The Book Of Lies

Martyrology: A Love Story

2012-02-14T15:06:00.000-06:00

It Is Cheese! Breath And Wind! ...It Is Cheese.

2012-01-31T07:07:00.000-06:00

So I Made Another List...

2012-01-22T11:11:00.000-06:00

The joy is gone. The sun has set, and the world has become a desolate and inhospitable place.
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So I Made This List...

2012-01-21T10:25:00.000-06:00

Better late than never!
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A Very Nihilistic Kweznuz - Day 5

2011-12-25T01:42:00.000-06:00

A Very Nihilistic Kweznuz - Day 4

2011-12-24T04:19:00.000-06:00

A Very Nihilistic Kweznuz - Day 3

2011-12-23T04:37:00.000-06:00

A Very Nihilistic Kweznuz - Day 2

2011-12-22T03:33:00.000-06:00

A Very Nihilistic Kweznuz - Day 1

2011-12-21T05:31:00.000-06:00

I Draw The Line At Picking Flowers...

2011-12-21T04:18:00.000-06:00

White Meat. Dark Meat. All Will Be Carved.

2011-11-24T04:07:00.000-06:00

Blackmail The Universe

2011-11-11T22:04:00.001-06:00

When There's No More Room In Hell...

2011-10-31T15:54:00.000-05:00

Swelling Out In The Wrong Direction

2011-10-19T07:23:00.000-05:00

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!

2011-09-30T17:21:00.000-05:00

Aluminum Is A Jive Metal

2011-09-12T17:52:00.000-05:00

BRONSON-MANIA!!!

2011-08-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

I Am Repelled By Wholesomeness

2011-08-13T13:36:00.000-05:00

Blood Is Thicker Than Urine

2011-08-13T10:57:00.000-05:00

There Are Ghosts In My Sinuses!

2011-08-12T03:39:00.000-05:00

Thanks For The Mammaries!

2011-08-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

Pig Snerv!

2011-07-30T00:27:00.000-05:00

I narrowly avoided a cinematic nervous breakdown.
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Patriotism! - A Cautionary Tale

2011-07-04T06:37:00.001-05:00

Wish It Into The Cornfield!

2011-07-01T07:12:00.000-05:00

And An Asshole Shall Lead Them...

2011-06-24T05:45:00.005-05:00

Observations Of The Human Animal In Nature

2011-06-15T07:36:00.000-05:00

I Fell Into A Puddle And Ruined My Pants!

2011-06-11T02:34:00.003-05:00

I Know A Man Who Owns A Goat!

2011-06-03T14:11:00.345-05:00

Martians Love Kuato. They Think He's Fuckin' George Washington!

2011-05-26T16:45:00.002-05:00

A Rainbow Bridge Over Troubled Water

2011-05-22T02:06:00.001-05:00

This is a very long, rambling post. Moreso than usual!

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I Shot A Man In Venusville Just To Watch Him Die

2011-05-19T14:31:00.001-05:00

I'll Get You, Inspector Kuato!!!

2011-05-13T15:42:00.001-05:00

(This entry ws originally posted on Thursday, but then Blogger "accidentally" deleted it. I know they're out to get me. They're all out to get me. But I will not be thwarted. So I present a mostly-accurate representation of the original entry, recreated entirely from my notoriously terrible memory. Enjoy! - Management)
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Sweet Daddy Champagne's Podcast-O-Rama!!!

2011-05-10T03:10:00.001-05:00

All Glory To Kuato!

2011-05-05T14:49:00.002-05:00

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A

2011-04-22T04:42:00.002-05:00

Hello, Dear Imaginary Reader!
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Podcasting Is A Man's Vocation!

2011-04-06T06:53:00.001-05:00

I Started Humming A Song From 1962...

2011-04-04T02:40:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was sitting in Ky's Oldsmobile, driving around our fair city in the dead of night. This is something we used to do frequently in years past. We never had any real destination in these nocturnal journeys. It was just something we did for fun. And it was surprisingly fun, after all. Who knew that aimlessly wandering around a benighted midwestern town in a battered old car would constitute a good time?
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They Took My Gonads, Dennis!

2011-04-03T11:52:00.001-05:00

Who likes pointlessness?
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Blood, Thunder, & Alien Love: A Tragedy

2011-03-29T09:20:00.001-05:00

The seasons are in flux. The world is coming unglued. The sky is falling. And I saw Paul in theatres.
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The God Of Cinema Is Displeased...

2011-03-24T02:46:00.001-05:00

Just Talkin' 'Bout Blood - A Pre-Review Rant

Battle: Los Angeles makes warfare boring. It makes alien invasions boring. It makes excitement boring. It's the latest cinematic offering from director Jonathan Liebesman, the "talent" behind the horror classics Darkness Falls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. My god, Darkness Falls must be one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's filled with shoddy dialogue, plotholes large enough to fall through, wooden acting, and uninspired cinematography.
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I'm Trying To Resonate Concrete!

2011-03-11T13:09:00.001-06:00

The Adjustment Bureau is a movie about angels and fate and politics and sharp suits and magic hats and water and Emily Blunt's pouting lips. Shit happens, then the credits roll. That's it.

I honestly don't have a great deal to say about the film. It was entertaining. I was certainly never bored. I'd go so far as to say I enjoyed the experience. But it just seems ultimately ineffectual. Cool concepts, fine acting, and subtle, non-flashy direction all come together to make a good, if not terribly memorable motion picture.
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Fuck You, World! Here's A Podcast!

2011-03-09T12:30:00.003-06:00

I began my little experiment in the exciting world of podcasts last October. Not sure why, exactly. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Mostly it stems from my pathological obsession with documenting conversations.
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The Diary Of Daynis Novrod Manaro

2011-03-08T12:50:00.002-06:00

I Broke My Stickshift - A Preamble

Drive Angry, or Drive Angry 3D, or maybe even Drive Angry: Shot In 3D. For purposes of expediency, I will henceforth refer to the film simply as Drive Angry. This film is the latest from the writer/director team of Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier. I say "the latest", but it's really only their second collaboration, their first being 2009's My Bloody Valentine 3D.
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King Snake: The Eternal Mystery

2011-03-01T15:54:00.002-06:00

A Roller Derby Kind Of Evening

Last Saturday, I was meant to take in my first all-female roller derby game. My cousin Ky knows a few of the players, and goes to their games from time to time. This time, he invited me along. I assume all of his real friends were busy. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it, to be honest. Sure, being a human male with working genitalia, the whole "catfight" thing appeals to me on a primal level. Get a group of girls together, skating around, slamming into each other... the mind tends to fill in the blanks.
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Something About A Fuzzy Pink Rabbit...

2011-02-24T15:22:00.001-06:00

I didn't want to see Unknown. I had absolutely no interest in this movie. I was thinking the weekend would come and go, and this damned movie would simply pass me by. My mother had other plans.
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What's That Smell?!

2011-02-21T07:12:00.006-06:00

Happy days are here again! For I, your humble blogmeister, have returned from the wasteland with an all-new, all different video entertainment! You'll find it directly below. But before you simply scroll down and ignore the embedded video before tracking down your favorite Smurf-related porn site, I think a little explanation is in order.
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I Am Not Your Blowing Wind, Dammit!!!

2011-02-18T05:23:00.001-06:00

I haven't been out and about so much this year, movie-wise. By this time last year, I had seen eleven movies. This year, I've only seen two. Of course, there's really nothing out there that I want to see. In fact, the only movie that opens in February that I honestly want to see is Drive Angry: Shot In 3D. Because it looks like a good time. It's made by the writer/director duo behind My Bloody Valentine 3D, a film I really enjoyed, the plot sounds right up my alley, and it stars Nicolas Cage and William Fichtner, two actors I adore. How could I not see this damned movie?!
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Enter The Snarklefarg Of Gamar!

2011-02-04T22:07:00.001-06:00

Does anybody actually know anything about the Green Hornet? Not the new movie. I mean the character. Some people probably remember the 1960's television show. Not because it was any good, of course. The only reason that show is remembered is because Bruce Lee played the Green Hornet's trusty sidekick, Kato.
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Everybody Loves You, Steve!

2011-01-27T05:51:00.001-06:00

Do you like podcasts? I like podcasts! It's a brand new year, Dear Imaginary Reader, and to help celebrate this joyous occassion, it is my great honor to deliver two, that's right TWO new podcasts for your listening pleasure!
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The Bank Foreclosed On My House On Memory Lane

2011-01-24T05:13:00.002-06:00

Now that January is almost over, I think now is the perfect time to unleash my daringly conventional "Best Of 2010" and "Worst Of 2010" lists. Why? Because conformity is important to me. If you read this delightful blog regularly (and I know you do!), then you know that much about me. I have always tried my best to fit in. That's how I fuck with The Man. Let's just get this over with.
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Wait, What Happened To Astrology?!

2011-01-14T06:59:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year, Cocksuckers!!!

I've recently been overcome with post-holiday malaise. 2011 showed up and killed my motivation. I've mostly been sitting around, playing Dragon Age: Origins and its numerous expansion packs. I've owned the game for over a year, and have played through the epic storyline several times, but I've never played any of the expansions until recently, when I purchased the "ultimate edition". So that was obviously the perfect excuse to immerse myself in the world of Ferelden once again.
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A Legacy Of Shame

2010-12-31T03:25:00.002-06:00

And On The 8th Day, Bill Created IMAX...

On December 17th, 2010, something amazing happened. An IMAX theatre opened in Wichita, Kansas, courtesy of my personal hero, Mr. Bill Warren. In a previous post dedicated to the thoroughly mediocre "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", I spent a great deal of time heaping praise on our local movie mogul for his efforts to elevate the movie-going experience in our fair city.

In the past twenty years, Mr. Warren has opened three exemplary moviehouses in the city of Wichita, as well as one in Oklahoma, that present a superior theatrical experience. From the great care taken in the A/V presentation of the films, to the elegant atmosphere present in the architecture and aesthetic design of the theatres themselves, Bill Warren has given our little corner of the world a great gift.

In fact, the only thing Wichita was missing was an IMAX theatre, which is essentially the best possible sight and sound presentation of a theatrical motion picture. But leave it to Bill Warren to rectify that little problem. Earlier this year, he broke ground on a large-scale renovation of his first opulent movie house, which included a brand-new IMAX screen. It was scheduled to open its doors on December 17th, and the inaugural film was fated to be TRON: Legacy.

I can't tell you how excited I was. Not only because a fucking sequel to TRON was actually coming, but because it was going to be the first true IMAX experience of my life. I'm a huge film nut, and theatrical presentation is very important to me. So this news was like crack for my deranged mind. As soon as tickets became available online, I reserved my seat for what was sure to be a transcendent theatrical experience.

Last Sunday, I ventured out into the cold afternoon to have my brain melted by Bill Warren's latest creation, fully expecting IMAX 3D to rape my senses and leave me quivering in my comfortable leather chair. The quality of the film itself was secondary; this was all about the presentation.

And what about the presentation? Well, Dear Imaginary Reader, it was the bee's knees. The auditorium itself is a massive place with comfortable stadium seating. The chairs, spacious and soft, gently recline to allow the viewer to gaze at the screen, and I felt like a newborn babe being cradled by a loving mother. The screen itself is... well, if you have seen a film in IMAX, then you know what to expect. It's huge. A massive, enveloping wall of silver material that completely encompasses one's field of vision. Of course, this being a Warren theatre, the massive screen is hidden behind an equally massive classic theatrical curtain until the show begins.

Before the IMAX magic unfolded, the audience was treated to a well-choreographed lightshow as the curtain rose into the rafters in synch with the awe-inspiring musical masterpiece "Thus Spake Zarathustra" assaulting my eardrums in crystal clear surround sound. Then we were shown a "sizzle reel" of footage from the documentary "Hubble 3D" that deftly demonstrated the capabilities of IMAX as a presentation medium.

I must say that the 3D effects in this demonstration were astounding. I've seen plenty of digital 3D films since Beowulf made the scene several years ago, but I have never seen such an effective presentation as this. The footage included an unmanned rocket blasting off into the heavens, bound for the International Space Station, and it was a fully immersive experience. As debris from the launch assaulted the camera, I found myself instinctively shifting my head to avoid the detritus as it flew out of the screen.

Yes, my friends... I was in love.

Before the film began, trailers for Marvel's Thor and Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides unspooled. I'm looking forward to both of these movies, despite the naysayers that dominate the Internet. Thor looks like fun, and I'm one of the few deluded souls who actually enjoyed the second and third Pirates films, so these trailers were right up my alley.

In short: the IMAX experience exceeded my expectations. The beautiful, ultra-sharp images and the booming, enveloping sound coupled with the amazing 3D effects had my inner geek squealing like an overexcited little boy as he sees the mountain of colorfully wrapped parcels nestled under the tree on Christmas morning. The IMAX hype is well-earned. I am a believer. And GOTUS bless Bill Warren for bringing IMAX to Wichita.

But what about the main event? What about TRON: Legacy? Well... that's a different story...

Greetings, Programs! - The Story

TRON: Legacy begins in the year 1989, as Kevin Flynn tells his young son Sam a bedtime story. But this isn't Goodnight Moon or The Monster At The End Of This Book. No, Flynn is spinning an imaginative yarn about some magical place called "the Grid" and the myriad programs that inhabit it. He speaks of a perfect world that lies within a computer and the valiant hero TRON that defends it. Before he leaves his son to dream in binary, he mentions how he can't wait to show the boy this amazing world some day soon.

Then he takes off on his Ducatti and falls off the face of the earth for two decades.

The next 20 years are condensed into a short flurry of exposition in the form of a nightly news story broadcast on a series of antiquated televisions in what appears to be the Matrix. We learn that after Flynn came back from his first sojourn in the Grid all those years ago, he became the CEO of Encom and that the two major games he created, Space Paranoids & TRON became the biggest-selling games in history. Flynn also had huge plans for the future, vowing to shock the worlds of science, philosophy and even religion. Then he just disappeared without a trace, leaving his poor son Sam an orphan.

We rejoin the narrative in the here and now, as now-27-year-old Sam Flynn breaks into Encom headquarters to pirate their latest operating system on the eve of its official release. Mission accomplished, he base-jumps from the roof of corporate HQ and lands in the loving arms of Johnny Law. Apparently theft and corporate espionage are no big shakes in Central City, as Sam makes bail later that evening.

Chilling in his free-standing waterfront garage/apartment, Sam is visited by his dad's old pal Alan Bradley, who says that he's received a page (how quaint!) from the disconnected number at Flynn's Arcade. An intrigued Sam decides he hasn't played Bad Dudes in while anyway, so he checks out the old arcade.

Inside, he rocks out to some Journey and finds his old man's secret underground lair, which contains an old humming computer server and what looks like a big telescope. Sam dicks around on the swank 1980's virtual keypad, accidentally activating the telescope! Wait, it's not really a telescope. It's actually a laser. Remember how Flynn got sucked into the computer in the original film? That's what his hapless son does at the old arcade.

Arriving in the sleek, reinvented "Grid", Sam is immediately captured by a massive looming Recognizer (floating tank-thing) and prepared for The Games with the help of four gorgeous latex-clad "sirens" who strip him of his User garb with laser fingers and fit him with new and improved glowing programwear! Then he is thrust into the Arena and forced to disc-duel with some very angry programs.

Sam finds that he's oddly quite good at this whole disc-flinging thing, and dispatches his first foes handily. Then he steps up to do battle with big bad Rinzler, the meanest, most dangerous, dual-disc wielding mamajama on the Grid. Rinzler kicks Sam's pasty ass, and when he is wounded, the audience sees that he bleeds. Holy shit! This guy's not some simple program. He's a fucking User!

Sam is quickly summoned to the personal battle frigate (I guess) of the Grid's ruler. At first, Sam sees this despot and believes him to be his long-lost father, although in Sam's own words he "hasn't aged a day". But this is not the All Mighty Flynn. This is CLU, a program created by Sam's missing dad to help create the perfect system here in Computerland.

After Flynn returned from his digital walkabout many years ago, he decided to use what he had learned to create a new world within the realm of bits and bytes, a place where he could... do... something... to benefit mankind. The logic's a little fuzzy, there. But he created this new Grid at his arcade, importing his old pal TRON from the Encom servers to aid him in this task. He also stood in front of a mirror and birthed a new program, CLU 2.0, to serve as the third collaborator in this mad experiment.

Things went smoothly for a while. But one day, something amazing happened. A group of programs wandered into this virtual world seemingly from out of nowhere. Flynn hadn't created them. In fact, nobody had. These new programs self-manifested in the Grid: a genuine digital miracle! These programs, called ISOs (which is short for Iso... something) arrived completely unexpected, and had the potential to change the real world in ways that are never made clear.

Seriously, the vagueness on display in this film is just mind-boggling. These ISOs are supposed to be special programs because they just materialized out of thin air, but that seems to be the extent of their amazing-ness. They never exhibit unique talents, and the only real difference between them and regular programs seems to be the glowing tattoos that pulse on their arms. Nifty.

CLU, disturbed by the emergence of these new programs, asks Flynn if it is still his duty to create the perfect system. A nonplussed Flynn awkwardly answers "...yeah?", and CLU takes that as his cue to take shit over. He summons soldiers to capture Flynn, but his stalwart companion TRON battles the evil programs to buy his buddy time to escape. Tron is seemingly killed in his heroic efforts.

Since that fateful day, Flynn has existed in exile, away from the Grid, and the brutal dictatorship of his creation. He fled the known Grid with the last of the ISOs, named Quorra, since CLU went all "final solution" on her extended family.

Back in the present, CLU warmly greets this son of Flynn, then immediately decides to kill him in a big light cycle fight. I don't get it, either. The big action sequence comes to an end when Sam is rescued by Quorra, who is driving a big dune buggy outfitted with surface-to-air rockets. So Sam escapes the grasp of CLU, and speeds to a much-anticipated reunion with his daddy in the mountains (there are mountains in the Grid? What?).

Flynn and Sam have an awkward heart-to-heart, then sit down to dinner (why is there a suckling pig? where did that come from?!). Sam wants to get his old man the hell out of Microchip Town, and needs to get to "the portal" to do it. Quorra suggests Sam visit with an old program named Zues, who once operated a kind of "underground railroad" for ISOs back in the day.

Sam ventures into the Grid to see Zues, who now calls himself "Castor", looks like the Thin White Duke and operates a bar called the "End Of Line" club. Of course Castor immediately betrays Sam. A big fight ensues involving Sam and CLU's henchmen. Flynn shows up to bail out his son, and gets his Identity Disc stolen in the process. This is apparently bad because the info imprinted on Flynn's disc is imperative to CLU's plans, which involve amassing an army of programs to enter the portal and bring CLU's "perfect system" into the real world.

First off, since when could programs manifest in the real world? Secondly, none of their neat glowing discs and lightsabers would work in the real world, so their arrival as a massive, conquering army might fall a little flat. Thirdly, why is CLU so keen on bringing his "perfect system" into our world when his world seems to have a lot of problems? There are fucking hobo programs, for pity's sake! For shame, CLU.

CLU is displeased that Castor allowed the Flynn family to escape, despite their acquisition of the much-heralded Identity Disc. So CLU blows up Castor and his stupid club. Some more shit happens. Our heroes race to the portal, only to be captured by CLU as he gathers his army near their destination. Sam steals back the disc, there's a big aerial shootout, and it is revealed that Rinzler is actually TRON, somehow corrupted by CLU and made evil.

Rinzler/TRON is shooting at the Flynns one moment, then he inexplicably remembers that he's supposed to be a good guy and crashes his laser plane into CLU's laser plane, and they both explode over the Sea of Simulation. CLU manages to steal TRON's spare laser plane (yes, he had a spare), and continues his puruit. TRON splashes into the water, and the ominous red lights on his suit flicker and turn a pale, heroic blue. TRON's back! Yay! And he is never seen again.

CLU arrives in time to shit all over the party at the portal, attempting to escape into the real world with Sam and Quorra (Wait, what? She's going with Sam?). But Elder Flynn decides enough is enough, and uses his badass User power to merge with his wayward creation, becoming one with the Force, or some shit. He explodes in a burst of light which washes over the Grid, eliminating CLU's army in the blink of an eye. The world is safe... I guess.

Wait, is Flynn dead? What the fuck?

Anyway, Sam is back in the real world, downloading the Grid from the old server in daddy's arcade into a compact memory card which he wears around his neck like a trophy. He then emerges into the night to find Quorra waiting for him (what?!), and as they ride off on his Ducatti, Quorra sees her first real sunrise. Fade out.

Derezzed - What The Fuck Did I just Watch?

Back during my Alice In Wonderland review I mentioned how excited I was to see TRON: Legacy. I wrote that even if the eventual film well and truly sucked, I would not be able to admit it due to my irrational love of the original film. I couldn't possibly admit to myself that a (truly unexpected) sequel to TRON would suck. To do so would be tantamount to inner-child abuse.

Apparently my inner-child needs to call a social worker, because TRON: Legacy is awful. It breaks my heart to admit it, but there it is. I walked away from the experience unable to convince myself that the film was anything other than an utter waste of my time as a passionate moviegoer. I have a lot of problems with this movie. And now I am going to talk about them.

To begin with, I'll focus on the film's action. To be sure, there are a smattering of action sequences in the movie. We have Sam's trial by fire in the Grid arena, the light cycle chase with CLU and his henchmen, the big shootout at Castor's nightclub, and a big laser plane dog fight during the film's climax. But none of these action sequences really pack any punch, aside from Sam's hectic disc duel in the arena, which is all too brief.

The disc duels have an energy to them that the other action beats lack. The first time we see one warrior program felled by his opponent's disc, he derezzes in spectacular fashion, shattering like electric glass. It's a very cool visual effect, and it makes program death in this sequel seem much more visceral. And watching Sam and his opponents duel in their confined chambers gives the sequence immediacy. We know exactly where the combatants are at all times, even when the movie throws in a three-dimensional element, allowing the characters to fight on the walls and ceilings. It's cool.

None of the other action sequences are cool. The light cycle chase takes place on a vast, multi-leveled grid, and there's no sense of coherent geography to the whole affair. We have no real idea where any of the characters are on this grid at any time. They're all just driving around, trying to knock each other out of the game.

Another problem with this sequence is the light cycles themselves. In the original film, the light cycles traveled in straight lines on the game grid, confined to sharp ninety degree turns, creating an ever-shrinking labyrinth of deadly walls in their wake. This made the cycle duels more frantic, more exciting. As the grid continued to grow smaller within this forest of glowing walls, the combatants had to react quicker, each move marking the difference between life and death. Exciting stuff.

In the sequel, the light cycles react more like traditional motorcycles, traveling in fluid motions across the grid. There are no right angles, no tight corners. This deflates most of the tension. Of course, in the original film, the light cycles behaved more like real-world motorcycles outside of the game grid. I don't immediately understand the purpose of this change in the sequel. Did the director think that that the traditional light cycle behavior in the game grid wouldn't work for a modern audience?

As for the battle at the End Of Line club (I hate that fucking name), it's just stupid. Sam is betrayed by the former Zues and Rinzler & friends show up to snatch the young man. A few scarred would-be revolutionaries (a completely wasted subplot) rise up to fight the baddies and are promptly cut down. Then Flynn shows up, providing an HP boost to all allies, and the put-upon programs battle their tormentors with renewed vigor. While this ruckus is going on, Castor stands alone with his laser cane, swaying his hips, showing the world his best Tony Montana impression, and generally acting like a completely ineffectual fucking lunatic.

Now this big fight was not well choreographed. If you actually paid any attention to the background players in some of the long shots, you'd see some of the sloppiest play-fighting in cinematic history. Cringe-worthy. And Michael Sheen just embarassed himself here. What the fuck was he thinking? He's a pretty good actor when he wants to be. Hell, he was even convincing as an ancient werewolf in the fucking Underworld films. But his Castor/Zues role is nothing but endless mugging for the camera. Shameful, Michael Sheen. Shameful.

What about the laser plane shootout? Once again, it's just confusing. The only moments when the audience can be sure that the villains are anywhere near the heroes during this battle are when they're actually shooting at each other. Aside from that, the whole sequence is just a montage of images of glowing fighter jets dodging mountains. The shots that actually show the progress of our heroes to their goal (the portal) are few and far between. The sequence just arbitrarily ended when the editor finally decided to insert the shot of the Flynns reaching the damned portal. How can a 200 million dollar movie feel like amateur hour?

Now let's talk about new CLU. A big deal has been made of the digital effects trickery used in this film, giving the program CLU the face of 1980's-era Jeff Bridges. I remember the glimpses in the trailers. They were decent, but unpolished. I assumed the effects artists were still working on these shots, and in the final film they would be improved. I was wrong. The "young Jeff Bridges" face on CLU never looked real. It was always distracting.

I remember reading a comment from someone involved with the film's production (I can't remember who) saying that TRON: Legacy was inspired by the absolutely stunning effects work used to age (and de-age) Brad Pitt in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and that they were taking it a step further with this film. They failed conclusively. For shit's sake, the de-aging effects used on Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men - The Last Stand were more convincing!

And don't give me the "but in that movie the effects artists were just erasing age-lines on their faces, but in TRON: Legacy they had to render Jeff Bridges' face onto another actor" excuse. The digital wizards on Benjamin Button slapped Brad Pitt's face onto a midget and you couldn't tell the difference. These guys (and gals, I assume) just dropped the ball.

By the way, what's up with this ISO bullshit? Flynn keeps talking about how special they all were, that they had the potential to cause lasting and beneficial change to the real world. These amazing programs were going to rise up and become digital messiahs (a pretty cool band name, by the way). But we're never shown any evidence to back up these claims. Not even the fabled last ISO Quorra does anything of note. And if this is an allusion to the Technological Singularity, it's nothing more than an unexplained dead end in the film. Just another wasted subplot.

And who told Jeff Bridges that he could play himself in this movie? He's certainly not playing Kevin Flynn, the central protagonist from the original film. He's just Jeff Bridges, the laid-back hippie dude that we all know and love (except for my mother. she finds him creepy). Admittedly, he's the source of the only real comedy in the film with his occassional exclamations of "far out" and "radical". But it just doesn't feel right.

I suppose you could argue that since Flynn has been trapped in isolation within the Grid for twenty years (our time. In the Grid itself, he's been alive for centuries), he's a little detached, perhaps even a little crazy. And we get the detached part for perhaps two minutes early on. But we never get the crazy. We just get Jeffrey Lebowski. And I don't want "the dude" in TRON: Legacy.

That brings me to my biggest problem with the film: TRON. In this film, the valiant hero of the Grid has been reduced to the Darth Maul stand-in for this struggling franchise, nothing more than a two disc-wielding henchman. We're never shown how TRON was corrupted and turned by CLU and became his loyal servant. We're just expected to accept it. A half-hearted semi-explanation is thrown out near the end of the film: because CLU lacks the ability to write new programs, he uses programs defeated in the game grid, transforming them into soldiers for his invasion force. But it's insultingly vague.

TRON defeated the Master Control Program, goddammit! He's not some pitiful messenger program, he's an independent security program extraordinaire! How the fuck did he become new CLU's lackey? Fuck you, movie!

Flynn assumes that TRON died saving him, until he just notices Rinzler at one point and remarks "TRON, what have they done to you?". That's it. Flynn never mentions this to anybody. He never says to his son "hey Sam, maybe we should try to rescue TRON, seeing as how I owe him my miserable life, and all." No, he just goes on with his day. Nobody else aside from CLU even knows that Rinzler is TRON.

When TRON decides out of the fucking blue that he's on the side of the angels again and turns kamikaze on CLU's laser plane, only Flynn knows what his old friend just did. And he doesn't react at all. And since CLU just steals TRON's spare laser plane and continues his chase, TRON's sacrifice is completely in vain. Fuck you, movie!!

After TRON plunges into the Sea of Simulation and his evil red lights become a valorious blue, I was expecting him to show up at the portal and duel CLU to save his friend Flynn, allowing him to finally escape into the real world, not to mention getting a little payback for the centuries of slavery he endured at the hands of this despotic program. But no, we never see poor TRON again. I guess the old warhorse just drowned in the Sea of Simulation, his life a frustrating litany of failure.

It's like the brain-dead writers forgot that there was a character named "TRON" in the movie TRON until someone brought it to their attention mid-way through the production, and they felt obligated to insert the titular character just to pay lip service to the fans. Inexcusable.

FUCK YOU, MOVIE!!!

In the final analysis, TRON: Legacy is a worthless excuse for a movie. Sure, it's highly unlikely any sequel would have lived up to the expectations of a nostalgia-addled TRON freak like myself, but this movie is just garbage. It's a confusing, disjointed, nonsensical mess, and I hate it. Christ, even the 3D effects were lackluster. The "creative minds" behind this disaster don't understand the source material, they don't understand computers, or even simple things like "story" or "character".

Fuck TRON: Legacy. You strangled the last innocent corner of my cynical, jaded soul.

P.S. - Black Swan & True Grit reviews are coming. Eventually.

End Of Line.

Kweznuz - The Day After

2010-12-26T01:55:00.000-06:00

Christmas has come and gone. By now, your soul has been crushed with disappointment and self-loathing. Perhaps you just didn't get the gift you so coveted, and when you unwrapped your final package to discover tube socks, your blood boiled, and in retrospect you're certain that if you had a knife on your person at the time, you would have buried it in somebody's sternum.

Besides, spending all that time with your extended family is unhealthy. Sure, getting the whole gang together for a fancy meal sounds like a good idea beforehand. But after about an hour spent surrounded by these losers, listening to their hard luck stories, bemoaning the fact that they nearly won that big lotto jackpot last month, and swearing that they'll stop smoking crack after New Year's (for reals this time!), you just want to blow your fucking brains out.

Or maybe it's all the shit that you just have to deal with when the holiday season rears its ugly head. The multi-colored lights, the carolers, the smiling children, the shitty songs, the shitty holiday specials, the wreaths, the garlands, the ornaments, the tinsel, the mistletoe, the Salvation Army bell ringers, the decorated trees, the omnipresent visage of Old Saint Nick, etc. By the time Christmas actually arrives, you just want it to be over so you can get on with your miserable fucking life in peace.

Of course, you may be one of those weirdos who got that double-ended dildo you were asking for, you actually love your degenerate relatives, and you're too simple-minded to actually allow the seasonal sensory overload to get under your skin. If so, then I hate you. With a burning passion. Jesus, I am sick of fucking Christmas.

But at least it's finally over.

Goddammit.

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 6

2010-12-25T03:25:00.000-06:00

The big day has finally arrived! Homes across the world have been visited by a corpulent imp spawned from the bowels of Hades, and in this abomination's wake lies a trail of stolen innocence and shattered dreams. Some child in Oregon has just annihilated an immaculately wrapped parcel with reckless abandon, only to die inside when he realizes that the Claus has left something unspeakable under his tree.

And now his wide eyes fill with tears as he pleads with his vapid parents. "Why, mommy? Why did the Red One do this to me? Daddy, is there no justice in this world? Is there no God?!"

The empty shell of a man that was once the boy's father momentarily meets his child's gaze. "God is dead, young one. We belong to the void."

The broken thing called "daddy" turns away, drowning his sorrows in his perfectly chilled six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboys, forgetting his son's pain as he drifts off into the dark recesses of his own mind. The woman called "mommy" hides her head in a worn scarf, soaking it through with her own bitter tears. The magic of the Christmas season is torn asunder in the cold, lonely light of morning.

And when night falls, the boy will lay sleepless in his race car bed, clutching his unopened DVD of The Love Guru, cursing the day he was conceived in a night of drunken teenage revelry.

...Anyhoo, it's Christmas Day. Hooray! On this, the last day of my holiday festival of the moving picture, I bring you the single greatest Christmas-related video off all time. And no, I'm not being hyperbolic. You may think I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy. One chilly morning in the late December of 1988, I saw this music video for the first time on VH1. I was entranced. 22 years later, I am still entranced. Although I am not a religious man, this video almost makes me believe in a higher power.

Take it away, boys!

Merry Christmas, Motherfuckers!

P.S. - Reviews of TRON: Legacy & Black Swan are forthcoming.

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 5

2010-12-24T14:10:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas Eve, Internet Trolls! The time when we all smile a little easier. The spirit of the season warms our hearths and hearts. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the soothing sound of sleigh bells drifting through the still winter air...

But more importantly, this is also the fifth day of my video-riffic holiday blogging celebration! That's right! I have returned from beyond time and space to bring you, dear friends, the gift of sight and sound!

Being Kilted Yak's Eve, and all, I've decided to give you all a special treat. No clips from classic holiday movies, no quaint seasonal commercials, and no hilariously nightmarish music videos on this day. This is a special day, and it deserves special videos. Indeed, I said videos, plural. Two, being more specific. And these aren't just any videos. No, these lovingly crafted entertainments come direct from the patented Photoplay Sweatshop here at FENDERMAN Inc.

The first video is entitled The Christmas Miracle, originally created last December. It tells the touching story of a simple man who loves Christmas with all his heart. On one special night (I think you know which night I'm talking about), he is visited by a kindly stranger who teaches him a lesson about the true meaning of the "season of giving".

Up next is The Second Christmas Miracle, and yes, it is a sequel. However did you guess? Created recently (how's four days ago for "recent"? Hot off the fucking press!), this second chapter picks up one year after the events of the first delightful photoplay. Our simple man is adrift, wandering through a wasteland of deceit and treachery, still haunted by the truths visited upon him last Christmas Eve. When the moment of truth arrives, will he end his own life, or will he be redeemed by a familiar stranger?

Gee, I guess you'll just have to watch and find out.

I do sincerely hope you enjoy these little labors of love from all of us here at The Book Of Lies. By "all of us", I am of course referring to myself and my dear cousin Ky. We're a small operation, but we try, dammit! Have fun watching the destruction of everything one poor soul holds dear! Revel in his despair! Rejoice in his suffering! And don't forget to let the Christmas Spirit violate your inner child under the mistletoe this festive evening.

Tomorrow comes the much-anticipated conclusion of my little holiday blow-out. You don't want to miss the biggest surprise of the season!

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 4

2010-12-23T16:26:00.000-06:00

On this, the fourth day of Yule, I bring you glad tidings from the frozen heart of the world!

Today I share with you, Dear Imaginary Reader, the conclusion from 1988's Scrooged. I am still amazed after all these years by the sincerity of Bill Murray's performance here. When I was a kid watching this variation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I thought the last ten minutes of the movie were a real event that the filmmakers had serendipitously caught on film. And 22 years later, I'm still moved by Frank Cross' appeal to our better nature.

Tomorrow brings Festivus Eve, and with it a very special double feature! Stay tuned.

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 3

2010-12-22T12:14:00.001-06:00

On the third day of Kweznuz, I have chosen to share with you one of my very favorite music videos from everybody's favorite accordion-toting vegan, Weird Al Yankovic. The year was 1986, and Weird Al's latest album Polka Party featured one of the most morbidly entertaining holiday-themed songs I have ever heard: Christmas At Ground Zero.

The song is funny. That goes without saying. But it also manages to create a serious sense of unease, which is the reason why I adore it. The bizarre lyrics combined with the anachronistically upbeat music are complemented perfectly by the visuals in the following music video.

Weird Al (who made his directorial debut with this video) combines footage from vintage Christmas short films with clips from cold war-era "duck and cover" documentaries from the 1950's and '60's to create a very funny, very creepy music video, and the final fade-out over the echoing sounds of blaring air-raid sirens always sends a chill down my spine. Nothing says "Christmas" like mutually assured nuclear destruction, kiddies!

Kweznuz continues on the morrow!

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 2

2010-12-21T15:15:00.000-06:00

For day 2 of my very festive holiday celebration, I've decided to present a clip from 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie. This clip represents the turning point in the film, where we leave behind the quaint fable that is the first act of the film and are thrown kicking and screaming into the modern age (1980's New York City). The clip includes the introduction of John Lithgow's villain "B.Z." at the Senate subcommitte hearing I mentioned in my previous Christmas-related article.

The clip is a little long (over 8 minutes), but if you decide to stick with it until the end... well, you'll probably still hate it. But after all these years, I still find it oddly enjoyable.

More holiday cheer on its way tomorrow!

A Very Messy Kweznuz - Day 1

2010-12-20T09:55:00.000-06:00

On this first day of my Christmas holiday, I present a very special video from deep within the YouTube vaults. I can't recall the first time I saw this delightful commercial on television, but I do know that it's been around for a while. This holiday classic commercial depicts a tropical Christmas, Corona-style.

You may be well acquainted with this advertisement. If you are, then I'm sure it fills you with the spirit of the season. If not, then allow me to introduce you to the following 30 seconds of magic, an elegant-yet-simple evocation of the simple joys of Christmas.

Join me tomorrow for another delightful holiday video.

Could This Post Have Come Any Faster?

2010-12-19T18:58:00.000-06:00

As I stated in a previous post, I caught a late-night screening of Dwayne Johnson's latest movie, Faster, on my birthday. If you recall my review of Johnson's previous cinematic offering (The Tooth Fairy), I was bemoaning the former Rocky One's career trajectory. I always thought he could be the big action hero of our time, the heir apparent to Stallone and Schwarzenegger. I was hoping that he'd do a little course-correcting and put his career back on track.

Well, "back on track" may not be the right term. After all, his family films have all been moderate successes. But his rare forays into the action genre have struggled at the box office. But all he needed was the right project to turn it all around and show the world that he's got what it takes to blow shit up with style (and a witty one-liner) on the silver screen.

Faster is not that movie.

We're introduced to Dwayne Johnson's "Driver" in a series of sweaty extreme close-ups as he paces around his prison cell. He's due to be released after spending ten years in prison for his role in an armed robbery involving his late brother. Tom Berenger shows up long enough to justify his pay check (I assume a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon) as the prison warden, showing Driver (and us) a series of photos of all of the people our bulky anti-hero wrecked in the pokey.

This is an obvious attempt to illustrate how badass Driver really is. If you get in his way, he'll tear you apart. As soon as Driver's thrown out of prison, he starts running through the desert. A little like Forrest Gump, only this film's protagonist isn't some zen-like simple-minded dude wandering the earth, falling into events of historical signifigance and imparting a little homespun wisdom. No, Driver wants no part of all that. He just wants to shoot people.

So Driver runs and runs and runs, until he reaches a junkyard and finds a sweet 1971 Chevelle waiting for him underneath a tarp. He jumps in and drives off, tearing ass through the American southwest with vengeance on his mind.

You see, ten years ago Driver was the wheelman in a bank job orchestrated by his brother. After some fancy driving that mostly involved driving around in circles in a crowded intersection, our crafty wheelman evades the police, and the robbers escape with the loot. But all is not right in the world, because shortly after our boys pull off the crime of the week, they're held hostage in their own home by a bunch of very armed, very angry dudes.

Driver spills the beans, giving the assailants the location of the money they stole because he thinks this information will save his brother's life. Spoiler alert: big brother gets his throat slit ten seconds later. Then Driver gets shot in the back of the head for being so cooperative. Driver is clinically dead for something like 30 minutes before he miraculously recovers at the hospital, sitting up like the Undertaker after you think he's down for the count. The back of his pulverized skull is replaced with a metal plate, and he's shipped off to prison.

Back in the present, Driver's tooling around bat country, tracking down and shooting everybody who had anything to do with his brother's murder. This obviously draws the attention of the police, because the recently paroled Driver has made no effort to conceal his identity. We're introduced to "Cop", played by Billy Bob Thornton, who is partnering up with Detective Cicero (Carla Gugino) to bring Driver to justice.

Cop loves his estranged, former C.I. wife (Moon Bloodgood, one of the worst actresses in the world). He loves his chubby, baseball-impaired son. He also loves heroin. That's right: Cop is complicated. This shady motherfucker is hiding something, and only the most brain-damaged members of the audience will be unable to guess what his secret is.

Then we meet the third member of our film's hate triangle, Killer (some dude). Killer used to be some kind of crippled software genius who made a shitload of money doing something or other. Then he got bored, got surgery, and became a muscular assassin with a sexy girlfriend. Some anonymous person (any guesses?) finds Killer's number in the yellow pages, calls him up and hires him to kill Driver. So now Driver's under fire from both sides.

There's some action, some marriage proposals, some Jennifer Carpenter, and a whole lot of psuedo-religious talk of Heaven and Hell. Then the film reaches its climax at a makeshift church down by a beach, where Driver confronts the "last" of the people involved in his brother's murder. This final target (played by the guy with the insanely long name who played Mr. Eko in Lost) has been wracked with guilt since that fateful day, and has become a preacher, dedicating his life to helping others.

Driver confronts him on the beach, they share a few words about God and redemption, then the preacher drops to his knees, singing an appalling rendition of "John the Revelator", punctuated with exclamations like "Praise Jesus!" and "Lord Have Mercy!". Apparently Driver is so confused by this bizarre behavior that he chooses to spare the preacher's life, thinking he suffers from epilepsy.

So Driver wanders off, finding peace and quiet in the family picnic tent that the preacher turned into his ministry headquarters. Killer shows up and threatens to kill Driver. Then he changes his mind, because he realizes that he's bored with the assassin game, and wants to try the family thing with his gun-toting girlfriend for a while.

Then Cop ambles into the tent and shoots Driver in the back of the head. Oh noes!!! That's right, kiddies! Cop was the man who orchestrated the home invasion that led to the death of Driver's brother. It turns out that all of the people involved with the incident (all of the people Driver killed) used to be informants for Cop, and his weird, boring, junkie wife used to be Driver's brother's girlfriend. Apparently, she was boning Cop on the side, and told loverboy all about the robbery and the money and blah blah blah...

After Cop shoots Driver in the back of the head (again), he takes a leisurely stroll down the beach, talking to his treacherous broad on the phone. Surprise! Driver, who is very not dead, shoots Cop in the back. He had a metal plate in the back of his head, for Pete's sake! Why didn't Cop know that? As Cop bleeds out on the sand, he mumbles something about how he's made his own Hell, then he checks out. If you, as a member of the audience, didn't see any of that coming, then you are too stupid to live.

So Detective Cicero shows up late (as usual), puts the pieces together as she stares at Cop's junkie corpse, then just kinda shrugs. Then we see Driver tearing ass down the highway as the narrative ends and the credits roll.

That's Faster in a nutshell. It's a relatively short experience, clocking in around 92 minutes without credits. It's a bloody and entertaining film for the most part, although it is dreadfully dumb. Most of the dialogue sounds clunky and unrealistic, and the religious undertones in the film tend to fall flat. Luckily, Dwayne Johnson's character is played mostly mute, so he rarely has the chance to recite any of the insipid dialogue.

Unfortunately, the flashback sequence that reveals the tragic fate of his big brother contains some of the most awkward acting I've seen in a theatrical motion picture this year. And the main culprit in this scene happens to be Dwayne Johnson. I understand the purpose of the scene, because this takes place before Driver has become the hardened instrument of vengeance we meet at the beginning of the film, but it doesn't really work.
Johnson attempts to sound like a concerned little brother, but he really sounds like Lenny in "Of Mice And Men". The scene isn't supposed to be funny, but I laughed.

My real problem with the film rests squarely on the shoulders of two characters: "Killer" and Detective Cicero. My beef: they're worthless. If these characters were excised entirely from the script, it wouldn't matter at all. They serve no purpose whatsoever.

Killer is hunting Driver throughout the entire film. He even shoots Driver in the neck at one point, nearly killing him. Then at the end of the movie, Driver refuses to even raise his gun, saying he has no reason to shoot Killer. Are you fucking kidding me? He shot you in the neck thirty minutes earlier! You have every reason to kill this British asshole! But no, he refuses to fight, so Killer loses interest and fucks off to go get married to Maggie Grace.

There is no reason for this character to exist in the film. He accomplishes nothing. And all of the time the movie wastes following this douchebag as he chases Dwanye Johnson could have been better spent fleshing out some of the other characters in the film. Like Detective Cicero. Once again, here is a character that serves no real purpose in the story. She's a good cop. She thinks Billy Bob's a washed-up has-been. And that's it. She figures out the truth behind her partner's involvement in the bloody events that are unfolding, but only at the end of the film, after Driver's revenge spree is finished and Billy Bob is dead on the beach.

She doesn't even get an obligatory confrontation with Driver at the film's climax, where she may or may not let him "escape" because she finally understands the purpose behind Driver's long weekend of carnage. Now that would have been a cliché, but at least it would have given her something to do in this film. I'm a big Carla Gugino fan, and I hate to complain whenever I see her on the big screen (she's hot! haw haw!!), but her character in Faster should have been removed from the script.

It's like the writers had no faith in the simple story they came up with involving one man's mission of revenge and the crooked cop who's hunting him down, and felt it necessary to pad the script with pointless characters and irrelevant B plots. Perhaps if Tony and Joe Gayton were more talented, they would have realized that sometimes a simpler story is better.

On the positive side, both Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton are good in their respective roles. Billy Bob seems to enjoy playing lowlife degenerates. He even has a funny and surprisingly touching moment with his son involving the kid's little league baseball game. And Johnson knows how to play a (mostly) silent, brooding killer. There's no finesse to his revenge killings in the film, and I found that oddly refreshing. He just wants to shoot these assholes and get on with his day. And he's got a killer icy stare.

Director George Tillman, Jr., who also directed Men Of Honor, another film I really enjoy, did a fine job with the script he was given. He manages to put together a pretty slick and entertaining film despite some of the shit the writers saddled him with. And the music is great, both the licensed songs and the score by Clint Mansell. I liked the music so much, I went out and bought the soundtrack. That's a rousing endorsement.

I have some real problems with Faster, but I still enjoyed the film. I hardly felt ripped off as I exited the theatre and walked out into the cold night air. It's nowhere near the worst film I've seen on my birthday. But it's not the film that's going to help Dwayne Johnson become a bonafide action star. The box office has spoken on this film.

I've got my fingers crossed for Fast Five...

P.S. - A review of Tron: Legacy, as well as a special week of holiday-related posts are on the way. Consider it all my gift to you, Dear Imaginary Reader.

Christmas On The Blog Of Lies! Yule Love It!

2010-12-16T14:39:00.001-06:00

Christmas Day is just around the corner. I'm sure you don't need this little reminder, but I'm still throwing it out there. I'm a big fan of the Christmas. I always have been. Sure, the delightful wrapped gifts nestled under the plastic, pre-lit Douglas Fir Tree are a plus. I mean, who doesn't enjoy unwrapping a little enigmatic box only to discover with dawning horror that what you had hoped to be a signed first edition of Frank Herbert's "Dune" is in actuality a tattered paperback of Brian Herbert's "The Butlerian Jihad"?! That kind of crippling disappointment is what the holday is all about!

No, Dear Imaginary Reader, Christmas is about more than simple commercialism. It's about spending quality time with family and friends. It's about downing a six pack of expensive imported ale with your distant cousin over a friendly game of billiards, while he rambles about his obsession with former WWF wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper. It's about ignoring the piercing cries of a neglected baby because you can't be bothered to pause your "Rock Band" game in the midst of your soaring rendition of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

Yes, Christmas means a great deal to me. The food, the company, the uncomfortable silence that stretches on and on when your inebriated mother wonders aloud when her worthless son is finally going to do something with his life instead of typing endlessly on some stupid blog...

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

It's also the perfect time of year to dust off some of my favorite holiday-themed DVDs and give them a mandatory holiday viewing. Now everybody has their own definition of a "holiday classic", a film that they watch year after year, their personal cinematic tradition. For the longest time, one of my holiday classics was Bob Clark's adaptation of Jean Shepherd's "A Christmas Story".

I remember the first time I saw the film, spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my grandparents in Arkansas. My grandfather got a real kick out of Ralphie's touching quest to receive a Red Rider bb gun for Christmas, despite the constant blithering of seemingly every adult in the film concerned that he will shoot his eye out. Who can forget the heartwarming story? The profane-yet-lovable Old Man, the doting mother, the demonic Scut Farkus, the hilariously destructive Bumpus hounds, and the "electric sex" that is the ubiquitous leg lamp. It brings back fond memories...

When TNT (and later TBS) began their "24 Hours Of A Christmas Story" marathon on Christmas Eve many years ago, I thought it was a great idea. It's such a perfect movie for the holidays: it's sweet, sentimental, and charming without being overbearing. I would fall asleep on Christmas Even with "A Christmas Story" on TV, and wake up on Christmas Day with "A Christmas Story" on TV. It was a lovely way to get in the mood for the festivities that were to come.

Of course, I don't give a shit about "A Christmas Story", anymore. I've seen it so many times, I know the entire movie by heart. And I don't ever want to see it again. Just thinking about accidentally glimpsing a few moments of the movie during its opressive 24 hour marathon causes me to shudder. TV killed "A Christmas Story" for me. These days, I'm more likely to watch Bob Clark's other holiday classic, "Black Christmas". Hell, I'm more likely to watch the ill-conceived 2006 remake of "Black Christmas". GOTUS knows I would enjoy it more.

My "holiday essentials" boil down to four movies: "Scrooged", "Santa Claus: The Movie", "It's A Wonderful Life", and "Silent Night, Deadly Night". I'll pull these four DVDs from my collection every year, and I'll watch them at my leisure over the Christmas holiday. Each of these films captures a different aspect of what the season means to me. As far as I'm concerned, they're all essential.

"Santa Claus: The Movie" represents my childhood, plain and simple. I watched this damned movie a lot during my formative years. The first half of the movie is a colorful, charming Christmas fable, detailing the "true" origin of everybody's favorite home invader. The second half, which loses most viewers over the age of 7, drops up waist-deep in the vapid decade of "me" (hello, 1980's!), where the increasingly consumer-driven culture has minimized the need for a benevolent gift giver like Santa Claus.

Enter John Lithgow's "B.Z.", the sadistic owner of the world's most irresponsible toy manufacturing company. Do you remember those hilarious Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Dan Aykroyd as the maker of such toys as "Teddy Chainsaw Bear" and "Bag O' Broken Glass"? That's who B.Z. is. We're introduced to him at a Senate subcommitte hearing, where his latest hit toys are being revealed to the horrified masses as terrifying instruments of death.

An aide retrieves an innocuous-looking teddy bear, twists its head off, and pours out the contents of its hollow, huggable body onto a table. It's literally filled with rusty nails and shards of broken glass. Why? Apparently B.Z. hates children so much that he's made it his life's mission to destroy them through his cute, deadly toys. There is absolutely no reason why any corporation would ever fill their mass-marketed teddy bears with rusty nails and broken glass. Unless they deliberately wanted to cause harm to children.

Gosh, that's creepy. And hilarious. With "Santa Claus: The Movie", I come for the delightful first half, but I stay for John Lithgow. His over-the-top, gleefully cruel, borderline insane villain is the real reason why I watch this fucking movie year after year. He's the guy who drinks cheap beer out of a brandy snifter because he believes that it's "classy". He's the guy who openly plots to overthrow Santa Claus as the King of Christmas because the jolly old elf never brought him any presents when he was a child. He's the guy who would kill a hapless little hobo child because he knows too much.

He also invented "Christmas 2!!!!!!!!"

Richard Donner's "Scrooged" is just great. All of the early television promos work like gangbusters. "The Night The Reindeer Died" is hilarious. Robert Goulet drifting on the bayou, singing "Silver Bells" whilst being chased by a hungry alligator is an image I'll never be able to forget. And the amazingly innappropriate "Scrooge" promo featuring ecploding airplanes, extreme road rage, and drug abuse is classic.

But Bill Murray is the reason why this movie works. His portrayal of cold-hearted television executive Frank Cross is laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly touching, and at times heartbreaking. His performance has me laughing uproariously one moment, then fighting back tears the next. And the result of his Christmas Eve transformation, crashing the "Scrooge" broadcast and seemingly having a nervous breakdown on live television, is an amazingly inventive way to subvert the Charles Dickens tale.

I don't see why I even need to justify "Silent Night, Deadly Night". It should be required Christmas viewing for everybody. TBS needs to have a "24 Hours Of Silent Night, Deadly Night" marathon. Fuck that, Showtime needs to do this. This shit needs to be uncut.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night" is the story of young Billy Chapman. On Christmas Eve, Billy and his little brother Ricky accompany their parents to see their grandpappy at the old folks home. As soon as Billy is left alone with seemingly catatonic old man, gramps springs to life, rambling semi-coherently about how Santa Claus is the baddest motherfucker on the block, and if you're naughty, he'll gut you like a fish and festoon his festive fireplace with your entrails. Man, old people are weird.

Coincidentally, Billy's family is confronted by a shady dude dressed as Santa Claus on their way home from the retirement community. Dad pulls over to see if this stranded Santa needs assistance, and he's quickly shot in the face for his trouble. Billy grabs baby Ricky and hides out in the woods while his poor mother is raped and murdered by this counterfeit Saint Nick.

So... yeah. I can't see how this terrifyingly traumatic experience could ever come back to haunt Billy as he grows up at an orphanage operated by the angriest nun in existence. "Silent Night, Deadly Night" has everything: creepy dudes dressed up as Santa Claus, raping and killing folks with impunity, douchebags getting their heads lopped off as they go sledding, Linnea Quigley taking her top off then getting impaled on a mounted deer head in her parents' rumpus room, drunken toy store owners forcing clearly disturbed young men with a pathological fear of Santa Claus to dress up as the thing they most fear, and of course, Britt Leach.

When it was released in 1984, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" was almost universally condemned by critics who thought of it as nothing more than an irresponsible slasher film using the iconography of the Christmas season for added shock value. Sure, one could view the movie as such, if they were so inclined. But I think those charges are off base. Underneath the surface, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" tells the story of a mentally disturbed young man who was never given the proper tools or guidance to deal with the trauma that shaped his life.

During his formative years at the orphanage, the cruel Mother Superior's idea of therapy is routine physical abuse coupled with the attitude that poor Billy will simply grow out of his psychosis. She has no idea how to truly help this child, and no desire to even try. The vivid memories of a disturbing caricature of "Santa Claus" destroying his happy family, compounded by Mother Superior's belief that any healthy behavior in which your average horny teenagers engage is inherently evil and therefore worthy of severe punishment puts Billy on an irreversibly destructive path that will only end in a night of bloody, puritanical mayhem. Billy Chapman is a tragic, even sympathetic character in the film, which is a breath of fresh air when compared to the standard mysterious (boring) killers that populate most slasher cinema.

Yes, boys and girls, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is a classic.

As for "It's A Wonderful Life"... if you still haven't seen this movie, or if you just don't like it, then you can go right ahead and fuck yourself. It's a masterpiece. The life of George Bailey, chronicled by the celestial Joseph for the benefit of Angel Second-Class Clarence Odbody is one of the most touching, heartbreaking things I have ever seen in a film. And George's eventual realization that his life is truly blessed is one of the most uplifting endings in cinematic history. I will adore this movie until the day I die.

And because I can't think of any kind of transition, I bring you, Dear Imaginary Reader, the latest installment of The Podcast Of Lies!! In this episode, entitled "The Metropolis Podcast", I sit down with my ever-present cousin Ky and discuss Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece "Metropolis", Alec Baldwin's anger issues, and robot love. Consider it my Christmas gift to you.

P.S. - "Faster" review coming soon. I am nothing if not timely.

What Is All This Shit About Angels?!

2010-12-15T15:39:00.000-06:00

"Picture your grandmother in Hell. Baking pies without an oven."

George Carlin was, is, and will always be my favorite comedian.

The first time I can recall seeing Carlin was on TV around 1987. I was a young child, sitting with my parents in the living room, watching a video tape featuring this long-haired hippie saunter around a large stage, talking about grocery store etiquette. My parents were having a blast. I admit I was too young to really understand anything more intellectually stimulating than "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", but I still liked looking at this lanky, bearded guy on TV. It was odd, but I was almost comforted by his presence.

But a little later, when Carlin began his bit about kids, I got it. Everything he was saying had happened to me. I was that little boy, pointing out the locations of the electrical outlets around Christmas. My big brother had crushed my little plastic chair a few months earlier. Some absent-minded adult accidentally brushed their lit cigarette against my arm at a party. That damned cookie jar was always tantalizingly out of reach. And some family members felt the inexplicable desire to toss me into the air, just for fun.

I was a giggling mess on the carpet. By that time, my mom and dad were getting more entertainment out of their chubby little son rolling around on the floor than Mr. Carlin's act. By the time his infamous "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" routine began, I was hooked for life. From that point on, he was my "Uncle George".

As I grew up, George Carlin was always around. Every few years a brand-new special would air on HBO, and I always tuned in. And as I continued my development from starry-eyed little boy to jaded, misanthropic adult, Carlin's comedy changed right along with me. His earlier stuff was a little ribald, but relatively innocent.

There was very little real vitriol to his material until his 1990 special "Doin' It Again", which spends a lot of time railing against the first Bush administration for the seemingly pointless "Operation Desert Storm". But the sequence that closes the special, dealing with the degeneration and softening of the english language via the plague we call "the euphemism" contained most of his scorn.

Then came "Jammin' In New York", the special that Carlin himself saw as an evolution in his stand-up career. There is a slight overlap in material involving his material on "Operation Desert Storm", only here it's more refined. It's got sharper teeth. But the real sucker punch is in the final act of the special, where he shares his views on entertainment, saving the planet, and the collapse of Western civilization.

In 1996, George Carlin returned to HBO with "Back In Town", which is almost entirely comprised of his increasingly pessimistic views on the human race. This may be my favorite of his stand-up specials. My favorite moments include his own take on "the sanctity of life"...

...and his reasons why he chooses not to vote.

In 2005, Carlin's 12th special (not counting 40 Years Of Comedy), "Life Is Worth Losing" premiered. It contains some of his darkest material, including my personal favorite, "The Suicide Guy":

And from 2008, his final stand-up special, "It's Bad For Ya!" ends with a routine about the illusion of "human rights":

Practically all my life, "Uncle George" was there on TV, stopping by for an hour or so every few years to make me laugh and make me think. As I got older, his comedy developed right alongside my own personal tastes. As I grew more pessimistic about my own species, so did he. He was always around to point out the bizarre and disturbing aspects of our culture that would sometimes slip past me. He was always around to illustrate the hypocrisy of big business, politics, and religion.

Sure, he was preaching to the choir in my case, but George Carlin could better articulate the same thoughts and frustrations that I had. He was a damned poet. I was fortunate enough to see him perform live several years ago. He did not disappoint.

In 2008, I lost an aunt in February. Then I lost an uncle in April. Then I lost George Carlin in June. I'm not one of those people who gets all choked up when a celebrity dies. I never knew these people personally, and I had no serious connection to them. But two celebrity deaths in my life hit me hard. "Saturday Night Live" alum Phil Hartman in 1998, and George Carlin ten years later. Now Phil Hartman's a man I'll probably talk about at a later date on this blog, but today it's all about Mr. Carlin.

My point is that George Carlin had been such an integral part of my early life, and that his comedy remained relevant to my life until his death, when he finally did shuffle off this mortal coil I felt like I'd lost another member of my family on June 22, 2008.

I'd like to end this little tribute to my favorite comedian with a short passage from his posthumous autobiography, "Last Words". If you've never read this book, you really need to. It's fascinating, hilarious, and at times heartbreaking. I still laugh out loud when I think of George Carlin, high on cocaine, thinking the sun had just exploded and that he had eight minutes to say goodbye to his family before the solar shockwave obliterated the planet.

This passage perhaps justifies my reasons for doing this at the cusp of Winter, instead of waiting for the anniversary of his death. The first time I read this piece, I got a little misty-eyed. And I still do.

From Chapter 3: Curious George

"I stayed a night recently in New York and I didn't know it had snowed, so when I opened the drapes I was immediately back in that wonderful childhood world of waking up with snow. All those little things you noticed as a kid: the way the mortar that sticks out between the bricks picks up a little snow on each level. Those weird porcelain insulators screwed into the window frame that the people before you left behind: they have little piles of snow on them. The clotheslines strung between the buildings on every floor have a fine line of snow all the way across. And suddenly, for no reason, a little bit falls off.

There's one other thing with snow. Even when you're fifteen or sixteen and you just want to get laid and snowballs no longer hold the slightest interest for you - or even for that matter if you're never going to see sixty again - when it snows you've always got to make one snowball. Only one, but you gotta.

Just to see if it's good packing."

Where's The Rest Of Me?

2010-12-11T07:54:00.000-06:00

In The Beginning... - A Requiem For Rik Mayall

So that new "Harry Potter" flick... it was... something, right?

In the matter of full disclosure, I freely admit here that I am, in fact, a "Harry Potter" fan. I've read all of the books, and I've kept current with the films. I don't think they're high art, or anything. But the series (books & movies) is certainly above-average fare. The book series is well-written, and actually matures with its growing readership.

As the Boy Who Lived and his black magic pals grow up on the page, the young muggle boys and gilrs who read their exploits grow up right along with them. The series manages to capture the essence of growing up and facing the reponsibilities of the world that wait for the reader, wrapped up in a big, fanciful bow of good old-fashioned sorcery. That's endearing.

The film series does the same thing, only in the films the viewers actually get to watch young Harry and his BFFs mature before their eyes. The visual aspect of this phenomenon interests me. Being a jaded teenager when the first book was published, I missed out on that particular aspect of it all. But the fact that this family-friendly saga managed to ensnare me in my "fuck the world, I'm gonna sit in my basement and listen to 'The Misfits' " phase certainly says something about the wide appeal of the franchise.

Anyway, as a "Harry Potter and the..." fan, I've enjoyed watching the startlingly inept boy wizard's adventures on the silver screen. It was a rough start, to be sure, with the firmly middle-of-the-road director Chris Columbus' inaugural entries in the franchise. Don't get me wrong; the first two films are hardly bad cinema. They're just not terribly inspiring. I saw the films, and I enjoyed them, to a certain degree. But they didn't really stick with me.

In fact, I daresay that the only reason why I enjoyed them as much as I did was because I was so familiar with the source material that my mind automatically filled in all of the gaps left in the lackluster adaptation.

Needless to say, as soon as Chris Columbus walked away from the franchise (as a director), the quality of the subsequent films improved. Dramatically. Bringing on Alfonso Cuaron to direct "...and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was a cool choice. And although that film bafflingly excised several matters from the book that I thought were rather important (the origin of the Marauder's Map? Anybody?), it was clearly a step in the right direction.

Then Warner Bros. got Mike Newell to direct "...and the Goblet of Fire". The man who directed "Donnie Brasco"? Working on a "Harry Potter" flick? Fine by me. The end product certainly has its flaws. I mean, adapting a novel the size of a fucking phone book into a 2 hour+ film is certainly a challenge. But the movie is good. Really good.

After Newell departed to follow his dream of casting a bunch of white people in a film about ancient Persia, the studio reached out to David Yates to take over the directorial reins of the megablockbuster film franchise. Now when Mr. Yates was announced as the director for "...and the Order of the Phoenix", most people answered this news with a resounding shrug. Not me. For I recognized David Yates as the director of the astounding "State Of Play". Not the inferior 2009 movie. No, I'm talking about the superior 2003 BBC mini-series.

What was that? You've never seen this mini-series? You, Dear Imaginary Reader, should be ashamed of yourself. You owe it to yourself to watch "State Of Play". The min-series, not the film. Although the film is good, too. But I'll take John Simm over Russell Crowe any day of the week.

My point is, I thought throwing David Yates into the Potter-verse was an inspired idea. His pedigree left me assured that he would be able to give the "heavier" moments in the final chapters the depth and weight that they required, without sacrificing the "breathing room" sequences of levity that are necessary in such a story (he also directed an adaptation of "The Young Visiters". I can't help but notice your blank stare. Just Google it).

And my faith in Mr. Yates was rewarded. You see, I'm one of those people who believes the film versions of "...and the Order of the Phoenix" and "...and the Half-Blood Prince" are the best films in the series. Needless to say, when Yates decided to come back to direct the adaptation of "...and the Deathly Hallows", I wasn't worried. Until Warner Bros. announced that they were going to chop the manuscript in half and make two movies out of it.

You know... to give the story the respect it deserved.

But hey, two more "Harry Potter" movies from David Yates is better than one! Right?

But What About Dobby?! - Adventures In Camping

So Dumbledore's dead. The world's falling apart. Evil wizards are killing muggles. Voldemort's still wondering where his fucking nose went. Basically, the situation looks grim. Brave young wizard Harry Potter and his pals have quite the quest ahead of them, a search-and-destroy mission involving the remaining horcruxes that contain bits of Voldemort's shattered soul, in a hail Mary effort to rid the world of the serpentine son of a bitch once and for all.

Our heroes are visited by Minister of Magc Rufus Scrimgeour (Bill Nighy! Hooray!), who gives them some important items bequeathed to them in Dumbledore's will. Except for the Sword of Gryffindor, because apparently Dumbledore in his old age forgot that the fabled blade didn't belong to him, but to Hogwarts. And it's missing.

Mad-Eye Moody shows up (Brendan Gleeson! Hooray!), sets up a great big convoy of Harry Potter clones on broomsticks to evade the Death Eaters en route to sanctuary at the Weasley house. Mad-Eye dies off-screen (Boo!) and Harry's beloved owl Hedwig takes the loss to defend her owner (...*shrug*). At the Weasley house, we're introduced to elder brother Bill (in the books, we meet him in "the Prisoner of Azkaban"), and he is immediately married to Fleur Delacour (*shrug*).

During the reception, the partygoers are informed that Minister Scrimgeour is dead (Boo!) and the Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry of Magic. Then some Death Eaters show up to crash the party. Harry, Hermione and Ron disapparate and some stuff happens. There's a wizard fight in a diner, Harry talks to the Black family's surly house elf Kreecher, the gang finds out that a locket/horcrux once owned by Regulus Black is now in the hands of one Delores Umbridge. You remember that cold-hearted bitch, right?

Our wizard heroes break into the Voldemort-friendly Ministry of Magic, get into some wacky misadventures, steal the horcrux, and get out while the getting's good. Unable to destroy the horcrux outright, they decide to travel through England's beautiful Forest Of Dean for a while, until they're able to figure out a way to crack this evil clam open and destroy the meaty soul-chunk within.

They take turns wearing the One Locket To Rule Them All around their necks, attempting to keep its evil influence from corrupting them. Too bad Ron didn't get the memo, as he is overcome with jealousy (he wants to bone Hermione) and fucks off to parts unkown. But then he comes back, because who else was going to save Harry from drowning in a frozen pond whilst trying to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor?

Certainly not Harry himself, considering he didn't have the foresight to remove the absolutely evil One Locket from around his neck before he jumps into the frigid water. Sure, he takes off his clothes before diving in, because he watches a lot of "Man Vs. Wild". But I guess Bear Grylls didn't cover objects corrupted by pure evil in his "documentary series".

Our heroes visit Xenophilius Lovegood (Rhys Ifans! Hooray!), and he betrays them to the Death Eaters because they're holding his daughter Luna hostage. Before he does that, Exposition Lovegood tells Harry, Etc. about "the Deathly Hallows", three legendary objects that hold incredible power (the Cloak of Invisibility, the Sorcerer's Stone, and the Elder Wand). The tale of the Deathly Hallows is relayed to the audience in the form of a delightful animated sequence, the highlight of the film.

Anyway, Harry and the gang are carted off the the House of Malfoy, where they meet up with Luna, Olivander (John Hurt! Hooray!) and a goblin (Warwick Davis! Hooray!) in the Malfoy rape dungeon. Before the Death Eaters have the chance to seriously fuck up Harry's day, everyone's favorite house elf Dobby shows up and teaches every other heroic character in the "Harry Potter" series how it's really done.

Seriously, the little man's a badass. Why couldn't the series be called "Dobby the Destroyer and the..."? Dobby decides it's time to pull a "Delta Force" and disapparate the hostages to safety. It's what Chuck Norris would have done. Unfortunately, Voldemort's favorite bag of crazy Bellatrix Lestrange manages to nail poor Dobby with a well-timed dagger throw as the crew disapparates.

Now safely out of harm's way, kind-hearted Dobby has served his purpose in the story, and now it's time for him to die. He cacks it on a picturesque beach, and the audience cries along with Harry Potter and his crew. Harry insists that they bury Dobby "the ye olde way" (without magic) and our heroes are left on that beach to wait for Part 2's release next Summer.

Meanwhile, Snake Face breaks into Dumbledore's tomb and finds the Elder Wand in the dead wizard's possession. Voldemort literally takes the Elder Wand (which looks suspiciously like a dildo) from Dumbledore's cold, dead hands. He then proceeds to raise the Elder Phallus into the night air, erupting into a Black Magic orgasm as the film smash-cuts to black. Roll credits.

I didn't really enjoy "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1". Of course, I also didn't have such a great time reading the first half of J.K. Rowling's book, either. The story just spent far too much time spinning its wheels with the epic "camping sequence". I had vainly hoped that the film would remove most of the camping bullshit, just to keep the narrative rolling along. I knew when the story was split into two films that my wish was not to be.

Sure, there were some things to like about the film. The sequence involving Harry, Ron and Hermione sneaking into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve the One Locket was a highlight, as was the startling climax at the Malfoy mansion. But overall, I was just bored. In fact, the delicious "butterbeer" that I enjoyed during the film (one of my local theatre's themed mixed-drink concoctions) was better than the actual movie.

The biggest problem with the film is that's it's not complete. It's literally half of a movie. The narrative reaches a certain point where it just stops. The "Lord Of The Rings" films didn't end so abruptly.

Despite my misgivings with Part 1, when Part 2 opens next Summer, I'll find myself excited to see the action-packed conclusion to the "Harry Potter" saga. Because the second half of the novel was a blast. And at least the boring part is out of the way.

The Sleeper Has Awakened! - When You Feel Like A Pervert

One of the most appealing aspects of the "Harry Potter" film series is the cast. The films are populated with a virtual "who's who" of British cinema, and they all treat the material with respect. I've yet to see a haughty actor phone-in their performance. More intriguingly, the principal cast of characters has remained consistent from film to film. No major leading or supporting role has been recast, aside from Dumbledore, of course. But that wasn't his fault.

It's been surreal watching our three leading actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (Harry, Hermione & Ron) grow up on screen with their characters. We, the audience, have seen these three young, inexperienced child actors mature into capable, talented young adults. This was the smartest decision Chris Columbus made when he directed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". He hired these three kids to portray the central roles of one of the biggest theatrical franchises the world has ever seen.

The formative years of their lives have been captured on film. When these actors are grandparents, they can watch the films with their families as home movies of a sort. A walk down memory lane. It's a fascinating thing.

It's also a rather uncomfortable thing, if you look at it a certain way. For the audience, I mean. As I've said, these actors are adults, now. They've gone through puberty. We can assume they're having sex. Hell, an episode of the brilliant Ricky Gervais / Stephen Merchant series "Extras" centered around this very topic, with a horny Daniell Radcliffe stalking a film set with a condom burning a hole in his pocket, eager to get laid.

It was funny, but it also raises a question, at least to me: is it okay to find these now-adult actors sexually attractive?

If you surf the web long enough (12 seconds), you'll surely find multitudes of message board posts commenting on "how hot" Emma Watson is, or how Daniel Radcliffe "looks dreamy" (sorry Rupert "Thunderpants" Grint!). Civilized society says that these actors are of legal age, so it's okay to find them attractive. But think about it. Millions of people have seen the "Harry Potter" films. These actors will forever be tied to their signature characters. And they first appeared in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as children.

Sure, Emma Watson is an attractive woman now...

...But she used to be a cute kid.

That's how we were introduced to her. For every guy who looks at a photo of Miss Watson at the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" and thinks I'd hit that, they have to reconcile that image with their memories of the same actress as a ten year-old child. Doesn't that make them feel a little like a pedophile?

Let's look at Shirley Temple, as an example.

She was the first child star, becoming a bonafide icon in 1934's "Stand Up And Cheer!" at the age of 5. Within two years, she was one of the most recognized people in the world. Everyone knew Shirley Temple. She retired from the business in 1950, on the day she married Charles Alden Black, a man nine years her senior.
Now obviously Mr. Black was aware of Shirley Temple before he met her in the flesh. He was probably in a similar situation to many of the young men who now hold lust in their hearts for Emma Watson. Black had certainly seen at least several of her films, featuring Temple as a precocious, singing and dancing little moppet. And yet, one day he met Shirley Temple and thought to himself, I'd hit that. And he did. They had two kids.

I'm just wondering how he could get it up if Temple's stirring rendition of "The Good Ship Lollipop" kept creeping into his mind, unbidden. How far back in her filmography did Black's lovely wife become persona non grata?

Now I know that everybody started out as a child, and despite that knowledge,we've still managed to fuck our way into a worldwide population of 6 billion+ without feeling like a species of hapless pedophiles in the clutches of Chris Hansen. But for most of us, aside from a few pictures in an old photo album or the occassional home movie, we have little evidence to remind us that the people we choose to love were once delightful little children.

All I know is that like most heterosexual males in my demographic, I've looked at pictures of Emma Watson at the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and absent-mindedly thought I'd hit that. But then I think about it for a few seconds, and I start to feel a little creeped-out. Then I watch "Extras" and see Daniel Radcliffe fling a condom at Diana Rigg's head, and I laugh.

I'm easily distracted.

P.S. - I'll be back to talk about "Faster" in a few days. You've been warned.

Why Does This Bourbon Taste So Good?!

2010-12-09T03:30:00.001-06:00

I celebrated my 28th birthday last night. Well, I say "celebrated", but all I really did was venture out into the chilled night air to the local movie house to see a movie. That's my tradition. If something great opens around my birthday ("The Mist" & "No Country For Old Men"), that's fantastic. If something terrible opens ("Dungeons &Dragons", "Vertical Limit"), it doesn't matter. I'm still going to spend at least a few hours in a darkened auditorium, watching some damned thing.

This year, I had hoped that Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" would open in my neck of the woods. Alas, the film is not scheduled to open 'round these parts until Christmas, when it will make a fine double feature with the Coen Bros' "True Grit". The only big release of the last week in Wichita was "The Warrior's Way", a bizarre, uninspiring-looking "cowboys vs. ninjas" story featuring Geoffrey Rush of all people as... well, according to the unceasing onslaught of "Ninjas. Damn!" commercials that assaulted me for the past two weeks, some dude with a tumor in his everywhere.

I didn't really want to see "The Warrior's Way". This coming from a man who actually paid to see "Legion" is a little hard to swallow (kinda like those malignant tumors, eh, Geoffrey Rush? ...sorry). Instead, I opted for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's latest cinematic effort, the R-rated action thriller "Faster". I will ramble about this film, as well as the big "Harry Potter" half-movie soon. But not today...

To tide you over, Dear Imaginary Reader, I have given you the gift of the highly anticipated third installment of "The Podcast Of Lies"! This episode, entitled The Costilini Mandivore Podcast, features discussions on varied topics, including Costas Mandylor, "Sex Machine" himself, Mr. Tom Savini, Juggalos, Tila Tequila, and the rather sensitive subject of gimps.

And in this season of charity, we must not forget the gimps that live among us, marginalized by the hoi polloi, branded as outcasts by the politicians and the CEOs. We must open our hearts and our homes to the poor, downtrodden gimps, and show them that we are not the toe-eating, sewer-haunting monsters they believe us to be. We're all just people. Some of us happen to have extra fingernails (and nostrils), but that's a trivial, cosmetic thing.

What was I talking about? Oh right, the podcast. It lies beneath this text, for your listening pleasure. Although I am no fool, and realize that nobody will ever click the massive "play" button suspended below. And I don't blame them. You see, my cousin and I, we're so funny our infectious laughter has been known to kill people. This is a proven scientific fact.

So enjoy the podcast, you invisible sons of bitches, and wish me luck while I crack open this bottle of gin and continue "celebrating" my miserable birthday, watching re-runs of "Married... With Children" with my imaginary friend GOTUS.

By the way, you're welcome.

The Words Come Alive!

2010-11-16T01:27:00.000-06:00

Damn, I should have used that title for the "Saw 3D" post. Oh well.

Good news, everyone! A brand new "Podcast Of Lies" has arrived for your auditory pleasure! I recently sat down with my hip cousin Ky, and we rambled about Werner Herzog and various Charlie Sheen news items. And when I say "rambled", I mean we fucking rambled. This 22 minute podcast is trimmed down from nearly 2 hours. The cream rises to the top, as they say. I don't know how creamy this little audio file is, but I know one thing: this podcast will change your life. There. I said it. Listen to it below, or visit our podcast page here and tell us how our words make you feel. We're open-minded.

P.S. - I have nothing else to add.

November Makes Me Mad!

2010-11-14T06:50:00.000-06:00

Hey kids! Did you like "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles", but thought it was too schmaltzy? Maybe Steve Martin wasn't as douchey as he could have been? Maybe John Candy wasn't stupid enough? And fuck Thanksgiving! Our protagonist has to get home in time to witness the birth of his first born child! And who doesn't love "Two And A Half Men"?

Then you're in luck, my friend! Because "Due Date" is the movie for you!

The basic plot boils down to this: Robert Downey Jr. plays an asshole named Peter Highman who finds himself stranded in Atlanta. He's mistaken for a fucking terrorist by some nerve-wracked Air Marshall, and shot with a rubber bullet, due in no small part to the aforementioned idiot pothead. Removed from the plane and placed on the infamous no-fly list, Downey needs to get back home to Los Angeles to be with his very pregnant wife before her scheduled Cesarian section in a scant few days.

In dire straits, Highman comes across the idiot pothead named Ethan Tremblay, played by Zach Galifianakis, who has decided to drive to LA in a rental car with his late father's remains stashed in a coffee can, to achieve his dream of movie stardom. Highman, without his wallet, reluctantly agrees to Ethan's offer to drive to La La Land together. Hilarity, it ensues.

If anybody is going to see this movie expecting a "laugh riot" comedy on the level of director Todd Phillips' previous movie "The Hangover", you are going to be disappointed. And if you're expecting Zach Galifianakis to portray a loveable weirdo in "Due Date", like his Alan Garner in "The Hangover", you'll be severely disappointed.

His character in "Due Date", Ethan Tremblay, is one of of the most recklessly stupid characters I have ever seen in a motion picture. Aggressively stupid. Amazingly stupid. Annoyingly stupid. And many other adjectives that begin with the letter A. I found Zach Galifianakis to be unbearable in this movie. And I'm a fucking Galifianakis fan.

I love his stand-up. I love his "Tim & Eric" character, Tairy Greene. I loved him in "The Hangover". But throughout "Due Date", I just wanted Robert Downey Jr. to shoot him in the back of the head, like Lennie in "Of Mice And Men". He needs to die before his disturbing stupidity gets somebody killed. By the film's third act, I was praying for Peter to tell Ethan about the rabbits again.

Now I will make my case for the mercy killing of Ethan Tremblay...

Exhibit A: Since Ethan's bag was confiscated at the airport, he has no marijuana. And Ethan needs his marijuana. So near the beginning of their shared road trip, Ethan stops by a local dealer's house to score some weed. This allows Todd Phillips to cast Juliette Lewis in a cameo role as the laid-back dealer, which is fine. I like Juliette Lewis, and she does a decent job in the role.

While Ethan and his new druggist friend are playing "Inside The Actor's Studio" in the kitchen, Peter is tasked with watching the dealer's kids. One of the kids is a little prick, and Peter slugs him in the gut, threatening him with further bodily harm if he dares to tell his mother of the assault. This is hilarious. But this is not the point of my story.

Here's the point: After the deal is done, Ethan and Peter hit the road again, stopping at a hotel for the night. Peter doesn't have any money, seeing as how his wallet is missing and all. Ethan's credit card is rejected, and he reveals to Peter that he doesn't have enough money to pay for a hotel room. You see, he spent over $200 on the marijuana he bought from Juliette Lewis, and only has $60 left. Because he's fucking stupid.

Peter suggests his wife wire them $500 bucks, but because he has no wallet (no I.D.), she'll have to wire the money to Ethan. Sounds good, except when they get to the local Western Union, wheelchair-bound Danny McBride informs them that he can't complete the transfer because the funds were sent for "Ethan Tremblay", and that is just the fucking stage name for Ethan Chase. You know, the name on the man's driver's license.

Long story short, Peter loses his cool and insults Danny McBride, McBride whips out a baton and beats the dogshit out of Peter, and they wind up sleeping at a rest stop. That morning, Peter ditches Ethan at the rest stop while he bathes in a sink, but has a change of heart and returns with coffee and donuts before Ethan can catch on. That alone strains credibility.

Exhibit B: He loves "Two And A Half Men". So much so, that he runs a "TAAHM" fansite. This alone proves my point.

Exhibit C: Ethan takes over driving duties while Peter catches some much-needed sleep. The poor man must be simply exhausted dealing with Ethan's shit. Of course, Ethan being a bloated sack of fuck-up, he can't be trusted to do anything right. He falls asleep whilst driving on the highway, veering into oncoming traffic. Peter wakes up and desperately tries to wake Ethan up, but Ethan sleeps like the dead. The rental car careens off a bridge, and a horrifying crash ensues.

Peter is all busted up, with a few cracked ribs and a shattered arm. Ethan, being asleep at the time, flopped around the car interior like buttered noodles, and is unharmed. Dangerously stupid.

Leaving the hospital, Peter calls his old pal Darryl (Jamie Foxx), and he comes to the rescue. At Darryl's home, he makes some coffee for Peter and his squishy golem Ethan. They all taste the coffee, and it's revealed that Darryl made the coffee from the contents of Ethan's coffee can. Much panic, spitting, and gagging ensues.

Ethan retrieves his father's ashes from the coffee maker, but because he's stupid, he spills the ashes all over Darryl's immaculate kitchen floor. Here, we are given a weirdly poignant moment, with Ethan on his knees, frantically trying to collect the ashes, before finally breaking down. Peter, being a real human being and not a disturbing caricature of mental impairment, comforts the man-child. This changes nothing.

Exhibit D: After Ethan springs Peter from the Mexican Border Patrol (don't ask), they stop by the Grand Canyon to spread the remains of Ethan's father. Now is the perfect time for a heartfelt confession, so Ethan reveals that he's had Peter's wallet the entire time. He kept it a secret, because he didn't want to go to Hollywood alone. Awwwwwwww!!!

Being a reasonable human being pushed to brink of madness by this nightmare made flesh, Peter snaps, trying to kill Ethan. I was hoping this movie would take a seriously dark turn, and Peter would succeed, tossing Ethan's lifeless corpse off the cliff to join his father, returning to Los Angeles and his pregnant wife with a clear conscience.

Alas, this did not occur, because Pete's wifey gives him a call, informing him that her water just broke. The fat man gets a reprieve, as they jump into their Mexican Border Patrol truck, en route to L.A.

Exhibit E: Ethan finds a handgun in the Patrol truck's glove compartment. Being dumber than "Models Inc.", he accidentally fires the gun in the truck, shooting Peter in the leg. This man is too stupid to live.

In the end, Peter gets to the hospital before he bleeds to death, and witnesses the birth of his baby daughter, Rosie Highman (do you get it? Of course you do, you have a brain), and Ethan excuses himself to meet with a talent director. The film ends with Peter and his wife in bed, watching Ethan's small-screen debut as a guest star on "Two And A Half Men".

That's "Due Date". It's not a very good movie. And it's mostly due to Zach Galifianakis. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but by the time the credits rolled, I couldn't bring myself to like Ethan Tremblay. I hated him. The atrocious dialogue he delivers doesn't sell the idea that Ethan is a naive dullard; he comes off as a mentally disabled sociopath.

Actually, that description does a disservice to the mentally handicapped. I've spent some time with the developmentally disabled, and I know that they make better choices than Ethan Tremblay. This is fucking Hollywood stupid. Any of the charm or likeability that Galifianakis displayed in "The Hangover" is nowhere to be seen. Ethan Tremblay is a reckless fool. I despised this character.

Robert Downey Jr is supposed to be a guy with some anger issues, but spending time with a subhuman like Ethan, his rage seems perfectly justified. This bearded homunculus is slowly driving Peter insane, and at the end of the movie, I'm supposed to believe that these two actually keep in touch?! They become friends? I just couldn't buy it.

There was no chemistry between these two people. I couldn't believe that these guys could ever become friends. Would Peter be foolish enough to let Ethan get anywhere near his infant daughter? As soon as she starts crying, he'll snap her damned neck because he doesn't know his own strength! The bottom line is that the central relationship in this film fails to connect. Therefore, the film fails.

There are some laughs in the film. But in the end, it wasn't worth my time. I'd like to say it's an ultimately forgettable, yet somewhat entertaining comedy, but the very presence of Ethan Tremblay means that I will sadly never forget this movie.

In Other News... "The Apple" Is Rotten

Have you ever seen 1980's "The Apple"? It's a sci-fi musical written and directed by Manahem Golan, the mad Israeli producer responsible for such classic films as "Delta Force", "Masters Of The Universe" and "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace".

The movie takes place in the far-flung future of 1995 (oooh, aaah!), and the United States is under the control of a sinister record producer named Mr. Boogalow. Yeah, a record producer is the tyrannical ruler of the U.S.A. Every citizen is required to wear a "Boogalow International Music" sticker at all times, and every day at 4 pm, productivity comes to a standstill as the population takes part in a mandatory "exercise hour". The entire world revolves around Boogalow's music.

Enter folk duo Alphie & Bibi, from some backwater town called Moosejaw. Boogalow sees great potential in Bibi, and convinces her to sign a contract with BIM. Alphie is shown visions of Hell on Earth, and declines to sign, sensing some bad mojo in the air. Bibi literally becomes a megastar overnight, singing one terrible rock song about America and amphetamines in front of a disinterested crowd, everybody drives around in the same "futuristic" station wagon, gets seduced by some prick who thinks he's Roger Daltrey, and dyes her hair purple.

Alphie tries to act, tries to sing, and fails at both, stares at things with his vacant, bulging eyes, tries to record a hit folk song, gets pounded by bald goons with tusks jutting proudly from the slavering jaws, tries to kill himself (I guess) and wanders into a park where he stumbles upon a hippie commune in a cave. He meets their leader, Barbarian Santa Claus (Joss Ackland), is annointed with patchouli oil, and joins their filthy order.

Eventually, Bibi looks around and realizes that Mr. Boogalow is the fucking Devil, and runs away. Barbarian Santa, shirtless and swarthy, guides Bibi to her loverboy Alphie in their reeking hippie hideaway. In the very next scene, Alphie is sporting a truly terrible fake beard, and Bibi is dressed like a stoned-out broad at a Phish concert, and they have a toddler. Mr. Boogalow, apparently stupid as well as evil, finally tracks Bibi down and an army of jackbooted stormtroopers descend upon the hippies.

Boogalow produces Bibi's contract, and demands that she return to her life of B-movie luxury as a hollow pop star in this brave new world, but Alphie assures her that some dude named "Mr. Topps" will shortly come and save the day. Bibi looks just as confused as I did when hearing this. I'm thinking this is some sort of Jonestown situation, and the kool-aid will soon be passed around to all the true believers.

Then a glowing car descends from the sky, and I think I'm hallucinating. Holy shit! Emilio Estevez is finally returning from his extra-dimensional vision quest at the end of "Repo Man"! But no, a sharp-dressed, well-coifed Joss Ackland descends from the heavens in his sparkly Caddy. Mr. Topps has arrived, ladies and gentlemen.

Topps shares words with Boogalow, telling his nemesis that he's taking the filthy hippies with him, to start over on a brand-new world, without Boogalow's evil influence. Then Mr. Topps leads the great unwashed into the sky, and the film ends. I realized as I watched the credits roll that I had just seen the fucking Rapture. De Nomolos lead the hippies to the Promised Land.

This movie is fucking insane. There is no real story to speak of. There's not nearly enough time spent on any of the characters to flesh them out in any meaningful way. The script is trash. The music is worthless. The performances are dreadful across the board. Nobody can sing to save their lives. The budget is too small to accurately portray the scope of the proceedings. And the direction is inept, at best.

And it ends with the fucking Rapture!

I found this movie at a video store that was going out of business for 3 dollars. I watched it, and I want my money back. I can't believe this movie got made. So if you, Dear Imaginary Reader, ever get the chance to view the minor cult classic "The Apple"...

...don't.

P.S. - A new podcast will rear its ugly head soon. You've been warned.

Game Over?!

2010-11-11T03:13:00.000-06:00

The final entry in the excrutiatingly-long franchise, "Saw 3D", was loosed from the loins of Lionsgate into megaplexes across the country on Halloween weekend. And what was I doing on Halloween? Well, because I have essentially no social life, I was at one of those megaplexes, watching "Saw 3D". And because my cousin Ky is a mysterious fellow, he decided to join me.

We watched the damned movie, and now we've recorded a podcast wherein we ramble semi-coherently about it. Here it is:

And because that's not nearly enough, and because we have a lot of free time on our hands, we decided to record an additional podcast wherein we attempt to discuss the "Saw" franchise, in general. Here it is:

I understand that in posting this so far removed from Halloween, it is essentially irrelevant. Who the hell wants to hear two strange dudes talking about any "Saw" movies after Halloween? But you see, that's not my problem. I'm just the guy who stands on his Internet Soapbox, shouting into the void. It's a lonely existence, but I'm used to it.

P.S. - "Due Date" review forthcoming.

If A Jackass Falls In The Forest...

2010-11-07T01:12:00.000-06:00

I recently sat down at the local movie house with my pal Ky, and we saw a little film called "Jackass 3D". A few weeks later, we recorded a podcast about "Jackass 3D". Coincidence?

This short and sweet "review" is directly below. If you would like to visit our movie review podcast page, you can click here.

I hope you, Dear Imaginary Reader, enjoy the podcast format, because very soon I will be unleashing not only a review of "Saw 3D: The Traps Come Alive And Fuck Everyone's Lives", but also a retrospective of sorts, covering the entire "Saw" franchise.

I'll also be rambling about "Due Date" some time in the near future, but that rant will be in glorious Retro Text!

END OF LINE.

Samhain Forever!!!

2010-10-31T06:02:00.001-05:00

This delightful blog now has its very own podcast! That's right, ladies and gentlemen! The Book Of Lies begat The Podcast Of Lies!

Our inaugural episode, entitled "The Horror Show", was recorded on October 28th, and it features myself (Dustin) and my dear cousin (Ky). We discuss all manner of Halloween-related ephemera, including our favorite horror movies, what scared us as children, and the television output of one Mr. Stephen King.

There's no structure to the whole endeavor. It's really just a couple of dudes hanging out late at night, shooting the shit. We laugh, we cry, we talk about "Ravenous". You can give it a listen below, or visit our podcast page here.

Have a happy Halloween, Dear Imaginary Reader!

P.S. - There will be a review of "Jackass 3D" in some form in the very near future, as well as a discussion about the "Saw" franchise. Yes, I am seeing "Saw 3D: The Traps Come Alive" today. And I did watch the previous 6 (!?) entries in the series over the last several days. I'm still not sure why.

John Malkovich is Hunter S. Thompson in "RED"

2010-10-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

"RED" is an acronym for "Retired Extremely Dangerous". It's also a movie starring Bruce Willis, and directed by Robert Schwentke, the German dude who directed the dismal Jodie Foster thriller "Flightplan". It's also a lot of fun.

Very loosely based on the Warren Ellis-scripted comic book mini-series, "RED" follows our hero, retired CIA operative Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), as he tries to adjust to life outside the agency. He putters around the house in his bathrobe. He works out vigorously. He decorates his lovely suburban home for the holidays. Mostly, he just looks depressed and directionless. Poor Frank is having a hard time living as a civilian.

In fact, Frank's only fleeting moments of happiness are the occassions when his pension checks arrive in the mail. Because then he gets to tear them up and call Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a pension office customer service representative in Kansas City. He tells her that his check got lost in the mail (again), but it's really just an excuse for him to have a conversation with the lady. Sarah reads trashy romance novels filled with passion, danger and intrigue. Frank reads them too, in order to have something to discuss with her. I guess this is sweet, but it's also a little creepy.

Late one evening, Frank's house is besieged by a gaggle of heavily armed assassins. The old man goes to toe-to-toe with several of them, dispatching the goons with impunity, before rigging the house to explode. A second group of bad guys unloads on the house, apparently using every bullet in the Western Hemisphere. The house blows up, and Frank makes his escape.

This sets up the main plot, involving Frank's trek across the United States, tracking down the members of his old team. Frank figures that if somebody is targeting him, then the rest of his crew must also be in jeopardy. So badass Frank's gonna get the band back together, figure out who's hunting them, then turn the tables on the unfortunate souls who dared to fuck with the once and future John McClane.

He also kidnaps Sarah, because, as a known associate of Frank, she is also a target. He tries to be a gentleman, but his social skills are a little rusty. Eventually, of course, Sarah realizes that Frank isn't a lunatic, but her knight in shining armour. Until then, hilarity ensues as he ties up his would-be girlfriend and drags her across the country, rambling about a black-ops hit squad hot on their tails. Ah, courtship.

We are introduced Frank's old pals Marvin (John Malkovich), Joe (Morgan Freeman), Victoria (Helen Mirren), and Ivan (Brian Cox), who all have their little quirks. Ivan, being an old school Russian, loves his Vodka (and his "one who got away"), Victoria enjoys the odd mercenary job in her spare time away from acting like Martha Stewart. Marvin's brain has been fried from repeated dosages of LSD, and sees conspiracies everywhere. And Joe has terminal cancer.

Our Social Security Expendables are out for justice, working to figure out who wants them dead. They're armed to the teeth, and they're very cranky. And they're being pursued by young hot-shot agent William Cooper (Karl Urban), a killer with a heart, as evidenced by the loving family waiting for him at home. Let's hope he manages to blow Frank's brains out quickly, so he can get back home in time to catch little Billy's soccer game!

There's a story here, but it doesn't matter. Some bullshit about an old operation in Guatemala back in 1981. Richard Dreyfuss wants everybody involved with the mission dead. He's in cahoots with the current Vice-President, who, as a greenhorn military man, lost his shit in Guatemala and massacred an entire village. Some reporter we never see found out about the cover-up, and was murdered before her story could go public. A list of potential sources found on her corpse included the names of Frank Moses and his old comrades. So now Richard Dreyfuss and his pal Post-Traumatic Bobby are using the CIA to clean up their mess.

This is all just an excuse to have Nelson Mandela dress up as a member of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and slap the shit out of Matt Hooper. And it's worth it.

I didn't give a damn about the story. It's just a skeleton that exists to support a patchwork monster of loud action sequences and funny banter. The movie's a blast, honestly.

Bruce Willis manages to have a little fun with his lead role, something I haven't seen from him since "The Whole Nine Yards" (yes, I enjoy that movie). As he tries to have an honest conversation with Sarah, who is tied to a hotel bed, his face takes on a very sincere, earnest quality as he explains their situation in a very calm, soothing voice. As this one-sided conversation slowly tranforms into some light flirting on Frank's part, the "creepy stalker" vibe returns. It's very funny. I'm glad Willis still has it in him to actually act from time to time.

Mary-Louise Parker is entertaining as Sarah, although she has little to do aside from filling the obligatory "damsel in distress" role. She really gets into things when she realizes that the situation she's in is eerily similar to the plotlines to those dreadful romance novels she obsessively reads. This allows the character to be a little proactive for a change, which is nice. Parker doesn't get enough leeway as she does on her Showtime series "Weeds", but this is a PG-13 film, and her Nancy Botwin sure does love to say the f-word.

Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren are the kind of actors who can entertain an audience in their sleep. Their roles in the film are not terribly large, which I found disappointing, but they do make the most of their limited screentime. A stupid plot contrivance forces Freeman's character off-screen for nearly half the film after an introduction early on, which was entirely unnecessary. And his stage four cancer ensures that he won't be back for a sequel.

Helen Mirren is fun playing a prim and proper lady of a certain age who loves spending time in the woods with a high-power sniper rifle, or firing a .50 caliber machine gun in a parking garage. Her relationship with Brian Cox's "Ivan" is charming. Ivan and Victoria were lovers once upon a time, but she was tasked with eliminating the then-KGB spy, and shot him three times in the chest. But she deliberately missed his heart, sparing his life. Ain't love grand?

Karl Urban does a fine job as the dogged Agent Cooper, who is much more than a one-dimensional antagonist. He's a company man just doing his job, thinking that Frank and his team are a clear and present danger to the United States. When the truth comes out, Cooper's moral integrity surprises his superiors.

But those guys (and gal) are small potatoes. This is the John Malkovich show. His "Marvin" is introduced relatively early, and becomes Frank's de facto partner. The way Malkovich portrays the character is inspired. Poor drug-addled Marvin is a bundle of nervous tics and conspiracy theories. He's the principal source of comic relief in the film, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Whether he's blowing up bad guys with a grenade launcher at an airport, chasing after the Vice-President with a bomb strapped to his waist and screaming like a loon, or simply standing in the background, clutching his stuffed pig, the man is a laugh riot. Malkovich's performance reminded me of Jason Patric in "The Losers". Not that the two performances were similar. No, Patric's villain was a Walken-esque brand of subdued lunacy. Malkovich is over-the-top, unhinged brilliance.

The similarity to me lies in their turns hosting "Saturday Night Live". Both were actors known for their dramatic work, and they both did an admirable job handling some truly bizarre comedy sketches. Their sojourns into big screen comedy are so rare, and yet they're both so good at comedy it boggles my mind that they're not hired more frequently for this work.

The last scene of "RED", where we see Frank pushing a dress-wearing Marvin in a wheelbarrow, clutching some stolen nuclear material, fleeing an armed militia in Moldova sent me out of the theatre with a smile on my face. I hope this movie makes good money, and we see an eventual sequel featuring this odd couple of over-the-hill ex-CIA operatives traveling the globe, getting into trouble.

Nice to see Ernest Borgnine again. If he's still alive, someone needs to give him a gun and set him loose in the sequel.

In the end, there's no real depth to be found here, but that's okay. "RED" is not striving for depth. It's not the next "Die Hard" or "Lethal Weapon". It's more like the next "Loose Cannons" or "Red Heat". And that's not a bad thing. Not every action movie is reaching for the stars.

"RED" isn't ever going to be called a "classic". It's the kind of movie you watch on cable and enjoy. You'll take away a few choice lines of dialogue, and you'll fondly remember some of the performances and action beats. You might recommend it to your friends, and they'll probably enjoy it, too. It's just a good time. Sometimes that's all you really want.

The Tale Of The Empty Auditorium...

2010-10-18T01:14:00.002-05:00

Click to Play

What the hell is this? Another video review? Yeah, I don't get it, either. Anyway, Wes Craven's back with a brand-new horror flick! In 3D! Cops, Kids, Crazy People and Condors populate the first script Craven has written since "New Nightmare". So is it any good? (Here's a hint: NO.) Watch this excrutiatingly long video review to find out!

A review of the latest John Malkovich Joint,"RED" will be posted eventually. In glorious "Retro-Text!"

Odd-Looking Men Talk About That Facebook Movie!

2010-10-17T14:51:00.002-05:00

Click to Play

A brand-new scattershot review from me and my pal Ky. David Fincher's latest opus is discussed. Poorly. Is "The Social Network" worth your valuable money? Judging by the box office results, you've already made your choice, and have no reason to watch this! But do it, anyway! Because you've got nothing better to do.

P.S. - This video was inspired by a lovely e-mail I received from a reader of this very blog. In this e-mail, a response to my "Resident Evil Afterlife 3D" semi-video review, the reader told me that I should just stick to written reviews becuse my voice is "a nightmare". This full video review of "The Social Network" is for you, Dear Reader. If you thought my voice was a nightmare, wait until you see my face!

Oliver Stone Hates His Own Career!

2010-10-14T04:53:00.001-05:00

So... "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"!

I'm a fan of Oliver Stone's original "Wall Street". The story grabbed me, and the worthwhile performances by Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Hal Holbrook and Terence Stamp were phenomenal. But I never really wanted a sequel to the film. I didn't think we really needed one. So when it was announced that 20th Century Fox was actually making a sequel over 20 year later, I just shrugged. I couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it.

So why the hell did I see the sequel? In short, because I was bored, and didn't have anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon. That's how shit like this happens.

So 1987's "Wall Street" ended with Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) going to the pokey. No, I guess it didn't. His protégé-turned-nemesis Bud Fox (Chuck Sheen) wore a wire and got Gordon to say some pretty incriminating things on tape, which he then turned over to the feds in exchange for leniency in his own impending securities fraud (and insider trading!) trial.

Bud was determined that if he was going to the big house, then dammit, his old pal Gordy was, too. And that's where we left everyone's favorite soulless, cigar-chomping douchebag for 23 years, until 20th Century Fox lured Oliver Stone back to direct the sequel.

You see, Stone hasn't had anything approaching a hit film since 1999's "Any Given Sunday", and some would argue that he hasn't made a "great" film since either "Natural Born Killers" in 1994, or "JFK" in 1991, depending on who you ask. And after the dismal failure that was "Alexander" (which I actually enjoyed), and the mediocre "World Trade Center", maybe Oliver Stone thought that making a sequel to his 1987 hit would suddenly be relevant in these tough economic times.

Or maybe he's just desperate. Who the hell knows?

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" opens way back in the year 2001, with Gordon Gekko's release from prison after an 8 year sentence. Considering the original film took place in 1987, that means Gekko stayed out of prison until 1993. Damn, the wheels of justice turn slowly, don't they?

A limo pulls up in front of the prison, and Gekko has the temerity to believe that the limo is for him. How cute. No, the sweet ride is actually for some other dude who got out of the slammer on the same day. So now poor Gordy is left alone in front of prison, with nobody coming to pick him up. Doesn't that just break your heart?

Cut to: 7 years later. Wait, what? Yes! The story just decides to skip over the story of Gordon Gekko trying to put his life back together outside of prison, and drops us in the delightful apartment shared by Jake and Winnie, two crazy kids just trying to make it work in a world gone mad. Jake is a trader for an investment firm called Keller Zabel, and Winnie does... I think she writes for a non-profit green tech website, or something. I don't really give a shit.

Jake's watching a story about Gordon Gekko on TV. Gekko got bored since we last saw him, and decided to write a book called "Is Greed Good?" And now he's all over the boob tube talking about his brilliant literary work. Jake watches the news story with the dumb grin of an obese child watching his doting mother pull a fresh apple pie out of the oven. I think I'm trying to say that Jake wants to suck Gordon's Gekko.

Winnie bursts in, snatches the remote, turns off the TV, and throws it across the room. The remote, not the TV. She doesn't like seeing Gekko on TV, because she hates her father. That's right, Shia LaBeouf is boning the offspring of Michael Douglas and Sean Young. Considering her genetic stock, the fact that she grew up to resemble a slightly deformed clone of Katie Holmes with a bowlcut is rather disappointing.

Gekko must have conceived this darling child before he went to jail, because in "Wall Street", he only had one kid, and that kid had a penis. For a while during this movie, I thought I was going insane, or perhaps the writers were idiots who forgot that Gordon Gekko only had a son in the first movie. Then I thought maybe "Winnie" was actually Rudy Gekko, who got a sex change later in life and changed his/her first name. But no, we're told that poor Rudy eventually became a junkie and overdosed on some heroin, or crack, or whatever, because his dad was a convict asshole and boo hoo hoo. That's why Winnie hates her old man, I suppose. Because I guess Gordon hooked his kid up with some of his high-end Manhattan dealers before he was sent away.

Keller Zabel shits the bed, because the entire economy is on the verge of collapse, and Frank Langella tries to negotiate a bailout. Josh Brolin steps in, gives Langella the finger, and presents a ludicously cheap counter-offer to buy-out the firm. Langella accepts, wanders around like a confused old man, then jumps in front of a subway train. Somewhere, Josh Brolin laughs maniacally.

You see, Brolin is the head of a rival firm that hit the skids several years earlier. When he came to Langella's firm, asking for a bailout, Langella told Brolin to shove his bailout up his ass, and go ask his new stepmother for the money. But Josh Brolin got pissed off and saved his own firm without Skeletor's help, and now he's on top of the world. So Brolin's really just paying it forward.

Jake is distraught, because Frank Langella was like a father to him, or some shit. Winnie gives him a big hug, and he feels better.

I will now recap the rest of the plot in one really long run-on sentence, because I am already sick of talking about this movie.

Jake meets Gordon Gekko, they become best pals, Josh Brolin offers Jake a job at his firm, Jake accepts because he wants to go deep undercover and fuck Brolin's shit up from the inside like a tapeworm, Gekko uses Jake to get closer to his estranged daughter, the economy dies of a broken heart, Jake and Brolin have a big bike race, the ghost of Skeletor pops up, Brolin does something to piss off Jake involving fusion technology, Jake quits, Gordon tells Jake that he set up a trust in his daughter's name in Switzerland worth 100 million dollars, and that he would give Jake that money to save his wacky scientist pal's fusion research company, Jake talks Winnie into getting the money from Switzerland, Gordon gets the money and fucks off with it to go play God with other people's money in England, Winnie being pregnant and angry, kicks Jake to the curb, and he flies over to the UK to have it out with Gordon, shows him an ultrasound video of his unborn grandson, but Gordon tells Jake to hit the bricks because he's an asshole, Jake does some digging back in NYC and finds some dirt on Brolin, giving it to Winnie so that she can publish it on the web and sink Brolin's career, she does and Brolin takes a fall, Eli Wallach's reanimated corpse shows up and whistles, Brolin's firm comes crawling back to Gordon Gekko, and they all take turns sucking his dick because he's awesome, Jake and Winnie get back together, Gordon swoops in with 100 million bucks and saves the wacky scientist's company, and the film ends with a big party and everybody's fucking happy.

God, I don't like this fucking movie. I tried, I really tried. But this shit just didn't work for me. Gordon Gekko is a supporting player in this movie, which focuses on the boring lives of Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan. Josh Brolin doesn't bring anything to the table as the moustache-twirling villain, and Frank Langella just looks like an old man struggling with dementia who got lost and wandered onto a film set. Michael Douglas is fine in the role (for the most part), but he simply doesn't have enough screen time.

And what's this bullshit about Josh Brolin being the real cause of Gordon Gekko's 8 years of incarceration? We all thought Bud Fox was the guy who screwed Gekko, but no, it was Josh Brolin, the guy we never even fucking met in the first film! He's the sleazy scumbag who sold out Gekko and got him sent to prison, not Bud Fox! That asshole's small potatoes. Fuck that.

This is a serious problem, in my opinion. Charlie Sheen actually shows up as Bud Fox for a cameo in the film, and it did nothing but remind me of a much better movie called "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" that exists in a parallel dimension. When Gordon comes across his old pal Bud at a party, we find out that Bud finally became the soulless, money-obsessed dick his father was always worried he would become, and that he actually sold off Bluestar Airlines, the company that Bud swam through a world of shit to save in the first film.

This scene should have been the seed of a better sequel. A film where Gordon Gekko gets out of prison and tries to start over. He finds out that Bud Fox managed to avoid jail time for his part in the events of the original film, and that he's essentially the new "Gordon Gekko" on the street. So Gekko sets his sights on taking down his old protégé and rebuilding his own empire in the process. He could try to reconcile with his estranged wife and son (no daughter) while he wrestles with the fact that while Bud Fox is a monster of sorts, he's a monster that Gekko himself essentially created. And yes, the story could still be set against the backdrop of the economic collapse of 2008.

You could even throw in Shia LaBeouf as an idealistic young trader who Gekko uses as his soldier in the field against his nemesis Bud Fox. Gekko could position himself as the man behind-the-scenes while LaBeouf is the public face, his weapon against Fox. That way the film could still tread on the familiar ground of corruption and the loss of innocence, and LaBeouf's character could actually have a real crisis of conscience in this film, instead of being such a fucking Dudley Do Right.

That's not what we got, however. No, the Oliver Stone of 1987 gave us a "Wall Street" with shades of grey, with characters that felt more like real people dealing with real human problems, and an ambiguous, darker ending where nobody gets away clean. The Oliver Stone of 2010 gave us a "Wall Street" with two dimensional caricatures, one-dimensional villains, and a big, sappy, wet fart of a conclusion.

I hate the Oliver Stone of 2010.

On a positive note, I did love the musical contributions from David Byrne and Brian Eno in the film. But I already owned their fantastic album, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today", so I guess this movie was completey worthless.

Reviews of "The Social Network" and "My Soul To Take in 3D" are coming soon, for the 12 people who actually read this damned blog. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drink some whiskey and watch "Sons Of Anarchy" on iTunes because Dish Network hates me.

Resident Evil: Afterbirth 3-D!!!

2010-10-02T00:28:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I saw the latest entry in Paul W.S. Anderson's venerable "Resident Evil" film franchise with my dear cousin Ky. Instead of sitting down and spending several hours writing out a review, I opted to try something a little different. So instead, I sat down with Ky, and we had a little conversation. This is a slightly edited version of that semi-coherent conversation, an A/V experiment, if you will. Enjoy it.

P.S. I later learned that Jill Valentine did pop up in a post-credits moment, under the influence of one of the aforementioned scarab-thingies. We did not stay for the credits, because we were all too eager to get the fuck out of the theatre, and away from this atrocity of a motion picture.

And He Used To be Such A Sweet Guy...

2010-10-01T22:44:00.001-05:00

"Machete" was a fake trailer for a movie that didn't exist. And now the fake film that the fake trailer advertised is real. A rare case of cinematic reverse-engineering. Isn't that weird?!

Robert Rodriguez shares directing credit with some dude named Ethan Maniquis, who has worked with Rodriguez as an editor since "Desperado". I wonder how much of the actual film Mr. Rodriguez actually shot, however. Perhaps the only reason he has a directing credit is because the feature film used essentially all of the footage from the original trailer. Alas, I'm not Facebook friends with Robert Rodriguez, and he continues to ignore my e-mails, so I don't have any answers.

So "Machete" tells the story of sweet Uncle Machete from the "Spy Kids" films, and how he, a Mexican federal agent with a family, lost everything and became an engine of vengeance-fueled destruction. He and a nervous parter are en route to rescue a kidnapped young woman from international drug lord and all-around badass Torrez, but are met with a hail of bullets from a gaggle of henchmen. The nervous partner does not survive this barrage. But of course, Machete does!

He whips out his signature blade, carves up a bunch of people, and finds a naked young woman inside of the safe house. He thinks he's saved the day, but is betrayed when the very naked victim stabs him! He was distracted by the nudity. So with Machete immobilized, she pulls a cell phone out of her vagina (complete with gratuitous squelching sounds) and calls her boss, who is conveniently waiting outside the safe house, and walks right in the instant she hangs up.

So if Torrez was outside the whole time, why did she bother calling him with the cell phone she smuggled inside of her vagina? Oh right, because it's an exploitation film. In retrospect, it's a completely useless moment in a narrative sense, but it got a big reaction from the audience, so it was all worth it.

Oddly enough, Steven Seagal got a bigger reaction from the audience when he walked into the safe house. I think people were just shocked when they realized that Seagal was in a theatrical motion picture. Jesus, he's bloated. I thought he might want to lose a few pounds before he had to shoot this role, but I guess Stephen Seagal told dieting to go fuck itself years ago.

So Seagal (as Torrez) spouts some dialogue in perhaps the worst spanish accent I have ever heard, and then he kills Machete's family. And then he kills Machete. No, he's not really dead. It would be a pretty fucking short movie if our star checked out during the prologue. He's only mostly dead. He gets better, and decides to travel to the USA to toil as a day laborer in Texas. Because what else is he going to do?

If you've seen the original trailer, then you basically know the plot. Machete is hired to kill a Senator, is betrayed by his employer, left for dead, and comes back for revenge. The feature film expands on with the events of the prologue, explaining how Machete, an ex-federale, found himself working as a day laborer/mercenary in the great state of Texas. This also means that we have two big bad guys instead of one.

Or not. You see, Torrez has his sausage fingers in many pies. He says in the prologue that he has members of law enforcement on both sides of the border in his pocket, being such a powerful man. He is also supporting Texas Senator McLaughlin's re-election bid, because his tough stance on immigration will keep the flow of narcotics across the border at a trickle. This will allow Torrez to continue selling his product at a premium.

That's why McLaughlin's henchman Booth (Jeff Fahey) orchestrated the bogus assassination attempt in the first place. When the story breaks that a crazed illegal immigrant tried to kill Senator McLaughlin, his re-election is essentially wrapped up. It's a win-win! Unfortunately for the bad guys, they did, in fact, fuck with the wrong Mexican.

It would be nice if that were the entire story. Nice and neat, right? That's not how it pans out. No, we wouldn't be satisfied with a simple, campy revenge story. We have to throw in a b-plot involving an Immigration & Customs Enforcement agent named Sartana (Jessica Alba), who is out to bust local taco truck vendor and Mexican Underground Railroad conductor Luz (Michelle Rodriguez).

I don't really want to sit here and type out the entire plot to "Machete". Instead, I am going to mention some things I liked about the movie, and some things I didn't like. It's easier, that way.

What Did I Like?

Jeff Fahey

I've liked Jeff Fahey for years. I remember watching a slew of movies on cable as a young lad starring the guy. There was "Parker Kane", "Body Parts", "The Sketch Artist", "The Lawnmower Man", "The Hist List", "The Sketch Artist 2", etc. None of these movies were what you would call "great", or even "good" in some cases. But Jeff Fahey was always good. He just seemed to have this natural charm that drew me in. Of course, I was a young and impressionable child, so I may have just been stupid. But I always liked the guy, and wished that he would break out in Hollywood. Bigger and better things, you know?

But that never really happened. Sure, he's been working steadily for over two decades, but he's hardly ever been in any films of merit. When he was cast in "Lost" a few years ago, I was reminded of two things: that Jeff Fahey was still alive, and that he still had that natural charm that I remembered from my youth.

Gosh, remember "The Lawnmower Man"? I loved that movie when I was a kid. I was the guy who actually saw the sequel in theatres, when it was subtitled "Beyond Cyberspace". I always wondered why they changed the title to "Jobe's War" when it was released on video. I mean, the new subtitle is technically more apt, but I still prefer "Beyond Cyberspace".

That's all inconsequential, because Jeff Fahey wasn't in the sequel. No, he was too smart to agree to star in that mess. Matt Frewer bit that bullet, the poor bastard. Fahey went full retard in "The Lawnmower Man". That was a brave thing. I think he just watched Lon Chaney, Jr. in "Of Mice And Men" over and over to get into character. He even wore the fucking denim overalls. Genius.

I remember finding a VHS copy of the director's cut of "The Lawnmower Man" at a used book store years ago. I was surprised at how much better this version of the film actually was. Over 30 minutes were added to the film, and these extra minutes manage to bring a lot of nuance into the narrative. I know that sounds insane, what I just typed. How the fuck could there be any nuance in a fucking movie like "The Lawnmower Man"? To be fair, the director's cut doesn't make the film a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly a better film.

I was always confused by the story of the escaped chimp in the theatrical version. The way it was all cut together, it comes across as a pointless dream sequence. But in the director's cut, we finally get the complete, tragic story of poor Rosco the military chimpanzee. Jobe mistakes Rosco for a comic book superhero named "Cyboman" (give him a break, he's retarded), and tries to hide the chimp from the military. This does not end well for Rosco, and he gets ventilated for his trouble.

It's very sad. After Jobe watches his favorite superhero ever get blasted to the great beyond by a bunch of armed assholes, he breaks down crying. And god dammit, Fahey really sells this shit!

Wait, I'm supposed to be talking about "Machete". So Jeff Fahey is in "Machete". He's great. Then he gets shot by Robert Deniro in a limosine when he realizes that his loyal henchmen orchestrated the fake assassination attempt to curry favor with the voters. That's not so great.

Tom Savini

Everyone's favorite make-up effects guru plays a hit man in the film. A hit man that Booth hires based on his amazing internet audition video. Seriously, that entire video had better be on the DVD. The tiny snippet included in the film is absolutely hilarious.

Savini rolls in with some of goons and descends on Cheech Marin, playing Machete's priest brother. Marin gets a couple of cool moments dispatching a few of the goons with his shotguns before Savini annihilates the reformed stoner's kneecap with an assault rifle. Booth shows up, and the two villains decide to crucify Cheech in the church.

Tom Savini crucifies Cheech Marin. That really happened. Stoner Christ.

After this delightful moment, Booth gets a text from Machete (even though Machete don't text), and realizes that he's coming for them. Savini mentions that Machete is coming for Booth, and not for him. And he decides to do the smartest thing anyone in this movie does, and gets the fuck out of town. Savini survives to crucify another day.

Steven Seagal

I can't believe that Steven Seagal is even in this movie. I thought theatrical motion pictures featuring Seagal were outlawed in the United States five years ago. And the fact that he's playing a bad guy is amazing. I didn't think the man would ever compromise his strong moral code, even in a movie. And he's playing a murdering scumbag drug lord. Pardon me, he's playing a Mexican murdering scumbag drug lord.

He's not a good actor. He's never been a good actor. We all know this. If it's even possible, he's somehow become a worse actor over the years. He's too busy harassing people as a "cop" on "Steven Seagal: Lawman" to remember any of the acting lessons Michael Caine may have taught the man whilst filming "On Deadly Ground".

Seagal doesn't have a huge role in "Machete", but he's the character who looms over the unfolding events, like Harry Lime in "The Third Man". Holy shit, did I just compare Steven Seagal to Orson Welles?

...Anyway, after the prologue, Seagal's role is relegated to irregular faux Skype conversations with Jeff Fahey regarding the progress of their plan to have McLaughlin erect an electrified fence on the US/Mexico border. But Torrez does travel to Texas to have his big showdown with old nemesis Machete in the film's climax.

Torrez brings a katana. Machete whips out the biggest machete on Earth. It's ridiculous, this machete. It's basically a big sword. Our over-the-hill titans clash, and despite the innate hilarity of this pair crossing blades, I was consistently distracted by a pair of extras pretending to duel in the background. These two guys were not really committed to the whole "fighting" thing, and it shows.

This big fight is taking place in the foreground, and I found myself wanting to push the two real actors out of the way to watch the two poorly-paid extras with rubber weapons behind them go at it. No slight to the mediocre fight choreography our main hero and villain were saddled with, I was just so distracted by the two goofs behind them that I became more invested in how their titanic struggle panned out, as opposed to the main fight.

Until Torrez got his own katana slammed through his gut.

With his own sword hilt protruding from his belly, Torrez commences talking shit to his opponent. He shrugs off the wound, telling Machete that he could pull his sword out of his abdomen and kill the guy with it if he so chose. But he decides against this course of action, because it would only mean that Machete would be waiting for him in Hell. So Torrez decides to commit seppuku, dragging his sword across his abdomen, spilling his guts on the black top.

The whole sequence is hilarious. When Seagal grips his sword hilt and spits out the words "fuck it" before he proceeds to empty his vital organs on the dirty ground, I just lost it. I have a feeling that Seagal wrote his own ending for his character, because he refused to have anyone else kill him. He's that kind of guy. If Torrez's suicide is actually in the script, I'll be shocked. Either way, it's fucking great.

Machete Don't Text

Machete mentions earlier in the film that he's not the texting type. So when he finally picks up a cell phone and decides it's time to step into the 21st century, it's funny. To be clear, the only thing that's really funny about this is watching Danny Trejo tapping on the alpha-numeric keypad with his massive, ape-like fingers. Hilarity.

Also priceless is Jeff Fahey's reaction. "I just got a text from Machete." It's the way that Fahey sells the line that kills me, with his wide, unbelieving eyes and throaty whisper. He can't believe that this troglodyte actually texted him. And neither can I.

Michelle Rodriguez

I've never been a huge Michelle Rodriguez fan. She always seems to play the same surly bitch in every movie she's in. Don't get me wrong, she's great at it, but it's starting to feel a little stale. I can't imagine her headlining any romantic comedies, but surely she could stretch herself a little.

That being said, when I saw the first official trailer for "Machete" (not the fake trailer), I was confused. Michelle popped up briefly in the trailer stepping out of the back of ambulance, wearing a leather bra and an eyepatch, with a pair of guns strapped to her hips. She looked hot. I've never seen her look hot before. Was it the eyepatch? Perhaps I have some buried fetish for women wearing eyepatches...

That was all I had to go on, at any rate. She didn't really say anything in the trailer. She was just this one-eyed presence, blasting away at unseen enemies like some kind of modern Amazon. Needless to say, I was already sold. I didn't give a damn if she played the same one-note character in "Machete", as long as she showed up in the third act wearing that get-up, I didn't care.

After seeing the film, I'm pleased to say that Michelle Rodriguez almost played a three-dimensional character in "Machete". Her Luz runs a taco truck that caters to the numerous day laborers in the area. She's a kind, sympathetic soul, who also uses her connections to help her people find a better life in the United States. Her truck is also decorated with propaganda images displaying a shadowy revolutionary called She', a figure who fights the good fight wherever decent people are oppressed.

When she's not butting heads with ICE agent Sartana, she finds herself drawn to the mysterious Machete, and when he asks her about She', Luz admits that the revolutionary warrior is a work of fiction, created as a mere symbol to give the downtrodden a small spark of hope. Rodriguez actually comes across as very sympathetic in this scene. Her character isn't a one-note, tough as nails type; she's just a woman of limited means doing everything she can to help the less fortunate.

It's hardly an Oscar-worthy role; this is a "Mexploitation" flick we're talking about, after all. But Michelle Rodriguez surprised me with her character's occassional moments of warmth.

After Don Johnson and his goons link Machete to Luz, Booth shoots her in the eye, and she apparently dies. Of course, we've seen the trailers, and we know that she returns during the film's climax as a one-eyed avenging angel. I just wish that this plot point had remained out of the trailers. It would have been much more effective if the audience genuinely thought Luz was dead, so that when she climbs out of that ambulance loaded for bear, we could all be pleasantly surprised. It's really a minor thing, though.

It's still a cool moment, because Luz finally takes up the mantle of She', becoming the legendary warrior she had created to inspire others years ago. She' kicks a great deal of ass, and looks hot while she does it. In the end, I was honestly disappointed that the movie didn't focus more on Michelle Rodriguez, because she was a serious highlight.

With any luck, we'll get a spin-off movie featuring She' overthrowing some South American dictator in brutal fashion. I doubt it, though. I'm still waiting for my "Man With No Eyes" spin-off starring Johnny Depp.

What Didn't I Like?

Robert Deniro

To be fair, I didn't always dislike Mr. Deniro in the film. There were moments scattered throughout the movie where Deniro was clearly having a good time playing his minor role as the corrupt, racist Senator McLaughlin. His rather ridiculous good ole' boy accent is proof of that. At times there's a life in his eyes that I haven't seen in years. But there are also times when he just seems bored, like he realized what kind of movie he was in and got depressed.

I did like some of the curveballs the film threw at him. Early in the film, we're shown a sequence involving a group of Minute Men-esque characters patrolling the border, led by Don Johnson (sporting the sharpest, most well-defined sideburns I may have ever seen in a theatrical motion picture). They spot a pair of Mexicans, a man and his pregnant companion, attempting to cross into American soil.

Johnson kills the pregnant woman, because he doesn't want her "anchor baby" born in the USA. An unseen shooter guns down the man, and it's revealed to be Senator McLaughlin, riding along with his militia pals. It's a pretty decent introduction, actually. We learn basically everything we need to know about the guy, right there.

Later on, Johnson and his pals kidnap McLaughlin when they learn that their shooting buddy is in bed with Torrez, forcing him to record a statement identifying himself as a traitor against his country. When the militia compound is besieged by an army of angry immigrants, McLaughlin escapes and is confronted by She', who gives the Senator a choice: die where he stands, or fight with the immigrants he despises.

Obviously McLaughlin, being a man who will do anything to save his own skin, dons a tattered hoodie and ridiculous straw hat and runs around the compound shooting at any white people he sees. This is awesome.

Unfortunately, it doesn't last very long. A little background: Lindsey Lohan plays Booth's drug-addicted daughter in the film. When she learns that McLaughlin has murdered her beloved daddy, she vows revenge. She arrives at the compound dressed like a nun (I don't know why) and shoots McLaughlin. Then she haphazardly fires her gun at a crowd of fighters, miraculously disarming them all. I don't get it, either.

I couldn't believe I saw Lindsey Lohan shoot Robert Deniro.

Luckily, McLaughlin was only playing dead, because he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. So our beloved Senator escapes, living to fight another day. At the end of the film, we see the Senator trekking across the border to Mexico, headed South to put his life back together.

That would have been a great ending to his story, but alas, that's not all. A few of Don Johnson's surviving buddies catch up to the Senator and murder the bastard, just because the movie wanted to have its cake and eat it, too. Lame.

Lindsey Lohan

And what about Lindsey Lohan? She's hardly in the movie, and when she is featured, she doesn't have much to do. She apparently makes money running a pornographic website. She convinces her mother to cavort naked in their swimming pool with her for one of her videos. Machete shows up and gets it on with them both before he drugs and kidnaps them.

But this footage should be familiar to anybody who has seen the original fake trailer, because that's all it is. Remember the shot with Machete in the pool with the two naked chicks? That's what this is. So we have an obvious body double in this sequence who looks nothing like Lindsey Lohan. Were Rodriguez and Maniquis doing this because they didn't think we'd notice? Or was it just another homage to the exploitation films of yore? Either way, it was incredibly distracting.

Machete drops the slutty mother-daughter pair off at the church for Cheech to look after. I'm not sure where they were when Tom Savini and Jeff Fahey were crucifying the guy, however. Sleeping?

Sex Scenes? What Sex Scenes?

So every time Machete is about to bed one lovely lady or another, this stupid generic "porno" music plays and the scene fades out. I hate that. Now, I don't necessarily want to see Danny Trejo's naked, sweating mass pumping away at Michelle Rodriguez, but it's just the idea that we can't actually see any sex scenes in a film like this. It's so bizarre. Michelle Rodriguez waves an egg around Danny Trejo's face, they share some "sexy" banter, then we fade to black. It's fucking weird.

It's the same stupid decision that I hated about "Planet Terror". It's a fucking exploitation movie! At least "Planet Terror" managed to fall back on that cutesy "scene missing" schtick. At least we get to see Jessica Alba standing naked in a shower, her arms and legs strategically placed to avoid revealing anything "inappropriate". Thanks, assholes!

Fuck Jessica Alba

God, she has got to be one of the worst actresses in modern cinema. She has never been good. Never. And I'm not sure why everyone thinks she's so attractive, either. Her face carries the constant expression of an over-medicated mental patient. Except when she tries to play badass, then she looks like a brain-damaged kid playing an overenthusiastic game of "cops n' robbers".

Her character is supposed to be a hardass with a chip on her shoulder for being overlooked for promotion time and time again. There's supposed to be some sort of conflict regarding her job as a Customs officer and her heritage, but the script can't manage to give her anything resembling a character arc. A better actress could still bring some subtext to this role. Jessica Alba is hardly an "actress".

When she finally does her big hero turn in the third act, she climbs atop a car and gives a rousing speech to a cadre of disenfranchised immigrants. At least, I'm sure that's what it said in the script. Jessica Alba just yells a bunch of lines with no hint of conviction and raises her fist. It's pathetic.

And at the end of the film, when Machete is riding off into the night on his motorcycle, he's pulled over by Jessica Alba in a Sheriff's Department cruiser (I don't know why), and she's dressed in a "slutty cop" halloween costume. She climbs on Machete's hawg (heh) and they exit the film together.

Why? There was no sexual chemistry between these two characters, at all. Hell, there was no chemistry, period. Why in the name of Mrs. Wiffle's Frozen Kitchen would Machete choose this untalented statue to be his old lady? It should have been Michelle Rodriguez tooling around America with Machete, not Jessica fucking Alba. At least I could buy a relationship between She' and Machete. I mean, that almost makes sense.

The Big Climax

Overall, the climactic duel between Don Johnson's milita, Torrez's cartel hoodlums, and the army of crazed immigrants falls flat. It starts off promising, with an armada of lowriders prowling the streets, en route to their date with destiny. Machete's crew is ready to fuck shit up. But the battle quickly degenerates into a mess of shoddy fight choreography, digital blood, and missed opportunites.

Remember the big moment that closes the original trailer, with Machete sailing through the air on his chopper, mounted gatling gun blazing? That's in the movie. And that's it. He sails through the air for two seconds, blasts a handful of goons, then it's over. We never see this amazing chopper-mounted personnel destroyer again. We don't even get one random shot of Machete riding around the compound, blasting away at his enemies. It's useless.

And She's big reveal is ultimately disappointing. She has a lot of guns strapped to her. She stands in one place, empties all of her guns, discards them, then the movie cuts to some other pointless fight sequence. There's so much wasted potential in this sequence, it's astounding.

But I do have to give it a few points for the ridiculous factor. Seeing an angry ice cream vendor run into the fray, still pushing his cart filled with delicious frozen treats is a funny sight gag. Watching a bunch of hotel kitchen staff members fighting with pots and pans was amusing. And the Babysitter Twins showing up, raining hell on nobody in particular was worth a laugh.

What Else?

Machete escapes from a hospital by eviscerating one hapless henchman, using his intestinal tract as a rope as he leaps out a 4th floor window. Good times.

In The End...

Despite its flaws, "Machete" really is just a dumb, entertaining movie. I may have a few problems with it, but none of them hampered my enjoyment. I saw it on Labor Day with my cousin Ky, my brother Matt, and his girlfriend Amanda. And we all had a blast. I hope Rodriguez and his new protege, Ethan Maniquis make a sequel.

One suggestion: More Michelle Rodriguez, Less Jessica Alba.

Blood Dumpster

2010-09-17T03:35:00.011-05:00

Are you ready for the night of 1,000 tampons?

The Hill Person Threw A Party: Get Low

Felix Bush is an enigma. He has lived alone deep in the woods for decades, never bothering to contact anybody. The children are terrified of the crazy old hermit, who is liable to welcome you with a loaded shotgun if you find yourself on his property. Most of the adults, however, don't think about him very often. Out of sight, out of mind. But the old-timers in town, they love to tell a tale or two about old Felix. In fact, if you asked around, you'd find that just about everybody has their own story to tell regarding the old man in the woods.

But what's the truth? People love to gossip, that never changes. And most folks have their own ideas as to why Felix Bush has isolated himself in the backwoods of circa-1930s Tennessee. But nobody knows, for sure. Because the only person left alive who knows the truth isn't telling it.

And then day Felix rode into town on an old wagon, and paid a visit to the local funeral parlor.

Hopefully you've seen the trailer for "Get Low", and know the basic plot of the story. If not, let me break it down for you: Old hermit Felix Bush knows that he's not long for this world, and decides to hold a living wake, of sorts. He wants everybody in town to come to a big party, complete with food and live music, where they can all share their stories of Mr. Bush, and where he may finally share his own story with all of them.

These days, the idea of a living wake is not that uncommon. Many people suffering from terminal illnesses choose to have these "dress rehersals", for a variety of reasons. But over 70 years ago, in the rural American South, this was unheard of. Funerals were for the dead, and the dead alone. But Felix has carried a heavy burden for a very long time, and is determined to exorcise his personal demons before it's too late.

I don't really want to say anymore about the film's story. There's no great 3rd act twist to this tale, so that's not the reason. No, I just don't want to spoil the movie. That's shocking, isn't it? Besides, this film isn't really about the story, at least not for me. No, this film is all about the actors. First-time feature film director Aaron Schneider has surrounded himself with a stellar cast, and they deliver some fantastic performances.

Robert Duvall is amazing as Felix Bush. He just inhabits the role; he never feels like he's "acting". His Felix feels like a real person who has isolated himself from civilization as some sort of penance for his past sins. There's a deep pain written into the lines of his face, and his eyes present a hard facade, barely masking a buried sorrow always threatening to surface.

When Felix finally does take the stage at his "funeral party", his monologue is absolutely enthralling. He punctuates his tale with the occassional sneer of anger, a sharp intake of breath through clenched jaws, and brief moments where he simply finds himself lost in his memories, standing in a heavy silence. It's one of the most amazing acting moments I have seen in a very long time.

And in the auditorium, the entire audience sat in rapt silence. Nobody crunched on their popcorn, or slurped their sodas. For five minutes, absolutely nothing could distract them from the screen. I can't remember the last time I've seen that happen. That's what a legend like Robert Duvall can do.

Bill Murray, playing funeral parlor owner Frank Quinn, is pitch-perfect in his role. In a film dealing with some pretty heavy subject matter, this role, primarily geared toward some much-needed comic relief, could have been a stereotypical disaster. But Murray is the master of subdued, straight-faced humor. He's funnier because he's not playing it over-the-top. He's not manic, and he never winks to the crowd.

This, I've learned from years of watching comedies, is a very rare talent. And it seems to be a natural gift for Bill Murray, who has been putting every other comedic actor to shame on film since "Ghostbusters".

Let's look at his introduction in the film: Quinn comes into work one morning, sits at his desk, and laments to his assistant Buddy (played by Lucas Black) that people seem to be dying everywhere except for his neck of the woods. Everybody dies, so being a funeral director he should never be hurting for work. But the citizens of his small town stubbornly refuse to die.

Now this scene could go several different ways with the dialogue as written. One could choose to be melodramatic, to hang their head and moan, really milking the scene for their own misguided definition of comedy. Or they could play it completely straight. There is very little about the scene's dialogue that is funny, in and of itself. It's all about the delivery.

And Bill Murray knows delivery. He knows exactly how to play this scene, with subtle undertones to his speech, small mannerisms and almost imperceptible facial expressions that all serve to make his performance funny without drawing undue attention to himself. It's fascinating to watch. And nobody does this better than him.

Then we have Sissy Spacek as Mattie Darrow, the woman who used to date Felix many, many years ago. After a family tragedy, she left town and started a family. After her husband died, she returned to her hometown, because it's really the only place she has left that she can call "home". She plays a regular card game with several of the notable men in town, among them Frank Quinn, who clearly carries a torch for her.

Sissy Spacek has the kindest eyes I've ever seen in film. There's this innate quality to them, some kind of eternal innocence that is just magical. She's also pretty versatile, considering her turn as a rather villainous lobbyist in the previous season of HBO's "Big Love". She used her soft, kind eyes as a weapon in her role, disarming her opponents with her warm smile. She was the bright spot in an otherwise disappointing season.

Spacek, unsurprisingly, does a fine job in "Get Low". When she happens across Felix after so long, her youthful enthusiasm returns with her pleasant memories of the man he used to be. But there's pain, as well, because not only was Felix the first man she ever loved, he was also the first man to break her heart. And Felix's haunting secret is tied to Mattie, although she doesn't realize it.

Throw in Lucas Black, a young actor with a long track record, as Buddy. I was first introduced to Black in the late, great series, "American Gothic". He had a natural presence on-screen, and I was a little disappointed with his career trajectory, as of late. Sure, he was good in "Cold Mountain", "Friday Night Lights", and "Jarhead", but those were supporting roles. The only films I've seen where Lucas Black played the lead were "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" and "Legion". Neither of these films is really any good, and his performances were lacking.

In "Get Low", I suppose you could call his role a supporting one, although I believe his screentime is equal to Bill Murray's. Frank Quinn tends to keep his distance from Felix, rarely engaging in any substantial conversation with the man, choosing to maintain a more "professional" relationship. Buddy spends time with Felix. He tries to get to know the man, which is incredibly difficult, because Felix isn't the type for chit-chat.

Over time, however, Buddy does manage to get through to Felix, in a way. In the final act, you can see that Felix has grown comfortable with the young man. His body language is more relaxed, and he speaks (just a bit) more liberally. If Felix had more time, one could imagine these two characters becoming close friends.

Lucas Black plays Buddy as a young man doing whatever he can to take care of his new family, even if that means putting up with his eccentric employer. At numerous points in the film, you can see the exasperation on Buddy's face when Frank says or does something he deems inappropriate. Once again, it's subtle; there are no drama queens in this movie. Nobody is out to draw attention to themselves. Black, like all of the other principal actors, lets his character shine through, and doesn't drown in melodramatics.

Last, but certainly not least, is Bill Cobbs. This man has been working seemingly without rest (if you look him up on IMDB) since 1974. He's been in A-list hollywood blockbusters, Z-grade hollywood dreck, hit TV sitcoms and dramas, but he's never gotten his proper due. Most people don't even know who the man is, and I think that's a travesty. He's always good. Let me say that again: He's always good. He's made episodes of "Enterprise" and "Yes, Dear" watchable. That's quite the accomplishment.

Morgan Freeman has the career Bill Cobbs deserves.

In "Get Low", Cobbs plays Reverend Charlie Jackson, Felix's oldest (and only) friend in the world. A skilled carpenter and craftsman, Felix built the chapel where Charlie's congregation gathers every Sunday. Charlie also happens to be the only other soul who knows what secret Felix has been hiding for so long.

When Felix walks into Charlie's chapel for the first time in over thirty years, Charlie embraces his old friend like a brother. But their pleasant reunion doesn't last long; as soon as Felix confides in him, telling Charlie that he doesn't believe he has the strength to tell his story, Charlie admonishes him.

Felix wants Charlie to come to his "funeral party" and tell the story in his stead, but the old preacher refuses. It's simply not his story to tell. It doesn't matter if Charlie tells the entire world what terrible thing happened all those years ago. It won't mean a damned thing unless Felix finds the courage to do it, himself.

Charlie acts as Felix's conscience in the film. He's the little angel on his friend's shoulder, telling him to get right with the world before it's too late. He's at times kind, stern, disapproving and downright angry. But he cares about Felix. That fact is evident with every moment of Bill Cobbs' performance.

Although Charlie isn't introduced in the film until around the halfway mark, he becomes a big presence in the film from that point forward. That was a pleasant surprise, for me. I feared that after the scene Charlie shared with Felix in the chapel, we would simply never see the old preacher again. I'm glad I was proven wrong. Because Bill Cobbs is this film's secret weapon. The film is simply a better one with the presence of Charlie in the second half of the film, and with Cobbs and his natural charisma and likeability.

And of course, the man won't get the recognition he deserves for this role, because it's not as big as Duvall's role, not as meaty. Cobbs doesn't get a big speech in front of a large group of people; he gets an intimate conversation in an old, quiet chapel. Bill Cobbs is just doing what he's been doing for over thirty years. He's a great character actor.

And most character actors, sadly, don't receive their due by the masses until after they've died. Just look at J.T. Walsh. Now that he doesn't pop up in your mid-budget thrillers and character studies, you miss him. We really don't know what we've got until it's gone. Well, not me. I appreciate Bill Cobbs.

Now that I've discussed the performances, what about the rest of the movie? What about all of the other elements that come together to make a motion picture? Director Schneider does a perfectly fine job with his first real movie. He understood the kind of movie he was making. All he had to really do was point the camera at the amazing actors and let them do most of the work. And that's more or less what he does. None of the cinematography really draws your attention, which is a good thing. Remember, this film is really about the actors, anyway.

The original music by Jan Kaczmarek and Jerry Douglas does an admirable job of setting the mood. It maintains the elements of traditional Southern bluegrass music, with no danger of sliding into parody territory. I wouldn't mind owning the soundtrack, honestly. I may just have to go pick that up. The production design is superb, really. No elements of this film's world ever rang false. Overall, it's a solid production.

I would like to mention one scene that I especially enjoyed, before I move on. This is the first real scene of the film, and the moment that eventually drives Felix to return to civilization. It's the middle of the night, and Felix is overcome with pain. He believes he's going to die. So what does he do? He steps outside in the pouring rain, his blanket wrapped around him, clutching an oil lamp. He staggers over to the stable, where he keeps his mule.

Inside, he fills his mule's trough with grain, and finally opens the gate, before sitting down on an old chair, drifting off to sleep, and presumably, death. When he wakes up in the morning, he's surprised that he's still alive. He's even more surprised when he walks outside the stable to see his mule sitting in the dirt, waiting for him.

It's a sequence of sadness, humanity, compassion and humor, all at once. And it's a beautiful thing.

An American. Not the American: The American

So George Clooney's back. And he's great. Is that a surprise? Of course it isn't. Do you want to know what's surprising about "The American"? He manages to be great without relying on the easy-going charm that has served him so well in the past. That's pretty cool, actually. The protagonist of "The American" is not a particularly pleasant fellow.

Don't get me wrong, Dear Imaginary Reader, he can be amicable, even cordial. But his eyes are cold and cruel. Jack (or Edward, depending on who you ask) is an assassin, of sorts. He's clearly been playing this game for a long time. But in the opening moments in the film, Jack's respite in Sweden is broken by violence. We can assume that this is a retaliation of sorts, although it's never made clear.

There are no definitive answers in this film, although it is never hard to follow. If you just sit down and watch the damned movie, you'll never be lost. That's the thing about real life that people find maddening when it's replicated in movies.

"What do you mean I can't be spoonfed every last detail? But how will I know what's going on if you don't carry me in your arms like an exhausted toddler coming down from an ice cream-induced sugar high? Placate me!!!"

I find it maddening that so many people in the world simply won't give a movie a chance because they heard it's "too talky" or "confusing". Where did our attention spans go? I blame the smartphone.

Anyway, after shit goes South in Sweden, Jack calls his employer Pavel, and he's told to lie low in a small Italian village until he is contacted. Jack drives to this quaint little hole in the wall, gets freaked out when everybody realizes that George Clooney has just pulled into town and stares intently at this devastatingly handsome actor, then fucks off up the road to another quaint little hole in the wall before the paparazzi show up.

Taking up temporary residence in rural Italy, Pavel gives Jackie Boy a new job: assemble a specialized weapon for an attractive, mysterious woman named Mathilde, because she desperately wants to kill somebody in style. Jack reluctantly agrees to do this One. Last. Job.

Jack also starts banging a gorgeous prostitute named Clara, who has absolutely no objections to getting nude early and often. On top of that, Jack befriends an old priest who had a penchant for breaking his vow of chastity in the old days. Jack's a popular guy.

In between numerous scenes of Jack working out, Jack building Omega Gun, Jack fucking Clara, Jack eating dinner with the priest, Jack walking with the priest in a graveyard, and more idyllic picnics than you can shake a loaded .44 magnum at, some Swedish pricks track down Jack because they missed their chance to get killed back home.

Our boy Jack eventually realizes two things: that sweet, nude Clara has thawed his icy heart, and that his boss Pavel wants him dead. Uh oh. What's a love-struck assassin to do?

I guess that's the plot for "The American". It's very European, if that means anything. A lot of people turn their noses up when they hear that word in regards to cinema. Fucking pretentious Europeans. Well I say Fuck You. There's nothing wrong with a slow burn movie. Doesn't anybody remember "The Conversation"? That movie's a masterpiece, and it's a real slow burn. There's nothing wrong with a movie taking its own time to get to its destination.

I loved "The American". My mother, who saw it with me, did not. She saw the ads on TV and thought that the movie would be some kind of action-packed extravaganza. When she was confronted with a quieter film that focused more on character and mood, she turned on it. "That kinda sucked", she told me as we left the auditorium. I have a feeling most of the people leaving the auditorium were saying similar things to each other.

A middle-aged couple sitting in front of us were a source of annoyance. The husband was clearly confused by everything he was seeing. The wife essentially narrated the entire film to him in a throaty whisper. Every time she explained to him what had just happened, she would stare at her husband and nod her head in a satisfied manner. Of course, near the climax of the film, she loudly sighed and declared "this fucking movie is boring", before she turned her attention back to her neglected tub of popcorn.

Clooney is a tightly wound machine in this film. Until Clara comes along and waves her amazing breasts in his face, his countenance is dominated by his icy, calculating gaze. He doesn't really do anything for fun, aside from fucking prostitutes, so he spends most of his free time working out and pretending to read books about butterflies. He doesn't have a life, as such. He's just existing.

When he finds something to live for, he relaxes a bit. It's a little like he's a very reserved child who's found a new toy he likes to play with. He still keeps up his stoic facade, but the cracks are showing. Like I said earlier, this is a noteworthy performance because Clooney doesn't rely on his usual tricks to charm the audience. He never cracks that signature sly smile that we all know and love. He's an incomplete person in this movie, and only in the last act does he start to coalesce as an individual.

Violante Placido plays the beautiful woman of loose virtue, Clara. She's so... so... nude. Oh, and she has an amazing body. She's also a decent actress, and she has a cute accent. You can see why this is the girl that gets to Jack. It's also refreshing that when Jack and Clara actually start seeing each other outside of the brothel, her profession is never a problem for him. He's a hired killer, he could give less than a shit about Clara's chosen vocation.

The only real issue I have with "The American" lies in the ending. I'm not going to tell you how it ends. That seems to be the theme of the day, even though I am typing this in the dead of night. Sometimes I just don't feel like spoiling shit. Anyway, my problem doesn't lie with the ending, itself. It's with the way the ending is presented, notably in the final shot. This shot showcases a lone, computer-generated butterfly taking wing, gently fluttering into the sky over a tragic scene. It's too on-the-nose. A small disappointment, though.

I was pleased to see "The American" open at #1 during its first weekend of release. I suppose those trailers fooled a lot of people like my mother.

The Last Temptation Of Opie

It was recently announced that Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsmith are developing a movie franchise/TV series hybrid of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series for Universal Pictures and NBC. My cousin Ky and myself both love the story of gunslinger Roland and his quest to destroy the Crimson King.

And I speak for both of when I say this is the worst idea I have heard since New Coke.

I'll ramble about "Machete" soon. And probably the latest "Resident Evil" flick, too. We'll see.

Sea, Sex & Blood!

2010-09-07T04:19:00.006-05:00

Fashionably Late?

Operation: RAZORTEETH - A Preamble

I saw "Piranha 3D" opening weekend with my dear cousin Ky. We were both really excited to see it. Why? I'm not quite sure. I'm not the biggest fan of the film's director, Alexandre Aja. I think his first film, "Haute Tension", is a decent, atmospheric slasher flick that is completely undone by its third act twist.

His remake of Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" is a step up. It's a surprisingly tense film with some uncomfortable moments and plenty of violence. But it fails in one area where the original succeeded, and that's in the villains. In Craven's film, Papa Jupiter and his family are allowed to actually have personalities. In the remake, although a few of the villains speak, they are never given the opportunity to be anything more than monsters. It's a disappointing speedbump in an otherwise enjoyable film.

"Mirrors" is dogshit. It's Jack Bauer fighting evil reflections. And it's fucking awful.

So why, after being repeatedly disappointed by Aja's films, would I actually be looking forward to "Piranha 3D"? I liked the trailers. I liked the idea of the film, and I thought it could be a good time. I love Joe Dante's original film, but was not against the idea of a remake, at all. Dante's film was fun, but it was missing two things: 3D and Kelly Brook.

Well, three things: Kelly Brook in 3D.

At The Mercy Of 1,000 Jaws! - A Brief Summary

If you've seen the trailer for this movie, then you know the basic plot: prehistoric piranha are released into a large lake after an earthquake, and proceed to devour a whole lot of people just trying to enjoy their Spring Break. I say "basic plot", but that's really all there is to it. There's not much else to the movie, and that's okay. "Piranha 3D" knows exactly what it is, and just rolls with it.

The voracious piranha are unleashed during the film's teaser sequence, where we visit everyone's favorite ichthyologist, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) 35 years later. He's fishing in the early morning hours on Lake Victoria, still singing "Show Me The Way To Go Home", and enjoying an alcoholic beverage. An earthquake tears the lakebed, loosing a large school of very hungry piranha. Poor Hooper gets eaten, and our film begins.

I thought the cameo was funny. For legal reasons, the character couldn't be called "Matt Hooper", so he was given the surname "Boyd". But everybody with half a brain knows who Richard Dreyfuss is playing. It's a cute way to start the movie, considering the original "Piranha" was produced by low budget legend Roger Corman as an "homage" to Stephen Spielberg's classic "Jaws". But whether or not the audience understands the true nature of the cameo, it's a fine way to set the mood for the rest of the film.

The movie follows two primary plot threads. The first thread follows local sheriff Julie Forester (Elizabeth Shue) as she follows the trail of bodies left by the piranha. The second thread follows Julie's son Jake (Steven R. McQueen, yes, he is Steve McQueen's grandson. No, he does not have his grandfather's talent) as his voyage of self-discovery involving porn stars and the girl next door is derailed by the very same bloodthirsty piranha.

Julie is assisted in her journey by a seismologist named Novak (Adam Scott) and her trusty deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames). Novak was checking out the damaged lake with two of his seismologist friends, played by Dina Meyer and Eva Longoria's cuckold husband from "Desperate Housewives". There's no reason to get too attached to Novak's earthquake-hunting friends, because they get offed a few minutes after they appear.

I always thought Dina Meyer would have a better career. But after she dared to love Johnny Rico in "Starship Troopers", she seemed to slip into a Hollywood purgatory of Sci Fi Channel original movies and "Saw" sequels. If you're not paying close attention, you won't even notice Dina Meyer in "Piranha 3D". her role is tiny and she doesn't even get one close-up. She follows Carlos Solis into the underground cavern, watches him get devoured, and then gets devoured, herself. I hope she collected a decent paycheck for her gripping performance.

Anyway, after Novak's pals get chummed, he joins forces with Sheriff Adventures In Babysitting and Deputy Striptease to shut down the lake and save all of the Spring Breakers from a horrifying death at the jaws of the ravenous piranha. Judging by the film's climax, they mostly fail in their task.

Meanwhile, her empty-eyed son Jake wants to hang out with the dreamy Kelly, a girl he's had a crush on since he was a fetus. Unfortunately he's found himself trapped in Kelly's "friend zone" since his balls dropped. But Jake sees his opportunity when Kelly's relationship with her douchebag boyfriend is strained. All he has to do is get her alone for the day, and he can finally put his pe- tell her how much he really loves her.

One small problem: he has already agreed to babysit his younger brother and sister for the day while his mother is out on the lake, harassing boozing co-eds. He gives his siblings a couple bucks to keep their mouths shut while he takes off to romance his lady-in-waiting. Problem solved.

Oh shit! He's also already agreed to show "Wild Wild Girls" producer Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) around the lake, finding the perfect locations to shoot his two muses (Kelly Brook and somebody else) engaging in various sexual activities. On one hand, he can stick with Derrick and maybe get a pity handjob from Kelly Brook. On the other hand, he can hang out with his boring, flat-faced "girlfriend" and part ways with a hearty handshake at the end of the day. What's a boy to do?

Luckily, he doesn't have to make any decisions, because Derrick convinces Kelly to take a ride with him on the Good Ship Skinemax, and all she has to do is maybe engage in some softcore lesbo action. It's a win-win situation.

But things aren't all good in Piranhaville, because Jake's asshole siblings have decided that now would be a great time to go fishing out on the lake. So they take out their little rowboat, point it toward a small island, and end up stranded when little brother Zane forgets to tie off the fucking boat. Oh no, children in peril!

Long story short, Sheriff Julie and Novak save her kids (and Kelly, ugh), poor Derrick and Kelly Brook get ate, a yacht blows up, lots of piranha are killed, and Spring Break turns into a Boobtastic Bloodfest.

Who Can Stop Them? - What Works

Our heroes, played by Elizabeth Shue and Adam Scott, do a fine job. They both know what kind of film "Piranha 3D" is, and they play their roles completely straight. That may sound boring to you, Dear Imaginary Reader, but the truth is if they both decided to portray their characters as melodramatic caricatures, winking at the audience, the film wouldn't work. They understand that they're smack dab in the middle of a ludicrous, over-the-top experience, and if they added to that camp with their performances, the entire house of cards would collapse.

Elizabeth Shue's role is a bit of a thankless one, being the doomsayer Sheriff who is also trying to save her spawn from becoming piranha chow, but she manages to bring a sense of humanity to the proceedings that would otherwise be absent. And Adam Scott is just a naturally funny guy, who brings a lot of subtle humor to his performance, despite not having a single "funny" line in the script. He also adequately pulls off the "action hero" vibe on a few occassions, jumping on a jet ski to save nubile young women from being destroyed by hungry fish.

Christopher Lloyd pops up briefly to provide the obligatory exposition scene, explaining the origin of the little monsters that are feasting on folks around the lake. This role is really thankless, but he makes it work with his manic line delivery and wild eyes. If you have to hire anybody to deliver a bunch of exposition, you couldn't do better than Christopher Lloyd.

Kelly Brook plays "Danni", one of Derrick Jones' Wild Wild Girls, and she's one of the more memorable characters in the film. For numerous reasons. She actually brings a lot to a relatively small role, existing primarily to look beautiful, get naked, then get dead. She excels at all three of these requirements. Forget all of the feeding-frenzy carnage, my friends. Most... no, every heterosexual male that watches "Piranha 3D" will most fondly remember the extended girl-on-girl nude swimming sequence involving Kelly Brook and porn star Riley Steele as "Crystal".

Derrick Jones shoots his two leading ladies cavorting underwater wearing absolutely nothing, and the film decides to take a well-deserved break from advancing the paper-thin plot in order to focus on these two beauties as they demonstrate, among other things, that they're both contenders for a Guiness World Record in holding one's breath. Does this sequence add anything to the story? Well, considering shit like this is the entire point to a film like "Piranha 3D", the answer is "absolutely yes".

Two gorgeous, naked young women, swimming together in a softcore lesbian embrace, revealing bits of their anatomy (in 3D) that frankly amaze me in an R-rated motion picture. That's why this movie exists, and I applaud Alexandre Aja for committing this Oscar-worthy sequence to film.

But beyond the nudity, Kelly Brook makes "Danni" charming and likeable. In her limited screentime, she's makes you care about her. So when she meets her inevitable end at the teeth of the titular monsters, I felt bad for her. I didn't really give a shit when anybody else was mauled to death by the piranha. But when Danni died, I felt something. That's saying a lot, actually. Adam Scott felt the same way, judging by the look on his face when he sees Kelly Brook meet the Piranha family.

Since a sequel is already in development, why not bring back Kelly Brook? Sure, Danni's dead, but this is the exploitation genre. One line in the film could clear everything up. Just have someone mention that she's playing Danni's twin sister. Hell, center the entire movie around her. Danni's sister could come to Lake Victoria on a "Moby Dick"-esque quest to obliterate the piranha despite the efforts of scientists to preserve the incredibly rare, prehistoric species. Problem solved.

I think I just wrote your sequel, Mr. Aja. You're welcome.

And Jerry O'Connell. Holy shit. I was never a big Jerry O'Connell guy. I watched "Sliders" back in the day, and even enjoyed it for what it was. But Jerry O'Connell was never much of a stand-out on that program. I never followed his career. He always seemed like a non-entity, to me. Sure, he married Rebecca Romijn five years after she lost her looks. Congratulations. That's really all I know about the guy.

Then he showed up in "Piranha 3D" as Derrick Jones, the Joe Francis analogue who has made a fortune on his series of "Wild Wild Girls" softcore adventures. He's an exuberant, sleezy, self-indulgent douchebag. And he steals every scene he's in. What a fucking surprise. Jerry O'Connell is clearly having a blast with this role, and it shows. He makes Derrick Jones as oily, perverse bastard, and even though you're eagrly awaiting his demise, the movie loses something after he checks out. His energy is gone, and the third act suffers slightly for it.

His character's death is responsible for the movie's biggest 3D sightgag. After his rented yacht is perforated by some shallow rocks, Derrick and Crystal are thrown from the boat. After being set upon by the piranha, he is pulled back aboard. Crystal is not so lucky. Unfortunately, everything below Derrick's waist has been picked over by the hungry fish. His legs are nothing more than a collection of bones held together by disparate strips of sinew. It's a funny homage to a certain death in the original film.

But that's not the important part! Dying and in shock, Derrick vacantly stares into sand rat Jake's eyes, and says "they took my penis", in an unbelieving tone. Yes, the piranha did take poor Derrick's penis. And the film cuts to an underwater shot, where we see Crystal's mauled skeleton, her large breast implants floating away. But wait, there's more!

Amazingly, Derrick's severed penis floats into view (in 3D!). And before the audience has time to fully react to this, the missing member becomes the object of a tug-of-war between rival piranha. One victorious piranha escapes with the lion's share of Derrick's lost manhood, gobbling it down. But apparently the STD-ridden dick doesn't agree with the piranha's delicate constitution, and he promptly spits it up.

I have never before seen anything like this in a movie. And I never will again. I think that's just cool.

He also has classic last words. As he dies, blood spilling from his mouth, Derrick chokes out the words "wet t-shirt". A fitting epitaph. Thanks, Jerry O'Connell.

Lastly, the climactic piranha attack on Spring Break is a big deal. The entire movie has been building toward this moment, with isolated attacks here and there. We all know where this is going. Of course, Sheriff Julie isn't going to succeed in evacuating the lake before it's too late. If she did, then there wouldn't be a movie. At least, not a movie worth watching.

And when it happens, it's a lot of fun. Drunken twentysomethings are being destroyed by the piranha left and right. One poor woman gets her hair tangled up in a motorboat's propeller, and her face is subsequently ripped the fuck off. And her shorn face still screams. That's memorable, folks.

As chaos descends, and people are crawling onto the beach in bloody disarray, one unfortunate woman being carried ashore by two strapping young men falls apart. The man in the lead pulls a little too hard, removing her lower half from her upper half. And as her vital organs spill onto the sand, the woman makes a priceless "what the fuck" face before she dies. This had me in hysterics.

Oh, and Eli Roth gets his head annihilated by a boat. A little backstory, Mr. Roth cameos as the MC at a wet t-shirt contest on the lake, and after the piranha attack, he falls into the water. A boat filled with frantic survivors plows into Mr. Roth, and his head becomes a myth. I never thought his cameo death in "Southland Tales", where Roth is shot to death on the toilet by Jon Lovitz, could be topped. I was wrong.

Bottom line: there is a ton of solid make-up and prosthetic effects in this movie courtesy of maestro Howard Berger. A gorehound's dream. The digital piranha effects are also quite good, for the most part. There are a few instances where the little fishies look a little dodgy, but overall, there are no complaints.

They're Here... Hungry For Flesh! - What Doesn't Work

The sheriff's two kids, Laura and Zane, weigh the film down. Whenever the movie focuses on these two little moppets and their fishing misadventures, everything grinds to a screeching halt. The kids aren't bad actors, their plot just feels unnecessary. Now if these two little children eventually became a small appetizer for the piranha, then that would be okay. But they don't. They get rescued by their mommy, and I couldn't care less.

In the original film, there are two big piranha sequences. The final sequence involves a similar attack on a resort. The first sequence is a piranha attack on a children's summer camp, and it is the part that everybody remembers. Why? Because a bunch of little kids get fucking eaten.

Our reclusive hero's daughter is attending the camp, and he calls the tyrannical head counselor, played by the late, great Paul Bartel, to warn him about the impending threat. Paul Bartel, being a sane asshole, chooses to ignore the mountain man's telephonic ravings about a mass of ravenous, government-created super piranha coming down the river to eat a bunch of playing kids. Can you blame him?

So the next morning, Bartel leads the children out on the water for a swimming competition. Tragedy happens, as the piranha commence a prepubescent feeding frenzy on the lake. This was a pretty shocking moment for a film made in 1978. Hell, it's still shocking today. A bunch of poor little kids getting shredded by angry little fish?

But the moment that I love in this sequence is all Bartel. Throughout the film, whenever Paul Bartel's head counselor opens his mouth, you just want to slap him. He's a pompous ass. The kind of character you crave to see devoured by the piranha. He didn't heed the father's warnings about the threat, and he deserves his comeuppance, right?

When the attack happens, we see a single piranha leap out of the water and latch onto Paul Bartel's cheek in a close-up. He's done for! But what happens next? Bartel runs out into the water, putting his own life at risk to carry children to safety. He does this more than once. And he remains in the water until every living child is safe. And he doesn't get eaten.

As our hero drifts past the summer camp, en route to his date with destiny with the killer piranha, he locks eyes with Paul Bartel on shore. A moment passes between these two men. We see the shame on Bartel's face. This sequence completely subverts audience expectations. We, as an audience, are made to hate this character. Up until this point, he's just a caricaturish asshole. But the film wisely humanizes Bartel's character in his final scenes. He risks his life to rescue these children.

In lesser hands than those of director Joe Dante and screenwriter John Sayles, the counselor either would have been immediately devoured, or he would have bolted for the shore, leaving the poor children to their fate. But these two creative minds chose to make the counselor an actual human being. This choice single-handedly elevates the original "Piranha" to a level above the standard genre fare of the day.

Of course, that point has nothing to do with my problem concerning the kids in "Piranha 3D". My point here is that the kids needed to die. Or at least some kids needed to die. We needed that kind of shock in this movie. Aside from Danni's death (in my opinion), I didn't give a damn about anybody that died in this film. Absent the kind of shock that the original delivered, the remake falters.

My only other real problem with the remake is the death of Deputy Fallon. In general, Ving Rhames has little to do in this film, aside from follow Elizabeth Shue around. When he gets his big moment, attempting to save a gaggle of co-eds from succumbing to the subtle charms of the piranha, the film falls flat on its face.

It sounds like a no-brainer: Deputy Fallon stands in the water, clutching a revving speedboat motor, slicing through wave after wave of piranha as they slowly devour him. But there is no sense of urgency to this moment. There's no energy. Ving Rhames doesn't so much fall into the water as slowly ease into it, like an old man into a warm bath.

He doesn't look like he's dying; he looks like he's falling asleep because he's so fucking bored. We can't even really see the piranha that are supposedly chewing on his legs. It's baffling. Some horrible choices all-around killed what should have been a big crowd-pleasing moment.

What about the post-converted 3D? Honestly, it's a mixed bag. I never had any real problems with it, unlike a lot of people that have seen it. Some of the effects work surprisingly well. It's never as flat as "The Last Airbender", but I sincerely hope that the inevitable sequel actually films in 3D. Wouldn't that be nice?

Something You Can't See... Until It's Too Late! - Conclusion

Overall, I had a blast watching "Piranha 3D". It was just what I was looking for. It had plenty of gratuitous nudity, loads of practical gore effects, a handful of memorable characters, and a few big, show-stopping moments. It's a big, dumb, fun exploitation movie. And a perfect summer release. A good time to be had, Dear Imaginary Reader.

It's just too bad that in the time it took me to actually write this review, the film has already left most first-run theaters. I am a timely motherfucker.

Stay tuned for my eventual reviews of "Get Low", "The American", and "Machete". I'll get around to them. I promise.

Cinematic Thunderdome, Part Two: The Anniversary

2010-08-26T00:01:00.004-05:00

"Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" is the best movie I've seen this year.

If that's all you wanted to know, Dear Imaginary Reader, then you can navigate away from this page, right now. I'm sure you can find a more constructive means of wasting your time then reading my inane ramblings. But if you're really bored, then join me on a delightfully boring journey into the heart of Hyperbole Town.

I Demand An Inexcusably-Long Plot Summary!

Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old. He lives in Toronto. He's the bass player in a band called Sex Bob-Omb, along with lead guitarist/singer Stephen Stills and drummer/ex-girlfriend Kim Pine. Along for the ride is Young Neill, the band's biggest fan and auxilliary bass player. He's dating a 17 year-old girl named Knives Chau, and she just loves Scott. She's very happy with her relationship. Scott keeps her around because she's a doormat who makes him feel special. He's kind of a dick.

Scott lives with Wallace Wells, and they share a bed. They're not gay. Only Wallace is gay. Scott just doesn't want to sleep on the floor. Scott meets a beautiful young woman in his dreams, and is shocked to discover that this same woman exists in the real world. Her name is Ramona Flowers, and Scott immediately falls head-over-heels in love with her. As he attempts to ooze his way into her life, he neglects to tell poor Knives about any of this.

As I said, he's kind of a dick.

Scott and Ramona start dating. Scott just loves Ramona. Ramona seems to gravitate toward Scott because he's safe, and makes her feel special. Despite his unresolved issues with Knives, Scott is very happy with his blossoming relationship with Ramona. Until he realizes that her Seven Evil Exes are all coming for Scott Pilgrim, and they all want his blood.

Evil Ex #1: Matthew Patel

Sex Bob-Omb is competing in a battle of the bands against a very angry group called Crash And The Boys. Knives and Ramona are both in attendance. Neither girl knows that they are both dating Scott (dick!). The party is crashed by our first evil ex: Matt Patel, who briefly dated Ramona back in high school, and has been obsessed with her, ever since.

After a brief Bollywood-style dance number in which Crash And The Boys are incinerated, the first boss battle begins. At first clueless as to exactly why he is being forced to fight Patel, Scott quickly proves that he has some serious skills and defeats his opponent, rendering the evil ex into a small pile of loose change.

After the fight's conclusion, Ramona levels with Scott, telling him that if he wants to date her, he will have to defeat seven of her former lovers, a.k.a. The League Of Evil Exes. Scott is concerned, but after he makes out with Ramona he's surprisingly okay with the situation. Poor Knives, who fainted earlier, wakes up at the now-deserted club, all alone (dick!).

Evil Ex #2: Lucas Lee

Wallace has a crush on Hollywood action movie icon Lucas Lee. Lucas Lee happens to be shooting a new movie in Toronto. He drags Scott along to the set for the opportunity to meet this amazing actor. Holy cow, Scott finds out that Lucas Lee is Ramona's second evil ex when he picks the young lad up and tosses him into a castle. Not a good start.

Quickly recovering from this embarassing interlude, Scott finds himself engaged in mortal combat with Mr. Lee's clone-ish stunt doubles. Knowing that he probably can't defeat Lee in hand-to-hand combat, Scott uses his noggin and tricks the super-powerful yet narcissistic Lucas Lee into performing a death-defying skateboard stunt by questioning his manhood. Lee wipes out, blows the fuck up, and scatters into coins on the snowy streets of Toronto.

Evil Ex #3: Todd Ingram

Todd Ingram used to date Ramona. He's also the bass player for the hot new band The Clash At Demonhead, and they're performing in town. The band's singer, Envy Adams, who is currently dating Todd, used to date Scott before her band blew up. Then she dumped him like a bad habit. This is a very awkward situation.

Todd Ingram is also a Vegan. Being a Vegan grants him amazing psychic abilities. Todd Ingram is scary. After Todd punches Knives in the face, knocking the blue highlights out of her hair, Scott gets pissed off and challenges the man to a Bass Battle. Todd handily defeats Scott, then adds injury to insult via a psychic assault, launching our hero through a series of very solid walls.

Scott Pilgrim can't possibly hope to win against this... superman. Instead, he tricks Todd into drinking a cup of coffee with real milk as opposed to Vegan-friendly soy milk. The Vegan Police immediately show up, chastising Todd for breaking the Vegan code, using what I can only assume is a Kryptonite Ray to strip him of his Vegan powers.

Scott takes advantage of his opponent's weakened state, headbutting Todd Ingram into a healthy dose of arcade fuel.

Evil Ex #4: Roxy Richter

An exhausted Scott turns to the booze, and starts arguing with Ramona. Before Scott can even begin to enjoy his buzz, Ramona's disenfranchised former lover Roxy Richter comes along to destroy him. A fed-up Ramona decides to nut-up and take Roxy on herself, producing a massive sledgehammer from her purse.

Scott wants to sit this one out, because he's rather watch two attractive women fight over him. Unfortunately, "the rules" state that Scott must defeat all of Ramona's evil exes himself. So Ramona grabs her boyfriend and uses him as her own personal street-fighting marionette.

Scott finally ends the Roxy Richter threat thanks to Ramona, who tells him about the special little part of her anatomy that, when stimulated, drives her absolutely crazy. Roxy promptly orgasms into oblivion. This is awesome.

Evil Exes #5 & #6: The Katayangi Twins

Increasingly frustrated with Ramona's homicidal baggage, Scott and his band face off against the apparently mute DJs/Wizards the Katayangi Twins, jilted by Ramona when they each realized that she was dating them both at the same time. Sex Bob-Omb and the twins duel, get spanked by magic trance music dragons, then summon the power of rock and roll to finally annihilate the techno sorcerers in grand fashion. Scott earns a well-deserved extra life for his trouble.

But all is not well in the world, my friends. For it seems that in the five minutes it took Scott to slay exes 5 and 6, Ramona has gotten back together with her old flame, Mr. Gideon Graves, a.k.a. Evil Ex Number 7. Gideon is a big-time record producer, and wants to sign Sex Bob-Omb to play at his brand new club, the super-sleek Chaos Theatre. Scott's bandmates jump at the chance, and a disgusted Scott resigns from Sex Bob-Omb, allowing pal Young Neill to take his place in the band.

Scott tries to convince Ramona to come with him, but alas, she is under Gideon's control via a convenient chip imbedded in the base of her skull. As a triumphant Gideon Graves pulls away with Ramona in a swank limo, poor Scott Pilgrim is at his lowest point. He's still a dick, but I feel bad for him.

Evil Ex #7: Gideon Graves

A defiant Scott arrives at the Chaos Theatre, professing his undying love for Ramona. A flaming sword appears jammed in Scott's chest. As he pulls it out, Bill Hader's voice announces that Scott Pilgrim has gained the Power Of Love!!! Scott and Gideon get into it. A jilted Knives arrives to challenge Ramona to a fight to the death. Scott tries to break up the cat fight, but Gideon takes advantage of his distracted opponent, slaying our hero with gusto.

But wait! Scott wakes up in limbo, and has a touching conversation with Ramona. He realizes that with the way he treated not only Knives but his old girlfriend Kim, he's kind of a dick. Hell, he may be well on his way to inadvertantly creating his own League Of Evil Exes. Perhaps Scott's been fighting for the wrong reasons. Cashing in his extra life, Scott returns to the Chaos Theatre to replay his battle with Gideon.

This time around, Scott makes amends with his former band, telling Kim that he's sorry for being such a dick, and praising Young Neill as a better bass player than he could ever be. He tells Knives that she deserves better, and retrieves a brand new flaming sword from his chest cavity as Bill Hader announces that Scott Pilgrim has gained the Power Of Self-Respect!!!

Destroying Gideon's henchmen as Sex Bob-Omb plays a jaunty tune, Scott's on a roll. With a little help from Ramona and Knives, Scott defeats Gideon Graves, who erupts into a deluge of coins.

Bonus Villain: Nega Scott Pilgrim

But Gideon has one last trick up his sleeve, as his disembodied voice asks the question: can Scott Pilgrim possibly hope to defeat his terrifying alter-ego? Enter Nega Scott Pilgrim, our hero's sinister mirror image, vaguely transparent, slate grey, with glowing red eyes. Holy shit. Our boy is doomed.

Not really, though. Moments later, Scott and his doppleganger walk out of the Chaos Theatre together, laughing it up, making plans for brunch later in the week. It turns out those two have a lot in common.

And They All Lived... Ever After

Ramona realizes after seeing how badly she fucked over her seven exes that she needs to take a step back and rethink some shit. She decides to skip town in an effort to start over, to become a better person, herself. Knives realizes that Scott's still madly in love with Ramona, and forgives him for being a douche, telling him to go live his life.

So Scott chooses to join Ramona on her journey, hoping that perhaps the two of them could start over together. They step into a free-standing doorway in the middle of the road, to parts unknown.

That Was Dull. What Else Have You Got?

Nothing I can say could possibly do this film justice. Director Edgar Wright has managed to make one of the most energetic, entertaining, out-of-its-mind movies I have ever seen. The movie is dripping with such energy, I wondered if the auditorium's projector would overheat. It's impossible to describe the things that happen in this film on a blog. The whole endeavor is so creative that I walked out of the theatre with a big, goofy smile on my face.

The various methods that Scott employs to defeat Ramona's evil exes are inventive, and keep the "fight scenes" from getting stale and repetitive. A bass guitar duel? Death-by-orgasm? Defeated by the power of self-respect? Abso-fucking-lutely!

The Todd Ingram fight, in particular, sent both me and my cousin Ky into a fit of hysterical laughter. After Scott tricks Todd into drinking milk (a Vegan no-no), the fucking Vegan Police show up. The Vegan Police are played by Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins, Jr. We're both big fans of these two actors, and seeing them pop up seemingly at random was absolutely hilarious.

And when they depart with a slow motion high five and a hearty "Yeah!", I laughed so hard that I cried. The whole situation was insane. I was left wondering how this could happen. How did this movie get made? I don't know, but I'm grateful.

During the confrontation with Lucas Lee, the very instant that Lee calls for his skateboard, Scott's pal Wallace pops up like Johnny-on-the-spot, skateboard in hand. It's such a small, yet perfect moment that still sticks with me.

The random comedy moments are all gold, as well: An out-of-nowhere "Seinfeld" homage, complete with laugh track, between Scott and Wallace. The fact that a random party goer recognizes a haphazard, unintelligible scribble on a sheet of paper as a picture of Ramona. Kim's not-too-subtle contempt for ex-boyfriend Scott, relayed with nothing more than her piercing gaze and the occassional remark like "if your life had a face, I would punch it". Scott's amazing disappearing hat. His love of garlic bread.

The actors are great across the board. I honestly can't think of a single performance that doesn't work. Michael Cera is fantastic as Scott, displaying great comic timing, believable anger, and a fine talent for fight choreography. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Ramona as detached, not ready to fall in love again, but she gradually softens as she allows Scott's charms to wear her down.

Ellen Wong is some kind of a revelation as Knives Chau. She's just so exuberant that you can't help but fall in love with her. When the movie ended, part of me was disappointed that Scott chose Ramona over Knives. Hopefully this leads to bigger and better things for Ellen Wong, because I can't wait to see her in another movie.

The actors who play the Evil Exes are all perfectly suited to their roles. Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman are the big stand-outs, though. Todd Ingram is supremely confident, but also incredibly dense, and Routh shows a surprising amount of talent in the role. Surprising to me, at least, because I thought he was terrible in "Superman Returns". Here, he's one of the highlights in an already amazing movie.

And the great Jason Schwartzman plays Gideon Graves as supremely confident, a fellow who lulls you into a false sense of security with his mild voice and winning smile, before he tears out your soul and stomps on it with his designer shoes. When his fight with Scott goes south, he transforms into a petulant child, throwing a temper tantrum because all of his hard work gathering the League Of Evil Exes has fallen apart. It's a pretty damned good performance, considering his role is relatively small, but his shadow looms over the entire film.

But Kieran Culkin is something else in this movie. Wallace Wells may be the funniest character in the whole film. And it's all thanks to Culkin's pitch-perfect performance. He's just effortlessly funny. I never really thought much of him in the past, although I did enjoy "Igby Goes Down". That's all changed, now. He just needs the right director to properly utilize his skills.

This film is filled with inventive special effects, clever split-screen moments, and amazing integration of classic video game and motion picture musical cues. The heightened reality of the material is matched perfectly by the amazing cast. And the songs are great. I must buy the official soundtrack, just so I can hear "We Are Sex Bob-Omb" again.

The audience in our screening was loving the movie nearly as much as we were. But I've read reviews that complain that the movie doesn't make sense. "Why does he have to actually fight Ramona's Exes? Why does nobody care when they see people get murdered in plain sight? Get off my lawn!" Who gives a shit?

This movie does makes no attempt to trick you into believing that it takes place in a realistic world. This is a world where a 23 year-old slacker can fight like a Kung-Fu master, Vegans have superpowers, and when people die, they turn into coins. It's not reality. It's a fucking movie. I only wish that more directors would realize that you can actually do things in movies that are impossible in reality. Embrace the medium, dammit!

Some people probably have issues with the film's conclusion. They may get pissed off when Scott chooses Ramona over Knives. "Has he learned nothing?!", they might say. I think that's the point. Over the course of the film, Scott has had to come to terms with his past. He realizes that he's been a childish, petty person.

When he rises from the dead to fight Gideon the second time, he owns up to his past and fights not for Ramona, but for himself. He's finally ready to grow up. And part of growing up is making mistakes, and living with them. Will his relationship with Ramona survive? Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, he's going into that relationship as an adult, and he is finally ready to face the consequences of his actions. That's a pretty fucking good ending, as far as I'm concerned.

I love Edgar Wright's previous work. Loooove it. "Spaced" is one of the best television shows ever made. It just is. "Shaun Of The Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" are two of the best comedies you could ever see. But "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" transcends Wright's previous work, at least for me. This film just worked for me on every level. As I left the theatre, my feet weren't even touching the ground. Ky turned to me and said "That was just about the best movie I've ever seen". Hyperbolic, maybe. But it's still an amazing movie.

Watching the movie, I was reminded of Brian dePalma's "Phantom Of The Paradise", perhaps my favorite film of all-time. Both films are kindred spirits. They don't care about realism. They both feature some great music. And they're both completely fucking insane. I know that Edgar Wright is also a huge fan of that film, and I could see that love onscreen. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then do something about it. It's cheap, and you won't regret the purchase.

And if you do, then I don't want to know you.

As I said before, my limited vocabulary can't possibly do this film justice. If you stumble across this blog and haven't seen "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World", you need to rectify that immediately. It's an absolutely amazing film, and you owe it to yourself to see it. It will make you a better person.

It's A Celebration!

On this day, August 26th, I celebrate my blog's first anniversary. Yes, The Book Of Lies is one year old. In the past year, I've made 96 posts, and perhaps only 3 of them have any real merit. But that's okay, not everything everybody writes can be great. I mean, have you ever read a Dean Koontz book? He wrote maybe 4 decent books in his life, and nothing worthwhile in 20 years, yet the guy's insanely popular.

And who is he trying to fool with his amazing head of hair? We all know you're fucking bald. I have copies of his older books, where he's clearly losing his hair at an alarming rate, and his moustache-blighted face is a mask of misery. Now his dustjackets are adorned with the smiling visage of a fumbling trickster with a full head of hair. You can't erase your past, asshole! And you can't erase "The Husband", either.

Man, I fucking hate Dean Koontz.

Anyway, I marked this momentous occassion by changing the header image on my front page. That's it. I would have done more, but I'm an apathetic slug. You're welcome.

Cinematic Thunderdome!! Part One

2010-08-24T02:06:00.006-05:00

Two movies enter... then I guess I leave. The cinema, that is. Because the movies are still there. I had to go home, though. Because otherwise, people might start to get suspicious. They might wonder why some weird dude is camping out in the movie theatre. Then they call the cops, then I get arrested, and it all ends up with me spending some quality time in a nice padded cell.

Man, I really butchered the whole "Beyond Thunderdome" analogy.

I saw "The Expendables" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" with mein cousin Ky a while back. A lovely day at the movies. And now I am going to talk about them.

Sylvester Stallone: A Depressing Roller Coaster Ride

In 1997, Sylvester Stallone starred in "Cop Land". Do you remember "Cop Land"? That movie was great. I loved it in the theatre. I loved it on VHS. I loved it on cable. And I still love it on DVD. This is the movie that made people remember that putting aside all of the TNT-infused machismo of his 1980's action output, Sylvester Stallone could actually act.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a big fan of his action flick heyday. The 80's and early 90's were my formative years, and Stallone was a big part of that. From his "Rambo" and "Rocky" sequels, to the cartoonishly entertaining "Tango & Cash", to the insanely over-the-top, nightmarishly fascist "Cobra". I loved what the man did.

Now did his action filmography ever hit the dizzying heights of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Predator" or "Commando" No. Did he ever give us a bonafide action classic like Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" No. But Sly's work always had a place in my heart.

Besides, his earlier work, namely "Rocky" and "First Blood", are great films. Made greater still by the fact that Sly actually wrote those damned movies. Aha! The man wasn't just a muscular badass with great screen preence. He had talent behind the scenes, as well. That's something Arnold could never say.

Sure, Arnold produced such films as "Last Action Hero" and "The 6th Day", but come on. He also directed that awful "Christmas In Connecticut" movie for TNT. That doesn't even come close.

Sly had a few missteps behind the scenes as well, to be fair. Remember "Rhinetone"? Staying Alive"? "Over The Top"? Fucking "Driven"?! None of those films are good. "Rhinestone", in particular, is pretty fucking terrible, yet also fascinating. It's one of those cinematic trainwrecks, where you want to turn away but you just can't.

Watching Sylvester Stallone desperately trying to sing about becoming "Drinkenstein", knowing that the man wrote his own lyrics is an amazing thing to behold. He wasn't forced to do this. He wasn't fulfilling a contractual obligation. He fucking wrote this! At some point, the man thought this was a good idea! Fucking mind-blowing.

Maybe he just really wanted to work with Dolly Parton.

I suppose my point is that Sylvester Stallone has struggled more than his contemporary, Mr. Schwarzenegger. Obviously, this is at least partially his own fault. He fucking wrote "Rhinestone"! But I've always been in the man's corner. As the Italian Stallion lost his way time and time again, I was always hopeful. I knew the man had a real talent, and it was just a matter of time before a project came along that reminded others of that fact.

Then he gained a lot weight and played against type as soft-spoken New Jersey sheriff Freddy Heflin in "Cop Land". A great performance in a great film, and I was sure that things were going to be different from now on. People were going to take notice, and realize that Stallone could do more than blow shit up, again. Directors would begin to cast him in more toned-down affairs, that would showcase his actual acting abilities. Stallone was gonna be on top.

Boy, was I wrong.

Just take a look at the man's output from 1998 to 2005. With the exception of a small voice role in "Antz", it's just wall-to-wall garbage. I don't even want to mention the dreck that Stallone made in that dark age. He never made anything as excrutiating as "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" in this era, just an endless string of mediocrity. The man was pushing 60, and I was quietly hoping that he would just decide to retire before he made anymore terrible movies.

Then, in 2006, he wrote, directed and starred in "Rocky Balboa". Leading up to the release, most people just thought of this as a last gasp at relevance. Nobody thought the movie would actually be any good. Especially considering the franchise's decline in quality over the years. We're supposed to believe that a 60 year-old retired boxer is going to jump in the ring with a young champion and not get destroyed in seconds? In reality, even George Foreman's comeback ended at the age of 48.

I saw the film in Christmas Day, and was blown away. Stallone played Rocky as a man who has been beaten down by his life in the years since his last glorious days in the ring. His fortune has dried up, he's estranged from his son, and his beloved Adrian is dead and gone. And Paulie's still a fucking mess. So at least some things never change.

Circumstances lead to a charity match between Rocky and world champion Mason Dixon. Leading up to the match, most people thought that Rocky didn't stand a chance. He was over the hill, out of shape, and out of practice. Who's going to believe that a 60 year-old man is going to provide any kind of challenge to this young champion?

In a case of life imitating art, "Rocky Balboa" shocked the world. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed this movie. Stallone had inhabited the character of Rocky Balboa for so long, his struggles in life seemed to echo his character's struggles on-screen. No matter how hard life get, Rocky didn't give up, and neither did Stallone. Seriously, lesser men would have killed themselves after "Rhinestone".

When Rocky went the distance against Mason Dixon in the film's climax, it wasn't just a triumphant moment for the film, it was a victory for Stallone. He was telling the world "I'm still here, dammit!" Stallone managed to prove that he still had it, and I was thrilled. I couldn't wait to see what else he had up his sleeve.

That something turned out to be 2008's "Rambo". I love Sly's "Rambo" series. "First Blood" is a great, small movie about a damaged Vietnam veteran who is pushed too far by a small town sheriff. It's incredibly effective, and my heart always breaks for poor John Rambo when he tearfully breaks down in front of Col. Trautman in the end.

"Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III" are ridiculous, yet entertaining movies. A lot of shit blows up, a lot of people get killed, and Sly still manages to shove in a few genuine human moments in between all of the explosions. He crashes a fucking tank into a helicopter in part 3! That's fucking ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome.

But the sequels drifted away from the more serious nature of the original, and John Rambo, as a character, became muddy and less defined. When most people think about Rambo, they don't think about the broken veteran from the first film, they remember the oiled-up killing machine from the sequels. The cartoon.

Jesus, I forgot that they actually made a fucking "Rambo" cartoon. Wow, that was stupid. Between that and "The Toxic Crusaders", I always chuckled to myself, thinking that little kids were meant to enjoy the animated adventures of characters that originated in films made for adults. Seriously, how does a children's cartoon based on "The Toxic Avenger" get made? That's some kind of twisted genius, there.

Anyway, although I enjoyed John Rambo's latter-day adventures in blowing shit up, I was always a little disappointed that a bit of the character's soul was discarded in favor of elaborate action setpieces. So when Sylvester Stallone announced that he was going to go the "Rocky Balboa" route with his second most famous character, I was excited.

He seemed to have learned something with his previous film. I doubted Sly was going to make his supposedly last hurrah with John Rambo a big, dumb celluloid explosion with no heart. Just like with good old Rocky Balboa, he'd gotten all of the pomp and circumstance out of his system, and was ready to get back to his roots.

And as far as I'm concerned, "Rambo" did just that. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this movie. We meet John Rambo on the outskirts of a village in Thailand near the Burmese border. He makes a meager living catching snakes. His face is a mask, his eyes are blank, and his physique has the solidity of an old, strong oak tree.

He looks like he has the strength to punch your head clean off your shoulders with little effort, and his demeanor suggests that after destroying your life, he'd just go on with his day like nothing happened. If you thought Rocky had it rough, poor Rambo could tell that old boxer a few stories that would make him weep blood.

At first I wondered why John wasn't back with the Buddhist monks, living in the temple he was helping to construct in the previous film. He'd found a sort of peace with himself in that film, actually using his hands to create rather than destroy. John's in a pretty bad place when the fourth film begins, and there's no immediate explanation as to why.

I prefer to think that when John returned to Thailand, he found the temple burned to the ground, and all of the monks dead. That's the kind of shit that would turn a man into a silent, hulking, snake-wrangling beast.

If you've seen "Rambo", then you know the story: Nihilist John reluctantly agrees to ferry a group of missionaries across the border to Burma, which is a violent cesspool. He's convinced to do this by a naive young missionary named Sarah, who seems to awaken John's deeply buried humanity. Shortly after arriving in Burma, the missionaries get kidnapped by a corrupt military officer (big surprise), and are doomed to a short and miserable existence as guests of the Burmese army.

A team of mercenaries is hired to find the kidnapped missionaries, and Rambo agrees to accompany them, because he finds that he actually cares about poor Sarah. The mercs think Rambo's just an old boatman with massive arms, and tell him to stay on the boat. Luckily for them, Rambo doesn't stay on the boat, and almost single-handedly wipes out the entire Burmese army with the help of a mounted 50 caliber machine gun.

Then, just because he can, he obliterates the evil Burmese Major's internal organs with his terrorknife. So Rambo saves the day, the missionaries, and in the process, perhaps even his soul. The film ends with John returning home to the United States, on the outskirts of his father's farm.

"Rambo" is great. And it's also astoundingly violent. During the climactic battle, he transforms at least a hundred men into a fine red paste. He also hacks one poor bastard's head off with a machete. With one swipe of his mighty arm. It wasn't a punch, but it was close enough. Some might argue that Rambo regaining his humanity, in part, through extreme physical violence is the wrong message to send to the children. Those people are pussies.

Rambo finally comes to terms with his past, and all it took was the slaughter of a bunch of evil Burmese soldiers. A few of those soldiers might have been decent folks under desperate circumstances, but if they knew better, they would have dropped their guns and bolted into the jungle as fast as their legs could carry them. The moral of the story: don't point your gun at John Rambo, because he will annihilate you.

So "Rambo" was awesome. And Sly's next project sounded even awesomer. A group of badass mercenaries invading a small South American nation to overthrow a dictator? An amazing group of actors that reads like the cast of my insane action movie dreams? How soon can this movie open, and how quickly can I buy a ticket?

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, and Gary Daniels, with cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Oh, and Steve Austin and Randy Couture. And that cop from "Dexter" as the evil dictator. A real "men on a mission" movie. fantastic!

So did "The Expendables" deliver? Eeehh...

THE EXPENDABLES: The Title That Lies Like Dinner

I'll start with a quick (heh, heh) plot summary. Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is the leader of a group of soldiers of fortune named "the expendables". You can tell because they all ride motorcycles with their logo airbrushed on their gastanks. Hey, it's an easy way to advertise. His brothers in arms consist of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Ying Yang (Jet Li), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren).

Christ, those fucking names. Only Sly and Dolph have halfway normal names, and that's stretching it. Fucking Barney?! Stallone chose to call himself Barney? Why? That's just a nitpick, I suppose.

The film starts with our heroes boarding a pirate ship off the coast of Somalia, hired to rescue a group of hostages. Our boys surround the pirates as they prepare to start executing the hostages, with all of their pretty little gun lasers lighting up the Head Pirate like the Fourth of July. Barney throws down a bag of money, the previously agreed ransom amount to free the hostages.

The douchebag Head Pirate decides he wants more money, because the Expendables obviously have at least a few million extra dollars stuffed up their asses for just such an occassion. A short argument ensues, before Gunnar stops it by obliterating the Head Pirate's upper body with a grenade launcher. One firefight later, and the pirates are defeated, the hostages safe and sound.

Gunnar supposes now is a good time to string up one of the surviving pirates, as an example to any other pirates who might happen upon this now-derelict vessel. But that's not how the Expendables roll, baby! Sure, the pirate would kill them if given half a chance, but they have to be better than that. Yang tussles with Gunnar, Gunnar starts kicking his ass, and Barney stops the fight when he threatens to shoot his pal Gunnar for attempting to hang a fucking pirate.

Apparently, old Gunnar is a drug addict. We're never told what his drug of choice is, and we never see him take any drugs, but he's a filthy junkie, all right. Plus, he's crazy. So Barney fires his ass when the boys get home. Wonder if that plan will come back to bite Barney on his ass later?

Whenever the Expendables aren't shooting people in foreign countries and spontaneously growing vaginas when one of their own decides to kill a bad guy in a creative way, they hang out at a tattoo parlor owned and operated by a former mercenary and friend named Tool (Mickey Rourke). Seriously, they spend all of their free time at this place. With only a few exceptions, every U.S.-based moment of this film takes place at Tool's tattoo parlor. It's ridiculous.

Tool sets up a meeting for Barney with a mysterious contact offering big money for a dangerous mission in Val Verde... I mean Vilena, a small South American nation ruled with an iron fist by an evil dictator. Barney meets "Mr. Church" (Bruce Willis) and argues with an old rival also interested in the job named Trench (Schwarzenegger) for a few minutes, before Trench decides that he doesn't want the job and walks away.

"Mr. Church" wants Barney and his team to enter Vilena and kill the dictator, General Garza (David Zayas), but he really wants them to kill James Munroe (Eric Roberts), a rogue CIA agent who is supporting General Garza in exchange for a steady supply of exportable cocaine. See, "Mr. Church" is most definitely a CIA man, himself, and wants the Expendables to do the wetwork in eliminating Munroe so they don't have to. Your taxpayer dollars at work!

Barney and Christmas fly out to Vilena to meet their contact for a little reconnaissance. Their contact is a lady named Sandra (nobody), who just happens to be the daughter of General Garza. The little recon job goes awry when our heroes are forced to kill a bunch of soldiers who are aiming guns at them at point-blank range. Barney opts to bail out, because the mission is just too dangerous. So the revolution has been called off, as they make tracks to their seaplane, dragging a very reluctant Sandra along for the ride.

When they reach the plane, Sandra decides to stay, running away because she stands for something, dammit! Barney and Christmas take off, then realize that something hasn't gone boom in a while, so they turn the plane around and blast the dock full of waiting soldiers with a hail of bullets and a dollop of napalm for good measure.

Back home, Tool opens up to Barney, telling him about the time he "lost his soul" on a mission in Bosnia, allowing a woman to commit suicide because at the time he was so desensitized that he just couldn't bring himself to care. This plants the seed in Barney's head, and he decides that he's going to back to Vilena... for the girl.

Yang tags along with Barney on a little road trip, where they get ambushed by some of Munroe's goons, including Gunnar (shock of shocks!). A big, loud chase ensues, and some SUVs explode. Gunnar gets into a brawl with Yang, gets the upper hand, and Barney shoots him. Apparently dying, Gunnar decides to do the right thing and tell Barney all about the layout of Garza's dilapidated palace.

So the Expendables go back to Vilena, and the entire army shows up to fight our heroes. In the midst of the battle, Garza seems to have a change of heart regarding himself and his role in Vilena's future. He is tired of being manipulated by Munroe, and wants to lead his people into a brighter tomorrow. You see, he's a good dictator, after all! Munroe is having none of that, and shoots Garza in the back. Serves you right!

Anyway, the entire army is wiped out, everything blows up, and Munroe is killed by a bunch of bullets and a big, digitally created knife through the sternum. A job well done, the Expendables leave Sandra with her ruined country, and head back to Tool's tattoo parlor, to reunite with an alive and well Gunnar, get drunk and throw knives at a dartboard. The End.

So that's the story. Not much of a story, when you really break it down. Really just an excuse for a series of action sequences, more than anything else. I have some problems with "The Expendables", and now I am going to tell you about them, like it or not.

My first problem with this film is the eerie similarity to Sly's previous film, "Rambo". The only reason Rambo goes back to Burma is Sarah. He could give less than a shit about any of the other missionaries. If Sarah had half a brain and decided to stay home when her church group decided to go save the heathen souls of Burma from the fires of Hell, then Rambo would have just stayed home to headbutt trees into firewood for fun. Rambo turns Burma into a bloodsoaked nightmare because of the girl.

Barney does the exact same thing in "The Expendables". He had written little Sandra off until Tool conveniently chose to tell his pal a heartbreaking story about the poor woman he could have saved, but didn't. Barney didn't want to lose his soul, so he had to return to Vilena. Not for the mission. For the girl. Because she's not just the girl, she a symbol of reightousness and purity. She defies her father and his government, not for personal gain, but because it's the right thing to do. Got it?

Being a mercenary for so long, Barney's forgotten about "the right thing". Even though he wouldn't allow Gunnar to hang a pirate earlier in the film. So, like John Rambo, Barney chooses to save the girl, because it's just "the right thing to do". Fuck money, fuck fame, he's doing this to save his fucking soul!

The only real difference between this plot and the plot to "Rambo" is that the good mercs in "The Expendables" aren't useless assholes just waiting for Sly to pull their asses out of the fire. In fact, Barney's pals save his life, a time or two. I was disappointed that Stallone was already rehashing the plot from his previous film. He's better than that.

Another problem: the girl in "The Expendables" sucks. The actress who plays Sandra, Giselle Itie, is a horrible actress. She can't convincingly deliver any of her dialogue, she has no screen presence, and her heavy-lidded eyes are lifeless and distracting. Perhaps the dialogue can't be directly blamed on the actress, considering this is her first english-language role, and most of it is so pedestrian and trite.

But either way, this woman is supposed to make the audience care about her. We're supposed to want our heroes to go back to Vilena and save her. We don't. In "Rambo", Julie Benz played Sarah sympathetically. She was naive, she wanted to help people out of the goodness of her heart. Rambo cared about her. And so did we. The girl in "Rambo" worked. The girl in "The Expendables" did not.

Another problem? The actors. Not all of the actors, Dear Imaginary Reader. Just most of them.

Sylvester Stallone doesn't really bring much to the table in this movie, which was a huge surprise. He plays Barney Ross not as a man exhausted physically and emotionally by his career, but as just a tired man. He certainly has his moments, and at times a bit of his old, charismatic self shines through. But overall, he's not terribly memorable.

Perhaps that's the way old Sly wanted it. After all, his goal in making the film was to showcase an ensemble. And maybe he didn't want to do anything to outshine his castmates, choosing a more subdued performance over anything... bombastic. If this is true, then he failed. Because instead of subdued, he gave us sedated.

And Jason Statham? He's Barney's right hand man, so we spend more time with Lee Christmas than any other Expendable. So does he do anything worthwhile? Not really. From what I understand about his character, he likes knives, enjoys the odd poetry slam, and has terrible taste in women. Yes, he's the only member of the team with any real love interest. It's Charisma Carpenter, which makes sense. She's gorgeous, after all. I was astounded to learn that she's recently turned 40. Cordelia Chase is 40. She's aging gracefully, I must say.

Unfortunately, her role in "The Expendables" is completely superfluous. She's in two scenes. And that's it. She never shows up again. Lee never even refers to her again. Her role is utterly meaningless.

Let me lay it out for you: Lee's been out of the country (on Expendable business) for a month. He visits his girlfriend, surprised to find out that she's already moved on, despite the fact that they never broke up, that Lee never even hinted that he wanted to break up with her. His lady apparently got tired of waiting, and found a new man. And he's already living with her. She works fast, I tell ya.

Not only that, but her new beau is the biggest dick in the world. Sure, Barney would object to Gunnar attempting to hang an innocent pirate, but if he tried to string this right bastard up, Barney would start singing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow". And I wouldn't blame him.

New Lee can't manage to utter one sentence that is anything remotely resembling cordial. A permanent scowl of contempt is tattooed across his face. His eyes burn with rage and feelings of inadequacy. He might be wearing a hairpiece, I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me. New Lee tells Christmas Too to get lost. Cordelia's got a new man in her life, and he can satisfy her desires to be despised and objectified like no other man possibly can.

So our hero gets on his crotch rocket and tells Cordelia that she should have waited, and rides off, presumably to Tool's place, to throw more knives and drown his sorrows in the powerful, masculine arms of his good pal Barney.

Later that movie, Lee visits Cordelia again, for no immediately discernible reason, and sees the brand new shiner across her left eye. Holy shit, ladies and gentlemen! Not only is New Lee a complete cunt, he likes punching ladies, as well! New Lee truly is the biggest dick in the world.

So now, if Lee were to, say, track down his newly minted nemesis, beat the living shit out of him and all of his friends as a public basketball court, and threaten New Lee's very life with the pointy end of one of his many, many, many knives, while puffy Cordelia watches, he would be totally justified.

So he... well he does just that. And then he quietly orders the now submissive, traumatized Cordelia to climb on the back of his bike, telling her once again that she should have waited for him. Because he's worth it. He's the "L'Oréal" of men. And as I said previously, after they ride off together, she might as well not exist, because she's fucking gone.

Simply put, these scenes are padding. We get to see Jason Statham act macho and beat the holy hell out of a group of worthless yuppies, but it's pointless. We've seen it all, before. And the whole subplot doesn't really work. Why is he so enamored with a woman who essentially left him at the drop of a hat for an utter asshole? She has no personality of her own. She's a complete cipher. We're supposed to care because she's being abused, but she isn't even a real character. It's complete manipulation, and it's borderline offensive.

Charisma Carpenter acts like she has no idea why she's even in the movie. She just stares with her big, brown eyes and closely resembles a startled deer transfixed by a car's headlights on a deserted country road. These two scenes could have been completely removed from the film without causing any harm to the narrative. They contribute nothing.

David Zayas, who is great on "Dexter", and was great on "Oz", is a fucking bore in this movie. Was I meant to feel any sympathy for the brutal dictator when Eric Roberts shot him in the back? Maybe, but I was just relieved that I didn't have to listen to him spout any more insipid dialogue.

Randy Couture is not an actor. Somebody should have told Randy Couture that before he decided to appear in this film. It's saying something when Steve Austin is not the worst actor in your film. It's saying a lot. A whole hell of a lot. Steve Austin is still the second worst actor in the film, so don't get nervous. These two titans of bland have their own private rumble during the climax, and Couture kicks Austin into a wall of fire.

Steve Austin is supposed to be burning alive, and that has got to be one of the most painful experiences imaginable. Steve Austin no-sells this worse than any of his soap opera segments in the wrestling ring. His laughable attempts at screaming caused me to burst out in maniacal laughter. It was absolutely deplorable. At least he's dead, so he can't appear in any hypothetical sequels.

Couture still might, so I suggest that when the sequel begins, one of the Expendables laments at the off-screen death of our beloved Toll Road, while simultaenously welcoming their newest member, Black Dynamite. Why not?

The script is garbage. I don't know how Sly wrote this and thought it was any good. Then again, he must have thought "Rhinestone" was good, at some point. So perhaps the man is mentally regressing into some primitive, action-hero caveman state. Or maybe he's just delusional. Either way, he wrote a bad script.

The action is passable, at times. It's also great, at times. It's also *white noise* at times. Stallone decided to shoot most of the hand-to-hand fighting sequences in extreme close-up reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's work in "Batman Begins". That makes it very hard to make any sense of what's actually happening onscreen.

In what should have been an absolute no-brainer of an action sequence in a fight between Jason Statham, Jet Li and Gary Daniels as Munroe's henchman, Stallone stays so close to the action for the majority of the fight that I had no idea what was going on. Inexcusable.

And the run-and-gun sequences don't fare much better. It became crystal clear that Stallone had originally shot a PG-13 movie when every single gunshot wound became an explosion of digital blood approaching the heights of "Ninja Assassin". It's terrible. And when Eric Roberts met his end at the end of the worst-looking digital knife blade I have ever seen, I hung my head.

And just for good measure, here's a real nitpick: None of the good guys die. None of them even get shot. Except for Gunnar, but he was "on hiatus" at the time. So none of "The Expendables" die. That doesn't feel right, to me.

So now you simply must be asking to yourself, Did this sad bastard actually enjoy anything about this movie? The answer is yes. Hard to believe, but I actually found a lot to enjoy in the film.

How about the actors? Not all of the actors. Just some of the actors.

Like Dolph Lundgren. He plays Gunnar Jenssen as a coked-up lunatic, and he devours every crumb of scenery in his general vicinity. Although he's only featured in perhaps fifteen minutes of the actual film, he's an absolute delight whenever his weathered, Swedish face appears. So much so, that I think the film actually suffers without his consistent presence. Stallone apparently felt the same way, so he chose to shoehorn the previously dead character into the final scene, just because he liked the guy as much as I did.

His exuberant glee when blasting a nefarious pirate into the afterlife, and his childlike excitement when he attempts to hang yet another pirate made me grin. His persistence in calling everyone who looks down on him an "insect" made me laugh. And watching him kick Jet Li's ass was hilarious and brilliant. He's the film's MVP.

Speaking of Jet Li, his grotesquely named "Ying Yang" is a surprising bright spot in the film. He's actually funny. He continues to complain that he needs more money to support his family, and when pressed on the subject, he clams up, a blank stare fixed on his face. Later on, he casually drops the fact that he doesn't really have a family, that he's just greedy, and it doesn't sound funny, but I couldn't help but laugh.

And when he whines to Barney that he deserves more credit because he has to work harder than everyone else on account of his diminuative stature, I cracked up. It's all in his dead-pan delivery. He sounds deadly serious, and that's why it's funny. He never smiles. I can't recall ever seeing the man smile. But he obviously has a great sense of humor. But if you ever laughed at him, he'd probably break your neck.

Eric Roberts obviously knew what kind of movie he was in, and just hammed it up as the irredeemably corrupt Munroe. He's always entertaining, and once again, I just wish he were more prominently featured in the film. There's a particularly great moment involving him and Dadid Zayas, as Munroe and General Garza investigate the hideout of Garza's revolutionary daughter, Sandra.

Munroe scans the walls with contempt, gazing at all of Sandra's unframed tattoo shop-quality artowk, which serves as a de facto wallpaper. He turns to Garza and spits the line "Paintings?! This is how it starts!!!" then storms out. As soon as Munroe is out of earshot, Garza turns to the camera and mumbles "Or how it ends", almost as if he were afraid that if Munroe heard him, he would get a spanking. Nonsensical comedy gold.

Terry Crews is great as "Hale Caesar". Too bad he's barely in the fucking movie. He's one of the most naturally funny people I've ever seen on film, and it's a damned shame that he's rarely utilized properly. He's not just the madman from the Old Spice commercials, kids. He's the fucking President.

Caesar arms himself with a badass automatic shotgun and lays everything to waste. He turns an underground cavern full of henchmen into an abbatoir. When Barney runs out of ammo for his assault rifle, he tells Caesar to take care of the guard towers surrounding the palace. He explodes them with his weapon of mass destruction.

As Munroe makes his way to his patented supervillain escape chopper, Barney asks if Caesar can throw a nearby massive, unexploded shell. Caesar picks it up and tosses it toward the chopper like a fucking Greek demigod, and Barney shoots it, blowing up the chopper. Eric Roberts has a classic, "why me" reaction to this development.

In short, Terry Crews is the tits.

The much-hyped cameo sequence involving Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis may be blatant fan service, but it's a big highlight in the film. Arnold's having a lot of fun playing a complete asshole, and it shows. And Bruce Willis shows more life in this tiny cameo than he has since maybe "The Whole Nine Yards". That mischievious glint has returned to his eye, and he's clearly enjoying himself. I think it's because he finally got to say a few curse words in a movie, again. He's always at his best when he has the leeway to be vulgar.

Mickey Rourke brings a lot to his small role as fucking "Tool". Stallone clearly got Rourke on loan from the set of "Iron Man 2", because he looks just like Ivan Vanko, down to the gold highlights in his teeth. But he's funny, memorable, and actually has the only truly heartfelt moment in the film when Tool tells Barney about "the Bosnian tragedy". The dialogue that Stallone wrote for him wasn't great, but Rourke sells it like an old pro.

I hope he comes back for a sequel, and once again, I hope he gets more screentime.

"The Expendables" is not a good movie. But the actors are not at fault. In fact, my only real praise for the film comes purely from the performances. Stallone let them down, as a filmmaker. He dropped the ball, and because of that, I couldn't really recommend this movie to anybody.

My brother briefly spoke to me about the movie the other day, and was appalled that I could feel so disappointed. He didn't understand why I couldn't just let go and enjoy the ride. I wondered if we had seen two different movies. How could anybody walk out of "The Expendables" and not feel disappointed?

The movie's been number one at the box office for two weeks in a row. So a sequel is potentially a reality. I just hope that Stallone takes the time to make a better movie for his cast this time. Next time, I'll tell talk about "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World". This post has gone on far too long, and I have to learn the delicate art of brevity.