Dork Art: Comic Con Minilist Classics

IGN revealed today that 20th Century Fox will be selling these exclusive DVDs featuring a batch of Olly Moss wannabe minimalist covers.  When it comes to these kinds of exclusives I'm always fascinated by how the suits choose the movies.  Why Child's Play?  Why The Fly?  Silence of the Lambs?  Donnie Darko?  I dunno.  And I'm not sure if I'll bother fetching them this weekend.  Maybe the Apes disc.  Maybe.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (6/23/13-6/29/13)

Skipped a Week in Dork for a Family Getaway to the OBX (only read a chunk of the Lone Wolf & Cub manga, and binged some Law & Order SVU when The Wife was sick for a day), but dove right back into the thick of it with some serious Movie House consumption.  I went back for seconds on both This is The End & Man of Steel, and although I won't give you double reviews here I can say that I enjoyed Superman much more the second time around; once I got past a lot of my comic book baggage I was able to enjoy the computer punching.  This Is The End, however, is still my film of the Summer.

I can hardly believe it, but I only read one single issue comic this week - Age of Ultron #10.  I've been up & down on this Marvel Event, and I'm sad to report that the final prognosis is negative.  Not the worst crossover Marvel's attempted (ugh, Fear Itself), but the time travel hijinks were obvious and ultimately boring.  As with all things Marvel, the story is all about what's coming next, and not the story you have in front of you.  As fascinating as all the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane Angela mumbo jumbo is, I really do not care about this character's introduction into the Marvel Universe.  Who knows, maybe Bendis & Gaiman can do something great with her in Guardians of the Galaxy, but she's certainly not the O...M...G...moment you want to climax Age of Ultron.

Also this week, Alamo Drafthouse hosted their Silence of the Lambs Feast, which paired the classic chiller with actual Fava Beans & Chianti.  An expensive treat gifted to me by my lovely bride of four years.  Sadly, her job got in the way, and she could not attend the anniversary dinner.  So my co-dork Matt scored the date night, and we had an absolute blast chugging down glass of wine after glass of wine.  Not to mention that the Buffalo Bill Skinless Chicken Wings were amazing!  Only in America folks, "U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!"

The other treats this week came from Scorsese & Spielberg.  Rewatched Jaws in celebration of its 36th birthday, and finally witnessed his first film Duel as a remembrance of Richard Matheson.  I entered a new stage in Scorsese's career with The Color Of Money, a film rightfully neglected in his cannon, but also one containing some of his finest sweeping camera moves.  And finally, this Summer's big screen entries (World War Z & White House Down) were just a couple of turds.  No shock there.  Anyway, on to the reviews....

Jaws:  I watch this one at least once a year.  Still ranks as my fifth favorite film of all time.  No question.  I tend to direct most of my love towards Robert Shaw's Quint, and his epic USS Indianapolis storytelling, but Roy Scheider is the one who really makes this movie work....as well as Spielberg's confidence to let the screenplay breathe before plunging him into the oceanic serial killer finale.  Scheider just embodies good guy morality.  He perfectly sells his fear of the water.  We're given an hour of beach cringing, ferry boat anxiety, and autopsy horror before the Chief chokes down his fear and gets on the boat.  The guy does right in the face of community conspiracy as well as the cavernous maw of the beast.  He is everything I would want to be in the situation.  Hero Dad.  The craft and thrills are amazing, but they're only successful due to the heart placed in the characters by Benchley, Gottlieb, Spielberg, and the actors.  Can you imagine a tentpole movie these days spending so much time to establish love between characters?  It's rare now to get anything but bullet point emotions in Blockbusters, and Jaws is one reason film fanatics look back so fondly at the cinema of the 1970s, and rejoice in bashing bloated non-entities like Michael Bay's Transformers...despite the knowledge that Bruce the Shark birthed these B-Movie at A-Budget monstrosities.

The Color of Money:  This is a painfully mediocre movie.  I can't say I was bored during any particular part, but I was certainly left uninspired as the credits rolled.  What's evident is that Scorsese is perfecting his camera theatrics, and that Paul Newman commands the screen whenever he's projected upon it.  Young Tom Cruise though?  His pool hall wiz kid routine grates the nerves like nails on a chalkboard, which is an essential aspect to this teacher/student story, but the film fails to reach beyond genre cliches.  I've never seen The Hustler, so I could be missing essential aspects to this sequel, but at this point in my Scorsese-A-Thon I'd rank The Color of Money at the very bottom of his filmography.  It seems like a financial stepping stone to his long-desired The Last Temptation of Christ.  Whatever you gotta do, I guess.

World War Z:  Everything Jaws does right, World War Z does wrong.  The Hero Dad here is Brad Pitt, a supposed everyman who gave up the high stakes stress as a UN Investigator to play Mr. Mom.  When the world goes to the walkers, the remaining bits of the US Government swoop to his rescue, choppering his family to a floating fortress in the Atlantic Ocean.  Why does the US of A need Pitt?  Cuz only he could babysit a think tank geek across the globe, and discover the zombie plague's point of origin.  Really?  Ok, whatever.  It doesn't matter anyway since the brainiac lasts three seconds on screen, and the rest of the film chases Pitt across the world as he hits one dead end after the other.  I suppose the emotion of this film is meant to be found in the cellular conversations with Pitt's weepy wife, but the screenplay only gives them seconds to be teary before the next CGI swamp blobs the frame.  Much has been made of the troubled production, the chop-shopped screenplay, and the last minute reshoots.  Maybe if Pitt's team had more confidence in Max Brook's source material then we could have been blessed with a scary Ken Burns styled mockumentary instead of this PG-13 limp noodle.

Wrong:  "I looooooove pets."  Quentin Dupieux's Rubber followup is another art house student film done right.  With the help of William Fichtner's mysterious Master Chang, unemployed sadsack Jack Plotnick attempts to relocate his dog.  Did he simply run away, or was he dognapped?  There's some other kooky business involving Eric Judor's gardner & Alexis Dziena's pizza slut, but the main focus of the film is solving the riddle of the pooch.  Well, talking about focus when discussing a Quentin Dupieux film is problematic if not downright pointless.  A bunch of weird shit happens.  You're either into it or you're not.  I enjoyed Rubber more as it was easier to define as a deconstruction of the horror genre.  Wrong is just...weird.  I'm either not smart enough or stoned enough to discover its essence.  I love Fichtner & Plotnick.  I could watch these two bumble through an Oscar Meyer commercial.  And I'll certainly be there for Dupieux's next film.

Age of Ultron #10:  The first five Bryan Hitch issues of this comic were a beautifully broad look at the Marvel Universe laid to waist.  Then you get Wolverine's time travel band-aid.  Ultron leaves the story, and a new batch of whacky chaos occurs.  Issue 10 finally brings us back to Ultron and it's the mini-battle we saw during Free Comic Book Day a couple years back.  And then we get a bunch of blather about the space time continuum.  Just groan.  This series certainly had its moments (again, those first five issues), and I'm gonna give it another go in a singular sitdown reading, but I am left yet again with a tepid Marvel Event.

Duel:  A solid little flick that certainly shows the makings of a master filmmaker.  Steven Spielberg's Duel is a simplistically torturous thriller.  Dennis Weaver's salesman zigged when he should have zagged, and in one throwaway instant brings upon the ultimate epic of road rage.  Spielberg succeeds in holding our attention, no mean feet considering the film never leaves one stretch of highway.  Weaver is a disgusting mess of twitches and screeches, and half the time I wasn't sure if I wanted him to knock the beast off the cliff or get squished into road pizza.  I can't rank Duel as one of my favorite Spielberg courses, but it's certainly indicative of the primal power the maestro contained in the 70s & early 80s.

The Silence of the Lambs:  "He's some kinda vampire?"  Before Anthony Hopkins Freddy Kurgered the Hannibal Lector character into absurdity, Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs terrified audiences with its masterful true crime fetishizing.  This grisly procedural might have been spun from the real life horrors of Ted Bundy & Jeffery Dahmer, but by embracing the theatricality of Spaghetti Western closeups and scenery chewing performances, Demme's film never feels exploitative.  In fact, Hopkins' Lecter feels more at home with Dracula & The Wolf Man than his real life counterparts.  Jodi Foster excels as well as the southern sleuth battling daddy issues while navigating the grotesque.  She's prim, proper, troubled, and badass.  Her conversations with The Cannibal are as suspenseful as any of the bloodshed, and her climactic duel with Buffalo Bill is the cherry on top of this hideous feast.

White House Down:  Why do I keep showing up to Roland Emmerich movies?  Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, 2012.  The man makes one dreadful film after another.  I've never been a fan, but I keep showing up.  Is it time to cry NO MORE?  I think so....but then I'll see the trailer for ID4Ever; Channing Tatum will be punching a grizzly bear through the cockpit of a spaceship, and I'll get all excited for craptacular filmmaking and toss my cash in Emmerich's lap.  There's one of me born every minute.  White House Down attempts to recall your nostalgia for Die Hardy action films of yesterday, draping Tatum in a McClane wifebeater and buddying him up with President Air Jordans.  Unfortunately, the DC disaster show is a crappy collection of blurry CG, the dialog an abomination of wisecracks, and the homeland threat an embarrassing peek into James Woods' mortgage planning.  Max Renn's gotta eat!  I like silly.  I like dumb.  But ultimately White House Down is just a bore.  I don't like that.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (12/23/12-12/29/12)

Here it is.  The last "real" week of 2012.  Amidst all the Ho-Ho-Ho and Jingle Bells was the last ditch effort to capture New Movies into my brain; it was a mad dash to consume in an attempt to make my upcoming Dorkies as complete as they possibly can be.  Thanks to On Demand & Netflix Instant, I was able to see a lot of those flicks I missed earlier in the year...none really knocked my socks off though. Frankly, nothing could excite me once I saw Django Unchained.  QT's latest floored me.  And I cannot tell you how happy I am to end the year with one of its very best films.  A much more thrilling experience than last year's so-so War Horse.

I am so happy to have the Holidays behind me - the retail madness has pretty much come to a close.  And The Wife & I had a wonderful Christmas with both our families.  As usual, she won the gift giving battle by supplying me with James Bond's favorite Scotch, a Black & White Darwyn Cooke Batman, and some crazy looking Terminator knock-off legos.  I am so lucky to have found a woman who not only understands my boyhood fantasies, but is my greatest enabler.

Killer Joe:  "Do You Want Me To Wear Your Face?"  Yikes.  Matthew McConaughey channels his Texas Chainsaw Massacre persona and delivers one of this year's most delightfully unsettling performances.  That being said, I didn't really like this movie.  Sure, it's got the greatest use of Fried Chicken you'll ever encounter in cinema and all the other actors do a fine job at portraying their despicable characters, but the narrative never excites since you can pretty much guess where this kidnapping plot unravels...that is until the drumstick emerges.  I want more manic McConaughey in my life.  If Tom Cruise delivers wonderfully unnatural intensity, McConaughey is the master of handsome insanity.  He radiates madness like no other - the aforementioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4, Reign of Fire, Surfer Dude, Frailty.  He's perfectly fine as the good boy scout, but when he's chewing around a psycho killer?  That's entertainment.  I just wish the rest of the film was more interesting than its fishbowl leering on poor white trash.  And Gina Gershon, just keep your pants on.

Die Hard:  If you were to push my face into the ground, twist my arm around my back, and force me to name my All-Time Favorite Straight-Up Action Film I would have to cry Die Hard.  Like the best action films of the 80s, it's wonderfully simple.  A New York Cop trapped in a building with a dozen money hungry terrorists.  There's enough emotion at stake thanks to the cop's troubled marriage, and the death of a few key innocents but for the most part it's just an excuse for Bruce Willis to machine gun his way through various squibby set pieces.  And those squibs?  Have there ever been better bags of popping fake blood?  Don't think so.  Alan Rickman's diabolical Hans Gruber is as dashing as he is scary, and his final drop from the heavens is so completely satisfying.  To top it all off, it's a Christmas Movie!  There is no better film to watch when you decorate your tree on Christmas Eve - that's exactly what The Wife & I did.

Inglourious Basterds:  "We Will Be Cruel To The German!"  One of the most satisfying climaxes in movies.  Watch a film like Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice, get your brain really dark and depressed and then immediately follow it up with The Basterds.  You will hoot and holler with bloody enthusiasm as Brad Pitt and the rest of his Apache Warriors exact their gleeful vengeance on various Nazi scum.  But this is not just a World War Kill Bill.  It's still littered with dazzling film references and that now typical mashup score, but there's no distraction in its execution.  It's another feast of Tarantino dialog; the language here is dangerous and often scariest aspect of the film.  The opening scene between Christophe Waltz's Jew Hunter and the poor French farmer is some of the most suspenseful cinema this side of Hitchcock.  In fact every scene with Waltz is horrifying, no matter how wide his smile or extreme his gesticulating.  But as hard as he tries to steal this film, Inglourious Basterds is really Melanie Laurent's movie.  And as fun as it is to see Brad Pitt's dirty dozen scalp their prey, the real satisfaction comes from Shosana's fiery retribution.  I genuinely find Basterds to be a cathartic movie watching experience; having been force fed the horrors of history all my life, it feels incredibly good to give myself to Quentin Tarantino's rulebook.

Django Unchained:  Want to get nuts?  Lets get nuts.  Django Unchained may very well be my favorite Quentin Tarantino film.  That seems extreme, I know.  I'm not totally sure I believe it just yet.  I know I have a predisposition towards Westerns (or Southerns as the case may be here), but I don't think this is another case of being blinded by Appaloosa.  This is genuine love.  Fanboyish, sure.  My reaction to Jamie Foxx's final moments in this film were rather similar to The Hulk's declaration of "I'm Always Angry" - pure, unadulterated joy.  Django Unchained feels like an emotional sequel to Inglourious Bastereds.  But where as the cathartic vengeance release in Basterds relies mostly on your predetermined hatred for Nazis, Django Unchained explicitly depicts the horrors of slavery.  There are moments in this film that are tough to watch - some of them release awkward reactionary laughter, some honest Blazing Saddles comedy.  But that's what QT specializes in, he runs the gamut of emotions and couches them in genre.  This is exploitation at its very best.  Jaime Foxx's Django lives in the nightmare landscape of Sergio Corbucci, but the script offers him a fairy tale hero's quest and in rescuing his bride from the clutches of Leonardo Dicaprio's plantation monster Foxx succeeds where Kunta Kinte failed.  There is no high road here.  We want the low road.  We want Django to whip these hateful beasts to death.  We want the horrors of slavery to be vanquished through blood.  It's a fantasy.  And in my fantasies I want violent triumph.  If you've cheered with Jim Brown's Slaughter than you know exactly what I mean.  If you haven't, if you want the history lesson...stick with Roots.  But Inglourious Basterds & Django Unchained are a blast of operatic rage against racism and they both offer a pleasure not often experienced in contemporary cinema.  It's a base need, maybe you don't need it or want it, but I most certainly do.  And the fact that you can also play QT's Where's Waldo game of Spaghetti Western references and Hong Kong snap zooms, that's just icing on the cake.

John Dies At The End:  "That dog just saved the universe."  I really, really, really wanted to enjoy this movie.  Don Coscarelli's Phantasm films are staples of Halloween, and his adaptation of Bubba Ho-Tep is much better than I ever thought possible.  The trailers for John Dies At The End promise all sorts of weirdo monsters and violent hijinks, but as I found myself drifting away from the movie I couldn't help but think of this science fiction as a wannabe teenage version of Cronenberg's Naked Lunch.  It seems to be trying really hard, but from nearly the very first shot we're never given a moments rest from the main character's insanity...or whatever.  It's a whole lot of kooky, but kooky a movie does not make.

Universal Soldier - Day of Reckoning:  "That's the spirit soldier!"  I probably enjoyed this much more than I should have, but I couldn't help but fall victim to its bloody beatdown charms.  I would love to tell you that this is Jean Claude & Dolph Lundgren's movie, but like the previous Universal Soldier flicks this franchise now belongs to Scott Adkins.  But ya know what?  He's seriously badass in this film.  He has a showcase fight sequence set in a sporting shop that rivals Gina Carano's Fassbender whoopin found earlier this year in Haywire - the man knows how to crack a skull with a baseball bat.  And when it's time to go Versus against JCVD & Lundgren, the man holds his own against these aging monsters of action.  Their final showdown easily excites more than any phony baloney CG shoot 'em up found in either of the Expendable films.  Machetes and blood.  That's what this action audience wants.

Beasts of the Southern Wild:  It's this year's indie darling, and it totally won me over.  Set in this surreal, post-apocalyptic(Katrina?) island called The Bathtub, a young girl and her father fight to survive the challenges of their environment.  As the wild child Hushpuppy, Quevenzhane Wallis is a natural force of childlike wonder; she offers the type of performance impossible to find beyond the age of reason.  But as much as I was captivated by her astonishing abilities, I was equally enraptured by Dwight Henry's Wink.  He's the proud papa - not so much of his child (although that's there too...eventually), but of the world he inhabits and the four alarm fire he once bedded.  There is a fiery heart to be found in his contempt for the world outside The Bathtub; he doesn't understand that world and he doesn't want it to understand him.  This is not so much a coming-of-age story as a passing-the-torch story.  Wink lays out the spread, the buffet of the universe for young Hushpuppy to feast upon.  It's up to her to crack into the crab and Beast It!

FDR - American Badass:  Oh boy, oh boy.  This movie is just wrong.  But wonderfully so.  Unlike the tepid comedy failure of Iron Sky (see last WEEK IN DORK), FDR succeeds in never shaking from its horrendous buffoonery and outright assault on historical - no, scratch that - human decency.  As you watch Barry Bostwick scream his Presidential victory howls while dousing a gallon of milk upon his chest you'll be awestruck by the producer's ability to snag these actors for this beautiful cinematic atrocity.  Ray Wise, Bruce McGill, Kevin Sorbo, Lin Shaye, William Mapother?  I know you guys will work for a sandwich, but how'd you get here?  But ya know what?  They all go for it!  They've bought in to this ridiculous charade, and they scream their lines with pure trash movie conviction!  JELLYBEANS!!!!!!!!!!

Cosmopolis:  David Cronenberg meet Robert Pattinson...wait, what?  That was my initial reaction upon hearing the news of this oddball partnership.  The Twilight Kid riding around in a Cronenberg limousine driven by novelist Don Delillo?  After a few minutes thought that sounded like a wonderfully mad idea worth backing - and those early trailers made Cosmopolis out to be his new Naked Lunch.  But, unfortunately, the film is much more pedestrian than desired.  Another asshole protagonist raping the world around him.  Sigh.  But I think I just have to let go of the old David Cronenberg.  If I'm looking for new incarnations of The Brood than I should just watch Beyond The Black Rainbow again, cuz the Canadian Cinefiend is firmly established in the run-of-the-mill human monsters these days.  Cosmopolis is a nasty little hit at Capitalism, a touch obvious, but the bumps in the road are watchable.  But I can't get freakout crazy for this flick.

Deadfall:  A somewhat solid wannabe Elmore Leonard crime tale.  Siblings Eric Bana & Olivia Wilde are on the run from the law in the winter wasteland of the Canadian border.  There's a bundle of stolen cash, a dead police officer, and a potentially incestuous relationship.  In stumbles Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, a convict boxer looking to fall in love through a pair of Olivia Wilde's panties.  There might have been an interesting relationship between the three leads if not distracted by wasted B plots involving Kate Mara's policedaddy issues and Kris Kristofferson disapproving Thanksgiving dinner.  More treachery & violence and less furrowed brow melodrama.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/2/12-12/8/12)

    Work continues to dominate my time.  Though I’m reading a couple really good books right now.  One on the Byzantine Empire and one the autobiography of the pretty awesome Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  And Friday boosted my Dork cred with another meeting of the graphic novel club.


Lincoln:  This epic of American history manages to make many of the names from the history books seem a bit more like real people.  Though still holding Lincoln up as the wise old god, passing down justice and always on the right, it is a bit less one-sided than most portrayals.  Not nearly as maudlin as the trailers would have you believe.  But getting past the cynicism, the film is uplifting and sweeping.  The cast is excellent, and the relationship between Lincoln, his friends, his opponents, and the common man is very powerful.  An array of ‘that guy’ actors lend support to the stars, and they bring their most excellent facial hair.  Good stuff.

Anna Karenina:  Highly stylized, even more than Joe Wright’s work normally is, this lavish production is beautiful, but perhaps a bit too concerned with visual flair than with story or character.  The actors all do a good job, but at the end of the day, Anna is a horrible, flip-flooping, self-involved bitch, and her boyfriend is a vacuous pretty boy.  It’s hard to feel for them, as they crush and destroy everything and everyone around them in the name of their empty passion they mistake for love.

Hugo:  I still find this a bit odd.  It starts out as a fairly typical kids’ adventure film, set in a train station some time after World War I.  There are hints of mystery, the magic of books, that sort of thing.  But then, about a half hour in, it takes this turn, becoming a tale of movies and the love we have for them.  A broken old man in a run down old toy shop is more than he seems, and a boy with noting left is driven to find out the truth.  For any film buff, this movie is a must.

Immortal:  This movie is certainly visually interesting.  Sadly, the script is absolute garbage.  The characters make choices and say dialog that doesn’t seem to have any logic.  The world created is interesting, but so vague that it’s nearly impossible to feel grounded enough to care about anything or anyone.  Egyptian gods, alien incursions, mutant red hammerhead sharks, a girl with blue hair (got to have blue hair), and lots of CG people.  You can kind of tell that writer/director Enki Bilal used to write comics that appeared in Heavy Metal.  It has that European comic feel (beautiful but stupid).  I can’t recommend the film if you’re looking for a good story.  But if you want to turn your brain off for a while and enjoy some interesting imagery, go for it.

Men in Black 3:  “You’re distressing.  Everything about you upsets me.”  It’s the sequel that nobody was asking for.  The boys are back.  Somehow J doesn’t seem to have come to terms with the nature of his job, in spite of more than 10 years passing.  The time travel gags are actually pretty funny, though.  And the 60s aliens are cool.  The villain, Boris, is genuinely disgusting.  The script was a heck of a lot more clever and the story more interesting than the second film.  All in all, a pretty entertaining film.

Dark Shadows:  Finally, Tim Burton had a chance to redeem ten years of spitting on his early success with a franchise nearly tailor made for his style.  With Dark Shadows, he could embrace the Hammer Horror vibe he reached for in Sleepy Hollow and run with it, ramping up the Gothic dread and mystery.  Or, he could do a crappy Adams Family rip-off.  Set in “Maine” (seriously, it’s totally not the England!) in the 1970s, I genuinely think this could have been something…other than crap.

Killing Them Softly:  Ouch.  This is a collection of sad bastards, dumbasses, and scumbags.  They all get together in the ugliest city outside of OCP occupied Detroit, to screw over, smack down, or murder each other.  And all while being depressing, awful people.  And the Ray Liota beatdown has to be one of the most horrible things I’ve seen.  He’s so sad, and gets so much kicked out of him.

The Package:  The Cold War is winding down, and an old soldier gets wrapped up in a conspiracy to keep it going.  A trip to The Fugitive’s Chicago and a team of crack character actors are needed.  Everything looks good and depressing as the chess board takes shape.  There’s really nothing especially good about this movie, but it’s a fine bit of action/espionage fluff.

Life of Pi:  Wow.  If you’re looking for vacuous pap, the kind of garbage some ‘spiritual healer’ might blather on about on Oprah, then you’ve come to the right place.  This is the ultimate expression of the idiocy, ‘it doesn’t matter what you believe (what silly, made up BS, that is) so long as you believe something.’  And as that ultimate expression, it is about as vapid and useless as it gets.  Basically a kid wanders around and stuff happens; he’s on a boat with a tiger and stuff happens; then he’s not on a boat and stuff happens.  Or not.  So warm up the drum circle, pop on the Shadowfax cd, spark up a doobie, and just let the universe flow, man.  And if the mumbo jumbo chicanery of the story isn’t condescending and trite enough, you can always watch the Richard Dryfus wannabe, hipster author listen with exasperated, ironic but sensitive interest to Yoda…I mean adult Pi tell his Grandpa Simpson stories (“I was wearing an onion on my belt!”).  Twelve years ago, Ang Lee made one of my all time favorite films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Now he’s making something worthy of latter day M. Night Shyamalan.  What happened, dude?  You used to be so beautiful.

The Campaign:  “I crapped GOLD.”  Featuring the best baby punch I’ve seen in film, this goofy political send-up has its moments.  The jealous dogs crack me up.  Everyone seems to be having a good time being silly and saying stupid stuff.  But it’s not quite as tightly scripted or consistent as I’d have liked.  Worth a watch if you’re in the mood for some stupid comedy, but it’s not amazing.

    I watched another disk of Winds of War, this one dealing with the attack on Warsaw and the aftermath.  There are some interesting characters, for sure, but most of them drift in and out of the story for only the briefest of times.  The main cast is kind of drab.  Even Mitchum’s character has little to do but stand stiffly and look disapproving.  It’s just interesting enough to keep watching, but not much more.  And I watched another disk of Magic City, which is starting to grow on me.  The characters are becoming a bit more interesting.  I’m just hoping that at least one of the big ‘problems’ gets resolved by the end of the season.  I like Danny Huston, but his snarling ogre villain is too obvious and too pointlessly evil to stick around, and I’m hoping one way or another, he’s out of the picture in the finale.  We’ll see.

    Friday night, Lisa and Brad hosted another night of the Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club.  This time up, The Avengers: Children’s Crusade.  Opinions were split, with some people really enjoying it, and others totally hating it.  I fell on the hate side, as you’ll see in my full review.  We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the massive array of characters and any motivations they might have had.  And trying to figure out the good guy/bad guy ratio.

Gambiiiiiiit!!!

-Matt

A Big Pile o' Zombies - World War Z Trailer

Oh wow.  This trailer for World War Z looks terrible.  I love Brad Pitt as much as the next guy (meaning, I LOVE HIM!) but this CGI suckfest is embarrassing.  Thank 28 Days Later for the whole fast zombie thing, but who do we have to thank for that big pile of zombies?  Oh yeah, the end times!



--Brad

Dork Art: Alex Pardee's Inglourious Basterds

Just awesome.  Brad Pitt's American Eagle taking out Hitler.  Alex Pardee delivers a nasty Ralph Steadmanesque image in celebration of my second favorite Tarantino flick (numero uno still being Jackie Brown).  I'd proudly display this on my wall.  Time to find a print.

--Brad

Dork Art: Mondo's Killing Them Softly

Mondo's got a trilogy of posters all set for the Killing Them Softly release.  My favorite is the one above, but the other two are pretty nifty in a conceptual kinda way.  Not sure I necessarily have to have them up on my wall, but I haven't seen the movie yet either.  It's still one of my top five most anticipated flicks of the fall and I'm hoping for big things.

--Brad