Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/8/14-6/14/14)

    In spite of some difficulties, I’m loving life right now.  This week, I even managed to get in some good Dork living around the other stuff.

All You Need is Kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow):  With a good amount of humor and plenty of balls to the wall action, this science fiction adventure film was a pleasant Summer Blockbuster.  Unusually, the fast cutting and hand-held camera work was good.  Tom Cruise, for all his wackiness off camera, is still a charming dude.  And Emily Blunt is awesome.  Truth be told, I wish she’d been the star of the film.  She’s a close second in an Obi Wan Kenobi sort of way.  The Groundhog Day storytelling works well and the overall vibe of the film is great.  I think the ending could have been better.  But it’s not bad.  Well worth checking out.  Give me more of these, and less Transformers/Avatar type movies.  Give me movies where the effects help tell the story, not where they take the place of the story

.
Girly:  Super boring.  Super British.  It’s another movie about upper-class twits going crazy and being evil.  There was a cinematic epidemic of this sort of thing in the 60s and 70s, and this is a lackluster entry.  If Steed & Peele had shown up half way through, things might have gotten interesting.  They did not.

    On Monday night, I went with Ben and Nick to a place I’d never been to before, and frankly, probably never otherwise would have gone to.  Hooters.  So, here’s the thing.  Every time anyone brings up Hooters, someone says ‘they’ve got great wings.’  I love wings.  And it’s certainly not that I’m put off by beautiful women in skimpy outfits.  But somehow (well, I think the "how" is obvious), Hooters has always had a certain something about it, in the cultural zeitgeist, that I found off-putting without ever actually going.  So, we went and yes, the wings are great.  I got all-you-can-eat, and made it worth the money, eating three plates.  The best were the lemon & pepper.  I want to go back and try all the other flavors I didn’t get to (there are like 10).  That said, the place has a very, very weird vibe.  It feels like an uncomfortable mix of family restaurant, sports bar, and strip club.  No, the women aren’t stripping, but their outfits are so out of keeping with the rest of the place that you can’t help but notice.  Whatever the case, I had a good time and ate some good food.  And yeah, I’ll probably go back, because I want more wings.  In stead of Hooters, though, they might want to call it Wedgies.

The Best Years of Our Lives:  I found this film pleasantly honest.  The lives of three WWII vets get complicated when the return home and try to pick up their old lives.  One is haunted, one is wistful, an done is physically damaged.  Each one faces his own set of demons, each one must find his own way, while forming a bond of friendship.  It’s a good movie about men, and about soldiers.  For a film made in 1946, I found it’s frank look at the damages of war to be refreshing and surprising.  This would be an excellent capper to a WWII movie marathon.  It is rather long for its type.  It isn’t an epic, but it’s nearly three hours long.  However, it’s not boring, and well worth the time. 

    What’s a little apocalyptic downpour?  Wednesday night, we went to the Alamo, and were treated to a massive thunderstorm with out Spaghetti Western.  About 20 minutes from the end, the power went out for a bit, giving folks a break to get up and walk around.  But all was well, and the show went on.

For a Few Dollars More:  Dare I say it?  Is this the best of the Man With No Name trilogy?  I kind of think it is.  Everything works here.  It’s beautiful.  It’s funny.  It’s violent.  The music is flippin’ amazing.  Lee Van Cleef is so danged good.  And that finale?  Awesome.  Straight-up awesome.  I saw these films when I was a boy of maybe 12 or 13, and I didn’t really get them.  Though I knew I was seeing something different from the ‘black hat-white hat,’ John Wayne strutting Westerns I’d disliked on Saturday afternoon TV, I didn’t get what I was seeing.  A quarter century later, and I get it.  Darned fine stuff.

The Cranes are Flying:  Russia.  World War II.  Yup, this film is super depressing.  However, it’s also beautifully shot and filled with uplifting moments and relatable characters.  With a strong anti-war message, and a weirdly non-political (at least, non-Communist VS Capitalist) spirit, I’m not surprised that this went on to international success when it came out.  The camera work alone is more than worth the price of admission.  Forget Alfonso Cuaron’s gimmicky long-shots.  The camera here is an intimate partner of the actor in a way I’ve rarely seen.

The Horror of Party Beach:  Ultra-campy, and a ton of fun, this movie about a bunch of kids (played by very adult actors) having fun in the sun while being menaced by terrible looking fish-creatures (who are really Zombies!) this is a must see.  The MST3K boys took their turn at it, but honestly, it’s just as much fun without ‘em.  If you’re in the mood to watch a stupid movie with friends, this is a great choice.  Check it out.  And stay groovy!

The Curse of the Living Corpse:  Roy Scheider and Candace Hilligoss in a movie together?  OK.  Sign me up!  Unfortunately, that’s the best part of the movie, right there.  No, not them in the film, but that they were cast in the film.  The film is stupid.  But worse, it’s boring.  Other than some laughably bad acting, there’s nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along.

    Saturday morning, I finished Authority, the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy.  Pretty darned good.  Can’t wait ‘til the third volume comes out in September.  Saturday afternoon, even though I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the book club, I finished off volume 1 of Preacher (thank goodness, I didn’t have to suffer through volume 2).  I know.  People love it.  But I am not one of those folks.  This was my second try reading it, and while the first time (about 10 years ago) I found it boring and didn’t finish the trade, this time around I outright hated it.  The further in I read, the more I hated almost everything about it.  I won’t be writing an extended review, so I’ll just say here that I thought the dialog seemed to have been written by a 13 year old boy trying his little heart out to be shocking.  The characters are all cardboard.  And the plot twists range from obvious to stupid.  I’ve heard the series gets better as it goes.  But I don’t care.  I got the same gut-level hate feeling I got from Saga, and like Saga, have to stare at the people telling me it’s great with a slack-jawed, dumbfounded look.  There’s obviously something I’m missing, and nobody has been able to explain to me what it is.

Colour From the Dark:  Another adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space.  It’s not too bad.  Fairly well produced (though the footage looks made for TV, the editing and composition are more ‘theatrical’), with some good creepy bits, it does fall a bit too heavy onto the Good VS Evil fallacy that is so wrong with Lovecraft.  The actors are a mixed bag.  And considering that it is supposed to take place in WWII era Italy, the fact that there are so many different accents is a bit weird.  Not nearly as good as Die Farbe, it’s still worth a watch, and better than many adaptations of the author’s work.

Riddick:  I know, I know.  I enjoy these Riddick movies.  I liked Pitch Black a lot.  I thought Chronicles of Riddick, for all its many faults, was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed Dark Fury, the animated short bridge film between the first two.  And I like this one.  This third feature is more in keeping with the original, and not just because the latter part of the film is something of a carbon copy of the first, but because it feels like it’s set more in an Alien type universe, as opposed to a Star Wars type universe (as Chronicles of Riddick did).  I really like the first half hour, where he’s kind of Robinson Crusoe on a desert world.  Once the Mercs show up, it’s not as good, but still watchable.  I’ve said this of several films in the last couple of years, but this is the sort of thing that should be a dime a dozen these days.  Mid-level, entertaining science fiction films.  Yes, I’d love for there to be great science fiction films.  But in between the great ones, I want to see a dozen or so of these more pulpy efforts.  This movie also reminds me that there’s no valid reason for not doing a live action Warhammer 40,000 film.

Oblivion:  My second viewing of this film, and darn it, I just really like it.  Absolutely, many of the ideas, if not all, are lifted from other science fiction films and books.  But so what?  My problem isn’t with lifting ideas, it’s with using them poorly, and this film isn’t guilty of that.  The movie is a feast for the eyes and the ears, with stunning visuals, gorgeous location shooting, and an excellent semi-electronica score.  Like Moon before it, Oblivion raids sci-fi of the 60s and 70s, and comes out with some very watchable stuff.

Chef:  This is definitely what the internet has termed ‘food porn.’  But it’s also a Capra-like comedy about a guy who falls on hard times, then learns valuable lessons about life and fatherhood (with WAY more swearing than Capra).  On occasion, it does stretch credibility (like, everyone talks about needing money, but they all seem to have enough to do whatever they want at any given time, including quitting good jobs with no prospects…and I’m not just talking about El Jefe).  And the very end?  OK, that seemed silly.  However, the movie has a great deal of heart, and the cast sells the familiarity of close friends.  In fact, the scenes between Favreau, Leguizamo, and Cannavale feel more true to what men are like without women around than most movies manage.  Like The Big Night, this movie makes you want to do a serious restaurant crawl.  I wanted to reach into the screen and eat some of everything.  I never had any interest in going to Miami, New Orleans, or Texas before, but suddenly the idea of a food tour is sounding amazing.

    I’m still listening to a bunch of Black Mountain.  I tapped into that 70s rock/metal vibe and can’t seem to shake it.  I may have to load up some Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Blu Oyster Cult this week to keep the train rolling.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/21/13-4/27/13)

    Not really much of a week for this dork.  Did a bit of reading, a bit of watching, a bit of biking, and a bit of cooking.  But nothing amazing on the nerdy front.

Oblivion:  If you’re looking for a reinvention of the wheel, or a profound and transformative experience, you’ll be sadly disappointed.  If you’re looking for a solid, slick, visually impressive science fiction adventure movie, this has plenty to offer.  It has an epic quality, and draws on some of my favorite elements of the past, with robots, ultra-tech, and a hefty dose of post-apocalypse.  There are a couple ‘twists’ that change the lead character’s journey, but don’t pivot the whole plot.  Sadly, too much was (as is all to often the case) given away in the trailers.  Still, the trailer didn’t give everything away or spoil every dramatic cue.  This is the kind of movie I’d like to see being done on a more regular basis.  This should be an average entry in the genre, but as it’s one of the rare entries, almost by default it’s one of the better.  Though set on Earth, it creates a world unlike our own and doesn’t shy away from the weird ideas that were so common in the literature but commonly absent from film.  Some aspects of the finale could have been handled better, but they weren’t so bad as to mar the overall film.  As I mentioned, it’s visually striking, but also has a good electronica score, reminiscent of the director’s previous film, Tron: Legacy.  And here’s the greatest part of the whole thing: No flippin’ shaky cam!  I could tell what was happening throughout the movie.  The camera stayed a respectable distance and didn’t jitter about to the point I felt sick.  What a welcome change from so many recent movies.

Tron: Legacy:  “You’re messin’ with my whole Zen thing, man.”  Dang it, I don’t get tired of this movie.  After watching Oblivion, I thought I’d throw the director’s first movie back in the DVD player.  He has an excellent visual style and manages to meld computer and practical effects extremely well.  If you ignore the fact that it’s supposed to take place inside a computer network, the world of the Grid would make for an excellent execution of one of those crazy ultra-future worlds you normally only read about in sci-fi novels.  It reminds you that we have the capability of putting beautiful and powerful images on screen when there are artists at work.  And dang, I love that score.  I was going to just throw this in as background noise, but ended up getting sucked in once again.  I’m still frustrated with America for not embracing this movie.

Django Unchained:  “I’m not from the South.”  Christoph Waltz is so devilishly charming in this movie.  A gleefully civilized, deadly bounty hunter.  When he teams up with Jamie Foxx, they make for a fascinating and compelling pair.  The relationship that develops between the two is great, as is the montage type scene of them in the mountains during winter could have been the basis of an awesome movie in its own right.  I could watch a whole movie about that winter.  Every copy of Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind should come with a copy of this film.  It’s a great inoculation against their BS.  Dr. Scholtz’s  horror at the madness of slavery and his righteous fury is beautiful to behold.  Django is a stark fist of vengeance on a quest for his wife.  And the blood is worthy of the craziest samurai film.  Those aren’t squibs but hoses and bladders pumping and blasting like a gory water-balloon fight.  And that Fred Williamson smile.  Glorious.

Tokyo Joe:  “We were over 18 when we were 15.”  What a mess.  Poor Joe.  He ran a business in Tokyo, but then that danged war broke out.  So he signed up with Uncle Sam and fought the good fight.  Now he’s back in town, looking to pick up the pieces of his pre-War life in a post-War Japan.  And things aren’t going well.  It’s perfectly understandable why this isn’t one of those Bogart movies you hear people talk about.  It’s enjoyable, but also forgettable.  There are some hints of story, but not much really happens.  It seems like the filmmakers were reaching for threads of Casablanca and some other War tie-in and/or Bogart movies.  But it doesn’t come together.  Still, it was nice to see Asian actors in the roles.  And while forgettable, it’s not bad.

Dishonored Lady:  “I got a rule about women.  They ain’t breaking the law, let ‘em alone.”  A tempting harlot (I think she even votes!  For shame!) lures men by standing around and trying to do her job, sometimes even saying hello.  Things go from bad to worse when every man around her can’t help but be completely seduced by her, even when she’s just having a drink or calling for a cab.  But then the greatest, smoothest, sagest shrink ever to slick back his hair sets her on the straight and narrow by getting her to give up the high life, live in a dive, and paint.  OK.  It’s a weird thing for me to notice, but Hedy Lamarr’s outfits in this movie are kind of ridiculous.  They look like adult versions of a little girl’s ‘pretty little princess’ kind of thing.  She’s a beautiful woman, but she’s dressed like a child.  It’s weird.  The movie is melodramatic crap, really.  But it’s watchable crap.

The Strange Woman:  “A young man of fashion will be very popular in Bangor.”  This time, Hedy Lamarr plays a dreadful child who grows up to be a dreadful woman in Hollywood’s version of my hometown; Bangor, Maine.  She’s a danged devil.  It’s bad when the creepy old perv who marries her seems somewhat sympathetic by comparison.  Yet, somehow they weave in this story, as she’s pitting father against sun, about how she’s a philanthropist trying to clean up the rum-fueled lumberjack/whore riot that is Bangor.  It’s like she’s got a good-evil switch, and some hyperactive kid won’t stop flicking it.  When she’s not making sex-eyes at every strapping young sailor or lumberjack, she’s a tireless champion for the poor.  When she’s not half praying for her older husband to die, she’s staying up with him all night trying to save him from a fever.  She’s so crazy her crazy has crazy.  She’s not the kind of woman your mother warned you about.  She’s the kind of woman the kind of woman your mother warned you about would warn you about.  Bangor looks like a frontier town from a Western.  I think the house I grew up in would already have been standing when this movie took place.  The movie is somewhat difficult to watch.  Lamarr plays such a madwoman that the waves her character makes seem to disrupt everything about the film.  You can’t root for anyone, and only feel those who die are lucky enough to be out of her dastardly clutches.

Emperor:  In the aftermath of Japan’s defeat, an American general with pre-War ties is called upon to help with the occupation.  The movie deals with a lot of cultural confusion, the clash of two very, very different world views.  The cult of the Emperor, a tradition of duty and devotion going back into deep cultural time, being crushed by the an ideology of individualism and personal ambition.  I find Japanese traditionalism to be as inscrutable as religious fundamentalism, for pretty much the same reasons.  As one old soldier says in the film, the Japanese are a people of great selflessness, but also capable of shocking atrocities, and both stem from the same world view.  This too puts me in mind of the deeply religious, who can be at once profoundly kind and appallingly evil.  Matthew Fox has the look of a WWII vet, with his golly-gee good looks made a bit ragged and weathered by hardship.  He puts me in mind of so many of those early 50s movies where the actors looked middle aged, but would only be 25 or 30.  War, smoking, drinking, and hard living.  It’ll get you.

The Shadow Whip:  “If you don’t tell us, you’ll have to face our Serial Bombs.”  The Martial Arts world was a difficult place.  Even more prone to take offence and get the itch for trouble than the typical gunfighter of the Western, the kung fu warrior had to be on constant alert, because a fight could erupt at any moment.  Woe to the innkeeper or clay pot salesman.  I love the superpowers of martial arts masters, those little things that tip you off to their amazing skills.  Walking on powdered snow without making imprints.  Awesome.  I like watching these movies that feature unusual weapons, but I have to admit, the whip doesn’t work all that well.  When fighting large numbers of spearmen, it looks extremely awkward.  It might just be a problem with fight choreography, but I think it’s more than that.  The movie does feature one of my favorite martial arts tropes, the inability or unwillingness to use doors.  Why use a door, when you can burst through a window?  Why use the gate when you can leap over the wall?  This film is fairly typical of the Shaw Bros.  It’s well produced, action packed, perhaps a bit convoluted in plotting.

The Mind Snatchers:  “I don’t care if you’re a girl.  I’ll punch you right in the mouth.”  Christopher Walken looks like he’s maybe 18 in this.  The transfer on this DVD is appalling.  It looks like something recorded off TV with a bad signal.  The fashion and hair in this is shockingly ugly.  Was this the look in Europe at the time?  It makes the worst sins of the Mod movement and the Hippies look like child’s play.  The music is also dreadful, sounding like something off a 70s sitcom.  Walken plays such an insufferable jackass that I kept hoping one of the people he ticked off would just put a bullet in his head.  It reminded me a bit of his performance in Communion, where he’s supposed to be the protagonist, but I kept wanting the aliens to stick a probe in his mouth instead of his ass.  There’s also a hindsight issue with the movie.  It’s basically an anti-science film based on early research on the brain.  The film implies that conditions like schizophrenia are just part of being human, and that treating them is tantamount to removing a person’s humanity.  It relies on the visceral horror of opening the skull and putting wires inside, which it assumes the viewer will be repulsed by.  Of course, 40 years later, great strides have been made in the treatment of many brain related ailments, and yes, sometimes those include putting electrodes inside.  I don’t think that very many of the people who once suffered from serious problems, nor those today who may soon be cured, would feel the same horror.  For example, all those def people now able to hear thanks to cochlear implants.

Birthday Girl:  “Thank you.  I think that’s very fair.”  A lonely dude in England breaks down and tries an online service to find a mail-order Russian bride.  Maybe not a great idea.  But he picks a winner.  She’s pretty and sweet.  Sure, she was supposed to be a non-smoker and speak English, but you can’t have everything, right?  The awkwardness between them is painful but charming.  The bits where they explore John’s kinks are weirdly cute.  (The scene where she’s on the bed, playing with his tie?  Not my cup of tea, but I’d be willing to try a different brew.  Ya dig?).  Maybe things aren’t so bad…then Vincent Cassel and his buddy arrive, and things go bad fast and hard.  I have a weird thing about Nicole Kidman.  Clearly, she’s a beautiful woman.  And sometimes, in some rare movies, I find her very sexy.  But usually, she makes me think of a porcelain doll, something pretty to put on a shelf, but avoid touching for fear of damage or smudge.  This film falls on the sexy side.  Maybe it’s the dark hair?  Or just my natural inclination toward women I clearly know are trouble.  It’s weird having two French guys and an Australian woman play Russians.  But that’s the movies, I guess.  Though it features none of the signature style, the plot of the film could have dropped right out of a classic Noir.  John is the sap, Nadia the femme fatale.  But in spite of everything, it manages to be a cute romance along with the dangerous crime caper.  It also manages to capture some of the pain of being an everyman.  The montage featuring John’s boss reading aloud from his employee review is crushingly accurate and painful.  The corporate speak that manages to makes to make him feel like crap, even though it’s a positive review.  Spot on.

Doctor Who: Ambassadors of Death:  “Right!  Cut it open!”  It’s weird going back and watching stories from this era.  The Doctor is trapped on Earth, with parts of the Tardis set up in a swanky lab.  This story begins with a manned probe returning from Mars, running silent.  What happened 12 hours after the men landed?  Why haven’t the communicated?  Who…or what is in the returning pod?  As a conspiracy builds, you know you’re in for another invasion of Earth story (90% of Jon Pertwee’s stories).  Another issue with many of the Pertwee stories is the color.  It would probably look better in black and white.  The color is uneven, bleeding, faded, and grainy.  This story arc is extremely long.  Seven episodes is long, even for an arc of Pertwee’s era, already frequently over-long.  Even so, I somehow didn’t think it felt as bloated as some others.  It wanders a bit, but remains fairly interesting.

    “Shoot it?  Major, that horror is made of people!”  More Swamp Thing.  I read the final two volumes of Alan Moore’s run on the series.  Darn it, but that’s an interesting character, with a lot of potential.  I’m curious to see what other authors have done with him.  Like where did Rick Veitch go with his sci-fi bent?

-Matt

Brad's Week In Dork! (4/21/13-4/27/13)

Yes, I stalled on the Martin Scorsese-a-thon.  No real reason.  Just haven't tracked down a copy of New York, New York yet.  Looks like I might have to dive deep and purchase the blu ray to make that happen.  But the rest of the week wasn't that crazy.  I found myself in a work stretch of 7 days, coming home and not really wanting to blitz through cinema.  I read a good batch of comics, but nothing I really want to focus on here.  The big news came from the big screen.  Pain & Gain (thanks mostly to The Rock) earned a spot as my second favorite film of 2013 so far (yes, Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects still reigns supreme and I find that so completely strange).  But both Oblivion & Lords of Salem proved to be interesting theatrical experiences, but also films I just couldn't back fully.  I'm still waiting for that Great Movie.  Iron Man 3 hits next weekend, fingers crossed for flawless Summer entertainment.

Animal Man - The Hunt & Animal vs. Man:  Running side-by-side with Scott Snyder's Swamp Thing, but where Alec Holland battles The Rot from the The Green side, stuntman turned super hero Buddy Baker battles the decaying force from the side of The Red.  Green = plant lifeforce.  Red = animal lifeforce.  The big difference here is that where Snyder is completely & utterly faithful to the Saga that came before (you cannot ignore Alan Moore), writer Jeff Lemire has little interest in following Grant Morrison's footsteps.  Morrison's fourth wall shattering comic is written off as nothing more than a dream.  Lemire's Animal Man is as new as The New 52.  And that is absolutely not a bad thing.  The first tradepaperback centers around his daughter Maxine taking on the powers of The Red - after she resurrects the corpses of all the neighborhood pets.  Their journey takes them into the realm where Animal Man's powers began and together they discover the real deal behind Buddy's origin as well as the invading force of The Rot.  The second tradepaperback takes Buddy & family on the road with three servants of The Rot chasing their tail.  Hellblazer John Constantine appears to point Buddy in the direction of The Swamp Thing, and the two books rush towards each other.  Lemire relishes the grotesque, taking full advantage of artists Travel Foreman & Steve Pugh.  These guys know gross.  They've been waiting their whole careers for The Rot.  Twisted creatures covered in tumors, claws, tentacles, and leaking blood & puss.  You want monsters (and who doesn't want monsters?) then you'll get your fill on Animal Man.  The vaults & crypts of EC Comics are not locked shut, but are thrown wide open in The New 52.  Take a peak.

Oblivion:  "That is one pissed off weapon!"  Joseph Kosinski follows up the underrated Tron Legacy with this post-apocalyptic mystery reminiscent of...well, Everything.  Planet of the Apes, Alien, 2001, Outland, Zardoz, Moon, Wall-E, and I Am Legend (the book as well as all 3 adaptations).  As a science-fiction film about science-fiction films it's a good enough time at the movies.  Tom Cruise fights for the users; the human race has fled to Titan after a cataclysmic war with The Scavengers left Mother Earth decimated.  He's a worker bee.  Looking after the drones that guard the hydro towers converting what's left of Earth's natural resources.  Don't want to get too much into spoiler territory here, but whatever the revelations they're too familiar to be exciting.  Tom Cruise makes it work though.  The man knows earnest.  His scowls & shouts can pretty much sell any ridiculous sci-fi trope.  Doesn't hurt either when Morgan Freeman pops by to add an extra layer of exposition.  Production design is the real king of the film.  From the sweeping icelandic landscapes to the industrial Scav bunkers, the world of Oblivion feels legit even when the story settles on homage.

The Lords of Salem:  For the first ten minutes I thought I was going to love this movie.  The opening scene depicting the Satanic Rights of Meg Foster's coven are so delightfully Devil's Rain, and I was hopeful that Rob Zombie's latest would offer another grande trip down genre memory lane.  After all, The Devil's Rejects is a perfect piece of 70s exploitation and the gore hound's crown jewel.  Then the misses shows up.  And Sheri Moon Zombie is not the actress this movie needed.  Her disc jockey banter grinds the film to a halt.  Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, & Sheri Moon - just a couple of chums chuckling it up with absolutely zero chemistry.  But every moment Meg Foster is on screen with her wretched staring contests is utterly unnerving.  And when Dee Wallace teeny boppers her way through the black rights, The Lords of Salem is a barrel of dead monkeys.  Rob Zombie is an expert at showcasing nonsensical dream imagery - he makes a great music video.  Goats.  Neon Crosses.  Smoke banks.  Jiggly mutant midgets.  Satan worshiping werewolves.  When he relishes in the blasphemy The Lords of Salem is a creepy, wrong-headed enchantment.

Django Unchained:  I just can't stay away.  Six watches.  I know I said this last week, but this is definitely my favorite of the Tarantino flicks so far.  You may be able to argue the superior quality of both Jackie Brown & Inglourious Basterds, but Django Unchained is the flick QT made for Brad.  Yeah, it's a Western or Southern - whatever.  So already you're playing in my favorite genre.  But then you add the hero's quest against the backdrop of America's great shame, and the resulting rage is not just cathartic but highly entertaining.  Tarantino drags his audience through the muck and filth of history, a horrendous reminder, but when Django stands victorious in front of an exploded plantation I am on my feet in twisted joy.  It's a brutal watch, but a necessary one.  Entertainment as social conscious.  

Pain & Gain:  Shave 30 minutes from the runtime and we might have had the first great film of 2013.  It's certainly the most captivating performance from The Rock to ever assault an audience.  His Paul Doyle is a born again cokefiend convict who falls in with the Sun Gym Gang when The Church grabs for his manbits instead of his eternal soul.  When rags goes to riches and riches to cocaine, The Rock goes full demento, acting to the heavens and achieving comic genius.  Finally, an actor who understands his Baysplosion surroundings.  And as he's proven in Ted & The Other Guys, Mark Wahlberg only excels when he's wrapped in the absurd.  His orgasmic slow motion expressions are almost as entertaining as The Rock's green inked beard & toeless panic.  Yes, Michael Bay's sophomoric, homophobic, misogynistic comedy has finally found a place in this "True Story" attack on the American Dream.  Should we forgive him now for those Transformer balls dangling over John Turturro's head?  Hell no.  It just so happens that Bay's indulgences fit swimmingly into Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely's screenplay.  The Rock, Walhberg, and Anthony Mackie are a tremendous trilogy of dunces and it's a hoot to see them stumble into the atrocities resulting from their criminal delusions of grandeur.  But should such a gross and tragic "True Story" be a hoot?  It's a little awkward to laugh at The Rock grilling severed hands on his BBQ when THE IS STILL A TRUE STORY crawls across the screen.  It is a messed up and bizarre crime spree that is also funny as hell.  Darwin Awards couldn't possibly do these dolts justice.  Pain & Gain certainly doesn't idolize the dimwits, but the reality makes my enjoyment a little complicated if not distressing.

Creation Entertainment's Official Star Trek Convention - Cherry Hill, NJ:  After work on Friday, The Wife & I braved DC traffic to travel north to the strip malls of sunny New Jersey.  There, tucked away in a corner of the Cherry Hill Crowne Plaza, Creation Entertainment was hosting their Official East Coast Star Trek Convention.  This was Lisa's first Trekkie Con and I was kinda hoping for something epic, but Jersey doesn't do epic.  Billed as the 20 year celebration of Deep Space Nine, the con was little more than a dozen Vendor tables & a sprinkling of Trek Celebrities.  The big names were Avery Brooks (Capt. Sisko), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Nana Visitor (Major Kira), Rene Auberjonois (Constable Odo), and Armin Shimerman (Quark).  They rotated the tables, no one celebrity sticking out through the entirety of the convention, and for the most part we were happy with our awkward fandom interactions.  Lisa chatted vegan lifestyles with Dorn.  Nana Visitor complemented us on our matching Niners ballcaps (aren't we adorable!).  And Rene Auberjonois was very pleasant in accepting Lisa's full-on Boston Legal lovefest.  Every couple of hours one of them would take the stage for storytime.  Nana Visitor revealed Odo as her best DS9 lover "Just think of the shape shifting possibilities."  Cirroc Lofton droned on about his encounter with The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, refusing to take questions from the crowd.   Michael Dorn chanted ballbreaking lies of Gates McFadden stripping for the cast of TNG.  And Avery Brooks managed to take a bevy of questions, but offered no answers.  The man is wonderfully jazzy & zen, and probably bat shit crazy.  "Either you're a god or you're not.  I'm a human being...relationship with the divine...it doesn't change me.  I'm not fooled!  I still see you out there!"  Whoa.  Anyway, it was a hotel con.  Quiet.  Odd.  More expensive than you'd like.  But another fun weekend in the weird world of dorkery.

--Brad

Dork Art: Mondo's Oblivion Vinyl

Mondo just announced that they'll be releasing the Oblivion soundtrack on Vinyl come April 26th.  I haven't dipped into Mondo's vinyl collection yet , and I'm not really sure this is the place to start.  I did attempt to score their Drive LP but I was too slow on the shopping cart clicking.  You know the drill, follow their Twitter closely and cross your fingers.

Killian Eng supplies the art, a touch reminiscent of Mondo's John Carter print.  Hope that's not an indicator of the film's final product.  Matt's got a lot of hope riding on Oblivion.  A new wave of big Sci-Fi films could be made or broken on the back of Joseph Kosinski's latest venture.

Here's what Eng had to say about his piece:

"When I was given the honor to create artwork for the Oblivion soundtrack, I wanted to convey the feeling of a world that was left behind; a place full of traces and remnants of a civilization long gone. An environment that truly makes the person exploring it feel small is a theme I often come back to in my artwork. For the front cover I wanted to describe this in a peaceful way. The warm colors of a sunset, or sunrise, adds an air of tranquility, providing the image a nice balance against the sharp, dark silhouettes in the foreground."

--Brad