Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/7/13-4/13/13)

    I figured before Brad went into fits, I’d best start up Deadwood again.  I’d started watching it a couple years back, during an awesome Western month, but things happened and I didn’t continue.  After cranking through Rome while I was on vacation last week…well, I wanted more Rome truth be told.  But instead I decided to pop this back in the old DVD player.  They sure do talk pretty in Deadwood.  C&%$suckers, @$$f*&%ers, $#!tkickers, c#!%s, and lots of other words I typically use old-style comicbook style profanity for.  There’s enough swearing in this show to make salty sailors blush.

The Seventh Seal:  “My flesh is afraid, but I am not.”  Young Max Von Sydow is bloody terrifying, with his blond hair and his chiseled face.  He has a very sinister way about him.  This meditation on death and the fear of death is set against plague ravaged medieval Europe.  Von Sydow and his worldly squire have just returned from the Crusades, tired, bitter, and nearing death.  When the Grim Reaper arrives, they begin a chess game to decide fates.  As the story progresses, we meet a traveling circus with a goofy clown, and his comely wife, and their young boy.  Each step along the way, we meet various people trying to come to terms with life and its meaning.  There are some great discussions both funny and touching about love and living.  And some dark delvings into fear and horror.  It’s bawdy and thoughtful, and rather strange.  Even Death himself is rather funny, and sinister.  Interesting combinations in the movie.

Excalibur:  “Rest in the arms of the Dragon.”  Oh, John Boorman, you mad bastard.  Stylized and surreal, Excalibur is anything but naturalistic or realistic.  It is operatic fantasy, an epic poem on film.  He even opens it with my favorite piece of Wagner, Siegfried’s Funeral March.  Everyone is Shakespeare acting, bellowing dialog at the top of their lungs like devotees of the great god Brian Blessed.  You can imagine that John Q. Public circa 1350 might have imagined the story playing out much like this.  No connection to reality or history, but dwelling in the deepest and strangest of mythology.  What always kills me about this story is how kind of awful the ‘heroes’ are.  It takes all of two seconds for Lancelot to betray his ‘best friend.’  Of course, it took all of two seconds for them to become best friends in the first place, and just as little time for Arthur and Guinevere fall in love.  It’s not that I want the film to be longer, but it feels like it is supposed to be.  It feels like large chunks are missing.

L’Incoronazione di Poppea:  “Your breast deserves a sweeter name.”  Rome still on my mind, I lucked into having this one come in.  I didn’t actually know it was about Nero and his devil-wife Poppea.  It’s well produced.  I was surprised to see that it was from 1984; it felt more recent.  I’ll admit that I’m not more than a rank amateur at this whole opera thing, but I’m pretty sure I don’t care much for Italian opera.  So far, I’ve typically preferred the German stuff.  But again, I’m kind of new to it all, and still testing the waters.  Part of it is the music itself.  I want something a bit more epic and sweeping, where the Italian stuff I’ve heard so far sounds like little more than a harpsichord and a few violins (even when there’s a whole orchestra).  If you silence the singers and listen to Wagner, it’s still compelling music.  If you silenced the singers in this opera, I’d be wondering what I should order from the wine list, and hoping the cream sauce isn’t too rich.  Now, I realize what follows is an awfully shallow observation, but I’m an awfully shallow guy.  The lead actress Maria Ewing seems built for the stage.  From a distance, like from where you would see her if you were in the audience, she appears beautiful.  But up close, she looks kind of like a Muppet.  It’s distracting.  I don’t know if it’s bad plastic surgery, weird make-up, or she’s just an odd looking woman.  But it kept weirding me out whenever the camera would zoom in.  I wonder if she’s from a coastal town, ‘cause she has a touch of the Innsmouth Look about her.  But then, the guy playing Nero looks kind of like the Fat Kid from every 80s teen comedy, so what do I know?

Prehistoric Women:  “Strangely enough, the swan dive was invented before the swan.”  You know what I like in a narrator?  I like a narrator to explain in detail exactly what’s happening on the screen.  That’s great.  It reminds me of the masterworks of Stan “The Man” Lee.  Due to a brief domestic dispute, a woman leads a bunch of her tribe away from the men (like five guys), to create a tribe of ladies who know how to do stuff (like fish unsuccessfully and get caught by giants).  Years later the children of this splinter faction return to get them some lovin’ from Not Russ Tamblyn and his buddy Not Sal Mineo.  The battle between the ladies and the men would later be echoed by the epic opening of Saving Private Ryan.  Truly harrowing.  I believe this is based on the same Shakespeare play that inspired Captain Caveman.  Certainly, the totally authentic prehistoric language, consisting of as many as 5 words, seem to encompass the range of human communication eloquently.  The film adheres to the great Raymond Chandler’s advice, “when in doubt, have two women wearing animal skins wrestle for a few minutes.”  As the narrator says, “it seems that women were women in those days, too.”  Boy, I’ll say.  I bet if you checked, you’d find that their legs went all the way up.  The erotic mating dance is pure interpretive genius.  The pteroducktyl may be the most terrifying use of stock footage of a waterfowl ever captured in cinema.  I hope the AFI will finally relent and name this one of the greatest films of all time.  It deserves the credit after all these years.  The discovery of tools, fire, misogyny, cooked meat, and how to drive off ducks all in one generation.  Amazing.  And the use of the grunting, hairy giant as a metaphor for our loss of humanity in an ever increasingly mechanistic society was thought provoking to say the least.

Spies-A-Go-Go:  “Ve noticed the sign und ve are rocking und rolling enthusiasts und ve are here for the dance.”  Everything is better when it’s A-Go-Go.  In case, like me, you find the comedy stylings of Benny Hill a bit too cerebral, there are options, like this fantastic spy adventure comedy staring Arch Hall Jr. and his amazing Giant Face.  See, you know it’s funny, because there’s zany music and ethnic stereotypes.  And of course, the funniest thing ever to happen in the history of funny things, a dwarf trying to rope a cow.  Pure.  Comic.  Gold.  Cowboy Jaws knows it.  Creepy, giant faced Arian monster Elvis, Arch Hall Jr. makes for a heck of a singing secret agent.  Forget Val Kilmer in Top Secret, it’s all about having a huge face and knowing how to mug the camera…mug for the camera.  Always remember to watch out for snakes.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture:  There’s not really much plot here.  It’s kind of a summation of all the various ‘find a supercomputer’ stories from the old show.  But it also lays the foundation for Trek to come, and ideas from this film echo on.  Ilia and Decker become Troi and Riker.  V’ger becomes the alien probe from The Voyage Home, and I think partially inspired the Borg, too.  The music is good.  The effects are nice.  And I like a lot of what makes it to the screen.  But there are some unnecessary scenes, and though I like a lot of the sequences of flying through space and around objects, there as room for trimming for sure.  But I don’t think this movie deserves the derision it typically receives.  I respect them for trying to keep Trek its own thing and not just follow Star Wars’ lead by making it action heavy, as they would do in Wrath of Khan.

The Vanguard:  This low budget sci-fi horror film has a deep running, very bent sense of humor.  There are hints of Evil Dead, Mad Max, Dog Soldiers and some other lower budget, fringe films.  It’s sort of what I was expecting from Bellflower (not the hipster snooze-fest I got).  Don’t get me wrong.  It has some serious narrative flaws, giving some character backgrounds that don’t exactly add up to motivation, losing the thread a few times, and it features a let-down ending.  Still, it has enough going for it that fans of low budget stuff should find something to enjoy.  The final blood explosion really doesn’t work, though, and it’s kind of a bad way to finish up, with a memorably ineffective special effects shot.  I did like the lead actor’s weird deadpan beard acting, though.

Beyond the Valley of the Doll:  “This is my happening and it freaks me out!”  Heavy weight philosophy, the dope, rock n’ role, an aggressive ambisexual, and more boobs than a Congressional subcommittee.  The wild world of Russ Meyer, the greatest dirty old man to ever point a movie camera at some bimbos in bellbottoms.  While it is obviously a ‘bad’ movie, it’s kind of great like only bad movies can be.  It’s so danged surreal, with scenes that don’t seem to have anything to do with the plot, characters acting in ways that don’t make any sense, and a tone that would be hard pressed to be less even.  Joke joke joke --Beheading!!!  Sing sing sing -- Attempted suicide!!!  Yet, for some reason (other than the enormous boobs), I was very entertained.

Lost, Lonely, and Vicious:  “Yes, I know how it feels to be lonely…Wanna Coke?”  They may not be rebels, but they’re sure without causes…and clues.  Johnny Dennis and his vacuous jerk buddies don’t know what they want but they’re willing to sit around in a café and bitch to get it.  A young James Dean type guy is about to screw up his whole life because it’s going too well.  The glitz and glamour ain’t all it’s cracked up to be…I guess.  One day I do want a cute young lady to hold my bongos.  If it’s at a lake, all the better.  This is a heartfelt movie, if not a very good one.  It feels like the MST3K boys should take a go at it, but at the same time, it really does have a lot of heart.  The ending feels false, though.

    I watched a few old shorts on Friday night.  Crisis in Morality was a delightfully stupid Christian fluff piece about how everything fun or worth doing is evil.  Hell is a Place Called Hollywood is a nice sleazy short about the dangers of going to Hollywood, which almost certainly is the product of exactly what it’s about.  It features a bunch of cheeky nudity in the name of education.  We need to see the young starlet take her clothes off in the story of a young starlet who is exploited and made to take her clothes off.  It reminded me of that awesome Social Disease short from Amazon Women on the Moon.  Those pesky reform school girls are the subject of the third short, Little Miss Delinquent.  The lead girl in that one is surprisingly good.  I wonder if she went on to anything, or if her weird side-bite kept her from success.  And it’s Canadian, which makes it extra special.

Jacktown:  “All of a sudden you’re like…Gettin’ headaches.”  Whenever I review a uh…movie, I think I’m gonna dramatically uh…pause.  This is how you know I’m very uh…serious.  The two dimwit punks we meet seem to have a uh…inability to talk about what they’re talking about.  It’s like those villain conversations where the bad guy talks about ‘taking care of’ someone, or somebody ‘having an accident,’ but never actually says what he means outright.  When Blondie McDouche gives an underage waitress the business in his sweet convertible, he goes to the slammer for the statutory rape.  What follows is a kind of After School Special type prison experience, as the emotionless surfer-dude goes through the prison paces.  Then, through the ultra-kindly platitudes of the warden and the ministering of his bobbysoxer daughter, he gets the Jesus in him and becomes a good boy.

Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks:  The beginning of the final stretch for classic Who, this is the episode I always think of when I remember Sylvester McCoy’s run.  The Doctor and Ace head back to 1963 and uncover some funny doings.  A annoyingly typical military dullard is in control of a unit of soldiers investigating, at odds of course, with the scientists who are trying to figure out weird energy sources.  Ace is especially cute in this one, letting her hair down a bit, and getting a chance to drop the hammer on some baddies.  She’s probably the closest companion the Doctor ever had to the great Leela.  The storyline makes interesting connections to William Hartnell, implying that he had some specific reasons for being on Earth at the beginning of An Unearthly Child that he was unable to accomplish.  I like when they build on the Doctor and his past, dealing with things he did even so far back as the first stories.  This is a pretty good Dalek story, and certainly feels more like traditional, pre-Trial of a Time Lord stuff.  One complaint I have is the voice of the Daleks; there’s something off about them here.  But I like their look, one group in white and gold, another in black or grey.  And the ‘special weapons’ Dalek is fab.

Monsters:  “The vibe just changed.”  Scoot McNairy does something I’ve rarely seen in film here.  At the beginning of the movie he makes you hate him so much; not because he’s bad, but because he’s just such a sniveling turd.  But as the movie goes on, he wins me over, growing as a character and maybe becoming more of a man.  And he does one of the only really effective drunk performances I’ve ever seen.  Beyond that, this low budget science fiction/horror film is surprisingly effective.  A photographer is tasked with getting his bosses daughter back home to the United States from Central America.  The problem is, most of Mexico is covered in what is known as the ‘infected zone,’ a region covered in invasive alien life.  I suppose there’s an element of social commentary, looking at how giant disasters effect those without the financial means to escape and the extreme methods people use to get to America (not to mention the advantage taken of those who try).  But overall, it’s a road trip adventure movie mixed with elements of classic Kaiju.

    I finished Scatter Adapt and Remember, a pretty darned good book about how we might survive an oncoming mass extinction.

    “The greatest Bruce in rock is Bruce Kulick, guitar player for Kiss 1984-1996, from Brooklyn.  Case closed.”  I read issues 7, 8, and 9 of Hawkeye.  It’s a fine comic, but I still don’t get what the big deal is; why people are going so apenuts for it.  There are some funny bits, and I like that they’re keeping a lot of the more outlandish superheroes and villains out of it.  But I still hate the art, and I still don’t see what makes people so gushy about it.  I guess it’s like E.R., or Seinfeld and Friends, or Richard Geer.  I know they’re popular, so they must have something that makes people watch.  But whatever it is is totally lost on me.

    “Gods are such beautiful creatures, I’ve never been more sure of that.  Because I’ve seen what they look like on the inside.”  I then read issues 2, 3, and 4 of Thor: God of Thunder.  Only one more issue to go in the God Butcher story arc.  The first issue was great, with a lot of ‘holy cats!’ kind of potential.  Once the story really gets going, though, it’s only pretty good.  I don’t know if maybe, like Godzilla The Half Century War, it should have been a bit longer, like say 10 issues, or if the idea wasn’t quite as good as it seemed like it might be.  I’ll have to read the final chapter in the story to find out for sure.  Still, I love the art and there are a lot of intriguing ideas.  I want more of Thor doing intergalactic P.I. work.  Even the appearance of Iron Man, which initially bothered me (the first panel, with the two of them flying together, gave me that heart sinking feeling when you’re hoping for a new pony but get a pair of socks), is handled pretty well.

    “Get the boys to load her into the car--Then you can dump her like a gentleman.”  On a roll, I figured I’d read the first two issues of the new Rocketeer miniseries, Hollywood Horror.  Now, I love the Rocketeer and I love Lovecraftian horror.  And I even see ways they might work together.  This ain’t it.  I dislike the narrator intensely and I absolutely hate the art.  It’s like a super-crappy kids comic, the sort of thing only kids would be so lacking in sophistication as to accept as passable.  It looks like the worst stuff Cartoon Network dishes out.  Anyway, in spite of my Rocketeer love and immense gladness that the property is being developed, I can only hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come, simply a speed-bump along the way.

    “I really hope that brown river has something to do with chocolate…”  Yeah, they’re not that great, but Futurama comics give me a nice bite sized chuckle.  The writing is about on par with later seasons of the show, not the classic amazingness of the first few.  The art is fine.  It’s not something anyone needs to rush right out and buy, but if you’re looking for something quick that gives you a laugh, it’s a pretty good choice.

    And to round out my comic reading for the week, I ended up finally sitting down to the two Morbus Gravis trades I picked up years ago.  Man, I like the art.  I don’t think much of the content, though.

-Matt

Brad's Two Weeks in Dork! (3/17/13-3/30/13)

Hey ITMOD readers, long time no see.  Glad Matt's been keeping this place tidy & organized, but I've just come off a long streak of work and even though I managed to watch a crap ton of movies & tv I really haven't had the time to shove it into the void of the internet.  Saw 6 2013 new releases, but with the exception of Room 237, each theatrical outing proved to be a disappointment.  It's April now.  Side Effects is still my favorite film of the year.  This cannot continue.  I need quality filmmaking stat.

The film that's really grabbed my noggin these past couple of weeks was Holy Motors.  I'm still trying to process all the crazy contained in that surreal headtrip, but what is certain is that Denis Lavant is a beautiful monster.  Just look at that mug up top in the header.  That's a dude who's lived a life.  A strange, wild, absurd life but one I want to see played out in a franchise of Holy Motor limo rides.  And while we're at it, why don't we pair his gorgeous mug with Nicole Kidman's red eyed rage face from Park Chan Wook's Stoker.  That film may not have been what I was looking for, but the climactic closeup of Nicole Kidman's contempt for her offspring sent chills down my spine.  Make it your wallpaper and you'll become entranced by her Lovecraftian nothingness.  But before we get to Stoker, we must suffer through banality...

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone:  Steve Carell, he's funny right?  I've enjoyed him in movies.  Brick in Anchorman, love that guy.  Crazy Stupid Love, there's a dad you root for.  The 40 Year Old Virgin, that's me...or was me until I tricked a lady into coming back to my toy filled apartment.  But Burt Wonderstone...he's an unfunny ass.  I certainly enjoy the world he inhabits.  I've been fascinated with stage magic since I saw my first Penn & Teller show.  And the debate between old school vs new school (Chris Angel, give me a break) is ripe for comedic exploration.  But this film is chuckles at best, yawns at worst.  Steve Buscemi is in Adam Sandler mode here.  I love you Steve, you're doing your finest work on Boardwalk Empire right now, but this stuff is way beneath you - come on, you're beyond funny face yucks.  Jim Carrey is violently disgusting as the Brain Rapist street magician, and if you've been missing the days of Fire Marshall Bill than you'll probably enjoy his assault.  Olivia Wilde, do better movies!  Alan Arkin is the only guy who gets away with it.  The man's a working actor.  You win some, you loose some, you certainly move on to the next paycheck.

Blacksad - A Silent Hell:  Private dick John Blacksad and Weekly the reporter travel to the Mardi Gras hell of New Orleans to investigate the disappearance of Blues musician, Sebastian "Little Finger" Fletcher.  Another solid Blacksad mystery.  Guarnido's art is lighter & brighter down south, but as the dope fiend conspiracy spreads into medical malpractice manslaughter, the shades get sour and the gin joint panels go pitch black.  All Blacksad tales feel more style over substance, but they can survive on the beauty of mood.  How much you love these stories probably depends on how much you love noir, and how open you are to furry interpretation.  I will say that A Silent Hell is too brief to contain its Dark Horse Hardcover and the sketchbook back half is not profound enough to warrant the 20 dollar price tag.

Stoker:  Park Chan Wook makes beautifully upsetting movies.  I still hold Oldboy as cinema's greatest revenge film.  And Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is pure sadness on screen.  Thankfully, for his first English language feature, the director brought his steadfast cinematographer Chung Chung-Hoon with him across the pond and they've crafted another pretty picture.  Unfortunately, a pretty picture does not make a good movie.  Stoker is utterly forgettable in terms of plot.  After her father dies in a mysterious car crash, Mia Wasikowska must suffer the flirtations between her emotionally empty mother and her sexual predator uncle.  Not to mention her own violent tendencies bubbling to the surface.  I think what I wanted was Oldboy USA.  Instead what I got was Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer.  Is that the film's fault?  No.  But Stoker is as emotionally empty as its players.  Nicole Kidman might give an epic speech of Greek Tragedy child hate, and Matthew Goode might have the perfectly quiet eyes of the devil, but what does it all amount to?  A girl with a gun.  Blood splattered flowers.  A pretty picture.

My Amityville Horror:  Ghosts.  I'm not a believer.  I don't want to get into it too much, but I've certainly never experienced anything in my life to hint at the existence of Caspers.  Every time I see a spook story "Based On Actual Events" I role my eyes and try to enjoy the fiction.  In this documentary, Daniel Lutz attempts to explain the phenomena that's haunted his life ever since the release of the "classic" ghost story The Amityville Horror.  He talks about the ghosts, the flies, and the blood he witnessed when he was 10 years old.  He talks about his mother, his stepfather George Lutz, and the fame they sought after they became minor 70s celebrities.  It reeks of bullshit.  But it's sad bullshit.  How much does he believe?  How much reality was implanted by the film and its endless sequels?  How much of it is his own grab for acceptance?  The film certainly doesn't leave me with a belief in the supernatural.  Daniel Lutz was defined by an event that occurred when he was ten.  That's a depressing thought, a sad curse for sure.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Push The Sky Away" @ The Strathmore:  A few years ago during the Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! tour, The Wife & I were lucky enough to see The Bad Seeds at the 930 Club.  We got right up to the stage, and Nick Cave screamed his songs above us - the shepherd leading his flock.  It was an epic dork experience.  The finest concert I've ever been a part of.  Now they're back.  But The Strathmore is not the 930 Club.  It's a concert hall.  Big, spacious...BIG.  And The Wife & I had seats way up in the balcony.  Looking down on The Bad Seeds as they quietly pushed the sky away was like watching a concert on MTV (you know, when MTV actually televised concerts).  It was a good time.  But it certainly wasn't epic.  Their latest album is a soft spoken poem.  Cave whispers his words.  It's hypnotic in its own way, but it's not the punch to the gut I often look for in The Bad Seeds.  For the first half of their performance they stuck to the new album.  The best tune from that part of the show was "Jubilee Street" The Bad Seeds couldn't help but ramp up the song, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear them transform the ballad into a rock opera - beating and bashing a crescendo.  The second half of the show were the classics.   Red Right Hand.  Deanna.  Stagger Lee.  Even way up high, it was easy to thump to those beasties.  A good night out, but not a religious experience.

Lawless:  After the high of the Nick Cave concert, I needed more of his lyrical grit.  I could have snapped up the nightmare landscapes of The Proposition or The Road, but chose Lawless cuz I've also been craving Tom Hardy's mumble mash dialog.  I want to love this movie.  I love the period.  I love the look.  I love the cast.  Even Shia.  But it's lacking in the narrative.  And it never gets as brutal as I desire.  I want the whole film to be Tom Hardy & Jason Clarke covered in mobster blood.  You get a brief glimpse, but it never descends into proper moonshine hell.  John Hillcoat & Nick Cave made a masterpiece in The Proposition.  They may never equal that beast again.  I'm okay with that.  But hopefully they'll scrape the surface of the sun again.

Justified - Season 4 "Decoy":  Raylan Givens, Deputy Bob, & Rachel attempt to flee Drew Thompson from Harlan County.  Theo Tonin's goons patrol the skies in their helicopter, and Boyd Crowder unleashes sniper Colt upon a decoy of Marshall SUVs.  This is the most intense chase we've seen from this show yet.  And even though we get some machine gun fire and a molotov cocktail, the greatest action of the show occurs without a bullet being fired.  Timothy Olyphant shows off his badass side once more with a grin, and some harsh words directed at the Detroit Mafia.  Seriously, just when you think this man can't get any cooler he pulls another trick out of his bag.

Rust and Bone:  This film is curious.  Marion Cotillard is a whale trainer who drinks too much when she goes clubbing.  Mathias Schoenaerts is a street fighter bouncer with a bratty kid and an unstoppable sex drive.  After a horrible killer whale accident severs the legs of Cotillard the two find friendship (if not love) in the sex act.  Not to mention some serious dough in the art of bum fighting.  What the hell?  I don't get it.  Both characters feel like manipulations to poke my heartstrings, but Rust and Bone fails to capture my emotions.  Cotillard & Schoenaerts are sooooo not good for each other and as the film marched towards its climax I did not care if they found comfort in each other or not.  Then the ice breaks.  More sadness.  Shoulder shrug.  French, man.

Holy Motors:  "I Have A Plan To Go Mad." I man wakes up in his apartment, he opens a secret door in the wall, and steps into a cinema. Denis Lavant enters his Tardis-like limousine, he travels the passageways of Paris. When he exits the limo he's someone else. A female beggar. A flower gnashing maniac with a hard-on...I mean, an appreciation for cemeteries and fashion models. With the help of his chauffeur and vanity mirror he takes on various appointments; wild trips into cinematic genre where he might encounter Kylie Minogue one moment and battle off track suit gangsters the next. What does it all mean? I have no idea right now. But I already have a strong desire to rewatch the film. The interlude in which Lavant leads an Accordion Gang down a corridor while rocking the Doctor L cover of RL Burnside's Let My Baby Ride is hypnotizing. A youtube classic at the very least.

Prometheus:  A trip to Toys R Us yielded a Michael Fassbender David toy into my collection.  Why do I bother to collect action figures for a film I find so frustratingly mediocre?  Cuz I have hope in my heart, and that maybe my next viewing of Prometheus will reveal a genuine masterpiece.  There is so much to love about this film.  Fassbender.  David.  This should have been his story, and in turn the story of man's continuing evolution.  Instead Noomi Rapace bungles about the spaceship hiding from her tentacled fetus, swinging an axe at whatever Frankenstein storms out of the shadows.  Lame.  And Guy Pearce, stay outta this picture!  You and your makeup have no place here.  Ridley Scott certainly knows how to film sci-fi, and I really don't need to dump on screenwriter Damon Lindelof any further.  The man has taken his lumps.  And I'm sure he's not the sole credit to this film failure.

Olympus Has Fallen:  How much do you love the sight of the American Flag being burned, torn, tossed, and riddled with bullets? How much do you love seeing skulls popped with gun fire? How much do you love seeing emotionally crippled secret serviceman jab knives into the brains of evil grinning Koreans? If your answer ranges from a lot to a fuck ton than you will absolutely adore Olympus Has Fallen. Gerard Butler is the only man strong enough to survive an onslaught of tourist butchering North Koreans, and he manages to blast his way into the fallen White House where platoons of GIs and Navy Seals could not. This is a ridiculous film. To call it jingoistic doesn't even scratch the surface. Melissa Leo, face-punched, screaming, crying, and hailing the pledge of allegiance as she's dragged off to her execution is fascinating in its humorlessness - this is bonkers, absurdist entertainment. And if you're hipster enough than you'll find joy to be had in the Mars Attacks! toppling of the Washington Monument and Gerard Butler's "This Is Sparta" terrorist bashing.

Deadwood - Season 2:  It might be hard to believe, but season two is even better than the first.  As the stage carrying Mrs. Bullock and her son William arrives to Deadwood, Sheriff Bullock & Al Swearengen bash on each other in the thoroughfare after a casual exchange of insults.  The brawl leaves Bullock with a couple lumps, but pretty much puts Swearengen out of commission for the first round of episodes.  Al's absence allows for an agent of George Hearst to sink his talons into the business of camp.  New villains appear, and Bullock is too busy not putting the screws to The Widow Garrett to notice the evil descending.  Garrett Dillahunt returns, but not as the killer of Wild Bill, but a new character far more sinister, the geologist Francis Wolcott.  He steals nearly every scene he's in, and I love how uncomfortable Powers Boothe is in his presence - if you make Powers Boothe squirm than you are a genuine devil.  Season 2 puts each Deadwood player through the meat grinder.  This is not the kind of show where people get knocked down and dust themselves off.  They get knocked down, wallow in the mud, and dig themselves straight to hell.

Law Abiding Citizen:  This film comes oh so very close to being the great contemporary update of Michael Winner's Death Wish.  A home invasion takes the life of Gerard Butler's wife and daughter.  He survives the attack, but his eye witness testimony is deemed circumstantial and Jaime Foxx's huckster D.A. pleads the killers into a short jail term.  Butler begins plotting.  Law Abiding Citizen is not concerned with simple revenge.  In fact, Butler dispatches the scumbags who took his family pretty early in the proceedings.  Mr. Butler's anger is larger than an execution.  He sets his sights on the justice system.  Judges.  Lawyers.  Mayors.  These are the real criminals.  And the film does an excellent job putting them on the bad guy side of the screenplay.  As the heads of fat cat judges pop and sleazy defense attorneys smother, Gerard Butler's Death Wishing finds great satisfaction with the audience.  The problem is Jamie Foxx.  Apparently he's the real good guy.  Not the way I see it.  The screenplay should let Butler slaughter his way to victory - screw Foxx's sense of "good."  I want Butler to break authority.  I want him to be Charles Bronson on top.  Law Abiding Citizen pretends to have a morality.  And that's where it fails.  This just isn't the type of story where good beats evil.  Still, the first 2/3rds of this flick are so close to 70s pessimism that it's worth a watch or two.

Gamer:  Now here's a film that revels in its amorality.  Set in one of those "Not Too Distant Futures," Gamer introduces a world in which players live the bodies of Slayers, controlling their movements on a kill crazy field of combat.  Gerard Butler is Kable, a Slayer with just three kills to freedom.  But, of course, there's no way master blaster Michael C Hall will allow such a victory.  Directors Neveldine & Taylor treat extras like chum, and they make violent exploitation pictures rarely seen in this day and age.  Having just days before whimpered at the CG blood spatter of Olympus Has Fallen, it's a treat to see a flick like Gamer gush with splashes of stringy Karo syrup.  Real squib work equals flinchy revulsion.  But it's not all blood & guts.  Gamer actually has some biting truth or commentary to it.  If this technology was made available to us, I am 100% positive we'd have large chunks of the population signing up for the Sim City wannabe, Society.  In relishing the grotesque, Gamer succeeds in properly mocking our whackjob internet culture.  A culture I'm firmly and terrifyingly a part.

Spring Breakers:  Here's another flick I'm still processing.  Is there something more to this than sexploitation?  Is there something more to it than just seeing Selena Gomez & Vanessa Hudgins in bikinis?  My first reaction is, no.  No matter how much Terrance Malick dialog overlaying occurs or how much James Franco K-Feds the scenery, Spring Breakers is little more than a navel gazer.  What's the deal with Spring Break sexuality?  I have no idea.  It's a cesspool of free will.  Add machine guns and wannabe gangstas and you've got dumb people killing dumb people.  Girl empowerment?  Don't think so.  Just an excuse for these actresses to shed their goodie goodie personas.  But they leave the real dirty work for Rachel Korine and the nameless jigglers on the fringes.  The perverts who show up for the Disney princesses will be sorely disappointed.

Justified - Season 4 "Peace of Mind":  Drew Thompson might be safely in custody (well, that's what we're left to believe), but poor Ellie May is still floating out there in the Holler.  She quickly becomes the season's final grab, with Boyd & Ava desperate to plant her in the ground and Raylan's crew doing their Law & Order routine.  But this episode's highlight really belongs to Tim & Colt.  Ron Edlard's junkie goon has struggled all season to find his place in Boyd's gang.  Does he find redemption here?  Or doom at the end of Tim's barrel?  Either way it's a proper button for his role in the season.  Now all we have to worry about is Nicky Augustine, the long arm of Theo Tonin.  He's got to die.

Fatale #13:  Another peak into the past of the Fatale universe.  Black Bonnie is a bandit of the wild west.  Possibly a descendent of Josephine, or at the very least a female gifted the curse of power over men, Bonnie falls in with a snakeoil salesman and a redskin warrior.  Naturally they can't stay free from the clutches of the cult and we get a pretty brutal showdown.  I was really looking forward to this Western tale, and even though it was solid stuff, issue 13 doesn't add much to the mythology.  It certainly wasn't as Earth shattering as the previous issue - I want more Lovecraftian terror at the point.  Still, Fatale is the best book on the stands and even a weak entry in the series is still better than 90% of the other books out there.

Batman Incorporated #9:  John Layman, Peter Tomasi, and Scott Snyder might have all had the first cracks at depicting Batman post-Damian's slaughter but the only voice that matters on the subject is Grant Morrison.  No matter what anyone tells you, those guys are working in a different reality.  Damian Wayne didn't die in The New 52 - he got gutted in the Morrison arc, & that's where the emotion of his absence is really going to be felt.  Issue 9 jumps back and forth in time.  In once scene Bruce, Tim, Dick, & Alfred are burying the boy's body in the backyard.  In the other Bats is going toe-to-toe with the Damian clone, jabbing fingers into eyes, stomping swords bare footed.  Both transactions are brutal and painful.  Morrison's epic run is winding down.  As stated before, it's had its peaks and valleys, but for the most part this saga has been stellar.  Batman might have already died and come back in his tenure, but nothing has hit the solar plexus quite like Damian's execution.  And Batman is going to destroy Talia Al Ghul.  Bitch got to die.  And then he's gonna salt the Earth with the hot toasty ashes of the Damian Clone.  F that thing.  But first he has to tell Bat-Cow that young Damian is dead.  And, damn, that's one sad moo.

G.I. Joe - Rise of Cobra:  This movie sucks.  Marlon Wayans.  Cobra Commander Rex.  The mindwarped Baroness.  The Mech Suit hippity hop.  Snake Eyes has lips.  I hope Stephen Sommers has been properly banned from Hollywood.  You know, tarred, feathered, stoned, drawn & quartered.  Each body part shipped off to the far corners of the Earth.  Buried and consumed by graboids.  I'm not saying that the GI Joe cartoon or its toy line deserves great amounts of our respect, but there was potential for a really silly & fun action film here.  A wide array of weirdo characters battling it out with green and red lasers.  I can take stupid.  Hell, I love stupid.  But I've got no place for lame.  And GI Joe - Rise of Cobra is lame.

G.I. Joe - Retaliation:  "Does Brenda get a vote?"  This is going to sound weird, but I was hoping that director Jon Chu would bring some of that Step Up 3D flow to the action of Retaliation.  There are some moments (Flint's parkour charge, the cliff top ninja assault) but for the most part GI Joe Part 2 is depressing in its banality.  Yes, The Rock was unable to save this franchise cuz it's certainly not Fast Five.  Sure, the toys get more play here.  Cobra Commander looks like Cobra Commander.  The Rock gets a badass tonka truck to tread.  And Jonathan Pryce was obviously having loads of fun on set - he hasn't hammed this hard since his Tomorrow Never Die days.  But Bruce Willis only pops up for his one day of filming.  The Rock never gets a beatdown brawl to battle despite a quick tussle with Ray Stevenson's Firefly (seriously!?!? Titus Pullo vs. The Tooth Fairy oh hell yeah!!!), and Snake Eyes saga goes way awkward with the inclusion of The Rza's latexed Blind Master.  Retaliation is a little fun, but I was hoping for some gonzo entertainment.

Homicide: Life on the Street - Season 1 & 2:  I've been craving to revisit The Wire but before I re-explore that depressing ass world I thought I'd give this ahead-of-its-time drama another spin.  Easily the best procedural to come out of the 90s, Homicide excels cuz it doesn't wrap each story at episode conclusion.  One of the early proponents of season long arcs, the Adena Watson murder never quite has  a solid resolution and what little it does have takes nearly 9 episodes to reach.  Meanwhile the players involved are left tortured and psychologically beaten.  I absolutely adore how cruel or ambivalent the show can be.  It's pure character work.  You don't watch to see who winds up behind bars.  You watch because you want the bickering of Munch & Bollander, or to witness the pride behind Pembleton's excellence.  I cranked through these two short seasons in a matter of days.  I'm already well into season 3.  Just great television.

LOST - Season 1:  Looking back it's easy to pick at the flaws of LOST.  Rewatching Season 1 with The Wife (our nighttime tv successor to DS9) it's stunning to ponder all the balls dropped from the narrative.  Walt's psychic "specialness."  Claire's baby.  And nearly all the various flashback stories.  Who cares about the countless reexaminations of Jin & Sun's marital problems.  At the same time, all that flashback mumbo jumbo is a lot of fun.  This is where our love for these characters begins (or disdain, cuz Michael was a punk from the very first episode).  The rewatch also reveals John Locke to be possibly the saddest creation in television history.  What a chump.  Easily my favorite character throughout the series, but damn, he's proven to be the fool.  Yet, LOST is Dharma.  I need to get into the hatch.  I need my Desmond.  I need the sci-fi crazy.  Cuz that's the best thing about the original watch of the series.  You knew something kooky was going on (polar bears, roaring woods, French women), but you had no idea how batshit sci-fi it would all become.

Room 237:  Absolutely fascinating.  And bonkers.  Director Rodney Ascher details nearly a dozen weirdo theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's psycho saga.  One individual claims The Shining to be Kubrick's confession for having filmed the moon landing.  Another guy is adamant that The Shining is a violent condemnation of America's genocide of the Native American people.  And another chap sees Minotaurs along the outskirts.  Whatever.  Room 237 doesn't promote such madness.  But it is a celebration of cinema, or more to the point, our passion for cinema.  I love the frenzy The Shining has sparked in the film conversation.  I love how one man can see rocket ships in the number 42 and another can see mass murder in a can of Calumet coffee.  This is craziness.  But hypnotizing.  And you'll immediately want to watch the flick (in HD!) upon completion.

--Brad

Brad's Week In Dork! (2/17/13-2/23/13)

Blaxploitation Month never really happened.  I'm starting to wonder if I have these epic movie marathons in me anymore.  My brain is just so scattershot; right now I can't seem to focus on one particular concept or idea - I want to jump all over the place.  Oh well.  I cranked out another batch of Jim Brown flicks and I think I'm gonna continue with the man well into March.  Dying to rewatch Dark of the Sun, Black Gunn, and Slaughter.  And I've been youtubing his final martian showdown in Mars Attacks over and over and over.  The man is just so supremely badass.

But the most fun I've had this week, and the program that has kept me from rabbit holing into the Blaxploitation genre, is David Milch's Deadwood.  I have been downright giddy lavishing over the first season with The Wife, and I cannot begin to describe how lovely it is to be married to someone who appreciates the word "cocksucker" as much as I do.  Huzzah, I say!  And to witness The Wife's transformation from an Ian McShane hater into one of his proud, dirty flock has been a great reward.  We've also been picking away at LOST & the last season of Supernatural, but it's Deadwood that has really stuck in her consciousness.  And that's beautiful.

A Good Day To Die Hard:  Yippee Ki-Yawn.  That pretty much sums up my feelings for this fifth and hopefully final entry in the Die Hard franchise.  I really loved the silly, smiley trailer as well as the general concept of Papa McClane devastating the USSR - I mean Russia (so awesomely 80s!) as a means of reconnecting with his 007 son.  And Jai Courtney is pretty much a spot-on spawn of Bruce Willis.  He's got the head cock, the smirk, the general blue collar attitude.  However, director Stuart Moore just sucks the life right outta the action.  A Good Day to Die Hard is nearly 90 minutes of continuous (PG-13 clothed in R) violence, but the camera pathetically mimics the Paul Greengrass style with too-tight closups and never-settle editing.  The result is a snooze; I checked out ten minutes into the initial bumper derby car chase and never got back into the story.  I opened my eyes for a couple of F Bombs as well as Cole Hauser's pointlessly brief G-man.  So if Willis can't score with his go-to Die Hard franchise, Schwarzenegger & Stallone might as well hang up their icons.  Time for these beasts of the 1980s to reevaluate their twilight years - you can't go home again, move on, find new parts to play.

Deadwood - Season 1:  When does Deadwood become my favorite thing ever?  I'm talking books, movies, comics, tv.  Deadwood reigns supreme in my heart.  The first episode directed by Walter Hill is a bit of a clunker.  It's not terrible tv, but the actors don't have their characters just yet, and David Milch & company are still developing the outlaw nation setting.  It takes a few hours - Wild Bill needs to be executed so reluctant sheriff Seth Bullock can complete his hero worship.  The Dude has to reconnoiter the rim and shuffle (get chucked) off this mortal coil.  But once the pieces fall into place and the Shakespearean horror takes full bloody effect, Deadwood climbs to the top of My Favorite Things list.  We all know how much I love Timothy Olyphant's Raylan Givens, and the deep buried rage of Seth Bullock could very well be his great grandfather.  It had been far too long since I visited the Black Hills.  This show pretty much birthed my enthusiasm for Westerns.  Sure, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven was the beginning, but I didn't understand that film until I rewatched it through the prodding prism of HBO's mesmerizing psycho drama.  And that Best Picture reexamination led to Glendon Swarthout's novel, The Shootist, and the obsession with oaters was complete.  The Wife doesn't quite hold the show in the extreme esteem that I do, but I was pleasantly surprised to see her fall hard for this foul world.  On to the second season.

Warm Bodies:  This was fun.  Cute.  I'm just so darn sick of the Romero knockoffs; it's nice to see a zombie film approach the genre from a different angle even if it is the Teen Genre (I can't believe it's actually become a genre).  Nicholas Holt narrates the film as our reluctant flesheater, his body returns to life after eating the brains of Teresa Palmer's boyfriend - the awkwardly eyebrowy David Franco.  While digesting a little knowledge his heart begins to beat again and the ultimate family friendly necropheliac film is born.  You gotta love how wonderfully prepackaged this sickie has been presented to the public and it's much better than it has any right to be, especially when you compare it to other teen hits like Twilight and The Hunger Games.

The Walking Dead Season 3 - "Home":  Definitely a stronger episode than the last, but the bad taste of "The Suicide King" is still swamped on my tongue.  It annoys me how no one at the prison is addressing how crazy brains Rick has become.  The man lost his shit last episode and when we find his crew again they're just arguing amongst themselves like usual, but not one brings up the specter attuned Rick - who wobbles away to shout at the woods.  The Governor & Andrea bicker as well, & the crybaby dictator launches a meek attack on the prison.  I dig his Trojan Horse assault, but this war better reach epic heights before the season ends.  I hate to continue comparing this show to the comic book series, but where are Robert Kirkman's balls?  That man loves to punish his characters but AMC seems scared to create no-turning back scenarios.  Weaksauce.

Savage Wolverine #2:  Still fun.  But I want more Frank Cho Shanna and less Frank Cho Wolverine.  But since this is a Logan title I guess I just have to accept that as an impossibility.  A new guy (ugh, more ladies please Frank) shows up with some techno force field, but the mystery doesn't deepen it just gets more foggy - I have no clue what's going on or why I should care.  But I'm sticking to it for Frank's She Devil, and I'm thinking she's going to have Logan wrapped around her thong - I mean, finger, in no time flat.

Captain America #4:  Unless something drastic happens, this is the last time I write about Rick Remender's Captain America.  I'm going to keep on reading cuz I love Cap so much I will torture myself with horrendous plotting.  The first page reads: Eleven Years Later.  Captian America still has a Zola living in his chest, and that makes the parenting of his clone baby a little difficult.  I guess I can appreciate how balls out bananas this title has become, but it's just so damn stupid.  And ugly.  I'm no longer amused with JRJR's renderings, all his beasts look the same and his kids are a bunch of balloon heads.  I'm done with this Marvel Now horror show.

Nova #1:  I don't know anything about Nova - only that he belongs to a space corps that looks pathetically similar to DC's Green Lantern Corps.  But I've enjoyed Jeph Loeb comics in the past, even the books in which he's partnered with Ed McGuinness.  Sam Alexander is a bratty teenager living in a dirt heap of a town reminiscent of The Last Starfighter's trailer park hell hole.  His lifetime has been filled with his father's stories of space war and he's sick of it.  But when pop goes missing and Rocket Raccoon appears at the end of his bed, Alexander is given the chance to suit up.  A fun enough intro, I'll keep going.

BPRD 1948 #5:  I'm not sure I loved this mini as much as the previous BPRD prequels - I'm gonna need to read it as a whole before I pass judgement.  But right now I can confidently state that I enjoyed the tiny moments with little Hellboy than I did the big plot with Professor Bruttenholm.  The kid's B story regarding his appearance is some of the most heartfelt storytelling to come out of the Mignolaverse.  Anyone who has ever asked "What are those goggles on Hellboy's head?" should look to this miniseries for their origin.  Artist Max Fiumara perfectly captures the sadness behind this moment.

Saga #10:  Gah!  Brian K Vaughen why must you keep killing off my favorite characters in this book!?!?!?  If you're not careful I'll jump ship cuz the main Romeo & Juliet couple are not enough for me to keep reading; it's the crazy alien beasties that I really want to explore.  The moment Prince Robot or The Will are gone so will I.

The Split:  Easily the weakest movie adapted from a Richard Stark novel (this time out it's The Seventh), The Split nevertheless has one of the most fascinating casts ever assembled.  You've got Jim Brown up front as the Parker stand-in.  Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates, and Donald Sutherland bickering amongst themselves as Brown's goon squad.  Gene Hackman is the local law enforcement.  And James Whitmore is the psychotic outsider threatening their big score.  That is one hell of a cast.  So why does The Split fail so miserably?  Well, it's boring!  And lifeless!  And so damn frustrating.  Brown & Borgnine do have a pretty badass brawl in the middle of the picture and the cast makes it worth a watch if not a purchase, but when this film should be exploding with character actor rage, The Split sputters to a climax.  A real Hollywood bummer.

The Slams:  This is a little bit better than The Split, but still not the exploitation classic you want it to be.  Jim Brown is arrested after a nasty little double cross heist and lands behind bars with an array of Roger Corman savages (this is brother Gene's production).  There he must fend for himself in the laundry rooms and the metal shop while big burly dudes try to pummel the missing million dollar loot from his memory.  Brown concocts an escape plan with his girlfriend and an outsider pimp, but the violence never gets as extreme as it should for this kinda picture - I feel like Gene Corman and director Jonathan Kaplan are attempting a more classic approach to this cheapie production when it should just throw itself into the muck of its setting.  Frankly, the poster is better than the movie.

Justified Season 4 - "Money Trap":  Jody, the dirtbag criminal with a weakness for airbags last seen in the first episode of this season, returns here as the cold blooded killer of Raylan's ex.  There is some Elmore Leonardy side story  involving a wannabe filmmaker and the ridiculously named Jackie Nevada but this Justified entry succeeds thanks to another classic climax confrontation.  Not to mention we get some serious Papa Arlo hate in the last few minutes.  This season is burning towards its climax but we don't feel any closer to the Drew Thompson mystery.  Still, it's nice to get a breather from the plot and have a moment for Raylan to showdown.

The Island:  The film starts off in the vein of a Friday the 13th slasher, with some rich yucks on a yacht getting hacked apart with a variety of cutting tools.  But this is as gory as it gets - The Island might be a part of the Scream Factory label but it totally belongs in the seafaring goofiness of Peter Benchley.  Michael Caine & his brat kid crash land on a LOST-like island; there they encounter a savage race of pirates led with despicable charm by the garish David Warner.  Caine takes five minutes to defend his groin from a muddy pirate lady but quickly succumbs to her nether regions.  Ah, romance.  This is just a weird damn film.  And Caine is the perfect lead for this nutter.  The man is the master of the agape stare and he can match sleaze for sleaze when battling prehistoric pirate villains.

El Condor:  "If my mother was a whisky cow the milk from her tit couldn't be any sweeter than that."  Oh man, Lee Van Cleef is a degenerate louse, goofily grimacing his way into our hearts while plundering for gold with calvary killer Jim Brown.  El Condor is a strange buddy cop Western with both Van Cleef and Brown playing for laughs and miraculously succeeding.  El Condor is peppered with fun bits of weirdo villainy and violence, as well as decent amounts of B Movie nudity.  Unlike The Split & The Slams, El Condor is a lost should-be exploitation classic - And a Western to boot!  So good it sent me running to that other Jim Brown cowboy classic -

100 Rifles:  Jim Brown is a Marshall down from America hunting the bandit smile of Burt Reynolds.  But once he finds his man, he also discovers the bosom of Raquel Welch and the next thing he knows he's wrapped up in a Mexican Revolution.  100 Rifles is packed with typical Burt Reynolds hijinks, but its more Sharky's Machine than Cannonball Run.  Everyone is happy to be committing violence and it's all for a good cause; we can smile along with our trilogy of leads, even when the tone jumps to the shockingly tragic.

--Brad