The Dorkies 2014! (Matt's Picks)

    After two pretty rough years, 2014 finally brought it home for me.  Sure, it’s not 2011, but it’s a good year.  While the Fall season produced few films of note, the earlier part of the year was quite nice.  And that meant that I didn’t have such a glum demeanor throughout.  There were, perhaps, few so called ‘great’ films.  But there were plenty of good ones, and that’s OK by me.  Plus, they were all over the place, from drama to action, foreign to domestic.  Nice.  Take a look back at Dorkies past with 2011, 2012, and 2013.  And give a listen to our ITMODcast episodes about our top 10 movies; episode 1 and episode 2.


10.  The Raid 2:  The Raid and Dredd came out the same year, and they’ve got basically the same ‘plot.’  Between the two, I preferred Dredd, in part because of the science fiction elements; in part because they finally got the character right on screen.  But The Raid still slipped on to my top 20 list, because of how awesome the action and fighting were.  So, I was glad to see the sequel, but not especially expecting much.  What I got was a thrill ride whirlwind of extreme violence and visceral horror.  Half way through the movie, I was begging characters to start using guns to kill people, just to be more humane.  The story, while nothing new or special, does take the characters into new territory and the acting and character beats make the movie stand out among its peers, if the tremendous fight choreography didn’t already.

9.  Cold in July:  Director Jim Mickle has been making low budget horror films that have been among the best in recent years (Mulberry St., Stake Land, & We Are What We Are).  This time around he turns his eye on an 80s set crime story, and it’s awesome.  You will not be ready for where the film takes you.  When you think it’s one kind of story, it becomes another.  And when it goes dark…It goes so danged dark.  And Don Johnson!

8.  All You Need is Kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow):  Though there have been a lot of very disappointing science fiction movies lately, there really have been a lot of good ones.  In this Groundhog Day style story of a man stuck repeating the moments before his death at the hands of alien invaders, Tom Cruise gets to do what he does best in solid action scene after solid action scene.  The film doesn’t talk down to the audience, which is nice.  There’s a good story, and a good protagonist character arc.  But what I also really liked was that Emily Blunt, who is quickly becoming a Matt favorite, gets a meaty, badass role.  Science fiction film remains far, far behind the literature.  But I’m hoping that at least in the coming years, we can finally see women getting better parts in genre films.  More like this, less like Anne Hathaway in Interstellar (The crying…Oh, the crying).

7.  Mr. Turner:  It’s not too surprising that a movie about a painter would be beautiful.  But this late life story of J.M.W. Turner is more than a visual feast.  As the camera moves around through his day to day life, we get a growing understanding of the man and his world, of the wonders and horrors of life in Victorian England.  On the surface, the film is bright and beautiful, with less of the grim, sooty gloom you might expect from the world of Dickens and the like.  But as Turner’s servant slowly rots and one by one people die of various sicknesses, or chronicle lives of shattering horror, the viewer is reminded of just how terrible the past was, even for those we think of as privileged (in this case, the British upper class).  I like that the film doesn’t feel the need to tell you a lot.  You watch, and you take it in, and you make your own judgments.  Turner’s extremely sweet and loving relationship with his father, his horrible relationship with an estranged family, his budding romance with a twice widowed woman, the awkward dealings with a self-important/self-destructive and money obsessed fellow artist, his puppy-like devoted servant… We see it all, but without being told what we should think.  (As a side note, I saw this right after seeing this year’s Belle, and they make fine companion pieces.  Belle takes place about a hundred years earlier, and both have interesting things to say about class and society in England of that time).

6.  Ida:  Gorgeous black & white cinematography draws you in to this story of a cloistered young woman, about to take her vows and become a nun.  Contacted by an estranged aunt Wanda, she takes a trip out into the world, where she learns about her past and what it is that she’s preparing to give up.  Generations of guilt and horror lurk, as Ida explores her family history and her aunt reveals dark secrets.  The Holocaust, the Communist purges, and the shadow of the Cold War.  Dang.  Like 2012’s Barbara, it looks at the other side of the Iron Curtain in a different way than I’m used to.  Ida and Wanda are two fascinating characters, set apart from their world for different reasons.  Quiet, but compelling.

5.  Guardians of the Galaxy:  Not a lot of movies, outside of the original Star Wars trilogy embrace the crazy, fun, weird, wild worlds of Space Opera.  And fewer still do it successfully.  Guardians of the Galaxy takes a handful of obscure Marvel Comics characters (though for once, characters I was familiar with) and thrusts them center stage.  And it’s Marvelous.  It’s like Farscape got a movie.  Fun, funny, irreverent, and full of heart.  The tone is light, but it still manages to tug on the heartstrings in ways the other Marvel Cinematic Universe films haven’t.  As a whole, I think the MCU films are fantastic, but individually, this and Thor are the only ones I truly love.  I feel like maybe I’m living in another Science Fiction golden age, akin to the 1980s.  Sure, I may be disappointed by the odd Prometheus or Interstellar, but I’m getting Science Fiction that ranges from thought provoking to heart pounding.  And I love it.  And finally, genre films like this are being seen and enjoyed by all, not poo-pooed by snobs.

4.  Jodorowsky’s Dune:  I saw a lot of documentaries this year, many of them quite good, many of them exciting and inspiring (see my top 20 for more).  But this portrait of professional mad bastard Alejandro Jodorowsky hits all my buttons.  It was a different time.  The 1970s.  And someone thought, let’s adapt the sprawling epic novel Dune for the big screen.  And of course, let’s put the man behind Holy Mountain and El Topo at the helm.  WHAAAAAAAT?  As this master of the weird assembled his Avengers of Transcendence, a movie that would shape decades of science fiction film would begin to grow.  But it was too much.  It couldn’t happen.  Yet, out of the death of this overly ambitious project, so much was born.  For a film buff, and specifically for a science fiction buff, this movie is a must.  And the central figure, Jodorowsky, is a marvel.  He lives up to everything you expect from the guy who wrote The Metabarons.  Makes me wish I could travel to an alternate universe, where Tom Selleck was Indiana Jones, Christopher Walken was Han Solo, and Jodorowsky made Dune (and perhaps took humanity to a new state of being).

3.  Under the Skin:  Did you watch Drive and think, “Why’s everyone talking so much?”  Did you see Only God Forgives and think, “Why’s there so much exposition?”  Well, have I got a movie for you.  I can’t really tell you what it’s about.  Figuring that out is part of the magic of watching the movie.  I can tell you this.  There is no exposition.  The film never tells you what’s happening.  It’s beautifully shot.  It’s occasionally horrific.  The first time I watched it, the ending really, really bothered me.  The second time I watched it, I came to the belief that the ending completely worked.  The music is very weird.  Hope that all helps.

2.  Godzilla:  I could gush and gush about this film.  It lived up to all my Kaiju hopes.  From the first teaser trailer with Oppenheimer’s “Destroyer of Worlds” speech to the moment Godzilla shot atomic destruction down the Muto’s throat, I was buzzing with excitement.  This is the Godzilla film I’ve been waiting for, the first one to really, really get to the heart of the beast since the classic Showa era.  Godzilla is the essence of the Earth, the manifestation of its will, nature personified.  Be it aliens, creatures from the deepest parts of the planet, pollution, or human meddling, Godzilla will put things to right, no matter how much gets broken in the process.  Bring on King Ghidorah!

1.  The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Probably the most meticulously Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson has made yet, this film is at turns funny, crass, sad, and intensely strange.  If you allow yourself to buy into Anderson’s ‘Doll House’ film making, this will be a delightful journey.  Elements hearken back to Golden Age Hollywood, to European adventure movies, and to Cold War paranoia.  The cast and cast of characters are top notch Anderson, with plenty of regulars and a few new faces.  And Ralph Fiennes is in top form as the wonderfully debauched, debonair, and downright profane M. Gustave.

Best Actress:  Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl plays so many different roles, from sweet to Satan.  Pike’s changes through the movie elevate what could easily have been silly into a truly terrifying performance.  And sometimes, in spite of all the horror she does, you still find yourself hoping things work out for the best.  That’s a tough thing to sell.  (Runner up: Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant)

Best Actor:  Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel is a profane charmer.  It’s a return of dashing Fiennes, and I love it.  He jumps into the hyper-stylized world of Wes Anderson and starts throwing dialog like he’s always lived there.  His delivery is as impeccable as M. Gustave’s Hotel.  A great comic performance if ever there were one.  (Runner up: Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner)

Best Supporting Actress:   Agata Kulesza in Ida almost steels the show as the weary and wary old revolutionary.  She is the bitter, shattered husk of a disillusioned party shill, and Kulesza manages to make you feel for someone that by all rights you should hate.  A monster in her latter days, possibly redeemed in some small way by gifts of worldly wisdom to her innocent niece.  (Runner up: Rene Russo in Nightcrawler)

Best Supporting Actor:  Dave Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy took a character that could have been dull, even with the script, and spiced it up with his teddy bear charm.  It’s really a break-out role for him, and I hope that he can turn it into something.  (Runner up: Don Johnson in Cold in July)

Best Director:  Pawel Pawlikowski for Ida.  A beautiful, tight, well acted study of two women in the shadow of the Iron Curtain.  It may not be as flashy as some, but it’s darned fine.  (Runner up: Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel)

The Bottom Five Films of the Year:

(I don’t even want to talk about how bad these movies are.  I’d simply advise not to bother).

5.  Raze

4.  Hector and the Search for Happiness

3.  Transformers: Age of Extinction

2.  Transcendence

1.  300: Rise of an Empire

"This!  Is!  ....Bullshit!!!"

Biggest Disappointments:

5.  Interstellar: Beautiful, with a great score and a couple good performances.  But kinda obvious and too rooted in 2001.  I’d rather go back and watch Dave, Hal, and the bone wielding apes than see the infinite bookshelf room again.

4.  Lucy:  I wanted to see a return to early Luc Besson.  Alas, no.  Just more contemporary Luc Besson (read: crap).

3.  Expendables 3:  That’s it.  I’m out.  I loved the heck out of the first two stupid movies in this stupid franchise.  But part three gutted the violence, focused on unlikable/unwatchable young actors and felt like it missed any and all points.

2.  Snowpiercer:  The look and concept are fantastic.  The script…not so much.  For this viewer, the film needed to be a 30 minute shorter action movie, or an 8 hour longer mini-series.  Nowhere near enough world building or character development to make me care when things start happening.  I feel like there was a good movie in here somewhere.

1.  The Immigrant:  The production design is beautiful and atmospheric.  And the three leads are all excellent.  Unfortunately, it seems like the three actors are in different films, acting past each other, not with each other.  Marion Cotillard is especially good and feels the most right for the story.  If only the film had focused on her, and not bothered with the weird, totally tone-deaf love triangle.  Alas.

Video Finds:

10.  Mr. Nobody:  A strange and interesting science fiction movie that deals with what might have been and what might be.  The differences in our futures based on the choices we make.  Similar in theme to Run Lola Run, it handles the topic in a very different way.

9.  The Ballad of Narayama:  A beautifully crafted fairy tale about age and death.  It has a beautiful artificiality that lends a lot to the feel of a tale told around a fire.

8.  Vanishing Waves:  This Lithuanian science fiction film is all kinds of weird.  Kind of a new take on Altered States, but with plenty of its own twists.

7.  Love:  A solid, artsy but not to pretentious science fiction film, shot on a budget.  It looks really good and has enough going for it that fans should seek it out.

6.  Legendary Weapons of China:  Plenty of badass weapon combat in this classic Martial Arts flick.  Great action.

5.  Age of Consent:  James Mason goes off to an island to get a sense of himself.  There, he meets a young woman who helps remind him of how to live life.

4.  Manborg:  What can one say about Manborg?  If you were (are?) one of those people who haunted the library stacks of video rental shops, hunting for that rare film you’d never heard of (Slipstream, Xtro, Basket Case, Spacehunter, etc.); if you waited with bated breath for the newest Full Moon or Troma video release; if you love a really good bad movie; you’ve got to check out Manborg.  It gets it so right, and so wonderfully wrong.  Obviously crafted by folks with a deep love for those obscure works of the past, it’s a thrill for a fan like me.

3.  The Wraith:  Related to Manborg, this is one of those 80s movies that used to sit on those very video rental shop shelves.  For some reason I’ll never understand, I hadn’t seen this film until this year.  Now that I have, I can’t believe it isn’t talked about more.  Such great 80s weirdness, great cast, and so much fun.

2.  Die Farbe:  I’m always on the lookout for good Lovecraftian horror films.  More, I’m on the lookout for good actual adaptation of Lovecraft’s work.  And here we have The Color Out of Space, in German.  It’s an excellent take on the tale, with fairly limited alteration (connections to WWII, for example) that do nothing to detract from the source (like the romance in the otherwise excellent The Resurrected).  Very much a film to seek out.

1.  Altered States:  One of those movies I’ve been aware of for what seems like forever, but have rarely heard good things about.  Often referred to as ‘boring’ or something similar.  For whatever reason, I decided it was time to break down and check it out, and I’m glad I did.  I loved it.  Steeped in all that post-Hippie, Utopian, drug-fueled, mad science stuff that I love so much in Fringe, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Rabid, and more, it’s got lots of cool images, some solid performances, and a pretty crazy ending.  For Fringe fans, this is a must, as it absolutely feels like the stuff Walter, Belly, and Nina were getting up to in those early days.

2014’s Most Forgettable:

Jack Ryan: Not a bad movie, but didn’t this come out years ago?  No?!  Wow.  I vaguely remember watching it, I guess.

Seriously, I have the ticket stub. I know I saw it.

Best Viewings at the Alamo Drafthouse:

5.  The Good the Bad and the Ugly

4.  Halloween III (this is up there with seeing Phantasm II & Razorback at the AFI Silver)

3.  City Lights

2.  Rocky IV

1.  3 Dev Adam (aka Turkish Captain America)

Glad to See You Again:

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  I was glad to see a fun and enjoyable Middle Earth again.  After a lackluster first film and a crappy second, I was glad that the third Hobbit film was more enjoyable, and more in line with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Hey, It’s Better Than Avatar! (movies that might not be great, but they‘re better than Avatar):

5.  Chef

4.  Noah

3.  Interstellar

2.  How to Train Your Dragon 2

1.  Big Hero 6

The Life of Pi Award for Most Simpering New Age Crap:

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Best Documentary:

Life Itself:  While not shying away from the uglier sides of Roger Ebert, this ultimately uplifting film celebrates the man, warts intact.  More emotionally resonant than many fictional works, it made me love the life’s work of a man I rarely agreed with.

Mulder’s Beard (the one good thing in an otherwise unwatchable film):

Antonio Banderas’s crazy bastard performance in The Expendables 3

Best Score:

Under the Skin

Best Soundtrack:

Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Moment:

Godzilla’s Atomic Breath

Best God Fight:

Yahweh VS. The Sinful Hoards in Noah

Best Cameo:

Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy

My Most Anticipated Film of 2015:

Jupiter Ascending:  I’ve liked all the directors’ previous films and I’m super excited to see original, grand scale science fiction being realized on screen.  Sadly, while everyone complains so heavily about a lack of originality in movies, bemoaning sequels and remakes, everyone also seems bound and determined to ignore anything original.  Well, I’m gonna be there, dang it.  And so should you.  For the future.  For America.  For the children.

Top Twenty:

20.  Nightcrawler
19.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier
18.  Tracks
17.  The Signal
16.  The Rover
15.  Particle Fever
14.  Life Itself
13.  Tim’s Vermeer
12.  Belle
11.  Automata
10.  The Raid 2
9.  Cold in July
8.  All You Need is Kill
7.  Mr. Turner
6.  Ida
5.  Guardians of the Galaxy
4.  Jodorowsky's Dune
3.  Under the Skin
2.  Godzilla
1.  The Grand Budapest Hotel

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/8/14-6/14/14)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

All You Need Is Retitled!

Tom Cruise's badass looking mech suit movie, All You Need Is Kill has been quickly retitled for Comic Con to the painfully banal Edge of Tomorrow.  Is this a good idea?  Hollywood is obviously afraid of the grammatically bizarre handle, but I think it was just strange enough to put butts in the seats.  Cruise is a questionable commodity these days (similar to Johnny Depp); where once there was name recognition, Cruise's celebrity is no longer enough to bring the crowds to the big screen.  For me, fan of Cruise or not, the below image of The Great One in a mech suit running from a giant wall of fire is plenty reason to put butt in chair.  And I love the crazy of the "All You Need Is Kill" title.  Edge of Tomorrow?  That sounds like a lameass Disney side attraction.  They better bring it to San Diego, but whatever your brain surmises in Hall H means nothing come game day.

--Brad