Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/27/14-5/3/14)

    Life has been pretty swell for this Dork. 

Transcendence:  Oh, man.  Where to begin.  There was so much potential for telling a good story here.  All missed.  I’ll just start with the biggest problem the movie has.  It’s really, really, really boring.  I mean, BORING.  No, it didn’t need fistfights, or explosions, or more CGI.  It just needed characters one could care about, and a plot that was at all engaging.  Unfortunately, this film is populated by idiot scientists; the kind that are all too common in film, and frustratingly, almost the rule in science fiction.  Even the Luddite terrorists don’t make much sense.  Nobody seems willing to act, to accomplish anything.  There seems to be little growth in character, simply an alteration in behavior as demanded by the advancement of the carbon-copy plot.  And what about those actors.  Depp is fine, I guess.  Frankly, he seemed to be phoning it in.  Rebecca Hall is kind of annoying, but no more so than usual.  Kate Mara…Oh, man.  Kate Mara.  Every danged time she opens her mouth, she spews forth grown inducing dialog and the worst way.  She speaks like a child actor, wooden and stupid.  It’s awful.  Worse still, about 20 minutes into the movie, her character stops being important…but that’s when she becomes a major character…even though she does NOTHING.  So crappy.  Sadly, I’m with everyone else on this one.  This movie is crap.  Hire writers.  Do some research.  Make better films.  This sort of thing is, really, inexcusable.

I need to make better choices.

Welcome to the Jungle:  I didn’t have high hopes for this film, and it isn’t good.  But, Jean Claude Van Damme is extremely funny and by far the best part of the movie.  Otherwise, it’s a bunch of tired sitcom level jokes with the raunchiness of straight to video.  The characters are all stock, mostly played by actors who play essentially the same characters on crappy TV shows.  Honestly, when JCVD is off screen, which is far too often, it drags.  Worth checking out if you don’t have to expend any effort, but pretty much exclusively for the Belgian wonder.

Small Apartments:  This is one of those very odd, small comedies that gets lots of weird actors together in one place and has a lot of fun.  I don’t know that it’s great, but it’s sure different.  And it’s got a lot of bits I really liked, and performances I really liked.  For crying out loud, Johnny Knoxville was good.  What’s that about?  Definitely one to check out if you’re in the mood for something a little bit out there, kind of dark, kind of funny, and certainly not like everything else.

The man loves his Moxie.

    Watched a bunch more of Mad Men’s second season.  It’s a darned fine show.  The awful behavior is fascinating.  And Don Draper.  He’s just so darned cool.

    On Wednesday night, we headed out to The Alamo for a Spaghetti Western and spaghetti dinner (though I was not up to the spaghetti that night).  Here’s hoping we’ll be seeing a lot more of these events there (and from the schedule, it looks like we will).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:  “More feeling.”  A sprawling journey through Hell for three men looking for some gold.  To say this movie takes its time would be like saying deep space is a bit chilly.  Shots and whole scenes that are held for extremely long times and a meandering story may make it a challenge for some viewers.  But I love their weird Odyssey.  And when they start to stumble upon the soulless, listless combatants of the Civil War, the obviously not American setting gives it a haunting, displaced feel that really does seem like some horrible limbo or hell.  It’s almost certainly too long, the dubbing is kind of wonderfully bad, and many bits can be quite jarring.  But it’s a mad kind of wonderful.  Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef are all great.  And that whole ending…nice.  This is top notch Western/Fantasy.

Mothra Vs. Godzilla:  I think this is the beginning of the wonder and madness the Godzilla films became known for.  It’s super weird, and awesome.  The twin fairies, a giant peace-loving moth, money hungry developers, and plucky reporters.  It’s not my favorite of the series, but it’s chronologically the first one I really love.

    Brad and I went on a mad comic book shop crawl on Saturday (Free Comic Book Day).  Third Eye Comics out in MD, Phoenix (aka Laughing Ogre) out in Ashburn, Big Planet in Vienna, Phoenix again in Fairfax, and The Comic Shop at the Fair Oaks Mall.  In keeping with the spirit of the day (supporting local comic shops), I made sure to find something to buy in each place.  I don’t know if it was timing, or what, but one frustration was that all the shops we hit seemed to have the same handful of titles, in spite of there being nearly 60 different free comics produced.  The awesome thing was that every shop we went to seemed full of people (really, really full in some cases), and people were buying stuff.  Awesome.  After all that madness, Brad and I hooked up with Lisa and headed out to The Alamo again for one of their Late Night shows.

Mad Max:  “They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore.”  The world is going to hell, with only Max and a few of his Bronze brothers keeping civilization's light alive.  I love this glimpse into an ugly, entropic future where civilization wasn’t destroyed by some catastrophic event; it simply ran out of juice.  It’s an ugly, uncomfortable films, with jarring music and nasty characters.  It doesn’t have an easy climax, or a happy ending.  It’s brutal and mean.  It features one of the all time best film endings.

    Other than my list of anticipated Summer films (here), that’s it for this week.  I’m going to try to spend Sunday on my couch, reading comics and watching movies.  Let’s see how that works out.

-Matt

A Fistful of Underappreciated Horror! (Matt’s Picks)

    With October in full effect, it’s time to celebrate the Horror genre once again.  We’ve talked a lot about the classics of Horror, established masterpieces like The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, Glitter, etc.  So, this time around, we’re going to look at those Horror films that don’t get the love they deserve.

5.  Dust Devil:  There are two key versions of this film, one of which is frustratingly unavailable.  The original theatrical cut of the film is good, but only the ‘director’s cut’ has been put out on DVD.  Either way, there’s a strange, haunting vibe to the film.  A quest across southern Africa, a mysterious spirit traveler who seduces lost souls, an emotionally broken old cop.  Very moody, and very atmospheric.  Unfortunately, it’s director Richard Stanley’s only good work.

4.  The Stuff:  Larry Cohen made this ultra-80s wackado study of American consumerism and fad.  When a white goo bubbles up from underground, it becomes the new snack sensation.  But the snack has something else in mind.  Like a Lovecraft story, filtered through the neon soaked underworld of early 80s discontent.  Conspiracy, commercialism, survivalists, and sweaty palms.

3.  Monsters:  Nobody saw this low budget kaiju movie when it came out in 2010, and that’s really too bad.  Here’s hoping next year’s release of Godzilla will inspire folks to see director Gareth Edward’s first movie.  After a space probe crashes to Earth in Mexico, bringing with it an alien corruption, walls are built and the whole area becomes a no-man’s land.  A young socialite and a photographer need to get back to the States in a hurry, but things are falling apart.  A journey across Mexico is harrowing and educational.  The movie was shot on a very low budget, yet ends up being more effective than many big budget blockbusters.

2.  The Ninth Gate:  When I first saw this film, I wasn’t into it.  It seemed kind of goofy, a bit slow, what the heck was that ending?  For some reason, I sat down and watched it again one day.  And it was weird, but I really, really liked it.  The music, the look, the characters, and the scenes of journeying across Europe were all fascinating.  When I had the chance, I bought the DVD, listened to the commentary, and went on to read the novel it was based (loosely) on, and somehow, it became a favorite film of mine.  It was also when I realized I was a Johnny Depp fan.  Now, I can pop this movie in any time and enjoy the heck out of it.

1.  Lifeforce:  It starts as a space exploration film.  It becomes an alien invasion film.  And then it becomes an apocalyptic zombie film.  And it is one of the very few vampire films that doesn’t …hem…suck.  A great cast of UK character actors and a sprawling story help make a film that feels like the best of classic Hammer, specifically the Quatermass films.  The movie was not well received and has never seemed to pick up a particularly large audience, and that’s too bad.

    Looking back over this list, I can’t say I’m surprised at all that all five of these films share aspects of Lovecraft’s work and the work of his fellows.

-Matt

A Fistful of Westerns! (Brad's Picks)

A couple days ago America celebrated another birthday with the release of the much maligned, and certainly under appreciated Bruckheimer/Verbinski Western extravaganza, The Lone Ranger.  It's been a long hard road to the silver screen, taking five years and over $250 million dollars, but the world has finally been assaulted by Johnny Depp's bird-hat wearing Tonto.  It is this year's John Carter, more attention has been given to its budget and the ballooning behind-the-scenes than the final product, but those that bothered to see it this holiday mostly seem to fall on the "Hated It" half.  I was pretty much ready to go in guns blazing, but I quickly found myself intoxicated by its oddity.  The Lone Ranger is weird, gross, violent, ugly, bloated, and perverted.  I thought it was amazing, and possibly my favorite Blockbuster of the Summer so far.  I am deeply perplexed by this reaction, and will certainly have to sit down for a second viewing to check my sanity, but as of right now The Lone Ranger is my favorite Bruckheimer production since the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

That being said, this ain't your granddaddy's Saturday Morning Serial.  Those looking forward to a cartoony reinvention of their beloved characters should look elsewhere.  This is not Sam Peckinpah's West.  It's not John Ford's Monument Valley.  This is not tribute filmmaking.  It's a straight up Gore Verbinski weirdo picture, and there might be hints of the familiar, but the closest it gets to homage is the bonkers Spaghetti Western tone.  Not Leone or Corbucci, but The Lone Ranger has moments that dip into the painfully unfunny absurdity of Mario Bava's Roy Colt & Winchester Jack.  I am happy to report that there are a handful of whacko critics out there defending the film, and if you're curious to see other chipper reviews, click on over to IndieWire to experience the minority opinion.

At the very least, The Lone Ranger has reawakened the Westerns conversation.  People bemoan its demise, but even if we're not getting a dozen new Westerns a year, the genre is far from dead and I can think of at least a handful of films that made my Top Ten lists during the 21st Century (Django Unchained, True Grit, Appaloosa, 3:10 To Yuma, and The Proposition).  I am a dork for many things. I love Star Trek.  I love Planet of the Apes.  I love Hellboy & Batman.  But my all time love has to be the Western with its frontiers and outlaws, it's open ranges and the men determined to fence them in.  Picking my Top Five Westerns is a nearly debilitating challenge.  I can tell you that my Top Three have been set in stone for at last ten years, but the back two switched in and out a half dozen times before I just settled with the final result.  It really does pain me not to include Johnny Guitar, but I finally let it slide due to a lack of viewings.  However, give me a few years and 5 more rewatches, and I'm betting Johnny Guitar will fall into the number 3 or even 2 slot.  As it stands today, these are my true loves.

5.  The Proposition:  A revisionist Western (gah, it seems like all Westerns are revisionist Westerns!) set in the Australian Outback, The Proposition begins when one brother (Guy Pearce) is captured by the British government, and charged with the assassination of his eldest brother (Danny Huston).  If he refuses, the youngest Burns Brother (Richard Wilson) will be executed for the crimes he perpetrated under their demonic tutelage.  The Proposition has to be one of the angriest and meanest movies I've ever experienced.  It is absolutely unrelenting in its pessimism and critique of westward expansion (or in this case, Global expansion).  Danny Huston might as well be Satan himself, a murderous rapist so uncompromisingly vile that the audience forgives Pearce's obvious scumbag mantle.  The Duke does not ride to the rescue of the damsel.  There is only misery here.  But it's a hell of a heart-thumper, a real deal horror film minus the spooks and goblins.

4.  The Professionals:  Here is your classic adventure film.  A Texas millionaire (Ralph Bellamy) hires four tough men to venture down into Mexico to retrieve his young bride from a villainous bandit king (Jack Palance).  As is the case with most Westerns, the rich = bad men and the poor = brave revolutionaries.  Our heroes are the Man's Mans of yesteryear, real tough dudes that just don't appear in Hollywood these days.  Lee Marvin is the military might, a born leader of men aching to fight the good fight.  Burt Lancaster is his scalawag buddy, he cares less about the cause and more about the reward.  Woody Strode is the halfbreed Apache scout, a mean hombre with a bow & arrow.  Robert Ryan is the horse wrangler, and the man who struggles the most with the morality of their mission.  Directed by Richard Brooks, The Professionals very much has that Dirty Dozen vibe, but its smaller cast allows for Lancaster & Marvin to charm their way into your heart as they dismiss gold for glory.  Honor over wealth, the stuff of Legend.

3.  Once Upon A Time In The West:  Clint Eastwood's Dollars Trilogy was simply Sergio Leone practicing for this film.  As epic as anything seen in The Lord of the Rings or Lawrence of Arabia, Once Upon A Time In The West is an attempt to cram in every genre convention from railroad expansion to mysterious strangers, from saloon brawls to sunset sayonaras.  This is kitchen sink cinema at its finest.  Henry Fonda is a profit killer - men, women, children, whatever - but he's too cocky to be unstoppable.  Charles Bronson is Harmonica, the drifter who stumbles into town with an obvious agenda for death.  Claudio Cardinale is the hooker with the heart of gold, a woman who falls into the gunsights of American Rail.  And Jason Robards is the bandit with delusions of domesticity.  Over the course of three hours these four characters butt heads and get their Spaghetti Western extreme closeups.  Ultra melodrama done right.  

2:  Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid:  It's impossible to watch this film and not also witness the breaking of Sam Peckinpah's heart.  This is the end for the director.  He would have a couple of films after this one (even one great one), but Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid is his last hurrah in the genre he reinvented.  Couple that with the already emotionally devastating plot, and you have one of the most sombre films ever produced.  Kris Kristofferson is The Kid, the last of a dying breed.  The railroad has connected America, the Wild West is forever gone.  James Coburn is Sheriff Garrett, a former outlaw who knows when the show's over and takes the Government's money in exchange for his best friends capture.  Both men are trapped by destiny, or at least their perceptions of it.  During the last moments of the film you can sense Peckinpah's unwillingness to adhere to history (his tiny undertaker cameo is the silent scream), and I sometimes fantasize for his Inglourious Basterds revision.  Alas, death is there.

1.  Unforgiven:  For me, and a lot of people, Clint Eastwood is the Western.  The Good The Bad and The Ugly, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter.  How can you pick one above the other?  Well, personal nostalgia gets part of the credit for this film's placement at numero uno; Unforgiven was the first Western I ever saw in the theater.  At the time, I remember thinking the film was a little boring and my Dad was verbally abusive towards it upon exiting the theater.  However, when I rediscovered the picture in college, after having consumed everything by Sergio Leone and John Ford, I deeply responded to the climactic switcheroo.  For nearly all it's runtime, you are on Clint Eastwood's side.  He's an old widowed gunfighter who picks up a bounty to put supper on his children's table.  But the killings he commits along the way reawaken the bad man inside.  He's not the noble High Noon white hat of the 1950s.  He's William Munny, the killer of women and children.  He's damned.  And he knows it.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/16/13-6/22/13)

    On Sunday, in preperation for the next meeting of the graphic novel club, I thought I’d get myself into a Thor mood by digging up a few single issues of Thor comics I somehow acquired.  I read issue 600, which wasn’t very good.  The main story has to do with Odin’s father coming back into the world, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere, at least nowhere interesting.  The issue is then padded by a mildly enjoyable goofy comic and some bloody awful Stan Lee ‘classic’ stuff.  Meh.  Issue 601 wasn’t much better, but it was less cluttered.  J. Michael Straczynski is a frustrating figure.  He wrote one of the great sci-fi TV series, Babylon 5, but seemed (seems) unable to do much of anything else worthwhile again.  The pile was missing issue 602, but I got the gist.  603 was pretty much more of the same, though there was a really funny bit about a guy wanting an omelet.

Man of Steel:  “You can save them all.”  So, if you’ve been keeping score, with a few recent exceptions, I generally don’t like Superman.  Most of the time he’s straight up boring.  The rest, he’s bloody awful.  He’s been written by a lot of people for film, TV, comics, etc. and I haven’t ever been a fan.  Director Zack Snyder has made a bunch of movies I’ve really enjoyed, but his last film was Sucker Punch, one of the worst films in the last decade.  The trailers for this film felt like they were trying to go for that mythological, melodramatic, epic feel I dig.  And having just read All Star Superman, which also goes for that, and does such an amazing job, I was ready.  Sadly, this movie only gets part way there, stumbling almost as often as it succeeds.  It’s good, but not great.  And it felt like it should have been great.  One problem surfaced right away.  Hand-held.  No, Hollywood.  Stop.  Do I have to roll up a paper and thwack your nose?  Bad!  No hand-held!  I don’t want to get motion sickness while I’m watching a movie.  They have tripods and other rigging.  Use ‘em.  The second problem was the action.  I know this is a weird thing to say about what is basically an action movie, but there was too much of it.  The action scenes went on entirely too long.  The battle in Smallville, which seemed to accomplish next to nothing in terms of moving the story along, must have taken five minutes.  And the final fist-fight was interminable and unnecessary.  It felt like the movie had climaxed and was ready for final resolution…then another battle!  Ugh.  I was ready for the wrap-up and instead we have a second attempted climactic battle.  That’s one climax too many.  Cutting out that final battle, and trimming the other action bits by say a third, I think the movie as a whole would have been better.  And while Superman has always had religious overtones, Krypton being lost Israel, Superman being kind of a parallel of the Jewish experience in the States, then later shifted toward a Christ figure, the religious iconography and allegory got to be a bit much in this.  The scene in the church where he’s talking with the picture of Jesus right by his head…not subtle, guys.  Now that all sounds pretty negative, I know.  But I did actually like the movie, and it has a lot of good parts.  I liked Amy Adams and the Lois Lane character in general.  She’s less abrasive and harpy-like than I’m used to with Lane.  The rest of the cast all did a fine job, and it was fun picking out That Guy actors, including some Battlestar Galactica regulars (filmed in Vancouver?).  I liked the emotion and the Shakespearian grandiosity.  I liked that they did a lot with building Superman as a hero in the Nietzschian mold, something to be striven for, but not a god or a king; an ideal to build oneself into.  There is even a paraphrasing of that great line from All Star Superman, ‘They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl and curse, and finally, they will join you in the sun.’  I also like that the film gave lots of moments to everyday human heroism.  It wasn’t just a matter of Superman saving people, it was people saving each other.  Though there was plenty of staring and screaming and running, this wasn’t the typical crowd, unable or unwilling to do anything without a superhero’s help.  So again, a good, but not great Superman film.  Certainly the best film adaptation of the character to date…but that’s not really saying much.  Next time, put the camera on a danged rig and hold it steady, and maybe have a more interesting foe.

Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides:  “Oh!  He’s even more annoying in miniature.”  Though Johnny Depp’s turn as Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates movie seems to have redefined his recent career, turning the once versatile actor into a DeNero style self-parody, I enjoy the crap out of this series, and would be back every couple of years for a new adventure without any reservation.  They’re fun, light entertainment that do something rarely done before…make pirate movies fun to watch.  I know there was a time when these types of films were a dime a dozen, but I don’t know why.  Even some of the more famous, ‘classic’ pirate films are extremely boring.  While this series manages to play on all the genera tropes, it has lots and lots of fantasy fun with them, giving us not only adventures on the high seas, but all the myths and monsters of the era as well.  I’d have liked more Ian McShane and less Penelope Cruz, but it’s still a great deal of fun.  It would be difficult for me to care less about the young missionary and the mermaid love story.  I like working mermaids into the mythos, but their story is dull and the actors lack charisma.  The screen time wasted on them could have been used better focusing on McShane, Depp, and Geoffrey Rush.

    Monday night, I started watching The Mod Squad.  It’s a fairly fun cop show, and I enjoy the out of touch vision of then modern youth culture.  The ‘long hair’ rich boy who just looks like a garden variety actor and clearly is not ‘hip.’  Awesome.  Peggy Lipton is pretty in that way that would become more common in the 70s.  And I’ve always liked Clarence Williams III, so it’s cool seeing him in an early role.

    Tuesday night, I went through another disk of Space: Above & Beyond.  Had my first straight-up good episode, and the first episode where I didn’t hate Hawkes.  It’s a show that does seem to get better as it goes, though the three leads are still pretty weak.  I do wish this series had come along a decade later.  It probably would have been more consistent.  Maybe some day someone could do a Colonial Marines (from Aliens) TV series.  I imagine it would have a similar vibe/structure…though hopefully more interesting characters and better special effects.

Two Moon Junction:  “I’m not a princess.”  My Twin Peaks journey drove me to check out this bit of late 80s trash.  Bad ADR and harsh lighting make it look made for TV.  But at least the story is stupid.  No bleach-blonde young socialite can resist the rugged charm of a be-mulleted carnie (I know.  Richard Tyson just has long hair, not a mullet…but I’m in it for the laughs).  Sherilyn Fenn is darned cute, though she looks super-weird as a blonde.  I guess it’s a sign of what actors do, but I don’t really find her especially compelling or attractive (we’re talking charismatically, not aesthetically) in this film, like I do in Twin Peaks.  Richard Tyson is a very 90s actor (his diagnosed shirt allergy is tragic).  I don’t know how else to describe him.  He’s bland and slightly abrasive…like that decade.  But I’ve always been kind of surprised he didn’t do better in the 90s.  And holy crap!  Little kid Milla.  Weird.  It feels like this movie was the basis for Cinemax.  Like everything that came after it, Animal Instinct, Wild Orchid, and all of that, spawned from this dumbass film.  No surprise from the guy behind The Red Shoe Diaries.  She’s naked.  He’s holding a puppy.  It’s so romantic.  Oh, wait.  I mean stupid.  For an ‘erotic’ film, this movie lacks pretty much anything I would call eroticism.  It’s like a boring episode of Thirtysomething…with boobs.

The Pit and the Pendulum:  “How can they confess if they don’t have tongues?!”  One of the first Full Moon movies, and along with Aliens, the beginning of my Lance Henriksen fandom, this is a pretty good low budget take on the classic story.  It’s all about the Spanish Inquisition, and the insanity of religious bureaucracy gone too far, and power put into the hands of a zealot.  It’s pretty darned over the top, but a lot of perverse fun.

Hellraiser:  “We have such sights to show you.”  If the stars shifted, the Old Ones returned, and I found myself in charge of a major film studio, there are a few remakes I’d like to do.  One would be, like Peter Jackson before me, to do my own version of King Kong.  Since he beat me to it, I may just have to pass on it now.  Second would be to do my own version of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Oh, man, would I do an upsetting version of that film.  Eat your heart out remake of Cat People!  But third on my list would be either the Phantasm series or this, Hellraiser.  Clive Barker’s adaptation of his own novel, The Hellbound Heart, is interesting but not actually all that good.  It hints at more, at better things.  The sequel picks up on some of those, but still misses the boat.  I would love to get my hands on it.  The idea that the Cenobites are more than just demons or angels, that they are some kind of extradimensional beings, explorers in the realms of sensation and experience, is full of potential.  And the box is a powerfully iconic artifact that could be explored in lots of different ways (I actually do like a bunch of what was done in Hellraiser: Bloodline).  Kirsty Cotton (ignoring where the series takes her) is not an especially interesting protagonist, nor are her uncle and stepmother especially powerful villains.  Her dad seems like a nice guy, and her boyfriend is a snore.  The movie is really best looked at as a treasure trove of ideas.  Sadly, most of those ideas don’t bloom here.

Heat:  “That lady who wears dark glasses at night asked me to give you this.”  Burt Reynolds, man.  Burt Reynolds.  It’s weird to see him picking on someone because of a bad hairpiece.  It’s a strange film.  He’s a hired goon who needs money to move to Italy.  His hooker friend gets all stove up and wants revenge.  That nerdy guy from Ghostbusters II is nerding it up.  The plot wanders around a bit, with people coming in and out.  It feels a bit ‘slice of life’ in the way the story progresses.  Honestly, Reynolds is pretty good in this.  It’s not a great movie, but it’s watchable.  And Reynolds does harpoon a dude with some rebar.

Man of Steel:  OK, so friend Ben didn’t get to see this the first time ‘round, so I accompanied him to what was my second viewing.  My first and biggest complaint is still the shoddy hand-held camerawork.  It’s atrocious, and makes me feel seriously ill on more than one occasion.  My other complaints remain, as do my positive assessments.  The second viewing does make me realize that I actually really like the movie up until one specific point, marked by the death of someone close to Clark and the re-introduction of Zod and cronies.  From that point on, the movie goes from a solid B (marks off for shaky cam) to a C.  The wanton and callous destruction does seem a bit much.  In another movie, like a disaster, war, or alien invasion film, it might have felt a bit more on target, but the fact that Superman doesn’t seem to take much note of what must be millions of people being blown up, squished, gravity gunned, burned, and otherwise ended, seems a bit odd.  That he takes the time to make out with his girlfriend in a wide open field that seems to be made of the ash of millions of dead people also seems…ill advised.  This could have been better with a few tweaks to the plot, a few re-workings of the dialog, and a frickin’ tripod for the camera.  It’s OK, but it could have been good.  This second viewing is probably enough for me.  While almost certainly the best Superman movie, it’s still not that great, and I still don’t give two shakes about the character.  If there’s a sequel (ha, ha…if), I’m sure I’ll be there to see it.  But it won’t be making my most anticipated list…Unless things get really dark in the land of movies.

    I read the science fiction short story The Little Black Bag by C.M. Kornbluth.  It’s an odd one, and has a great nasty ending.  It would probably make a really good short film.  And on Friday morning, I finished the fourth and final volume of B.P.R.D.’s Plague of Frogs epic.  Man, that series is waist deep in the apocalypse and still charging forward.  Can’t wait to see what the rosy sounding ‘Hell on Earth’ storyline will bring.

    And finally, on Saturday, I rejoined the modern world with the internet.  I imediately plunged into an orgy of time wasting, blankly looking at all the various sites I haven’t had time to regularly check up on, poring over old blogs, and watching episodes of Q.I. into the deep hours of the evening.  I’m back.

-Matt

The Japanese Tonto Poster

Why do I love this Japanese poster for The Lone Ranger?  I certainly have a fondness for the old Japanese posters for The Man With No Name trilogy.  Something about Spaghetti Westerns scrawled with Japanese lettering just seems right.  Tonto here looks really menacing too, the hatchet ready to swing.  But the trailers don't jive with the Lone Ranger movie I want.  And yes I most certainly want a Lone Ranger movie.  Loved the original series as a kid and I even dug the (hindsight being 20/20 atrocious) 80s adaptation.  But do I want a Captain Jack version?  No.  Still, I gotta support the genre I love and I will be there opening night.

--Brad

"More Extensive Than Extended?" - Super Bowl Movie Trailers!

I don't much care for football.  I work every Super Bowl.  I let my sports fanatic friends have their parties.  But what I do love is coming home to all the crazy cool movie trailers, and as far as film geekery is concerned, it looks like this might be one of the best Pigskin Tournaments yet.  I love the airline disaster of the Iron Man 3 trailer.  I'm thrilled by the destruction of the Enterprise in the Star Trek spot.  And even The Lone Ranger got a chuckle from me.  But the trailer of the night has to be Fast and Furious 6.  It's got tanks.  Explosions.  Cars vs Jets.  Explosions.  And The Rock jump punching.  I'm not going to fool myself.  Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, and Iron Man 3 are my most anticipated films of the summer.  But - and I'm just amazed by this fact - Fast and Furious 6 is a close fourth at this point.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/20/13-1/26/13)

    Sunday, after watching a movie, Brad, Ben, and I hit up a pretty cool little music shop, CD Cellar, and the only really good used book store I’ve found since moving to Virginia, Hole in the Wall Books.  Scored a few cool books and disks (found some Carl Nielsen, for crying out loud!).


The Last Stand:  You know I’m glad Arnold is back to doing movies.  Sadly, this one never hits its stride, or figures out a tone.  It tries to be funny, but isn’t that funny.  It isn’t really much of an action film, as there’s only a couple bits of action.  It’s not shot well.  The villain is exceptionally lame.  And Arnold seems out of practice.  Still, there are moments.  A few.  And I hope this is just one quick stumble on the path to Old Arnold being a silver screen staple from now on.  And hey, it’s still better than Collateral Damage or End of Days.  Sadly, I think something gets lost when Korean or Hong Kong directors try to make movies in the States.  I’m not the biggest fan of Korean film anyway (It’s called pacing! Look in to it!), but The Good The Bad The Weird was really good.  So I had a bit more hope for this one.  However, it completely lacks that certain energy of Asian films, while also lacking the pacing or script of good American movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:  “But you have heard of me.”  Honestly, I was never much for pirate movies.  With the exception of Yellowbeard, I don’t think there was a one I really liked.  The time period had a lot to do with it.  They’re from that in-between time, from around the dawn of the Renaissance to the late 1800s that is a sort of historical dead zone in my interest.  But I’m also not really in to nautical films in general (I hate submarine stories, for example).  So, when this movie came along, and based on a ride at Disneyland no less, I had understandably low expectations.  Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a shockingly fun adventure movie with enough humor and horrific fantasy to keep it spicy.  Good action, solid cast, nice music and a pretty good tale.  It prompted me to go back and watch more of the old classic pirate movies.  Unfortunately, I didn’t like them.  Still, this one is good.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest:  “Look!  An undead monkey.  Top that.”  Oh, Jack, that wobbling, crackpot jackanape.  He’s up to his old tricks, and it’s trouble for friend and foe alike.  Fancy Will Turner gets roped into a quest to screw over Captain Jack so he can save his lady love.  It’s pretty much just more of the same, though because they were filming back to back, the filmmakers were able to set more up with the knowledge that a third film would tie things up.  And of course, it allows for a cliffhanger ending.  Filled with new and disgusting underwater nasties (seriously disgusting henchmen), daring-do, drunken stumbling, and adventure.  The cast does a fine job.  The movie looks good.  The Music is nice.  The Black Spot.  And of course, the Kraken.  It reminds me of my youth, picking over old reports of sea monsters throughout the ages.  Giant squids that would suck down sailing ships.  I used to eat that stuff up.

Pina:  “You just have to get crazier.”  Look, I’m the first one to admit I don’t get interpretive dance.  I know there’s some kind of meaning in what I’m seeing, but that meaning remains mostly obscure to me.  So much of it seems like random bits of other dance, like some kind of physical jazz.  But, divorcing it from meaning, I understand fit bodies displaying physical agility.  And this movie has plenty of that.  I’m not a fan of groups of people doing the same dance movies in unison.  I think I’ve been affected by too many pop music videos, where that became the standard like a guitar solo in an 80s rock tune, crammed in even when it doesn’t belong.  Visually, though, this film is really something.  I wish I’d gotten the chance to see it in 3D (and I don’t say that very often).  The format is odd, with performances broken up with dancers talking about Pina Bausch, except they’re not talking.  It’s all in voice over while they sit there looking all artistic. What’s up with French Tobin Bell and hand dancing David Bowie?  And the factory veal dance?  I don’t know.  It is interesting to see this group of dancers, some who were with Pina for decades, reminisce and do some of their numbers.  Like so many artists (dancers and singers especially), these people seem deeply emotionally damaged, and that weird mix of narcissistic exhibitionist and shy introvert.  Like interpretive dance, I don’t think I really got this movie.  I started tuning out after the first 45 minutes or so.  Also, I know this is kind of a little thing, especially in the era of the internet, but the credits are pretty much unreadable, which is something I always find annoying.  The commentary by Wim Wenders is actually far more informative, if that’s the word.  I only listened to about 5 or 10 minutes, but I kind of regret not having it on during my first viewing.  Who knew?

Red Sonja:  “Only women may touch it.”  There was a time when Richard Fleischer made really cool movies.  But somewhere along the way he lost it, and then he made Conan the Destroyer.  Not content with destroying all that had been done in Conan the Barbarian, by turning it into a comic book style joke, he then made this steaming turd.  As so often happens, the very essence of Howard is gutted in the opening scene, making our hero a product of fate and magic, not self made, as Howard’s heroes are.  Especially annoying is that the production design looks pretty good and the music isn’t bad.  And they have a much more appropriate actress for Sonja in the film.  Sandahl Bergman can’t act to save her life, but she’s no worse than Brigitte Nielsen, and at least she looks the part.  Actually, the actress who played Sonja’s sister would have been better.  They had a lot of the technical stuff they needed.  Just not a script or any concept of Robert E. Howard’s writing or philosophy.  Seriously, the script is awful.  If it weren’t for the obvious money that went into the crafting of the film and the appearance of Cona…I mean Kalidor, it wouldn’t even rank up there with the Deathstalker films.  Oh man, and then there’s the little kid king and his goofus slave.  Ugh.

"Let us slay English together!"

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning:  What does ‘graphic nudity’ mean in an MPAA rating?  To me, there’s nudity and not nudity.  Graphic nudity seems to mean something else, but I can’t imagine what that is.  Anyway, the second in this new batch of Universal Soldier movies, following up the shockingly good Universal Soldier: The Regeneration is pretty good.  These films do kind of what I’d like to do with Hellraiser; go back to the original concept, rework it, and make it a solid, fairly well thought out, serious take on a cool idea.  This one feels like they have a bigger budget, as it is filmed in North America, not Eastern Europe.  Although, all the girls still seem Eastern European.  The Plummer, who appears to be played by Gerard Butler’s hideous twin brother is kind of awesome.  Dolph Lungren is becoming beautifully old, and Van Damme is terrifying.  The film’s cult of super soldiers storyline is cool, and it features some crazy super-brawls.

The Night Caller (aka Night Caller from Outer Space, aka Blood Beast from Outer Space):  There’s something just a little different about the way the Brits were making horror/science fiction back in the 50s and 60s.  Much the same stories, the same shoddy costumes and effects as their American counterparts.  But while the destination was the same, the journey was so different.  From odd narrative progression, where fifteen minutes in, the two leads disappear for a half hour, replaced by totally different characters, to the strange and probably unnecessary bits of off topic character interplay, a lot of these movies have a specific charm that is pretty much unique to the UK.  (For a slightly more modern example of what I’m talking about, look at Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce).  This feels a lot like a story from the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who (but with better pacing).  The creature is pretty lame, but the movie is well worth checking out for the colorful cast and good dialog.  The interplay between the pornographer and the cop alone is worth the effort.

Invasion of Astro-Monster (aka Godzilla VS Monster Zero):  “We’re glad we found friends on Planet X.”  When a couple of dudes take a rocket ship to a mysterious planet, they find much more than they expect.  Those crazy cats from Planet X are ready to get all up in Earth’s business with a giant, gold, three headed beast that spits lightning.  Bah-BAM!  And then they kidnap and control Rodan and Godzilla.  Dude.  Who does that?  Obviously, you have to watch out for the sexy femme fatale.  Especially when she’s not alone.  Nick Adams and Akira Takarada are really fun leads, and play well together.  And I’m always, always glad to see King Ghidorah.  He’s still probably my single favorite giant monster.

Zombie Lake:  “No one knows how I feel, and neither do you.”  Jean Rollin does his thing… this time, with zombies.  Using Jess Franko’s dude-muse (like Tim Burton’s Johnny Depp) Howard Vernon who looks like he’s about to give up the ghost himself.  The zombies look terrible, and unfortunately the camera lingers long enough that you can’t help but notice.  You can see a lot of Rollin’s usual flourishes, but they don’t feel right.  The pacing doesn’t work with the subject, and the dubbing is downright awful, which doesn’t help things at all.  Not just that the voice acting is bad, which it is.  But the English script doesn’t make any danged sense.  When the VW bus full of girls shows up at the lake, though, you’re really reminded that Rollin was an artist, man.  An artist.  Zombie movie fans will almost certainly be disappointed with its focus on a weird love story and a myth shrouded lake (it’s really more of a ghost story), and Rollin fans will likely miss the dreamlike feel of his usual work that only very occasionally peaks its head out here.  I do have to ask, if the child was born during the second World War, how come she’s only like 12 in 1980?  The lesson this movie reminds us of is, like gremlins, don’t ever get Nazis wet.   If anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, the mayor’s castle would be A-OK in my book.

Seriously, this is from the movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End:  “No cause is lost, if there is but one fool left to fight for it.”  This third installment in the swashbuckling fantasy adventure series is full of the expected danger, daring do, grim characters, and exotic locations.  As the series has progressed, it has become less and less accurately titled, as they’ve sailed quite a distance from the Caribbean.  Of course, the big twists at the end of the second film changes the course of events.  With one hero dead and one villain risen from the grave, all bets are off.  A journey to the nastiest looking Asian port ever put on film is a clear necessity.  All the crazy pirate lore they build in these films is pretty cool.  Nine pieces of eight, the Pirate’s Code, the Flying Dutchman, the black spot, Shipwreck Cove, sea turtles, Calypso, and all kinds of wild snippets of crazy old Pirate tales.  Grand.  The climactic whirlpool battle is overblown and overlong.  But otherwise, it’s a fine finish to a trilogy (of course, there would be more to come).

The Devil Came from Akasava:  “Just go to hell, please.”  It’s Jess Franco!  Luckily, this was early enough in his career that Franco hadn’t devolved completely into the turd maestro he would soon become.  There were still some hints of possible talent allowed to slip into his movies.  The man works his zooms like a Terry Crews works his delts.  I was waiting for the zoom that went microscopic, but sadly, like a good script, that was beyond Franco.  Typical of this type of film, especially when Franco is involved, it feels like key scenes are missing.  A guy walks into a room, suddenly it’s several days later and there’s a whole story about that guy having been killed in his jeep in the jungle.  What?  When did that happen?  Shouldn’t we have seen something about that?  Also, as a side note, posing like you’re in a photo-shoot is not dancing.  If I went to see a dancer and she did that, I’d be less than thrilled.  No matter how cute she was.  Whatever the case, somewhere around the 45 minute mark, I started to tune out.  Considering how little seems to actually be going on, it’s way too long.

Taking no guff.

    I finally tried getting back into reading some monthly comics.  Brad hooked me up with a pile, but the pile kept getting bigger and I wasn’t even making a dent.  So, I finished off The Creep, with its fourth issue.  That’s a big ‘meh.’  It started out seemingly like it might be a really interesting weird mystery, but it ended up being pretty bland, with a reveal that wasn’t all that shocking or surprising.  The main character feels like he should be in a totally different story.  This just came off as an episode of Law & Order.

    After that, I had much more fun reading issues 2 and 3 of the new Fantastic Four.  This is the kind of thing the first family of Marvel should be doing.  Every time Reed exists on Earth for more than six months and the East Coast hasn’t become a technological utopia, the comic doesn’t ring true.  So, here we have him and his band rocketing through space having crazy adventures.  The Fantastic Four are really a ‘cosmic’ group, and like similar comics (Silver Surfer, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the like), they should be in space (and/or time), fighting robots and aliens and all kinds of crazy stuff.

    In spite of a lot of mistreatment, deep down inside, I’m still a Star Wars fan.  Or at least, I want to be.  And for the most part, Dark Horse has been the one ray of light for this fan for like 20 years.  Not all the comics are good, but until the Clone Wars CGI series, the only good Star Wars in decades were in comic form.  And I’m kind of itching to do a Star Wars RPG, which would almost certainly be set in or around the original film’s time.  So, I figured I’d try out Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets.  The look of the cover, the subject, and the character design was all very 70s, so I was kind of hoping it would tap into that Han Solo/Lando adventure novel vibe.  It does not.  There’s potential for some cool stuff here, but right off the bat, I don’t like Agent Cross.  The time period (a couple years before Yavin) is perfect for expanding the universe.  But this feels like too many Star Wars stories, too attached to the original movies, going to the same places, meeting the same characters, dealing with the same issues.  With all the universe to explore, we just keep going over the same territory.  The art is OK.  As usual with Star Wars comics, it doesn’t wow, but it looks good enough to do the job.

    Issue 1 of the new Dark Horse ongoing Star Wars comic holds more promise.  Though again, we’re dealing with characters we already know, the writing works a bit better and the vibe of the first couple movies is more present.  It looks like this will be a bridge story between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which of course, has already been done.  Still, a fairly good read and I’ll be curious to see where it goes.

    One of the best series out there right now is Godzilla: The Half Century War.  The penultimate issue drops Space Godzilla and Mechagodzilla into a three way battle with our old friend.  And long suffering giant-monster hunter Ota is there for the action.  And this time he gets to strike a blow for the Earth, in an unlikely way.  And man, that last panel.  I can’t wait for the final issue, though I don’t want it to end.

    “Our compass is curiosity.  Our destination is the infinite.”  So, I read FF (Future Foundation), issue 1 & 2, and they were oddly charming.  The art is kind of awful, but with this crazy 60s vibe that fits well with the series.  And Matt Fraction seems to have embraced that same 60s crazy that make The Fantastic Four popular all those decades ago.  It even feels like he’s got some kind of handle on the idea that these people are actively building the future, not just a bunch of weirdoes living in NYC.  There’s almost a Marvel equivalent of Batman: Brave and the Bold to it, as they drag out some weird, weird characters.  Lockjaw, man.  Lockjaw.

    DC’s The Phantom Stranger is an odd, and potentially really interesting series.  It’s connections to the more mystical characters like Captain Marvel (or, I guess they’re calling him Shazam now), could make for some good Creepy/Eerie type tales.  And it feels natural that it might mix up with Swamp Thing and Animal Man, but who knows.  And the art work also reflects that old horror comic style.  I’d almost rather see it in black & white.

    I also finally finished Infidel, which I’d started quite a while back, but put up for a bit while I was busy with other things.  Good book.  And I read Christa Faust’s Double-D Double Cross, which was a fun, quick read.

-Matt