Film is Pwn

 Back when Sky Captain was first coming out I stared at the trailers longingly. The posters called my name and in the years since the dvds have cried out to me from the shelves. Finally, at long last, I took the time to watch it. I loved and hated it. To some extent I still love what it could have been, but then reality strikes and I hate what it actually was. (more…)

I had to see Avatar. I’m not sure I had another choice in the matter. The buzz oozing from every orifice of movie goers round the world insisted upon it. The bad news is I rarely think as highly of movies with this much buzz. District 9 comes to mind.

For starters, James Cameron is talented. Very talented. He managed to bring life to a story I saw coming within the first ten minutes. He managed to make it interesting, heartwarming and very much engaging. The world was interesting and fresh, even if the story was tired. Somehow he managed to make me look past the thousand plot holes as I sat in the theater. My mind was fixated on the Na’vi and the inevitability of their story.

Visually it was pretty significant (it’s what everyone is talking about), the use of 3D mixed with live action was impressively done. The use of CGI with live action didn’t strike me as especially great or ground-breaking but I’ve seen a lot of movies so maybe that has something to do with it. Biologically I think his world had issues. For instance, why did all of his creatures seem to be carnivores despite mass quantities of jumbo size vegetation? But that’s nitpicking. The world is beautiful, fun and fairly scientifically accurate.

I hate that this film was so socially and politically charged. I like social cause movies and when it’s done well it can really be great. I think of “Hotel Rwanda” which though it wasn’t really accurate it shined a light on a grim reality; which I think is always a good thing. Avatar though didn’t shine light on a grim reality; it was preaching to the choir. The people who agreed with the message would cheer and those who didn’t would groan or get angry.

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Monster Squad.  Monster Squad is a relic from the late 80s resuscitated in modern times due to nostalgia, prompting a 20th anniversary DVD release in 2007 with hoopla and fanfare for the grown up child stars and the director, whose most recognizable credit since Monster Squad is the towering achievement that is Robocop 3.  I was not one of the kids who grew up watching Monster Squad and getting a tattoo of the signature line like “Wolfman’s Got Nards!”  I had better things to do growing up in the 80s, like T-ball, playing with G.I. Joes, and repeatedly replaying every single Chevy Chase and/or John Candy movie ever made. (more…)

I would like to recommend this little independent film recently brought to my attention by the name of Primer, but I’m not sure if I possess the mental acumen to do it proper justice. (more…)

Radioland Murders is an odd duck, no doubt.  A movie probably not a lot of people have heard of, and, though I’m fond of it, I don’t think many film connoisseurs will go to their grave regretting that they never saw that Brian Benben comedy Radioland Murders.

Radioland Murders is the brainchild of Star Wars creator George Lucas, which isn’t always a good thing (see the last Indiana Jones movie and the latter Star Wars trilogy for proof).  Released in 1994, Radioland Murders is caught somewhere between slapstick comedy and dark comedy, which is often an uneasy mix.  For better or worse, the imbalance is offset by the frenetic pace, which launches the audience from scene to scene and joke to joke, so if you don’t like one there’s a different one seconds later, and maybe you’ll like that one.

The setting is a 1930s radio station on its first night attempting to become the fourth national station.  The premiere is a red-carpet affair at a theater (yes, audiences actually used to attend radio events in person) and is not only fraught with madcap antics and catastrophes bordering on hilarity but also . . . (dramatic pause) . . . murder! (more…)

Walking into the theatre, press pass dangling around my neck and garnering stares and questioning glances, New York Lately was exactly the type of movie I hoped for and expected. Don’t take that to mean that it was good. This is a Film Festival, having never been to one, I sat in anticipation imagining what it would be like. I pondered my lack of skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts; both of which would no doubt be uniform for the event. Then I imagined the type of movie a person wearing skinny jeans and an ironic t-shirt would make.

I’m not making fun of this as much as it might seem. I wish I was cool enough to wear skinny jeans and clever enough to have ironic t-shirts, but instead I just wear normal jeans and a button down shirt. I wished I had shaved to have cool facial hair of some sort, but alas I had to just be me. Then as we arrived and looked around, I didn’t see a single pair of skinny jeans, and since most everyone was in a uniform for the festival the ironic t-shirts had been left in the closet. I was acceptable.

Interestingly New York Lately was still much the type of movie I imagined those non-existent stereotypes would produce. It was along the vein of movies like Babel and Magnolia. It’s the story of several people whose lives intertwine in some intricate way to produce a story that paints the picture of modern life with its connections and isolation. The problem is that few of these characters seemed real and the stories didn’t really intertwine at all. So it was more like the make-believe stories of disjointed people.

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We’re not just talking the Fog, we’re talking John Carpenter’s The Fog, people!  I assume having the auteur behind the original Halloween is supposed to be some kind of enticement, but it’s unclear why someone would want their name above this movie or attempt to entice someone to see it.  I came to it more or less on accident, as John Carpenter’s the Fog happened to air on HDNet Movies the very same night I was bored and looking to kill an hour and a half.  No matter what else I’ll say about it, the Fog did manage to kill that time, so I guess I do owe Mr. Carpenter some measure of thanks, but not much!

The Fog is a ghost story about lots and lots of mundane yet somehow spooky coincidences, which are only somewhat validated by the fact that there are some undead ghost pirate lepers that kill some local yokels.

The film opens with an actual ghost story where some old dude (John Houseman) straight off of posing for the Old Spice bottle covers, tells a bunch of kids the tale of an old pirate vessel that their town founders destroyed in order to found the very town they are living in.  And soon the entire town is besieged with a fiendish evil of inconceivable proportions as the uncanny, procrastinating pirates use their newfound supernatural prowess to exact extremely tardy reprisals on the inhabitants of the town 100 years after they were wronged.   Ooooooooh!  I will have my revenge on the inhabitants of Antonio Bay, in a century or so, we don’t want to rush anything — ooooooooh!
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Time After Time is but one of an endless series of fish out of water time travel films, the vast majority of which get tedious after about fifteen minutes.  Time After Time was different, in that it got tiresome in a mere ten minutes

The idea here is a preposterous if entertaining “What If?” scenario, not unlike the series that Marvel Comics would publish back in the day, like what if Dr. Doom was a hero, what if Wolverine shaved his sideburns, or what if Winnie the Pooh was exposed to Gamma Rays instead of Bruce Banner.

In this case, the question is: What if infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper escaped 19th century justice by using H.G. Wells’ time machine to come to modern times (well, “modern” as of the film’s release in 1979)?   (more…)

I entered Lost Treasure with considerably low expectations.  Scratch that.  I entered Lost Treasure without expectations, exceeding what I’d expect from spending 80 minutes staring at my wallpaper.  As I glance around my abode, I realize I have no wallpaper, I have that stuccoish stuff everywhere, which is why I couldn’t put up those cool, Chicago Cubs/Bears fatheads my brother bought me a couple years ago.  But that’s not the point, though I suppose if I said I’d stare at my walls, which are covered in stucco, it would be the same as watching Lost Treasure, which I don’t think was my initial point, which related to my expectations.  Still with me?

Simply put (too late, I know), I only watched Lost Treasure because: 1) it was on TV, 2) it starred Stephen Baldwin and future Desperate Housewife Nicollette Sheridan, 3) and it had a stupid description under Program Info: “Brian’s brother Carl is abducted after they find a map to a legendary treasure on a Caribbean Island.”  Come on, try and tell me you’re not sold already.  There’s the link to buy the movie, so what are you waiting for?
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When the fourth and (pretty please, Hollywood!) LAST sequel to the Fast and the Furious came into theaters earlier this year, I was mildly aware of its existence due to the robust advertising, but indifferent in general.  All the F&F films are mindless, bloated action movies with tough guys, hot chicks, fist fights, and car chases.  At the heart of the movies lies a love story — a love story about filmmakers and glamorous, expensive cars.

I’ll always remember seeing the first Fast and the Furious with Tom Stephens and his brother Steve, who spent the whole film saying things like, “Ooooh!!! Is that a BMW Blah Blah Blah?” “No, that’s a Blah Car Blah Blah!” “You can only get that Blah Blah Car Blah Blah in Norway from a guy named Sven!”  Seeing as how I’m not a car guy, this proved a wee bit tedious.

What was worse is there was nothing else on the screen to draw their attention away from the nigh pornographic, exotic automobile display that would shame the programming director of Cinemax.  I couldn’t change the subject from cars to plot, because there was no plot to speak of.  The story was just an excuse to talk cars, race cars, and massage cars. (more…)

Arnold Schwarzenegger has many skills — lifting weights, reading, lifting weights, traveling through time naked, lifting weights, etc. — but predicting the future is not one of them.  The first time Arnold foretold the future (the Terminator), we saw a robot apocalypse.  Despite a near successful coup of the Clinton administration by Gobots wherein Leader One attempted to “transform” into Leader One of the Free World, this did not come true.  In End of Days, prognosticator Arnold predicted the anti-Christ would rise in 1999.  This is woefully inaccurate, as Pauly Shore is still biding his time before revealing his true nature, so this is strike two.

(In the mid-80s, Arnold’s film the Running Man predicted that in the near future America’s most popular TV show would be a reality show where we watched people get hunted down and killed for our entertainment; I believe that is the basic premise of American Idol, which only goes to show even a blind squirrel can get a nut.)

The 6th Day isn’t just strike three, this is striking out 500 times in a season with 501 at bats (the 501st at bat saw Arnold ground into a double play).  The 6th Day takes place, according to the text at the beginning, “IN THE NEAR FUTURE . . . SOONER THAN YOU THINK.”
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As I sit down to compose my thoughts on the final summer blockbuster, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, I am conflicted.  I had an utter blast watching the movie, but it may be one of the dumbest movies of the decade.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed G.I. Joe is that I grew up in the 80s watching the cartoon show and playing with the action figures along with my brother.  Then, 20 plus years later my brother and I go to the theater and have a hoot and a half, even as we giggle at some of the dumber plot twists. 

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is essentially a live-action cartoon, with lots of computer-generated effects that really don’t look great.  Although it should be noted that some of the bad effects shots in the trailer that are rather disheartening are not terribly jarring in the film because every two minutes there’s an action scene where a person, place, or army of underwater attack ships are being rendered with special effects.  (more…)