Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/27/14-5/3/14)

    Life has been pretty swell for this Dork. 

Transcendence:  Oh, man.  Where to begin.  There was so much potential for telling a good story here.  All missed.  I’ll just start with the biggest problem the movie has.  It’s really, really, really boring.  I mean, BORING.  No, it didn’t need fistfights, or explosions, or more CGI.  It just needed characters one could care about, and a plot that was at all engaging.  Unfortunately, this film is populated by idiot scientists; the kind that are all too common in film, and frustratingly, almost the rule in science fiction.  Even the Luddite terrorists don’t make much sense.  Nobody seems willing to act, to accomplish anything.  There seems to be little growth in character, simply an alteration in behavior as demanded by the advancement of the carbon-copy plot.  And what about those actors.  Depp is fine, I guess.  Frankly, he seemed to be phoning it in.  Rebecca Hall is kind of annoying, but no more so than usual.  Kate Mara…Oh, man.  Kate Mara.  Every danged time she opens her mouth, she spews forth grown inducing dialog and the worst way.  She speaks like a child actor, wooden and stupid.  It’s awful.  Worse still, about 20 minutes into the movie, her character stops being important…but that’s when she becomes a major character…even though she does NOTHING.  So crappy.  Sadly, I’m with everyone else on this one.  This movie is crap.  Hire writers.  Do some research.  Make better films.  This sort of thing is, really, inexcusable.

I need to make better choices.

Welcome to the Jungle:  I didn’t have high hopes for this film, and it isn’t good.  But, Jean Claude Van Damme is extremely funny and by far the best part of the movie.  Otherwise, it’s a bunch of tired sitcom level jokes with the raunchiness of straight to video.  The characters are all stock, mostly played by actors who play essentially the same characters on crappy TV shows.  Honestly, when JCVD is off screen, which is far too often, it drags.  Worth checking out if you don’t have to expend any effort, but pretty much exclusively for the Belgian wonder.

Small Apartments:  This is one of those very odd, small comedies that gets lots of weird actors together in one place and has a lot of fun.  I don’t know that it’s great, but it’s sure different.  And it’s got a lot of bits I really liked, and performances I really liked.  For crying out loud, Johnny Knoxville was good.  What’s that about?  Definitely one to check out if you’re in the mood for something a little bit out there, kind of dark, kind of funny, and certainly not like everything else.

The man loves his Moxie.

    Watched a bunch more of Mad Men’s second season.  It’s a darned fine show.  The awful behavior is fascinating.  And Don Draper.  He’s just so darned cool.

    On Wednesday night, we headed out to The Alamo for a Spaghetti Western and spaghetti dinner (though I was not up to the spaghetti that night).  Here’s hoping we’ll be seeing a lot more of these events there (and from the schedule, it looks like we will).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:  “More feeling.”  A sprawling journey through Hell for three men looking for some gold.  To say this movie takes its time would be like saying deep space is a bit chilly.  Shots and whole scenes that are held for extremely long times and a meandering story may make it a challenge for some viewers.  But I love their weird Odyssey.  And when they start to stumble upon the soulless, listless combatants of the Civil War, the obviously not American setting gives it a haunting, displaced feel that really does seem like some horrible limbo or hell.  It’s almost certainly too long, the dubbing is kind of wonderfully bad, and many bits can be quite jarring.  But it’s a mad kind of wonderful.  Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef are all great.  And that whole ending…nice.  This is top notch Western/Fantasy.

Mothra Vs. Godzilla:  I think this is the beginning of the wonder and madness the Godzilla films became known for.  It’s super weird, and awesome.  The twin fairies, a giant peace-loving moth, money hungry developers, and plucky reporters.  It’s not my favorite of the series, but it’s chronologically the first one I really love.

    Brad and I went on a mad comic book shop crawl on Saturday (Free Comic Book Day).  Third Eye Comics out in MD, Phoenix (aka Laughing Ogre) out in Ashburn, Big Planet in Vienna, Phoenix again in Fairfax, and The Comic Shop at the Fair Oaks Mall.  In keeping with the spirit of the day (supporting local comic shops), I made sure to find something to buy in each place.  I don’t know if it was timing, or what, but one frustration was that all the shops we hit seemed to have the same handful of titles, in spite of there being nearly 60 different free comics produced.  The awesome thing was that every shop we went to seemed full of people (really, really full in some cases), and people were buying stuff.  Awesome.  After all that madness, Brad and I hooked up with Lisa and headed out to The Alamo again for one of their Late Night shows.

Mad Max:  “They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore.”  The world is going to hell, with only Max and a few of his Bronze brothers keeping civilization's light alive.  I love this glimpse into an ugly, entropic future where civilization wasn’t destroyed by some catastrophic event; it simply ran out of juice.  It’s an ugly, uncomfortable films, with jarring music and nasty characters.  It doesn’t have an easy climax, or a happy ending.  It’s brutal and mean.  It features one of the all time best film endings.

    Other than my list of anticipated Summer films (here), that’s it for this week.  I’m going to try to spend Sunday on my couch, reading comics and watching movies.  Let’s see how that works out.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/20/14-4/26/14)

    Oh, the perils of a social life.  Didn’t get a lot of Dork business done this week.  I was out on the town, having a blast.

The Asphalt Jungle:  The dingy underbelly of urban life is exposed in this nasty bit of work.  Sterling Hayden is but one of the film’s monsters, bent on filling his belly with hate and greed.  It features a lot of the usual Noir dialog, plot twists, and ugly characters.  And it features a pretty good heist.  The characters are a lot of fun, and there are a surprising number of them.  Even a young Marilyn Monroe shows up as a sympathetic floozy.  John Huston knew how to make a mean movie, tinged with grit and sadness.

Smiles of a Summer Night:  I guess I had this realization last year some time.  But yup.  I’m an Ingmar Bergman fan.  I love how fun this film is, how bawdy and funny it is.  And I love how sexy it is.  Gunnar Bjornstrand is so charming, the ladies are so lovely, and the shenanigans so much fun.  Bergman is not the cold, symbolic, unapproachable filmmaker he is often made out to be.  While some of his films are dense with symbol and some are certainly challenging, I think he is very much the populist; crafting excellent films for everyone to enjoy.  Smiles of a Summer Night is not difficult to understand.  It’s about our passions, our lusts, and our loves.  It’s about being alive.

Sorcerer:  Bring a change of clothes, a cool drink, and some freshly soothed nerves.  This movie will put you through the wringer.  A brutally slow burn, this film builds and builds and builds, until what is, in a sense, the main action of the film begins, probably an hour in.  It’s wonderfully shot, and absolutely revels in the awful, hot, poverty stricken, disgustingly wet world of South America.  And when the action does happen, it’s gripping and nasty.  Sorcerer is an excellent, thrilling, adventurous piece of mean spirited 70s cinema.  Desperate and awful people, hiding out on the fringe of civilization, taking on a job only a sucker would do.  Man, it’s good.

Burnt Offerings:  The 70s produced a lot of cool films, but it also produced a very particular type of horror film that seems unique to its time.  Burt Offerings is a perfect example of what I’m talking about (see also: The Sentinel, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and Don’t Look Now) .  The characters are all totally insane, and not at all relatable.  The plot doesn’t make much sense.  The atmosphere is monstrously thick.  But sadly, so is the writing.  Frequently, very little happens, but there’s almost always a flippin’ crazy ending that doesn’t make much sense.  I enjoyed watching this film.  The actors are all good (even Karen Black isn’t bad), and it’s creepy and weird.  But it’s also, like so many others of its time, ultimately disappointing.  The big reveal at the end was a huge let down.  If Oliver Reed had opened that door and found some kind of great spider demon or something, I’d have lost my s%#& and this might be one of the coolest films ever.  Alas, what was behind the door was kind of boring.  If you’re looking to watch more movies of that particular 70s vibe, this was better than some, like The Other or the afore mentioned Don’t Look Now (I’ll never get why people like that one).

    On Thursday night, I read Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths.  It was OK.  Felt like a comic version of a lesser film in the classic (Showa) era.  Readable, with a few good bits, but nothing special.

The Apartment:  You can feel the yoke of the Hayes Codes slipping in this 1960 comedy about a wide-eyed pencil pusher striving for the American Dream.  As bosses keep using his apartment for their extramarital affairs, he starts to fall for the dame in the elevator.  Things get really out of hand when the big boss calls him in and demands the use of his place (but offers a sweet promotion).  Jack Lemmon balances sweet charm with wannabe corporate shark quite well.  Shirley MacLaine is kind of adorable as the broken girl with dashed hopes.  And Fred MacMurray is an absolute monster as the boorish, heartless, blowhard boss.  Lots of great character performances, a great style, and a clever script all make for a fine film.  I love Lemmon’s apartment, too, which seems like a realistic, lived in place, without seeming either too fancy/swinging or too rundown/slumy.

    After The Apartment, in keeping with the 60s theme, Mad Men hit the screen.  It’s been a long time since I watched season 1, but it didn’t take long for me to slide back in to the smooth, casually evil world of smoking, drinking, and rampant misogyny.  Awesome.

    Saturday, I headed in to DC to meet with a friend who was visiting from Europe.  It was an amazing day, gorgeously sunny without being too hot, and darn it, but I do love DC.  It’s so pretty, and so walker friendly.  Love it.  The only problem we had was with the crowded streets of Georgetown, but it wasn’t unexpected, and once you leave the main drag, it’s not bad at all.  Very pretty community.  I really love living in this area.  I don’t take advantage of living next to DC nearly as much as I should, but then, that makes these trips all the more special.

    While in the city, we hit up the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.   I still don’t think it’s as good as the Udvar Hazy location, and sometimes the displays can seem a bit dull (maybe rudimentary is a better word?).  But this time around there were a few especially good exhibits.  The Spirit & Opportunity exhibit was breathtaking.  Gorgeous images of Mars taken by our robot explorer brothers.  Any one of those would make amazing art to hang on a wall.  Really wonderful.  And yeah, if I hadn’t been on top of it, I’d probably have shed a tear.  Quite impressive.

    Turns out, a lot of stuff is closed in DC on Saturday, which I was a bit surprised by.  So, it took a bit to find a place to eat.  But finally, we found Wicked Waffles, one of those obscure theme restaurants you find in bigger cities.  They make waffles, and they put things on ’em, like open faced sandwiches.   OK.  Why not.  It was pretty good (not amazing), and unusually inexpensive for food in the city.

    So, on the Dorkside, there wasn’t all that much to this week.  But on the personal side, it’s one of the best I’ve had in a long time.  Spring is finally in the air and I feel great.

-Matt