Just Juice Him!

It's also been a long dang time since we've said much about blog favorite Jason Statham.  Obviously, this is in part because he hasn't done a particularly good movie in five years (OK, I love the first two Expendables movies, but come on...Crank 2 is his last masterwork).  Here's hoping he and The Rock have some seriously awesome screentime (baby oiled battle royale).  But seriously, we love this guy.  He's just been making it difficult lately.  However, if Rosario Dawson proves anything, we're willing to wait...years if necessary...to continue loving him.  In the Mouth of Dorkness is all about love and forgiveness for cinema sins.  Except you, Robert Rodriguez.  You've really dropped the ball, sir.  Oh, I kid.  We'd forgive you, too; if you ever make a good movie again.  Anyway.  Statham.  Be badass again.  We've missed you.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/3/2014-8/9/14)

    Coming back to the world after a genuine vacation…Ugh.

Howard the Duck:  What can I say?  I love this movie.  Yeah, it’s got some awkward dialog and acting.  Yeah, it’s weird as hell.  Yeah, it’s super goofy.  But it’s so wonderfully 80s.  I just can’t get enough.

Game of Thrones Season 3:  The third season is more of the same.  If you’ve liked the previous two, you should like this one.  It does feel slightly more on task this season.  There was a point at the beginning of season 2, where even I, nudity aficionado that I am, was wishing everyone would just put their danged clothes back on and get on with the story.  Season 3, while heartily dosed with naked flesh, doesn’t let it get in the way of telling the tale.  A fine show, and some seriously good fantasy.  I keep going back to my thought that this is a chronicle of the events that happened in the next Age of Men, after the King’s return in the Lord of the Rings.  Anyway, good show.

Redline:  While it has more style and panache than 90% of the anime you’re likely to see, Redline will still feel just as familiar.  People who aren’t bored to tears by the handful of recycled plots/characters/designs that you find in anime should find plenty to enjoy.  I am not one of those people, so I found the whole thing pretty dullsville.  If it wasn’t for the attempted, pseudo-Heavy Metal magazine vibe, there’s be nothing to make it stand out.

Hercules:  This is not a good movie.  The script is bad.  The usually charming Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a bit bland.  The effects aren’t good.  That said, I mildly enjoyed watching it.  I liked several of the supporting characters/actors, particularly Ian McShane.  I liked the idea of how the mythology was used, even if I didn’t always actually like it.  I like the idea that people, so indoctrinated in their supernatural worldview, would see the supernatural first, and reality a distant second.  Actually, that very thing is quite common today.  I was frustrated by the way Atalanta was used.  A supreme badass in the myths, and a member of Jason’s crack team of heroes, she is written like a token female in this film, and dressed in what looks like ancient Greek fashionable work-out gear.  Now, the costumes in these films are never going to fly in modern film, with everyone being so prudish.  If they were going for accuracy, there’d be a lot more male nudity, and a lot more nudity in general.  But her costume stood out in a way I found off-putting.  It looked extra wrong.  Anyway, this is better (by far) than The Legend of Hercules, but not as good as most of the other Greek myth related films of recent years (Clash and Wrath of the Titans, Immortals, 300, etc.).  Well, it’s better than 300: Rise of an Empire.  But then, most things are.

    Friday night, I headed into DC where I enjoyed a Lincoln Assassination walking tour.  Another of those events in US history it seems like we hear about all the time, but hear very little detail of the affair.  The tour had many interesting factoids I was completely unaware of, and it was cool to walk to the various locations where the events took place.

The Trap:  Richard Widmark bastards his way around the high desert as a mob lawyer roped into doing what he doesn’t want.  Tensions run high, blood will spill, and Widmark will stare hatred as fierce as he fires bullets.  Lee J. Cobb is extra sleazy, with his squinky eyed smarm.  I feel like this is a forgotten classic.  Fans of Noir especially should like the mean characters and vile dialog.  Worth tracking down.

Vera:  I can’t say that I loved this movie, but it was certainly interesting.  It’s a heck of a weird movie, with lots of images and not much talking.  It suffers a bit from the lack of budget, but then if it had a much bigger budget, they’d have probably had trouble getting such a strange film made.  It feels a bit like a horror movie, and a lot like a particularly strange fantasy film.

    I read Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites.  It’s the selection for the next graphic novel club meeting.  I wasn’t blown away, but it was definitely the best thing we’ve read in a while.

The Tiger Woman: Perils of the Darkest Jungle:  Though she does get knocked out and tied up a lot, The Tiger Woman is a shockingly tough lady for the time this movie serial was produced.  Though women wielding their strength weren’t all that unusual in pre-Code movies, by the 40s, they certainly were.  So this Tarzan knock-off stands out.  Linda Stirling isn’t a great actress (few in this serial are), but she trades jabs and kicks with the roughest of them.

    Though getting back into the swing of things is always difficult, the week had some bright spots.  Also, as the Dreamlands crowd-funded film made the needed money, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Dreamlands, and about some of that trippy, psychedelic 70s fantasy music.  Iron Butterfly, Caravan, David Bowie, and more.  Good stuff.

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of Summer Anticipation 2014 (Matt’s Picks)

    This Summer, perhaps more than previous years, finds Brad and I in very, very close agreement on our movie hopes and dreams.  Maybe the order of excitement for movies is a bit different, but essentially, they’re the same.  Godzilla, Guardians, Apes…We’re pretty pumped.  So, Brad’s gonna handle the biggies, the blockbusters, that we're jazzed to check out.  He’s got it covered, and I support him on at least four out of the five.  I’m gonna take a look at some of the movies I’m looking forward to that aren’t being talked about as much.  A sequel to the awesome animated film How to Train Your Dragon?  Gritty ugly nastiness of The Rover?  Or the Rock in…well, whatever he’s got?  Take a look back at lists past here, here, and here.  And then look below for some of  my most anticipated films for Summer 2014.

5.  Snowpiercer:  So, we’re getting the real version of this film, right?  Not the Weinstein “Why do we keep picking up distribution rights for movies we seem dead-set on butchering?” cut?  If that’s the case, and it actually plays somewhere, I’m very interested in this science fiction weirdness.  The cast is crazy and the concept weird.  It’s based on a graphic novel I haven’t read yet (I do have a copy), that looks pretty wild.  I do have concerns because of the director (I know, I know...I just didn't like The Host), but I have hopes, too.  However it turns out, I want to see more movies like this, even if this one isn’t a great entry.

4.  The Immigrant:  Yup.  I’m a sucker for a grand, historic romance.  The English Patient and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are in my top ten of all time list, after all.  It’s not like there’s ever been a shortage of entries in this genre, but really, really good ones are rare.  Something about the trailer for The Immigrant got to me, made me feel like just maybe, this was going to be one of the very good ones.  So, here’s hoping.

3.  Jupiter Ascending:  Here’s the thing.  I love Bound.  I love The Matrix.  I really, really like the second and third Matrix film (yeah, they’re flawed, and yeah, I’d have taken them in a different direction if I’d been writing them…but I like ‘em).  I love (LOVE!!!) Speed Racer.  And I liked Cloud Atlas a lot (some parts I loved, some parts I enjoyed, and a few parts, I could have done without).  So, now the Wachowskis are back with a full blown, bugnuts crazy science fiction spectacle, and I’m all kinds of psyched to see it.  Maybe, just maybe, we are heading into the science fiction film renaissance I was ranting about a few years ago.  Sure, a lot of the sci-fi films of late have been lackluster (Avatar, Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, etc.).  But a lot have been pretty good to great, too (Looper, Moon, Europa Report, etc.).  And if they make a lot, the chance for good ones will get better and better.  I’m iffy on the cast, and I don’t like that at least part of it takes place on contemporary Earth.  However, I’m happy as a pig in poop to see Wachowskis Unleashed.

2.  Tracks:  Since I was a lad, Australia has held a mysterious awe for me.  Perhaps, like Lawrence, I find the desert to be…clean.  I’ve been fascinated by its places and people.  I’ve imagined trips across it, I’ve imagined living there.  For years, every story I tried to write was set there, and I read everything I could about it.  To this day, there is something special, a place in the back of my mind, connected with this land I've never visited.  Whatever the case, its stark beauty, mixed with an adventure story (based on the real life adventure of Robyn Davidson) are key ingredients for what I hope to be a feast.  Jeremiah Johnson meets Walkabout?  I hope so.

1. (Edit: as of May 18, this film has been rated PG-13, and it slips from my #1 spot to my "I don't give a crap" spot.  I no longer have any interest in seeing this film.)  The Expendables 3:  You got a problem with that?

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of the Maligned! (Matt’s Picks)

Sexy Frankenstein!

    Every year, as the nation tries to catch its breath, trim some of its holiday fat, and generally get back into the swing of things, Hollywood dumps a bunch of mid-level or less films, movies the studios have little to no faith in, or that featured various problematic productions.  The stuff they’ve spent the money on, but don’t want to put any more effort into selling to the public.  The dregs and the castoffs.  And on occasion, the really amazing films that come out of nowhere.

    So as we prepare to sift through the mud, looking for a pearl or two, co-Dork Brad and I are looking at a few movies that have, for whatever reason, never quite hit it off with the adoring public.  Those movies we love, that were/are hated by the general viewer.  As Brad pointed out, given enough time, most movies will find their audience.  And as we’re glowing examples of, the internet will give those audiences a voice.  So, hear my voice as I give you a rundown of five of my favorite movies that nobody seems to like.  And I’m not even going to bring up the fourth Indiana Jones film…oh, wait, I just did (read my review of that film here).

5.  Southland Tales:  Richard Kelly’s follow-up to the cult favorite Donnie Darko was over-ambitious, over-long, over-budget, and way, way over-weird for it to possibly be a success.  The first time I watched it (on video, because I never even saw rumor of it playing in theaters), I stared for all two hours and twenty five minutes, mouth agape, marveling at what I was seeing.  Was I watching a colossal disaster, or a glimpse at genius?  At the end of my first viewing, I could not answer that.  But I was so effected by the film that I went out the next day and purchased a copy, brought it home and watched it again (subjecting Brad to it at the same time).  Upon second viewing, I fell firmly on the side of genius.  A fully realized alternate world, with countless subplots, weird technologies and religions, wildly weird characters, cracking and funny dialog, and one of the first truly great Dwayne Johnson performances.  Can I understand why it didn’t connect with people?  Yes.  Absolutely.  In no way am I surprised that this film is A) largely unseen and B) disliked by most who have seen it.  But I love it.  A lot.

4.  The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen:  Terry Gilliam is a divisive fellow anyway.  You’ve got a lot of folks like me, who sing the praises of his bent, surreal masterworks like Brazil and Time Bandits.  And then you’ve got folks (again, like me) who love his mainstream success, 12 Monkeys.  But there’s not a lot of love out there for his fantasy adventure film The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, featuring a then 60 something John Neville as the titular character, a man of tall tales and taller personality.  With every visual trick in his fairly thick book, Gilliam created a disconcerting world of creepy and funny characters, drawing on history and fairy tale in equal parts.  It’s funny and scary, heart warming and heart breaking, and all such a joy to watch.  But few people seem to have seen it, and fewer still to have thought much of it.  Like the other oft forgotten or ignored fantasy film, The Dark Crystal, this movie holds a very special place deep in my heart.  And the Baron remains one of my all time favorite characters.

3.  The English Patient:  OK, how do I justify a Best Picture winner?  Well, since this movie won the Oscar, it’s made almost every ‘worst film to win an Oscar’ list I’ve seen.  And whenever I mention the film, I get a groan and an eye-roll, like when you mention a particularly dense book someone was forced to read in high school.  But this is not only one of my favorite movies, it’s also a film I unabashedly point to when people say ‘the book is always better than the movie,’ and shout ‘not always!’  Almost everything I love about film comes from the script/direction by the late, great Anthony Minghella.  Almost nothing comes from the book, which ranks among the worst things I’ve ever read.  The film captures the epic story of lives torn apart and thrust together by war, the hope and excitement of archeology and exploration, the wonder and pangs of new love, the awful way we treat each other and the deep need we have to share our lives.  It’s gorgeous, with swelling music and amazing performances.  And it’s the closest thing to a classic epic of yesteryear I’ve seen in a long time.  For me, this movie sits alongside Lawrence of Arabia for its emotional impact and wistful draw.  And like Casablanca, as I age and experience more of the ups and downs of life, the movie means more and more to me.

2.  Speed Racer:  So people hated the Matrix sequels.  I know.  Though I enjoyed much of the second film, and actually really like the third, they didn’t go in the direction I’d have liked; that’s for sure.  In stead of creating an epic science fiction action trilogy about humanity and its war with the machines, what we actually got was an action glossed meditation on philosophy and mythology.  OK.  So, when Speed Racer came out, I think most people didn’t give two craps about it.  In part because they were so disappointed with the Matrix films, and in part because most people didn’t even remember the original Japanese cartoon the film was based on.  Add to that, no stars to get too excited about and a PG rating, and I think it just didn’t have the muscle to drag people to the multiplex.  When you watch the film, you’re likely tempted to just enjoy the light show and let the content pass you buy.  On the surface, it’s a bright, flashy cartoon with some live action actors goofing off.  But if you look deeper, the film is a heart-felt ode to the love of family and the pursuit of excellence.  Upon repeat viewing, I realized that Speed Racer is actually a masterful Kung Fu film, that involves Speed’s quest for self awareness and his eventual enlightenment.  The scene where he’s racing his brother’s ghost actually gets me choked up just thinking about it.  And the final race, when reality itself bends around Speed and he finally becomes one with everything is visually beautiful and emotionally uplifting in a way movies rarely reach.  Part of me feels that this film will eventually develop a cult following, and I’d love to catch it on some revival tour.  I would very much love to see it on the big screen again.

1.  Howard the Duck:  For this Dork, the 80s were a magical time, filled with movies about how dancing or rocking hard enough could change the world.  And it was a time filled with movies that make you sit back and say, ‘how the deuce did this ever get made?!’  Howard the Duck is one of the best examples of this, and one of those films that captures an aspect of my essential self many who know me don’t quite understand.  I have many friends who know the wonder of Big Trouble in Little China, Commando, and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  But even my most die-hard, wacky, nerd buddies won’t go to the mat for Howard.  I will.  I have.  From Lea Thompson’s frizzy haired rocker-girl to Jeffery Jones’s wild-eyed alien possessed scientist, I love almost every minute of this film.  It goes for it in a way movies did for a brief time in the 80s, without all the 90s ‘whatever,’ wannabe hipster irony and cynicism.  And you know what?  I like the romance.  Though never consummated, I like the idea that this short, alien duck man can still find love with a beautiful woman, and that she can see through his outer shell to the good hearted dreamer inside.  As Shakespeare once said, ‘haters gonna hate.’  But I love this movie, and I don’t care how many dissenting voices call out against it.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (12/29/13-1/4/14)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  That feels good.  2013 was a gas, but I'm quite pleased to be through the Holiday Hoopla, and I'm looking forward to devoting more attention to the blog.  Most of this week was concerned with formulating my Favorite Films of the year as well as the rest of the Dorkies.  As I stated there, 2013 ended up being one of my favorites as far as the Pop Culture scene was concerned.  Nicholas Winding Refn cranked out his best film yet (Only God Forgives), Martin Scorsese proved that no matter how hard they try (American Hustle) there is still only one guy right for the job (The Wolf of Wall Street), and the more I think on it, Edgar Wright's latest (The World's End) slowly eeks its way to the top of the Cornetto Trilogy.

Not to mention, this year I actually witnessed Martin Scorsese deliver his Jefferson Lecture "The Persistence of Vision," I sat in the front row of Hall H where Samuel L Jackson actually stared me down, saw the 4K Restoration of Lawrence of Arabia at the AFI Silver, met Peter Tork, discovered the surreal genius of Keoma, and won a Tyler Stout Mondo Print signed by Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, & Edgar Wright at the Cornetto Trilogy Screening of The Alamo Drafthouse, which in turn has become my new home away from home.  Yeah, I should say that's a pretty good year.

Jaime Foxx Does Django For Spidey (I Took This Photo!!!)

I'm pretty gosh darn excited by the prospect of the new year.  How can 2014 top 2013?  Dunno, but I can't wait to find out.  This particular week in transition began with another bit of cinematic shame finally getting checked off my Resolution list - Singin' in the Rain.  How had I never seen this before?  Not sure.  I was just never much of a musical kid; I'm happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The last film I saw in the theater in 2013 was David Fincher's Zodiac (again, at The Alamo Drafthouse).  One of my all time favorite films, I was a bit bummed that co-dork Matt doesn't seem to quite "get it."  My first film of the new year was Man of Steel, the rewatch was prompted by a conversation I had with my brother-in-law at our annual New Year's Party.  So much to love, so much to hate.  But the first film I saw theatrically of the New Year was Saving Mr. Banks.  I enjoyed it, but certainly not as much as The Wife.  She got all filled with emotions with this Marry Poppins lovefest.

I also got off my duff and finally got back into Sweet Tooth comics.  Apart from our Graphic Novel Book Club (aka The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Graphic Novel Book Club), I feel like I've been neglecting the comic book medium lately.  Sure, I hit up Big Planet Comics every week, but I've got a massive stack of graphic novels I need to work my way through.  There's a New Year's Resolution for sure.  Not to mention the fact that I've left both my Scorsese-A-Thon & John Carpenter-A-Thons hanging.  Gotta find my Elvis dvd or simply buy another one.  As far as why I haven't watched New York Stories yet.....it looks dull....but Goodfellas follows that so there are no excuses.  Anyway, let's get on with the mini-reviews shall we?

P.S. I'm growing a beard!

Singin' In The Rain:  "You're nothing but a shadow on film."  I honestly had no idea what this movie was about.  I knew there was rain in it.  I knew there was singing.  Some sorta romance.  And yep, all those things are there.  But I was kinda flabbergasted to discover that the backdrop for the film was the transition from the Silent Era into the Talkies.  That must sound silly to all you die-hards out there, but once the Hollywood biography started to get hashed, my interest immediately perked up.  Sure, the big song & dance numbers are fantastic.  Gene Kelly is great, but I was even more enamored with Donald O'Connor's sidekick character - the "Make 'Em Laugh" number is joyous, but it also has a nice bit of biting truth to it.  What's the next Golden Era Musical I have to hit?  Yankee Doodle Dandy?  Show Boat?  Guys And Dolls?  Certainly The Jazz Singer.  A whole genre of film missing from my brain.  Maybe that's my great quest of 2014.

Pain & Gain:  This was mostly background noise while I worked on this year's Dorkies.  But what beautiful background noise!  Finally all of Michael Bay's weird, misogynistic, homophobic, mocking humor makes all the sense in the world.  A "True Film" about a trilogy of dumbbells committing heinous acts in the pursuit of The American Dream.  It's a hilarious watch, and a rather painful one if you think too deeply into the real events that inspired this idiocracy.  The Rock gives his single greatest performance so far, but Mark Wahlberg should get some serious recognition as well.  No one can do moronic earnestness quite like this guy.  And I still argue that it has as much to say about our deeply flawed Nation as Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

Keoma:  If I could grow Keoma's beard I most certainly would.  Franco Nero is a wild man native returned home after the cataclysmic conclusion of the Civil War.  A group of bandits (a perfect collection of pricks one can only see in Spaghetti Westerns) have staked claim over the land, and it's up to Nero & Woody Strode to slaughter their hateful asses.  The plot is straightforward, but it's telling is so wonderfully dreamy thanks to its slow-mo gunsmoke ballets, the constant guttural caws of the score, and Keoma's metaphorical ability to walk in & out of his past.   When people think of Italy's contribution to the West they think The Good, The Bad, & The Eastwood.  If they reach a little beyond that then maybe they think of Sergio Corbucci or Django.  But for my money, the niftiest entry of the sub-genre is Enzo Castellari's Keoma.  Is it my favorite?  Tough call...The Great Silence is sooooo beautifully ugly...but give me three or four more rewatches of this Weird Western and Keoma might very well land on the top.

Haywire:  Steven Soderbergh is a fascinating animal.  He burst onto the scene with a Sundance Classic (Sex, Lies, & Videotape) that absolutely revolutionized Hollywood and paved the way for indie darlings like Quentin Tarantino, then Sophomore Slumped for a series of films (Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Schizopolis), knocked one out of the park (Out of Sight) creating a megacelebrity (George Clooney), crafted a brilliant love letter to John Boorman (The Limey), floundered with Oscar Bait (Erin Brokovich, Traffic), made bank on Blockbusters (The Oceans Trilogy), drowned in drivel (Full Frontal, Bubble, The Good German, Che, The Girlfriend Experience), and found new life in his final series of weirdo genre pictures (The Informant!, Contagion, Magic Mike, Haywire, Side Effects).  Has there ever been a career with more peeks or valleys?  Of his last batch, The Informant! is probably my intellectual favorite, but the one I watch the most is Haywire.  I mean - Wow! - that Fight-to-the-Death hotel room brawl between Gina Carano & Michael Fassbender is AWEsome!  Possibly my favorite asskicking this side of They Live.  The rest of the film is good too, but that Fassbender beatdown....that's some real movie magic.  I wish Soderbergh all the best in TV Land, but I doubt he'll stay there for long.  The Silver Screen will call you again sir.  Whatever type of picture you decide to make should certainly prove interesting.

Zodiac:  My favorite film of the last 13 years.  This fact seems to baffle Matt.  He just keeps saying "it sure is 3 hours long."  I tell him it's the best police procedural of all time, he says he preferred The Silence of the Lambs.  I'v been thinking about this.  I too love The Silence of the Lambs.  Great movie. Duh.  But it's not really a procedural, is it?  I think what elevates Zodiac so high in my pantheon of All Time Favorite Movies is how meticulous the film is with the investigation - and the obsession born from it in Robert Graysmith.  There are no real answers here, but Graysmith has to hunt them down.  He sacrifices family for the Zodiac.  He might even fool himself in the process.  It's tragic.  It's ultimately pointless.  And David Fincher perfects his clinical eye with this film, and it's never been more suited for a subject.

Man of Steel:  2013 marked the 75th anniversary of Superman.  A milestone for capes & spandex.  But he's never been a character I've really gravitated towards.  I guess I enjoyed the Christopher Reeve films as much as any kid my age, but when I rewatched them earlier this year they didn't have the same shine I once remembered.  Reeve himself is astonishing as the character.  It's a great performance.  But there's plenty of room for improvement as far as the script and side characters are concerned.  I thought Bryan Singer's love poem, Superman Returns was fairly fun if not utterly forgettable, and I was soooooo ready for Zach Snyder to add a little freeze-frame punch to the franchise.  I am, after all, not a Snyder-hater (yes, yes, yes, Sucker Punch sucked).  What I love about Man of Steel:  Russell Crowe's Jor-El & his holo-ghost, Pa Kent's barnyard revelation to young Clark, Amy Adams's plucky newswoman, and the Metropolis Holocaust (yep, two gods meet in an American City...we are fucked). What I hate about Man of Steel:  Pa Kent's utter fear for his son culminating in his final act, Michael Shannon's Screaming Zod, the kissy face in a crater of human ash, and the neck break.  I could probably handle most of my beef if not for Pa Kent.  His parenting seems all wrong for the character.  That being said, there is enough here for me to enjoy the film for years to come.  I can't really say I'm stoked for Batman vs Superman, but I'm certainly curious to see what they cook up, and how all these icons are going to fit with each other.  But if you really want to get to the heart of the Man of Steel, and you've always had trouble like me, then please read Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman.  It's a beautiful depiction of Supes as well as that Golden Age of Comics.

Furious 6:  Not the Action-Packed Roller Coaster Revelation that was Fast Five, this film still manages to pack more fun into car crashes than it has any right.  Frankly, I'm still just shocked at how much of a fan I've become of this franchise.  It wasn't too long ago that I was mocking the first film and downright being a jerk towards 2 Fast 2 Furious.  Now it's 2014, Paul Walker died tragically, and I'm desperately awaiting word on how they'll honor him in Fast Seven.  This series is a goof.  A lark.  But there is something so absolutely charming about the intensity in which they support the notion of family.  We all might be thieves and gunrunners, but we love each other and we know how to crack a skull when we have to.  Fast Five took the franchise into the realm of the unreal, and Furious 6 practically throws a cape over The Rock while he's tossing thugs across rooms.  Don't fool yourself.  This is the very best of Comic Book Cinema.

Saving Mr. Banks:  "The Mouse is Family."  I was a little nervous going into this one.  A friend shot me a link to Harlan Ellison's latest rant, and his tirade nearly brought me into a frenzy against The Disney Machine.  How dare they purport PL Travers's complacency for Mary Poppins when she most certainly did not appreciate the adaptation.  And maybe this film doesn't go into her eventual contempt for the film, but it also doesn't reveal her to be joyous either.  This is a nifty, surface level exploration of  the writing process, and the romance one can have with their creation.  Emma Thompson starts this film as a shrill, nearly psychotic "Writer" battling it out with the Keeper of Dreams, Walt Disney.  A cynic could easily tear this film apart.  But there were several moments in the movie where I thought it understood and appreciated PL Travers's preciousness for her character.  One scene (where musical & biography collide) that nearly brought me to tears in my seat.  Is it the best film of 2013?  No.  Not even close.  But I imagine if you (like my wife) already have great affinity for the Disney Film then you'll just adore Saving Mr. Banks.  And when is Harlan Ellison not ranting? - don't sue me!

MST3K - I Accuse My Parents:  "Can I interest you in a size of ME?"  For the new year, The Wife & I have committed to watching as many episodes of Mystery Science Theater as we can.  When I hear Joel, Tom Servo, and Crooooooow snicker and jeer their way through some shoddy movie it immediately takes me back in time.  I'm 12 years old, it's way past my bedtime, and I'm snorting up a bowl of CT Crunch as The Killer Shrews shuffle about my tv screen.  Ah...bliss.  I Accuse My Parents is one of those terrible cautionary tales in which a teenage shoe salesman goes on a kill crazy rampage because his mom was a drunk.  Boo hoo, kid, it's tough all over.  Good jokes, but also not the finest hour for the Gizmonic Institute.  Looking forward to the next one.

Sweet Tooth Volumes 3-5 by Jeff Lemire:  My goodness, these are some wonderfully sad comics.  Volume 2 left poor Sweet Tooth in the hands of some diabolical scientists, and Volume 3 picks up with Mr Jeppard marching to the rescue before Doctor Singh can gut the deer boy open, and dissect just how these hybrids avoid The Sickness.  I enjoyed the first few chapters of this series, but once Jeff Lemire gets these guys out of the camps and on the road of discovery, the saga really begins to take shape.  What is Sweet Tooth?  A man made creation or some ancient god of the earth?  I don't know, but I'm betting whatever the answer it's a depressing one.  Not for the faint of heart...or the squeamish, Sweet Tooth is an apocalypse story drowning in dread.  And I love it.  One trade to go, should be done in a few days.

Drew - The Man Behind The Poster:  If you're in your mid-30s and you love movies then you love Drew Struzan.  The premiere illustrator who birthed countless posters for such films as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, Masters of the Universe, and Police Academy.  I've been collecting his work since I was fourteen.  Behind every framed poster in my house, you can probably find a Struzan buried behind whatever current obsession.  This is a typical talking-heads documentary, but I was pleased to discover how in-depth it goes into some of his creations.  And I certainly appreciated hearing the praise coming from such icons as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael J Fox, Ken Kelly, and Steve Guttenberg.  Harrison Ford at the junket, though?  That's awkward.  It's currently on Netflix Streaming, give it a whirl.

--Brad

The 2013 Dorkies- The Best and Worst of Cinema (Matt’s Picks)

                                       "The Year That Sucked…Until it didn’t."


    Following as it did on the disappointing 2012, 2013 was a long, hard year for this film buff.  Not a lot of the extreme ups and downs of last year, or even the crushing disappointments.  It was just so bloody blah.  It wasn’t until the very end of April that I saw a movie I enjoyed to any serious degree (Pain & Gain).  That’s bad.  Worse is that the movie, directed as it was by schlockmeister Michael Bay, dismayed me greatly by remaining on my ‘best movies of the year’ list as the months wore on.  Ugh.  The film snob in me simply never warmed to having a Bay film in my top 10.  Thankfully, as the Autumn came upon us, things started looking up.  I went from struggling to find ten movies I enjoyed to being able to make a top twenty with some movies left over.  Thank goodness.  (Take a look back at the Dorkies of the past: 2011, 2012).

Best Movies

10.  Europa Report:  Probably the best put together found-footage movie to date, this is handled the way I’ve been saying found-footage films should be for years.  It’s edited and presented as a documentary, with talking heads accompanying the events depicted.  The characters are good, not the idiots movie makers would normally put in situations like this (see: Sunshine).  The story itself is compelling and uplifting.  And to me, this feels like a tribute to those we’ve lost in the pursuit of progress, as opposed to the more typical ‘it’s so dangerous, why even try?’ attitude presented in space-based science fiction films.

9.  Oblivion:  Is Oblivion the most creative film ever made?  No.  Is it a solid, beautifully filmed story, fully immersed in classic science fiction?  Yes.  People kept comparing this movie to Moon, and I don’t think that’s fair for two major reasons.  One, only one of its many concepts is shared with Moon, and Moon, though fantastic, is not even close to the ‘original’ film it was held up as (see: Silent Running and Outland for proof).  This film doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it makes the wheel look really good, and roll really smooth.  And no shaky cam!

8.  A Field in England:  Out of the frying pan (war) and into the fire (drug-fueled trip into magic and madness).  To say the absolute minimum, this movie isn’t going to be for everyone.  The characters are all quite mad, the film is shot in such a way as to heighten that feeling, and even before the characters ingest psychedelic mushrooms and tug a man out of a magic hole, the movie was quite bizarre.  Don’t stop here, man.  This is bat country.

7.  Why Don’t You Play in Hell?:  With all the weird and wild entries in the Gonzo madness of Japanese cinema, they finally got it right.  Funny, disgusting, wacky, and kinda amazing, nothing can quite prepare you for this movie.  The acting, even on secondary characters, is so good.  I found myself with a serious case of the giggles throughout, even during horrible scenes, because the whole thing just worked so darned well.  It made me almost dizzy, but I was loving every minute of it.

6.  Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie:  Better than the Avengers.  Bam!  Yeah, I said it.  The Avengers was largely lauded among comic nerds because it remained so ‘true’ to the comic source material.  And while I can’t argue that too strongly, I would say that it remained ‘surprisingly true,’ all things considered, but still took a great deal of liberty.  Not this movie.  This movie is what staying true to the source material is really about.  At no point was this sugar coated or re-packaged for John Q. Lucnchbox.  Ultramarines is a straight-up Warhammer 40,000 movie, and it makes absolutely no apologies and doesn’t give you one bit of help in engaging with it (beyond good characters and a good story).  I never much cared for Warhammer as a game (especially when alternative options came around), but I always loved the setting.  And this film gets it right, 100%.

5.  Journey to the West:  It’s a very, very rare non-English language comedy that I enjoy.  Not because of any anti-foreign sentiment, but because of all things, I think comedy doesn’t tend to translate well.  There’s so much culturally specific quality to what makes us laugh.  Most of the Chinese comedies I’ve seen have been somewhere between boring and…extremely boring, because I simply didn’t find the humor.  I was sure it was in there, somewhere.  But I didn’t find it.  Kung Fu Hustle was a rare exception, and it’s director, Stephen Chow, is back with this take on the classic mythological/fantasy adventure, Journey to the West.  This movie focuses on the coming together of the band of adventurers, and features lots of weird, wild, over the top action and well, weirdness.  And it’s just darned fun to watch.

4.  Inside Llewyn Davis:  Somewhere around the release of A Serious Man, I realized that I don’t just like some Coen Brothers movies, I love the Coen Brothers’ movies.  I think, if I had to pick just one (well, two) director as my favorite working today, it would be this team.  With only one real misstep (Intolerable Cruelty) in there repertoire, and no sign of loosing steam, they’re really the bees’ knees in my book.  This story of a shiftless folk singer, drifting through New York in the early days of what would be the folk revival of that time, is painful and funny in the way the brothers do so well.  A great cast of odd characters support Oscar Isaac as the titular Llewyn Davis.  A man with every opportunity to learn life’s great lessons.  Every danged opportunity.

3.  The Great Beauty:  The existential ennui of an aged Italian playboy, living a life of parties and petty social infighting.  How European, right?  How Italian.  And it’s an homage of sorts to art/foreign film aficionado golden boy Federico Fellini.  At this point, it would be difficult to put into words just how awful the film sounds to me.  But, it’s great.  It’s funny, it’s beautiful, it’s sad, and it’s wistful.  And though obviously inspired by Fellini, it’s missing that certain something that makes me hate the director’s work.  Director Paolo Sorrentino has crafted a beautiful look into latter day party people, urban adepts who stayed in the game too long, and the wild world of those with too much money and not enough drive.  It’s really quite good.

2.  The Wall:  I saw a lot of films dealing with loneliness or loneness this year, and none was better than The Wall.  The premise is simple.  A woman wakes up one morning trapped behind an invisible wall, possibly the last living human.  How does she deal with that?  It’s profoundly moving and beautiful to look at seclusion.  The film manages to capture the romance of solitude hand in hand with the sanity shaking emptiness of forced separation.

1.  Only God Forgives:  Were you like me?  When you were watching Drive a couple years ago, did you keep saying to yourself, ‘man, won’t these people just shut up; can’t they just stare at each other for way, way longer?’  Well then, do I have a movie for you.  Oozing with mythological significance, the story is fairly simple.  A bad guy (whose mother may very well be Satan) wants to be redeemed.  To redeem himself, he wants to fight God.  God is a retired detective in Thailand.  Simple, right?  If you go to movies to see lots of action, or people talking, you can pretty much skip this one.  If you like to be challenged; if you enjoy visual feasts; or if you thought Drive was just to mainstream and ‘Hollywood’ and wanted something more like Valhalla Rising, then you must see this.  It’s one of the few times I felt giddy, felt the heady power of cinema, during this mostly uninspired year.

Best Actress:  Martina Gedeck (The Wall):  It was nice to find myself having to make a hard decision on who to pick for this category this year.  Too often there are too few interesting roles for women, and too few of those go to worthy actresses.  Gedeck has to carry the entire movie on her shoulders, and she does so while making it look easy.  Runner up: Amy Adams (American Hustle).

Best Actor:  Dwayne Johnson (Pain & Gain):  I don’t know from wrestling, but Dwayne The Rock Johnson is one charming bastard, and over the last few years he’s been climbing up the hill toward being one of my very favorite contemporary movie stars.  Pain & Gain brought him to the top to join George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Tony Leung.  His comic timing and loveable idiocy were so incredibly endearing that even when the most awful acts were being perpetrated, I couldn’t help but hope things would work out for him.  A genuinely excellent performance from an actor who puts a smile on my face whenever I see him.  Runner up: Michael Nyqvist in Europa Report.

Best Supporting Actress:  Kristin Scott Thomas (Only God Forgives):  Has anyone ever done quite this good a job of portraying manifest evil?  One of the most vile and terrifying movie villains of all time.  Do not stare too long into the abyss.  Runner up: Amy Adams (Her).

Best Supporting Actor:  Javier Bardem (The Councilor):  Watching Bardem’s face contort in terror as he looks into a sexual abyss was genuinely one of the best single scenes in 2013 cinema.  The movie wasn’t that great, but Bardem elevated every scene he was in as this sort of half-assed Tony Montana.  When he wasn’t on screen, I kept hoping he would be again soon.  Runner up: Shin’ichi Tsutsumi in Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Best Director: Nicholas Winding Refn:  This guy is making a certain type of movie that very definitely appeals to me.  Quiet, slow (but not boring), highly visual, ultra-violent, and very challenging.  I know he’s referred to Valhalla Rising as a science fiction film.  But he’s also crazy.  I’d like to see him tackle something really out there, like Logan’s Run or The Incal.  Refn is one to watch.  Runner up: The Coen Brothers for Inside Llewyn Davis.

The Bottom 5 Films of the Year:

5.  Star Trek Into Darkness:  Almost everything in this movie is wrong.  As a long time Trek fan, the complete bungling (not to mention unnecessary rehashing) of an iconic character (Khan) was saddening.  But the fact that all the character and relationship development from the 2009 film was thrown out the window and everyone was back to square one, was unforgivable.  Add to that the idiotic villains, overly complex but totally stupid plot, and awful callback after callback to Wrath of Khan, and you’ve got a film that killed my excitement for this re-launched franchise.  At this point, I care almost as little about what happens with the next Star Trek film as I do with the next Star War, Transformers, or Avatar film (read: none).

4.  Oz the Great and Powerful:  From James Franco’s stoned bemusement to the rampant amateur hour CGI to the same-old-same-old Raimi bag of tricks (seriously, the guy’s been doing the same half dozen camera shots for 30 years), this movie is a colossal fart in the face of the surreal wonder of L. Frank Baum’s original books.  It gets everything at least as wrong as the beloved 1939 version, but also manages to fail as a stand-alone piece.  Just awful.

3.  Machete Kills:  No.  I didn’t think this was going to be a ‘good’ movie.  But I was not prepared for how danged awful it was.  After a mildly amusing opening, the whole thing fell apart almost at once, and for it’s excruciating runtime, Danny Trejo was literally the only thing that wasn’t terrible, and he had virtually nothing to work with.  I really like Trejo, and I really want to watch him do his thing.  But this film was terrible.

2.  The Host:  Stryder/Wanda (Wanderer) must fight Seeker and her Soul henchmen in this super subtle (yeah, that’s sarcasm) excuse for polygamy.  It’s more ham-fisted than a fist made of ham, more boring than a giant drill, and …well, it sucks.  For a long time I kind of thought this would be my number 1 worst film.

1.  Kick-Ass 2:  Sitting in the theater, watching the opening scene, co-Dork Brad and I looked at each other and flashed ‘oh, no’ faces.  And it never got better.  Every single ounce of charm the first film had was absent in this terrible follow-up.  The actors were bad, the script was worse, and everything felt like nobody quite knew what was happening.  Really, really bad.

Take a hike, Quality.

Runners up: World War Z, The Purge, and Jack the Giant Slayer.


Best Score: Only God Forgives

Best Soundtrack: American Hustle

Video Discoveries:

    As the Summer came to an end, and 2013 was beginning to wear me down, I found myself turning back to film history.  Always a fan of older films, I tend to pepper my viewing with all sorts of classics and not-so-classics from the Silent era, the Pre-Code days, the Golden Age, and more.  This Fall, however I began to grasp at them as a drowning man.  I even went Criterion Crazy in November.  So, what follows are a few of the really excellent finds from yesteryear.

10.  The Mercenary, The Great Silence, & El Condor: Three awesome Westerns, thanks to Brad.
9.  The American Astronaut: A very, very weird comic Western Sci-Fi film. And so funny.
8.  Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht: A really excellent remake of the classic silent film.
7.  Sulivan’s Travels:  A fantastic Depression era comedy.  Great script.
6.  Summer Interlude:  This helped kick off a Bergman feeding frenzy. I guess I’m a fan now.
5.  Challenge of the Masters & My Young Auntie: Two must see martial arts films.
4.  Marketa Lazarova:  Czech film?  Who’d have thought.  OK, show me more.
3.  Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: It’s my happening, and it freaks me out.
2.  Design for Living:  An absolutely hysterical and shockingly naughty comedy.
1.  Leave Her to Heaven:  I fell in love with Gene Tierney.  Hard.

Video Re-Discovery:

Chung King Express.  When I first saw this film back in 1999 or 2000, I just didn’t get it.  I think I was expecting some kind of action movie, maybe some sort of martial arts film.  I was interested in it for two reasons, it was being put out on Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder line and it had Brigitte Lin.  What I got was some kind of romantic comedy…or something, I don’t know.  And I didn’t like it.  After reading the weird memoir The Film Club, I was prompted to give the film a second shot, and I’m so glad I did.  To say the very least, I enjoyed it much more the second time around.  I’d changed as a person, my tastes had changed, and my expectations were different.  I found the film moving and deeply charming.

Actor of the Year:  Amy Adams (Man of Steel, American Hustle, Her) had a great year.  She’s an actress who’s been around for a while, and who I’ve enjoyed in a few films before.  But 2013 was a revelation for me.  She’s probably the only thing that didn’t suck in the second half of Man of Steel, and plays probably the only live-action Lois Lane I don’t want to push under a train.  She gives heart to American Hustle; and in both that and Her, she turns in subtle and nuanced performances I found captivating.  Do I have a new favorite actress?  Maybe not.  But she’s on my radar now, for sure.

Discovered Actors:  I made three particular discoveries this year.  Having now seen Greta Garbo in films, I get it.  I get why she was such a phenomenon.  She’s dynamite; there’s no denying.  I’d seen Gene Tierney in a bunch of movies and thought nothing of her.  Perfectly beautiful, but not especially memorable.  That’s because I’d been watching the wrong movies.  She left me absolutely breathless in Leave Her to Heaven, and I’ve since seen her in a bunch of excellent performances.  Almost supernaturally beautiful, your instinct might be to ignore her acting talent.  But it’s there.  And finally, watching a bunch of Ingmar Bergman films, I couldn’t help but appreciate the versatility and power of Gunnar Bjornstrand.  Be it a bastard of a pastor or a gregarious squire, the man brought the goods.

Moulder’s Beard (the only good thing in an otherwise unwatchable film): Scotty’s shirt from his drunken bar hop in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Most Unfairly Maligned Film: The Lone Ranger.  What did you people want?  It’s all the fun of a Pirates movie, but in the West.  Great.

Most Unjustly Lauded Film:  Gravity.  Like Children of Men, I can’t help but feel that the gimmicky long-shots are more important than telling a good story or creating compelling characters.  Worst astronaut ever.  I did love that final beach shot, though.  The movie as a whole?  Meh.

Glad to See You Again: Rosario Dawson.  An actress I’ve wanted to be a fan of for many years, but who keeps doing movies I either can’t stand, or won’t watch.  But with Trance, an otherwise forgettable film, Dawson finally sinks her teeth into a solid performance that I found myself enjoying much more than the rest of the picture.

Best Remake: Journey to the West

Worst Remake: Evil Dead

Best Quote:  “Jesus Christ has blessed me with many gifts; one of them is knocking someone the fuck out.” -Pain & Gain

“Hey, it’s better than Avatar.” (Movies that might not be great, but are still better than Avatar)

5.  Her
4.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
3.  Byzantium
2.  Furious 6
1.  Elysium

The Biggest Disappointments:

5.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I was expecting more of the same, and I got it.  But the movie did leave me a bit cold, because of the desperate need for considerable trimming.  It's fine.  But not as good as the first part.  And yeah, as has been asked so many times, why is this a film trilogy?  Also how sad is it that the best Elf character was the one that didn't come from the book?

4.  Pacific Rim:  Del Toro just keeps missing the mark, and it’s getting depressing.  The movie is fun, and there are some very good sequences.  But the plot totally sucks.  I didn’t actually like Top Gun, so seeing it rehashed didn’t do anything for me at all.

3.  Star Trek Into Darkness:  For all the reasons I’ve already talked about.  And it’s just not fun to watch.  Is it Nemesis or Generations bad?  Time will tell.  But it’s not good, and killed my interest in this re-launched alternate universe.  Back to the original series for me.

2.  Elysium:  There’s so much good in this movie.  But the message is too heavy handed, and the ending feels totally false.  Still, if you’re a William Gibson fan, there’s a lot of stuff to love in the realization of the horrible future.

1.  2013:  Yeah, I’m picking the whole year.  While the last couple of months turned things around, so that I didn’t leave the year on a sour note, that still left 10 months of heart-sinking awfulness.  The fact that numbers 9 through 20 on my list this year are nearly interchangeable, and I only feel comfortable with 8 movies on my top ten list says a lot.  Even a lot of the bad movies weren't even bad enough to mock.  On top of that, so many movies that did look interesting never played anywhere near me.  And that’s frustrating and disappointing.  2013 looked amazing when it started, but movie after movie didn’t live up.  Here’s hoping next year turns it around.  Where’s my 2011?

Most Anticipated Film of 2014:

Godzilla:  Yeah, there are a few 2013 movies that don’t seem to be getting theatrical runs (if that even happens) until 2014, so I sure want to see them.  And there are a bunch of very cool looking movies coming as the year goes on.  But I’m a long time Godzilla fan, and I’ve been hoping for a good, serious take on the venerable beast for a long time.  From the director of the low budget Horror/Sci-Fi kaiju movie Monsters, this film looks like it might be amazing.  Sure, things could go terribly wrong and it might totally suck.  I can’t imagine anything like that dreadful 1998 version, but there is a lot of gray area between that film and ‘good.’  I’m hoping this new version doesn’t end up there.  Runner up: Guardians of the Galaxy (what world do we live on?!).

Top 20:

20.  Thor: The Dark World
19.  Upstream Color
18.  Renoir
17.  Stoker
16.  All is Lost
15.  Pain & Gain
14.  Computer Chess
13.  Lone Ranger
12.  The World’s End
11.  American Hustle
10.  Europa Report
9.  Oblivion
8.  A Field in England
7.  Why Don’t You Play in Hell?
6.  Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie
5.  Journey to the West
4.  Inside Llewyn Davis
3.  The Wall
2.  The Great Beauty
1.  Only God Forgives

-Matthew J. Constantine