Matt’s Weeks in Dork (6/22/14-6/28/14 & 6/29/14-7/5/14)

    It’s been a busy couple of weeks, which is the reason for the combined weeks.  Good stuff, but not much related to the Dork Life.  Without more rambling…

(6/22/14-6/28/14)
Children of Paradise:  Beautifully produced, and filled with excellent performances, I found this movie interesting to watch, but ultimately not all that interesting.  There’s a lot of old-world charm, some sinister goings on, and a cast of colorful rogues.  Some very good bits keep you going through some of the longer dry spells.  I’m sure there are meanings and interesting aspects of the film I didn’t catch or understand.  Taken only on its surface, it was just OK.

    Thanks to the Alamo, we got to see Bill & Ted on the big screen.  Of course, I saw it on the big screen when it first came out, redefining my life, dude.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure:  One of my favorite films, and a weirdly defining one for me, this weird 80s comedy is totally silly and totally weird.  It’s also most triumphant.  Two dumbasses travel through time and meet a random assortment of historic figures.  Then crazy stuff starts happening.  This is one you’re either on board for, or it’s not gonna make a lot of sense.  I love it.

Girl Happy:   Not one of the better Elvis movies, it’s charmingly awkward, but not especially memorable.  Few particularly good songs.  It doesn’t suck, but it’s not one of the good ones.

22 Jump Street:  They made a sequel?  Boy did they.  Throughout the film, they continually have a great deal of fun having a go at themselves for doing a sequel in the first place.  Like the first film, this one is super silly, with plenty of dumb humor, lots of gross-out jokes, and the impossibly charming antics of Channing Tatum.  Few actors have turned me around as much as The Tatum.  But he’s won my heart, like he has millions of my fellow citizens.  If you haven’t seen 21 Jump Street (the movie), go out and do so.  Now.  Come back to this one later.

    I came so close to bailing on Transformers.  Not only was it a work night, but I was already crazy tired.  And I had an opportunity to go on a date with my lady.  But, I’d said yes, the tickets were already purchased, and I’m a dumbass.  I made the wrong choice.

Transformers: Age of Extinction:  One of the worst films I’ve sat through in 2014, the movie is most guilty of THE cardinal sin.  It’s boring.  Some movies feel like they can’t stop ending (see The Return of the King).  The movie felt like it couldn’t stop beginning.  An hour and a half into the film, and we were still being introduced to new plotlines.  Not twists in the original, but totally new lines for the story to go down.  And none of them were especially good.  Marky Mark was a step up from LeDouche, but he’s not that great.  And he’s as Texan as JFK.  The girl playing his daughter makes me long for the plastic dolls they had in the earlier films.  And that surfer dude?  Holy nuts.  I kept wanting to see him stomped on.  There’s so much awful dialog, it’s hard to pick just one thing wrong.  But there’s a speech near the end of the movie (the end that seemed like it would never arrive) where Optimus starts spouting this circular logic BS that sounded like something Deepak Chopra would put on a greeting card about knowing who we are and why we’re here…Good sweet crap, it was terrible.  The movie is dumb.  Not just dumb.  Boring.  It’s better than part 2.  Probably on par with part 3 (which was awful).  Not as good as part 1.  Wow.  Sad.

Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World:  The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria find themselves in a weird future, where a conniving politician is plotting to take over the world.  The twist?  The politician looks identical to the Doctor.  OK.  It’s not the best premise.  But I quickly got into the story and the various people working with and against Salamander, the charming but deadly would-be master of the world.  What’s crazy about this one is that about half way through, there’s a reveal, and the story takes on a whole different dimension that I did not see coming.  And it’s kinda awesome.  Anyway, not an amazing story, but a good one.  And I really enjoyed Troughton as the Doctor.  I hope they’ll uncover more of these old stories.

Shaolin Intruders:  I like the plot twists, and some of the fights are pretty good.  But this is very much a mid-level Shaw Bros. film.  It’s fine.  It’s watchable.  But there isn’t a lot to make it stand out from the pack.  In the mood, and you haven’t seen this one?  Go for it.  Otherwise, there’s a lot better flicks to see.

    I started watching Masters of Sex.  Three episodes in, and I’m loving it.  Great cast, great story.  I haven’t read the book it’s based on, and I know precious little about Masters & Johnson.  But I’m fascinated, for sure.

Fallen Angels:  The sort of (spiritual) sequel to director Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express, Fallen Angles features more manic pixie people, voiceovers, and fisheye cinematography.  While I enjoyed it, and enjoyed the overall vibe of the film a great deal, it never reached the emotional levels of Chungking Express.  It’s OK, and if you’re a fan of the first, it’s worth checking out.  I was a little disappointed to see Karen Mok doing her crazy, screaming, semi-comic performance.  I prefer her serious work, probably because her voice is so grating when she gets wacky.

(6/29/14-7/5/14)

    On Sunday morning, I cracked into Black Science, another sci-fi comic from Rick Remender.  Pretty good stuff.  I’ll be looking forward to the next volume.

MirrorMask:  This was one of those movies where the trailer was popping up forever on rented videos and the like, but which seemed to always be ‘coming soon.’  I don’t know how long it did take to get released in the States, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that it was more than a year, maybe two.  It seemed like it, at any rate.  So, when it was finally released, I was pretty excited to see the film…but it isn’t actually very good.  A few interesting ideas and a few interesting visuals pepper a darned boring bit of re-hash kid adventure story.  Echoes of much better movies reverberate through the whole thing.  It’s not a bad movie.  But it’s instantly forgettable.  I remember being very disappointed when I finally saw it for the first time.  This second viewing, many years later, has not changed my initial reaction.

Inkheart:  A watchable and fun, if largely empty kids’ fantasy film, I think Inkheart suffers greatly from coming out during the Harry Potter craze.  Too easy to compare, too easy not to live up.  I imagine I’d have dug the film a good deal as a little lad, but while it’s not something an adult would likely find annoying to watch with their kids, it’s not something an adult is likely to find compelling, either.

Age of Consent:  An artist returns to the homeland of his youth in Australia, where he intends to rediscover his passion for painting.  There he meets a colorful cast of locals, including the desperate to escape Helen Mirren in her film debut.  Considering the sleazy title and the subject matter, this is a surprisingly cute and almost chaste film.  Sure there’s nudity and talk of sex, but it’s not what I was expecting.  Michael Powell was a heck of a director and James Mason is always charismatic.  And you can see why Mirren would go on to be a star.  Not just because of her amazing and oft bare body, but because of a genuine talent and charm.

FDR: American Badass:  The best history film of all time?  Maybe.  Super cheesy, lowest of the low budget, goofy in the extreme, and wonderfully tasteless, American Badass is everything I hoped it would be.  Nazi werewolves giving FDR the polio?  That’s just the beginning.  Must be seen.  Must.

Maleficent:  I like the basic story of this movie, several images, and most of Angelina Jolie’s performance.  The script, however, is horrendous.  The actual dialog that is coming out of the actors’ mouths is like the Disney equivalent of a bad 80s action movie.  Compared to the recent Alice in Wonderland or Oz: the Great and Powerful, this is Citizen Kane.  But the ingredients for a solid, epic fantasy film were all there.  They simply didn’t come together, and that falls largely on the script.  Also, those comic-relief fairies were atrocious and needed to go.  Not just because the CGI on them was awful and terrifying, but because they’d have been annoying whatever the case.

Snowpiercer:  I don’t mind recycling ideas if they’re done well.  This movie has some really good bits, but is overall pretty disappointing.  There are plot twists; but they’re obvious.  There are a couple good action scenes, but a lot of motion-sickness inducing shaky cam, too.  I was so happy when there was an extended slow-motion sequence so I could steady my eyes for a moment and not need to turn away.  Many of the characters feel like they’d be interesting if we spent any time with them, but the movie jumps from one action bit to the next too quickly to give a crap about anyone involved.  Part of the pleasure in this kind of science fiction is the exploration of the strange society that forms in the wake of some tectonic civilization shift.  What is life like in a giant, constantly running train with a severe class-based society, surrounded by a hostile, freezing wasteland?  Interesting question.  Unfortunately the movie spends almost no time on that, throwing a couple quick factoids that are supposed to earn our sympathy and interest.  And then there’s the ever present mystery of the man who runs the train.  What’s he gonna be like?  Oh, boring and obvious.  Nuts.  I don’t want to sound too negative (though I can tell I have).  The movie isn’t bad.  It looks great (when the camera holds still long enough for you to notice).  There are some cool sequences and some cool ideas.  But it could have been much, much better.  Much better.

The Sign of the Cross:  Getting past the historic inaccuracies (the cross wouldn’t be a Christian symbol for almost three centuries), this movie is unfortunately kind of boring.  Oddly enough, the best stuff in this Christian martyr porn is the risqué sexuality.  From the milk bath, to the lesbian dance, to the naked women in the arena, it was the sexuality that kept me from tuning out completely.  It wasn’t the acting or the script, or the cow-eyed dullness of the religious zealotry.  Some cool sets add a bit, but not enough.  Easy to skip this one.

    Friday morning, I read Planetoid and Prophet, two sci-fi comics I’d had sitting around for a while.  I enjoyed both quite a bit.

Doctor Who: The Mind Robber:  Another OK story from the Troughton years.  I like some of the visuals, and a few of the concepts are rather weird.  At the end of the day, this isn’t my type of story.  Yet, they made it work.

    Saturday morning, I watched another disk of Masters of Sex.  Boy howdy, I enjoy this show.  I love the cast.  And a character that felt like she could easily become another Betty Draper (of Mad Men), has turned out to be as compelling as any other on the show.  Bravo.

The Lunchbox:  I found this film fascinating to watch and the characters all charming in their way.  However, I can’t help but notice cultural references flying fast and furious over my head.  India is a place I simply don’t get, and this movie heaps more on the pile of confusion.  Still, the budding correspondence romance between a lonely housewife and a surly office worker is cute.  Irrfan Khan is a charming dude, even when he’s playing a jackass.  The film also makes me want to have some home cooked Indian food.  Some of the stuff in those tins looked really good.

Lonesome:  A movie on the cusp of so much.  It’s a silent film, with some talkie scenes.  It’s black & white, but with some color tinted bits.  Featuring effects and some nice location shooting, the movie works more as a time capsule than as a film.  The story is simple and cute, but fairly forgettable.  But the costumes, the manners, the activities, etc. all sing 1928.  The movie is alive and roaring with that 20s spirit.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/15/14-6/21/14)

    Looking at this week, it probably looks like I didn’t accomplish much, Dork Life or otherwise.  And that’s not far off.  But I was busy, in my way.  I had a moment of inspiration and started laying the groundwork for a book (don’t know if it’ll go anywhere), then had an epiphany about an old story I never finished, that recharged in my interest in it.  We’ll see if anything comes of it.  But it was a good feeling, if nothing else.

Dagon:  Why name this Dagon?  It’s an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, not Dagon.  They’re two different (though somewhat related) stories.  Anyway, the film has some good bits thrown in, but is mostly uninspired.  The Shadow Over Innsmouth is probably the most obvious Lovecraft story to adapt to the screen, yet this is the only time I know of that it’s been attempted.  And failed.  There are worse Lovecraft adaptations.  But thankfully, there are better, too.

The Machine:  Painfully middle of the road, this movie had all the parts it needed to be really good, but not the will.  Punches were pulled, not just in terms of its made-for-TV level of violence and sex, but in its fear of pushing the concepts into new or challenging directions.  Lots of cool stuff is introduced, but none is followed through with any depth.  With low budget film, there is little excuse for making the plot progression bland.  So, this one is a failure.

Trouble in Paradise:  Ernst Lubitsch knew comedy.  Cheeky, dryly witty, occasionally raunchy, and constantly charming, this film isn’t quite as much fun as Design for Living, but it’s close.  Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshal are absolutely adorable together.  The dialog is quick and surprising.  Very much a must see.  And it’s pre-Code, so its mind is fully in the gutter, and wonderfully so.  And stalwart goofball Edward Everett Horton makes an obligatory appearance, with his usual put-upon antics and double-takes.

The Tales of Hoffmann:  Did I just trip the proverbial balls?  Imagine that crazy-ass dream sequence from The Red Shoes was turned into a feature length opera/ballet.  Yeah.  If I believed in gods, this would be against their laws.  There are lots of beautiful (and no small number of terrifying) sequences.  But I think the whole thing is so divorced from sanity as to be difficult to sit through.

Wild Strawberries:  I don’t know if it’s weird for this film to have been made by a young man, or obvious.  I think there comes a time in many a man’s life, certainly in that of the writer, when they discover and are nearly overwhelmed with nostalgia.  Perhaps it’s the realization of mortality making memories and experiences more important?  I don’t know.  But I’ve been in a place where I could have made this film (if I were a talented filmmaker), so in spite of it being about an old man’s life, perhaps it is a young man’s film.  It’s Bergman, so I’m sure there have been Film Studies papers written on the subject, and critical discussions far more profound than anything I can muster.  What I can say is that I enjoyed the heck out of the movie.  Victor Sjostrom is a charming old fellow, and manages to play kindly, sad, resigned, yet full of wonder and joy, making a rounded and complicated character.  Ingrid Thulin as his daughter-in-law is captivating.  She’s like staring at the ocean, seeing ripples on the surface, but knowing there’s chaos just beneath.  The movie is packed with emotional moments, taking you from amusement to sadness, to joy and back.  It’s cute.  It’s touching.  It’s a darned fine film.  And it’s yet another reminder that while Bergman did a few ART! films, with dense symbolism and what have you, he also made a lot of movies that are just about life, and are as relatable and watchable as can be.

    Brad and I headed over to the Mosaic Center to watch The Rover at The Angelica.  That’s when we found out that NOTHING is open before 11AM there on a Saturday.  The whole area was packed with people, yet there were maybe like three shops open, and the only restaurant we found was a Panera Bread.  It reminded me of when my friend and I went in to DC a month or so back and for blocks couldn’t find a place that opened on Saturday.  There are people running around with money to burn, and nobody to take it.  Weird.  How do shops not open by 9AM?  10 at the outside?

The Rover:  This movie shoots you in the stomach and leaves you in the desert to die.  In the burning heat of the Australian Outback, ten years after civilization collapsed, some desperate men cross paths with the wrong man.  There isn’t a lot of plot.  There’s not a lot of talking or character development.  There is a grinding, crushing sense of desperation and doom.  This is a vision of society winding down, of the world drying up, and the people turning to dust.  The slow apocalypse.  The dying of the light.  Guy Pearce is absolutely terrifying in this film.  It’s nice to see him in something good, and allowed to do his thing.  It’s been a while.  I feel like this movie would be a good companion to Mad Max.  It feels like it’s set in that same dying civilization, the same world of the rules rolling back, of people turning into animals.  And co-Dork Brad’s feeling that it’s the spiritual sequel to The Proposition sounds about right, too.

    That’s pretty much it.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/30/14-4/5/14)

    Another good week for this dork.  Too many sleepless nights, though.  I can’t believe the insanity of the times we live in.  For dorks like me, this is a wonderful and weird time.  Marvel Comics are hitting the big screen to critical and financial success.  Science fiction movies are starting to be taken somewhat seriously, and there are even occasional good ones.  It’s wild.  But it brings with it some negative elements, too.  I recently went back and watched some classic Doctor Who, just to remind myself why I love that show.  Like late-coming comic fans who claim their favorite superhero is Hawkeye (NOBODY’s favorite hero is Hawkeye!), the new Who has produced a good deal of new fans who make older fans like me feel kind of awkward and uncomfortable.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad the new show is a success, and I love that it’s bringing in new generations of fans.  I am.  I just can’t relate to them.  What they love about the show is not at all what I love about the show.  In fact, more often than not, what they love about the show seems to be the stuff that’s making me less and less of a fan of the new series.  Still, young nerds are our future.  I should remember that.  Anyway, on with the week.

Put the screwdriver away and use your brain!

    Sunday morning, I read the first two volumes of Abe Sapien.  It’s OK.  At best.  For part of the Mignola universe, it’s pretty disappointing.

Grand Hotel:  This pioneering ‘all star cast’ film is full of wit and charm and fun characters.  It’s gorgeously produced and keeps a good pace.  There isn’t a plot, so much as a bunch of characters going through various arcs of their life over a couple of days stay.  From residential folks to temporary guests, the quirks and concerns of people give way to humor and drama.  Everyone is so good, but my personal favorite is John Barrymore, who is so charming and so sad as the down on his luck baron in desperate need of some quick cash.  A must see film.

Doctor Who: Paradise Towers:  Ultra 80s with a strong dose of J.G. Ballard, this is one of the few good stories of the last few years of classic who.  There are gangs, oppressive guards, robots, cannibals, and a cowardly action hero.  I like the look and general vibe, which I’ve said before, reminds me of 2000AD comics.  The late years of Doctor Who make me kind of sad, but this is one of the few bright spots, and so earns some marks.  It’s what Who could have been in the late 80s, as opposed to the lackluster stories that were much more common.

Mulholland Drive:  “It’s been that kind of a day.”  In many ways this film is Lost Highway Redux.  It covers some of the same themes, similar storytelling techniques, and general mood.  The major difference is the lesbian angle, which seems to be what made critics who hated Lost Highway love Mulholland Drive.  It is some wonderful David Lynch madness, and it’s got some great performances and great scenes.  But it doesn’t feel as smooth, or as (I can’t believe I’m going to use this word) coherent.  This is a nightmare turned into a film, and as such, it’s kind of beautiful, but also very frightening in a way horror films rarely are.

Noah:  This never gets as bugnuts crazy as the source material, but it is high myth-fantasy, and as such isn’t bad.  The first two thirds of the film is the best.  Honestly, once the Flood happens (sorry…spoilers) the film drops several gears and I found myself just waiting for the eventual end.  But up to that point, it was entertaining.  I wish the Watchers and that armored dog thing weren’t the only creatures, though.  Jewish myth and a lot of early proto-Christian mysticism has so much crazy I’d have loved to see them attempt.  Where were the Nephilim?  Where were the ‘wheels within wheels and covered in eyes?’  Still, flame-burst swords, drug-trip conversations with the divine, and Rock-Ents.  Oh, yeah.  Drunken Russell Crowe.  Awesome.  Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins play exactly the same character they play in all these historic/fantasy films.  Not great, but not bad.  And easily the best thing Aronofsky has done since The Fountain.

Drink blazing hot redemption, sinners!

The Legacy:  Typical, boring 1970s horror movie, The Legacy features the conspicuous credulity of protagonists that was common in the time.  Everyone seems perfectly willing to simply accept that there’s a witch cult, that they’re doing black magic, and that everyone’s in on it.  No question, no ‘this can’t be happening,’ nothing.  The leads are super dull, and Sam Elliot does NOT work as a romantic interest.  It’s competently shot, but ultimately dull.

Captain America: The First Avenger:  I still wish this movie was a more solid Captain America film, and less of an opening chapter for The Avengers.  I wanted the whole thing to be set during World War II, and for those couple of montages to be spread out into the meat of the film, the battle against Red Skull.  That said, watching it again, and looking at the film as part of a greater whole that Marvel/Disney is building, the film works much better.  That’s something I’m finding interesting about all this crazy business.  They’re making movies that are individually OK, that when taken as a whole are kind of amazing.  All the connections, all the world building, all the ground work being put in place for an ever expanding series of films.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier:  This is a sort of nerd nirvana that is still blowing my mind.  The story in this is OK.  It’s a pale shadow of Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier comic, but it’s not bad.  Characters get more time, we see Cap deal with some of the effects of his dislocation in time, and we get many nods to various comic characters and ideas that I need a guide to figure out.  I really enjoyed the addition of Falcon, and I liked him and Cap as a team.  I’m still not really sold on Black Widow in the films.  I don’t know if it’s the actress or the writing, but whatever the case, she’s typically the most iffy part for me.  There’s much more of her in this film, and while not bad, it wasn’t holding my interest.  Which is too bad, since I’d liked her so much in the Captain America comics I read.

Black Plague (aka Anazapata):  “Don’t look at us! There’s none of us can write.”  A kind of run of the mill Medieval mystery/drama.  It’s well made, I suppose, and fairly well produced.  But it’s simply not all that interesting.  And as the movie goes on, you start to realize it’s another one of those movies where all men are monsters and all women their perpetual victims.  And the film isn’t even French.

Moby Dick: “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee!”  Obsession and madness drive men to their graves in this adaptation of the nautical classic.  Like Joseph Conrad, I’ve never been able to get into reading Melville, but also like Conrad, I find elements of story and theme that resonate, even if the writing doesn’t.  The finale of the film is pretty awesome, and I love the look of the whale and its violence.  However, it felt like the movie was overall, a bit too stodgy, a bit too traditional.  It’s a story that begs for a more Gothic or even Noir style.  I wanted the extremes of the men to be echoed in extremes of design and cinematography.  Instead, the somewhat utilitarian filming seems tone deaf.  That is, except for Orson Welles’s opening sermon and the film’s climax, which are pretty wild.

Dredd:  This is the hardcore, ultra-violent cyberpunk movie I’ve been hungering for since Robocop.  They finally get Dredd right, get his world right, and make a heck of an entertaining movie.  The cast is good, the effects are kind of beautiful, and the violence is crazy…and also beautiful, it its way.  Grim, bloody, and tough as hell.  I love it.  It’s developed quite the cult following since hitting DVD.  Here’s hoping that gets enough attention to get a sequel.  But I doubt it.  Still, we got a proper Judge Anderson, finally.  Even if it is as a rookie.

Forbidden Planet:  I was kickin’ around when this popped up on TCM, and I had to watch it.  Great movie.  I’ve seen it many times before, and I love it every time.

    I had Forbidden Planet on while I was working on my list of hoped for Marvel movies of the future.  And after working on it, and thinking about Captain America 2, I had to put on my copy of Trouble Man.

What if Marvel Madness happened in the 70s?!

Trouble Man:  “T is the last man in this world I want looking for me.”  Mr. T is one seriously bad dude.  He’s got the world on a string, but somebody is looking to start some trouble.  As he unravels the conspiracy, he chews through the underworld.  Robert Hooks is super cool.  This one is right up there, near the top of the list when it comes to great Blaxploitation films.  I don’t know why it isn’t talked about as much as some of the others.  It should be.  See it.

    And that’s it.  This ended up being a bit of a weird week, where plans fell through a couple times, and a lot of stuff ended up playing out differently than I’d expected.  But it all worked out.  And I did finally, finally get a little sleep.  I’m still trying to get more reading done.  After that surge of comic reading last week, I’ve been somewhat lax.  And I really, really need to finish Lord of Light, which I started a dogs age ago.  But it’s tough.  You need to be focused, and I’m not.  Anyway, next week is already shaping up to be a good one.  So, ‘til next time.

-Matt