Ramble On...

Last weekend, I saw "Macgruber" at my local movie house, but I did not have the opportunity to write about it, because I was busy working on a new video... thing with my cousin. This weekend, I saw "Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time", and Dennis Hopper died.

So rather than write up several long-winded posts for each of these topics, I've decided to just throw them all together into one long-winded post. Enjoy it.

CHAPTER I: Macgruber

I was not looking forward to this movie. I saw the many "Macgruber" sketches on Saturday Night Live over the past two years, and I thought they were amusing, at first. As time went on, they wore out their welcome.

The themes, concerning Macgruber's addiction to plastic surgery, alcoholism, and daddy issues (culminating with an appearance by Richard Dean Anderson in a shitty mullet wig, playing Macgruber's father, although I can't remember if he was literally playing MacGyver) stopped working for me.

And when Macgruber became an extended ad for Pepsi, I completely checked out.

So when I read that a "Macgruber" movie was actually being made, the first thought that passed through my giant head was "WHY?!" Who the fuck was waiting for this? A tired 90 second long sketch parody of "MacGyver" was going to become a movie? Immediately, my mind rejected this movie.

Besides, how many Saturday Night Live movies have turned out all right? "The Blues Brothers". That's it. And that's barely an SNL-related movie. Lorne Michaels had nothing to do with the production. The only thing Saturday Night Live had to do with "The Blues Brothers" was that it brought Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi together so that they could invent The Blues Brothers together.

I know a lot of people like to say "What about 'Wayne's World'?" What about it? As a kid, I loved it. I was all over that fucking movie as a young lad. But watching it as an adult, it simply doesn't work for me. Every time that Mike Myers pops up onscreen as Wayne, I just want to punch him in the face. He's a completely unlikeable character. He just annoys me.

I honestly like "Wayne's World 2" more.

All of the weird vision quest nonsense with the ghost of Jim Morrison, the terrible kung-fu fight with James Hong, the Drew Barrymore cameo (she has never looked hotter in a movie), Charlton Heston replacing the terrible actor playing the gas station attendant, Christopher fucking Walken, and Ralph Brown's performance as the legendary burn-out roadie Del Preston all make "Wayne's World 2" infinitely more watchable to me.

It's still not a good movie. Because it's a "Wayne's World" movie. If this movie somehow existed without Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, I would love it. As it is, I only really watch it for the reasons I listed above, and zone out whenever the plot focuses on the film's stars.

The far-away, haunted look in Del Preston's eyes as he recounts the story of finding 1,000 brown M&Ms for Ozzy Osbourne slays me.

"...I had to beat them to death with their own shoes..."

Ed O'Neill is still the best thing in both movies. This is Law.

Anyway, I didn't have any real desire to see "Macgruber". I like Will Forte, and I think he can be very funny. He's been the funniest guy in many SNL sketches, good and bad. I also tend to like Kristen Wiig, although she tends to play some of the worst recurring characters on the show. She's the new Molly Shannon. I like the Lonely Island Guys, who were involved in the production.

But the trailers just left me cold. I never even cracked a smile. The film looked as bad as I imagined it would be. And after seeing "Robin Hood" the week before, I was a little hesitant to return to the cinema. That film was so awful, it nearly destroyed my love of film. But hey, my brother heard that "Macgruber" was funny, and I figured since I wasn't paying for it, I might as well give it a shot.

I am glad that I did. "Macgruber" was fucking hilarious. I knew I was going to like the film during the opening sequence, showing Macgruber involved in various activities, including a brief shot of the man standing in an empty warehouse, playing a saxophone. Something about that image just made me crack up.

It reminded me of the infamous "oiled-up shirtless sax player" in the Jason Patric mega-hit "The Lost Boys". So the film already had me laughing.

Macgruber himself is in exile, believed dead, living in a Buddhist temple like John Rambo in "Rambo Part III", for ten years after the death of his wife-to-be at their wedding ceremony by his nemesis, Dieter Von Cunth (the delightful Val Kilmer).

He is called out of retirement by Col. Faith (played by the legendary Powers Boothe, whose weathered, craggy face reminds me of the iconic Monument Valley settings from John Ford's "The Searchers") because Von Cunth has stolen a nuclear missile, and is planning on destroying Washington DC during the President's "State of the Union" address.

Macgruber puts together a team, composed entirely of WWE wrestlers, and accidentally blows them all up before they manage to do anything.

So left with his old pal Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig), who spends her free time making terrible music and obsessing over owls, and Lt. Piper (Ryan Phillippe), a military man who hates Macgruber nearly as much as Macgruber hates him, he has to stop Von Cunth from completing his nefarious plan.

That's the basic plot, but that's not really important. The plot is just a macguffin to string together a series of bizarre jokes and situations that worked brilliantly for me.

Macgruber is an inept, unstable narcissist who thinks he's a genius, which makes him dangerous for all the wrong reasons. He drives a shitty car with a pull-out radio which he carries around everywhere. Every plan he hatches fails spectacularly. As an action hero, he sucks. But he's funny. He's very funny.

While driving to a nightclub owned by Von Cunth, he gets cut off by a car with the license plate number KFBR392. He immediately begins repeating the plate number over and over again, like a mantra. Later, Lt. Piper finds Macgruber's notebook, and as he leafs through the pages he sees KFBR392 scrawled obsessively over every page.

Macgruber stumbles across the KFBR392 car near the climax of the film, and he calmly and methodically destroys the car while talking with Vicki on his cell phone. This is all hilarious.

At one point, Macgruber reveals the origin of his long-standing feud with Von Cunth. A quick flashback shows Macgruber, Von Cunth, and his dead fiance Casey as college students, with Val Kilmer strumming a guitar, smiling like a goon with a hair-do right out of "Real Genius".

It turns out that Casey and Von Cunth were an item, but she left Von Cunth for Macgruber. Casey was pregnant with Von Cunth's child, and Macgruber demands that she have an abortion. She does, and they try to live happily ever after, while Von Cunth vows revenge.

That's pretty fucking dark, but in the film, it's a real knee-slapper. It's all played perfectly straight, and that just makes it funnier. I honestly did not expect a film like this to go for a joke like that.

Macgruber gives into temptation and has sex with Vicki, who has held a torch for Macgruber for many years. The sex scene plays out like a bizarre, straight-faced parody of every sex scene from the 1980's, before culminating in an uncomfortable series of awkward thrusting and gutteral moans.

Filled with guilt, Macgruber leaves Vicki in the night, visiting Casey's grave. Her ghost appears, telling Macgruber that it's okay for him to move on and fall in love with Vicki. He then proceeds to fuck his dead fiance's ghost on her gravestone. By the time this scene ended, my sides ached.

Macgruber finally gets his shit together (in a manner of speaking) and, after ripping out many throats, disables Von Cunth's nuclear missile, leaving his nemesis handcuffed to the missile as it blows up (sans nuclear warhead). Several months later, Macgruber and Vicki are getting married, but Von Cunth, horribly scarred but still alive, shows up to finish what he started ten years ago.

Macgruber throws Von Cunth off a cliff, and as Von Cunth falls Macgruber shoots him numerous times. After he finally hits the ground, Von Cunth blows up. Macgruber then pisses on his charred remains. Overkill, thy name is Macgruber.

I was so glad that I decided to see "Macgruber". It was insanely funny. After seeing such a dour, soul-crushingly awful movie like Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood", it was just what I needed. I'm not surprised that nobody's going to see "Macgruber". They probably feel the same way I did, and based on the terrible trailers, that's completely understandable.

This is the kind of movie that will find its life on DVD, and on cable. People are going to discover "Macgruber" late at night on Cinemax, and laugh their asses off. It's a shame, really, but not unexpected. I'm just pleased that I took a chance on this film.

CHAPTER II: Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

So on Sunday, I ventured out of my subterranean lair once again to see the latest ultra-expensive Hollywood megablockbuster, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time". I'm sure you, Dear Imaginary Reader, are already well aware of the small controversy surrounding the film regarding its very Anglo-centric cast, so I won't dwell on it, here.

Donnie Darko plays Dastan, the Parkour-loving Prince who, as a young lad, was adopted by the kindly King of Persia, who already had two delightful sons from a wife we never see. I found that distracting, actually. I can't recall a single line of dialogue that explains why the Queen of Persia is M.I.A.

And not M.I.A., the politically-charged pop artist who made that catchy "Paper Planes" song, but M.I.A. like "Braddock: Missing In Action 3". If M.I.A. played the Queen of Persia, I would have noticed. She would have stuck out in this white cast like my friend Titus at a bluegrass festival.

Dastan's brothers, who have names like Tusk and Gassim, or at least names that sound like that, seem like decent fellas. They have certainly accepted their adopted brother well enough. They don't treat him like dirt because he doesn't have noble blood. That was much appreciated. I mean, at least they didn't go down that trite route where the genetic children resented the adopted child for nebulous reasons.

The King's brother, Gandhi, is advocating an attack on the fabled city of Alamut, because he believes that the people of Alamut are forging weapons to sell to the enemies of Persia. There is no evidence of this, but Gandhi shows the Princes a sword that he claims was forged in Alamut, and apparently, that's reason enough to go to war with a city populated with folks that never did any harm to anyone.

Yes, an Iraq War metaphor. In fucking "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time". That's just fucking insane. So Gandhi Rumsfeld gets his way, and the three Princes lead an assault on the peaceful city of Alamut. It's quickly conquered, thanks to some quick strategic thinking by Donnie Darko, and everybody celebrates, despite the fact that nobody finds any evidence of these "forges of mass destruction".

Prince Tusk gives Donnie Darko a lovely robe to present to King... the King, and the robe promptly burns the fuck out of His Majesty, killing him dead. Obviously, everyone thinks that Donnie Darko just assassinated his adopted father, even though there are certainly more subtle ways to do this aside from killing him with an acid-soaked robe in front of hundreds of people that you literally handed to him no more than 30 seconds ago.

So Donnie goes on the run with Tasmania, the Princess of Alamut, played by Gemma Arterton. Also in Donnie's possession is an amazing dagger that holds miraculous sand in its hilt that can turn back time. He doesn't know how special this lovely dagger is, at first. But he figures it out in a rather annoying scene where Tasmania keeps trying to kill him to get the dagger back.

Eventually, Taz spills the beans that she's the last in a long line of women chosen to protect the legendary Sands of Time, which lie underneath the city of Alamut. Donnie surmises that Gandhi knew about the Sands of Time all along, and cooked up the "weapons forges" story as an excuse to invade Alamut and get to the Sands, in the process becoming a god-like being who can control time, itself.

Along the way, Donnie and Taz stumble upon a Persian Teabager played by Doctor Octopus, who spends his days avoiding taxes and holding endlessly entertaining ostrich races in some secluded area, populated by thieves and cutthroats. Hilarious situations happen when Sheik Octopus realizes Donnie's true identity, and decides to turn him into the local authorites for a reward.

Eventually, Donnie and Taz join forces with Sheik Octopus and his trusty knife-throwing henchman, Seesaw. They all get together to stop Gandhi from unlocking the Sands of Time and destroying the world as they know it, butting heads with Gandhi's army of supernatural assassins, the Hassansins, who ride horses surrounded by Dust Devils and let poisonous snakes slither around in their robes.

Blah, blah, blah, Donnie Darko and Tasmania fall in love, Donnie and Gandhi Runsfeld fight, unlock the Sands of Time, Taz falls to her death in a bottomless pit and our hero and villain travel back to the point during the siege of Alamut where Donnie first found the dagger. He finds Gandhi and reveals his nefarious plan, Gandhi snaps and tries to kill Donnie, and Tusk puts the Mahatma down. Hooray.

Later, the Princes apologize to Tasmania for invading her city on false pretenses and killing perhaps thousands of people in the process, and Tusk suggests that Donnie should marry Taz in an effort to unite the Persians with the Alamutians.

Taz obviously doesn't remember any of her adventures with Donnie, because they never really happened, but Donnie still loves her, and isn't discouraged that he has to start all over with this chick.

I would be, because in movie-time, it took about a month for Donnie to get a small kiss from the woman. It's just too much work for a lazy bastard like me. And that's probably why I'll die alone, and Donnie Darko gets to bang Gemma Arterton in Ancient Persia.

The movie isn't bad. It's not great, but considering the low expectations I had, I didn't leave disappointed. The performances are at least adequate across the board. Jake Gyllenhall certainly tries to play a compelling action hero in the film. He uses his goofy grin and mannerisms well, creating a swashbuckling Prince who is prone to making mistakes.

Luckily, he has a dagger that can turn back time to keep him from getting killed. I was surprised that the creative minds behind the movie never worked in a scene where our hero misses a jump and falls to his death, only to use the dagger to reverse time and try the jump again. I remember doing that a lot when I played "The Sands of Time" on the PS2. It would have been a nice nod to the fans.

Gyllenhall attempts to adopt a British accent in the film, and it's nearly as uneven as Kevin Costner's in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves", which is the official benchmark for lame accents in movies. Otherwise, I really had no problems with him. He did a fine job.

Ben Kingsley just seems really bored with his role. He's the obvious villain of the piece, but the film thinks we don't know that two minutes into the film. It's supposed to be ambiguous, but it's anything but. I'd ask why Ben Kingsley would even take a role like this, but he was in Uwe Boll's "Bloodrayne", so I know the man is hardly beneath a paycheck.

Gemma Arterton is hot.

Am I supposed to type more? That's why she's in the damned movie. She's one of the most gorgeous women on the planet, and that's reason enough. She had a thankless role in "Clash Of The Titans", but I didn't care, because if she weren't in that movie, I would have absolutely hated it. Eye candy helps a lot.

She does have a little more to do in the film, although in the climax of the film she accomplishes nothing. I suppose her death is supposed to be the thing that spurs Donnie Darko on to defeat Gandhi, but the two actors had absolutely no chemistry in the film. We're watching the two characters fall in love throughout the course of the story, but I never bought it.

They just seemed like two cocky people insulting each other over and over again through two thirds of the film, and then suddenly they want to spend the rest of their lives together. No dice.
She's still gorgeous, though. Gemma Arterton should be cast in every big-budgeted, mediocre Hollywood movie, then at least I would find something to like in all of that detritus.

Alfred Molina and his wookie-analogue, played by Steve Toussaint, are the most entertaining people in the movie. Molina finds that sweet spot of over-acting, where he becomes endearing and not annoying, and his short speech about his love of the noble ostrich made me laugh.

Toussaint manages to create the only character in the film that I actually care about, despite his underdeveloped role in the script. The guy's just a good, charismatic actor, and when he finds himself in a deadly fight with one of the Hassansins late in the film, I was really pulling for the man to prevail.

The digital effects range from good to piss-poor, the latter most notably represented by the time-reversal sequences. Gyllenhall's face is pasted onto a digital body during these moments, and the effects wouldn't look out of place in a videogame cutscene from the original Playstation. Cringe-inducing stuff.

The script is serviceable, but nothing special. Mike Newell's direction is uninspired. Essentially, the only reason why I liked this movie at all was because some of the actors managed to rise above the lack of creativity from the folks behind the scenes.

I couldn't recommend this movie to anybody. Of course, I don't know anybody, so that takes care of itself.

CHAPTER III: A New Video Is Born

Several weeks ago, I got together with my cousin Ky and we decided to make a new photoplay. This photoplay would tell the story of a watermelon, living on the streets, who gets drawn into the seedy world of 1980's pornography, becomes a star, falls from grace, and finally hits rock bottom and commits suicide.

Real life-affirming stuff.

Anyway, whilst shooting this photoplay, I got the idea to try something a little different. We shot a little video footage, got creative and improvised some narration, and very quickly the simple photoplay became something more ambitious. When I had finally finished assembling this... thing... I didn't know what to call it.

It wasn't a photoplay, not strictly speaking. It was more of a parody of a TV newsmagazine, like Dateline or 20/20. I decided to run with that, and I named it "The Real Face Of America.". You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/uncleoflies

If you like it, let me know. If you hate it, please let me know. I crave negativity. I thrive on it.

CHAPTER IV: Here's To Your Fuck!

Prostate cancer killed Dennis Hopper over the weekend. I've always been a big Dennis Hopper fan. He was always one of those guys who would show up and be entertaining and memorable, even in some of the worst movies.

"Super Mario Bros." sucks. "Waterworld" sucks. "EdTV" sucks. But he's the bright spot in all of these films. He always managed to bring some kind of manic energy to mediocre roles, so that when you left the theatre or changed the channel, his performance would stick with you.

I've only sat through "Super Mario Bros." once, but 16 years later, I still remember his King Koopa getting increasingly annoyed when the minutes tick by and his pizza remains undelivered.
The first movie I remember seeing that featured Dennis Hopper was 1985's "My Science Project". As a kid, I remember that and "The Wraith" playing on HBO seemingly every day. And I watched those movies a lot. Neither one of these films is very good, but nostalgia keeps me from fairly judging them.

In "My Science Project", Hopper played science teacher Mr. Roberts, a rather unhappy fellow who was stuck in the 1960's. After getting sucked into a time vortex and disappearing around the halfway point, I thought he was dead. But then he showed up at the end of the film, dressed like a hippie, having recently returned from Woodstock, I smiled. I was glad he got a happy ending.

Only later did I realize that the film was poking fun at his character from "Easy Rider". That just made me enjoy it more.

Hopper turned in truly iconic performances in "Easy Rider", "River's Edge", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", and "Blue Velvet". He has created many characters in film that will live on long after we're all dead and gone. His conversation with Christopher Walken in "True Romance" is legendary, required viewing for any person who dares call him/herself a "film buff."
He may no longer be with us, but God damnit, the man lived. Just Google the man, and read about some of the shit this man did. All the highs and lows, the triumph and heartbreak, this man lived a fucking life.

He got into a knife fight with Rip Torn, for fuck's sake!

So crack open some Pabst Blue Ribbon, and pour one out for Dennis Hopper. You will be missed, sir.

EPILOGUE: What The Fuck?

On May 11th, regarding my previous post "Iron Man Rides Again!", I received a comment from somebody calling himself "demonterius". He said "i everything want you see go to ready love you keep".

I don't know what that means. I'm pretty sure it's gibberish, but perhaps I'm just not reading between the lines. Anyway, thanks for the comment, "demonterius", wherever you are, whatever the fuck you were trying to say!

Ridley Scott Hates America

Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" is dreadful.

Part of me wants to just leave it at that, and move on with my day. "Red Dead Redemption" is released tomorrow, and I'd like to squeeze in a screening of "Once Upon A Time In The West" today, to help get me in the mood.

But if you've read this blog before (and I'm sure you haven't), then you know that I never leave it at that. For better or worse, I am going to ramble. You have been warned.

A quick recap of the film's plot is in order:

Robin Longstride is an archer in King Richard the Lionheart's army. Fighting their way across France en route to England after the third Crusade, Richard is killed in battle by some French peasant with a crossbow. Richard's right-hand man, Sir Robert Loxley, rides off to deliver the Crown of England to Richard's brother, Prince John, but is ambushed by an English traitor in league with the King of France.

Longstride and his army buddies Little John, Will Scarlet, and The Other Guy, fight off the French soldiers. Robin wounds the English traitor, Sir Godfrey, from afar with an arrow, giving him JokerFace.

Dying, Loxley tells Longstride to return his family sword to his aged father, apparently forgetting completely about the Crown of England. Longstride agrees, then he and his men promptly steal everything belonging to Loxley and his men, deciding to pass themselves off as noblemen to gain passage to England.

Returning to their homeland, Longstride travels to Nottingham to return Sir Robert's sword to his Daddy, and Daddy gets Longstride to agree to pretend to be his son, in order for Sir Robert's widow, Marion, to retain the Loxley estate after Daddy kicks the bucket. Longstride takes Daddy Loxley up on his offer, and hijinks ensue.

There's obviously a lot more to the story, the previous four paragraphs describing maybe the first 30 minutes of the plot.

Godfrey knows that Longstride is not the real Sir Robert, and Longstride knows that Godfrey is a bald traitor with a wonky face scar. The new King John is a bankrupt douchebag who likes to sleep around on his wife, so I gave him the clever nickname of Broke-Dick John. The King of France is planning an invasion of the now-vulnerable England with the help of Sir Godfrey, unbeknownst to Broke-Dick John.

There's a scene around the film's halfway point where Daddy Loxley, who knew Longstride's father, tells him about the man he never knew. He does this through what I can best describe as a psychic vision. I don't know what else to call it.

It's utterly bizarre. Loxley says that he's going to tell Longstride about his father, then Longstride starts to have these seemingly painful psychic flashes, involving a monument with twin father-and-son handprints hidden underneath a stone, his father's execution by some evil dude, and a terrible "deep" family motto: Rise And Rise Again, Until Lambs Become Lions.

I know that phrase is supposed to have deep signifigance, but it just sounds ridiculous, to me. I would have just chiseled "Never Give Up" into the stone. It's more succinct, and it gets the same job done.

Anyway, the psychic vision passes, and Loxley starts rambling about Longstride's idealistic father, calling him "a visionary" who wrote a charter that would give more power to the people of England. He then shows Longstride this charter.

Robin Longstride's father wrote the fucking Magna Carta.

That was the point of the film where I just cracked. I began laughing, and laughing, and laughing. I couldn't stop. It wasn't necessarily that funny to me, I just couldn't control myself. Robin Longstride's father wrote the fucking Magna Carta?!? Are you fucking kidding me?!

So we have Robin Longstride's father to thank for Habeas Corpus.

After that moment in the movie, I completely checked out of the narrative. To be fair, the mediocre story thus far was barely holding my interest, but the Magna Carta bullshit was the last straw.

Consequently, I don't remember a fucking thing about this movie from the Magna Carta reveal to the big final battle between King John's army and the invading French soldiers. My brain just went on stand-by mode for 40 minutes. And when I finally came to my senses, I wasn't rewarded with anything worthwhile.

Longstride rides into battle with King John and William Hurt, fighting the King of France's men on a dreary beach. Inexplicably, Marion shows up on horseback, in full armor, with the fucking Lost Boys, who are all riding ponies and wearing shitty halloween masks.

At that moment, I felt my sanity slipping away. What the fuck was going on? A gaggle of feral children on galloping ponies, killing French soldiers? Marion dressed up like a knight, trying to fight Sir Godfrey in the water? What was I watching? What had I gotten myself into?

I kept expecting that crazy feral kid from "The Road Warrior" to toss a razor-sharp boomerang at somebody. It wouldn't have been any weirder than what was unfolding onscreen.

Long story short, Longstride kills some dudes with a war hammer, battles Godfrey, saves Marion, and carries her off to safety, eventually killing Godfrey with an arrow at long range, redeeming himself for his botched shot at the beginning of the film.

King John, who had previously agreed to sign the Magna Carta, instead burns it in a public forum, then declares Robin Longstride to be "an OUTLAAAAAAAAW!!!!!", putting a price on his head, and Longstride sets up shop in Sherwood Forest with his Merry Men, Marion, and the Lost Boys.

"And so the legend begins..." Fade to black.

I stood up, looked at my brother, and yelled "Fuck this movie". That's all I could say. Fuck this movie. It has no reason to exist. It's got too many problems, chief among them being...

This is not a Robin Hood movie.

Dear Imaginary Reader, let me tell you a story. A story about a script called "Nottingham", written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris.

"Nottingham" was the story of Philip Mark, the Sheriff of Nottingham, a decent man forced by his King to raise local taxes to intolerable levels, arousing the ire of the common people.

Enter Robin Hood, a petty thief and outlaw, stealing from nobles and periodically handing out a small fraction of his ill-gotten gains to the peasants, who admire him as much as they hate the Sheriff, the personification of King John's greed.

The story was an interesting subversion of the Robin Hood legend, painting the outlaw as a shrewd criminal with little to no concern for the downtrodden people of Nottingham, and the Sheriff as a good, upstanding man forced into an impossible position by his sovereign.

I'm not sure if the screenwriters based their story on the Richard Kluger novel, "The Sheriff Of Nottingham", which has a similar plot, or they came up with it themselves. Either way, when it was announced that the "Nottingham" script would be made into a film by Ridley Scott, I was up for it.

Some time later, I read numerous stories on Internet about how Scott and attached star Russell Crowe were dissatisfied with the current story, and they brought Brian Helgeland onboard for rewrites.

New plot details began to circulate. Instead of the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood being separate entities, the Sheriff, upset with King John's unbearable taxation, adopts the alter-ego of outlaw Robin Hood to redistribute the wealth of the pompous nobles, performing a task he publicly condemns in his official capacity as Sheriff.

Now I loved that idea. The hated Sheriff of Nottingham leading a secret double life as an outlaw beloved by the common people, becoming their secret champion while maintaining his public face as King John's lackey. That was a cool idea, and I could roll with it.

Apparently, that idea just wasn't good enough for Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, so they told Brian Helgeland to cannibalize his script for "A Knight's Tale", adding a subplot of political intrigue involving the foundation of the Magna Carta, and completely ignoring the actual Robin Hood legend until the final five minutes of the fucking film.

This movie should not have been called "Robin Hood". It should have been called "Longstride". As a Robin Hood story, it fails conclusively.

It also fails as entertainment. The story as told is mediocre at best. The cinematography is muddy and uninteresting. Russell Crowe has absolutely no chemistry with Cate Blanchett, which is a huge problem considering their characters are supposed to be very much in love by the end of the film.

And Russell Crowe is just too old to play Robin Hood, especially a Robin Hood before he becomes "Robin Hood". This is his origin story, and Russell Crowe is 47 years old. Considering the film's pretty strict adherence to realism and historical accuracy, this is a large misstep.

And it's not like Russell Crowe looks like a younger man. He looks 47. That's not a bad thing. He's just too fucking old to play Robin Hood.

I read a story a few days ago about a BBC interview with Russell Crowe. The interviewer told Crowe that he detected a hint of an Irish accent in the actor's performance in "Robin Hood", and Crowe just walked out on the interview.

I saw the film. I also detected a hint of an Irish accent in Russell Crowe's performance. It was slightly off-putting.

Cate Blanchett doesn't really bring anything to her role, which surprised me. She's a damn fine actress, but her Marion is just part of the set decoration. Completely unremarkable. I did think it was amusing when she shows up at the end in armor, ready to fight the French bastards, only to fall on her back in the water, rocking back and forth like a turtle on the highway.

Very empowering.

Danny Huston bores his way through his small role as King Richard the Beard. I used to like Huston, but over the past several years I have grown to hate him thanks to a series of terrible performances. I no longer look forward to seeing this man in a film. Instead, I am filled with a mild sense of unease.

Mark Strong shows up in his third villainous role in six months as Sir Godfrey the Wide Mouth. He's bald, and he speaks French. He's not bad in his role, but he's far from memorable.

Kevin Durand, who I like, doesn't embarass himself as Little John. Scott Grimes, who annoyed me on "ER", did not annoy me as Will Scarlet. Max Von Sydow does a fine job as Sir Walter Loxley. Mark Addy, who I loved in "The Full Monty", doesn't get much to do as Friar Tuck, but he's always entertaining when he's onscreen.

William Hurt plays the Earl of Pembroke, and his English accent is just as inconsistent as Kevin Costner's in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves". He doesn't really do a fucking thing in the film, but I appreciated him when he appeared.

Oscar Isaac sucks as Prince/King John. He's just a scenery-chewing, melodramatic asshole.

One thing about this film that truly bothered me was the text. At the beginning of the film, we're treated to three screens of text that try to set up the world of the film, and it's all completely unnecessary. There's nothing in that text that a viewer with an IQ above 30 could not readily discern from the narrative in their own time.

And during the film we are constantly bombarded with text identifying the locations in the film. It's insulting. We have to be told that we're in London, that we're in Nottingham, that we're in France. Once again, any person with a functioning brain can figure out where our characters are simply by watching the film and paying the slightest attention to what's going on.

Longstride flat-out tells his men that they need to head for the coast of France to catch a boat across the channel to England. Two minutes later, our heroes arrive on the coast of France, with a boat waiting for them... and the filmmakers assume that without a helpful caption stating "The Coast Of France" onscreen, we would have no fucking idea where these characters are.

We're told that what's currently onscreen is the Earl of Pembroke's house, thirty seconds after we see William Hurt in his fucking house!

Ridley Scott thinks we're all drooling retards. And he made a drooling, retarded movie.

Fuck this move.

Iron Man Rides Again!

Last week, I decided to skip the cinema. This was the first weekend since the year began that I chose not to see a movie in theatres. Why? Because the movie I wanted to see was pulled from my local multiplex.

That movie was "Greenberg". It's been slowly rolling out in limited release for a while, now. I was really looking forward to seeing "Greenberg" when it finally opened in my neck of the woods.

On April 23rd, it started playing at my theatre of choice. I had already committed to a screening of "The Losers" with my brother and Ky, so I figured I'd just watch "Greenberg" the following week. I mean, I had no desire to see the "A Nightmare On Elm St." remake, despite the perfect casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Kruger. I just didn't want to see that pointless fucking remake.

But "Greenberg" only played for one week at my local movie house. One week. Apparently, the managers needed that space to squeeze in more screenings of the "A Nightmare On Elm St." remake.

For as long as I can remember, I do not recall any film, and I mean any film, playing at any of the movie theatres in my hometown playing for less than two weeks, no matter how fucking terrible these films may be. Even fucking "Showgirls" played at Cinemas East for three weeks back in 1995.

When "Greenberg" was removed from its screen last weekend, I took it personally. Stop showing an intelligent movie from a talented director with something to say, in favor of more pointless garbage. Fuck you.

I was just really excited to see "Greenberg", and now I'll have to wait for DVD. Shit.

Anyway, I eventually got over the pain and decided to see "Iron Man 2" on Sunday, with my mother. I don't know why she wanted to see "Iron Man 2", considering she never saw the first "Iron Man" film, and never expressed any prior interest in seeing either of Jon Favreau's superhero epics.

She just told me that it was Mother's Day, and she wanted to go see a movie.

It took me a while to realize that she wanted to see "Iron Man 2" because she has become a fan of Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. She was very excited to see his previous film, "Sherlock Holmes", and really enjoyed it, due in no small part to Robert Downey, Jr's performance. Apparently, she was so taken with the man's charisma and comedic timing, that she just fell in love with the guy.

Where the fuck has she been for the last twenty years? The guy's been doing great work forever. And I count his time as a cast member of SNL during that nightmare season that featured Randy Quaid and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

I remember a sketch where Downey played a delinquent who was arrested by host James Coburn for stealing his father's bowling ball. It wasn't exactly funny, but it was amusing. Unlike so much material from that hallucinatory fever dream of a season.

Downey was great in "Back To School", playing hipster weirdo Derek Lutz. Come to think of it, everything about "Back To School" is great. I mean this. That movie is fucking aces. It's the best movie Rodney Dangerfield ever starred in, including "Caddyshack".

You've got William Zabka playing the jock douchebag, which was the man's bread and butter. You've got Paxton Whitehead playing Paxton Whitehead (the part he was born for!). Sally Kellerman's a sexy English Lit teacher, who is dating Paxton Whitehead seemingly because they're the only two British teachers on campus.

Burt Young gets to play a bruiser-meathead without a massive chip on his shoulder for once, which is nice. He's just there to beat the shit out of yuppies and massage Rodney Dangerfield's tired muscles. And he does a fine job on both counts.

Keith Gordon, whom I last saw in Stephen King's John Carpenter's "Christine", was good as Rodney's loser son, a jaded youth who was simply tired of swimming in his father's massive shadow.

I remember being intially confused the first time I saw this movie, wondering when Gordon was going to show up in his evil car and start acting crazy. I kept expecting him to pick up Terry Ferrell in his '58 Plymouth Fury and start telling her about the strong bond between him and his sweet ride.

Sam Kinson's cameo as Professor Terguson always makes me laugh. The man simply looks unhinged during his scene, all bloodshot eyes and bared teeth. As a child, I thought Kinison was going to start killing his students during his tirade. He seemed perfectly capable of doing this to me. And that's funny.

The Triple Lindy is great. the Kurt Vonegut cameo is great. The "Dean Martin" joke gets me every time. I owe this film for my first exposure to "Oingo Boingo", a band which I unabashedly adore.

I love "Back To School".

Wait, I'm supposed to be talking about "Iron Man 2".

Um... I liked it. I undertand that it doesn't have the strongest plot, and it tends to meander at times, but I had a very good time watching it.

Problems? Sure. There are plenty of problems. One thing that bothers me: Sam Jackson's Nick Fury is never identified as Nick Fury in the film. Sure, some fanboys might not think this is such a big deal, but it really is.

The last time (first time) Fury showed up was during the post-credits sequence to the first "Iron Man", and not everybody who saw that film stuck around during the ten minutes of credits to see that. A lot of people didn't even know there was something after the credits, to begin with.

So for Nick Fury to show up in "Iron Man 2" with no introduction is a tad problematic. How hard would it have been for Tony Stark to sarcastically call the guy "General Fury" during their meeting at the donut shop?

Another thing: No code names. Nobody calls Natasha Romanoff "Black Widow" in the film. Nobody ever calls Ivan Vanko "Whiplash". Once again, it can't be that difficult to throw this stuff into the film.

Admittedly, it's a nitpick. This is not as big a deal as the "unidentified black guy with an eye patch" played by Mace Windu, but it still bothers me.

Tony Stark has Palladium poisoning, and we're told that this is killing him. We see a weird, circuit-board rash spreading from Stark's glowing chest-thing, and we're periodically reminded that his blood toxicity levels are rising. But he never acts sick. Not once. He's supposed to be dying, but aside from a little skin irritation, he seems perfectly okay.

In the first film, when Obadiah Stane stole Tony's uber-pacemaker, pulling it from his chest, there was a sense of danger. Tony was dying, and there was a serious tension to the whole scene. In the sequel, Tony is slowly dying throughout most of the film, and there's no tension, at all.

The whole subplot fails.

Of course, this all leads to the reveal that Tony's late father has hidden the formula for a brand-new element in the blueprint for his old Stark Expo fairground, or whatever. This new element can replace the deadly Palladium in his current arc reactor design, but Virtual Butler Jarvis laments that there is no way to produce this unnamed element...

Fuck that, Tony Stark's SuperScience can't be stopped! He builds a particle accelerator in his mansion, uses a prism to focus the excited particles on a glowing triangle, and BAM! He creates a new entry in the Periodic Table of Elements. No big deal.

And Jon Favreau says that he's averse to introducing magic in his ultra-realistic Iron Man movies.

The suitcase armor is cool, and all. But it takes over 30 seconds for Stark to don the armor. This takes place in the middle of a fight with "the vengeful Russian with electric whips". What the fuck was Vanko doing while Stark was putting on his convenient suitcase armor? Just standing there, thinking "Holy shit, that's awesome. I wish I had something like that."?

Mickey Rourke spends half of the film just hanging out in Justin Hammer's warehouse, supposedly "working on some stuff", and missing his cockatoo. Why? Fucking do something!

Rourke is good in the film, despite his lack of screen presence during the second act. It just would have been nice if the man had something to do between his first act fight with Iron Man, and his third act fight with Iron Man and War Machine.

Don Cheadle is good as Jim Rhodes, but he's no Terence Howard. He doesn't even seem like Stark's old friend until the end of the movie. Until that point, there's no real chemistry between them. It's a jarring change in the dynamic between the characters established in the first film.

Sam Rockwell's great as Justin Hammer. His character is the perpetual runner-up, and he just hates Tony Stark. Not only because he's more successful, but because he knows that he's just not as good as Tony.

Rockwell plays Hammer as a bit of a poseur with a shoddy spray-on tan. He's trying to be a player, but he's just not cut out for it. Once again, I just wish that he had more screen time.

Downey's awesome. He owns this character, and manages to sell a lot of the dumb plot twists that this movie throws at him, because he's just that cool. Nothing else to say, really.

I love Gwyneth Paltrow. I think she's a fantastic actress, and she's easy on the eyes. I thought she was great in the first film, and I think she's great in this one.

My mother, however, hates Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm not exaggerating. She fucking hates Gwyneth Paltrow. After the film ended, my mother spent ten minutes trashing her, complaining about her ugly face, and her squeaky voice, and her ugly teeth, and her lack of talent.

I just sat there, astounded. Where was all of this venom coming from? It caught me completely off guard. I don't know what Gwyneth Paltrow did to earn the wrath of my mother, and if they ever meet, I fear for Gwyneth's life. I doubt her pansy husband has the strength to remove my mother's hands from his wife's throat.

Despite my problems, I honestly enjoyed "Iron Man 2". The performances managed to elevate the material, which was a problem the first film didn't have.

My favorite moment in "Iron Man 2" involves strawberries.

Tony Stark visits Pepper Potts at her office late in the film, to apologize to her for being such a dick. He brings an open container of strawberries that he bought from some dude on the side of the road. Pepper is allergic to strawberries, and leaves Tony alone in her office, to contemplate his thoughtlessness.

As Tony wanders out of the office, he absent-mindedly throws the strawberries away, managing to miss the trash can completely. spilling the strawberries all over the floor. He doesn't even notice this, and the camera doesn't linger on the discarded fruit.

It's just a bizarre, throwaway gag, and I couldn't supress my laughter. Nobody else in the theatre seemed to find this funny, and that just made me laugh harder. The single best moment in the film, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm the only one that cared.

After the credits rolled, the ex-husband from "The New Adventures Of Old Christine" drove out into the New Mexico desert and found Mjolnir in a smoking crater. That was cool. Of course, the other folks who stuck around for the credits looked confused.

They were probably wondering why they should give a shit about some big hammer in the desert.

Next Summer, it will all make sense.

The Barbarian's Passing...

Frank Frazetta is dead.

He was one of the most talented illustrators and painters of the 20th Century, and his amazing work was a big part of my formative years. As a teenager, I remember reading used Conan and John Carter Of Mars paperbacks, and marveling at the amazing artwork on their covers.

Beautiful, visceral, sometimes titillating images that captured exotic beauties, alien worlds, and an overall "bad-ass" quality that nobody else could quite manage. That was Frazetta's talent.

I also remember being amazed by the Death Dealer images on my father's Molly Hatchet albums. That dark, brooding bastard on horseback used to haunt my 6 year-old mind. In a good way.

Frank Frazetta was so awesome that in his 70s, ater suffering a stroke that made it nearly impossible for him to paint with his right hand, he taught himself to paint with his left hand. And his work was just as good! Bad-ass!

I'm going to watch Ralph Bakshi's "Fire and Ice" tonight, and then maybe listen to some Molly Hatchet, whilst drinking whiskey and swinging a broadsword around my cramped bedroom. It's what Frank would have wanted.