star. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. I find it hard to believe that all it takes for two completely unknown fighters to get entered into the worlds largest MMA fight is a couple of phone calls. One black hole. The writer and director blatantly strived to manipulate my emotions (and for the most part succeeded). I know that is their job, but sometimes I find myself annoyed by such heavy handed approaches. One black hole. You know, I’m wracking my brain and can’t really come up with anything else (and even that last one was a stretch). Pacing was good. Dialog was good. Film work adequate. Two black holes total.
So a grand total of eight stars and my hearty recommendation that you go see it in the theater. The fight scenes really have a great impact on the larger screen. You could wait, but I don’t think it would be as good on a TV.
I think that’s it for new movies until next weekend, although I supposed I have to see Bucky Larson at some point. I am dreading that film like a root canal. Next weekend we have some cool stuff coming out like Drive, Straw Dogs, and I Don’t Know How She Does It (what I don’t know is if Sarah Jessica Parker will still look hot at 46 and playing a working mother, but we’ll see). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading this! Talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Reveiw: Saving Private Perez
Before I get into this weekend’s movie releases, let me just say I will not be doing a review for Shark Night 3D. Sharks freak me the hell out (almost as bad as mimes) and I can’t imagine a more horrible death (unless it’s being trapped inside an invisible box by a bunch of mimes and asphyxiating. Jaws image courtesy of the movie t-shirt category). Seriously I would rather go feet first into a tree shredder. Actually, that would be kind of cool, if only because at my funeral people would be like “How did Dave die?” and my friends would have to try to maintain a straight face while saying “He fell into a tree shredder.” The point is I don’t want to end up food for something bigger than a worm.
Actually, I have always been a big fan of spontaneous human combustion.
So the first movie I saw this weekend was Saving Private Perez. I was kind of excited when I saw the trailers. It looked like my kind of movie, and for the most part it was. What I didn’t like was the fact that the nearest place it played was 17 miles away. How are independent or foreign films supposed to get a fair test if they only show up in a few theaters? Lord knows we need as much screen space possible for the latest Spy Kids movie.
Anyway, this movie was pretty much what I hoped it would be: Black Hawk Down meets Machete and El Mariachi. Definitely grindhouse in flavor, with a little bit of Cheech and Chong thrown in. Miguel Rodarte plays Julian Perez, Mexican crime lord. He gets guilted by his dying mother to find his brother, Juan, who has been captured by Iraqis during Desert Storm II. He assembles a team of crack Mexican mercenaries who waver back and forth from being stone cold gunmen and comic relief clowns. Even the reported psychopath Pumita (Rodrigo Oviedo), the most competent of the gunmen, seems to have a lot of humor written into the role. I’m not sure if I liked that part or not. Through a series of dumb luck and money expenditures they all end up in Iraq and are following any lead they can find. The run into the US Army a few times, who are portrayed as both bloodthirsty and kind of incompetent. Not the fairest assessment of our boys in my opinion, but I tried to remember that most of the rest of the world might not see them in the same light we do. They kind of bumble around for a while. Stuff blows up. A tank shows up.
The stars. Generally fun and interesting. One star. Kind of a cool message running through the movie about the importance of family that I appreciated. One star. Grindhouse-ie. One star. I reasonably clear and concise story. One star. Good dialog, and they didn’t rob the dialog of it’s emotional impact by dubbing it into English. One star. The characters were each distinct and separate, and were even each given a minor back story. One star. As far as I could tell from only speaking English, the acting was good. One star. Good camera work and editing for a independent film. One star. Overall a good movie experience. One star. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. The whole comedy thing while people are shooting at you. One black hole. Somehow the team managed to kick the crap out of Iraq without killing a bunch of people. One black hole. The action got kind of dopey at some points, especially towards the end. One black hole. The inaccurate portrayal of the US servicemen as kind of incompetent, not to mention trigger happy. Sorry, but I know how well trained those guys are, and if you have an entire squad and a .50 cal shooting at you from 30 yards away, you’re dead. You aren’t going to get away without a scratch. One black hole. As much as I appreciate the dialog being in Spanish the whole time to maintain the emotional integrity of the film, subtitles in fast moving action films makes my eyes really jumpy. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of five stars. Not bad at all, and if you like foreign, independent, or just fun films worth seeing. The action is pretty good, and I can’t help but feel if you were trying to watch that and read the subtitles on a small TV you might miss some cool stuff, so try to see it in a theater.
Next up I think will be the Debt, Warrior, and maybe Apollo 18, although I suspect I have seen something like it before, perhaps called Apollo 13. This looks like more of a conspiracy nut film and might possibly involve aliens, so maybe I will like it. Follow me on Twiiter @Nerdkungfu. Big Warhammer weekend (two different tournaments; I am in hog heaven) plus a BBQ on Monday, so I don’t know if I will get everything caught up right away. Cya l8r.
Movie Review: One Day
24 hours of pain.
Gah this movie was a painful experience. It felt less like watching a movie and more like sitting on an airplane next to a creepy, smelly homeless man while a little kid spends the whole flight kicking the back of your seat. (Airplane image courtesy of the movie t shirt category) I can’t say it didn’t elicit emotions from me, but those emotions were frustration, annoyance, massive depression, and anger.
I suppose I could look at this as a sign of my new found dedication to my movie reviewing past time. I could have not seen something. I could have seen Point Blank, a French action movie that looked kind of interesting. Why this flick? Well, in part because my bad reviews tend to be funnier and more entertaining. The main reason, however, was that the other night I had a blow struck to my confidence and needed to prove to myself that I could accurately assess whether a movie sucks from the trailer. You see I went into Our Idiot Brother expecting it to blow and it was actually kind of fun. So I went to this dog and was gratified (on some levels) to discover that my trailer based assessment was dead on the money.
Speaking of money, to greater enhance my sense of violation I paid full price for this dog. In most cases if I am going to pay someone to punch me in the stomach I’ll at least haggle a bit.
The movie (SPOILER ALERT-I don’t expect anyone with any kind of taste to see this dog, so I am going to totally spoil the crap out of it. If you read the book no problem, but if you are a glutton for punishment and want to see it skip to the last paragraph). It’s called One Day because it takes place on July 15th on each year from 1988 to 2011. While I appreciate an alternative to traditional story telling, trust me when I say this tends to really screw the story up. This movie was based on a well received book, and I can see how this format would work with each day being a different chapter, but as a movie it is painfully disjarring. The biggest issue for me was the fact that one of the years you would see a happy, fun time by both characters and the next you would be subject to some horribly depressing crap that would make you want to throw yourself down the theater stairs. Anne Hathaway stars as Emma, a British girl (with an accent that seems to waver in and out like a fast moving tide) and Jim Sturgess plays Dexter, a rich British ne’er do well. They meet upon graduation in 1988 and almost but not quite sleep together. Emma is the nerdy but cute girl and Dexter is the hot young stud (of England). Anyway, they enter into a 20 year contest to prove which of them is the most annoying human being on the planet. Dexter becomes a successful TV personality and a jerk with a drug and alcohol problem while Emma wastes her life serving tables in a Mexican food Chucky Cheeses. Then Dexter’s life tanks while Emma becomes a successful writer of some kind. During all this time they are frustrating each other (and the audience) by almost but never sleeping together, often in cruel ways. You end up hating Dexter for being a sleazy layabout and hating Emma for being a mousy, low confidence nobody. Finally they both grow up and and get married. At that moment I started to get some satisfaction from the film, as they both were treating each other decently and it looked like a good romance and fulfilling relationship was developing. At that exact moment (BIG SPOILER ALTER RIGHT HERE–>) Emma gets hit by a truck and killed. No joke. She was also by that point the loser in the most hated human on the planet contest and was the character I liked the best, so after an hour and a half of failing to get me to connect with the characters the movie finally did so, only to kill her off. I was seriously depressed, and not in the good “have a chick cry and feel better about yourself” way but more in the “go home and cut your arm up with an Xacto knife” way. By the way, the truck accident was shockingly graphic. Like Meet Joe Black graphic.
Then, as if life wasn’t sucking enough already, the movie had to go on for another 20 pointless, painful, awkward minutes while Dexter came to grips with crap. The movie flashes back to the day in 1988 when they first met and I suppose was intended to be heartwarming, but knowing her eventual fate made watching them as a young couple even more painful. It ended with Dexter and his daughter (from a different marriage) more or less talking about Emma and enjoying a tender moment, but at that point I was torn between wanting to kill myself or the projectionist.
I woke up this morning still pissed off and depressed from this movie, by the way. I really just want to end this review now and skip the whole stars/black holes thing, but I feel I have an obligation to carry it through.
The stars. I really am crazy for Anne Hathaway, and her with her nerdy glasses really did something for me. One star. Acting was decent all around. One star. Shot in England, so the scenery was pretty. One star. Watching Dexter’s TV career tank was oddly amusing. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Depressing. Two black holes. Frustrating. One black hole. Infuriating. One black hole. Killing my favorite character. One black hole. The whole sudden shift of tone from day to day thing. One black hole. Forcing us to watch 90 minutes of foreplay with no consummation. One black hole. Anne Hathaway’s accent kept shifting gears. One black hole (sorry Anne. I still love you). The film blatently manipulated my emotions. One black hole. Dragging the film out for another 20 minutes after it more or less died. One black hole. There was not a single truly satisfying moment in the entire movie. One black hole. One more black hole for making me want to punch holes in my wall this morning. Total: twelve black holes.
So a total of eight black hole. Look, I’m not saying all movies have to end happy and upbeat. I actually like a dark twist. I just don’t want to be sold on the idea of a love story only to have it turn into Sophies Choice. Just look at the poster for it on IMDB. It shows young Dexter and Emma romantically kissing in a passionate embrace. There is nothing that says by the end of the movie you will be looking for a bridge to jump off of.
I don’t know. Maybe this thing hit home a little hard because I am single and bitter about it. If I had had someone’s hand to hold while watching it I might have been better able to deal with what was going on. Odds are this movie would have made me cherish a girlfriend a lot more. Hell, I might have even been secure enough to cry a little and feel better afterwards (don’t bet on it. I’m all man, baby). As it is, I am really wishing I had gone to see the new Spy Kids movie instead.
Anyway, after this bitchy, depressing blog it would not surprise me if you never came back here again, but if you did be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Also, if you are a single woman 27-38 who even slightly resembles Anne Hathaway let’s just say this movie has made me particularly receptive for the next week or so, so drop me a Tweet. Thanks. Everyone have a great day.
Movie Review: Fright Night 3D
More funny than frightening, but on some levels enjoyable nonetheless.
I never saw the original, and normally would have tried to watch it before hand. However, after my marathon Harry Potter thing I think I have done enough pre-movie watching for one month. I will have to just judge this movie on it’s own merits. My best friend Dave says the original was great. Actually he says it was Big Trouble in Little China great, which is saying a lot in my book. I guess I will have to see it soon. (Pork Chop Express image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
So Fright Night. I enjoyed it in a campy way. I am always appreciative of vampire movies where the vampires are not somehow good and/or sparkle in daylight. In this movie vampires do what vampires are supposed to do in daylight: burst into flame and die quickly. Not great, however, and if you really think about it you can be pretty bothered by a lot of the film. I strongly suspect that once I see the original one I will come to realize that this flick is one of those horrid too slick CGI remakes that are so prevalent right now.
So, the movie. Charlie (Anton Yelchin, from the new Star Trek and the God-awful Terminator: Salvation) is a high school kid who has recently made the nigh impossible (at least in my experience) transition from uber nerd (apparently he had attended a Farscape convention. I have done the same, and see no problem with that) to cool kid, and apparently one of the perks of rejecting who you really are on the inside is a super hot girlfriend. His ex best friend Ed (Chirstopher Mintz-Plasse from Kick Ass and Superbad) is feeling hurt about being dropped like a bad habit and is threatening to reveal some of the cooler (IMO) moments of Charlie’s youth. He needs Charlie’s help proving that the new neighbor, Jerry, is actually a vampire.
Of course, Jerry actually is a vampire, and whole families are going missing. Ed gets turned when Charlie leaves him hanging. Some humorous moments occur as Jerry (Colin Farrell, who wavers for me between kind of cool and really annoying. In this one he was the former) is super creepy and threatening. Vampire hunting hijinks ensue. The action gets very Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque, which makes sense as the writer Marti Noxon actually wrote a bunch of Buffy episodes. If you have seen even one show then you have more or less seen all the action and story resolution in this film.
By the way, I looked up Marti Noxon in IMDB and was surprised to find out first of all she is a woman, and second of all pretty hot for an older woman. I have to say I am intrigued by her writing style and assumed intellect. I’ll add her to the list of women I will never get to meet.
Anyway, stuff blows up. We get a couple of appearances by the stupidest cops in the history of law enforcement. David Tennant from Dr. Who shows up as a local “expert” on vampire hunting. Vampires die. Humans die. A happy ending gets pulled out of nowhere.
The stars. Kind of funny. One star. The characters and their dialog was probably the best part of the film. Two stars. Decent CGI. One star. Some really hot women (although no gratuitous nudity, which I was pretty offended at. If you are going to get an R rating anyway can you at least throw your horny guy audience a bone here?) One star. None of the characters acted in what I thought was a stupid, typical horror movie manner. One star. No sparkle or “good” vampires. One star. Total: seven stars.
And the black holes. There was nothing thrilling or frightening during the entirety of this film. It does not deserved to be called a horror movies. One black hole. For a movie that seems to want to reside in the “funny horror” neighborhood of horror films, it really wasn’t all that funny. A few chuckle-worthy moments, but that’s pretty much it. One black hole. The 3D did nothing, and the blood and gore was minimal and obviously fake. One black hole. They fell back on the whole Buffy-style “no-one-in-town-ever-notices-the-fact-that-kids-and-entire-families-are-going-missing” thing that was my biggest beef with Buffy (sorry, but if several dozen teenage kids went missing in a town the size of Sunnydale there would be about 1,000 FBI agents parked there). One black hole. The cops were dumber than a sack of hammers and failed to talk to the woman in a domestic disturbance call, look into three separate hit and run incidents, or even look into an obvious case of arson (sorry, digging up a gas pipe and setting fire to it is pretty much going to raise a couple of eyebrows when the fire department comes around). They are seriously written to be non-entities for the duration of the film. One black hole. In the movie the main vampire is said to want to turn all his victims and pretty much needs to feed every night. A little basic math would mean that if he turns one person each night and then they each turn one person by the end of a full month the entire population of North America would be vampire. Petty I know, but really two lines of expository dialogue would have cleared this up. One black hole. The ending might have been good for an episode of Buffy, but reeked of POOYA syndrome (Pulled Out Of Your Ass) for a movie. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
So a final score of zero stars. Not really good, and honestly I can’t recommend you spend your hard earned dollars seeing it in a theater. Also, I very strongly suspect that if I had seen the original Fright Night I would end up giving it another 4-6 black holes. Just look at the review I did for Conan. This could be a good brainless NetFlix night. Not bad, just not that good.
I’m at a trade show for the next two days (viva Las Vegas!) so my next post won’t be until Tuesday night maybe (probably Wednesday). Have a good start of the week.
Movie review: Conan the Barbarian in 3D
Another great classic is reanimated only to be burned by the local villagers (I mean scriptwriters).
You know, being what is generally considered highly intelligent and perceptive is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, it helps me notice things like smoke coming from under the hood of my car and make the intelligent connection that maybe I should stop before it blows up, but sometimes I know ahead of time when things are going to be horrible, and Conan the Barbarian is the perfect example of that. When I first saw the trailer I had that slow sinking sensation you get from stuff like swimming in the ocean and seeing a fin angling for you. It could be a dolphin, but odds are you are about to lose some significant anatomy.
This movie is also great example of being careful what you wish for. A couple months ago I was bitching about the fact that I couldn’t find a bad movie worthy of my sarcasm, and low and behold, here one is! Unfortunately it is a remake of one of my all time favorites, so I feel like I am desecrating a corpse.
How did I know this was going to blow? Well, first of all, some movies just really don’t need to be remade. Conan the Barbarian circa 1982 was cinematographic awesomeness that holds up even to this day. Arnold at his best, great action, a compelling story of love and revenge, and a guy who turns into a giant snake. What more could you ask for? So they show the trailer for this new turd and immediately I know it is going to suck, just in comparison to what was previously known. But was it going to suck as a stand alone film? In other words, if Conan had not been made in 1982, how likely was this to suck by itself? For insight on that question I turned to friend of all movie reviewers IMDB. My fears were allayed when I found out they had hired a bunch of people no one had ever heard of: sub par remake director Marcus Nispel (the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003, Friday the 13th 2009, the Very Best of Cher the Video Hits Collection 2004 (WTF???)); writer Thomas Dean Donnelly (Dylan Dog, Dead of (the) Night 2010, which I reviewed and it sucked, A Sound of Thunder 2005 (bad film adaptation of the Butterfly Effect), Sahara 2005, Thoughtcrimes 2003); his writing partner Joshua Oppenheimer, who has all the same credits and may just have been responsible on some level for the creation of the atomic bomb, and a couple other losers including Sean Hood, who wrote for the Crow Wicked Prayers 2005. With a pedigreed lineup like that there is no way this movie could really suck, right?
It’s not so much as I am disappointed in these less than talented individuals (I mean, look at their track record. You can’t expect much) as I am bitter at Hollywood for taking another cherished childhood memory and whoring it out for a few quick bucks. Does a decent directory and a couple of good writers really cost so much that you feel you have to inflict visual pollution on the screens of America? Hell, go to any film school, find 100 seniors, and tell them all to write a Conan script. Make it a contest and one of them will come up with something that reads better than this Miles O’Keefe worthy opus.
Anyway, the movie. How does it suck? Oh, let me count the ways. The thing is, with the original Conan (yes I am going to be making a lot of comparisons. With a film like that you can’t not. Deal with it), the writers kind of knew the level of acting they were dealing with (i.e. not a lot) and wrote the character and dialog to best suite Arnold’s acting strengths and weaknesses. There was minimal conversation and they made up for it with great direction and visuals, coming out with something brilliant. I cite the opening sequence as an example. Conan’s village is attacked by raiders under a double snake emblem. Everyone is killed, and Conan gets chained to the Wheel of Pain for fifteen years before being trained as a arena slave in gladiatorial games. That is pretty much it, but with almost no dialog whatsoever you are told everything about Conan you could possibly need. Where he is from, what motivates him, how he became so skilled in battle, etc. In this dog, I knew it was going to hell when Morgan Freeman (I think. Sure sounds like him, but I couldn’t find a credit) starts the film with a narration about what is motivating the bad guys (some kind of evil mask). Hey, morons. This is a film from primitive times. We don’t need a really complicated motivation for the bad guys to be bad. Simple rape and pillage should be sufficient.
Anyway, in the new film Conan is ripped from his mothers womb in battle by his father (Ron Perlman, why can’t you pick out a decent script?). There was a chance for a nice training montage that I, as a fan of Kung Fu movies, would have appreciated it, but they cut it down to show us how Conan was a brutal killer even before being trained. Good genes, I guess. Also I guess they paid for a blacksmith set so they had to show a sword being forged. His village gets overrun by the bad guy (Stephan Lang, and the only performance that didn’t totally suck) who is looking for the last piece of the magical mask that we were just told by Morgan Freeman that was broken up and scattered among the barbarians. Apparently he wants to use the mask to have his daughter resurrect his dead sorceress wife with the blood of a purebred (not sure what kind of purebred. Dalmatian, maybe?) so she can help him conquer the world. See what I mean about overly complicated.
Anyway, Ron Perlman takes a molten steel shower and Conan escapes (what the hell? No Wheel of Pain? Lame.). Morgan cuts in with another expository monologue to avoid all that pesky story development and tells us that Conan is now a great warrior and thief. Conan is somehow the most civilized barbarian in the history of the world (you know, just not wearing a shirt so you can expose your overdeveloped pectorals does not make you a barbarian) and spends his time freeing slaves and whatnot (remember when Conan was just motivated for loot, and only discovered the bad guys when he broke into their tower to steel anything not nailed down?), with the help of some blatantly rubber boulders a la Star Trek TOS. I’m not kidding about the civilized barbarian, by the way, his speech and actions are about as far removed from actual barbarians as this movie is from talented writers.
So we find out the bad guy and his daughter (played horribly by Rose McGowen. Sorry Rose, I think you are hot, but if you are going to play a primitive evil sorceress can you please try to pretend you aren’t a SoCal bimbo?) have the mask, but instead of using the last 20 years to more or less conquer the world they have been looking for their purebred (English Bulldog?). By coincidence it is a hot young girl (ever notice the chosen one is never a fat male bookkeeper?) who lives in a monastery. Some brain deadening action occurs. The monastery has bad stuff happen to it. Conan rescues the purebred (Beagle?) but then sort of captures her to be used as bait for the bad guy. More bad action occurs. Magical hijinks ensues, including the only fight scene that didn’t make me want to pass out when Rose summons some Sandman-esque demons who are actually pretty cool. Unlimited henchmen, bad and good, are killed by the truckload. We grind our way to the pretty dumb ending that I and I think no one else in the audience cared about.
The stars. Sand demons. One star. Ron Perlman. One star. Jason Momoa, whom I like from Stargate Atlantis. One star. Some completely and utterly unnecessary but highly appreciated gratuitous nudity. One star. Giant octopus fight. One star. I’ll give props for costuming. One star. Most of the villains looked pretty cool and had some nice variety. One star. Total: seven stars.
Now the black holes. Honestly, I found it really kind of boring. I was in serious danger of dozing off, and not just in the acting scenes. The action was so repetitive and predictable, and I had no connection with Conan whatsoever, not to mention that he doesn’t even get slightly hurt so there was never any tension. One black hole. A pale imitation of a great film. One black hole. No Wheel of Pain. One black hole. No “What is best in life?” One black hole (What is Best in Life image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). No Riddle of Steel (they had some dumb Mystery of Steel, but it was lame). One black hole. Dialog so bad that Robert DiNiro couldn’t deliver it well (“I live. I love. I slay, and I am content.”-Conan). Two black holes. Wooden, mediocre acting almost all around. Two black holes. Remember how Conan’s love interest was an accomplished warrior herself? Not here. One black hole. Conan’s thief sidekick falls into the annoying comic relief category (in the original he was pretty cool). One black hole. Annoying monologs in place of decent direction and story telling. One black hole. Location subtitles for places that don’t really exist. Are we supposed to know or care? This isn’t a James Bond film. One black hole. Conan the Civilized Barbarian. One black hole. The main bad guy had a really stupid double bladed sword. One black hole. Is it unreasonable to assume four trained warriors can capture a woman with no weapons training whatsoever without her sticking a knife in the unguarded heart of one of them? Where does that need to have the girl strike back at least once per fight come from? I’ve seen it in other films and it always strikes me as pandering. One black hole. General bad direction. One black hole. Generally bad writing. One black hole. Total: eighteen black holes.
Wow. Eleven black holes. A film finally got a worse score than Green Lantern from me. A lot of that is because I am a Conan fan (Conan O’Brien too, for that matter) and see this as some of the most odious crud possible being shoved down our throats in the pursuit of a quick buck, but I have to go with what I know. And honestly, if you are going to remake a movie or attempt to restart a franchise that give me the absolute right to make all the comparisons I like. If you didn’t want to be compared to the original you should have called this something like A Barbarian Kills Some Guys. I would have probably seen that and not really bitched so much.
Anyway, big weekend for movies. I plan to see Fright Night, and Attack the Block. If I can stomach it I might force myself to see Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 3D, but that looks pretty painful. There’s something out called One Day that looks wholesomely romantic, so I might see that later in the week.
Speaking of 3D, I want to call shenanigans on the whole 3D thing. It did nothing for this movie, to the point that at one time I took my glasses off and honestly didn’t see a lot of problems for like five minutes. I think the day will come when they sell us on 3D glasses only to show us a 2D film and laugh all the way to the bank.
By the way, my friend Joshua over at theStream.tv just posted a video with Jeff Lewis (Vork, from the Guild) for a game show they do called Stream, Lose, or Draw that is pretty funny. I am a huge Vork fan, if only bacause I knew about eight guys like him back when I played WOW.
The end of the Harry Potter Marathon is in sight: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
Yes, I’ve seen all that can be seen via DvD and am now poised to see the very last one in a theater tomorrow night. I say poised but in truth I am excited. In spite of my original belief that Harry Potter was a kiddish version of the Lord of the Rings it has really engaged me and held my attention. I honestly think having watched them all back to back like this I might have even gotten more out of them than most people did, and I am ready to see the final one tomorrow. That will be a full on review, with the whole stars and black holes thing, but this one will be the usual abbreviated version with annoying questions.
I have kind of pondered why I am not comfortable doing the whole review thing for these. It’s not like stars and black holes take any more effort to write up than coming up with these questions. It really comes down to a few things. First off, I don’t sit on my couch and watch DvDs with 100% of my attention. I am usually working on my new secret army (just got the second full rank of the first unit done. Very laborious), or folding my laundry, or whatever. Therefore I could be easily off on some of my assessments and impressions. Also, these movies are in the past and I want to treat them differently. I don’t think any of you gain anything by having me recount the story and then pick it apart in painful detail. Finally, I have noticed a trend where when I start doing black holes I can act like a broken fire hose, spraying black holes in quantity and volume that I originally didn’t intend. Often times this can really look like I hated the film, and the fact is I am quite enjoying these. Also, there are enough psychotic Harry Potter fans out there to actually make me concerned for my safety should I get too harsh on it.
However, that does not prevent me from coming up with more annoying questions. The good news is since the Deathly Hallows does not feature any Qudditch I have not come up with any sports related questions. However, my first questions directly related to Voldemort.
Here it is. Voldemort has created seven horcruxes in which he has hidden fragments of his soul. As long as even one of them is intact he essentially cannot be killed. Why, then, does he leave them lying around for anyone to come across? If I had seven horcruxes the first one I would embed in a six foot block of concrete and then drop into the Marianas Trench. The second I would stick inside the Japanese nuclear reactor that went bad. The third I would magically transport to the dark side of Pluto. Actually, since they can only be destroyed by very specific means I think I would send the fourth into the sun and the fifth into a black hole. The sixth I would embed in my body, probably where my appendix used to be. The seventh I would put in a relatively easy place to find, but surround it with as many deadly booby traps as possible. I’m not talking trap doors and rolling stone balls, either. Claymores. Nice way to thin out the Voldemort Killing Committee. The one thing I most definitely would not do is give one to a crusty lady with terrible fashion sense who has already been bested by my worst enemy once to wear around the Ministry for any fool to grab.
Speaking of the Hot Pink Nightmare, Dolores Umbridge, didn’t she get eaten by centaurs a couple movies back? How did she resurface?
I have a question about the Death Eater recruitment program, and it kind of ties in with a previous question I asked about the economy of the Harry Potter world. What, exactly, does Voldemort promise someone like Snape to join him? I can understand a crazy nutjob like Bellatrix Lestrange doing it just for the joy of causing mayhem, but Snape is a well thought out, cautious, learned man. What could possibly induce him to not only risk his life and career, but also to betray his friends and colleges, as well as make an death binding oath to protect what is effectively just another annoying Hogwarts student? All the power in the world? Sorry, that is reserved for Voldemort. Money? A hot car? A makeover reality TV show? Honestly, what is it? It doesn’t seem like anyone in this world is hurting for money and can conjure food at will, so what do you offer a man who has access to everything? I can understand once Voldemort more or less takes over everything being a Death Eater is the cool thing to do and all the wizards are gung ho to join, but Snape seems to have been involved for a long time. What was the first carrot Voldemort ever held out?
As an aside, I do have to give props to the directors for casting Helen Bonhome Carter as Lestrange. If you are ever casting a crazy bitch with possible occult powers you really can’t find anyone even slightly better. I loved her in Fight Club, but she seems to have been really stereotyped in the roles she is given (Paper Street Soap Co (from Fight Club) courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
I have a question regarding the title of this movie. When I first heard the Deathly Hallows I assumed the Deadly Hollows referred to a serious of inimical geographic locations. You know, like Sleepy Hollow, only deadlier. I find during the course of this movie that the Deadly Hollows actually refers to three items that are presumably horcruxes. I have taken the liberty of looking up both hollow and hollows in a couple different dictionaries and, while there are a number of definitions, none of them in any way relate to any kind of magic item or fetish. Is the J.K. Rowlings just screwing with the English language to make for a better sounding book? I admit Harry Potter and the Deadly Objects really doesn’t have the same oomph the hollows gives, but it just seems a little self serving.
Note-I just found out I am an idiot. The title is Deathly Hallows, not Deadly Hollows. Thanks to all my Harry Potter fan friends for not making me avoid that huge mistake. I haven’t been this embarrassed since an unfortunate incident in the first grade I don’t want to get into.
I am glad to see that no force on Earth or Heaven can prevent J.K. Rowlings from employing deus ex machina yet again. Does it not strike anyone on the planet that the fact that Luna Lovegood’s father just happens to be wearing a pendant that symbolizes the exact three things Harry has to find has to be the biggest coincidence of all time? Or even that Harry noticed it? Every character in this movie is wearing an occult symbol as a pendant. But seriously, Xenophilius Lovegood is such a fan of a children’s story that he wears a pendant from it? That is like me wearing a pendant symbolizing Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
By the way, did I miss something? How did Harry lose his tracking chip?
Finally, if both Harry and Hermione both know that the pendant horcrux is screwing with Ron’s attitude and perceptions, and both understand that within a few hours of taking it off he will be back to normal, why did they bug out and leave him with no means of finding them after he calmed down? My dad used to take us camping once in a while and was a total jerk. I would get pissed off and run off into the woods to throw rocks at stuff. This is like if he packed up the car and left me on my own hundreds of miles away, except for the fact that Ron actually likes Harry and Hermione. I’m glad to see that Ron and Hermione’s romance is still going, but at some point one of them has to say something. I am going to be really, really upset of one of them gets killed in the next movie and leaves the other one miserable.
That’s it for questions. I am going to see Part II tomorrow night, I think. I am going to take a moment to make myself feel better and make a few predictions, based on what I know of J.K. Rowlings writing style. Let’s see if I am half as smart as I like to think. These predictions are based on no prior knowledge whatsoever:
Harry Potter himself is the final horcrux. Severus Snape will sacrifice himself in the end to stop Voldemort. There will be no non-white characters in the film at all.
That’s it. I’ll let you know how it goes. Have a good one.
