Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 9
In conclusion…
Honestly I don’t know. I have listed all the pluses and minuses a couple hours of thought can generate and still can’t make up my mind. It could be awesome. It could suck like a sarlacc. My biggest worry is that is could be just plain mediocre.
There is one thing I am certain of and that is I won’t be sucked in again. You stick your hand in fire a few times and you learn to not get burned (thanks dad. I’ve always appreciated your Darwinian approach to child rearing). I refuse to let my pulse get amped up until I am sitting in the theater and saying “Hey this is pretty cool”. 
I expect the special effects and CGI to be amazing and flawless so the only things this film has to distinguish itself from any given Micheal Bay Tranformers movie is going to be the story and the characters (Decepticon logo courtesy of the Transformers t shirt collection). JJ more or less had a crap story in both of the Star Trek films and his characters were pale parodies of existing characters so I honestly think he needs to truly step it up a lot to impress me. Regardless of these factors I’m sure it will be a commercial success so I guess I am just tilting at windmills again.
However to be fair they’d have to screw up pretty major to do worse than George Lucas did.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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Ouija Review Part 2
There is one thing about this film that I love and that is it shows that once in a while Hollywood can learn a lesson. You see this is another Hasbro property and after they massive success they had with the Tranformers series they clearly thought that the nostalgia of their toys and games is what sold that Micheal Bay brain drain and so they sank a ton of money into Battleship, the worst navel film since the Final Countdown. When their nine figure exxxxxxxxxxxxxxtravaganza went on to suck and die they must have had a “What the hell are we doing??” moment and took the budget for their huge horror release Ouija down from a ridiculous $100,000,000 budget to a much more reasonable teenage slasher $15,000,000. Net result: a decent box office return on a reasonable property. Let’s hope they keep this lesson in mind when it comes time to do the Candyland movie. (Image courtesy of the Transfomers t shirt category)
But the warm feeling I get from that lesson does not diminish the issues with this film. Characters in films are appealing when they act smart in the face of difficulty. These kids were freaking idiots. A key plot point was in order to appease the ghost they twice had to sneak into a basement and find the corpse of a girl and either free or burn it. At no point did any of them think to call the police and say something like “Um, we think there’s a human corpse in the basement over here. Could you like send over the coroner and take care of it?” Nope instead let’s load up on flashlights Goonies style and creepy crawl into your impending deaths. Everyone keeps dying solo and so let’s all split up to expedite the killing. Of course beautiful early 20 year olds playing high school students (plus guys who more or less look and act like more like chicks) are at the top of my list of people I like to see die horribly in horror films so by the end of this movie I was seriously rooting for the ghost.
Of course it should go without saying putting a PG-13 stamp on a movie that claims to be horror is laughable in every sense of the word. PG-13 is the worst. In fact you can rearrange the letters in PG-13 and get it to spell suck.
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15 Fictional Characters I wish were real life friends of mine: 1 of 15
I don’t want to disparage any of my actual friends but there are days when I wish they did more exciting things then release engineering or biological science. My friends are great people and I love to hang with them, but every once in a while you can’t help but wish you had a cadre of really, really cool fun friends who would make even more people want to hang out with you.
Thus we come to this list of fictional characters I wish were real and would hang out with me on a Friday night at the local coffee hole. These aren’t necessarily the coolest characters ever but just people I think would be great to have as friends. When you think about it does hanging out with Darth Vader or the Predator really sound like fun? Not really but these are all other characters that I think would be a blast to chill with who may or may not have some kind of super power or technology. So here we go:
15. Optimus Prime
Everyone needs a friend who owns a truck, and what could be better than that? How about a friend who IS a truck? Talk about making your next move easy. Plus he seems to have a pretty good sense of humor, and his fatherly voice just oozes comfort. This is a good example of a character who might not be the coolest but who would make a better friend. Megatron is actually cooler but if you called him to help you move a refrigerator he would probably just finger flick you into the next county.
Why would Optimus Prime want to be my friend you ask? Good question. I suppose I could give him a good wash once in a while. Plus I’m really good about not eating food in the car so he wouldn’t have to worry about that. If he and the rest of the Autobots were going into action and he told me to stay back at headquarters I would be totally OK with that. I specifically would not sneak aboard his trailer or talk Bumblebee into giving me a lift to the battle so I could totally distract him or be used as a hostage. I would also work to become friends with the guys who run the local police impound yard so if he is ever towed I could get him out quick.
Optimus Prime image courtesy of the Transformers t shirt category.
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The Hangover Part III Review
Not as headache inducing as the last one.
I have definitely been remiss in writing up my reviews lately, which is too bad as I have seen a couple of movies that are deserving of reviews. The fact is just when I think my life cannot get any busier somehow it finds a new, higher gear I didn’t even know existed. I need to stop doing so much stuff (for example, this last weekend I spent in Hartford getting my ass handed to me at Warhammer. ETC restrictions suck).
So I saw this film and have to admit it was much better than the Hangover Part II. Of course they could have shown us file footage of bowel cancer surgery and it would have been funnier and less disturbing that that pile of tripe. However, even without the last one to compare it to this would have been a fun, enjoyable film at least worth putting on the same shelf with the original Hangover.
The one thing they brought back that was completely missing from the last one was consequences. In the first film every thing they did had some kind of unpleasant payback; steal a police car, get used for Tazer practice. Steal a tiger from Mike Tyson, get punched in the face. In the second film they guys bumble their way through Thailand with nary a single major consequence worth mentioning. The thing is it’s consequences that make movies good. As soon as you figure out that there is no way that anything of a serious or potentially deadly consequence can happen to the main characters all tension bleeds from an action film. Likewise in comedy in order for a situation to be funny there has to be some kind of repercussion for stupidity.
In this film the paybacks are back, and they even call back to the last film and inject some consequences for those actions. I don’t want to spoil the film too much but sufficed to say every time the guys (especially Alan) do something dumb they pay the price for it.
I will throw in one complaint and that is the whole premise of the film is the guys get hammered and drugged and wake up dealing with the consequences while trying to piece together what happened. Thus the title the Hangover. This one is more about dealing with the further repercussions from the first film than anything else, and has no drug induced blackouts whatsoever. I can’t complain too much as I bitched mightily about how the last film was a blatant remake of the first one and at least they wrote an original script here.
This film is also the darkest of the three (where have we heard that phrase before?) with guys actually dying (or being killed). That does cast a slight pall over what is generally supposed to be pretty light fare, but honestly the humor was still decent and it didn’t detract from the enjoyment. The real strength of the Hangover has always been the chemistry between Phil, Stu, and Alan and this film definitely captures this. The humor is there, but unfortunately there is a slight smell of desperation as they studio tries to wring the last bit of milk from this otherwise dry cow.
The movie starts Chow (Ken Jeong-Hangover, Community, Transformers Dark of the Moon. Image courtesy of the Transformers t shirt category) escaping from a Chinese prison (ever see the Shawshank Redemption? If not you won’t be annoyed at the clear rip off here). Meanwhile Alan (Zach Galifianakis-the Hangover, Due Date, the Campaign) is being weirder than usual. His antics with killing a giraffe cause his father (perenial supporting characater actor Jeffrey Tambor-Arrested Development, There’s Something About Mary, Branded) to die of a heart attack. His family is concerned with him and wants to get him committed to a rehab clinic. Is brother-in-law Doug (Justin Bartha-the Hangover, National Treasure, Dark Horse) calls in the remaining wolf pack members Stu (Ed Helms-the Office, the Lorax, High Road) and Phil (Bradley Cooper-the Hangover, Limitless, Silver Linings Playbook) to convince Alan to go.
They go on a road trip but on the way are stopped by a local gangster (John Goodman-the Big Lebowski, Argo, Monsters, Inc.). It turns out the Chow stole $21MM worth of gold from the guy and he wants it back. He kidnaps Doug and gives the rest of the gang three days to find Chow and his money.
With that flimsy premise set the gang are on their way to hilarity. Honestly the story doesn’t do much more that give the three set piece after set piece to have their wacky adventures in. Chow is funny and messes with the gang. Turns out that he and Alan are great friends. The story actually leads up to a conclusion and lessons about friendship are (sort of) learned.
The stars. Better than the last one. Normally that would not warrant a star (I always feel movies need to stand on their own) but the last one left such a bad taste in my mouth I feel like I need to say something. One star. The great chemistry between the three main characters is as strong as ever. Two stars. Mr. Chow is as funny as ever. One star. A few really good laughs in there like delicious chocolate chips in a kind of bland cookie. One star. I can’t really put my finger on it but in general I was entertained and pleased. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. A lot of this film was sucking on humor fumes, and looking for the funny in anything. One black hole. It’s hard to find funny in a scene where two guys just got shot in the head. Kind of sets the tone off. One black hole. Calling it the Hangover when no one is actually hung over. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
So a grand total of three stars. You can take it or leave it, honestly. If you saw the other two and the last one sufficiently lowered your expectations you will probably enjoy it a lot. If you are a massive fan of the first one and managed to miss the second I don’t know if this will help you at all. Nothing visually screams for a big screen so I think this is very NetFlix-able. Date movie? Meh, not so much. I don’t see this helping your campaign out much at all. Bathroom break? Nothing sticks out in my head as being truly worthless, but nothing really sticks out as being a must see (except for the Chow escape from the hotel room. Don’t miss that. In fact most of the Chow scenes are pretty good).
Thanks for reading. More soon I promise. I need to get back on the case. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Have a great day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
