Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/24/14-8/30/10)

    Not much in the way of movie viewing this Week in Dork, but I had a lot of fun and got a lot done.  So there’s that.  It all started with a journey in to DC with Rebecca, where we checked out Andrew Greene and the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra.  Turns out the Kennedy Center does a free show every evening, and Sunday night it was some Ragtime and Charlie Chaplin.

One A.M.:  Charlie Chaplin does his Drunk bit, as a wealthy guy trying to get to bed.  I would say the whole thing goes on a bit too long, even with a run time of 24 minutes.  But some of the stunts and gags are quite impressive, and a few of the laughs come from deep in the belly.  It’s an odd complaint, but this probably should have been about 4 or 5 minutes shorter, and would have been a better piece.  Still fun, though.

Altered States:  I’ve been hearing about this movie (rarely anything positive) for a long time, and nearly seeing in for nearly as long.  So, I finally sat down to watch it, and…I liked it.  It’s part of that 70s post-hippie, utopian idealist, scientific failure subgenre I enjoy so much (see also; Rabid, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Idaho Transfer, the middle seasons of Lost, etc.).  William Hurt shows uncharacteristic amounts of emotion (ironically, playing an emotionally distant character).  Bob Balaban is enjoyable.  The effects are a mixed bag, but they get the job done.  I can’t say that I loved it, but I certainly enjoyed it.

    I know I’ve found a keeper when she says to me, “let’s not go in to DC for dinner and a movie tonight; let’s sit on the couch and watch Channing Tatum films.”  Done and done.

She’s the Man:  Getting past the fact that at no point would anyone with functioning eyes or ears mistake Amanda Bynes for a guy, this is a pretty standard, kinda bland teen comedy with echoes of Shakespeare.  Young Channing Tatum displays some genuine charm with his physical comedy, even if emoting isn’t his strong suit.  Plus, isn’t it like a law (since 1972) that a girl who wants to play on a sports team is allowed to try out?

Step Up:  Typical of low budget teen films, this story of a Channing Tatum from the wrong side of the tracks and a girl from a privileged upbringing is moderately sweet, and lacking in any surprises.  Beat for beat, it follows the path you know it will in all the ways you expect.  But in that, it has its own dumb charm.  The streets and the halls of higher education must come together to save the world of dance!

    On Friday night, Ben and I sat down to another 70s classic.  I’ve been in the mood to crack back into some Blaxploitation lately.  And you can never go wrong (well…) with Fred Williamson.

Hell Up in Harlem:  Low budget, and sometimes ill made, but darned fun.  This sequel to the Godfather retelling Black Caesar is filled with crazy angles, wildly moving camera work, and NO SECOND TAKES.  So much fun, so silly, so low budget and over the top.

    On Saturday, we headed in to the National Book Festival.  This was my first time attending it for my own edification, and it was pretty cool.  Like Baltimore Comic-Con, but for book nerds.  It was held in the Convention Center, which was MUCH better than having it on the Mall.  We saw Sandra Day O’Connor and her brother H. Alan Day.  H. Alan Day has written a book about rescuing wild mustangs, which was cool.  Lynn Sherr talked about her biography of Sally Ride, which was fascinating, and hit me hard in my science organ.  Eric H. Cline talked about his book 1177 B.C., which made me really want to read it.

    I ended up with some time on my hands while in the City on Saturday night.  I was going to do some reading or something, but instead I thought I’d do some prep work for some stories or something.  Ended up actually writing a short story, which was surprising and gratifying.  A good day, and a nice end to a good week.

-Matthew J. Constantine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

A Fistful of Summer Anticipation 2014 (Brad's Picks)

So, technically, the Summer Movie Season starts this weekend with the release of Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  That seems phony baloney to me.  We're already a month into Summer Movies thanks to April's Captain America - The Winter Soldier.  In fact, I don't think this world is ever NOT in the Summer Movie Season.  We've been marching towards this moment since Jaws lined the blocks.  Now, we could all hang are heads and moan at the loss of Big Budget Drama Dramas like Citizen Kane or Kramer vs Kramer.....or we could all just admit to ourselves that we never liked those films in the first place.  I kid!  I kid!  I love Citizen Kane like all self-respecting film freaks should, and I love the little films, the art films, and the serious films as much as I do the spandexed ones.  But I'm a film freak born out of Star Wars, and I will always be a genre boy at heart.  So Jaws gave us B Movies with A Budgets and I've lived my entire life joyfully under its spell.  

2014 has been a lot of fun so far, and as I look at the Summer calendar, I find myself giddy with anticipation.  I feel much better about this year's crop than last; I feel no nagging trepidation in regards to any of the films listed below.  No Star Treks Into Darkness.  No Pacific Rims.  And dear god, hopefully no Prometheuses, as that's a disappointment I'm still kinda in denial over.  Sure, I can't really claim that I'm overjoyed to see the over-stuffed Amazing Spider Man 2 or X-Men Days of Future Past.  In the era of Marvel Studios and the geekgasm of The Avengers, it's hard to take these missed marks coming from Sony & 20th Century Fox.  The Suits, try as they might, don't seem to have an understanding of their characters in the same fashion as Marvel.  I'll be there opening night (got my ASM2 tix already), but the jonzing is simply not there.  Prove me wrong Electro, but I was not impressed by the previous film or any of the 19 millions film trailers you've assaulted the internet with so far.

But I love crap!  And there looks to be a lot of silly movies coming out over the next four months to keep my inner hipster cackling.  The Expendables 3!  THREE!?!?!  How is that possible?  The first two films are so wonderfully dumb, and 99% of my enjoyment is stolen straight from a nostalgia for those beautifully barbarian 80s.  However, that warm fuzzy memory seems poisoned these days.  Dullards like The Last Stand, Bullet To The Head, Escape Plan, and Sabotage have spoiled the childhood sheen a little bit.  Nine years ago, Robert Rodriguez brought Frank Miller's hardboiled terror noir comic Sin City to the masses, and it was a visual feast of unapologetic hedonism.  I have very mixed feelings in regards to that film (Jessica Alba's Nancy as Stripper Goddess?  Uh no), and after a string of DIY disasters I'm not sure I really care for another round.  Transformers Part IV?  Dinobots.  That's cool.  Maybe.  I recently rewatched Michael Bay's autobot behemoths, and I found them culturally fascinating but mostly boring.  Still, the insanity of Pain & Gain is fresh in my noggin and I'll be there for the next wave of Baysplosions.

Crap could turn to gold, or it could just sit there stinking.  Wading through Trans4ormers, Maleficent, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hercules, etc may leave even the staunchest of Blockbuster Enthusiasts queasy from the sour popcorn dreams.  That's certainly how I felt last September.  This year though, we do have a train of Little Engines That Could hiding under the tentpoles.  I am really excited to see Joe Lansdale's novel Cold in July adapted for the movies; I might not have dropped Michael C Hall into the lead role but Sam Shepherd & Don Johnson are inspired casting.  Filming over the course of 12 years, I am really curious to see how Richard Linklater's Boyhood tackles a coming of age in real time.  Luc Besson promises a return to female ass kickery with Scarlet Johansson and Lucy.  The Weinstein's can't keep a good Korean director down, as Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer finally barrels into theaters.  And I am crazy excited to see The Wachowskis tackle John Carter of Mars with Jupiter Ascending.  Don't hate.  These guys are the perfect choice to elevate Flash Gordon family adventure into big dollar mainstream acceptance.  Looks silly?  Sure.  But werewolf Channing Tatum for the win.

And speaking of the adorable genius of Channing Tatum, let's get to this Summer's Big Guns....

5.  22 Jump Street:  Wow.  What a difference a few years can make.  Not too long ago, I had no problem mocking the acting chops of Channing Tatum.  GI Joe - Rise of Cobra...yeash.  But the man kept working.  And he got a whole lot better.  The 21 Jump Street reboot was a serious revelation for me.  Not only did it transform disdain for Tatum into an uncontrollable man-crushing adoration, but it proved directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller to be the saviors of lost causes.  Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, Jump Street, The Lego Movie.  These guys prove that talent can turn any needless cashgrab into art.  Give them Ghostbusters 3.  Give them Freddy vs Jason vs Ash.  Give them Before Watchmen.  Give them whatever, I will anticipate it.  And I sure as hell will show up for another outing between Jenko & Schmidt.  "Fuck You Science!"

4.  All You Need Is Kill (a.k.a. Edge of Tomorrow):  On paper this sci-fi Groundhog Day has very little appeal.  But then you see Tom Cruise in that mech suit...and then Emily Blunt unsheathes a crazy large Warhammer 40K broadsword, and suddenly I'm jittering in my seat.  It's no secret around here that I have a soft spot for late-in-life Tom Cruise pictures.  Knight & Day, Jack Reacher, Oblivion.  Haters gonna hate, f 'em.  The man does earnest, and that's essential to whacked out worlds like this one.  Doug Liman might not be your go-to action director, but the man loves his wonky high concepts, and I'm hoping he's finally struck gold with this robotech thriller.

3.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  Apes on Horses!  Apes on Horses!  That's it.  Done.  Oh, you want more reasons to see this film?  How about the fact that we're finally getting to the hell of living on the Planet of the Apes.  Rises's origin story wasn't half bad, but James Franco was checked out for most of the film and he was easily upstaged by a computer monkey - er, ape.  Andy Sirkis also happened to deliver the best we've seen yet from mo-cap performance, and I have a feeling he's going to hit Oscar heights with this new & improved rebel leader Cesar.  End of the World stories are fun enough, but the Post-Apocalypse has always been the more interesting tale for me.  The Last Men vs The New Apes.  War.  Yes.  Jason Clarke?  Yeah, forget Franco.  Matt Reaves is a director dying to prove his talents, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is going to be the film where the rest of the world sits up and notices.

2.  Godzilla:  I spent several months prepping for Captain America - The Winter Soldier.  And boy did that fanboy fetishizing pay off in a big, big way.  Gareth Edwards's Godzilla remake is the next film to entice me into crazed backlog devouring.  I've always been a big fan of the original film, but I'm a late comer when it comes to Mothra, Rodan, Gigan, and friends.  As I've been picking away at the various rubber suits, I'd love to say that my inner kid has been reawakened...but that kid has never been asleep.  I'm a proud stunted youth, and I spend the majority of my time reveling in the art of cartoons, comics, and movies.  Duh.  But that stomp towards the remake has certainly kept the inner kid satiated.  Not just goofy fun.  There is a thrilling display of imagination in those films.  Ishiro Honda may not have had the budget or even the talent to deliver badass monster movies, but he certainly had the freedom to dream whatever kooky world he wanted.  He never let a reality roadblock get in the way of telling a King Kong story.  Now Edwards, he's got the budget.  And based on Monsters, he's got the talent.  I have high hopes that this Godzilla is going to deliver in a way that no other Monster Movie has.  Bold talk.  Bold hope.  I had a similar dream for Pacific Rim.  I like what I'm seeing from the trailers.  Fingers crossed.

1.  The Guardians of the Galaxy:  Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor.  You may have thought it was all leading up to The Avengers, but you'd be wrong.  All Marvel Studios has built has been leading to The Guardians of the Galaxy.  They've sold the world on Super Heros.  Now, if we're going to continue down this rabbit hole, we need to branch out into the weirder, wilder stories of the four color realm.  Iron Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 20.  How long can that character hold our interest?  If James Bond is any indication, at least 40 years.  But Marvel has a whole helluva lot more characters to offer, and I want more from them than just capes & cowls.  Guardians of the Galaxy looks like it could be an energetic mix of Star Wars knockoffs.  Take the best of Ice Pirates, blend in some Buck Rogers, and a little dash of Krull and you've got what could be a rollicking time out at the movies.  But talking trees?  Rocket Raccoons?  Is the world ready?  I am.  Whatever blood James Gunn squeezes from this stone, I beg of you, please go out and see Guardians opening weekend.  We want more than Captain America Part 15, right?  We want Doctor Strange.  We want Black Panther.  We want another Howard The Duck.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (1/5/14-1/11/14)

Blink and you'll miss it.  That's what this week felt like.  2014 has barely started and I can already feel it slipping away.  I spent a good chunk of it compiling this year's Cinematic Resolutions, but I'm not quite ready to tackle any of them yet - which is certainly foolish if I have any hope in hades of devouring those Godzilla flicks before the latest reboot hits the big screen.  Gotta get hot.  I did manage to finish off Sweet Tooth & begin Grant Morrison's Animal Man.  Feels good to be tackling comics outside of the weeklies, and I hope it's a trend that lasts.  I'm tired of looking at all those unread trades piling up next to the bookshelf - Gotham Central, Doom Patrol, Infinite Kung Fu, Rasl, Swamp Thing, Loveless, and our next entry in the Graphic Novel Book Club, Sailor Twain.  New Year, and I want to refocus some of my dork energy into the other pop mediums.  Let's not forget I'm only halfway through Richard Stark's Parker series, and Darwyn Cooke is already adapting novels beyond my knowledge.  That ain't cool.

"What A World!" & "I'm Melting...I'm Melting!" by Jason Edmiston

I'm not bitching and moaning about the week, it just feels like it lacked focus.  I want to buckle down, but I guess I'm still decompressing from the massive 2013 movie dump I did in December.  This week started with a Late Show Drafthouse screening of Walter Hill's The Warriors.  My buddy Herms was in town from Texas, and it was a blast subjecting his fresh eyes to the Gang War crazy of late 70s New York City.  Yep.  This is the way it was folks.  Fact.  Matt & I also finally got ourselves around to witnessing the atrocity of the latest 47 Ronin.  Oh man.  What a waste.   So...yeah...the real highlight of the week was easily the Alamo 100 Raiders of the Lost Ark screening.  I've seen that film well over a hundred times now (at least 4 on the Big Screen), and it just never gets old.  Me & Indiana Jones?  It's true love.

The Warriors:  "I don't like the way you live." Ok.  I don't love The Warriors.  It's one of those seminal films of my youth that I just never bothered with.  The first time I saw the movie, I was 18/19 and well on my way to being a snooty film freak.  My initial thought back then was that Walter Hill perfected this sort of whacko gang land in his rock opera Streets of Fire.  Still, this film is a bit of a wonder, and I absolutely love its earnestness.  Here's a New York City in which Mimes rove the streets looking for trouble, where Baseball Furies terrify in warpaint, and where hillbillies in roller skates are the toughest dudes on the block. You can't help but chuckle at the sight of skinhead goons marauding about in a Road Warrior wagon. It's all about honor, friendship, and gash....uh...yeah, there are some awkward moments. The Warriors themselves always seem like a bad date away from running a train on their female companion - I know this, cuz our hero Swan says exactly that.  James Remar is the angry tough guy that gets taken off the stage when he fails to rape an undercover police woman.  So yeah, The Warriors, it's not too PC.  It's an icky fantasyland birthed from the same community fear that brought us Bernie Goetz and his cinematic Death Wish.   It's nearly two hours of confused, but somewhat intoxicating outlaw philosophy.  After all, as The Director's Cut clumsily establishes at the start, The Warriors is a story of courage similar to that of the 300 Spartans......uh....wha?

Sweet Tooth Vol 6 - Wild Game:  Gosh darn.  I just could not get past how damn sad this series got.  In a lot of ways it reminded me of Brian K Vaughn's Y The Last Man.  A Post-apocalyptic landscape.  An on-the-road quest to discovery the origin of a plague.  Bonds of friendship.  Bonds of love.   Maybe it's Lemire's somber, sometimes morose art-style, but I could never really connect to any other emotion than sorrow.  Sweet Tooth & Company finally reach their Alaskan destination, but the answers there are typically more ponderous than narratively satisfying.  Lemire writes a helluva page-turner; once I got back into this series, I was racing to the climax.  I love the sequential tinkering he puts his story through, and he's obviously having fun with the medium.  It's painfully refreshing to witness an artist utterly aware of his medium's visual importance.  This is not Brian Michael Bendis with neverending captions and word balloons.  Sweet Tooth is art.   But gloomy as hell, and I can already feel the story leaving my cranium.

Deceptive Practice:  The first time I encountered slight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay was as the narrator of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. That voice. Once heard it will live in your head. The next time I saw Ricky Jay was in David Mamet's Heist. That lead to an obsession with Mamet's films & plays which in turn lead to obsessions with Joe Mantegna, William H Macy, and Ricky Jay. Now for the first time, director Molly Bernstein takes us inside the tricks of Ricky Jay's trade. No, this is not a How-To on his artistry, but a sort of origin tale - a documentary that will drop your jaw in astonishment while also digging a bit into the history of stage magic. I'm a sucker for this type of thing. Penn & Teller. The Amazing Jonathan. Fun stuff. But Ricky Jay is an artist, a genius, and it feels like a privilege to get a peak inside.

Raiders of the Lost Ark:  "You want to talk to god?  Let's go see him together."  You know the deal.  On the verge of another World War, the American Government responds to rumblings of Hitler's Occult shenanigans by recruiting world renowned archeologist/adventurer, Dr. Indiana Jones.  It's an absurd premise born from the whacky pulp adventures of various movie serials, and succeeds thanks to Harrison Ford's uncanny badass charm.  This is one of those exceptional fits of character & actor.  Yes, you can imagine a world in which Tom Selleck traded idol for whip, but that's an offcentered Fringe universe where RC Cola reigns supreme.  No thank you.  The Big Bang Theory recently postulated that the good professor's presence in the narrative achieves absolutely nothing in the plot, but I actually think the futility of the Nazi's scheme adds an extra layer of apocalyptic gloom.  It's not a matter of Indy saving the day, but Indy bearing witness to God's Wrath.  Can't shake it.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is still the all time greatest adventure story.

47 Ronin:  If you're looking for an Asian Adventure with heavy doses of CGI then let me recommend Stephen Chow's Journey To The West.  If you're looking for a few against the many samurai slaughterfest then let me suggest Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins or the obvious Seven Samurai.  But if you're looking for the 47 Ronin saga told exceptionally then you better go with any other dozen retellings such as Kenji Mizoguchi's double feature or even Mike Richardson & Stan Sakai's recent Dark Horse Comic.  Cuz you're not going to want to bother with this one.  This film is nearly as lifeless as Keanu Reeves' performance.  It's a dull flop destined for banishment in the Wal-Mart five dollar bin or the black hole of streaming services.  Maybe some ignorant child will discover a curiosity for the genre after stumbling across it, but that's the best possible future this 47 Ronin can hope for.

21 Jump Street:  "They don't serve vegan in jail, bitch!"  I lost money on this one.  No way did I think a cinematic reboot of a crappy teen beat cop show from the 80s was going to work - especially one fronted by GI Joe's Duke Meathead.  Directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller obviously enjoy a challenge; coming off a hilarious weirdo adaption of the unadaptable children's classic Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, they go foul mouthed, meta absurdist, and weirdly violent for the buddy cop genre.  21 Jump Street is too damn odd to be this generations Beverly Hills Cop, but I appreciate the life & death stakes filtered through a gross-out, silly Superbad sensibility.   And Channing Tatum shines with his role.  He's an adorable idiot wandering the world of nerdom and discovering humanity while Jonah Hill descends into assholehood via the cool crowd.  It's a dumb ass movie with brief hints of legit high school commentary.  Something the original show could never claim.

The Other Guys:  Playing with the same Buddy Cop nostalgia as 21 Jump Street, Will Ferrell & Mark Wahlberg are the station house dolts that never walk away from explosions while the world champions the heroics of Sam Jackson & The Rock's Lethal Weapons.  But when aiming of the bushes results in a Wile E Coyote-styled roadkill splat, Ferrell & Wahlberg rise to the challenge of gunkata gymnastics.  Although seemingly impossible, The Other Guys is far stupider than 21 Jump Street, but that's the universe of Will Ferrell, and it's impressive how well Mark Wahlberg inhabits the stupid - "I'm a peacock!!!"  The Bernie Madoff social commentary is welcome even when the actual mechanics of the plot get murky.  You're really just hear to watch Wahlberg torture himself over Ferrell's sexual ownership of Eva Mendes.  "Gator don't take no shit."

Cellular:  Based on a story by Larry Cohen (Hell Up in Harlem), written by Chris Morgan (Fast Five), and directed by David E. Ellis (Snakes on a Plane).  Cellular is actually an extremely entertaining thriller that fully commits to its gimmick.  Chris Evans is dragged all over Los Angeles after he answers an unknown caller, and a weak cell signal keeps him at an arm's distance from William H Macy's savior cop.  It all has something to do with corruption, video tape, and Jason Statham's sneering 5 o'clock shadow.  Sure, Cellular is disposable, but it's the perfect film to catch on TNT.

MST3K - Warrior of the Lost World:  "This isn't Mad Max, it's Sad Max."  The Italians know how to pilfer American Cinema better than most modern day Hollywood Suits, but for every Fistful of Dollars or Django, you get two dozen Warrior of the Lost Worlds.  Doing his best Blofeld, Donald Pleasence rules over a post-apocalyptic wasteland with the doomsday threat of Mega Weapon.  Robert Ginty mumbles his way into the heart of Persis Khambatta, and races through the ashes of exploded henchmen while Fred Williamson's reigns fire from above.  I really can't imagine surviving this movie without the Robot Roll Call, and MST3K feasts upon this horrid buffet with great gusto.  Lots of cheap shots, well played.

Tropa De Elite:  "Put your bad face on."  We're just a month away from Jose Padilha's Robocop remake, and as a means of battling my own anxiety, and thanks to my buddy Darren slapping an import blu-ray in my hand, I finally decided to see if all the fuss about Elite Squad is genuine.  Turns out, this is not the balls-to-the-wall shoot-em-up I had been lead to believe.  Elite Squad is an oppressive cautionary tale destined to keep me the hell out of Rio De Janeiro.  After years of battling unstoppable drug trafficking and corruption, Wagner Moura must find a replacement before his baby is born.  His options are a couple of kids facing their own hurdles in a vile system, and whatever the outcome the resolution seems utterly pointless.  Every Drug War story concludes in futility, but few have achieved such heartbreaking pessimism as Elite Squad.  There is plenty of action here, but I left the film more impressed with Padhila's societal assassination than his shaky-cam.  Hopefully he can retain that awareness for the Robocop.

Animal Man Vol 1 by Grant Morrison & Chas Truog:  I've owned these trade paperbacks for three years.  Only now am I tackling them.  Why did it take so long?  I have no idea.  I guess I was just waiting for Morrison to finish up his Batman run before tackling these supposedly iconic stories.  I think I was also nervous that they couldn't possibly live up to their hype.  Well, I'm happy to report, that the first volume of Animal Man is absolutely, utterly, stupendously fantastic.  And weird as hell.  Just the way I like my Morrison.  In the first four issues, stuntman Buddy Baker finally decides that its time to come out of retirement and embrace his mind-bendingly strange animal powers.  He can suck the life essence from any creature in his presence - meaning a bird above can give him flight or an earthworm below can help him regenerate a severed limb.  When he's hired by S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a giant puddle of monkey meat, Buddy Baker comes face-to-face with an even grosser lost hero of the DC Universe - B'Wana Beast!!!!!  It's an epic clash of the "Oh Dear God" and it's a sobering warning to any reader not ready for Grant Morrison.  This is the deep end kiddies, time to get nuts.  The next issue is a one-shot look into God's Lonely Man, Wile E. Coyote.  Yep, you read that right.  No Looney Tunes character is safe.  You also get the apocalyptic art of Hawkworld, a super villain satirizing of Edgar Allen Poe, and a home invasion from Mirror Master.  Those looking for Superman should take a hike.  I've had a few things spoiled for me, but my understanding is that Morrison's Animal Man only gets better and more bizarre in the next volume.  Can't wait.

--Brad