It's a Disney movie. Yep, Adam Sandler's new Christmas movie, Bedtime Stories, is a Disney movie. This does not guarantee quality by any means, but it does mean that Sandler won't be able to lapse into the gross, lazy tricks he loves to use in every movie. Just off the top of my head, some examples of this include a she/male getting vomited on by a walrus, a deer smiling and showing the shit it just ate smeared on its teeth and Sandler himself shoving a fish up his asscrack and shooting it into the air only to see it visibly stained when it lands. These things happen in every Sandler film and pretty much suck the wind out of any sort of humorous momentum that his movies build up.
Well, guess what? He can't do that this time around. Disney hates anything that even looks like controversy, the exception being having risque or flat out naked pictures of its young, female stars winding up on the internet (yeah, they say they hate that but they don't give back the money they start getting from the 40 year old pervs who suddenly start buying Hannah Montana or High School Musical merchandise) and Sandler can't even do that as he does not meet the "young and female" requirement. This means that Sandler will actually have to try to be funny without the usual tricks he uses in lieu of comedy. Sandler's diehard fans will probably be shouting, "This sucks! I'd damn well better see someone fall face down in cow flop in the next five minutes or I want my money back," when they go to see it and they'll flood forums and comments sections with cries that Sandler has sold out which is good. The pain of douchebags who love gross, juvenile humor is like crack to me.
I have no idea if Bedtime Stories will be any good but at least it has a shot and that's all any movie fan can ask for while waiting in line for their tickets.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Michael Rennie Was Ill
Like everyone else, I develop prejudices and preconceived notions about pretty much everything. I like to think that I am able to rise above those and apply impassioned reason and scientific principles when actually encountering the subject of said prejudices and notions and make final judgments based on data I receive from those encounters. However, there are times when I'm not sure of the extent to which preconceived notions influenced my conclusions and this is the problem I'm having with The Day The Earth Stood Still. I've been dead set against this remake of one of my all time favorite movies ever since I heard about it months ago. I could not accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, it may turn out to be a decent movie what with Keanu Reeves taking over for Michael Rennie and special effects taking over for intelligent film making. I pretty much had the review written before I bought the ticket and it would have gone something like this:
And that would have been it. No other words would have been required. However, I find that I can't write that. It's not that I think The Day The Earth Stood Still is good, mind you. I just don't think it's as bad as I thought it was going to be. This brings me back to paragraph one. Could any movie have been as bad as I thought DTESS would be? The answer to that is a resounding HELLS YEAH! Watch Bloodrayne or Troll 2 sometime if you don't believe me. I'm wondering if my expectations were lowered so much by the idea that it would be the worst movie ever that I ended up thinking it was better than it was since I found it to be, well, not good, but a mixture of sometimes mildly entertaining/sometimes rock stupid but nowhere near the abomination I was expecting.
Once again, the Earth is visited by the alien Klaatu. You know this is fiction because he just plops his ship down in a public spot and reveals himself to the world the second he lands whereas real aliens only land in swamps and remote mountain locations to kidnap people, probe their anuses and wipe their memories.* This time around, instead of saying, "You all should be nicer to each other," Klaatu's message to the Earth is, "Stop destroying the environment in which the furry, woodland creatures live." The philosophy of his race is that, since there are so few planets capable of supporting life, humanity has no right to pollute the planet to the extent that all life is threatened. Well, yeah, I agree with that. We shouldn't take the Earth and turn it into a toxic hellhole where even a microbe would be unable to exist and I think it's brave of me to say that considering the power of the Pro-Obliterate-All-Life-On-Earth lobby. What the makers of this movie don't seem to understand is that, unless we replace our current pollutants with some sort of super toxic Death-gel, life will go on. Oh, yes, many species would die if the worst of our environmental fears came true including, most likely, humans, but life would go on. Some species would be naturally selected to survive, evolve and adapt to the new environment. Such concepts, of course, are a little too much for a big Hollywood event film to comprehend whish is why they haven't occured to Klaatu's race so, in the same way that Michael Rennie came to us in the 50s to say, "Be peaceful or we'll kill you," Keanu Reeves has arrived to say, "Live in harmony with the Earth or we'll turn you into mulch."
At least, that's the message he tries to deliver when he lands his big, gooey looking sphere in New York's Central Park. His intention was to meet with the members of the United Nations to deliver his "Change Or Die" message. This plan hits a snag when a trigger happy soldier shoots him the moment he exits his ship. To make up for nearly killing him, the U.S. government detains him and tries to interrogate him with truth drugs. All this pretty much sets Klaatu's mind on the "Die" option and he prepares to have the robot Gort (who has grown from seven feet in 1951 to about three stories tall today) unleash a big black cloud of death on the world.
The one chance humanity has is Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) an astro-biologist, whatever the hell that is, who is assigned to the scientific team that examines Klaatu. She gains his trust when she helps him escape from federal custody and they go on a road trip so Klaatu can get all of his pre-Destroy The Planet chores done along with Helen's step son, Jacob (Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith). Helen figures that Klaatu will change his mind if he meets with her old colleague Professor Barnhardt, played by John Cleese. I don't know what sort of magical persuasion powers Barnhardt is supposed to have but, frankly, I could have come up with the arguments that he did though I couldn't have said with the same gravitas as the man who once screamed, "THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!" did.
What I liked about DTESS: Keanu Reeves was better than I expected him to be; Jennifer Connelly's always good; some of the special effects were neat. What I didn't like about DTESS: everything else. One big thing was that they should have done more with the robot than they did. Gort is usually the first thing people remember when you mention the 1951 original but, in this one, you could have written him out of the whole story and not affected the movie all that much.
Still, it was better than I thought it would be so I'll give DTESS a few points for that in this great game we call Life. Anyway, this Friday, Jim Carrey's new comedy Yes Man is coming out. Aw man, is that ever gonna suck...damn, did it again.
*Take a screenshot of that paragraph since the guys at Area 51 will probably make me delete it.
To call the remake of Day The Earth Stood Still a piece of crap is an insult to crap. Everyone and anyone even remotely involved with its production should be chained to a rock and have some sort of chemical applied to their skin that makes dogs want to piss on them.
And that would have been it. No other words would have been required. However, I find that I can't write that. It's not that I think The Day The Earth Stood Still is good, mind you. I just don't think it's as bad as I thought it was going to be. This brings me back to paragraph one. Could any movie have been as bad as I thought DTESS would be? The answer to that is a resounding HELLS YEAH! Watch Bloodrayne or Troll 2 sometime if you don't believe me. I'm wondering if my expectations were lowered so much by the idea that it would be the worst movie ever that I ended up thinking it was better than it was since I found it to be, well, not good, but a mixture of sometimes mildly entertaining/sometimes rock stupid but nowhere near the abomination I was expecting.
Once again, the Earth is visited by the alien Klaatu. You know this is fiction because he just plops his ship down in a public spot and reveals himself to the world the second he lands whereas real aliens only land in swamps and remote mountain locations to kidnap people, probe their anuses and wipe their memories.* This time around, instead of saying, "You all should be nicer to each other," Klaatu's message to the Earth is, "Stop destroying the environment in which the furry, woodland creatures live." The philosophy of his race is that, since there are so few planets capable of supporting life, humanity has no right to pollute the planet to the extent that all life is threatened. Well, yeah, I agree with that. We shouldn't take the Earth and turn it into a toxic hellhole where even a microbe would be unable to exist and I think it's brave of me to say that considering the power of the Pro-Obliterate-All-Life-On-Earth lobby. What the makers of this movie don't seem to understand is that, unless we replace our current pollutants with some sort of super toxic Death-gel, life will go on. Oh, yes, many species would die if the worst of our environmental fears came true including, most likely, humans, but life would go on. Some species would be naturally selected to survive, evolve and adapt to the new environment. Such concepts, of course, are a little too much for a big Hollywood event film to comprehend whish is why they haven't occured to Klaatu's race so, in the same way that Michael Rennie came to us in the 50s to say, "Be peaceful or we'll kill you," Keanu Reeves has arrived to say, "Live in harmony with the Earth or we'll turn you into mulch."
At least, that's the message he tries to deliver when he lands his big, gooey looking sphere in New York's Central Park. His intention was to meet with the members of the United Nations to deliver his "Change Or Die" message. This plan hits a snag when a trigger happy soldier shoots him the moment he exits his ship. To make up for nearly killing him, the U.S. government detains him and tries to interrogate him with truth drugs. All this pretty much sets Klaatu's mind on the "Die" option and he prepares to have the robot Gort (who has grown from seven feet in 1951 to about three stories tall today) unleash a big black cloud of death on the world.
The one chance humanity has is Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) an astro-biologist, whatever the hell that is, who is assigned to the scientific team that examines Klaatu. She gains his trust when she helps him escape from federal custody and they go on a road trip so Klaatu can get all of his pre-Destroy The Planet chores done along with Helen's step son, Jacob (Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith). Helen figures that Klaatu will change his mind if he meets with her old colleague Professor Barnhardt, played by John Cleese. I don't know what sort of magical persuasion powers Barnhardt is supposed to have but, frankly, I could have come up with the arguments that he did though I couldn't have said with the same gravitas as the man who once screamed, "THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!" did.
What I liked about DTESS: Keanu Reeves was better than I expected him to be; Jennifer Connelly's always good; some of the special effects were neat. What I didn't like about DTESS: everything else. One big thing was that they should have done more with the robot than they did. Gort is usually the first thing people remember when you mention the 1951 original but, in this one, you could have written him out of the whole story and not affected the movie all that much.
Still, it was better than I thought it would be so I'll give DTESS a few points for that in this great game we call Life. Anyway, this Friday, Jim Carrey's new comedy Yes Man is coming out. Aw man, is that ever gonna suck...damn, did it again.
*Take a screenshot of that paragraph since the guys at Area 51 will probably make me delete it.
Friday, December 12, 2008
I've Been Cheated By You Since I Don't Know When
So you're thinking to yourself that you want the entire planet to think you're a total goob who wouldn't know quality if it gave you a handjob. You also want to accomplish this in the easiest way possible. I know if I wanted to people to think I was a complete goob, a total douche and congenitally brain damaged idiot, it would be nice if I didn't have to expend a great deal of effort in doing so. The question is: how would I do this?
Well, if you were a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, you would give a Golden Globe Best Picture nomination to Mamma Mia (reviewed here back in July). Yes, that wonderful story about a stupid girl who stupidly comes up with the stupid idea to invite the three men who may be her father to her wedding without telling any of them why they were invited or bothering to inform her mother that they were coming. The movie's characters reacted to the insanity of this idea by going insane themselves and singing ABBA songs at the drop of a hat. The Foreign Press decided that this tribute to stupidity, madness and sheer boredom deserved to be nominated for Best Feature-Comedy or Musical category, one of approximately 47,000 Golden Globe categories* alongside actual, decent movies like In Bruges, the one that should win in that category but probably won't due to a noticeable lack of tone deaf actors** singing 30 year old songs. I see I never reviewed In Bruges but it's excellent and well worth a DVD rental. I must give props to the Foreign Press for recognizing it as a comedy despite its high level of criminal violence. Yes, I salute them but do not forgive them for nominating a movie about people who hop around singing ABBA songs while trying to figure out which guy's sperm won the Inseminate The Egg Lotto 20 years earlier.
An even greater insult to movie fans in particular and all that is good and holy in general is a movie that does not appear anywhere on the Golden Globes nomination list. This movie premiered the same week as Mamma Mia and contained a performance so good that people actually took the idea of a psychotic clown seriously. I would like to officially piss on all the respect I gave to the Foreign Press Association for recognizing that In Bruges was a comedy because they failed to recognize that The Dark Knight was more than a summer action flick. Even worse was the fact that they failed to recognize Heath Ledger's flawless and unforgettable work as The Joker.
So, there you have it, the best, fastest and easiest way to make sure that the world considers you to be a moron. To top this, next year they'll have to give a Lifetime Achievement award to Larry the Cable Guy. I wouldn't put it past them either.
*Even they don't know for sure anymore how many awards they give out. The Foreign Press Association's main reason for doing the Golden Globes is to get the American Press to stop calling them "Euro-weenies" for one day out of the year. The other reason is to get some of the hotter nominees to have sex with them, thus they give out as many awards as possible to the prettiest people on the planet.
**Okay, most of them were good singers. When I say "tone deaf actors" I'm specifically talking about a guy whose last name rhymes with Brosnan.
Well, if you were a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, you would give a Golden Globe Best Picture nomination to Mamma Mia (reviewed here back in July). Yes, that wonderful story about a stupid girl who stupidly comes up with the stupid idea to invite the three men who may be her father to her wedding without telling any of them why they were invited or bothering to inform her mother that they were coming. The movie's characters reacted to the insanity of this idea by going insane themselves and singing ABBA songs at the drop of a hat. The Foreign Press decided that this tribute to stupidity, madness and sheer boredom deserved to be nominated for Best Feature-Comedy or Musical category, one of approximately 47,000 Golden Globe categories* alongside actual, decent movies like In Bruges, the one that should win in that category but probably won't due to a noticeable lack of tone deaf actors** singing 30 year old songs. I see I never reviewed In Bruges but it's excellent and well worth a DVD rental. I must give props to the Foreign Press for recognizing it as a comedy despite its high level of criminal violence. Yes, I salute them but do not forgive them for nominating a movie about people who hop around singing ABBA songs while trying to figure out which guy's sperm won the Inseminate The Egg Lotto 20 years earlier.
An even greater insult to movie fans in particular and all that is good and holy in general is a movie that does not appear anywhere on the Golden Globes nomination list. This movie premiered the same week as Mamma Mia and contained a performance so good that people actually took the idea of a psychotic clown seriously. I would like to officially piss on all the respect I gave to the Foreign Press Association for recognizing that In Bruges was a comedy because they failed to recognize that The Dark Knight was more than a summer action flick. Even worse was the fact that they failed to recognize Heath Ledger's flawless and unforgettable work as The Joker.
So, there you have it, the best, fastest and easiest way to make sure that the world considers you to be a moron. To top this, next year they'll have to give a Lifetime Achievement award to Larry the Cable Guy. I wouldn't put it past them either.
*Even they don't know for sure anymore how many awards they give out. The Foreign Press Association's main reason for doing the Golden Globes is to get the American Press to stop calling them "Euro-weenies" for one day out of the year. The other reason is to get some of the hotter nominees to have sex with them, thus they give out as many awards as possible to the prettiest people on the planet.
**Okay, most of them were good singers. When I say "tone deaf actors" I'm specifically talking about a guy whose last name rhymes with Brosnan.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Movie Executives Love Beaver
Yep, they absolutely love "Beaver". "Beaver" is something they just can't get enough of and their one, true regret is that they can't get more "Beaver" than they already have. In fact, they're giving "Beaver" an award and are fighting to see who gets the right to put a huge "Beaver" shot on the big screen.
Want to know what I'm talking about or would you rather let your imagination run wild? If it were me, I might choose the imagination. Those of you who clicked the link know two things. One, that this has nothing to do with Jerry Mathers. Two, you also know that they also love "Big Hole" and "Butter". I hear that the most popular phrase currently being said in Hollywood is, "Give me Beaver, Butter and a Big Hole and there's nothing I cannot do."
Okay, I'll stop now.
Want to know what I'm talking about or would you rather let your imagination run wild? If it were me, I might choose the imagination. Those of you who clicked the link know two things. One, that this has nothing to do with Jerry Mathers. Two, you also know that they also love "Big Hole" and "Butter". I hear that the most popular phrase currently being said in Hollywood is, "Give me Beaver, Butter and a Big Hole and there's nothing I cannot do."
Okay, I'll stop now.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
You Don't Know Jack
When I first heard of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, I couldn't greet the idea that it would be good with anything but skepticism. In fact, the word "skepticism" was insufficient to describe how I felt so I had to create an entirely new word, "Buttoncism," to properly convey how I felt. Buttoncism's proper Webster's definition is, "So totally super honkin' skeptical about something being presented to you that it creates in you a certainty that the exact opposite is true. You would doubt the love you feel for your own mother before you would doubt the certainty created by a feeling of Buttonscism."
First off, Button is a light hearted holiday film about a man who is born old and ages backwards directed by David Fincher. Fincher, of course, is the guy who's best known for directing movies like Seven and Zodiac. Ok, I can see my way past Fincher's previous work and think maybe he's capable of creating entertaining fiction that doesn't involve sociopaths committing strings of murders that are as brutal as they are creative. Fincher is a master at creating mood and atmosphere and he has a screenplay written by Forrest Gump author Eric Roth to work with so this is not what caused the fit of Buttoncism in me.
No, what ratcheted the Buttoncism up to 11 was a horrific event in the world of cinema that occurred almost 12 years ago. I hesitate to bring this up since most of society has pretty much blocked this from their memories and that is how it should be. So it is with a heavy hear that I must remind the world of Jack. Jack was a movie in which Robin Williams played a boy whose body aged four times faster than normal people so he looked like a 40 year old man at the age of 10. Jack was equal parts dumb, trite, boring and insulting to the collective intelligence of society and was the first thing I thought of when I saw the trailer for Benjamin Button. They both try to make a feel-good classic with characters who are outcasts in society due to the fact that they age in a freakish way and, by showing us the troubled lives of these men, attempt to make a statement about human nature in general. I'm not sure what Button's statement will be but Jack's was, "Guys who age in a freakish way are total goobs who do stupid, boring and unfunny things." But hey, Button has one of our best directors at the helm. Jack didn't have that advantage, right?
Jack was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Yes, Francis Ford Fucking Coppola figured that the cherry on the sundae of his career in which The Godfather was the ice cream would be to make a movie that had Robin Williams playing a man-child who said dialogue like, "I'm like a shooting star, burning brightly.*"
The good news is that Button is getting something that Jack never got: good reviews. The producers felt so confident about their movie that we're seeing reviews two weeks before its premiere and the Tomatometer currently has those reviews as 90% favorable. So now I'll go see Benjamin Button with a bit of optimism that I'll be drawn into a strange and wonderful world about a magical man and his struggle against the world that doesn't understand him instead of entering the theater thinking, "I'd better make sure I'm not near sharp objects or a loaded gun when this thing starts getting stupid."
To quote another, simpler Jack: I hope this movie m-m-makes me happy.
*I'm not 100% if that's exactly what he said but I know it's similar to a speech he gave when the character Jack graduated from high school knowing he'd only have a few more years to live before he died of old age. Gosh, I wonder why more people didn't find that entertaining.
First off, Button is a light hearted holiday film about a man who is born old and ages backwards directed by David Fincher. Fincher, of course, is the guy who's best known for directing movies like Seven and Zodiac. Ok, I can see my way past Fincher's previous work and think maybe he's capable of creating entertaining fiction that doesn't involve sociopaths committing strings of murders that are as brutal as they are creative. Fincher is a master at creating mood and atmosphere and he has a screenplay written by Forrest Gump author Eric Roth to work with so this is not what caused the fit of Buttoncism in me.
No, what ratcheted the Buttoncism up to 11 was a horrific event in the world of cinema that occurred almost 12 years ago. I hesitate to bring this up since most of society has pretty much blocked this from their memories and that is how it should be. So it is with a heavy hear that I must remind the world of Jack. Jack was a movie in which Robin Williams played a boy whose body aged four times faster than normal people so he looked like a 40 year old man at the age of 10. Jack was equal parts dumb, trite, boring and insulting to the collective intelligence of society and was the first thing I thought of when I saw the trailer for Benjamin Button. They both try to make a feel-good classic with characters who are outcasts in society due to the fact that they age in a freakish way and, by showing us the troubled lives of these men, attempt to make a statement about human nature in general. I'm not sure what Button's statement will be but Jack's was, "Guys who age in a freakish way are total goobs who do stupid, boring and unfunny things." But hey, Button has one of our best directors at the helm. Jack didn't have that advantage, right?
Jack was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Yes, Francis Ford Fucking Coppola figured that the cherry on the sundae of his career in which The Godfather was the ice cream would be to make a movie that had Robin Williams playing a man-child who said dialogue like, "I'm like a shooting star, burning brightly.*"
The good news is that Button is getting something that Jack never got: good reviews. The producers felt so confident about their movie that we're seeing reviews two weeks before its premiere and the Tomatometer currently has those reviews as 90% favorable. So now I'll go see Benjamin Button with a bit of optimism that I'll be drawn into a strange and wonderful world about a magical man and his struggle against the world that doesn't understand him instead of entering the theater thinking, "I'd better make sure I'm not near sharp objects or a loaded gun when this thing starts getting stupid."
To quote another, simpler Jack: I hope this movie m-m-makes me happy.
*I'm not 100% if that's exactly what he said but I know it's similar to a speech he gave when the character Jack graduated from high school knowing he'd only have a few more years to live before he died of old age. Gosh, I wonder why more people didn't find that entertaining.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Naughty Bits
As an independent film with artistic ambitions, the upcoming movie Powder Blue won't be seen by most people. Parts of it, however, will be clipped and receive 8 bazillion hits on YouTube. See if you can guess which parts I'm talking about.
I think we're on the same page here unless you don't find Jessica Biel sexy or are some super freakish Forrest Whittaker fan. Strangely, this looks like it may actually be a decent movie and no, I'm not saying that just because one of the world's most downloaded women shoves her good stuff in out faces.
I think we're on the same page here unless you don't find Jessica Biel sexy or are some super freakish Forrest Whittaker fan. Strangely, this looks like it may actually be a decent movie and no, I'm not saying that just because one of the world's most downloaded women shoves her good stuff in out faces.
How To Tell When You've Officially Run Out Of Ideas
If you are a movie studio, a good way to tell that you've run out of ideas is if a headline in Hollywood Reporter looks in any way similar to this headline:
I was skeptical that a nine year old kid actually wrote what, from what I've seen, looks like a tongue-in-cheek parody of pickup books that at least had some assistance from an adult but, even if it's true, this is a self-help book and not a novel so what exactly will the movie plot be and GODDAMN, IT WAS WRITTEN BY A NINE YEAR OLD! They still haven't made Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man into a movie* and yet Fox is optioning dumb little books written by nine year olds? What, did he threaten to hold his breath till he turned blue unless you gave him a six figure deal and a share of the gross? You could have gotten a better deal if you told him that you'd release the monster you're keeping in the closet if he didn't sign away all rights to the book at that moment.
On the other hand, maybe I could cash in by writing a ripoff. Yeah, I could write my own book about how to pick up nine year olds...or maybe not.
*That's an awesome example of classic science fiction and it'd be well worth your time reading it.
I was skeptical that a nine year old kid actually wrote what, from what I've seen, looks like a tongue-in-cheek parody of pickup books that at least had some assistance from an adult but, even if it's true, this is a self-help book and not a novel so what exactly will the movie plot be and GODDAMN, IT WAS WRITTEN BY A NINE YEAR OLD! They still haven't made Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man into a movie* and yet Fox is optioning dumb little books written by nine year olds? What, did he threaten to hold his breath till he turned blue unless you gave him a six figure deal and a share of the gross? You could have gotten a better deal if you told him that you'd release the monster you're keeping in the closet if he didn't sign away all rights to the book at that moment.
On the other hand, maybe I could cash in by writing a ripoff. Yeah, I could write my own book about how to pick up nine year olds...or maybe not.
*That's an awesome example of classic science fiction and it'd be well worth your time reading it.
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