Matt’s Week in Dork! (9/28/14-10/4/14)

    In spite of a couple gaps in the Dork Life, this was a fine week, made all the better by HestFest 2014, the annual celebration of Charlton Heston.  Along with a couple visits to The Alamo for some classic cinema, it made for a solid week.

Robocop:  “Guns, guns, guns!”  Awesome Cyberpunk, ultra 80s, super-violent, subversive as heck, and just a heck of a lot of fun.  The script is tight, the performances are tip-top.  Kurtwood Smith is especially good as the gang leader in the pocket of an evil exec.  He’s clearly having all kinds of fun, reveling in sneering line-reading.  A must see.

    I tried out the recent (turns out, already canceled) Crossbones.  It wasn’t good enough to care, or bad enough to entertain.  I won’t be bothering to watch on, and not even because I know it ends prematurely.

Johnny Guitar:  “Down there I sell whiskey and cards.  All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head.”  Not at all the Western you think you’re gonna get.  A lot of the usual elements are all introduced, but where things go is less than usual.  With Noir styled, ‘hard boiled’ dialog, unexpected turns, and all kinds of hate poring out of the screen, it’s one to seek out.

    On Friday night, Ben came over for the beginning, the preamble if you will, of HestFest.  It was a more low-key evening and a good start to the weekend.

Two-Minute Warning:  Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes have to stop a sniper at the Super Bowl.  It’s paced and written like a typical disaster film from the time, with several random characters coming together while something bad looms.  While not a classic, it’s good.

Planet of the Apes:  One of the greats.  My eighth favorite, in fact.  This movie has so much going on, it takes multiple viewings to pick up on a lot of it.  Of course some of it is pretty obvious, but some not as much.  One of these days I’ll do a more scholarly (ha!), extended review.  But if you haven’t seen it, it’s a classic for a reason.  Planet of the Apes transcends genre, and like the best fiction, it tells some serious truth.

    Saturday morning, I started up my annual journey into madness,  the real deal, HestFest.  I’m not sure exactly how long I’ve been doing this.  It’s been a long time.  I think it started back in or around 1999, so I’m starting to think of it as the 15th anniversary.  But it might have been earlier.  Over the years, it’s varied in success, but it’s always been fun.  More recently, since briefly rooming with co-Dork Brad a few years ago, it’s become a more ‘serious’ endeavor.  No longer just a couple friends, a bag of chips, and a bottle of soda while we sit down to two or three Heston favorites.  No, now it’s a day long (plus) party with themed foods, gifts, a raffle, etc.  A madhouse.  A MAD HOUSE!

Charlton Heston Presents Genesis:  This was much better than I anticipated.  Heston talks generally about the Bible, then reads various excerpts of the Book of Genesis.  He wanders around the Holy Land, walking the area in which the book is set.  The film serves as a reminder that only a short time ago, civil discussion about religion didn’t seem so alien.

The Greatest Story Ever Told:  If this movie was half as long, and had 90% less sanctimonious mic dropping from Jesus, this would be a pretty cool fantasy film.  That they used the American West as a backdrop lends a sort of surreal vibe to the familiar story.  And Charlton Heston’s caveman preacher, John the Baptist is wildly wonderful.  There are some great scenes, to be sure.  But the film is well over three hours long, and by the time Heston exits, it starts to feel like the post-chariot race Ben Hur.  And the fact of the matter is, in this film, Jesus is absolutely insufferable.  I love Max Van Sydow, but he makes you want to kick his teeth in with his cloying, condescending self-righteousness.

Skyjacked:  Totally bonkers, this movie is a heck of a lot of fun.  All the silly tropes come rolling out and get an almost exploitation treatment.  James Brolin is wonderfully over the top.  It’s all goofy, but very watchable.

    Brad and I were in for the long haul and Rebecca joined us at about the point Jesus was getting done in, but around the end of Skyjacked, people started coming in.  I played an old live TV thing called A Bolt of Lightning as we got food and said hello.

Earthquake:  One of my favorite, if not my favorite, disaster films, Earthquake is a sprawling movie with subplots to spare.  George Kennedy is especially awesome as the bitter, but eventually heroic cop.  There’s family melodrama, a kid in a coma, a creepy rapist with a gun, and a whole lot of shakin’ going on.

Airport 1975:  “The stewardess is flying the plane!”  I wish this movie was less dull.  There are some good bits and some fun moments.  But I could have used a bit more sleaze, a bit more silly.  It takes itself so danged serious.  Still, a fun group watch.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes:  While plenty of complaints about technical issues might be valid, and one could be bothered by the introduction of weirder elements, I enjoy the heck out of this follow-up to the classic.  I like that they don’t simply repeat the original’s story, and make the attempt to do something even more ambitious.  It doesn’t always work, but it’s an interesting attempt.  And that ending.  Nuts.  That’s rough.  The end of the first movie is a brain breaker.  The end of the second is a soul crusher.

    And that was it.  Good food.  Good company.  Good (mostly) movies.  What more could a Dork want?

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of Summer 2014! (Brad's Picks)

May to August, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to Sin City 2.  Ha! You would not know it from the starting shot or the finish line, but Summer 2014 is going down as one of the better Blockbuster Seasons.  Thank god.  I don't think I could take another drought like last year.  And as you'll see below, this was one of those rare years in which nearly all the films I was anticipating landed in my Top Five.  Financially, fewer butts hit the seats this year, but that didn't stop Guardians of the Galaxy from crossing $500,000,000 worldwide, or that TransFOURmers behemoth from stomping all over Earthly good taste.  Geez.  Rocket Raccoon is a real-deal Hollywood icon!  I can't believe it...can you?  Just a few months ago I was worrying that America wouldn't show up, and we'd be stuck with just Iron Man & Captain America sequels until this whole spandex hype died down.  Looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon.  Bring on Doctor Strange.

However, as great as it is to report the success of the films below, it's a little bit of a bummer to not have a slew of out-of-nowhere surprises.  I enjoyed a batch of mean little dramas amongst the popcorn fare (Locke, The Rover, Snowpiercer), but as fantastic as their lead performances were their narratives lacked a certain punch.  A lot of folks seemed to go nuts for X-Men - Days of Future Past, but as I did with the previous X-Films, I found Bryan Singer's latest to be a mediocre comic book pretender.  Those are just not my X-Men.  Meanwhile, the knives were out for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & The Expendables 3, but I found them both to be disposable fun.  The Rock dropped a deuce with Hercules, yet nothing will kill the charm of that man.  Next summer, say the word - "SHAZAM!" and I'll be all over that film.

And then there were those Summer bookend sequels, Spider-Man & Sin City.  Damn.  They really were the only films this year that I absolutely loathed.  Similar to my X-Men reaction, Marc Webb's Spider-Man just doesn't work for me.  He's now crafted two films in which Peter Parker is defined by death.  Spidey is not Batman.  I'm not asking for a disco strut comedy for ol' Web Head, but Peter Parker lives & breathes through his sense of humor, and it's important to showcase the thrill that his adventures illicit for the woe-is-me nerd.  Sin City's biggest problem is that it is so brutally dull.  Whatever your thoughts on Frank Miller's source material, generally the complaint is not boredom.  As cool as Robert Rodriguez's green screen tapestry was in 2005, the end result here is not nearly as artful as the comic book graphics, and the drag-and-drop performances are absolutely lifeless.

Both Edge of Tomorrow & 22 Jump Street get the Close-But-No-Cigar Award.  I had an absolute blast with each film, but they dragged on a little too long and suffered during their final moments.  It's popular to hate on Tom Cruise these days, but as one-time fans pretend to distance themselves from the Scientologist, I find myself warming up to the Movie Star.  I'm no apologist, and I won't defend crazy, but the man has never phoned in a performance.  From Knight and Day to Rock of Ages, Cruise throws himself into his roles, and as he delves deeper into genre the resulting movies have been rollicking thrill rides.  Edge of Tomorrow is one of his recent best.  22 Jump Street is simply hilarious.  Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill, a buddy cop team equal to Tango & Cash.  And if Tatum's meet-cute had actually traveled its obvious narrative path, then I could have forgiven the overlong runtime.

5.  Life Itself:  I've watched more documentaries this year then any previous.  A lot of them dealt with the arts (Jodorowsky's Dune, The Dog, To Be Takei) and a couple highlighted social injustice (Dinosaur 13, Let The Fire Burn).  On the surface, Life Itself appears to be a simple talking heads tribute to Chicago Sun Times movie critic Roger Ebert.  Sure, it's that.  Although, thanks to Ebert's allowance of Steve James' ever-present camera, the film also captures the universal experience of a life winding down.  What is it to say goodbye to a loved one?  How do you define your existence?  Life Itself is a celebration of the movies, sure, but it's also a celebration of Love itself.  Roger & Chaz.  Heartbreaking, heartwarming.  I imagine the more you appreciate Ebert's work, the more you'll enjoy the film, but I also think Life Itself offers a lot for the uninitiated.

4.  Godzilla:  Unlike Matt, I did not grow up the Godzilla fanatic.  In college, I watched & appreciated the original film, but that's about it.  However, in preparation for this latest monster-mash, I made it my mission to bone-up on the classics.  I succeeded in watching nearly all of my resolutions, and that certainly had an affect on how much I enjoyed this remake.  Obviously, I friggin' loved it.  You might be one of those frustrated folks that felt there wasn't much of the monster, or that the human characters were one-dimensional...I agree with you.  So?  Bryan Cranston & Aaron Taylor Johnson got the job done.  Would I have enjoyed the movie more if they were complex individuals with arcs involving weepy internal struggles?  Maybe.  But I don't need that in Godzilla.  Broad strokes are perfectly apt in Blockbuster magic.  What I need is dread....devastation...and a bastard brawl between beasts.  Gareth Edwards delivers on that.

3.  Cold In July:  Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite novelists finally gets a movie adaptation worthy of his twisted stories (I love Bubba Ho-Tep as much as the next blogger, but that's more about Bruce Campbell's charm than a satisfying script).  Michael C Hall is a weak Texas family man who frantically kills an intruder just minutes after the opening credits.  A violent act that ignites a grotesque plunge down a rabbit hole most viewers will not be equipped to handle.  Faint of heart, need not apply.  Cold In July is a mean-spirited flick full of awful surprises, plus a pair of delightfully grizzled turns from Don Johnson & Sam Shephard.

2.  Guardians of the Galaxy:  Fun.  The end.  You probably won't have more of it this year than you will riding around in The Milano with Star-Lord and his gang of intergalactic losers.  It's been 20 years since we've had a space adventure this genuine.  Fanboys love tossing Star Wars around, and they're not wrong, but Guardians feels more like the Star Wars knock-off film folks like Roger Corman were so desperate to recreate in blunders like Battle Beyond The Stars. But, you know, it's actually AMAZING.  Chris Pratt has all the requirements of a Han Solo character - charisma, a bit of a dick - yet he still manages to get upstaged by a raccoon, a tree, and a professional wrestler.  The film is not without its flaws (big bad Ronan The Accuser lacks threat, the hand-to-hand combat is bland, mean green Gamora is disappointingly upstaged by the raccoon, the tree, the pro wrestler, and the Han Solo), but you're having too much damn fun to harp.  Again, I am pleased as punch that Guardians proved to be such a success, and now we're ready for the rest of Marvel's Cosmic Universe.

1.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  A character centric melodrama disguised as a big expensive Summer Blockbuster.  Similar to Godzilla, I hear your complaints about one-dimensional human characters.  So what?  They're barely in it, and they only serve to punctuate the emotions of the film's real leads - Caesar & Koba, a couple of chimpanzees struggling to lead their families from squaller to civilization.  What the animators, Toby Kebbell, & Andy Serkis have accomplished here is the next stage in performance; the subtlety in their movements packs as much of a wallop as the Apes on Horses machine gun climax.  For this fanboy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes represents the very best of Have-Your-Cake-And-Eat-It-Too filmmaking, and it is the very best of Summer Entertainment.

--Brad

Dork Art: Matt Ferguson's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Yesterday I posted the latest trailer for Matt Reaves's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and already master pop artist Matt Ferguson snatched an insta-icnonic moment from the film for his latest poster print.  One image and BOOM!  Man is done for, this is truly the Planet of the Apes.  I am all a tingle for this film.  I immediately want to marathon the original films.  July can't get here soon enough.

--Brad

"They Want What We Want!" - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes goes to WAR!

If I wasn't already pumped for the latest Planet of the Apes, I am positively rabid for it now.  This is certainly the film I wanted to see the first time around.  I actually dig the original Serkis venture, but I never really wanted to see the origin of the Heston Nightmare - just another anti-scientist Frankenstein plot.  No, it's gotta be Ape vs Man.  Caesar vs Gary Oldman with a little dash of good human Jason Clarke.  WAR!  APOCALYPSE!  APES ON HORSES!  This is the stuff.



--Brad

A Fistful of Summer Anticipation 2014 (Brad's Picks)

So, technically, the Summer Movie Season starts this weekend with the release of Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  That seems phony baloney to me.  We're already a month into Summer Movies thanks to April's Captain America - The Winter Soldier.  In fact, I don't think this world is ever NOT in the Summer Movie Season.  We've been marching towards this moment since Jaws lined the blocks.  Now, we could all hang are heads and moan at the loss of Big Budget Drama Dramas like Citizen Kane or Kramer vs Kramer.....or we could all just admit to ourselves that we never liked those films in the first place.  I kid!  I kid!  I love Citizen Kane like all self-respecting film freaks should, and I love the little films, the art films, and the serious films as much as I do the spandexed ones.  But I'm a film freak born out of Star Wars, and I will always be a genre boy at heart.  So Jaws gave us B Movies with A Budgets and I've lived my entire life joyfully under its spell.  

2014 has been a lot of fun so far, and as I look at the Summer calendar, I find myself giddy with anticipation.  I feel much better about this year's crop than last; I feel no nagging trepidation in regards to any of the films listed below.  No Star Treks Into Darkness.  No Pacific Rims.  And dear god, hopefully no Prometheuses, as that's a disappointment I'm still kinda in denial over.  Sure, I can't really claim that I'm overjoyed to see the over-stuffed Amazing Spider Man 2 or X-Men Days of Future Past.  In the era of Marvel Studios and the geekgasm of The Avengers, it's hard to take these missed marks coming from Sony & 20th Century Fox.  The Suits, try as they might, don't seem to have an understanding of their characters in the same fashion as Marvel.  I'll be there opening night (got my ASM2 tix already), but the jonzing is simply not there.  Prove me wrong Electro, but I was not impressed by the previous film or any of the 19 millions film trailers you've assaulted the internet with so far.

But I love crap!  And there looks to be a lot of silly movies coming out over the next four months to keep my inner hipster cackling.  The Expendables 3!  THREE!?!?!  How is that possible?  The first two films are so wonderfully dumb, and 99% of my enjoyment is stolen straight from a nostalgia for those beautifully barbarian 80s.  However, that warm fuzzy memory seems poisoned these days.  Dullards like The Last Stand, Bullet To The Head, Escape Plan, and Sabotage have spoiled the childhood sheen a little bit.  Nine years ago, Robert Rodriguez brought Frank Miller's hardboiled terror noir comic Sin City to the masses, and it was a visual feast of unapologetic hedonism.  I have very mixed feelings in regards to that film (Jessica Alba's Nancy as Stripper Goddess?  Uh no), and after a string of DIY disasters I'm not sure I really care for another round.  Transformers Part IV?  Dinobots.  That's cool.  Maybe.  I recently rewatched Michael Bay's autobot behemoths, and I found them culturally fascinating but mostly boring.  Still, the insanity of Pain & Gain is fresh in my noggin and I'll be there for the next wave of Baysplosions.

Crap could turn to gold, or it could just sit there stinking.  Wading through Trans4ormers, Maleficent, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hercules, etc may leave even the staunchest of Blockbuster Enthusiasts queasy from the sour popcorn dreams.  That's certainly how I felt last September.  This year though, we do have a train of Little Engines That Could hiding under the tentpoles.  I am really excited to see Joe Lansdale's novel Cold in July adapted for the movies; I might not have dropped Michael C Hall into the lead role but Sam Shepherd & Don Johnson are inspired casting.  Filming over the course of 12 years, I am really curious to see how Richard Linklater's Boyhood tackles a coming of age in real time.  Luc Besson promises a return to female ass kickery with Scarlet Johansson and Lucy.  The Weinstein's can't keep a good Korean director down, as Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer finally barrels into theaters.  And I am crazy excited to see The Wachowskis tackle John Carter of Mars with Jupiter Ascending.  Don't hate.  These guys are the perfect choice to elevate Flash Gordon family adventure into big dollar mainstream acceptance.  Looks silly?  Sure.  But werewolf Channing Tatum for the win.

And speaking of the adorable genius of Channing Tatum, let's get to this Summer's Big Guns....

5.  22 Jump Street:  Wow.  What a difference a few years can make.  Not too long ago, I had no problem mocking the acting chops of Channing Tatum.  GI Joe - Rise of Cobra...yeash.  But the man kept working.  And he got a whole lot better.  The 21 Jump Street reboot was a serious revelation for me.  Not only did it transform disdain for Tatum into an uncontrollable man-crushing adoration, but it proved directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller to be the saviors of lost causes.  Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, Jump Street, The Lego Movie.  These guys prove that talent can turn any needless cashgrab into art.  Give them Ghostbusters 3.  Give them Freddy vs Jason vs Ash.  Give them Before Watchmen.  Give them whatever, I will anticipate it.  And I sure as hell will show up for another outing between Jenko & Schmidt.  "Fuck You Science!"

4.  All You Need Is Kill (a.k.a. Edge of Tomorrow):  On paper this sci-fi Groundhog Day has very little appeal.  But then you see Tom Cruise in that mech suit...and then Emily Blunt unsheathes a crazy large Warhammer 40K broadsword, and suddenly I'm jittering in my seat.  It's no secret around here that I have a soft spot for late-in-life Tom Cruise pictures.  Knight & Day, Jack Reacher, Oblivion.  Haters gonna hate, f 'em.  The man does earnest, and that's essential to whacked out worlds like this one.  Doug Liman might not be your go-to action director, but the man loves his wonky high concepts, and I'm hoping he's finally struck gold with this robotech thriller.

3.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  Apes on Horses!  Apes on Horses!  That's it.  Done.  Oh, you want more reasons to see this film?  How about the fact that we're finally getting to the hell of living on the Planet of the Apes.  Rises's origin story wasn't half bad, but James Franco was checked out for most of the film and he was easily upstaged by a computer monkey - er, ape.  Andy Sirkis also happened to deliver the best we've seen yet from mo-cap performance, and I have a feeling he's going to hit Oscar heights with this new & improved rebel leader Cesar.  End of the World stories are fun enough, but the Post-Apocalypse has always been the more interesting tale for me.  The Last Men vs The New Apes.  War.  Yes.  Jason Clarke?  Yeah, forget Franco.  Matt Reaves is a director dying to prove his talents, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is going to be the film where the rest of the world sits up and notices.

2.  Godzilla:  I spent several months prepping for Captain America - The Winter Soldier.  And boy did that fanboy fetishizing pay off in a big, big way.  Gareth Edwards's Godzilla remake is the next film to entice me into crazed backlog devouring.  I've always been a big fan of the original film, but I'm a late comer when it comes to Mothra, Rodan, Gigan, and friends.  As I've been picking away at the various rubber suits, I'd love to say that my inner kid has been reawakened...but that kid has never been asleep.  I'm a proud stunted youth, and I spend the majority of my time reveling in the art of cartoons, comics, and movies.  Duh.  But that stomp towards the remake has certainly kept the inner kid satiated.  Not just goofy fun.  There is a thrilling display of imagination in those films.  Ishiro Honda may not have had the budget or even the talent to deliver badass monster movies, but he certainly had the freedom to dream whatever kooky world he wanted.  He never let a reality roadblock get in the way of telling a King Kong story.  Now Edwards, he's got the budget.  And based on Monsters, he's got the talent.  I have high hopes that this Godzilla is going to deliver in a way that no other Monster Movie has.  Bold talk.  Bold hope.  I had a similar dream for Pacific Rim.  I like what I'm seeing from the trailers.  Fingers crossed.

1.  The Guardians of the Galaxy:  Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor.  You may have thought it was all leading up to The Avengers, but you'd be wrong.  All Marvel Studios has built has been leading to The Guardians of the Galaxy.  They've sold the world on Super Heros.  Now, if we're going to continue down this rabbit hole, we need to branch out into the weirder, wilder stories of the four color realm.  Iron Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 20.  How long can that character hold our interest?  If James Bond is any indication, at least 40 years.  But Marvel has a whole helluva lot more characters to offer, and I want more from them than just capes & cowls.  Guardians of the Galaxy looks like it could be an energetic mix of Star Wars knockoffs.  Take the best of Ice Pirates, blend in some Buck Rogers, and a little dash of Krull and you've got what could be a rollicking time out at the movies.  But talking trees?  Rocket Raccoons?  Is the world ready?  I am.  Whatever blood James Gunn squeezes from this stone, I beg of you, please go out and see Guardians opening weekend.  We want more than Captain America Part 15, right?  We want Doctor Strange.  We want Black Panther.  We want another Howard The Duck.

--Brad

Prodigal Son: Let’s Try This Again

Part Nineteen

    It’s been some time since I last wrote a Prodigal Son article.  Things came up, the way things do.  I got busy, other folks got busy.  I made some priority choices, and gaming lost out.  Life happened.  Well, I’m back, and this time I’m going to give it a serious go.  I’m not stopping off at the Moon, I’m taking a rocket straight to Mars.  While I would love to do another game night some time soon, I’m putting my effort into going straight for a regular roleplaying game.  Now, I would absolutely love to get a weekly session, but while I’m a dreamer, I’m not kidding myself.  That won’t be happening in all likely hood, and I’d rather have something than nothing.  So, come the new year, I’m gathering a few friends together, and we’re going to discuss options and interests.  At the moment, it looks like most, if not all, of my potential players will be new to the hobby, which is exciting (and a bit scary).  I have to remember a few things in the meantime.  1. Roleplaying is one of the most creative and exciting hobbies around; it trumps video games any day, and on the best days it trumps film and literature.  And 2. Roleplaying should be fun.

    I figure the first night, we’ll just chat about the hobby, and maybe play a round of Once Upon a Time or some such.  From there, I figure we’ll arrange a schedule of sorts, hopefully on a no less than bi-weekly basis.  To start things off, I’ll run a one or two night game of something easy and introductory, with pre-made characters.  The obvious options here would be my go-to one-shot game, Call of Cthulhu, or maybe Unknown Armies.  Or maybe, in spite of my frustration with the over-saturation of zombies, All Flesh Must Be Eaten.  Or I could go really crazy and do something like Terra Primate.  Anyway, whatever it ends up being, the point is to get the basic idea of how it all works.

    Once that introductory game is done, we can look at doing something more long term.  Maybe not an indefinite game, but a mini-campaign.  The growth and development of a character is one of the great things about a game, and something missing in one-shots, of course.  With a mini-campaign, there could be a particular story direction, with some major events mapped out, and an ending (or at least a place for an ending to fit).  It gives some sense of development while it also gives the satisfaction of a conclusion.  Short campaigns have a lot of advantages, not the least of which is their finite length.  If they’re good enough, and feature particularly memorable endings, they’ll be remembered for years to come.

    If the group only makes it through one mini-campaign, I’ll count it a success (assuming folks enjoy themselves).  But my hope isn’t to do a single four to eight session story and be done with it all.  There was a time when I was involved in two or three ongoing games a week, when some games lasted several years.  While those days may be long gone, I’d like to get back a bit of it.  So, if the first game and/or the first mini-campaign is a success, I’d sure like to do more.  More mini-campaigns?  This is, of course, an option.  It allows for various types of games, and there are so many I’d like to try.  However, I’d very much like to do a long form campaign.  Something open ended.  As with all things, there are pros and cons to this.  But the longer the game, the more character and setting development, and the more players can influence not just events, but the whole tone and direction of the story.

    The real trick, and this will likely take some time to get rolling, will be to get a game of Ars Magica going.  For that, the group’s numbers might have to be expanded.  Ars Magica is the only game I can think of where very large groups can still work.  Otherwise, six people is pushing it.  Before an ongoing, open ended game, it’s time to get serious, and get this business done.  Time to stop putting things off and talking about how cool it would be if…  Come January, I’m getting a game together, dang it.

-Matt

See the rest of the series here, and here.

Brad's Week in Dork! (12/1/13-12/7/13)

For the first week of December I thought it was time to get down & dirty with the forgotten films of 2013.  Netflix & VOD allowed me to scrounge the corners of cinema, checking off mediocre flicks like Paranoia as well as gems like The Grandmaster & Upstream Color.  Film.com's David Ehrlich unveiled his annual 25 Best, and as usual it got me pumped for a year I once considered the worst of the last ten.  Seriously, watch Ehrlich's construction below and you'll come away thinking maybe The Great Gatsby was a work of genius.  The list is peppered with absurd independent films, but the man is not afraid to drop in the occasional blockbuster i.e. Pain & Gain.

Only a few weeks left until I have to build my own Top Ten list, and I'm happy to report that it's shaping up into something special.  Thanks to last week's Fantastic Fest, The Great Beauty, and the AFI's European Union Film Showcase, 2013 is going to go down with some personal classics under it's belt.  Phew - cuz for a while it was looking pretty ugly.

Paranoia:  This is the type of film you go into knowing it's just gonna be bleck or blah.  Young hot stud branching out from a crappy teen franchise (Team Lautner!); playing smoochy face with Amber Heard while you desperately cling to a nostalgia for yesteryear's box office might.  Harrison Ford & Gary Oldman....you love them, I love them.  But don't let curiosity drag you down like it did me.  Paranoia is not a terrible movie.  It's not even bleck.  But it most certainly is blah.  I love Indiana Jones probably more than anybody else on the internet (FACT - not hyperbole, just trust me), but we all need to stop donating to his hospice fund.  If he can't bother to show up, neither should we.......JUST SAY NO TO EPISODE VII!  (As if any of us could stay away from the Star Wars beast - what else could we possibly bitch about?)

As I Lay Dying:  James Franco is a fascinating animal.  I am in total awe of him one moment (his insane bling master turn in Spring Breakers, the obscene lampooning of This Is The End) and loathing him the next (his flat goofy blank in Oz The Great & Powerful).  And that's simply from this year!  The man is a machine, cranking out one project after the next.  This William Faulkner adaptation seems to stay fairly close to the original as far as content is concerned, but director Franco gets in the way a bit too much thanks to never ending soooo-cute split screens, and a lotta wannabe Malick-leering.  The technique gets in the way of a tremendously depressing plot involving a family's epic quest to bury their long suffering mother.  Some impressive performances and attractive scenery are squandered by Franco's batshit style.

A Single Shot:  A young girl drops dead in the forest, a boodle of cash on her person.  Sam Rockwell's divorced hunter sets about the routine of his failing life only to run afoul of backwoods gangsters led by the slobberingly distasteful Jason Isaacs.  Since Moon, I pretty much pray to the alter of Rockwell, and I had high hopes for this deer hunter thriller.  Sadly, the credits ultimately roll on a rather unremarkable film.  Solid performance from Rockwell as always, and Geoffrey Wright's tiny role as the drunk buddy is a lot of fun, but, A Single Shot never ignited one wow from this audience member.  All I kept thinking about as the film droned on was the far superior A Simple Plan.

Movie 43:  Attempting to capture the charm and vulgarity of comedy anthologies like Kentucky Fired Movie & Amazon Women on the Moon, Movie 43 drags out a parade of celebrities to assault your senses.  Actually, I had a lot of fun with this movie.  Some sketches are sooooo not good (I'm looking at you Period Butt Chloe Grace Moretz!), but I unleashed several chortles during Hugh Jackman's testicle-neck and Elizabeth Banks's cartoon cat attack.  Yeah, I'm ashamed.  A little.  But there should be no guilty pleasures in life.  Own it.  Love it.  Deal with it......yes, Jackman has balls growing out of his neck, they dip in his soup, it's funny.

Planet of the Apes:  "There has to be something better than man."  The Wife & I have decided to tackle The Apes Franchise for the month of December.  We're not gonna rush it.  Probably do a movie a week, maybe double feature Escape & Conquest if possible.  I've always loved these films, but since knowing Matt & experiencing several years of Hest Fest, my appreciation for the original film has skyrocketed.  After every viewing I become more and more enchanted with the first twenty minutes of the movie.  Heston's astronaut wondering the deserts of a post-apocalyptic earth, belittling every dumb comment from his crew, and laughing at their absurd clinging to the past.  I'd love to see a proper prequel to this movie - with none of the ape stuff, just a glimpse at how (or why) Heston boarded that rocket to oblivion.  He's certainly one of the all time great pricks of science-fiction, and it's that asshole nature that allows him to battle the madhouse of the apes.  Science vs. Religion - the great debate as presented by Rod Serling's script & John Chambers's still incredibly evocative makeup.

Europa Report:  I've been looking for this kind of found footage film since I first heard the concept.  Europa Report is not simply the story of some chump following other chumps with a shaky-cam.  Done up as a documentary (the way Cloverfield should have been presented), the film details man's first attempt to reach beyond the moon and discover life in the stars - obviously it's a bit of a bumpy ride.  That being said, the script doesn't drag its characters down the typical narrative traps.  Isolation does not lead to catastrophic insanity.  Alien life does not equal snarling she-beasts....not exactly, anyway.  The format made me hesitant, but Europa Report works the technique better than any other film I've seen.  Seriously impressive.

Frances Ha:  I hated this movie.  I simply cannot fathom The Love it's receiving from the critical community, and I'll watch Criterion's Armageddon another fifty times before I ever watch their Frances Ha release.  I do not care about the problems of a stumbling 20 something.  Maybe it's because I survived that miserable decade with a smile on my face, and accepted adulthood as a joyous gift (says the man who owns more action figures than apartment space).  I do not find Greta Gerwig to be adorable.  Her awkward conversations and desperate grabs for friendship are certainly sad, but I felt no kinship with her pathetic plight.  Despite co-writing two of my favorite Wes Anderson pictures, Noah Baumbach has directed his third picture to grate my nerves (The Squid and The Whale & Greenberg being the others) and I think I'm pretty much done with his cinema of the whine.  I don't care how high on the Top Ten Lists they get.  I'm done.

The Iceman:  Not a great movie.  Run of the mill mobster stuff.  You've seen in all before.  And it's not as scary as the talking heads documentary done by HBO several years back.  Still, you can't help but get drawn in by Michael Shannon's intensity.  You certainly believe that he could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds.  Watching him operate a pistol gets me giddy for my Parker idea, Shannon is the guy who could do Richard Stark justice.  Chris Evans has a nice small roll and a fun wig as the ice cream hitman.  I wish the film focused more on their buddy-buddy assassination business.  I wish the film went crazy with fiction rather than the drabness of "Based on a True Story."  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

I Declare War:  It's no secret that I love the Alamo Drafthouse.  If I had the option, I'd spend every waking moment inside that theater up the street from my apartment.  Not only do they love movies, but they understand the "holy" aspect of the theater.  Yeah, the No Talking/Texting thing is great.  The Restaurant aspect takes a little getting used to, or at least you need to figure out a way to make it work for your experience.  But at the end of the day, the reason I hold the Alamo above all other theaters is because they openly worship cinema via their pre-show entertainment (no damn commercials), and they're branching out into the film distribution business themselves.  Some of their releases have been better than others, I'm still recovering from the disappointment of The FP, but others like A Field in England & The Act of Killing (see my upcoming 2013 Top Ten List for further detail on both) are outstanding works of art.  They're pushing the best of fringe cinema to the masses - thank you.  And I Declare War is certainly one of their top-tier projects.  Two teams of children compete in an intense game of Capture the Flag; their imagination transforming their sticks & stones into semi-automatic machine guns & grenades.  Things get messy.  Yeah, it's tough to see children dispatched with such fervor.  There's a good dose of Lord of the Flies in this film, but it's not simply about the savagery of man as I Declare War delves deeper into the seemingly tiny betrayals of youth, and the adulthood they inevitably birth.  It's always an iffy project when child actors are involved, but thankfully, directors Jason Lapeyre & Robert Wilson bend these kids to the needs of the screenplay.  Drafthouse Films might not be getting thousands of screens across the country, but they should own VOD.  Hit your TV sets, check it out.

Twixt:  "You are the ending you seek."  This is directed by the same man that gave us The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now......whaaaaaaaaaat!?!?!?!?  Hell, is this even the same guy who directed Jack?  It is absolutely baffling to watch Twixt.  And maybe it's totally unfair to judge a brand new work to films that have had decades to build an iconic status, but Twixt is sooooo insanely cheap and muddled that it's nearly impossible to feel anything but sadness when pushing yourself through the movie.  Val Kilmer is a hack writer dragging through a book tour when he lands in a spooky little village possibly haunted by vampires.  Bruce Dern is the nutty sheriff with an idea to feed, and Elle Fanning is the gothy blood luster.  There's also something about the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe and a evil biker named Flamingo, but the plot points never develop into anything more exciting than the basest of Stephen King imitations.  Sure, it's fun to watch Val Kilmer rant using his gay black basketball impersonation, but Twixt never elevates itself beyond train wreck cinema.

Drinking Buddies:  Olivia Wilde & Jake Johnson are a couple of pals with too much chemistry, and Ron Livingston & Anna Kendrick are the significant others who must suffer.  Much has been made about the film's improvisational manner, but I wonder if the film could have benefited from a stronger pen.  All the actors seem to have a handle on their characters, and their conversations feel honest, but that honesty possibly deprives the narrative of a satisfying conclusion.  But maybe I'm talking outta my butt.  Maybe the anti-climax is just where director Joe Swanberg wanted to take these people.  Still scenes play out, escalate in arguments, and are forced into resolution.  On the fly storytelling is just not what I'm looking for in the movies, but I bet it was fun for the actors.

The Grandmaster:  "Nothing lasts forever, and that's fine."  I didn't bother with this in the theater due to all the hubbub about The Weinstein's butchering of the Chinese Cut, but I wish I hadn't listened to that fanboy chatter cuz Wong Kar Wei's kung fu artistry should be seen on the biggest screen possible and not a teeny tiny VOD box.  That being said, I really loved the hell outta The Grandmaster, and I really need to check out the international edit.  Sure, it's another IP Man story, and blah, blah, blah he trained Bruce Lee.  That tiny bit of trivia has put a lot of asses in the seats, but Wong Kar Wei's film is more interested in the beauty of kung fu & less about the ass kickery.  The Grandmaster deals in the doom & gloom of honor; the inevitability of conflict when one holds so stringent to their teachers and their teachings.  It's all very badass, but it's miserable too.  It's a side of martial arts that is often touched upon, but never as fully explored as it is here.  The question becomes now, do I fork over the hard cash for that imported cut?  Yeah, I think so.

Dirty Wars:  "America knows war."  Journalist Jeremy Scahill navigates "the hidden truths" of America's covert operations in Afghanistan as well as various other dark corners.  It's the kind of documentary that tears at your soul for a couple of hours, but you can't help but question due to the absolute horror it dredges from underneath the Red, White, & Blue.  I sit softly in my apartment, surrounded by dvds, blu rays, action figures, and comic books.  What does such a posh life cost others?  The answer is probably something I never want to confront, but what evil continues if I keep my head buried in the sand?  Liberal agenda?  Truth?  Either way, I'm depressed.

Post Tenebras Lux:  "All I had to do was exist."  Not sure what the hell this one is about.  A child wanders in a field as thunder & lightening crash around her.  A husband beats upon a dog and demands anal sex from his wife.  A cartoon demon wanders about the house at night.  The husband & wife visit a sex dungeon.  Scenes drift into other scenes and I wonder if they belong to the same narrative or if they're just a collection of weird ass shorts.  Is this surreal cinema?  Or just bullshit.  I'm thinking bullshit.  It's certainly not interesting enough for me to explore any further.

Upstream Color:  A wicked little mindbender from Shane Carruth, the DIY director of the time traveler Primer.  A woman is kidnapped and her body manipulated by a toxin grown from a flower and transplanted through pig organs.  It's all very icky.  She is not the first, but will she be the last?  Upstream Color will require repeat viewings before I figure it all out, and maybe even then I'll be left scratching my head.  There are bits in this film that call back to the dreamy visuals of David Lynch,  Nicholas Roeg, and even John Boorman, but Upstream Color succeeds because its oddity is totally its own.  At the very least it's the kinda film you want to rip high definition stills from and wallpaper your computer for years to come.  Just gorgeous.

Cutie And The Boxer:  "Art is a demon."  A documentary love story between two elderly Japanese artists still desperate to strike it big in New York City.  Ushio Shinohara gained a little notoriety in the 1970s for his splatterpaint boxing canvases, but it never amounted to anything more than a human interest story and a tiny apartment.  In some respects this is a saga of the neverending artistic spirit, but in other aspects its a sad little tale of failed parenthood.  I've never really understood the world of abstract art.  Show me the Mona Lisa or Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer and I'll give you a thumbs up.  Plop a Warhol soup can in front of me and I'll give you a quizzical expression.  Cutie And The Boxer does not resolve my confusion, but it's a fun look at a couple in the know.

The Great Beauty:  After his 65th birthday, one-time novelist & full-time manslut Jep Gambardella deconstructs his lifestyle and delves into the memory of a lost love.  The Great Beauty is obviously inspired by the iconic works of Federico Fellini, but thanks to Tovi Servillo's captivating facial expressions, I emotionally connected with this film in a way I've never been able to with the Italian master.  You at once want to party with Servillo and run screaming to the hills.  The Roman Night Life is both dream and nightmare.  A hedonistic display wrought with cheap relationships, impenetrable self-delusion, and the very best of Euro Disco.  It's a Wonderland Gambardella has been lost in for decades, and one that will require massive amounts of introspection to pull himself out from the depths.  The Great Beauty is one of the year's very best films and no one is more surprised by that then me.

A Field In England:  Ben Wheatley's latest is as if a group of extras from Monty Python's Holy Grail wandered off set and into a Robert E. Howard short story populated by HP Lovecraft's Elder Gods, and directed by David Lynch's crazier kid brother.  In short, it might be the greatest genre mashup ever crafted.  To go too much into the plot would rob you of the experience; all I'm willing to offer is that four soldiers flee the battlefields of the English Civil War and discover something...odd in the countryside.  And mushrooms.  Sure, it's a head trip.  Wheatley has a lot of fun with his camera tricks and those prone to seizures best stay away (the strobe warning at the start is no joke), but the film is not just an effect.  It's a scary ass story of witchcraft, and a story absolutely worthy of Vincent Price and the arduous hunt to find it playing on a silver screen near you.  Another Top Tenner for 2013.

--Brad