Movie: Duplicity

Duplicity is a movie that lives up to its name, I guess. I both liked portions of it, and quite disliked other aspects of the film. A lot of today’s flicks are very devoid of any sort of compelling or interesting storytelling. Not that the overall ideas are bad, it’s just that they’re connected in practice very awfully, making logical jumps that are less than the name implies, being illogical at best and mind-numbingly insulting at worst. 

It didn’t suffer that fate, the story starts out interesting, and does something that I haven’t seen done well in a long while: build & maintain suspense. I was suspensed. Is that a word? Is now. Suspensed.

OK so what was wrong with the movie? Two things. First and most glaringly, they cast Julia Roberts as the sexy, smart, sassy leading woman. And look, I got nothing against the Pretty Woman, but let’s be real here: that was 20 years ago and she was already into her prime at that point, OK? It really was this elephant in the room the whole movie, me & The Girl looking at the screen, watching Clive Owen stare longingly into her eyes like she was Marissa Miller in a Fruit Roll-Up bikini or something, then WE look at each other, checking the screen again to make sure it wasn’t a joke, and then simultaneously saying “eewwwww…”

Because she looked like a grandma. She looked, actually, like a pregnant grandma, at about 4 months in. Clive Owen’s a handsome middle-aged man, and they’ve got him totally doe-eyed over some chubby geriatric, and honestly? It’s kind of gross. Bothered us the whole way through the film, and made me dread ever getting as old as Julia Roberts. 

I know you don’t believe me, right? I mean she was PRETTY WOMAN FOR CRIST’S SAKE, MAN! WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING YOUNG ‘BOB?!?!?! Well to that I say, watch the film for yourself. You too will throw up a little in your mouth at the sight, and owe me $20. That’s right, I just placed that bet.

Second ‘problem’ I had with the film was the lack of ending. Sort of. They DO conclude it rather well, it’s not a bad ending per se, it’s just that it almost posed more questions that it answered, and I am not one to like being left in suspense; I like conclusions that answer all my questions. I don’t want to give it away to anyone that hasn’t seen it yet (remember the bet!), so I won’t go into detail. I will only say that they answer a question that is formed in your mind 5 minutes before the film ends, then they ask another question shortly afterwards, that gets you thinking “yeah, what about that?” and then they don’t even bother acknowledging said question was asked. They just roll credits.

Would I recommend the movie? Depends. How good is your eyesight? How big is the TV? Is it HD? Because I think there’s a scale here. If your’e eyesight’s good and it’s on a big HDTV, then maybe you should avoid it, and the recommendation actually grows in inverse quantities to the quality of the image, in this regard. As far as story, if you can hold your thumb up and cover up Julia when she’s on screen, then the story’s a winner almost until the credits roll, and yeah I’d recommend it with no further qualifications (other than the thumb thing).

Of course then again, there is that bet; perhaps I should be recommending it no matter what. $20 bills in DROVES, I tell you. Just email them to me.

Ding Dong, the witch is dead, the witch is dead... ;-)

Back to normal

After a week of mother-in-law in town, we’re back alone, back to normal, and back to sex! No, not really. Too damned tired for that right now. Which, I guess is back to normal! Yay!

Sleepy because: bad news

Miles isn’t doing hot. Luckily he has made it long enough to see everyone he knew from the old days that he’s going to get to see before he goes; I think the time draws near, unfortunately. 

He’s been sleeping in my room for the last three weeks. We started this because the pups were just all over the guy trying to take care of him and basically just caring so much that it was an annoyance to poor ol’ Miles. Sleeping behind a closed door with his daddy had been a nice, peaceful break. However, that seemed to stop a few nights ago, as he’s now too uncomfortable to make it through much of the night actually sleeping.

Instead, most of our nights together consist of him dragging his self around and panting loudly, and us (me especially) sitting up to make sure he’s doing “OK”  — as OK as a cancer-stricken 13y/o dog with a broken him can be — and doesn’t need to go out to use the bathroom. And I mean it, too — this is most of our night. I felt bad, but at some point this morning I had to kick him out of the room, because I needed more than 45 minutes of consecutive sleep, dammit.

I put his bed out in the hallway corner, let him out to pee, and when I eventually got up two hours later, where did I find him? Outside still.

And I’ll mention too that he didn’t eat this morning. I poured him some food, he just laid down and looked away instead. Miles, okay? Miles doesn’t turn down food. This is obviously serious business.

Quick movie update

While mom-in-law was here, we watched something called National Geographic: Extreme, which was supposed to be Hi-Def heaven, following around extreme sportsmen (and women!) into the wilds of our planet, thrill seeking. Let me save you the trouble: it sucked. The music was corny 90% of the time, I didn’t care to hear voiceovers from the lame as though they were great wisdom sources or something, and I can only watch a snowboarder carve a mountain path so many times before I a) can’t tell the difference between the cutscenes, and b) just don’t care anymore.

Also watched The International last night. Stars Clive Owen. How was it? Well, I had thought that perhaps it would be a suspenseful movie full of suspense ‘n’ stuff, what with the look on Clive Owen’s face on the trailers and such. Little did I know beforehand that Clive Owen always looks like that, apparently. It, too, sucked, and actually sucked much harder, because it was a) longer, and b) I still didn’t care anymore.

I didn’t bother giving either of these movies their own blog, because? Well, they don’t deserve it. They’re both b-rate entertainment that isn’t bad enough to warrant their own narrative nor were they good enough to deserve praise. They are b-rate mediocrity and proud to be.

Battlestar Galactica Finale

I watched this and just wanted to let you know I did. I have an opinion on it and plan to share, but for now just wanted to say: I can’t wait for Lost to come out on disc so I can continue watching. Love these types of shows, Lost especially. 

OK, Peace out.

Indiana Jones and the Search for a Better Plot

I like the Indiana Jones adventures from yesteryear myself. Actually I even own the box DVD set. You know, the pretty one with all the artwork and everything? That one. Got it for X-mas about 3 years ago, it was a good gift if even in Full Screen instead of Widescreen.

BUT THIS, the newest one — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — I was wholly unprepared for. The amount of suck was so stupendous, that I just shook my head in disbelief for the entire 3 hours it took to completely rape my mind of logic & consistency. It was like a bad, bad Saturday morning cartoon, but without the redeeming qualities such as commercials or entertainment or, hell, both.

I’m not sure I have the room to list everything that is wrong with the film here, but I’m gonna try, so bear with me:

• Everything

Whew! Wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it through that to the end! And thank you, dear reader, for sticking it through, seeing it take shape and evolve into something bigger than you and me; bigger than the sum of its parts.

That was funny, right? Good. OK now to actually bore you with some of the examples that stand out in my mind. Yeah, sorry ‘bout, kinda misled you there.

Let’s start with the corny way they introduce him. Dumb. We get it. It’s a f*cking INDIANA JONES MOVIE YOU F*CKTARDS, we knew who it was in the car, we saw the hat, the overdrawn overdramatic scene was F*CKING ANNOYING to anyone who’s even old enough to remember reruns of the series on TV.

Then there’s the next scene. Dumb. Because if the thing is magnetized so much that throwing gun powder in the air causes it to float, then BY GOLLY, other metal things will be just as susceptible — like, ALL the metal nails in ALL the boxes in the damned warehouse, or maybe all the metal in all the guns? Yeah.

And did we see him survive a catastrophic ATOMIC BOMB by putting himself inside of a refrigerator? And somehow HIS REFRIGERATOR was the ONLY thing that managed to fly out of ground zero.

The CGI was atrocious throughout. I can’t figure out why it is that a 15-year-old movie — Jurassic Park — is still the standard-bearer for special effects in movies. Just ridiculous.

And slightly connected to that thought: freaking monkeys?!!? Were they serious? I was supposed to buy that scene? Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls, if you didn’t know what a Dues Ex Machina was before today? Now you do.

The whole movie felt like a train wreck that was happening at high-speed. It never slowed down enough to really try and have a plot, which I guess is good in a sense for them seeing as how they didn’t really have one, just sort of had a bunch of Dues Ex Machinas strung together with a bullwhip for posterity. And have I mentioned Sh!t Lebarf?

Yeah. He’s there. So, uh, if you haven’t yet, obviously don’t bother. Just read this intsead, yeah? If you have already? I’m sorry. I’ll see you at the meetings, guys.

Movie: I love you, Man

We didn’t expect too much from it as we had heard not-so-glamorous things about the flick, so we went into the viewing maybe a few notches dialed back from “whoa this movie will be the best movie EVUR!>!11.11!!!” which is probably a good thing for any movie. But I’d like to imagine that indeed, the movie is still good on its own accord even without the low expectations.

It’s simple. It’s got a theme, it sticks to it all the way throughout, and the characters are true to form. What I liked about it and why I think it was a successful movie, was that the characters didn’t step out of form and the story didn’t reach into the unlikely to pull out an ending. What I mean is, have you seen Dan in Real Life? It’s a decent movie, but the ending was hollow and that had a definite impact on how I viewed the whole movie. After all, the journey’s as important as the destination, no? So when we got to the end and it was cheap, it sort of made me question everything we’d already watched thus far.

Not so with this movie though, it was more like Wedding Crashers. You know the characters – or at least get to know them – and they grow along the story in measured and realistic ways.

Of note: I just realized I cannot be funny in a post about a movie I like. I can’t do it. If it SUCKS BALLS then I can totally pull off humor, but as it stands, when I like a film and make a post, it’s always warm & fuzzy. Huh.

Seen: Push, the Movie

Well, we all make mistakes. We watched this piece of poo, actors acted in this piece of poo, and a certain writer & director wrote & directed this piece of poo. There was some hope for it, it had some promise, but that promise quickly turned out to be a lie, much like that pony you were told you were getting for your birthday if you were a really really good kid at the grocery store, remember? Kinda like that.

We watched to the end, we just kept hoping, maybe somehow something at the end will make it all make sense. And in a way, that sort of happened, though it was after the credits, buried in the Special Features section – the writer explained that when we began researching for the film, he – and he made sure to tell us all we should do this – typed in “psychic experiments” into google, and says he was blown away that stuff came up.

I am not lying.

So basically, this movie was written because this dumbass hadn’t yet heard of the internet, I guess. Or comic books, because um, it would seem that X-men had sort of blazed this path previously. And better. Maybe he can treat us to a new movie later, called “Pull,” about a man who dresses up in a Bat costume and saves a metropolitan area from itself.

Oh and Dakota, darling? Like you a lot, but you shouldn’t let them dress you in that stuff. I was confused – should I call Child Welfare? Should I put money down your boots? Should I hug you and tell you it’s going to be OK? Is it halloween? Did they REALLY dress a super-skinny pre-teen girl in a hooker outfit in Hong Kong or wherever and expect us to believe she’s not worn-the-F*ck–out, if you’re pickin’ up what I’m throwin’ down?

F*ck; wasted a Netflix queue position. DAMMIT.

Land Of The Lost relents, Forces Will Ferrell Back on Us All

Land of the Lost opened this weekend, to dismal reviews. I just wanna come out and say it: when can we admit – as a people and a nation – that Will Ferrell is just not funny? Look folks, if you wanna pay some idiot large sums of money for having the same stupid look on his face at all times, I’m standing right here.

Stop sending the checks his way, OK? Send them to me. Christ, I’m going to have to put up a paypal donation button on this site, aren’t I? You’re gonna make me do it, aren’t you?

I’ll call it: The Stop Will Ferrell NOW donation fund.

Eagle Eye

Yeah I know, I just got through ripping sh!t lebarf up a few days ago, and here I am, watching a movie that he stars in. What gives? Two words: Michelle. Monaghan. Well not really. I mean, yeah she’s pretty, but I don’t actually watch movies because of whether or not I think a leading lady is hot.

That only matters if I’m watching porn.
...Okay, moving on.

It looked mildly intriguing. I didn’t expect much. I didn’t get much, so I guess my expectations were in line with reality more or less. It was better than I thought though, most of it. It’s just that when the end finally comes, you realize that the rest of the movie that preceded it was kind of silly.

It’s not a complete and utter waste of film (Michelle. Monaghan), but you can do better with two hours. How is the movie really? It’s basically I, Robot only not as good. Just go rent I, Robot instead and then look at pretty pictures of Michelle Monaghan online somewhere. It’ll be a better-spent two+ hours.

Added bonus? No Sh!t Lebarf.

Shrek the "Bad things come in threes" edition

You know they say that sequels always suck. That’s what they say. How true it is, I don’t know, but I’d say it’s not a 100% sure-thing. Indiana Jones, anybody? Those were all winners. OK I know what you’re thinking, didn’t they just do a new sequel to that with ‘tard of an actor, Sh!t le-barf? Yeah OK you got me there, but I am going to conveniently ignore that such a film exists (also ignoring in the same vein: Star Wars Prequels).

Anyway, the build-up:

We’ve been home shopping since about early December. Wrote our first offer in the middle of that month, then another and another again, the latest in February. One that we wrote an offer on in January – our best candidate still – is a short sale which we’re still waiting on final approval from the seller’s bank, though hopefully we find out soon. Maybe today even. Still though, we’re looking around. We figured, why wait? What if this were to fall through and we ended up passing up some great homes in the meantime.

Recently a new property came up in town that was in our price range and looked like it might be a bargain. It was on a decent-sized lot, and was a nicely-sized house itself, so we called our realtor and had him set us up a showing. And as it turned, out the house was much better from afar. Good from far, far from good, as the playas say these days. Well, that I hear that the playas are saying these days, in ‘da hood.’ But the visit wasn’t a total waste. We found a movie!

The first room I walked into was a front bedroom with a closet. I opened the closet doors to get a peek and noticed that the door felt like it was being impeded. I peeked betwen the two doors, and sure enough, sandwiched in there was a DVD case. A copy of Shrek the Third.

Yeah I know, that was a long way to go to get to anything having to do with a sequel. Sorry.

Did I ever tell you about my love of Shrek? It was earned, let me tell you. I originally had no intention of ever watching the movie. It was an animated kids’ flick it seemed at the time, and I had no desire to see anything that even reminded me of a Disney adventure. I hate cute sh!t. If I saw a mouse with big ears wearing red shorts, I’d kill the little bastard. ESPECIALLY if it was annoying as hell and named Mickey. So yeah, Shrek seemed too kiddish & cute to like. But The Girl insisted – this was before she had anything to do with me and was just a friend of the family – and since I was home and had nothing better to do but eat dinner and suffer through a maddeningly-stupid-yet-annoyingly-cute movie, I let it happen.

Glad I did, too. It’s still one of my favorite movies. It’s just got that something.

Number 2, however, did not. I suffered through it at the theatre, and then I had to convince just about everyone that saw it that it did indeed suck. A second viewing was usually all it took. I find that once you’ve seen it, even if you say you loved it the first time, you just get worn out of the same worn-out jokes by about the 40-minute mark.

But, you say, what about the Third?

Well, I think that perhaps we should just continue bashing the second one. It’s more fair. The third installment sucked so bad, I refuse to accept in my mind that it was anything but a “straight to DVD” release. See above, commence ignoring, you could say. I mean, the jokes weren’t just bad, they were bad AND recycled from the first one, AND telegraphed like a... telegraph message?

The second installment sucked of its own merit; the third was just a quick money-grab by the producers. Luckily I stumbled upon it for free. It would seem to me that a better alternative to paying them to make you see it, would be to just have paid them to let you NOT have to see it.

Don’t. If you haven’t already, just… Don’t.

Max Payne: So many corny ways to say it, but – it sucked

I saw the reviews. They sucked. I heard through the grapevine, that it sucked. But still I didn’t want to believe it at first. I had to see it with my own eyes to make sure. Only then did I feel that I could truly say whether or not it was “suck” or not.

And it was.

Nothing gelled. There was this false sense of urgency for no real reason. Characters said that this person or that person was this or that way, but it didn’t gel with what you were seeing on screen. The pacing was too fast in some places, not fast enough in others. It was half video-game-shootout, half -sloppy-crime-drama. And not the best of either half, either.

It was: A big-budget, low-grade B-rate movie. Hell, with a mere 18% on the tomatometer, maybe I should have known. I mean, my taste sways a bit and sometimes I like what isn’t top-rated, but I can’t think of any other film that’s been below 20% and gotten the nod from me. Might have to change the rules a bit: only believe your own eyes, unless the reviews score below 25% or something.

It’s corny, but hey: Max Payne is Max Pain. Ouch.

I don't like Brad Pitt

I just… gaaah, I just don’t. I have just now returned from watching a new trailer over at apple’s Movie Trailers website, this time having viewed Inglorious Basterds. It’s a new film from Quentin Tarantino, who makes movies that aren’t really that coherent or valuable. Anyway, this isn’t about him; it’s about Brad Pitt.

Go and watch the damned trailer. Watch his performance. Cringe. Then return here!

He’s been in like 40 or something movies. Two of these are worth watching, Se7en, and Snatch. Now I will give him credit where credit is due: he gave a wonderful performance in Snatch. Se7en on the other hand, sort of sucked a minor bit. Yes look, I know it’s highly-acclaimed and all, it stars Kevin Spacey & Morgan Freeman – two of my favorite actors – but here’s what I’m saying: that movie was everything it was despite Brad Pitt. He brought nothing to the film short of some bad script reading & ill-placed everything. Making a face? Bad time for it. Making a noise? Wrong noise. Being Brad Pitt? Wrong actor.

He never adds anything to a film. He’s always Brad Pitt, in a role in a movie (Snatch being the exception). It’s like he shows up from pretty-boy class, gets handed the script, reads the three lines for the scene, and then they shoot. That’s every Brad Pitt Moment in cellophane. He just sucks as an actor.

There, I said it. I feel better now. And he’s not really that pretty either. It’s true, ladies.

I really hope that he & Angelina Jolie sort of implode and never make another movie ever again. And I hope that Quentin Tarantino takes note, and stops while he still has a shot at life.

Recently Watched: Eagle vs Shark; Rock n' Rolla

A long, long time ago, in a county far, far away, I was linked to a trailer for Eagle vs. Shark. It looked interesting. Sort of oddball comedy, and hey, I like oddball, right? Hell I own the box-set of the Naked Gun series, yo. (who the f*ck says “yo”? I take that back. You never heard that).

Well in talking to this same person recently over video chat, it came up again. It was on my Netflix queue, and I just sort of ‘bumped it’ to the top, along with some other movie fare.

It wasn’t quite what I expected. I expected a comedy and that’s what, I got, yes. But I expected more of a touching love story between two retards who discover that they’re perfect for each other, interspersed with comedic elements; they are retarded, after all. But instead, you follow around this girl, who is just plain enamored with this ‘tard of a guy, and she’s sweet and innocent and you like her, but the guy she likes is not just a ‘tard, but a freakin’ a**hole too. And… well, it’s hard to root for him. You really just sort of want her to go back home and find another, nicer ‘tard to become infatuated with.

It’s not a terrible movie by any stretch, but it had twinkles of what could have been that really sort of spoiled the reality of what we got. I desperately wanted the no-good ‘tard-man to see the light, and realize that indeed, he’s being given something well beyond what he deserves in life.

And really? Beating up the wheelchair guy? OK, funny maybe. But definitely didn’t endear that guy to my heart.



Rock n’ Rolla
This was actually the other movie that got pushed up to the top of my queue at a friend’s request. I was told, it’s a lot like snatch.

Have we met? You know me, right? Then you know Snatch is in close running for my all-time favorite comedy, dark or no.

Well it is done by the same guy (Guy Ritchie). It is an english ‘mobster’ movie. There’s a fat black guy. There’s an old kingpin. And, the similarites end about there. Mostly where it derails is that the story is weak, and the dark comedy isn’t really there. In Snatch, all the character’s paths cross, no matter how disparate they are. In this one, everyone’s paths cross, but it’s totally expected. wtf?

There’s also the issue of them living inside their own reality. Yes I know it’s a movie, it’s fiction, blah blah blah. But look, in Snatch, everything was well-enough explained. You knew where the money was coming from. It all made sense. In this, people are rich and you don’t know why or how much, what their motivations are, or why they have a fear of cats. You’re just sort of handed that on the program or something.

“Tonight, Guy Ritchie will be performing ‘Snatch’ only not as good. There will be refreshments in the lobby, after the show. Characters will enter the showing and you will assume they are badasses. This will not be shown. Oh, and there are two classes of Russians: those that are wealthy and no one knows why, and those that are tough homosexuals. Enjoy the show.”

I didn’t. At least, not as much as I wanted & hoped.

TDK: a second attempt

Yes I’m a glutton for punishment (hurt me, baby!). But that’s not the entirety of the explanation. Firstly, someone got it for me for X-mas, and lo-and-behold, it was Blu-Ray & not DVD. Secondly, it still manages well above a 90% rating on the tomatometer. And Thirdly? Well, I am a glutton for punishment (hurt me, baby!).

Upon a second viewing, I can safely say that I really don’t like The Dark Knight all that much. It’s got these gaping plot holes that just scream out at you if you’re paying attention. Sure there’s action, sure there’s like 3 seconds of suspense somewhere, if you look hard enough. Sure, there’s a butt-ugly girl being paraded around like she’s hot stuff when she’s not. Sure, there’s lots of things in the movie that are singularly good. My problem is, together, they just don’t work. I don’t buy Maggie as a classy lawyer about as much as I didn’t buy Katie Holmes as one, either. I could “write” about all the things that I dislike about the flick, but it seems this will come out shorter if I list them, bullet-point style:

• How is it that a LARGE BUS pulls out of the side of a building on a main thoroughfare into a line of other busses, and no one blinks an eye, and say, maybe, calls the cops to report this strange bus that’s clearly not part of this field trip? That just pulled out of the face of a large bank? Maybe?

• Why does Batman suddenly need a new suit? His old one was bad-ass. The new one looks like GI Joe having a midlife crisis.

• Batman hires a big, slow, junk plane to haul him from a rooftop in Hong Kong. Apparently, there’s no air force or anything that can catch this lumbering, crotchety old plane? Really?

• When Batman jumps out of the building to save Rachel and they fall & land on the top of a cab, there’s the small issue of the fact that The Joker is still up on the top floor, with all his henchmen – with GUNS – in the middle of the party. And they’re still looking for Harvey Dent, who’s passed out somewhere up there. How do we rectify this situation? Why, we cut to a scene during the next day!

• What?!?!! I’m sorry, I don’t care how big Batman’s cock is, there’s no way that he or anyone else can take sonar samples of a bullet hole and reconstruct a freakin’ fingerprint. He’s rich & smart, he’s not Merlin the Magnificent.

• OK so we’re caravanning to take Mr. Dent to the County prison. There’s a large truck on fire blocking their planned route. The first one to notice this is the driver of the front vehicle. Not, perhaps, the f*cking helicopter that’s patrolling the route from the sky.

• Then, they divert to the lower, underground version of the road, where there awaits an already-up-to-speed garbage truck that pummels a handful of cars. Followed by a Big Rig that is also perfectly up to speed, that T-bones a car and then continues to accelerate as only a small sports car could.

• Batman then proceeds to show up and time everything just right, to the point of being able to jet his car into the path of a shoulder-fired missile that saves Mr. Dent’s life.

• After all this, what’s left of the caravan detours up to some random road to get assistance from above. It just so happens that this is the road that The Joker predicted, and has people on the roofs of the buildings to fire cables to destroy said air support (helicopter). Meaning, he had already planned for all of his plan’s failures, and even more, WHEN his plan would fail and they’d take a detour.

• The Joker lets us in on the fact that he had the car that took away Dent from the scene of the street fight & also his girlfriend, being driven by his men, who took them to undisclosed locations full of explosives. They’re on opposite ends of the city, so Batman can only save one, because…. ? Apparently, cops are not on patrol around town and cannot be counted on to show up to an address and save a person.

• Now this is the major one here. This is the one that makes me want to reach for the remote & just turn it off. See, eventually The Joker is in prison, along with a fat guy that has a phone & bomb sewn into him. He blows up the building by calling this phone, thus showing us that he in fact had the last 5 bullet points incorporated into his plan in the first place. Riiiiiiiight………

• How the hell did The Joker know that there’d be a boat with conmen going across the river at the same exact time as a boat full of innocent civilians? Riiiiight………

• How the hell did The Joker get explosives into both of the ferries, in the engine rooms, and no one noticed??!!? Riiiiight………

So, yeah. It’s got some decent parts, but the whole is lacking, and mostly it boils down to the fact that the story isn’t strong enough – too many holes – and simply, the other ancillary stuff just can’t cover it up.

I know I am not alone, but I just can’t figure out why it’s so damn popular.

Recent Movies

Logan’s Run
We had not seen this movie before, but it’s always referenced, so we figured we’d try and get in on the inside of the jokes or whatever. This was a mistake. The concept… well, I can see why it’s always referenced, because it’s sort of the base of a LOT of future Hollywood movies (Blade Runner comes to mind, as does elements of The Matrix, and many many others). So conceptually, it wasn’t that bad. But there were these parts that required “actors,” and unfortunately it was pretty much devoid in this respect. Who was that ugly twit they hired to play Logan? Why? I wasn’t born yet, but I’m pretty sure they still could have gotten me to fill the part.

And character development? I guess that wasn’t around until the mid-80’s or so. And neither were people with perfect pitch or any form of musical talent.

One thing that I do wish would make a comeback though, is the opening text-as-background-story. It’s nice to read a paragraph or two, and have an understanding of what you’re about to watch, and I do prefer it to what Hollywood’s done lately. You know, how they have characters sort of shamelessly drop background plot points in completely obnoxious & unnatural ways that sort of make you cringe. I hate that. I’d prefer the short opening background story to make a reappearance.



Good Will Hunting
This movie’s old, but it’s supposed to be pretty good, so we thought we’d culture ourselves on it a little. If the title sounds familiar but you’re having trouble placing it, it’s the movie that Ben Affleck & Matt Damon wrote & starred in, that essentially thrust them into existence.

Side note: I had no idea that the title was sort of a “good dog” congratulatory saying. You know, Matt Damon is Will Hunting, and he’s good. “Good Will Hunting, Good Will Hunting. Now sit! Stay! Get a job!”

It was a good movie if not quite what I was expecting out of it. But I do think that it thought it was more touching & important than it probably really was. Just my opinion, I guess – as is most everything I bother writing down – but I think if you watch it critically, it’s “just OK” as opposed to “landmark cinematic experience.”



Deliverance
This one I watched online (legally, through Netflix) while The Girl was down south visiting her family. It was sort of the same thing as Logan’s Run, in that it’s an oldie that is often referenced and re-referenced, and I guess I felt the need to see it and know firsthand what all the references really are.

Though at this point I don’t think there’s really much doubt what everyone references, and ladies & gentlemen if you’ve not seen this movie but suspect that you know what the references are, let me assure you that you do. It’s not that cloaked. There’s some male-on-male raping action.

The only thing that really struck me about it was that the scene that is most oft-referenced, is so damn short. I really expected it to be some drawn out scene, full of suspense & intrigue, not a quickie, wham-bam-thank-you-sir-and-now-we’re-off sort of moment.

And seriously, why was there any argument? What they should have done is ran after the fat guy and caught him, and then either a) killed him and buried them both, or b) taken him in as proof.

They should have “delivered” him to the authorities, or they should have just neutralized him & subsequently the entire future of their issues right then.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I’m a little late telling you about this, but we did watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall some weeks ago (October 15th!). The movie follows our protagonist, “Fat Dude.” Now, a word of warning: if you watch this movie, beware that the “Unrated” version has Fat Dude showing off his dick. A LOT. Like, if you thought that maybe you’d get to see Sarah Marshall’s goods (Kristen Bell, who IS hot), you’re almost out of luck. You get to see some side-boob at one part, but you’ll have to be inundated with lots of Fat Dude dick in order to get there.

The movie is alright. It’s not superb, it’s not overly funny. It’s not even really worth rushing out right now to go and rent. It’s not even really much of an all-out comedy. But it’s not bad. There’s things I liked about it, actually, mostly the sort-of surprise revelation that the protagonist is far from innocent. I don’t want to give it away, but he’s not a bad guy, it’s just that his relationship fell apart not solely because Sarah Marshall was a Bitch, but rather it was a combination of things, some of which were Fat Dude’s fault directly. After all, a relationship is two-people big (or more…), and both sides have to be involved and sacrifice & share & take responsibility, right?

Right. Most romantic comedies though, forgo this simple truth, and go for the easy-out, “the protagonist is all-good and the antagonist is all-bad” definition of relationship breakups. So I really respected that Sarah Marshall took a detour from that.

Still pretty dumb overall, though. I mean, they go out of their way to show that he’s not perfect in the scheme of things, but they fail to show him doing much to break out of his mold. And his life’s work? Well I’ll prepare you: it’s dumb. It’s corny. You’ll not even be able to laugh at it. Nor with it. It’s just dumb, and you wonder, why?

Maybe it’s the guys who wrote this trash; sort of their way at laughing at you for actually watching it.

Discovery Atlas: Need Help with that Pillow?

I’ve discovered what it is, I think. Each episode comes with a sedative. We watched the one on Italy last night, and I fell asleep. Again.

I thought that it was a fluke when I fell asleep during the the Brazil episode. I don’t really care much about Brazil (though I do understand all the girls have nice asses and go to nude beaches, if the internet serves me right). I figured that maybe it was the lack of caring, and surely other episodes in the series – ones on places I cared more about, perhaps – would be engaging.

Guess not. Sh!t, I’m Italian. And I fell asleep.

These Discovery Atlas episodes… they suck. Don’t bother. Stick with Planet Earth or something. Don’t waste your time.

Tears of the Sun

You know I “accidentally” put this movie on our queue, I think. I was thinking hey didn’t this get pretty good reviews? and put it on our list. See what I think happened was I saw “Tears of the Sun” and thought “The Thin Red Line,” which was more or less fairly well-received. Turns out, “Tears of the Sun” is sort of, well, not.

It’s not a complete waste though, because it does have some redeeming qualities. None of these, however, are Bruce Willis. Hey it’s not like he sucked up the screen too bad, but I’m just saying, it’s a Bruce Willis performance, not a Morgan Freeman performance. No, the redeeming qualities come by way of the realities of war; seeing the atrocities that man brings upon other man. It really makes you ponder the very nature of your fellow man; are we inherently good? You’d like to imagine so, but seeing what we do in the name of “war” or “following orders” is maddening.

Hey look, I know it’s just a Hollywood movie, but it’s based on events, you know? And it doesn’t help that the opening sequence is news footage of unarmed people being gunned down in the streets.

I wish we had more autonomy to act right. What I mean is, the basic premise of this movie is that a leader of a tactical unit that’s pulling a select few American ambassadors out has a bout of conscience in the middle of the mission and decides he needs to help out the natives who are being “ethnically cleansed” in Nigeria. He decides to “abandon” the mission and instead of helping one white woman, helps everyone as much as possible. The rest of the movie is pretty dumb (for instance: they airlifted half of the people at first, but then we find out that a wanted prince is still with the other half and they’re hunting him down? Duh, should have put him on the airlifted chopper, perahps? WTF?), but I don’t think they wanted to do much except show how sick we humans can be to other humans without stopping to ask “why” at least occasionally, and to that end it succeeded.

But let’s be honest: when you set the bar at Palin Height, you really have no excuse for not clearing it, you know? Yeah I’d say that overall, the movie itself earned it’s 34% rating on rotten tomatoes. The message, however, did a fair bit better than that. But maybe that’s just because issues of humanity touch me more than others, who knows. I question this stuff frequently as-is, so maybe I’m primed on questions of the Human Condition.

Don’t watch this movie. If you want to question humanity and still see a decent war flick, do what I meant to do and rent The Thin Red Line. Or Saving Private Ryan. You’ll be better off. Unless you just adore Bruce Willis, but really, what’s that? All ONE of us?

Transformers? Suck-Formers

Yeah, a day or two after we slightly enjoyed Ratatouille, we decided to put in Transformers for a go. Holy F*CK what a pitiful excuse for a movie. Hey I have an idea: Someone, anyone, run over Michael Bay. Run him over good. Back up and do it again. Send photographic evidence of his death at your hands, show that you have freed our collective eyes & psyche from his atrocious “movies,” if that’s what they’re called.

Look, I’ll gladly give credit where credit’s due. For instance, this mock-script from The Editing Room is far better than the movie itself, if only because it mocks the hell out of the retardedness of Bay’s attempt at making “movies.” The visuals are awesome. The special effects wizardry was spot-on as far as I could tell. It was an impressive visual, while the special effects were on the screen.

Unfortunately for the audience, 80% of the movie is spent dealing with boring people reading bad lines in bad form. From a script that got rejected from Toilet Paper tryouts, OK? Seriously, I’m not going to spend 4,000 words bashing this f*ck-fest of a movie when a lot of it has been taken care of in the aforementioned link to the abridged script. But I will say this, though: Yeah that site is supposed to be comedy, but here’s the thing; it’s not exaggerating. I thought maybe it was. I thought perhaps it couldn’t be that bad. A movie can’t have plot holes that massive. I was wrong. The movie is actually far worse than even the mocking script can convey. Really. Yeah, that bad.

F-minus. And about that whole killing Michael Bay thing? Only kidding. Unless you succeed, of course. Then remember the photographic proof burden, OK?

I finally broke down & watched this piece of turd at the urging of a friend. At least I thought that’s what he was. I’m not so sure anymore. I mean, how mean. That was messed up, you know? He owes me. He owes me big-time. Next time I make a recommendation, he better be all over it like Michael Bay on Suck; like Clay Aiken on Gay (I totally called it, btw); like Rosie O-Donnell on ugly, you gettin’ me? No excuses – I suffered through Suck-Formers, he has to suffer through whatever I eventually come up with.

And it won’t be good. It’s going to be hard to outdo Suck-Formers, but I’m going to try.

Ratatouille

From Pixar, so it should be good, right? Right? Well yeah, you know they tend to put together good films, but it seems to me the last two (Cars & This showing, Ratatouille) have been overly-cute. Which if you know the ‘bob, you know he doesn’t like. I hate cute as a selling point: it’s either good on its own merits, or it’s not, and cute is not the criteria on which that’s judged.

The visuals are nice enough. The story’s kinda corny, though. I figured it might be. A rat controlling a human to cook? The premise seemed kind of forced to me, but since it garnered a 90%+ rating from Rotten Tomatoes, we decided to take a chance. And hey, even a bad Pixar film is better than most other films, right?

Right. Look it’s a good movie. It’s really good if you’re between the ages of 3 and 12. After that, though? It just feels like they’re selling you on a cute idea a little too much. At least for my tastes, anyway. I mean, to quote the Wendy’s Lady, Where’s the Beef? There’s really nothing else; none of the other plot points really collide into anything substantial. Most Pixar films have an underlying message to them that’s pertinent somehow. But I just don’t feel it in this one. That humans & Rats can live together in peace & Harmony? They are dirty rodents, you know, so I don’t think the message is quite ringing true.

Look if you’re 10 years old, first off, what the hell are you doing reading this site? Second, yeah, you’ll probably think it’s pretty cool.

I’m still excited for Wall•E, though.

OH! Trivia time. The critic in the movie I’m almost sure was based off of this old Warner Brothers Actor, whom I can’t be bothered to locate & link you to. Just trust me on this, OK? I can’t remember the guy’s name, or the movies he was in, and I tried looking through Warner Bros on imdb.com, and you know what? They put out like 100 movies a year back in the 1930’s, no lie. There’s no way I was going to find a picture of the guy, so get over it. Become a film buff and watch all those things from way back then, and you can tell me what his name was, huh?

Yeah sorry that wasn’t much of a trivia, was it? Suckers.

Premonition: This movie's going to stink

It starred Sandra Bullock, OK? Give me a break. I mean, she usually does decent movies, right? (Miss Congeniality, anyone? Oops, forgot about that one, and two) Well this movie didn’t get the ravest of reviews to begin with, but it’s new and we have room to spare on our Netflix queue, so what the hell, we figured.

We figured wrong. There’s so many plot holes and inconsistencies that really, it’s not worth watching. It’s either trying to say that you can’t change the future, or that you can. But it – much like Déjá Vu before it – sort of decides to do both. Which, uh, is impossible seeing as how those ideas are mutually exclusive concepts.

Déjá Vu however, was entertaining and exciting at least. This thing, however, played more like a damn Made-for-TV pathetic-fest, but starting Sandra Bullock. And honestly, I feel taken. Screw the election, screw government corruption & cover-ups, this is what I plan to write my congressman about: a damn D- movie. Take that, Hollywood.

Tommy Lee Jones suing makers of NCFOM

Count me in! Sh!t, after having to suffer through that weird jumble of unrelated scenes they tried to call a movie, I feel that I, too, deserve $10 million.

I mean yeah, he acted in it and all, but my pain is partly his fault. I bought some of the hype surrounding that suck-fest of a movie because a decent name like his was in it. Hook line & sinker, in fact. I figured it was a shoe-in for a “add to my collection” kind of movie. How surprised was I when it turned out to be the discombobulated mess that it was?

Pretty surprised, I say! No Country for Old Men? I’d prefer No Country for Sucky Movies, really. Or more precisely, No Country for Old Men trying to make Sucky Movies.