Could This Post Have Come Any Faster?

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!

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?!

"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?

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?!

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.