Brad's Week in Dork! (5/12/13-5/18/13)

Sigh.  Let that be your warning - there be ranting blogger rage here.  From the very first set photo leaked from Star Trek Into Darkness, we here at ITMOD expressed reservation about the follow-up film to JJ Abrams' rather clever 2009 relaunch.  If you've read more than one of our posts here, you know that we're a pair of serious Trekkies - and it's hard to impress us when the crew of the USS Enterprise is involved.  Hell, we've hated on the original film series, the Next Gen crew, DS9, Voyager, and those bloody Bakula nimrods.  But for the most part, it comes from a place of love and we can find joy in even the weakest of Trek entries (I for one am a serious defender of Shatner's Final Frontier).  Star Trek Into Darkness marks the first film in the franchise that I full-on hated.  Nemesis & Generations might be weaker entries, but even in those lamebrain scripts you can find fleeting moments of character to latch upon.  Into Darkness is a remake in the guise of split-time sequel, and it preys upon your memories of the characters and the iconic events that shaped previous films.  If the last time you watched Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan was a few years ago, and you casually think of yourself as a "Trekkie" cuz being a nerd these days is cool than you probably loved Into Darkness.  If you can check off your brain, ignore the craters of logic that obliterate the screenplay, and have no problem with 9/11 conspiracies or racial white washing than go have fun at the movies.  But if you ever bitched about Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Prometheus or The Dark Knight Rises but thought Into Darkness was a rollicking good time, than you are fooling yourself - or are completely ignorant to the idiocy assaulting your senses.  Whiz, Bang, Flash is not Star Trek.

Ok.  Have I insulted you yet?  Have I properly expressed how much your enthusiasm for this new Trek makes you an idiot?  Do I sound like a big enough asshole?  Smug enough?  Righteous enough?  Good.  Let's continue.

I really don't like being a hater.  My problem is that, when it comes to all things dorky, Star Trek is my one true love.  I love Westerns.  I love comic books.  I love Planet of the Apes & Magnum PI.  But above all else I love Star Trek.  It's why JJ's 2009 film is such a damn miracle to me.  He managed to make a flick that pleased mass audiences as well as basement dwelling trolls like myself.  Star Trek '09 is a great action movie that plays off the Kirk vs. Khan scenario that plagues all cinematic Trek films, but still delivers strong emotional character beats as well as winky callbacks to the original series.  And it's shimmering success really had me pumped for Into Darkness, even though the trailers & posters often gave me pause.  My joy for that movie, as well as the Universe it inhabits, ranked Star Trek Into Darkness as one of my most highly anticipated films of the year.  

As I often do, I decided to get serious with my preparation.  Watching all of Abrams's films prior to the new release as well as finishing off the second season of Lost with The Wife.  I really do dig his work prior to this latest abomination.  Despite whatever narrative balls get dropped in LOST, it still ranks as one of my favorite television shows.  Mission Impossible III revived a floundering action franchise for Tom Cruise's psychologically strained career.  Super 8 is a gorgeous love letter to all things Spielberg.  And Star Trek '09 is....well, you know already, just a geeky gem.  Hindsight being what it is, I can start to get cynical about the man.  His career does seem to prey, or at least leech upon nostalgia.  And since my brain is in a fairly dark place at the moment, it's easy for me to think of JJ Abrams as a monstrous money maker taking advantage of this Golden Age of Nerd, grabbing for our dollars by playing with our most beloved properties.  I am certainly curious to see what he does with Star Wars - Episode VII.  If this blog post proves anything, it's impossible to please all the geeks, and his Star Wars will surely grab the attention of haters everywhere.  The nice thing about that though is that George Lucas has pretty much killed that franchise already, and Abrams surely cannot do any worse than what the father has already committed.   

Below you will find hate for only one film.  I dig the others in varying ways.  Also, despite all this Trekkie ranting, the Week was filled with other great bits of dorkery as well.  Lots of comics.  The new issue of Fatale was amazing.  The Age of Ultron continues to exist.  I finished my blitz through Homicide - Life on the Street.  And The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club celebrated it's one year anniversary.  Star Trek Into Darkness might have put a damper on things, but lets' face it, I obviously love bitching about it, and at the end of the day new Star Trek is a good thing.  Live Long and Prosper, folks.

LOST - Season 2:  This is the season in which most of America jumped ship.  Not me.  I was enjoying the first season's mysterious island with its sadsack flashbacks and roaring unseen monsters - but! from the moment they found Desmond at the bottom of the hatch & the introduction of Dr. Marvin Candle & his Dharma Initiative I was truly obsessed with LOST.  Terry O'Quinn's John Locke spends much of this arc analyzing or confusing the messages being sent his way by The Island.  Push the button, don't push the button, push the button.  And what does it all have to do with Hurley's numbers.  As per usual you get more questions than answers, but they are some pretty damn fun questions.  Michael thankfully spends much of the show off screen screaming for "WAAAAALT!" and when he finally returns he brings a whole lot of crazy and death with him.  The new additions to the cast are all enjoyable, even Michelle Rodriguez's tough girl is a fairly interesting character and just when you're getting tired of her...well, The Island has an answer.  Of course, Season 2's greatest new character is Michael Emmerson's Henry Gale.  A real asshole who has a mess of fun twisting Lock's brain around; even if that's pretty easy, it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch.  It is odd watching it a second (or is this a third) time around.  I used to love Mr. Echo so much, but knowing how his story ends makes it easy to gloss over his character.  He's just one of many threads that leads to a brick wall of pointlessness.  Still, I love Dharma.  It might not go exactly where I want it to lead, but how can you not enjoy a shadowy organization messing with magnetic fields and trippy 1960s psycho-babble experiments.  Technology-gone-by, I eat that stuff up.

Mission Impossible III:  Coming at a point when it was popular to bash Tom Cruise for his whackjob beliefs (I recognize the man as crazy, but he's the pure embodiment of "A Real American Hero" - Hollywood's GI Joe), MI3 revitalized a franchise left on the killing floor by John Woo and his unnecessary pigeon explosions.  This is also the only film in the series to feel remotely like the TV show with its rube-goldberg action set-pieces and oddball collection of IMF agents.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman remains the only real memorable villain of the quadrilogy, even when he's phoning it in he's bringing 110% of rage.  Granted, I'm not crazy how Bad Robot injects the Alias subplot of the husband hiding his Secret Agent status from friends & family, but it was obvious from the previous films that some form of humanity needed to be injected into Ethan Hunt.  Sure, I have no idea what an Anti-God device is or why I should care, but when Tom Cruise is hurtling down the backally's of Hong Kong all you need to know is that he's gots ta smash Hoffman's face.

Super 8:  The first half of this film is nearly flawless in its recreation of a period.  Abrams certainly understands what works in those early Spielberg films; the man pulls all the family drama he can from Jaws, E.T., and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  But it only works because Abrams has gathered an exceptional cast of child actors - you're lucky enough when you find one kid who can emote, but when you've uncovered half a dozen?  That's nearly unheard of; set these guys right next to  The Monster Squad & The Goonies.  Elle Fanning gets the most critical praise thanks to her stirring "performance" before the train explosion, but this is Joel Courtney's movie and all of Super 8's fantasy and heart rests on his shoulders.  The best bits are the moments between the kids, the ridiculously massive train collision is fun and the monster terror is exciting enough, but if you removed the interplay between the kids or even their Super 8 contest film, then all that's left is a mediocre monster mash.  The back half of the film is solid spectacle, but like LOST, the mystery box is much more interesting than the contents desperately hidden inside.

Fatale #14:  "The man who isn't a man at all..."  Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips' third arc of seemingly stand-alone stories comes to a close with a doozy.  We've been given glimpses of Josephine's WWII history before, but here we get a real nitty gritty insight into the depths she plummeted during the Nazi's European reign.  Fans of Indiana Jones & Hellboy will dig the references to the Thule Society, and the Lovecraftian tentacle demons get plenty of panel time this issue.  Also, we are actually given an opportunity to understand Walt Booker's human monster, and it makes me wonder how our hero Nicholas Lash will be left at the end of the series.  My guess is haunted and mutilated, if not simply a corpse.  Fatale remains my favorite monthly comic.

Age of Ultron #8:  The first half of this series spent its time wandering the Post-Apocalypse of an Ultron ravaged America.  Bryan Hitch's art was amazing so it was easy to miss the fact that the plot was barely moving forward.  Now we're two issues from the conclusion and the plot is rushing by at a breakneck pace.  Of course, the whole "Age of Ultron" conceit has gone by the wayside and the real narrative of a time hopping Wolverine & Sue Richards reveals itself as a fun if disposable mirror universe tale.  I dig the technology ravaged Tony Stark and his buggy Defenders, but I have no idea who or what Morgan Le Fey is within the context of the Marvel Universe.  Nor do I care since it's all gonna get reset anyway.  I'm not hating this series, but it does leave me with something to be desired.

FF #7:  Another month, another amazing issue of FF.  The Future Foundation travels to the Negative Zone to rescue Bentley-23 from his clone daddy and free the super villain from the mind of Medusa.  Mike Allred kills it on art, and there are several Ant-Man panels I want mounted on my wall pronto.  The only way you cannot be enjoying this series is that if you have no soul.  Right now, FF is the best book of the Marvel Now relaunch with Thor - God of Thunder trailing closely behind.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #23:  Miles Morales has had to deal with death in the past, but the tragedy of the last issue truly rocked him to his 14 year old emotional core.  This issue jumps ahead one year and even though I'm not usually a fan of that kind of thing, I gotta admit that it works here.  We find Miles sans costume.  He's a year older, and in teen years that's practically a decade of emotional intelligence.  His relationship with his father seems stronger, he has a girlfriend in the Ultimate Universe incarnation of Kate Bishop (YAY!  HAWKEYE!  FU Matt!), and Gwen Stacey waitresses at a crappy Chinese Restaurant.  I really have no idea how he stayed out of the costume for a whole year, but it doesn't look like that's going to last much longer with Jessica Drew hounding him to join the Ultimates.  If you are at all annoyed with the Dock Ock silly of The Superior Spider-Man than it's time for you to jump realities.  Miles is where it's at.  

Star Trek:  "I dare you to do better."  As I stated in this week's A Fistful of Star Trek, my Trekkie heart is devastated during the opening destruction of the USS Kelvin.  I've watched this film a half dozen times now, and every time during the final exchange between Mr. & Mrs. George Kirk I well up with tears.  And I really do dig how the death of James Kirk's father alters his personality if not his destiny.  This is not William Shatner's Starfleet Captain.  Fitting into JJ Abrams' Lucas/Spielberg obsession, Chris Pine is much more Indiana Jones or Han Solo than Tiberius.  An idea I struggle with to this day (see below), but find myself open to in this action film franchise refit.  And torturous emotional blows like the Kelvin attack, the destruction of Alderaan - I mean Vulcan, the parenting of Christopher Pike, and the presence of Leonard Nimoy's Spock help the film to make it's play for mainstream dollars.  2009's Star Trek managed the impossible, grabbing new fans to a dead franchise while still pleasing the fanboys of yore.  Allow it.

Star Trek Into Darkness:  "You should have let me sleep."  Spoiler Warning for those worried about the precious Mystery Box of JJ Abrams.  If you're looking for a more in-depth look at my histrionics and hyperbole than please feel free to read my full, raged-out review of Star Trek Into Darkness HERE.  But if I were to boil this film down into one word it would be "Dumb."  The film completely squanders the good will committed in the previous movie, practically ignoring the split-timeline conceit by white washing the North Indian sikh known throughout fandom as Khan Noonien Singh into the pasty, growly Benedict Cumberbatch.  Is that a Trekkie nitpick, or simply racist?  It's certainly the action of someone who never liked Star Trek or it's philosophy (see heinous Jon Stewart interview HERE).  But let's move past that, and let's even move past the fact that we're doing another Starfleet Revenge story immediately following the one told in the last film.  Let's even try to ignore screenwriter Roberto Orci's ham-fisted attempt to shoehorn his Truther agenda about the 9/11 Attacks into the mouths and actions of Admiral Peter Weller.  Star Trek Into Darkness is simply a bad movie.  A script that often has to tell you why so & so is bad (dial up BFF Spock Prime), and painfully relies on your fond memories of Star Trek's greatest cinematic adventure to wring the tears from your sockets.  Is it clever to reverse Wrath of Khan's climax, or just lazy?  It's certainly lazy to telegraph the action halfway through your film with Kirk's "I Suck At Being Captain" speech and the awkward "Hey Bones, what ya doin' with that dead Tribble?" tension breaker.  And where exactly is the Star Trek universe left at the end of this film?  Well, it's now a world that no longer needs starships thanks to portable transwarp beaming units.  And Khan's "super blood" has cured death.  Yes.  No one can die again in Star Trek.  I know tension is a ridiculous concept in a sequel filled franchise, but COME ON!  You cured Death!!!!!  What the hell?!?!?  Screw you.  But don't worry.  The super blood will be quickly ignored the next time around.

Homicide - Life on the Street Season 7:  The final season certainly lacks without the presence of Andre Braugher's Detective Pembleton.  Kyle Secor attempts to fill the void with his zen investigator, but he's just not Frank.  And it's obvious that NBC was drilling the producers with notes as more and more sexy cops are added to the cast and romantic interludes begin to invade the crime sprees.  I do really like Agent Giardello's introduction; Giancarlo Esposito is a perfect foil to papa Yaphet Kotto and it's a shame he only got one season to play sonnie.  There are not as many memorable cases this season - there's the extremely dated Internet Killings for Baylis to loose his mind over, and Detective Shepherd's beatdown brings an interesting dynamic to the squadroom.  But where are the White Glove Murder cases?  How 'bout a great guest star standalone?  Not really.  Season 7 is solid television, but it's also easily the weakest entry in the series.

The 1 Year Anniversary Meeting of The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club:  Man, just look at that cake.  Absolutely stunning.  Crafted courtesy of longtime member Jill, that delectable chocolate cake also represents every title we covered this year.  Can you spot my favorite marzipan decor?  Well, obviously it's the Blacksad piece that reigns supreme on top.  I really cannot believe this book club lasted a year.  When The Wife told me she wanted to start it, I thought it was a great endeavor but I just didn't think folks would last...especially after the heated Habibi meeting.  I am so happy to be proven the needless doubter.  Every month I greatly look forward to the gathering, and I though this week's Massive discussion to be one of the best yet.  Most folks seemed to be lukewarm on the material, but that lone enthusiast kept the conversation going.  By the end of the night I went from completely exhausted on Brian Wood to ready to pick up the next volume.  Thanks William.

The Massive:  This was the fourth post-apocalypse story we read this year (Get Jiro, Y The Last Man, & The Walking Dead being the others), and it was easily my least favorite.  A great earthly cataclysm sparked by global warming has left the planet practically covered in water.  The treehuggers that pilot The Kapital are on a mission to find their sister ship The Massive.  Along the way they encounter pirates, pirates, and more pirates.  The narrative simply wanders from one conflict to the next, and I'm never quite sure why we should care about the missing Massive or why even these characters think it's still floating around out there.  There seems to be some mystical mumbo jumbo at play in the background, but it's so slight that it fails to illicit any kind of wonder from this reader.  This could be one of those books like The Walking Dead or Preacher that needs a couple volumes to really heat up, but I'm barely interested enough to wait for the next volume in December.

Homicide - The Movie:  When Yaphet Kotto is shot during a political rally, all the detectives from season's past (even the dead ones) appear to hunt down the assassin.  This is much more the satisfying conclusion than what we got in Season 7, and it solidifies Homicide as the greatest Detective program to grace the boob tube.  However, it also proves that one time rookie cop Tim Baylis is a true whelp and never should have walked through those squad room doors.  His first case, the Adena Watson killing, ruined him and his downfall is the great tragedy of Frank Pembleton's life.  I still crave another look at these characters lives.  Where is Frank now?  Is he still teaching?  How's his relationship with his wife and kids?  I have a feeling that Tim Baylis destroyed him mentally, and whatever his future transformed into, it's a dark and sad place.  Homicide was never a happy go-lucky show.  It was a challenge.  The characters were fallible and often infuriating.  But it was rarely boring.  I miss it.

The Fast and The Furious:  With Star Trek crashed and burned behind me, it's time to shake off the fanboy pity and dive into an epic example of franchise stupidity.  The Fast and The Furious is a film that takes itself way too seriously.  Vin Diesel & Paul Walker are so desperate to be cool that they fail miserably with their stern staredowns and flailing fistfights.  Director Rob Cohen tries to sell you on the badass of car racing with horrendous CGI glimpses of carburetors and pistons.  The film is laughable and often boring; how this led to the mondo glory known as Fast Five is beyond me, but I'm so glad the teenyboppers kept showing up for these idiotic flicks, cuz The Rock would transform this saga into a beautifully sweaty exploration of beefy machismo.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/17/13-3/23/13)

    On Sunday, I got all the fixin’s to really run my new fireplace.  Then there were some technical difficulties.  That took up a chunk of the day, really.  Otherwise, I mostly worked on some writing projects.  The rest of the week was mostly filled with trying to get some sleep and recover from work.  With limited success.

In a Lonely Place:  Possibly my favorite Humphrey Bogart performance, I’ve said it before, but to me, this film strikes closest to home.  He’s playing a somewhat more extreme version of me, or at least, how I feel.  When I watched it the first time, it felt kind of gut-punching.  On top of that, his relationship with Gloria Grahame is somehow charming and ugly at the same time.  Part of me would kill for a woman like her, able to get past the turbulence and still have my back, but part of me…Part of me feels differently about it.  It features plenty of the cracking dialog and implied meaning you expect from the time period (including what I think was a masturbation joke, but I’m not 100%).  And doesn’t play out the way a movie like this makes you expect.  Good stuff, all around.  And Grahame in this movie.  I can see myself falling for a dame like her, and getting into some real trouble.

2001:  You kind of have to go into this movie in the right headspace.  There’s no dialog in the first 20 minutes of the movie.  There’s no dialog for last 20 minutes of the movie.  There are long segments without dialog in between.  The final 20 minutes will likely make no sense to a first time viewer.  One might think it is simply a colorful series of random images and light patterns.  But there is a meaning behind it.  Whatever the case, I think the technical achievement is impressive on its own.  Even if you just look at the film as an extended music video, you should find plenty to enjoy.  And I do find that reading the book gave me a much deeper understanding of the film, although I’d come to enjoy the film on its own legs before I read it.  The story of Humanity’s rise from primate to extraterrestrial explorers to…something else, all with a guiding hand from…something…in the form of black monoliths.

Super 8: “I could get back into disco.”  An 80s kid adventure movie for a new generation.  In the tradition of Explorers, The Goonies, Critters, and more, not to mention E.T., Close Encounters, and more, it’s a fun look back.  I like the vibe, which reminds me somewhat of my childhood, and a lot of the movie I watched during it.  I just really enjoy the movie.  It’s pleasant and makes me feel nostalgic.

White Feather:  Robert Wagner and original Enterprise Captain, Jeffery Hunter, along with smokin’ hottie Debra Paget in…redface?  This is another of those movies about Native Americans where there seem to be no Native Americans on screen.  Just white people in red-brown face paint, speaking in halting English, with very false graveness.  Wagner is fine, and Jeffery Hunter is…well, he’s not as bad as he could be…I mean, he’s fine, I guess.  If you can get over the whole playing an Indian thing.  If this movie is any indication, apparently Native Americans had nothing to do but spend all day killing white people and raising all kinds of school-yard level Cain among their own.  It’s pranks and stunts broken up by occasional murder.  And am I nuts, or does Chief Broken Hand look like Carl Sagan?  Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure kicking the door open to my room and finding a beautiful woman naked but for a fur blanket would make my top 10 best moments in life.  Gotta see about making that happen.  But what’s up with the shop-keep’s daughter?  She gets slighted in the most brutal ways, and the movie never seems to notice, as her heart gets ripped out time and again.  Dang, that’s some cold business.

Doctor Who: Delta and the Bannermen:  “I’ve seen many things fall out of the sky, but nothing which could be described as weird.”  I don’t know, man.  I just don’t know.  By this point, Doctor Who seems to have simply gone off its rocker.  It’s all very 80s, very 2000AD (the comicbook) wacky.  I just don’t think it’s all that good.  A space bus full of alien tourists (and Mel…and another alien trying to save her people stowing away…and an alien bounty hunter) on its way back to 1950s Disneyland runs into a satellite.  And they all crash in Wales, which is British for North Dakota.  Rock & Roll, dancing, puppy-love, crystals for star-drives, giant green Army Men, bounty hunters, the Welsh… This is like that cockroach episode of The X-Files or something from season 3 of Lexx…only really weird.  It feels like this story set the stage for the bugnuttery of the new series.  Sometimes it works, this time it doesn’t.  Whatever else one can say about this episode, the woman playing Delta is a stunner, and the Welsh lass helping the Doctor is cute as heck.  And I still can’t stand Mel.

Rust and Bone:  The movie is well made.  It’s well acted, I guess.  The effects/acting combo of the lead actress’s missing legs is believable and technically well done.  I can’t say I didn’t like the movie.  Or at least, I didn’t dislike it.  But it wanders so much, and doesn’t follow any kind of rational progression.  I never connected with anyone in the movie, as they all seem emotionally dead (you’d think I’d connect right away).  I’ll give ‘em an A for effort when it comes to original and unexpected stories.  A shifty street fighter with a kid and few prospects meets an orca trainer at a nightclub.  After an accident takes the trainer’s legs, the pair begin a friendship (they seem to think it’s a romance, but it’s just about the most pathetic romance two humans could have) that defies convention…and logic.  His emotionally unavailable standoffishness and incessant tail chasing are irresistible to her mopiness and equal emotional standoffishness.  There are moments between them where you want to say, ‘hey, that’s swell.’  But then he hooks up with some blonde tart right in front of our lead lady, and bails on the night to go bone the bimbo.  That ain’t right, no matter how you deal the deck.  And when our double amputee begins working as Punchy’s fight agent, there is an image that made me desperate for the film to depart into exploitation territory with her becoming Legs, Queen of the Underworld.  Alas, nothing ever seems to come of anything…at all.  It’s different.  And it’s a quality piece of work on the technical side.  But I can’t recommend watching it.

Doctor Who: Dragonfire:  “I think you’ll find most educated people regard mythical convictions as fundamentally animistic.”  And now we’re back to something more reasonable.  This era is all over the place.  Paradise Towers and Dragonfire are focused, weird and 80s, but focused; while Time & the Rani and Delta & the Bannermen are sloppy messes.  McCoy seems like he’s got a different take on the Doctor each time out.  This time ‘round he’s more like he was in Paradise Towers, a bit of wacky Patrick Troughton but with enough grounding to buy in, unlike his pratfall prone antics in Time & the Rani, but also unlike his knowing madman in Delta.  The story of a crazy Dr. Freeze type trying to build an army and everyone looking for some dragon in the depths.  Little Orphan Ace blasts herself into the Who universe with homemade explosives and streetwise pluck.  And who would have thought Sabalom Glitz would become a recurring character?  That’s weird.  The dragon is crazy, man.  Crazy.  And I’ve noticed that this season features Lexx level of off the cuff murder and massacre.

    One bit of good/fun news.  I got back into Magnum P.I.  I’d been missing the ‘stache.  It’s amazing how much joy such a simple thing can bring.  I don’t know how much the addition of the Asian Colombo (Tanaka) helped things.  And I’ve noticed a strange feature in late 70s and 80s TV shows that feature aging actors playing aging actors.  I wonder why that was.  I wonder if there were a bunch of Tarantino-types working in TV who wanted to give all their old favorites one more go.

    I finished the first At War With the Empire omnibus of Star Wars comics.  A mixed bag, but enjoyable enough light entertainment.  Star Wars is a setting with so much potential for development, I wish they’d branch out a bit more in comics than they tend to.

    On Saturday I went to a house warming for a gaming buddy from my days working at The Wizard’s Den.  He and his family recently moved to the area.  It was my first time in Southern Maryland, which wasn’t bad.  He charged up a smoker, and we had a heck of a barbeque.  His wife and mother-in-law also provided some awesome food.  There’s magic in sitting on a deck in the sun, roasting meat and sharing food with people.

-Matt

New Release Tuesday (11/22/11)!!!

Must Buy DVD of the Week!





















12 ANGRY MEN (CRITERION BLU):  This was the first black & white film that I ever saw all the way through.  High School (yes, I was a very uncultured child, all I wanted were Star Wars explosions) social studies class...I remember sitting at my desk totally enraptured by Henry Fonda's "bleeding heart." This was a good man.  A great man.  After that first viewing I couldn't wait to grow up and sit in on a murder case.  As of yet, I have yet to be called to jury duty.  Anyway, 12 Angry Men is one of THE Great movies.  12 outstanding performances led by master director Sidney Lumet in his first theatrical feature.  And I absolutely love the new Criterion box art.  I want a poster of that desperately.


Buy!

THE THREE AMIGOS (BLU):  This came very close to being my week's Must Buy!  Everyone seems to love John Landis' previous genre love letters, An American Werewolf in London & The Blues Brothers but there seems to be very little love for this open mouthed kiss to silent film and cowboy pictures.  Sure, it has its fans and they seem to be growing these days, but I remember having some serious arguement with my film fanatic friends over The Three Amigos.  It's such a silly film.  But it's also sooooo dang sweet.  Three silent film stars, down on their luck, travel down to Mexico with their egos and unwittingly wage war with Bandit King El Guapo.  And there are some seriously fantastic sets in this film...you might even say a plethora of fantastic sets.

RUSHMORE (CRITERION BLU):  I was 19 years old when I saw Rushmore in the theater.  I went with my Mom and my Dad.  Dad & I loved it.  Mom hated it.  She said it was a guy's movie--I think that's just cuz her two guys liked it.  And we liked it a lot.  Jason Schwartzman's student bee keeper is the quintessential A-Hole hero of youth.  Smart as a whip, deadly with words, and utterly baffled by the rest of humanity.  As much as I've loved the later films of Wes Anderson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox is probably my favorite), Rushmore was my first and you never forget your first.

SUPER 8:  Still not sure if I loved this film or simply liked it.  JJ Abrams goes Spielberg crazy with this kids vs spacemen flick and even though there are some outstanding child performances in this film I never quite connected with their narrative.  The film looked pretty and was executed well, but maybe I had just geekgasmed too much for 2009's Star Trek to muster up the energy for all of Super 8's nerdy bits.  Still, I want it on my shelf.

Rent!

THE BIRTH OF A NATION (KINO BLU):  I have never seen Birth of a Nation.  I know that it's based on the novel The Clansman and is far from being politically correct--hell, just look at that original theatrical poster above.  But I feel like it's one of those movies that I have to see if I want to be a well rounded film enthusiast.  And I've been digging on a lot of blu ray silents lately.  Phantom of the Opera, Phantom Carriage.  It's a medium that needs more fans.

SPY KIDS 4:  Missed it in the theater which is kind of a shame considering the William Castlesque Aroma-Scope gimmick.  And I really loved the first two Spy Kids films.  They were extremely silly and awash with Robert Rodriquez's poopy humor, but there was an intelligence to the whackiness and some fun guest stars in George Clooney, Danny Trejo, Bill Paxton, etc...  I've heard some pretty terrible things about this one, and the inclusion of Jessica Alba raises some doubts.

THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE:  Another one I missed in the theater.  Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark in Captain America!) plays the body double to Saddam Hussein's son.  That could be interesting.  And I have heard good things about this one.

Avoid!

CONAN THE BARBARIAN:  Definitely one of the worst films of 2011, if not the worst.  It's not like the original film got everything right about Robert Howard's Conan, but it was still a damn fine fantasy film of overzealous but wondrous John Milius machismo.  This...this is just crap.  Every frame is wrong. A joke of Howard.  A middle finger to the idea of Conan.  Utter garbage.  Stay away.  Watch The Scorpion King a hundred times before attempting this.

Matt's Week in Dork! (6/19/11-6/25/11)

    I begin this this Week in Dork in the usual fashion, with the movies I watched.  It’s been kind of a weird week for me, and I’m actually not really sure how I got this many movies in, as the week was kind of a blur.  Anyway, here it goes…

Green Lantern:  Sadly, this is pretty much the movie the trailer made it look like.  Ryan Reynolds is playing Ryan Reynolds again.  Far too much of the film takes place on Earth dealing with exceptionally uninteresting things.  The space stuff doesn’t really have enough time devoted to it to be as interesting as it should be.  And if Blake Lively never steps in front of a camera again, the world will be a better place.  It’s not awful.  But it could and should have been better.  It may seem obvious, but if they’d devoted less time to the crap, and more to the good stuff, the film would have been better.  And there is good stuff.

Transcendent Man:  “Does God exist?  Well, I would say, ‘not yet.’”  Ray Kurzweil cuts an interesting figure.  At once sad and naively optimistic, he is clearly amazingly accomplished but somehow tinged with a sense of haunted failure (in the body of his late father whose untimely death seems to color much of Kruzweil’s life).  This documentary does try to play somewhat evenly with Kurzweil and his ideas.  It gives time to detractors, supporters, and those who fall in between.  There are some pretty interesting ideas put forth, though nothing is explored in any great depth.  What can not be denied is that Kurzweil has done amazing things and he forecasts even more.  We’ll see.

Tangled:  Considerably better than the trailers made it look, Tangled is still weighed down by needless, low quality musical numbers.  The humor is a bit forced, but Disney has done worse in that respect (Hunchback for example).  The CG is much better than I expected, though the character design leaves something to be desired.  The story is good, but the movie could have been better.  I’m not against musicals at all, but it was so clearly shoehorned in because it’s expected in a Disney film.  Ugh.  Still, much better than originally expected.

Doctor Who: Robot:  The first outing of Tom Baker as the Doctor has some cool stuff, and some good U.N.I.T. moments, but is kind of a silly story.  It’s basically King Kong mixed with Frankenstein, but with a robot in the place of the monster.  The mad scientist is delightfully strange and the cabal of scientific utopians bent on recreating the world in their Orwellian image are lots of fun.  This episode will always be special for me, though, because it was the first Doctor Who I ever saw.  I chanced upon it while flipping channels and was hooked from moment one. 

Kiss Me Deadly:  Ralph Meeker is all kinds of cold and nasty as Mike Hammer in this wild, atomic powered Noir classic.  He slaps, he punches, and I don’t even know what he did to Sugar Smallhouse, but poor Charlie Max didn’t like it too much.  He roughs up suspects, punks, thugs, and nice old men in the pursuit of justice.  And what justice.  One of the crazier endings I’ve seen.  Brutal.  Surreal.  And frankly, awesome.

Just how he says 'hello.'

Super 8:  (Upon my second viewing of this film, I found myself enjoying it even more.  This is probably in my top five films of the year, so far).  Like finding a forgotten gem in a video store, Super 8 harkens back to the kid adventure films of the 80s, like The Goonies, The Explorers, Space Camp, and so many others.  Filled with interesting characters and thrilling action, it’s got a lot of heart to back it all up.  And it sports a great cast of kid actors, each putting their stamp on various genre regulars (the Fat Kid, the Nerdy Kid, the Sensitive Kid, etc.).  Put aside your cynicism, and remember why we love movies.

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks:  A pretty epic story of the very beginning of one of the greatest menaces to face the universe, Genesis of the Daleks introduces us to the people of Skaro before the end of their cataclysmic conflict, and to Davros, the mad genius behind the Daleks.  It’s a really good story, and unlike some of the longer ones, well deserving of the six episodes.  It doesn’t become repetitive or dull in the middle, as some six episode arcs do, and in fact, some elements feel like maybe they could have used some more time devoted to them, like the underground resistance.  A classic story, and one of the better to focus on the Daleks.  And even though Davros is just as over the top and two dimensionally evil as The Master, I simply find him more fun.

Deadlier Than the Male:  “I do all sorts of things when I’m tight.”  Classic British pulp hero, Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond gets a cheeky Bond style film adaptation.  Occasionally funny, often delightfully awkward, and constantly condescendingly chauvinistic, Deadlier Than the Male is a great deal of fun.  Chock full of ‘That Guy’ actors, beautiful women, and deadly assassins (who also happen to be among the beautiful women).  And the crazy final chess match almost feels like something out of The Avengers.  Great stuff.  Unfortunately, Johnson isn’t the most charming or dynamic of leads, but he’s passable.

Cursed:  Post Scream idiocy.  Lots of untalented, moderately attractive people run through some of the most lifeless paces you can imagine, hitting nearly every note at exactly the expected time.  Characters seem to work very hard to find the absolutely dumbest things to do.  All the while, what could be fun is mostly just dull.  I love the concept of the werewolf.  I just wish there were more good films using it.  This is definitely not one.  This film is cursed; with dullness.  And the finale is just awful.

From the film makers to you, the viewer.

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman:  Pretty much like an extended episode of the Animated Series, this may not be amazing, but like the show, it’s darned good and what I’d love to see from DC’s animated features.  I don’t need them to reinvent the wheel with each movie.  Just tell a good story.  Find out who Gotham’s newest cracked defender is as she tires to do the Bat’s job, taking down a criminal syndicate.  Though it has strong similarities to Mask of the Phantasm, it manages to do its own thing and have a moderately clever twist.  For fans of the show, this is a welcome addition to the franchise. 

    I also got a chance to watch some of Warehouse 13, and was surprised how much I liked it.  It’s sort of a mix of the old Friday the 13th series and Special Unit 2.  Goofy, but a lot of fun.  And it may be the first time since Unforgiven that I’ve liked Saul Rubinek.

    And I watched a handful of episodes of the completely cracked Batman: The Brave and the Bold.  Crazy Quilt.  Wow.  As one would expect from a character called Crazy Quilt, he loves to leave clues for Batman in the form of…that’s right, paintings.  What is up with DC?

    I finished another volume of Conan, Rogues in the House and Other Stories.  Probably the weakest volume to date, but it’s still better than a lot of Conan material I’ve read.  And due to circumstances totally within my control, I didn’t finish Reality is Broken.  I did get more of it read, but not nearly as much as I should have, and I have no excuse.  Should finish that in the next couple of days, unless I really choke.

    On the video game front (which for some reason has been active for me recently), I was involved in a co-op game of I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1  in which we seem to have beat the game.  Total madness, and I’m not gonna lie, it left me feeling pretty friggin’ jazzed by the end.  Perhaps laughing a bit maniacally.  Perhaps.  And, had a chance to play some Halo deathmatch with a couple friends.  It was nice playing against people substantially better than me (who weren‘t jerks about it).  I got my butt handed to me, but reveled in every kill, because I knew I worked for ‘em.

    On a final note, I got to thinking about how my life lacked something important.  I realized what I really need that I don’t have is a team of sexy henchwomen.  So, I want to try to remedy that.  Thus, I’m currently doing an open casting call for sexy henchwomen.  If you’re sexy, have a style all your own (or look really good in uniform), and maybe want to go to a comic convention to have my back, then I want to hear from you.  As with any good hench-job, it’s dangerous, thankless, and short.  But it’ll look good on a resume.

-Matt