Saturday, October 31, 2009
Merry Christmas
...and a very Happy New Year to all the idiots who don't know what day it is. To the rest of you, hope you get lots of candy when you go Christmas Trick or Treating.
Friday, October 30, 2009
How to Prevent The World's End
Regular readers know that I have recently embraced all the stupid, lunatic, unproven, unscientific, thoroughly, utterly, totally batshit insane theories that the upcoming Roland Emmerich movie is a documentary and the world will end in 2012. Yep, totally on board. Still, that doesn't mean we should all sit around and do nothing. If there's a way to prevent the almost certain doom of the entire planet, it just might be worth a shot. Sure, if you already have weekend plans, don't cancel them or anything but if you can pencil something in that would save the world, please do so. I have compiled a handy list of actions that you, an average, less-than-intelligent* person can take that might make a difference.
1. Hold A Bake Sale -- There aren't many problems in life that can't be at least eased by a bake sale. If your school's cheer squad is able to pay for a trip to Tulsa to participate in National Cheer Championships thanks to bake sales, holding one should raise enough money to at least pay for fortifications against global tsunamis for your town.
2. Convince Sexy Celebrities To Strip For Your "Stop 2012" Campaign -- Sexy celebrities love to take their clothes off in public but even they can't do so without a reason. That's why so many "Good Causes" have naked celebrity ad campaigns. Therefore it should be zero trouble to convince people like Keira Knightley and Jessica Alba to let you take provocative nude pictures of them to prevent the end of the world. This will do absolutely nothing to stop the global catastrophe of 2012 but it will make you feel better for a little while.
3. Write Bitchy Comments On Message Boards -- As anyone who has ever done so knows, nothing, and I mean nothing, is more effective at turning the rest of the world toward your way of thinking than to leave an anonymous comment on the internet. Feel free to use the following sample:
4. Hand Out Pamphlets -- After anonymous internet comments, the method pretty much guaranteed to convert people to your cause is to pester them into taking a copy of your literature. Stand outside a supermarket or, better yet, go to their homes and preach to them about how the world will end in 2012 before getting them to give you a few bucks for your pamphlet 2012 World's End: How Could A Race That Died Out Thousands Of Years Ago Be Wrong?
5. Develop A Machine Called The Get-The-Hell-Off-Earth-inator -- Pretty much speaks for itself.
Knowing that all of you will now devoted to saving the planet means I can now stop doing it and play video games. Thanks all.
*Don't be offended. You think the world's gonna end in 2012 cause some dead Mayans and a stupid action flick said so.
1. Hold A Bake Sale -- There aren't many problems in life that can't be at least eased by a bake sale. If your school's cheer squad is able to pay for a trip to Tulsa to participate in National Cheer Championships thanks to bake sales, holding one should raise enough money to at least pay for fortifications against global tsunamis for your town.
2. Convince Sexy Celebrities To Strip For Your "Stop 2012" Campaign -- Sexy celebrities love to take their clothes off in public but even they can't do so without a reason. That's why so many "Good Causes" have naked celebrity ad campaigns. Therefore it should be zero trouble to convince people like Keira Knightley and Jessica Alba to let you take provocative nude pictures of them to prevent the end of the world. This will do absolutely nothing to stop the global catastrophe of 2012 but it will make you feel better for a little while.
3. Write Bitchy Comments On Message Boards -- As anyone who has ever done so knows, nothing, and I mean nothing, is more effective at turning the rest of the world toward your way of thinking than to leave an anonymous comment on the internet. Feel free to use the following sample:
U all suk and Im gonn laff my ass off in 2012 wen u all dye. plus u r ghey thats what yur mom said last nite when i waz boning her in the ass
4. Hand Out Pamphlets -- After anonymous internet comments, the method pretty much guaranteed to convert people to your cause is to pester them into taking a copy of your literature. Stand outside a supermarket or, better yet, go to their homes and preach to them about how the world will end in 2012 before getting them to give you a few bucks for your pamphlet 2012 World's End: How Could A Race That Died Out Thousands Of Years Ago Be Wrong?
5. Develop A Machine Called The Get-The-Hell-Off-Earth-inator -- Pretty much speaks for itself.
Knowing that all of you will now devoted to saving the planet means I can now stop doing it and play video games. Thanks all.
*Don't be offended. You think the world's gonna end in 2012 cause some dead Mayans and a stupid action flick said so.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 10/29/09
Today is the anniversary of the start of the Great Depression. The best...no, the only way to celebrate such an event is with another edition of brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
It's official. Every movie ever made will eventually be remade. I suppose we can expect to be seeing remakes of Gremlins and Weird Science at some point. After writing that sentence, I did a quick search and hey, lookie here.
Thanks again America for sparing me the annual ritual of pulling out my own hair in frustration over yet another Saw movie opening at #1. I love it that a thoughtful, psychological, low budget horror film in its fifth week of release whose support came from what was basically a bottom-up grassroots movement beat out the big name studio crap offerings of both Saw and The Vampire's Assistant. I'd have actually been happy if the vampire movie had beaten Saw VI but the fact that some indie flick with no recognizable actors won the day makes this whole thing even sweeter. By the way, if you are a fan of the Saw films, you're wrong.
It takes a long time before this guy stops coming up with excuses for hating the song "Imagine" and finally hints that he hates it because it's an, "ode to atheism." It's difficult to trust the judgment of anyone who ignores songs like "Up, Up and Away" or "MacArthur Park" to slap "Imagine" with the Worst Song Ever label but it gets even more difficult when the guy doesn't just come out and admit it conflicts with his religious beliefs.
With Halloween approaching, which scary movies to watch this weekend is a subject of much debate in households across the nation. Some go with classics like The Exorcist or Halloween (the original, not the stupid remake). Others go with modern day gore fests like Saw or Halloween (the stupid remake, not the original). As for me, and I seem to be the only one on the planet who thinks this, nothing scares me quite like Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, I know, stop laughing. To this day, I'm terrified of the ending (stop reading now if you've never seen it and, if you haven't, you should be at a video store renting it). The immortal image of Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond, a woman who has completely lost her mind descending the stairs as the crowd simply stares, no one knowing quite what to do, scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. I suppose that's why it still chills me today and maybe I would have reacted to it differently had my first viewing happened when I was an adult but still, it's a creepy scene. You can watch it on YouTube and judge for yourself.
It's official. Every movie ever made will eventually be remade. I suppose we can expect to be seeing remakes of Gremlins and Weird Science at some point. After writing that sentence, I did a quick search and hey, lookie here.
Thanks again America for sparing me the annual ritual of pulling out my own hair in frustration over yet another Saw movie opening at #1. I love it that a thoughtful, psychological, low budget horror film in its fifth week of release whose support came from what was basically a bottom-up grassroots movement beat out the big name studio crap offerings of both Saw and The Vampire's Assistant. I'd have actually been happy if the vampire movie had beaten Saw VI but the fact that some indie flick with no recognizable actors won the day makes this whole thing even sweeter. By the way, if you are a fan of the Saw films, you're wrong.
It takes a long time before this guy stops coming up with excuses for hating the song "Imagine" and finally hints that he hates it because it's an, "ode to atheism." It's difficult to trust the judgment of anyone who ignores songs like "Up, Up and Away" or "MacArthur Park" to slap "Imagine" with the Worst Song Ever label but it gets even more difficult when the guy doesn't just come out and admit it conflicts with his religious beliefs.
With Halloween approaching, which scary movies to watch this weekend is a subject of much debate in households across the nation. Some go with classics like The Exorcist or Halloween (the original, not the stupid remake). Others go with modern day gore fests like Saw or Halloween (the stupid remake, not the original). As for me, and I seem to be the only one on the planet who thinks this, nothing scares me quite like Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, I know, stop laughing. To this day, I'm terrified of the ending (stop reading now if you've never seen it and, if you haven't, you should be at a video store renting it). The immortal image of Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond, a woman who has completely lost her mind descending the stairs as the crowd simply stares, no one knowing quite what to do, scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. I suppose that's why it still chills me today and maybe I would have reacted to it differently had my first viewing happened when I was an adult but still, it's a creepy scene. You can watch it on YouTube and judge for yourself.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
What A Strange Time It's Been
It's hard to believe that two weeks have since I have seen a movie in which Jon Favreau touches himself. Twice.
Look how different the world is now. The economy is down. Unemployment is up. We're stuck in two Middle Eastern wars. Oil, something which flows freely from the ground, is being sold at ever increasing prices. My local supermarket ran out of Mallomars and I ended up having to drive a mile down the street to get some.
Is there anyone out there naive enough to think all of that "just happened" in the last two weeks? How could we as a society have allowed Jon Favreau to stroke himself publicly? Don't say, "No one could have predicted all this." Damn it, someone must have known!
What's been done to repair the damage and prevent it from occurring again? If you said "exactly jack and shit" you'd be right. Has Congress passed or even proposed any legislation to stop Jon Favreau from spanking it onscreen in the future? No. This is almost certainly the result of intense lobbying on the part of the film industry that. Favreau not only has a role in next year's Iron Man 2 but he is directing it as well.. Couples Retreat, the movie in which he whipped it out and dared anyone to tell him to stop, opened at the #1. Based on that, do you think he has any intention of keeping it in his pants in Iron Man 2? Especially since he's directing the damn thing?
Perhaps by next summer the Couples Retreat DVD release will have made us sufficiently desensitized to the image of Jon Favreau erect and sweaty. Somehow, though, I doubt it. I predict that, after the release of Iron Man 2, a movie which will surely contain a scene of what happens when Favreau's character is left alone with a Victoria's Secret catalogue, the Dow will drop below 1000 and we'll declare war on the Vatican. When that happens, don't say no one predicted it.
Look how different the world is now. The economy is down. Unemployment is up. We're stuck in two Middle Eastern wars. Oil, something which flows freely from the ground, is being sold at ever increasing prices. My local supermarket ran out of Mallomars and I ended up having to drive a mile down the street to get some.
Is there anyone out there naive enough to think all of that "just happened" in the last two weeks? How could we as a society have allowed Jon Favreau to stroke himself publicly? Don't say, "No one could have predicted all this." Damn it, someone must have known!
What's been done to repair the damage and prevent it from occurring again? If you said "exactly jack and shit" you'd be right. Has Congress passed or even proposed any legislation to stop Jon Favreau from spanking it onscreen in the future? No. This is almost certainly the result of intense lobbying on the part of the film industry that. Favreau not only has a role in next year's Iron Man 2 but he is directing it as well.. Couples Retreat, the movie in which he whipped it out and dared anyone to tell him to stop, opened at the #1. Based on that, do you think he has any intention of keeping it in his pants in Iron Man 2? Especially since he's directing the damn thing?
Perhaps by next summer the Couples Retreat DVD release will have made us sufficiently desensitized to the image of Jon Favreau erect and sweaty. Somehow, though, I doubt it. I predict that, after the release of Iron Man 2, a movie which will surely contain a scene of what happens when Favreau's character is left alone with a Victoria's Secret catalogue, the Dow will drop below 1000 and we'll declare war on the Vatican. When that happens, don't say no one predicted it.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
V-ry Interesting
The first sentence of today's offering was going to be, "New media is a wonderful thing," but then I realized that's not true. A more accurate statement is, "New media can be a wonderful thing." It's a blunt instrument that can be used for both decent and horrific purposes. A good example of this is the common practice of showing extended previews of new television shows online. When Flash Forward and Torchwood: Children of Earth did this, it worked very well because their previews were interesting, action packed and made you want to see more. More importantly, they weren't stupid.
Which brings us to Hulu's preview of V.
If you are outside the United States you probably couldn't see that so you might want to take this as a sign from God to move here now. You God fearing Americans, on the other hand, just got your first look at the new television show V, a remake of a mediocre television show of the same name that was on back in the 80s. (You can keep reading, non-Americans. I'll describe the video.)Remaking lame decades old science fiction actually has had a decent track record in recent years so there's no reason to judge it harshly for that reason. No, the reason to judge it harshly is its actual content.
The premise of the show is that technologically advanced alien visitors come to Earth and take us over not by bombing the shit out of us but rather by being our saviors. Their truly nefarious purposes will only become apparent after they have become a fixture in our lives. That's what the show's publicity says, anyway. According to the show's first nine minutes, the visitors think the best way to make a good first impression with us is to have ships the size of several city blocks show up unannounced over our major cities, an act that immediately causes world wide panic. The first indication the ships are there is the earthquake-level devastation caused by the turbulence created by their ships. This makes a large crucifix fall down and nearly kill a wheelchair-bound man before it shatters. They also cause military aircraft sent up to investigate these ships to crash in the middle of crowded urban areas. Surely all this makes the world's population say, "What shouldn't we love about these aliens?"
My favorite part of this clip, though, is the military barricade. The Army or National Guard or whatever has set up a barricade around the part of Los Angeles over which the alien spaceship is hovering. Lost actress Elizabeth Mitchell plays an FBI agent whose son is on the other side of the barricade and she's trying to get to him but the soldier manning the barricade tells her that no way, no how is she ever in a bazillion years going to be allowed into that part of the city. Luckily for her the soldier has the attention span of a fruit fly and she manages to slip past him after he is easily distracted by a nearby scuffle. Now comes the part that really gets me. It turns out there are just as many civilians wandering around on the restricted side of the barricade as there were on the other side. The barricade really served no purpose other than to briefly provide Elizabeth Mitchell's concerned FBI mom with something to do for about 90 seconds.
Anyway, FBI mom finds her son and together they witness the aliens once again trying to endear themselves to us by recreating that scene from Independence Day where hovering spaceships suddenly open up. The clip ends there but, if you've seen the ads for V, you know that, instead of burning the cities with FIRE FROM SPACE you instead see Morena Baccarin's pretty, soothing face telling everyone that everything is cool and that they've brought intergalactic chicken wings for the entire planet to munch on. It's something along those lines.
It's possible that the producers of V said to themselves, "Let's get all the stupid shit we're ever going to do out of the way in the first nine minutes of the first episode and construct a smart, exciting television show from then on." It's possible, but I doubt it. Instead, I think that the makers of V, much like the alien characters they have created, either aren't capable of making a good first impression or didn't think it was important.
Which brings us to Hulu's preview of V.
If you are outside the United States you probably couldn't see that so you might want to take this as a sign from God to move here now. You God fearing Americans, on the other hand, just got your first look at the new television show V, a remake of a mediocre television show of the same name that was on back in the 80s. (You can keep reading, non-Americans. I'll describe the video.)Remaking lame decades old science fiction actually has had a decent track record in recent years so there's no reason to judge it harshly for that reason. No, the reason to judge it harshly is its actual content.
The premise of the show is that technologically advanced alien visitors come to Earth and take us over not by bombing the shit out of us but rather by being our saviors. Their truly nefarious purposes will only become apparent after they have become a fixture in our lives. That's what the show's publicity says, anyway. According to the show's first nine minutes, the visitors think the best way to make a good first impression with us is to have ships the size of several city blocks show up unannounced over our major cities, an act that immediately causes world wide panic. The first indication the ships are there is the earthquake-level devastation caused by the turbulence created by their ships. This makes a large crucifix fall down and nearly kill a wheelchair-bound man before it shatters. They also cause military aircraft sent up to investigate these ships to crash in the middle of crowded urban areas. Surely all this makes the world's population say, "What shouldn't we love about these aliens?"
My favorite part of this clip, though, is the military barricade. The Army or National Guard or whatever has set up a barricade around the part of Los Angeles over which the alien spaceship is hovering. Lost actress Elizabeth Mitchell plays an FBI agent whose son is on the other side of the barricade and she's trying to get to him but the soldier manning the barricade tells her that no way, no how is she ever in a bazillion years going to be allowed into that part of the city. Luckily for her the soldier has the attention span of a fruit fly and she manages to slip past him after he is easily distracted by a nearby scuffle. Now comes the part that really gets me. It turns out there are just as many civilians wandering around on the restricted side of the barricade as there were on the other side. The barricade really served no purpose other than to briefly provide Elizabeth Mitchell's concerned FBI mom with something to do for about 90 seconds.
Anyway, FBI mom finds her son and together they witness the aliens once again trying to endear themselves to us by recreating that scene from Independence Day where hovering spaceships suddenly open up. The clip ends there but, if you've seen the ads for V, you know that, instead of burning the cities with FIRE FROM SPACE you instead see Morena Baccarin's pretty, soothing face telling everyone that everything is cool and that they've brought intergalactic chicken wings for the entire planet to munch on. It's something along those lines.
It's possible that the producers of V said to themselves, "Let's get all the stupid shit we're ever going to do out of the way in the first nine minutes of the first episode and construct a smart, exciting television show from then on." It's possible, but I doubt it. Instead, I think that the makers of V, much like the alien characters they have created, either aren't capable of making a good first impression or didn't think it was important.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Activity Summary
Paranormal Activity deserves a good review for no other reason than denying the latest stupid and disgusting chapter in the stupid and disgusting Saw series the #1 position that the producers of said series probably thought was their constitutionally guaranteed birthright. Perhaps the fact that Paranormal Activity is a pretty decent horror film had something to do with it.
Paranormal Activity is this year's low budget indie flick turned mega hit. The way it became a hit is similar to the methods used by last year's indie hit, the Christian melodrama Fireproof. Instead of a $50 million ad blitz, it became popular through alternative marketing that caused a word of mouth groundswell. Unlike Fireproof, this movie has gone beyond a narrow audience and has exploded into the mainstream.
Paranormal Activity is part of the Blair Witch "found footage" genre and it takes that to an extreme. If you were involved in set design, lighting or some other technical aspect of the film and wanted your family to see your name in the opening or closing credits, your out of luck. The movie opened with a title card thanking the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston for the use of this footage at the beginning and one at the end telling what eventually happened to them. In between is digital video footage taken by them over a three week period chronicling their encounters with some sort of evil spirit.
The action starts the day Micah bought a camera. He and Katie, his live-in girlfriend, have been witnessing what seem to be supernatural events. Nothing too amazing, mind you. They hear bumps and footsteps, their car keys somehow wind up on the floor, that sort of thing. I do want to thank the producers for acknowledging the fact that Micah's camera was more more expensive and sophisticated than most hand held digital cameras that people get for home use. Details like that are usually easy to explain but really stick out when no one bothers to do so.
Micah and Katie bring in a psychic to try to find out if they actually have a ghost and, if so, what does it want? I think in the context of the story he was supposed to be a legitimate psychic but, like real life "psychics" he doesn't actually seem to know or do anything that could be described as psychic. He asks numerous questions about their lives and relationship that, had he asked me, would have elicited the response, "Um, being a psychic, shouldn't you already know this?" Anyway, Katie says that she's been having strange experiences like this periodically since she was eight causing the psychic to conclude that simply leaving the house wouldn't do any good since the haunting is connected to Katie, not the house. This also spared the audience from having to hear some guy shout out, "Why the hell don't they just leave?" The psychic suggests not antagonizing the ghost/spirit/demon/whatever (nice advice, genius) and also says they should stay positive and that they should not try to communicate with it since that, "opens a door." Micah waits about ten seconds after the guy has left the house to start daring the spirit to come out and show itself.
Things start getting worse after that. The strange footsteps get louder and more frequent. Doors open and close. Lights go on and off. Katie starts sleepwalking. A ouija board inexplicably catches fire. And Micah and Katie, partly from fear and partly from lack of sleep, start going crazy. The filmmakers use their low budget to their advantage and show us very little of the action preferring to have Micah and Katie react to the aftermath. I want to again thank the filmmakers for not doing that lame horror movie trick of opening a door and something like a cat suddenly lunge out. There are many times when they go looking for this thing. You're always afraid that a door will be opened or that a flashlight will suddenly reveal some shape moving out of the darkness. I think the reason that doesn't happen is because then the characters would ignore the, "leaving will do no good," warning, run screaming out of the house and the movie would be over. Also, the people who see this footage later would lose any to plausibly explain this. There's never really a time when you can't find some way to say this is a hoax or the work of a mentally ill person right up to the shocking and abrupt ending.
Paranormal Activity is a very good movie that held my attention so well that I forgot to eat the nuts-raisins-yogurt chips trail mix I bought (don't laugh, that stuff's awesome with a fraction of the fat of movie theater popcorn). It earns its R rating not for showing people being torn apart by oh so clever Rube Goldbergesque torture contraptions but for use of the F-word that escalates as the tension and fear mounts for the characters. Thus I am left with pleasant memories of a truly atmospheric and psychological horror film as I munch on some tasty leftover trail mix so it's a win-win for me.
Paranormal Activity is this year's low budget indie flick turned mega hit. The way it became a hit is similar to the methods used by last year's indie hit, the Christian melodrama Fireproof. Instead of a $50 million ad blitz, it became popular through alternative marketing that caused a word of mouth groundswell. Unlike Fireproof, this movie has gone beyond a narrow audience and has exploded into the mainstream.
Paranormal Activity is part of the Blair Witch "found footage" genre and it takes that to an extreme. If you were involved in set design, lighting or some other technical aspect of the film and wanted your family to see your name in the opening or closing credits, your out of luck. The movie opened with a title card thanking the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston for the use of this footage at the beginning and one at the end telling what eventually happened to them. In between is digital video footage taken by them over a three week period chronicling their encounters with some sort of evil spirit.
The action starts the day Micah bought a camera. He and Katie, his live-in girlfriend, have been witnessing what seem to be supernatural events. Nothing too amazing, mind you. They hear bumps and footsteps, their car keys somehow wind up on the floor, that sort of thing. I do want to thank the producers for acknowledging the fact that Micah's camera was more more expensive and sophisticated than most hand held digital cameras that people get for home use. Details like that are usually easy to explain but really stick out when no one bothers to do so.
Micah and Katie bring in a psychic to try to find out if they actually have a ghost and, if so, what does it want? I think in the context of the story he was supposed to be a legitimate psychic but, like real life "psychics" he doesn't actually seem to know or do anything that could be described as psychic. He asks numerous questions about their lives and relationship that, had he asked me, would have elicited the response, "Um, being a psychic, shouldn't you already know this?" Anyway, Katie says that she's been having strange experiences like this periodically since she was eight causing the psychic to conclude that simply leaving the house wouldn't do any good since the haunting is connected to Katie, not the house. This also spared the audience from having to hear some guy shout out, "Why the hell don't they just leave?" The psychic suggests not antagonizing the ghost/spirit/demon/whatever (nice advice, genius) and also says they should stay positive and that they should not try to communicate with it since that, "opens a door." Micah waits about ten seconds after the guy has left the house to start daring the spirit to come out and show itself.
Things start getting worse after that. The strange footsteps get louder and more frequent. Doors open and close. Lights go on and off. Katie starts sleepwalking. A ouija board inexplicably catches fire. And Micah and Katie, partly from fear and partly from lack of sleep, start going crazy. The filmmakers use their low budget to their advantage and show us very little of the action preferring to have Micah and Katie react to the aftermath. I want to again thank the filmmakers for not doing that lame horror movie trick of opening a door and something like a cat suddenly lunge out. There are many times when they go looking for this thing. You're always afraid that a door will be opened or that a flashlight will suddenly reveal some shape moving out of the darkness. I think the reason that doesn't happen is because then the characters would ignore the, "leaving will do no good," warning, run screaming out of the house and the movie would be over. Also, the people who see this footage later would lose any to plausibly explain this. There's never really a time when you can't find some way to say this is a hoax or the work of a mentally ill person right up to the shocking and abrupt ending.
Paranormal Activity is a very good movie that held my attention so well that I forgot to eat the nuts-raisins-yogurt chips trail mix I bought (don't laugh, that stuff's awesome with a fraction of the fat of movie theater popcorn). It earns its R rating not for showing people being torn apart by oh so clever Rube Goldbergesque torture contraptions but for use of the F-word that escalates as the tension and fear mounts for the characters. Thus I am left with pleasant memories of a truly atmospheric and psychological horror film as I munch on some tasty leftover trail mix so it's a win-win for me.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
How Hollywood Thinks
In the original Philip K. Dick short story The Minority Report the character Jon Anderton is described as a fat, bald 60 year old man. When Steven Spielberg read that and wondered who would be the perfect choice to play Jon Anderton in his upcoming movie version, he naturally thought of this guy.
And that is How Hollywood Thinks.
And that is How Hollywood Thinks.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Hope I'm Not Bugging You
The release of Windows 7 has made me think that maybe a review of the new operating system would be a good fit for this site. Then I realized that only a madman uses any Windows operating system when it first comes out. These Windows upgrades are always unfinished nightmares pushed out too early in order to coincide with some sort of marketing strategy. After about a year, they'll have finally fixed all the bugs that were there on release day. Instead of a review based on my own experiences, I have instead complied a list of reported bugs.
- From time to time, your computer will cause your mouse to fall down and hit you in the crotch.
- Shortly after installing and registering Windows 7, you will be given the name and address of a Mac user. You will then be locked out of not only your computer but every PC on the planet until that person either switches to Windows or has been eliminated. (This is really more of a feature than a bug.)
- Windows 7 will send a email to everyone on your Contacts list saying you are gay unless you are openly and proudly gay in which case the email will say you switched.
- Windows 7 will log itself into Amazon.com and post user reviews under your name about how much you loved Twilight, The Secret and Midnight Thunder, a 15 inch vibrator.
- A blog devoted to Gossip Girl will be started, again using your name, with the first post "Blair Waldorf Is Huge Bitch" already written.
- Periodically, the words "GET A LIFE" appear on your screen. Additionally, a picture of you will appear on the computers of your neighbors with the caption, "THIS GUY SHOULD GET A LIFE," underneath it.
- Your computer will ask, "Would you care for a bowl of Tostitos and some salsa con queso?" When you respond, "Sure," it will then say, "Then get off your fat ass and get it."
- Whenever you try to access any message board, forum or comments section, from now on Windows 7 will log in your user name as MileyFan69. It will also give your real name and contact info.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
This Is Our Most Solemn Vow
I feel it's important that we, as a nation, make a firm commitment right now to a certain course of action. Everyone please raise your right hand and repeat the following:
* Ha ha, very funny to whichever asshole actually said, "state your name," instead of your actual name. This is serious business here, people.
** Cusack likes onion bagels.
I, [state your name*], solemnly promise that, should the world end in 2012, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that John Cusack and his family survive. "Whatever it takes" shall be defined as exactly that and will include such things as the sacrifice of my life and those of my loved ones, the spending of any and all financial assets, stealing onion bagels**, sex with animals and writing angry letters to the editor of your local newspaper complaining that more isn't being done to save the Cusack family. Billions may be allowed to die during Earth's final hours but Cusack and family will not be among them. This is our solemn vow.
* Ha ha, very funny to whichever asshole actually said, "state your name," instead of your actual name. This is serious business here, people.
** Cusack likes onion bagels.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Things I've Learned From Watching Movies Part 77
Nothing packs people into theater seats better than a surprise ending.
No matter how hard we try, we'll never be able to design a robot who doesn't try to figure out what it is to be this thing called...human.
Proof that there really, truly is no God.
At this point, movie studios will make damn near anything so long as it has a vampire in it.
Actually having a plot that is a true story is not a prerequisite for calling your movie a true story.
Allow creepy strangers to enter your home. What's the worst that could happen?
America is fully prepared if we're invaded by a country populated entirely by goats.
It's okay if billions die as long as one douchebag family survives.
No matter how hard we try, we'll never be able to design a robot who doesn't try to figure out what it is to be this thing called...human.
Proof that there really, truly is no God.
At this point, movie studios will make damn near anything so long as it has a vampire in it.
Actually having a plot that is a true story is not a prerequisite for calling your movie a true story.
Allow creepy strangers to enter your home. What's the worst that could happen?
America is fully prepared if we're invaded by a country populated entirely by goats.
It's okay if billions die as long as one douchebag family survives.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wild Things, I Think I Love You -- Well, Maybe Just Like You
Before I saw Where The Wild Things Are, I would say that the best family film of the year was Up. After having seen Where The Wild Things Are, I now have to say that the best family film of the year is...Up. I mention this because I'm wondering if Wild Things is suffering in comparison to Up because, honestly, I was kind of expecting another Up when I bought the ticket for Wild Things. Also, I somehow missed the famous childrens book of the same name when I was growing up. A few people have written the standard, "YOU STOLE MY CHILDHOOD," articles but from what I've seen most of the adults who really loved it had read and loved the book when they were kids.
This all sounds like I'm trashing the movie. I actually think it's very good. A boy named Max who looks to be around the age of 9 builds a snow fort and begins organizing and addressing imaginary troops. He does not understand why his mom and teenage sister Claire have no interest in coming outside to see his fort. He comes up with what I'm sure seems like an ingenious plan to him: he'll start a snowball fight with his sister's friends. In most movies, the teenage boys would have been sadistic bullies but instead they act like normal kids and start throwing snowballs back at Max and end up very playfully smashing Max's snow fort. Again, they didn't do this to be mean but Max doesn't see it that way. Upset that Claire and her friends left him in tears, he kicks snow all over her room and breaks a few things. Later on Max is unable to draw his mom's attention away from her work. She tries, mind you, but she's busy. Max's childhood is typical for a lot of kids being raised by single moms but Max doesn't really know that and feels neglected on an grand scale by both his mom and sister. This neglect reaches epic levels when Mom brings home a new boyfriend to dinner and Max, dressed up in a wolf costume he likes to wear, digs in and throws a major league tantrum. Max's behavior gets downright frightening and he even goes so far as to bite his mom but, being a kid, he doesn't know another way to deal with his anger. He gets away from Mom and runs into...well, that's where it gets interesting.
I'm not sure if Max dozed off in the woods or if he's awake and fantasizing but it really doesn't matter. Max finds a small boat and sails it out to sea. After a couple days, he finds an island that serves as the home of the Wild Things, large talking beasts who are trying to deal with one of their more petulant members named Carol. Carol, like Max, is in a mood to smash things because someone he cared about, a girl named KW, has left the group to hang out with her new friends. KW returns for a while when the Things make Max their king but she insists on bringing along her new friends, a pair of owls named Bob and Terry. Carol hates them because they draw KW's attention away from him. As the king, Max now finds himself in the same position his mother is in. He has to deal with a being who doesn't know a way to express his hurt feelings other than anger and violence.
The movie has some slow spots which is what pulls it down from being a great movie but it's still a pretty damn good one. It's wonderful to see so much imagination on the screen and it's a dramatic improvement from the amount of imagination you normally see in movies, that being absolutely none. I liked Where The Wild Things Are and could probably see it again.
This all sounds like I'm trashing the movie. I actually think it's very good. A boy named Max who looks to be around the age of 9 builds a snow fort and begins organizing and addressing imaginary troops. He does not understand why his mom and teenage sister Claire have no interest in coming outside to see his fort. He comes up with what I'm sure seems like an ingenious plan to him: he'll start a snowball fight with his sister's friends. In most movies, the teenage boys would have been sadistic bullies but instead they act like normal kids and start throwing snowballs back at Max and end up very playfully smashing Max's snow fort. Again, they didn't do this to be mean but Max doesn't see it that way. Upset that Claire and her friends left him in tears, he kicks snow all over her room and breaks a few things. Later on Max is unable to draw his mom's attention away from her work. She tries, mind you, but she's busy. Max's childhood is typical for a lot of kids being raised by single moms but Max doesn't really know that and feels neglected on an grand scale by both his mom and sister. This neglect reaches epic levels when Mom brings home a new boyfriend to dinner and Max, dressed up in a wolf costume he likes to wear, digs in and throws a major league tantrum. Max's behavior gets downright frightening and he even goes so far as to bite his mom but, being a kid, he doesn't know another way to deal with his anger. He gets away from Mom and runs into...well, that's where it gets interesting.
I'm not sure if Max dozed off in the woods or if he's awake and fantasizing but it really doesn't matter. Max finds a small boat and sails it out to sea. After a couple days, he finds an island that serves as the home of the Wild Things, large talking beasts who are trying to deal with one of their more petulant members named Carol. Carol, like Max, is in a mood to smash things because someone he cared about, a girl named KW, has left the group to hang out with her new friends. KW returns for a while when the Things make Max their king but she insists on bringing along her new friends, a pair of owls named Bob and Terry. Carol hates them because they draw KW's attention away from him. As the king, Max now finds himself in the same position his mother is in. He has to deal with a being who doesn't know a way to express his hurt feelings other than anger and violence.
The movie has some slow spots which is what pulls it down from being a great movie but it's still a pretty damn good one. It's wonderful to see so much imagination on the screen and it's a dramatic improvement from the amount of imagination you normally see in movies, that being absolutely none. I liked Where The Wild Things Are and could probably see it again.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Upright Citizen's Tirade
Law Abiding Citizen is better than I thought it would be and didn't end the way I thought it would. That doesn't mean it wasn't dumb. It was.
The movie opens ten years ago. Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a wealthy inventor who lives an idyllic life with his wife and daughter until the day two thieves stage a home invasion that results in the rapes and murders of both his wife and his daughter who looks to be about six. Prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) accepts a plea bargain from the guy who actually committed the really sick crimes so that the one who just wanted to rob the place and leave would go to death row. This drives Clyde Shelton insane.
Ten years later, it's execution day for the one who committed society's greatest offense, failure to plea bargain. Things don't quite go according to plan though. Instead of being sedated during his lethal injection, the chemicals get mixed up and he ends up being awake throughout the entire induced heart attack. Later in the day, we see Clyde Shelton kidnap, torture and gruesomely murder the one who only spent a few years in jail. Ok, so far, so good. Shelton took revenge on the men who killed his family. Most of society would still take pity on him even if they couldn't condone taking the law into his own hands. Nick Rice even tells him as much but Shelton doesn't stop there. He kills the lawyer who arranged the plea bargain. He kills the judge who threw out the DNA evidence. He kills his cellmate. Huh? Why does he do that?
This is where it starts getting dumb. It turns out Shelton was some sort of super assassin some years back and not one of those bland "shoot from the bell tower" assassins either. No no no, he'd come up with these elaborate schemes you normally only see in cartoons. There was something about a wire in a necktie set to choke anyone who wore it, for example. That explains why he uses things like machine gun mounted robots at one point in the film. Using his elaborate schemes, he begins killing people who had nothing to do with the case, a grand plot that will eventually result on an attempt on the mayor's life. He says this isn't about vengeance and that he's doing this to accomplish the amorphous goal of, "bringing the whole system down." That's a load of crap, by the way. This is a plot of vengeance launched by a crazy man who tries to make the world as crazy as he is and, especially in Nick Price's case, succeeds.
A couple of surprises dud manage to up my appreciation level of the movie. For example, who is doing all the leg work involved in Shelton's murders if he's in prison? Normally in movies like this, there's an extra guy who doesn't serve much of a purpose except to eventually be revealed as a villain at the end of the movie. I thought I had Shelton's accomplice and their method of communication all figured out but I was wrong so good work on that, movie. Also, I didn't really see the ending coming. Don't want to spoil it but I will say that I've seen too many real life examples of what happens when you set aside the legal system's checks and balances and there are too many people who confuse fiction with reality and could see this as a manual on what to do with problem criminals. The good news is that these deep thoughts didn't enter my mind until after I left the theater so again, good work, movie.
Law Abiding Citizen isn't horrible by any means but it's not all that great either. It appeals to a more adult audience which means I didn't have to sit there while two girls in front of me texted each other about how cute the boy sitting in between them was or anything like that. The best summation I can give is this movie is better than no movie at all. Not exactly an endorsement that will get people running with all due haste to the nearest multiplex but it's the best you're gonna get.
The movie opens ten years ago. Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a wealthy inventor who lives an idyllic life with his wife and daughter until the day two thieves stage a home invasion that results in the rapes and murders of both his wife and his daughter who looks to be about six. Prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) accepts a plea bargain from the guy who actually committed the really sick crimes so that the one who just wanted to rob the place and leave would go to death row. This drives Clyde Shelton insane.
Ten years later, it's execution day for the one who committed society's greatest offense, failure to plea bargain. Things don't quite go according to plan though. Instead of being sedated during his lethal injection, the chemicals get mixed up and he ends up being awake throughout the entire induced heart attack. Later in the day, we see Clyde Shelton kidnap, torture and gruesomely murder the one who only spent a few years in jail. Ok, so far, so good. Shelton took revenge on the men who killed his family. Most of society would still take pity on him even if they couldn't condone taking the law into his own hands. Nick Rice even tells him as much but Shelton doesn't stop there. He kills the lawyer who arranged the plea bargain. He kills the judge who threw out the DNA evidence. He kills his cellmate. Huh? Why does he do that?
This is where it starts getting dumb. It turns out Shelton was some sort of super assassin some years back and not one of those bland "shoot from the bell tower" assassins either. No no no, he'd come up with these elaborate schemes you normally only see in cartoons. There was something about a wire in a necktie set to choke anyone who wore it, for example. That explains why he uses things like machine gun mounted robots at one point in the film. Using his elaborate schemes, he begins killing people who had nothing to do with the case, a grand plot that will eventually result on an attempt on the mayor's life. He says this isn't about vengeance and that he's doing this to accomplish the amorphous goal of, "bringing the whole system down." That's a load of crap, by the way. This is a plot of vengeance launched by a crazy man who tries to make the world as crazy as he is and, especially in Nick Price's case, succeeds.
A couple of surprises dud manage to up my appreciation level of the movie. For example, who is doing all the leg work involved in Shelton's murders if he's in prison? Normally in movies like this, there's an extra guy who doesn't serve much of a purpose except to eventually be revealed as a villain at the end of the movie. I thought I had Shelton's accomplice and their method of communication all figured out but I was wrong so good work on that, movie. Also, I didn't really see the ending coming. Don't want to spoil it but I will say that I've seen too many real life examples of what happens when you set aside the legal system's checks and balances and there are too many people who confuse fiction with reality and could see this as a manual on what to do with problem criminals. The good news is that these deep thoughts didn't enter my mind until after I left the theater so again, good work, movie.
Law Abiding Citizen isn't horrible by any means but it's not all that great either. It appeals to a more adult audience which means I didn't have to sit there while two girls in front of me texted each other about how cute the boy sitting in between them was or anything like that. The best summation I can give is this movie is better than no movie at all. Not exactly an endorsement that will get people running with all due haste to the nearest multiplex but it's the best you're gonna get.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Big Saturday
The first paragraph of this is possibly the shittiest endorsement of a television show I've ever seen. Please note that the guy actually wants you to watch the show. A "different comedic approach" seems to mean, "Let's not actually be funny."
Friday, October 16, 2009
Just In Case
I'm sure everyone reading this has heard of the movie 2012 and how it's based on the belief that Mayans predicted the Earth's destruction thousands of years ago on the winter solstice of that year. My first thoughts upon hearing that allegation is, "What a load of crap." When I actually did a bit of research, I realized it was an even bigger load of crap than originally thought. I would have to build a huge crap mountain in my living room like Richard Dreyfus did in Close Encounters to even begin to come close to showing people just how huge this 2012 crap is. The world will still be here on December 22, 2012. The population will be slightly smaller because of all the people who saw this movie and committed suicide, their last thoughts being, "I'll take Roland Emmerich at his word on this. He hasn't steered me wrong yet."
BUT...what if I'm wrong? What if that .00000001% chance that all this is true kicks in? The worst thing about the world ending like that would be that I'd look like a total chump. Therefore, I've decided to jump on the 2012 bandwagon and start preaching about the end of the world.
Oh yeah, the world's definitely gonna end in 2012. Don't take my word for it. You know who said that shit like 3000 years ago? Mayans, man. Oh yeah, let me repeat that, MAYANS. Mind you, I know jack about Mayans but I saw this thing on A&E that totally said they were experts in End-Of-The-World-ology and stuff so if they said it the world's going down the crapper in 2012 then hells yeah it's true. I saw something about Mayans living today saying that the world wouldn't end in 2012 but A&E didn't mention them so I bet they aren't real Mayans, kind of like those guys who dress like leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day who aren't really leprechauns.
So what do we do about the world ending? I'm all set. My mountain cabin is fully stocked with Mountain Dew, Mallomars, comic books and hollow points so I'll be fine. I'll probably let some bikini models stay there with me and we'll repopulate the species. I imagine I'll have problems with mutants showing up at my door but I'll make sure the bikini models are fully trained in firearm use and ninja techniques so they'll be able to fight off the mutants.
I want you all to do something for me. On the very last day, as you're drowning in a tsunami or burning in lava, imagine me with a huge smirk on my face and radiating smugness while saying, "Told ya so." Cause that's what I'll be doing while watching the whole thing from my mountain cabin. Also, I'll be cramming my face full of Mallomars and watching the models make out while they give me handjobs.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 10/15/09
Here we are in the middle of October. It's beautiful up here in the Adirondacks this time of year so, naturally, I'm in a dark room writing another edition of brief comments on various subjects called Look At My Briefs.
Why does everything J.J. Abrams makes have to be called "Untitled J.J. Abrams Project" until approximately 24 hours before it hits theaters? Mr. Abrams, you're not working on some sort of death gel for the military or anything like that. I know you got used to secrecy while making Lost but really, this is a movie. Just give us the damn title.
I'm happy to see David Tennant getting a film role though I'm hoping this is some sort of elaborate ruse to lure him to a studio that will turn out to actually be a Doctor Who set and that they won't let him out until the next twelve episodes are completed.
I liked this movie better when it was called Undercover Brother. Wait, come to think of it, Undercover Brother wasn't that great and this has a high 80s Tomatometer rating. Based on that, I will now flip flop and say, "Finally, someone took Undercover Brother and did it right."
Why is House considered to be a genius? Hell, I could get the wrong diagnosis 15 times before finally lucking into the right one just as easily as he could.
This is an awesome idea. The audience for religious movies loves it when they're chock full of sex and violence.
Of the movies on this list, I've only seen Doubt and Towelhead but I can tell you that anyone who sees those two and interprets them as being pro-child sex is either a certifiably brain damaged idiot or is projecting his own seriously screwed up sex issues onto his criticism. This is similar to the people who've been calling Lolita (both the book and the Kubrick film) child pornography for the last half century and actually thought Nabokov wanted people to see Humbert as a sympathetic, romantic hero and not a narcissistic child molester. I'm assuming, based on his inability to properly judge the two films I saw, that his assertion that the other films are a clarion call for the acceptance of sex with children is also wrong. Law Abiding Citizen is coming out this Friday. I assume we'll see an article from Nolte saying it is a pro "kill some guy's entire family" movie.
Why does everything J.J. Abrams makes have to be called "Untitled J.J. Abrams Project" until approximately 24 hours before it hits theaters? Mr. Abrams, you're not working on some sort of death gel for the military or anything like that. I know you got used to secrecy while making Lost but really, this is a movie. Just give us the damn title.
I'm happy to see David Tennant getting a film role though I'm hoping this is some sort of elaborate ruse to lure him to a studio that will turn out to actually be a Doctor Who set and that they won't let him out until the next twelve episodes are completed.
I liked this movie better when it was called Undercover Brother. Wait, come to think of it, Undercover Brother wasn't that great and this has a high 80s Tomatometer rating. Based on that, I will now flip flop and say, "Finally, someone took Undercover Brother and did it right."
Why is House considered to be a genius? Hell, I could get the wrong diagnosis 15 times before finally lucking into the right one just as easily as he could.
This is an awesome idea. The audience for religious movies loves it when they're chock full of sex and violence.
Of the movies on this list, I've only seen Doubt and Towelhead but I can tell you that anyone who sees those two and interprets them as being pro-child sex is either a certifiably brain damaged idiot or is projecting his own seriously screwed up sex issues onto his criticism. This is similar to the people who've been calling Lolita (both the book and the Kubrick film) child pornography for the last half century and actually thought Nabokov wanted people to see Humbert as a sympathetic, romantic hero and not a narcissistic child molester. I'm assuming, based on his inability to properly judge the two films I saw, that his assertion that the other films are a clarion call for the acceptance of sex with children is also wrong. Law Abiding Citizen is coming out this Friday. I assume we'll see an article from Nolte saying it is a pro "kill some guy's entire family" movie.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Roman Polanski Speaks Out
Following reports that Roman Polanksi has become depressed during his time in jail, the famed director decided to comment on his current state of affairs. Due to the fact that I told his representatives that, "All the other news outlets totally wanted me to get the statement then pass it on to them when we all meet for lunch at Red Lobster later on today," I managed to be the sole recipient of said statement. Here it is.
It's true that I am very depressed. Jail is uncomfortable. I have no privacy, even when I relieve myself and I'm constantly afraid that I will be assaulted by the other inmates. I feel...how do I put this into words? I feel as if I were a helpless girl held against her will while being painfully raped in a hot tub...Oh. OOHHHHH! Geez, I get it. I finally get it. Why didn't anyone ever explain this to me before now?Please note: anyone who uses this quote owes me $8.47 or a Quarter Pounder value meal from McDonalds.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Interview With A New Hire
I've recently been conducting job interviews and have come to a conclusion: the reason for the current high unemployment rate has less to do with the poor economy and more to do with the fact that the average jobseeker is a total idiot. Thus I once again break from my usual topics of conversation. As a service to my readers, here is a list of things you shouldn't say in a job interview.
You're welcome.
- Pull my finger.
- Will I still get hired when I fail the drug test?
- I printed out the lyrics to the new Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA". Want to song along with me?
- I'm not sure what this stain is. It's been a few days since I changed this shirt.
- How long before I get a vacation? I'm supposed to go to a concert next week and will need a few days to recover.
- If I left you with some pamphlets on hemp legalization, would you mind handing them out to the other applicants?
- If I left you with some copies of The Watchtower, would you mind handing them out to the other applicants?
- I'm not really into dudes but if you absolutely feel you have to blow me, we can work something out.
- I like that picture. She's your 12 year old daughter, you say? Man, she is HOT!
- I'm fully qualified in just about any office software you can name but the microchip that the CIA put into my teeth might interfere with the computers in your office.
- Whoops, that's my phone. Sorry, gotta take this. Hey hey, you got the Big Dog, start barking. Bobby, dude, how goes it? Huh? Sure, I can talk, what's up?
- No really, pull my finger.
You're welcome.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Surrender
The good news is that Couples Retreat, a movie whose incredibly low Tomatometer rating has actually gone up to 13% since the last time I looked at it, isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I really don't think it deserves a number like 13%. The bad news is that, "isn't as bad as I thought it would be," still means, "pretty damn bad." Well, not even "pretty damn bad." Words like boring, lame, mediocre, and stupid all come to mind and they all apply, especially in the second half. What's really good news for the filmmakers is that, since it's a lame, inoffensive comedy with broad audience appeal, it naturally opened at a strong number one.
If you had told me I wouldn't particularly enjoy a movie with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, I would have told you...well, I would have told you that I wasn't particularly surprised since the last movie with those two, Four Christmases, was also a lame, inoffensive comedy I didn't particularly enjoy. It also was a big hit so I guess these two have hit on a winning formula and don't care when internet morons like me bash their work. On the off chance that they do though...
Vince Vaughn plays the Vince Vaughn character. In this case, that character's name is Dave. Dave has a pretty good life with his gorgeous wife Ronnie (Malin Ackerman) and their sons, two of the cutest boys you've ever seen. Their main problem is that Dave spends too much time at his job which is...um..,come to think of it, I don't know what the hell he does. I'm assuming he works for Generico, the company that employs 90% of movie characters. Whatever he does, it seems to pay well since Dave can afford to do things like spend a thousand bucks on new bathroom tiles and cosign a loan so that his broke friend Shane (Faizon Love) can afford to impress his new 20 year old girlfriend with a motorcycle. His other friends include Joey (Favreau), a cheating husband who's only waiting until his daughter goes to college to divorce his cheating wife (Kristin Davis) and Jason (Jason Bateman) who's also having marital problems and manages to sweep Dave and the rest of the gang up in his quest for a solution. He and his wife Cynthia (Kristin Bell) want the other three couples to join them at a high class island resort that also has an elaborate marriage counseling program. Dave forgets he's a workaholic long enough to agree to the last minute two week vacation and the other two couples tag along thinking they'll have an island adventure while Jason and Cynthia do the couples therapy.
Little do they know that they have agreed to go to the only expensive resort on the planet that apparently strives to model itself after a fascist dictatorship. British comedian Peter Serafinowicz plays Sctanley (that's not a typo), the resort's manager whose pleasant demeanor barely masks his inner control freak. He very pleasantly informs them that they must all participate in the couples therapy or else, and again he says this in a very polite way, he'll kick their assess off the island.
Up to this point, it's a fairly decent movie. Vaughn scores laughs with his usual manic-sarcastic-superior act that he does in every movie and everyone else generally comes off looking pretty good, especially Serafinowicz. It's right around this point that it starts getting stupid.
Dave and Ronnie didn't think they had any serious problems in their marriage. Shows what they knew. It turns out that the fact Dave didn't like the expensive tiles Ronnie picked out meant they were on the verge of divorce or something. Jason and Cynthia treat the whole thing as some sort of competition and ignore the fact that they're unhappy because she can't get pregnant. Joey and Lucy want to break up anyway so you would think they'd just go through the motions and sneak off to the swingers resort on the other side of the island like they planned but no, they have to act like kids instead. Shane discovers that girls half your age who date you because you shower them with toys are actually quite immature. Mostly, the last half of the movie isn't so much a story as it is a series of episodes that mostly go on too long. The characters really go out of their way to behave in a way that no human being has ever behaved and, if they're presented with a smart, intelligent option and a mindbogglingly stupid option, guess which one they choose? For example, Shane's girlfriend disappears. What do they do? Their options are, "Inform the management so they can search the island and verify that she didn't drown in the ocean of crack her head on a rock," and, "Tramp around in an unfamiliar jungle in the middle of the night so they can get to the swinger's resort and look for her there." Guess which one they did.
There is one really good scene where Vince Vaughn and Peter Serafinowicz participate in a Guitar Hero throwdown but that's really too little, too late. Couples Retreat's greatest sin isn't the dumb plot but, rather, that too much of the dumb plot isn't funny. That's the one unforgivable sin in a comedy.
One more thing. To whoever it was that decided it was a good idea to have Jon Favreau go shirtless while getting a rubdown from a pretty masseuse, become visibly aroused, imply that the masseuse should give him a handjob and then order her out of the room so he can jack off when she refuses, this would be a good time to retire from show business. One of the reasons is that this was basically sexual harassment and instead of laughing I was just feeling sorry for the masseuse and the other reason is that we had ALREADY HAD a Jon Favreau masturbation scene earlier in the movie and that was one too many to begin with.
If you had told me I wouldn't particularly enjoy a movie with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, I would have told you...well, I would have told you that I wasn't particularly surprised since the last movie with those two, Four Christmases, was also a lame, inoffensive comedy I didn't particularly enjoy. It also was a big hit so I guess these two have hit on a winning formula and don't care when internet morons like me bash their work. On the off chance that they do though...
Vince Vaughn plays the Vince Vaughn character. In this case, that character's name is Dave. Dave has a pretty good life with his gorgeous wife Ronnie (Malin Ackerman) and their sons, two of the cutest boys you've ever seen. Their main problem is that Dave spends too much time at his job which is...um..,come to think of it, I don't know what the hell he does. I'm assuming he works for Generico, the company that employs 90% of movie characters. Whatever he does, it seems to pay well since Dave can afford to do things like spend a thousand bucks on new bathroom tiles and cosign a loan so that his broke friend Shane (Faizon Love) can afford to impress his new 20 year old girlfriend with a motorcycle. His other friends include Joey (Favreau), a cheating husband who's only waiting until his daughter goes to college to divorce his cheating wife (Kristin Davis) and Jason (Jason Bateman) who's also having marital problems and manages to sweep Dave and the rest of the gang up in his quest for a solution. He and his wife Cynthia (Kristin Bell) want the other three couples to join them at a high class island resort that also has an elaborate marriage counseling program. Dave forgets he's a workaholic long enough to agree to the last minute two week vacation and the other two couples tag along thinking they'll have an island adventure while Jason and Cynthia do the couples therapy.
Little do they know that they have agreed to go to the only expensive resort on the planet that apparently strives to model itself after a fascist dictatorship. British comedian Peter Serafinowicz plays Sctanley (that's not a typo), the resort's manager whose pleasant demeanor barely masks his inner control freak. He very pleasantly informs them that they must all participate in the couples therapy or else, and again he says this in a very polite way, he'll kick their assess off the island.
Up to this point, it's a fairly decent movie. Vaughn scores laughs with his usual manic-sarcastic-superior act that he does in every movie and everyone else generally comes off looking pretty good, especially Serafinowicz. It's right around this point that it starts getting stupid.
Dave and Ronnie didn't think they had any serious problems in their marriage. Shows what they knew. It turns out that the fact Dave didn't like the expensive tiles Ronnie picked out meant they were on the verge of divorce or something. Jason and Cynthia treat the whole thing as some sort of competition and ignore the fact that they're unhappy because she can't get pregnant. Joey and Lucy want to break up anyway so you would think they'd just go through the motions and sneak off to the swingers resort on the other side of the island like they planned but no, they have to act like kids instead. Shane discovers that girls half your age who date you because you shower them with toys are actually quite immature. Mostly, the last half of the movie isn't so much a story as it is a series of episodes that mostly go on too long. The characters really go out of their way to behave in a way that no human being has ever behaved and, if they're presented with a smart, intelligent option and a mindbogglingly stupid option, guess which one they choose? For example, Shane's girlfriend disappears. What do they do? Their options are, "Inform the management so they can search the island and verify that she didn't drown in the ocean of crack her head on a rock," and, "Tramp around in an unfamiliar jungle in the middle of the night so they can get to the swinger's resort and look for her there." Guess which one they did.
There is one really good scene where Vince Vaughn and Peter Serafinowicz participate in a Guitar Hero throwdown but that's really too little, too late. Couples Retreat's greatest sin isn't the dumb plot but, rather, that too much of the dumb plot isn't funny. That's the one unforgivable sin in a comedy.
One more thing. To whoever it was that decided it was a good idea to have Jon Favreau go shirtless while getting a rubdown from a pretty masseuse, become visibly aroused, imply that the masseuse should give him a handjob and then order her out of the room so he can jack off when she refuses, this would be a good time to retire from show business. One of the reasons is that this was basically sexual harassment and instead of laughing I was just feeling sorry for the masseuse and the other reason is that we had ALREADY HAD a Jon Favreau masturbation scene earlier in the movie and that was one too many to begin with.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
An Observation To Get You Through The Weekend
How is it that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize the same day he declared war on the Moon?
Oh well, it's not like Malia Obama won the Literature Prize for her fanfiction story Edward Cullen Meets Hannah Montana.
Oh well, it's not like Malia Obama won the Literature Prize for her fanfiction story Edward Cullen Meets Hannah Montana.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 10/9/09
Ah, Friday. Today I cool down from arguing with right wingers and venting at foreigners. The best way to do that is to whip up another edition of brief comments on various subjects called Look At My Briefs.
Really, if there's anything that can take a Predator remake and turn it into a full on, balls-to-the-wall action film that's enjoyable on an epic level, it's adding Adrien Brody and Topher Grace to the cast.
Judging mainly by the fact that the movie has what I think are top quality actors, I was looking forward to Couple's Retreat but now...Wow! That's actually down from the first time I looked at it. Looks like this might be the week to see Zombieland again.
There's a rumor that a sequel to Showgirls is in the works. I can't see a chance in hell that this will work. The world will simply not accept new Showgirls content that doesn't have the original cast. That should have been obvious.
Can we all admit now that the Red Dawn remake will suck and only be enjoyed by men with tiny penises who see themselves on the front lines defending America against a foreign invasion when, in fact, half of them would turn collaborator while the other half would just piss themselves and die?
Once again, we see that there's really no such thing as bad publicity as long as you spell the name right. David Letterman's confession of his affairs and the blackmail that resulted from it actually boosted his ratings. Showing that the other talk show hosts now know that they have to bring this to a new level in order to compete, look for Conan O'Brien to confess to a gay affair with a male ocelot while Jimmy Kimmel says that he took his love of the environment to an extreme level by digging a hole and sticking his penis into it.
Really, if there's anything that can take a Predator remake and turn it into a full on, balls-to-the-wall action film that's enjoyable on an epic level, it's adding Adrien Brody and Topher Grace to the cast.
Judging mainly by the fact that the movie has what I think are top quality actors, I was looking forward to Couple's Retreat but now...Wow! That's actually down from the first time I looked at it. Looks like this might be the week to see Zombieland again.
There's a rumor that a sequel to Showgirls is in the works. I can't see a chance in hell that this will work. The world will simply not accept new Showgirls content that doesn't have the original cast. That should have been obvious.
Can we all admit now that the Red Dawn remake will suck and only be enjoyed by men with tiny penises who see themselves on the front lines defending America against a foreign invasion when, in fact, half of them would turn collaborator while the other half would just piss themselves and die?
Once again, we see that there's really no such thing as bad publicity as long as you spell the name right. David Letterman's confession of his affairs and the blackmail that resulted from it actually boosted his ratings. Showing that the other talk show hosts now know that they have to bring this to a new level in order to compete, look for Conan O'Brien to confess to a gay affair with a male ocelot while Jimmy Kimmel says that he took his love of the environment to an extreme level by digging a hole and sticking his penis into it.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
In Fact, All Of Norway Can Go Straight To Hell
No regular column today because I'm pissed off. You probably all have heard about this year's Nobel Prizes but there's one name noticeably absent from that list. You know whose name that was? Mine, that's who, probably because the Nobel committee is made up of shitheads.
I definitely should have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry because of my groundbreaking work discovering what happens when you mix vinegar and baking soda. Instead, they gave it to three douchebags who uncovered the structure of ribosome. What the fuck is ribosome? It's either a made up word or Latin for, "Sucked the dicks of the Nobel committee."
I did some awesome shit in physics too but those Norwegian fucks ignored that too. Why are they even called Norwegians anyway? They live in Norway, not Norwegia. I don't really understand physics but neither does anyone else so why not give it to me?
As for the Peace Prize: Hey Norway, have I started any fucking wars lately? Or ever? Try Googling "Wars started by Michael Clear" and watch it spit back "Absofuckinglutely none." Hell, I may as well start one now if I'm not going to get a damn Peace Prize.
The worst insult those Lutefisk eating dickholes sent my way was denying me the Nobel Literature Prize for my novel Vampires and Hot Virgins. Did it bother them that it took me nearly three weeks to write that? No. Did they take into consideration that it's being made into a movie? Obviously not. If you opened the skull of every single member of the Nobel committee, would you find anything but shit? Hell no!
Anyway, it's now my distinct honor to announce the winner of this year's "Prize For Being A Bitchy Little Fuckface." And the winner is...THE ENTIRE NOBEL COMMITTEE!!!! You an pick up your award in Hell.
P.S. Fuck you.
P.P.S. Kiss my ass!
UPDATE 10/9/09 -- WHAT? WHAT?!!! Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick. Obama won the Peace Prize and not me? And why the hell did that happen exactly?
Until then, feel free to enjoy the taste of my anus. Oh, fuck you again.
I definitely should have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry because of my groundbreaking work discovering what happens when you mix vinegar and baking soda. Instead, they gave it to three douchebags who uncovered the structure of ribosome. What the fuck is ribosome? It's either a made up word or Latin for, "Sucked the dicks of the Nobel committee."
I did some awesome shit in physics too but those Norwegian fucks ignored that too. Why are they even called Norwegians anyway? They live in Norway, not Norwegia. I don't really understand physics but neither does anyone else so why not give it to me?
As for the Peace Prize: Hey Norway, have I started any fucking wars lately? Or ever? Try Googling "Wars started by Michael Clear" and watch it spit back "Absofuckinglutely none." Hell, I may as well start one now if I'm not going to get a damn Peace Prize.
The worst insult those Lutefisk eating dickholes sent my way was denying me the Nobel Literature Prize for my novel Vampires and Hot Virgins. Did it bother them that it took me nearly three weeks to write that? No. Did they take into consideration that it's being made into a movie? Obviously not. If you opened the skull of every single member of the Nobel committee, would you find anything but shit? Hell no!
Anyway, it's now my distinct honor to announce the winner of this year's "Prize For Being A Bitchy Little Fuckface." And the winner is...THE ENTIRE NOBEL COMMITTEE!!!! You an pick up your award in Hell.
P.S. Fuck you.
P.P.S. Kiss my ass!
UPDATE 10/9/09 -- WHAT? WHAT?!!! Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick. Obama won the Peace Prize and not me? And why the hell did that happen exactly?
U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for giving the world "hope for a better future" and striving for nuclear disarmament, in a surprise award that drew criticism as well as praise.Oh awesome. Just fucking awesome. Just who the hell did Obama have to blow to get this? I got rid of my nuclear stockpiles years ago but do I get a fucking Peace Prize? Hello no! Norway, I know your country is a frozen shithole but that's not my fault so STOP TAKING IT OUT ON ME AND GIVE ME A DAMN NOBEL PRIZE.
Until then, feel free to enjoy the taste of my anus. Oh, fuck you again.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
He Has No Brains Down In Africa
Previously on Clear's Own:
Conservative movie critic and Big Hollywood contributor Christian Toto decided to take The Onion to task for writing a joke article about Ronald Reagan burying $20 trillion back in the 80s. This caused Toto to make this definitive declaration:
Well, no. This showed up in the comments from Christian Toto.
All rightie, Kumbaya moment's over. Let's get down to business.
Mr. Toto, sir, I had no idea that the print version of The Onion was the Super Duper Ultra Mega Official Version That Supersedes All Others and that you referred to that and nothing else when you wrote your BH article. You even said you should have made that clear. I look like a complete jerk now. You Big, Me Small. Or, rather, that would be the case if not for those damn pesky Fact Clouds coming to rain piss all over your victory parade.
You're saying you only read the print version yet the Reagan bit to which you linked was part of the web version. How can this be? Simple. It was in both. In fact, most of what you read on the web was mined from The Onion's print version. The web publication even lets you know which print issue it was taken from. The Reagan article, for example, was published in issue #4538.
This brings me back to Print Master Toto and this sentence, "Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me." I listed nine links in my post. One was a radio clip, one was a Onion News Network video and another was part of a feature called "Obama's First Hundred Days" which I think was web only. That leaves six-count em-six articles that Toto says were never in the Divine Print Version he reads except that they were.
We also see that Toto read the previous comments where it was pointed out that his attack of Bill Maher in the same article in which he called him "cowardly" for never going after Obama is also a crock because Maher has gone after Obama, a fact confirmed in an article by Big Hollywood's Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. Toto's options at this point were limited. He could have dismissed Nolte as an unreliable member of the liberal media but, instead, said that sure, Maher went after but Obama but did so with insufficient vitriol and anger. The only satisfactory action would have been to take a crap and wipe his ass with Obama's picture on the air.
So, what have we learned? We learned that backing up opinions with real world facts is better than backing them up with facts you pull out of your ass. We learned that some people think their fantasies are real. And we learned that, if you say something to me that is a total crock, I will fight tooth and nail to find the truth even if it leads me to the gates of hell...as long as doing that doesn't take me more than 15 minutes which was the total amount of time I spent researching today's column. The truth is a wonderful thing, Christian. Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you. You should be frightened of this thing you have become.
Conservative movie critic and Big Hollywood contributor Christian Toto decided to take The Onion to task for writing a joke article about Ronald Reagan burying $20 trillion back in the 80s. This caused Toto to make this definitive declaration:
Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.That was an awesome observation except for the fact that it wasn't true. My response to that was to list numerous articles in which The Onion did, in fact, make fun of Obama and that was the end of that. He said something. I presented evidence that it wasn't true. Me-1, Big Hollywood-0. Right?
Well, no. This showed up in the comments from Christian Toto.
Christian Toto said...Where to begin? First off, I'm happy you and I could reach a bipartisan consensus on Fred Armisen and the major league suck factor of his Obama imitation. Lorne Michaels had the entire summer to find someone who looked and sounded vaguely like Obama and instead decided to keep the guy whose imitation reminds me more of Obama's dog than Obama himself.
Nice overheated rant.
I read the print version of The Onion every week ... that's what I based my commentary on. I'm assuming that's the definitive version of the paper of record. I should have made that clear in my post ...
Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me.
Each week I wait for The Onion's newspaper version, a generally terrific humor edition, to find something about Obama's policies and demeanor to mock. Unless I missed an issue since election day I've yet to see it.
Instead, they keep falling back on Bush and Cheney and other random topics. Nothing wrong with that, but they're missing quality humor targets. Just listen to Limbaugh once in a while and you'll see what can be done.
Even "SNL" screwed it up over the weekend. I thought their Obama sketch was lame ... the impersonation by Armisen is terrible and it read like a GOP talking point tally sheet. Nothing clever about it ... just mean, really. Made me feel sorry for Obama, and that's not the goal of sketch comedy.
As to the Bill Maher comparison, the day Maher tears into Obama with 1/1000 of the anger/invective/rage he saves for Bush, let's talk.
And you're not really addressing the cruelty inherent in making fun of Reagan's Alzheimer's. Guess we can differ on whether that's fair or tacky ... I lean towards tacky in the extreme.
The overall point of my piece, beyond The Onion critique, is that the humor world still is keeping, for the most part, a hands off policy on Obama. Presidents get mocked .. it's part of the territory, and Obama deserves his share of pies in the face like any other leader.
Jon Stewart has landed some comic blows against Obama, and good for him.
Letterman may be the worst offender here, but it seems he's been ... ahem ... busy on other fronts.
All rightie, Kumbaya moment's over. Let's get down to business.
Mr. Toto, sir, I had no idea that the print version of The Onion was the Super Duper Ultra Mega Official Version That Supersedes All Others and that you referred to that and nothing else when you wrote your BH article. You even said you should have made that clear. I look like a complete jerk now. You Big, Me Small. Or, rather, that would be the case if not for those damn pesky Fact Clouds coming to rain piss all over your victory parade.
You're saying you only read the print version yet the Reagan bit to which you linked was part of the web version. How can this be? Simple. It was in both. In fact, most of what you read on the web was mined from The Onion's print version. The web publication even lets you know which print issue it was taken from. The Reagan article, for example, was published in issue #4538.
This brings me back to Print Master Toto and this sentence, "Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me." I listed nine links in my post. One was a radio clip, one was a Onion News Network video and another was part of a feature called "Obama's First Hundred Days" which I think was web only. That leaves six-count em-six articles that Toto says were never in the Divine Print Version he reads except that they were.
We also see that Toto read the previous comments where it was pointed out that his attack of Bill Maher in the same article in which he called him "cowardly" for never going after Obama is also a crock because Maher has gone after Obama, a fact confirmed in an article by Big Hollywood's Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. Toto's options at this point were limited. He could have dismissed Nolte as an unreliable member of the liberal media but, instead, said that sure, Maher went after but Obama but did so with insufficient vitriol and anger. The only satisfactory action would have been to take a crap and wipe his ass with Obama's picture on the air.
So, what have we learned? We learned that backing up opinions with real world facts is better than backing them up with facts you pull out of your ass. We learned that some people think their fantasies are real. And we learned that, if you say something to me that is a total crock, I will fight tooth and nail to find the truth even if it leads me to the gates of hell...as long as doing that doesn't take me more than 15 minutes which was the total amount of time I spent researching today's column. The truth is a wonderful thing, Christian. Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you. You should be frightened of this thing you have become.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Always Watching
Television. What a powerful word. Just saying it makes you think of television. It touches all of our lives in a particularly telvisionish way. Today I'm going to talk about this thing we call "television" or "TV" or "that thing the Tivo and XBox are connected to that lets me see naked vampires on HBO."
Fringe -- This has improved somewhat since its debut last year but it's problems are still there. It's still needlessly gross and its plots still cross the line that divides "Far Out Science Fiction" from "Insane Stupidity." Recent examples include a scientist whose wife couldn't bring a child to term because of her lupus so his solution was to combine human, scorpion and molerat DNA. Had someone actually managed to create a living creature like this, it would have been one of the most amazing scientific achievements in history and would have gotten the fellow who literally whipped this up in his basement several Nobel Prizes. Instead, it was used as a plot point in which the child becomes a creature who can poison people so he can drag them to his underground lair and eat them. Grade: C+
Glee -- This has also improved since I saw its pilot episode last May but it's still not very good. I seem to be in the minority on this one as reviews and other randomly given opinions on I read on message boards and Twitter indicate that most people really love this show. To me, it just looks fake. Everyone seems to be trying way too hard. Only Jane Lynch's psychopathic cheer coach makes what she's doing look effortless and natural. Combine that with the fact that the glee club students look older than their teacher and you have a show about teensagers that just can't hold a candle to Skins. Speaking of which...
Skins -- This just wrapped up its third series run on BBC America and remains one of my favorite shows ever. It's certainly the best show about teens out there right now. It manages to remain riotously funny while taking the problems its characters face very seriously. It also takes a realistic view of teenagers doing drugs and having sex and actually acknowledges that kids, you know, do that and, for many, it's a matter-of-fact course of action that doesn't necessarily ruin their lives or inspire self righteous monologues about respecting yourself. There's one more show about teenagers I should mention...
The Vampire Diaries -- I've watched two full episodes and part of a third. I didn't finish the third one since, 20 minutes in, I knew exactly what was going to happen. There will not be a fourth.
Flash Forward -- So far, this isn't bad though there are signs that the Brannon Braga Stupidity Curse could kick in at any time. For instance, last week the FBI team investigating the world event that caused people to see the future got a lead on a possible suspect and brought a full assault team to take him down. Two of the regular characters and some poor, doomed day player then leave their lovely team behind and storm the suspect's dark, spooky lair. This results in the suspect's escape and the death of the one who wasn't a regular (another sign that this was made by a former Star Trek writer).
Fringe -- This has improved somewhat since its debut last year but it's problems are still there. It's still needlessly gross and its plots still cross the line that divides "Far Out Science Fiction" from "Insane Stupidity." Recent examples include a scientist whose wife couldn't bring a child to term because of her lupus so his solution was to combine human, scorpion and molerat DNA. Had someone actually managed to create a living creature like this, it would have been one of the most amazing scientific achievements in history and would have gotten the fellow who literally whipped this up in his basement several Nobel Prizes. Instead, it was used as a plot point in which the child becomes a creature who can poison people so he can drag them to his underground lair and eat them. Grade: C+
Glee -- This has also improved since I saw its pilot episode last May but it's still not very good. I seem to be in the minority on this one as reviews and other randomly given opinions on I read on message boards and Twitter indicate that most people really love this show. To me, it just looks fake. Everyone seems to be trying way too hard. Only Jane Lynch's psychopathic cheer coach makes what she's doing look effortless and natural. Combine that with the fact that the glee club students look older than their teacher and you have a show about teensagers that just can't hold a candle to Skins. Speaking of which...
Skins -- This just wrapped up its third series run on BBC America and remains one of my favorite shows ever. It's certainly the best show about teens out there right now. It manages to remain riotously funny while taking the problems its characters face very seriously. It also takes a realistic view of teenagers doing drugs and having sex and actually acknowledges that kids, you know, do that and, for many, it's a matter-of-fact course of action that doesn't necessarily ruin their lives or inspire self righteous monologues about respecting yourself. There's one more show about teenagers I should mention...
The Vampire Diaries -- I've watched two full episodes and part of a third. I didn't finish the third one since, 20 minutes in, I knew exactly what was going to happen. There will not be a fourth.
Flash Forward -- So far, this isn't bad though there are signs that the Brannon Braga Stupidity Curse could kick in at any time. For instance, last week the FBI team investigating the world event that caused people to see the future got a lead on a possible suspect and brought a full assault team to take him down. Two of the regular characters and some poor, doomed day player then leave their lovely team behind and storm the suspect's dark, spooky lair. This results in the suspect's escape and the death of the one who wasn't a regular (another sign that this was made by a former Star Trek writer).
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mob Zombies
Zombieland is the best summer action film of the year, so naturally it was released in October. This little movie about badass Woody Harrelson teaming up with some dweeb who manages to come up with a workable strategy for surviving the end of the world totally kicks the collective asses of Hasbro, Marvel Comics and Michael Bay. I've said many times how sick and tired I am of zombie movies because they're all the same. This is the same too, except it's different.
These aren't George Romero "Undead who shamble along and only manage to kill anyone because people in the movie pretty much walk into their mouths" zombies. No, these are more Danny Boyle "Infected humans turn into crazed cannibals" zombies which means that, technically, they're not even really zombies at all since they're still alive but that doesn't stop people in the movie from calling them zombies pretty much nonstop. I thought about standing up and yelling, "THEY'RE ALIVE! THEY'RE NOT ZOMBIES," but then remembered that I'm not an anal retentive goob and simply enjoyed the rest of the film.
Zombieland follows four characters who don't give their real names in an attempt to keep from getting emotionally involved with people they meet who could become zombie food at any moment and instead call each other by their birthplace. Jesse Eisenberg (probably best known for the movie Who The Hell Is Jesse Eisenberg?) plays Columbus, a poor man's Michael Cera who combined his intellect with his social misfit skills to actually manage not only to survive but to thrive in the zombie infested Apocalypse. He develops a set of rules that pop up on the screen whenever he uses one. For instance, zombies, like all horror movie monsters, like to hide in the backseats of cars and reveal themselves after you've started driving thus one of his rules is "Always check the backseat."
On his travels, Columbus meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson at his most badass), a guy who really seems to love the idea of being able to legally shoot people. I should take that back. He'll use a gun if he has to but he'd rather use whatever else happens to be handy such as a bat or a banjo. They meet up with two other survivors. Wichita (Emma Stone), possibly the world's last hot girl and her sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin at her most adorable, even when she's calling Columbus a pussy). The girls were con artists before the infection broke out and saw no reason to change tactics after the world ended so they successfully manage to trick Columbus and Tallahassee out of their vehicle and supplies. Of course, they meet up again further down the road and we find out that the girls have an insane idea to go to an amusement park in Los Angeles due to some obviously B.S. rumor that there are no zombies there. Still, if they didn't go there the movie would have no third act so off they go.
The movie is loaded with jokes and could be classified simultaneously as a zombie movie and a parody of zombie movies. On his Twitter feed, writer/producer John Rogers accurately described it as the first postmodern zombie movie. I'll add that it's about as light-hearted and feel-good as a movie about the end of the world can be. Best part of the movie: when they get to Los Angeles, they meet Bill Murray. It's really him playing himself. In fact, he's the only character I can remember who has a name that isn't a city, unless there's a Bill Murray, Wyoming I don't know about. I don't want to give too much away but I do want to tell people to be sure to sit through the end credits in their entirety, especially if you are a Caddyshack fan.
Zombieland was a really good time. Movies like that are why I show up at theaters week after week panning through the slime and muck that isG.I. Joe and Halloween II in order to find a little gold nugget called Zombieland. Now, I can go back to bitching about the 8000 other zombie movies currently in development.
These aren't George Romero "Undead who shamble along and only manage to kill anyone because people in the movie pretty much walk into their mouths" zombies. No, these are more Danny Boyle "Infected humans turn into crazed cannibals" zombies which means that, technically, they're not even really zombies at all since they're still alive but that doesn't stop people in the movie from calling them zombies pretty much nonstop. I thought about standing up and yelling, "THEY'RE ALIVE! THEY'RE NOT ZOMBIES," but then remembered that I'm not an anal retentive goob and simply enjoyed the rest of the film.
Zombieland follows four characters who don't give their real names in an attempt to keep from getting emotionally involved with people they meet who could become zombie food at any moment and instead call each other by their birthplace. Jesse Eisenberg (probably best known for the movie Who The Hell Is Jesse Eisenberg?) plays Columbus, a poor man's Michael Cera who combined his intellect with his social misfit skills to actually manage not only to survive but to thrive in the zombie infested Apocalypse. He develops a set of rules that pop up on the screen whenever he uses one. For instance, zombies, like all horror movie monsters, like to hide in the backseats of cars and reveal themselves after you've started driving thus one of his rules is "Always check the backseat."
On his travels, Columbus meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson at his most badass), a guy who really seems to love the idea of being able to legally shoot people. I should take that back. He'll use a gun if he has to but he'd rather use whatever else happens to be handy such as a bat or a banjo. They meet up with two other survivors. Wichita (Emma Stone), possibly the world's last hot girl and her sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin at her most adorable, even when she's calling Columbus a pussy). The girls were con artists before the infection broke out and saw no reason to change tactics after the world ended so they successfully manage to trick Columbus and Tallahassee out of their vehicle and supplies. Of course, they meet up again further down the road and we find out that the girls have an insane idea to go to an amusement park in Los Angeles due to some obviously B.S. rumor that there are no zombies there. Still, if they didn't go there the movie would have no third act so off they go.
The movie is loaded with jokes and could be classified simultaneously as a zombie movie and a parody of zombie movies. On his Twitter feed, writer/producer John Rogers accurately described it as the first postmodern zombie movie. I'll add that it's about as light-hearted and feel-good as a movie about the end of the world can be. Best part of the movie: when they get to Los Angeles, they meet Bill Murray. It's really him playing himself. In fact, he's the only character I can remember who has a name that isn't a city, unless there's a Bill Murray, Wyoming I don't know about. I don't want to give too much away but I do want to tell people to be sure to sit through the end credits in their entirety, especially if you are a Caddyshack fan.
Zombieland was a really good time. Movies like that are why I show up at theaters week after week panning through the slime and muck that isG.I. Joe and Halloween II in order to find a little gold nugget called Zombieland. Now, I can go back to bitching about the 8000 other zombie movies currently in development.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Things I've Learned From Watching Movies Part 76
The only way for poor black people to change their circumstances is to get adopted by rich white people.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Time After Time
Today's post serves as a public apology. First, I have to apologize in advance for going off topic but this needs to be said.
Recently, I went back in time. The details of how this was accomplished are unimportant. Let's just say it involved some uranium combined with a dozen super hot buffalo wings and leave it at that. Anyway, I went back about 100 million years to the Goofassic era or whatever the hell it was called. I'm a time traveler, not a historian. Anyway, the past pretty much sucked. No internet, cell phone wouldn't work, couldn't even get a decent magazine and ended up having to amuse myself by observing nature and shit like that. That's not the important part. I'm sure you've all heard that, if you're in the past, you shouldn't do stuff like step on a butterfly as that could start a chain reaction that could lead to greater and greater historical changes as time goes on until something major happens like the Nazis winning World War II? Well, I didn't hear that until after I went time traveling.
I stepped on a butterfly. Not only did I step on it, I sadistically played with it first then pissed on it after it was dead. I don't know why I did that as I've never been needlessly cruel like that before. I guess I just figured if I was going to do that, 100 million years in the past would be a good place to start. At this point you're thinking, "Did he change history?"
The good news, as you all know, is that the Nazis did not win World War II so good on me for that, right? There are a few small changes. For instance, Michael Bay no longer makes thoughtful, gracefully edited dramas about the human condition. Twilight didn't win eight Oscars. Barack Obama won the 2008 election instead of me. Yes, that's right, I was President. How do you think I had access to a time machine? Don't worry, I'm cool with that change. Being President blew. You have no idea how many times I had to read some stupid report about the price of Danish cheese before I even had my morning coffee. I do miss First Lady Megan Fox. Luckily, she finally let me have butt sex with her just before I went back in time and that was pretty much all I wanted from her anyway.
There is one thing I miss most of all. I hesitate to tell you about it since you will hate me when you find out I made this go away. I really, really miss the Handjob Trees. Yes, they were exactly what they sound like they were. They had soft, movable branches shaped like hands and they'd either jack you off or finger you when you approached them. Best thing was that using the trees was socially acceptable. I can remember many times while growing up when my mom would call for me and I'd say, "Be there soon Mom, just rubbing one out on the Handjob Tree." Somehow, stepping on an ancient butterfly or butterflyosaur or whatever the hell it was called made all that go away.
Anyway, I'm sorry though I do think the raw entertainment provided by this blog more than makes up for all that other stuff so stop whining.
Recently, I went back in time. The details of how this was accomplished are unimportant. Let's just say it involved some uranium combined with a dozen super hot buffalo wings and leave it at that. Anyway, I went back about 100 million years to the Goofassic era or whatever the hell it was called. I'm a time traveler, not a historian. Anyway, the past pretty much sucked. No internet, cell phone wouldn't work, couldn't even get a decent magazine and ended up having to amuse myself by observing nature and shit like that. That's not the important part. I'm sure you've all heard that, if you're in the past, you shouldn't do stuff like step on a butterfly as that could start a chain reaction that could lead to greater and greater historical changes as time goes on until something major happens like the Nazis winning World War II? Well, I didn't hear that until after I went time traveling.
I stepped on a butterfly. Not only did I step on it, I sadistically played with it first then pissed on it after it was dead. I don't know why I did that as I've never been needlessly cruel like that before. I guess I just figured if I was going to do that, 100 million years in the past would be a good place to start. At this point you're thinking, "Did he change history?"
The good news, as you all know, is that the Nazis did not win World War II so good on me for that, right? There are a few small changes. For instance, Michael Bay no longer makes thoughtful, gracefully edited dramas about the human condition. Twilight didn't win eight Oscars. Barack Obama won the 2008 election instead of me. Yes, that's right, I was President. How do you think I had access to a time machine? Don't worry, I'm cool with that change. Being President blew. You have no idea how many times I had to read some stupid report about the price of Danish cheese before I even had my morning coffee. I do miss First Lady Megan Fox. Luckily, she finally let me have butt sex with her just before I went back in time and that was pretty much all I wanted from her anyway.
There is one thing I miss most of all. I hesitate to tell you about it since you will hate me when you find out I made this go away. I really, really miss the Handjob Trees. Yes, they were exactly what they sound like they were. They had soft, movable branches shaped like hands and they'd either jack you off or finger you when you approached them. Best thing was that using the trees was socially acceptable. I can remember many times while growing up when my mom would call for me and I'd say, "Be there soon Mom, just rubbing one out on the Handjob Tree." Somehow, stepping on an ancient butterfly or butterflyosaur or whatever the hell it was called made all that go away.
Anyway, I'm sorry though I do think the raw entertainment provided by this blog more than makes up for all that other stuff so stop whining.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 10/01/09
It's the first day of October which means I present today an extra spooky editon of Look At My Briefs. (There's nothing at all spooky about this. I made that part up. If you have a weak heart and weren't going to read this, don't worry. -- MC)
I guess this Twilight trend won't be ending any time soon. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke didn't get to direct the sequel so instead she's doing a movie just like it. Then there's this lesbian werewolf version of Twilight whose director said this...
Proving that anything in Hollywood can become the subject of a movie deal if it just sits still long enough, a book called Candy written by The Hills star Lauren Conrad is slated for a filmed adaptation. That book, incidentally, was written by Lauren Conrad in the same way that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by me. This is how the writing process went:
If only someone would do this to the Saw movies.
This Variety article fascinated me:
All the entertainment industry heavy hitters who are losing their shit over the idea of Roman Polanski going to prison remind me of cops who form "The Blue Wall Of Silence" whenever another cop gets into trouble except that the cops have the good sense to be silent while the Hollywood people won't shut the hell up. I don't understand the thinking of people who think a guy should be issued a license to drug and rape a teenager just because that movie he made where Jack Nicholson got his nose sliced open was cool but I gave up trying to comprehend the mind of people who work in the film industry when said industry made Bride Wars. This whole situation has been good for some people, though. Big Hollywood has been having a field day expressing their righteous indignation over this issue. It was very lucky for them that liberal filmmakers came down on the pro-Polanski side thus granting them full license to really get outraged. At least their love of the rule of law has given them something else to do now besides condemning anyone who thinks that American officials who violated international torture laws should be held accountable in a court of law.
I guess this Twilight trend won't be ending any time soon. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke didn't get to direct the sequel so instead she's doing a movie just like it. Then there's this lesbian werewolf version of Twilight whose director said this...
“This creature, though grotesque, becomes Diane’s way of saying, ‘I love you so much I want to eat you and put you inside me forever.’”...and I said this...
EW!
Proving that anything in Hollywood can become the subject of a movie deal if it just sits still long enough, a book called Candy written by The Hills star Lauren Conrad is slated for a filmed adaptation. That book, incidentally, was written by Lauren Conrad in the same way that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by me. This is how the writing process went:
Ghost Writer: I think I'll have the protagonist do this. Is that all right with you, Lauren?
Lauren Conrad: Um...sure. What's a protagonist?
If only someone would do this to the Saw movies.
This Variety article fascinated me:
Stephen King is taking another stab at the smallscreen, signing on to turn his novella "The Colorado Kid" into an hourlong series for indie studio E1 Entertainment ("Hung").Interesting idea, I suppose. May suck, may not. No way to know at this point. All I could think of, however, was, "What the hell does any of that have to do with The Colorado Kid?" That book was about two elderly newspaper men describing the biggest murder mystery that had ever occurred in their small Maine town to their college age intern. The town was not called Haven, there was no character in the book named Audrey Parker, and nothing that could even vaguely be called supernatural went on in all of the book's 184 pages. I was wondering if maybe King had another book out there with the same title but Google says no. How the hell do you get to call this an adaptation? Does that word have a meaning of which I am unaware? Hell, I can do this. I want to adapt Cujo into a television series about good looking singles in their 20s who take turns boning each other while trying to make it in Hollywood. Consider this an idea submission, E1 entertainment.
Titled "Haven," the project centers on a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile. When those curses start returning, FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to keep those supernatural forces at bay -- while trying to unravel the mysteries of Haven.
All the entertainment industry heavy hitters who are losing their shit over the idea of Roman Polanski going to prison remind me of cops who form "The Blue Wall Of Silence" whenever another cop gets into trouble except that the cops have the good sense to be silent while the Hollywood people won't shut the hell up. I don't understand the thinking of people who think a guy should be issued a license to drug and rape a teenager just because that movie he made where Jack Nicholson got his nose sliced open was cool but I gave up trying to comprehend the mind of people who work in the film industry when said industry made Bride Wars. This whole situation has been good for some people, though. Big Hollywood has been having a field day expressing their righteous indignation over this issue. It was very lucky for them that liberal filmmakers came down on the pro-Polanski side thus granting them full license to really get outraged. At least their love of the rule of law has given them something else to do now besides condemning anyone who thinks that American officials who violated international torture laws should be held accountable in a court of law.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)