Thursday, March 18, 2010

Look At My Briefs -- 3/18/10

I imagine many of you are hung over after yesterday's holiday festivities. I don't drink so I'm fresh as a daisy but, for the sake of you who currently feel like leprechauns are drilling through your skull, I have prepared another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.

I see Repo Men isn't getting particularly good reviews. What a shock that a science fiction story that takes current trends to ridiculous extremes then adds action sequences just like Surrogates did wouldn't be any good. At least Bruce Willis and Jude Law can get together now and talk about how those stupid movie audiences don't appreciate good scifi-action-drama when they see it. By the way, this movie annoyed me when I saw it wasn't a sequel or a remake to the 80s cult classic of the same name but then I was very grateful it had nothing to do with that movie. In the modern "reboot" culture, that's really a movie that should be left alone.

Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is coming back for a third season on U.S. television which means we'll get another season of suck unless they shoot the whole thing in England. The BBC version of that show is pretty good whereas the American version looks scripted, theatrical and unrealistic. The Americans look like they're doing what they're doing which is performing for the camera whereas the British behave in a much less dramatic manner. An American might say, "THAT LIMEY JERK DIDN'T LIKE MY CRAB CAKES? LET ME AT HIM!" then have to be held back by friends and family whereas the British are more likely to say, "Well, Gordon, I'm not happy that you said my shepherd's pie tastes like something that had been shat out of a dog's arse but I'll respect your opinion and I'll try to do better."

It will amaze me if Hot Tub Time Machine actually manages to be good but the signs are all pointing that way. I've yet to see poor word of mouth about it plus I saw the ultimate sign when I cut open a raven and saw it's enlarged liver. According to ancient lore, this either means that Hot Tub Time Machine will be good or this year's crops will die. Let's hope it's the first thing.

In the trailer for Kick-Ass, the kid who's going to don a mask and try to be a real superhero asks the question, "Why hasn't anyone just put on a mask and tried to be a superhero?" He's told that people who actually did that would get their asses kicked in less than a day. Yes, that's part of it. It's unlikely anyone could be such a good fighter that he or she could consistently clean out rooms full of bad guys especially if they have guns. Also, the odds are that you'd get caught. With modern facial recognition technology, either law enforcement or the bad guys would track you down eventually. Law enforcement would be more likely since they tend to take a dim view of people who consistently take the law into their own hands. The public would come to resent and even fear the guy they don't know who isn't accountable to anyone especially if he had real superpowers. You know, I'm pretty sure I had a point when I started typing this paragraph. Um, go see Kick-Ass?

I criticized Repo Men but look what's scoring lower? When did Gerard Butler decide to star in a series of mediocre rom-coms? In fact, when did he decide he was going to stop being in good movies after he did 300? I hope he's getting paid well. As for Jennifer Aniston, I was going to mention that we all get to look forward to her starring in The Baster, something that couldn't possibly be anything but an intrinsically stupid piece of offensive crap in which she plays a woman attempting artificial insemination and Jason Bateman plays her friend who, unknown to her, substitutes his sperm for that of an anonymous donor. That has to fit some definition of rape, right? Even if it doesn't, it's really an awful thing to do. Did I mention this was supposed to be a comedy? Anyway, I looked at her IMDB profile and the movie was gone. "Finally, the people behind this movie came to their senses," I thought. I thought that till I looked at other entries and found this, anyway. I'd say "nice try" but it's not.

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