Not Exactly Fantastic Four

I'm back from vacation tan, rested and ready. Well, I'm actually rather pale and a bit tired but I was at least ready enough to post a review of Scre4m over at Examiner.com so please check it out.

Hell With It

I'm traveling till Monday but I honestly thought I'd have time to do some writing. I ambitiously planned an Examiner piece and a comedy piece for this blog to both appear today but, alas, neither was to be. I might get something out this weekend if a spot opens in my schedule. I'm sure you're all too busy planning to see Atlas Shrugged this weekend to read anyway.

Between A Goon And New York City

My review of Arthur is up at Examiner.com. Read it, tell your friends how incredible it is and how it changed your life. It's odd that I ended up recommending it since I felt comfortable in using it for a Bizarro World Review on Friday. Oh well.

All Right, This Time For Real

If you read this yesterday and, if you didn't, why the hell not, but if you did then you know I have a new writing gig with Examiner.com which means some of the stuff I was doing here will now be done there. We finally worked out the kinks so they're now posting me in the correct location so please go check me out over there. Tell your friends, have them tell their friends and everyone can make it the hot new thing to hit the SUBSCRIBE button over there and make me as popular on the internet as those videos of squirrels that grab a guy's balls. I'll link everything I do from here plus there should still be some original content posted here if I don't think it's a good fit for their site. It turns out they expect you to behave, act professionally and not make things all about you so we'll see how long that lasts.

So Long...Well, Not Really

Over the weekend, I was told my application to write for Examiner.com had been accepted. I've been writing this blog for three years now and I've enjoyed it very much. But they pay. Not much but more than the Jack Squat I am currently receiving for doing this. The movie reviews I usually post on Monday and Tuesday will definitely be published there now. I will be posting links to them here so you can still visit this site for them if you wish. Also, the humorous bits I do on Fridays are something I want to keep doing but I'm still trying to figure out if they're a good fit for Examiner. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Anyway, if you've enjoyed me over the years and I've entertainedyou at all, you can pay me back by reading my stuff on Examiner.com, passing the links around and maybe even hitting the SUBSCRIBE button there. (EDIT: Actually, don't subscribe yet. Wait till the next article as this one listed me in their Albany, GA edition instead of Albany, NY and I don't know how that will affect any sort of subscription. Yep, this is going great so far.) And now, please enjoy my review of the movie Hanna.

Bizarro World Movie Reviews -- Arthur

Some movies are classics and many think those classics should never be touched but that view does nothing but restrict creativity and hold back truly great filmmakers from producing new work even if that work isn't exactly their own. We are all fortunate today that there are still filmmakers with enough vision to know that it's just fine to reuse someone else's vision. Thus, we now have a new version of Arthur.

So, is Arthur any good? Terms like "good" and "bad" may have been relevant in 1981 when Dudley Moore first created the character but this is 2011 so it no longer has to be Be Good. It just has to Be. And man oh man, does it ever Be. It Be's the hell out of itself. There is so much Be in this movie that it would have violated the International Be Limit if such a thing existed and could be in any way accurately measured. If none of this makes sense, don't worry. Neither does Arthur. But again, that's OK. It can still Be.

The incredibly rich Arthur Bach is played this time around by Russell Brand. Brand is the kind of actor whose vibe just screams, "Sure, I'll do this role as long as the check clears." However, that sort of attitude is exactly what this movie needed. If an actor had done this for passion alone, it would have highlighted all the movie's flaws and rendered it unwatchable but, because Brand doesn't care, neither do we. We can just go in and not really watch Arthur but just sort of absorb it. We won't care that it's not funny or entertaining. Instead, we'll remember it like a dream. The details will be fuzzy but we are reasonably sure we had a good time though we can't say why. That is what it's like to see the new Arthur and I, personally, am much better off for it. Again, if none of this makes sense, don't worry. Just Be along with the movie.

Arthur can reverse what so far has been a disappointing year at the box office if we all collectively decide not to demand anything from it. If we do that, we can go see it three or four times and reverse Hollywood's 2011 misfortunes. We can all even decide to just tell each other how much we loved it and then we'll get a sequel that we'll say we loved even more. This can bring our country together in a way that religion, community and music festivals have so far been unable to achieve. We will be bound together forever by our vision of Arthur, a vision first created in 1981 about a good movie and finally realized in 2011 by this "good" movie. When you go see Arthur, remember all of this. Laugh now and then if for no other reason than to help your fellow man and, if things get too tough, just start quietly humming the old Beatles hit Let It Be. Or just load up on Raisinets and pass out. Either way will work.

Look At My Briefs -- 4/7/11

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