Review: A DANGEROUS METHOD

A Dangerous Method is Canadian Madman David Cronenberg's most recent film.

 It tells the (mostly) true story of the birth of psychoanalysis, and the relationships between Carl Jung, Sigmund Frued and Sabina Spielrein. Also there’s a lot of stuff about sex, and there is spanking, so you know you’re in for a good time.

Michael Fassbender, who continues to be both awesome and in every single movie that comes out now, is great as Jung and Aragorn Mortensen is a real treat as Frued, who is constantly smoking a cigar and is constantly bearded.

But the real stand-out here is Keira Knightley, who is most famous for being the British version of Natalie Portman and also being a wet blanket in those stupid Pirate movies.

Knightley is fantastic here, playing Spielrein as a tortured animal of a woman, all jutting jaws and choked words. Also she looks really good getting spanked.

The film is based on a play, which means there’s not much action, just people sitting around talking. Thankfully what they are talking about is really interesting, and the actors doing the talking are all very good. 

The only flaw is we don’t really learn anything about these people, with the exception of Spielrein. I guess since they were all REAL people we can just look them up on Wikipedia to find out what they were really like, but both Jung and Frued are sort of blank in this film, despite the good performances.

I love David Cronenberg and will continue to be excited for any movie he makes. However, there is a part of me that wishes he would get back to making the awesome monster porn movies of his glory days.

I give A Dangerous Method three and a half out of four Fassbender’s.

Review: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

"It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." -- Jim Gordon (by way of Charles Dickens).

The Dark Knight Rises is a beast of a movie. It had to be; they had no choice. After the phenomenal success that was The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan and co. couldn't very well go back and make a more subtle, character study type movie like they did with Batman Begins. This was, after all, the final film in the trilogy. It had to make the crowd go wild.

Here is what I love about Christopher Nolan's films: he tries REALLY HARD. Even if you don't like his movies, you have to admit that the man will go to whatever lengths necessary to tell the story he wants to tell. He has become the master of what could be considered "intelligent popcorn films"; that is, movies that have all the flash and bang of a summer blockbuster, but also take the time to focus on the drama at hand.

I purposely waited to write this review, because it's going to have spoilers, and I'm sure at this point everyone has seen the movie. And if not, you really should--in IMAX. More on that later...

The Dark Knight Rises picks up 8 years after the events of the Dark Knight. Gotham City is a peaceful place and Batman (and Bruce Wayne) have vanished from the public eye. Bruce Wayne limps around his mansion with a goatee and a lost look, channelling Howard Hughes at his craziest. But trouble is brewing in Gotham; beneath the exterior of peace and calm lies something more sinister. 

Bruce Wayne is first snapped out of his seclusion by a cat burglar who has been robbing from the rich. She even rips off Wayne, posing as a maid to steal some pearls--and also Wayne's fingerprints. 

Bruce does some fancy computer work and discovers the name of the cat burglar: Selina Kyle. 

But Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman--although they never call her Catwoman in the movie) is small potatoes compared to what's really coming. A slimey Wayne Enterprises board member (which is a kind of employee Wayne Enterprises seems to hire a lot) named Dagget is trying to make a power grab of the floundering company. He's so determined to get what he wants that he's been bankrolling a group of mercenaries, led by the hulking, mysterious Bane.  

Of course, none of this matters to Bane. He has his own agenda--he wants to destroy Gotham, and with it, Bruce Wayne.

Thrown into the mix is Commissioner Gordon, still struggling over the cover-up about Harvey Dent's death; Miranda Tate, a philanthropist trying to help Wayne Enterprises; and a young beat cop named John Blake, who, it turns out, is more important to the story than anyone could've guessed before hand. 

I've seen The Dark Knight Rises twice so far--the first time in IMAX, the second in a "regular" theater. When I left the IMAX showing (opening night at midnight), I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was ready to proclaim "this is the best film of the trilogy!" It had totally blown me away.

But when I saw it a week later in a regular theater, my mood changed. I still loved the movie, but I was more perceptive to the flaws this time. With that in mind, I suggest anyone who is going to see this movie should plop down the extra bucks and see it in IMAX.  Nolan shot over an hours worth of footage in IMAX, and it shows. You are complete engulfed into the world of the film; the soundtrack takes you over and for nearly three hours you are in a blissful, overwhelmed mood. 

But, like I said, the Dark Knight Rises has flaws. 

The film has been surprisingly divisive amongst fans of the franchise. Some hail it as a masterpiece, others hate its guts. It's a polarizing film. I guess that's to be expected. I'm pretty sure after the Dark Knight, the fans of this franchise all had their own ideas of what the third and final Bat-Film should be. And therein lies the problem. 

The majority of complaints I've read about the film seem to be people complaining about not what was in the film, but what WASN'T. People are pissed they didn't get the movie THEY wanted. That's not how movies work, kids. 

But again, there are those flaws I mentioned. For one thing, even at nearly 3 hours, the film feels rushed. This is a good thing in the sense that the film flies by; there's almost no down time, and you never get bored. But as a result it feels like they had to condense the plot to fit it all in there. I honestly could've watched another hour of the film and still been engrossed. 

There are also some glaring editing mistakes that really should've been caught in a film this big. A scene in a court room involves Bane having one of his goons bring him Miranda Tate, but in the very next scene, she is fine and dandy and talking to Bruce. But then later we see that Bane is "holding her hostage" to get Batman to come to him. All Nolan and his editor had to do was simply move the scene with Bane calling Miranda over to a later position (or even cut that small scene entirely). Instead it's just there in your face, making you think "Why didn't they fix that?"

Matthew Modine's character, a cop named Foley, is completely useless. He's set up to sort of be the heir to Jim Gordon's job, and there's a scene near the end where Gordon chastises him to come out of hiding to fight Bane and his army. But other than that, the character is flat and serves almost no purpose, and then is killed off screen. 

I love the ending--with Alfred spotting Bruce and Selina alive and well in a cafe; however, this scene was very heavy-handedly telegraphed at the beginning of the film. Alfred talks about how he always wanted to spot Bruce at this cafe, and know that Bruce had "finally made it" out of Gotham. They might as well have had the words FORESHADOWING flashing on the screen during this scene. 

But the flaws in the film do not equal the sum of its parts. There is far more good than bad. 

The film has a long list of "best things about this film" items, but at the top of that list is Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, who steals every scene she's in. For some reason when Hathaway was announced for the part, the fanboys were PISSED. I don't know why--I have nothing against Ms. Hathaway. I find her charming and attractive. But she apparently wasn't good enough for Catwoman. Then again, Heath Ledger, when announced, wasn't "good enough" to be the Joker, and we all know how that turned out.

Hathaway's Catwoman is the only character in the film who gets to have fun. Everything else is so dark and gloomy and hopeless, but Hathaway is clearly living it up. Every sly line, every seductive look, every smart ass remark rings true. If they made a spin-off movie about Hathaway's Catwoman, I'd be first in line.

While we're talking about performances, let's talk Tom Hardy's Bane. As soon as footage started to come out with Bane, there was concern over his voice. People were saying it was hard to understand, or just goofy. Honestly I never had a problem understanding a word he said in the film, but that's me. 

Hardy is fantastic as Bane. He makes the character seem terrifying and brutal, and yet at the end, he even manages to make us feel a little sorry for the guy. Sure, he's a murderous, neck snapping, face smashing monster--but he also helped save a little girl from a prison full of lunatics! He even sheds a tear. 

The voice Hardy chooses to use is indeed strange. But I think the fact that the voice is SO DAMN WEIRD makes the character even more interesting. Who the hell in the world can you think of who has a voice like that? No one. It's just too damn weird. And that's what makes it compelling 

The always alluring Marion Cotillard is Miranda Tate, who is obviously Talia, Ra's al Ghuls daughter. I'm pretty sure as soon as she was cast in the film, every Batman fan knew exactly who she was. It wasn't surprising when she stabbed Batman in the back (literally). But when Cotillard finally goes "bad" at the end of the film, she brings a bitter iciness to the part that sells it and makes us overlook how obvious the twist is, and how underwritten the part was.

Then there's John Blake, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is just as much about him as it is about Batman. Not only is this about the Dark Knight rising, it's also about Blake's character rising up from just a beat cop to being something more. Gordon-Levitt does fine with the part, but like Miranda Tate, I did feel like he was a bit underwritten. The character could've used some fleshing out. 

And then of course we have series regulars Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Caine's Alfred is surprisingly absent for most of the film (I was not expecting that). Freeman doesn't have much to do, but he's always fun to watch. And Gary Oldman is, well, Gary Oldman. He's the coolest mother fucker on the planet and the best actor in the galaxy. 

And last but certainly not least we come to Christian Bale. Yes, Batman still has that goofy voice (again, it doesn't bother me--but that's me). But this is easily Bale's best performance of all three films. Bruce Wayne goes through so much in this movie, and Bale sells it all completely. I think Bale is a fantastic actor, but in certain movies he seems to be taking things a little TOO seriously. Here, he breathes new life into the character he's played twice before, and you can tell he's loving every minute of it. 

Hans Zimmer's music is incredible. The best of the trilogy. It's non-stop, churning, pounding music that refuses to let you catch your breath. Without it, the film wouldn't work nearly as well as it does.

The Dark Knight Trilogy is an amazing feat. It did the impossible: a good superhero trilogy. Most superhero films hit the "third movie curse", but Christopher Nolan and co. have avoided that but making the films bigger and more complex as they went along, but never losing sight of their original mission: to present Batman in a "realistic" world. It was a franchise full of amazing moments, and awful real-life tragedy. 

As a Batman fan and as a film fan, I'm grateful to Christopher Nolan for taking the character seriously, and for doing what he does best: trying REALLY HARD. 

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Warner Brothers reboots the franchise. I highly doubt it will ever live up to what Nolan has created here with these three films. 

The Dark Knight Rises is not a perfect film, but it is a perfect ending to the universe of these films. The characters get what they deserve this time--not what they need. 

I, for one, am going to miss this franchise.

Final rating for the Dark Knight Rises: 9 out of 10 Bats. 

Adaptable

Review: I AM A GHOST

I Am a Ghost is one of those rare ghost stories that's told from the perspective of the one haunting the house, rather than those being haunted.

Anna Ishida is Emily, a woman from a seemingly Victorian time stuck in a loop. She keeps reliving the same random events every day, and she also finds herself communicating with a medium she can not see, named Sylvia. 

Emily died in the house she haunts, and Sylvia is trying to get her to move on--but it's not quite working, and neither woman can figure out why.

To say any more would spoil the film, so that's all you need to know. The less you know, the more effective this film is.

I Am a Ghost is a slow-burn, reminiscent of Ti West's House of the Devil, which also features a female character trapped in a spooky old house, slowly building towards a frightening climax.

This is essentially a one-woman show, and Anna Ishida does a fine job of carrying the film. She's not as polished as a "Hollywood actress", but this helps with the out-of-time nature of the character. 

Again, this is a slow-burn of a movie; some people may lose patience after seeing Emily cook the same two eggs for the fifth time, but the build up is worth it. When the horror finally kicks in, it's all the more effective.

It always helps to have a good setting for your film, especially if your film is of a lower-budget, and the old house in I Am a Ghost is perfect. It's clearly a real house--not a set--adding realism and a nicely preserved historical look. Director H.P. Mendoza employees a few nifty tricks to keep the mostly quiet movie engaging; for one thing, the film itself is presented in a frame reminiscent of an old photograph, with rounded edges. Split-screens and washed-out colors help with atmosphere and actually contribute to the film, rather than just feeling like they were added to "look cool."

If there's one complaint I have with the film, it's the (vocal) performance of Jeannie Barroga, as the psychic Sylvia. Never seen and only heard, Barroga's line-delivery feels very flat, almost as if she's just reading her lines off a piece of paper into a microphone, and not putting much feeling into them. But that's not enough of a problem to derail the movie. 

At 74 minutes, I Am a Ghost never over-stays its welcome. It knows just when to end, and doesn't drag things out any further than necessary. 

It may not be the slickest of ghost movies, but it's certainly one of the more effective, with a final act that will leave you chilled and disturbed. 

Review: LUNOPOLIS

I’ve watched Lunopolis twice now, and I feel like watching it a third time.

What a world this is where I want to watch a movie called Lunopolis three times!

This is the tagline of Lunopolis: There are people on the moon, they’re from the future, and they’re running our government.

Right away you want to throw this into the rubbish bin. But Lunopolis is a surprisingly fun movie about people who live on the moon and control our government. It seems really cheesy, and at times it is. But it’s also well done, and even creepy at times. Who knew a movie about Moon Men could be creepy? Not me, or Tom Hanks, who LOVES the moon, could have predicted such a thing.

The movie makes fun of Scientology and it has a fucking flying car in it. And a time machine. Also a moon rock. 

There’s a scene where a character yells “You can stop the charade, we HAVE your moon rock!” and is being serious.

Also, everyone who was ever good at anything or famous, like Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, Hitler or Frankenstein was from the Moon. 

Why aren’t you watching this right now? It’s on Netflix Instant. It has a really cool soundtrack that sounds a lot like Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai. 

I give Lunopolis 4 out of 4 Moons.

Review: THE GREY

The Grey was a really poorly marketed film.

If you saw trailers or TV spots for the film, you probably got one thing out of it: LIAM NEESON FIGHTING FUCKING WOLVES OMG. HE MAKES “GLASS” KNUCKLES OUT OF TINY VODKA BOTTLES AND KILLS TEN THOUSAND WOLVES WHILE SCREAMING.

That is not at all what The Grey is like.

The Grey, believe it or not, is a surprisingly philosophical look at mortality and faith. Also it has killer wolves.

Liam Neeson stars as a sad, quiet, ass-kicking man named Ottway. He works for some oil company, where his job is to have a beard and also to shoot wolves and other animals so they wont eat the oil workers. 

Ottway and the rest of the workers are flying back to Anchorage Alaska when their plane goes bonkers and crashes. A bunch-o-people die, and the survivors go about trying to…survive. Easier said than done, because besides the fact that it’s freezing cold and snowy wind keeps blowing everywhere, they happen to have crashed near the den of a pack of big ass cartoon wolves who want to eat their fucking faces off.

One by one, the men are picked off by wolves, while Ottway tries to lead them to safety. 

The film was directed by Joe Carnahan, who made one good movie once, called Narc. Then everything he did after that was fucking awful. It’s nice to see he’s getting back into the “good movie” game. It looks like he’s been watching some Christopher Nolan films, because the film has a very Nolan-esq vibe to it.

It would have been VERY easy for The Grey to go wrong. I mean, just the premise alone—a bunch of guys fighting off wolves—screams B-MOVIE. But the script, by Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, goes above and beyond what is expected of it. Instead of just having the group of men be stereotypical, underdeveloped hard-asses, the script fleshes each character out, so that when they meet their wolfy demise, it actually is effective. We WANT these guys to survive. They don’t though…(SPOILERZ).

Liam Neeson is always good, even when he’s in garbage. But he does some of his best work in years in The Grey. He doesn’t feel like he’s collecting a paycheck—he feels like he’s embodying the character he’s playing.

It’s important to go into The Grey with a clear head, and NOT expecting it to be about LIAM NEESON: WOLF PUNCHER. It’s also important to go into the film realizing you’re going to walk out feeling really depressed.

A good alternate title for the film would be THE GREY: IS GOD REAL? NO HE’S NOT.

I give The Grey 4 Wolves out of 4.

Review: EXIT HUMANITY

ZOMBIE MOVIES!

Are you sick of them yet? I sure as hell am.

There was a time when the prospect of new zombie films was very exciting. Now, there seems to be a new low-budget indie zombie movie hitting Redbox and Netflix every week.

In this day and age of zombie overload, Exit Humanity does the impossible and creates a pretty original and interesting zombie film.

Exit Humanity is set several years after the end of the Civil War. Edward Young (Mark Gibson) is a shell of a man, having lost both his wife and his son to the walking dead. Pretty much done with life, Edward sets off to do one final task: scatter his sons ashes at a waterfall that brought him peace during the war.

Along the way he blows away zombies, and runs into Issac, who also is pretty adept at zombie killing. Issac says that a crazy general (Bill Moseley) and his gang of crazy soldiers have kidnapped Issac's sister, along with a bunch of other people, in hopes of finding a "cure" to the zombie outbreak.

So Edward agrees to help Issac, and before long, Edward, Issac and Issac's sister Emma are hiding out with a woman named Eve (played by the mom from E.T., aka Dee Wallace). Eve is thought of as a witch, and she has a few secrets she's not very proud of.

Meanwhile, the general and his men are out for blood, and chaos ensues.

Exit Humanity has a very simple story, and the whole "crazy evil army people looking for a cure" story-line is a nice little nod to Day of the Dead, but what drives the film is its competent production values. This is clearly a low budget film, but director John Geddes does a great job of not letting you realize that. The film looks gorgeous, and Geddes applies a neat little trick: whenever he has a scene that would require a bigger budget, it's presented as an animation, which ties into the sketches that Edward Young makes in his journal.

Also adding greatly to the film is Brian Cox, who narrates the story with Terrence Malick-esqe prose. 

But Exit Humanity is not without its flaws. The biggest is that the movie feels way too long. It starts to lag in the middle, and it's clear that a lot of padding is going on to stretch things out. Trimmed of about ten to twenty minutes, the film would be much tighter. 

I love Bill Moseley; he is of course a genre favorite. But he's pretty terrible in the movie. The rest of the cast does a fantastic job, which causes Moseley to stand out like a sore thumb as he chews the scenery and yells and knocks things over trying to act crazy. The movie also loses some points for totally wasting awesome character actor Stephen McHattie in a pretty thankless, nothing role. Things would have been better suited if Moseley and McHattie had switched characters.

This may seem a bit nit-picky since this is a low-budget film, but the zombie make-up is inconsistent and distracting. At times, it looks really good--creepy and effective. At others it looks like total crap--like people with white goop smeared on their faces. 

But overall, Exit Humanity does a pretty good job of injecting some life into the zombie genre. 

The music is very good, as is the costume design; these things are important. A good soundtrack and good costumes can make your low budget schlock look like a million bucks.

The zombie genre may be beating an undead horse (see what I did there??), but Exit Humanity takes it into a different direction, and succeeds where so many others have failed. 

I'm not afraid, I'm ANGRY.

I made this; as an homage to the Assault on Precinct 13 poster. 

Cannibal Corpse - I Cum Blood (Metal Spoken Word)

If I lose the light

"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you."

Henry Rollins

July

July is almost over. Ever closer to autumn.



Explosions pillaging the night 
From the fireworks on the fourth of July 
It's just my lady, our friends, and I 
Smoking cigars and yelling at cars as they drive by

We scaled a ladder ascending to the roof 
While five years ago I weeped and no one knew
Holding my guitar, I strummed a tune 
I sang "I love you but I have to cut you loose"

As the neighbor lights off the small bombs we watch 
from the rooftop... safely, so safely

If I had never let go, then only God knows where I would be know
I made a bridge between us then I slowly burned it 
Five years ago, in my backyard I sang love away
Little did I know that real love had not quite yet found me

Feelings

EXCERPTS FROM THE HAUNTED HOUSE BUYER’S MARKET

Due to laws passed requiring realtors to provide full disclosure on their properties, we are obligated to tell you if a house might be traditionally referred to/believed to be “haunted.” To help reduce the amount of inquirers, we have compiled a listing of the following properties.

- - - - - - - - - -

34 Weetamoe Rd

Center Ossipee, NH 03814

Year round home on Ossipee lake with spectacular views of lake and mountains. Beds: 2. Baths: 1. Sqft: 572. Year built: 1940

Original owner, Carter Boggs, murdered his entire family on Christmas Eve, cutting off their heads and decorating his Christmas tree with their entrails. He then sat down for a quiet Christmas dinner.

Subsequent residents have reported hearing strange noises in the bedroom where Boggs killed his family. Occasionally, lights flicker on and off; no electrical problems have been found. On Christmas Eve every year, horrible blood-piercing shrieks sound all around the house. Blood-like substance (possibly blood) leeks from faucets.

Great value at $279,000!

- - - - - - - - - -

77 Starboard Ln UNIT 1

Moultonborough, NH 03254

Rare end unit with attached garage. Close to heated pool and your own private 26' deep water dock. Beds: 3. Baths: 3. Sqft: 2,552. Year built: 1975.

A previous occupant was an occultist who conducted black masses in basement, sacrificing several animals. The family who lived in the house most recently reports that low, horrible animal-like sounds come from the floorboards. A "demonic" (source required) face was spotted in the bathroom mirror, speaking Latin.

A steal at $439,000.

- - - - - - - - - -

13 Natalie’s Way

Gilford, NH 03249

Bank Owned

Serene and elegant, this private Governor's Island home is a dream. Set on almost 4 beautifully landscaped acres with westerly mountain and lake views. Beds: 3. Baths: 3. Sqft: 3,483 Year built: 1932.

Former tenants found several wasp nests in the attic. After calling an exterminator to gas the wasps, the wasps returned every night around midnight, screaming human-like screams. Human remains found walled-up in closet. Entire family reported vivid, murder-filled nightmares.

$432,299.

- - - - - - - - - -

299 Linden St

Exeter, NH 03833

Victorian with 3 yr. old heating system, new side stairs, fresh paint on exterior trim and porches and many interior improvements. Beds: 4. Baths: 4. Sqft: 2,404. Year built: 1890.

House built on former Native American burial ground by Dr. Robert Tweed, who was known as the Butcher of Exeter, due to his infamous, unnecessary surgeries on unsuspecting young women. Many occupants have reported that the house "moves"; they claim that looking out the window, they would no longer see their yard or front street, but a swirling black void. Upstairs windows will not open, despite frequent attempts to pry them.

Pregnant women reportedly miscarry while dwelling or even visiting the house. A dog-like creature prowls the yard during heavy rainfalls, his eyes glowing red. Dr. Tweed himself has been spotted standing on the roof, naked, laughing maniacally before vanishing into thin air.

Price heavily reduced due to lengthy time on the market.

$80,000 or best offer!

RISE

I really want to write a review of the Dark Knight Rises, but I think I need to see it again to get all of the details right.

For now I'll just say that I loved it. It was a perfect conclusion to the trilogy, with incredible action and emotion. Anne Hathaway totally knocked it out of the park as Catwoman, and Tom Hardy was brutal and terrifying as Bane.

Again, I need to watch it again before I form a "final opinion", but right now I think I honestly like this one the most of all three films.

Wake me when it gets here...

Sharp

Joss Whedon To Kill Your Puppy

After a long week of trying to find your grandmother's heirloom--the one that would permanently close the portal of hell that opened up because your ex-lover turned robot opened it with his dreams--only to discover your grandmother wasn't really your grandmother, but in fact your mother, news is coming in that Joss Whedon is going to kill your puppy.

"I know it's been a hard year for you," Whedon said. "After the government took away your memory, and when you got it back you found out it was a little too late because you ended up shooting your sister in the back with a harpoon gun. And I know that week-long period where you were stuck in a coma dream world where things moved backwards and all your sexual frustrations manifested themselves in the form of Lust Monsters couldn't have been a walk in the park. But I think it's just time to kill your puppy."

"I have nothing against puppies," Whedon said at a press conference. "I just need to kill this one off to give your overall arc more depth."

As you will recall, your puppy, named Captain Snackems, was recently rescued by you from an evil pound that was selling puppy tears on the black market. You bonded very quickly with the puppy, and the bond grew even stronger when you discovered that you and the puppy shared a mental link, and could read each others thoughts. 

Also, you just got over a very recent scare where the puppy was stolen back by the evil pound owner, who was actually a witch. Luckily you got there in time to cut the head off of the witch and catch the puppy before it fell into a boiling cauldron. 

"You saved me," the puppy told you through mind-speach. "I will always love you."

"I'll always love you too," you told the puppy. "And whenever you get lost, I'll always find you."

"Yeah, it's about time to kill the puppy," Whedon recently reiterated, and went off to his laptop to go about ruining your life.

Bag of tricks? BAG OF KNIVES!

Drew this based off of the Toone Up toy. Willow is PISSED.

Your Punishment Must Be More Severe

Shit I'd Like Movies to Stop Doing

Movies! Who doesn't love them? "No one" is the answer. But the fact of the matter is about 5000 movies come out a year (citation needed) and only about four of them are good--and they're usually directed by Christopher Nolan.

I myself am a movie junkie. There's many a time where I'll melt a DVD or Blu Ray down on a giant spoon, and inject the liquid goop into my veins. Mmm, the warmth of it all.

So it is with my keen and observant knowledge of all things film that I would like to present a list of SHIT I'D LIKE MOVIES TO STOP DOING, counting down from 5 to 1.

5. People falling down/getting hit in the balls/getting hurt in comedy movie trailers.

Now, don't get me wrong. People falling down is funny. If I'm in the subway and I see an old man fall onto the tracks, I let off a good chortle or two. But nothing turns me off of a comedy movie more than a scene in a trailer where a character falls/gets hit in the junk. 

Think about it, this is in nearly EVERY comedy movie trailer ever. It's not so much the act that bothers me, it's the cartoony sound-effects that accompany it, followed sometimes by whatever pop song is playing to suddenly stop, sometimes with a fake record scratch--as if someone was playing some Passion Pit records and suddenly pulled the needle off and said "HOLY SHIT THAT GUY JUST FELL DOWN!"

A recent example was featured in the trailer for The Five-Year Engagement, which I didn't see despite the fact that it features such lovely ladies as Emily Blunt and Alison Brie. In the trailer, Emily Blunt's character spots some little girl holding a crossbow. 

"AREN'T YOU THE CUTEST THING!" says Emily Blunt.

"I'M KATNISS!" says the stupid little girl, referencing the Hunger Games because that's popular with all the kids these days. Then she shoots Emily Blunt in the leg and Emily Blunt almost screams a curse word, but it cuts away real fast. Ha Ha Ha--KILL ME.

I'M PRECOCIOUS! 

Let's Encyclopedia Brown this shit for a moment: first of all, who the fuck sees a child holding a LOADED CROSSBOW and says "HOW CUTE!" Christ, children are monsters. If a child is holding a bottle of shampoo there's a 98 % chance that child will turn that thing into a weapon. So right away, Emily Blunt finding this "cute" stretches logic into the Twilight Zone. Not to mention the stupid pop-culture reference to the Hunger Games, and then the age-old comedy trailer favorite: a character gets hurt and is about to curse and we cut away. "MOTHER FU--" ::in theaters July 2d!!:: 

Terrible.

4. Really bad CGI. 

We are in the 21st century, the age of rocket cars and robot maids. And yet movies continue to feature really shitty CGI effects.

Remember Jurassic Park? That movie came out in 1993, and it has better CGI in it than movies today. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Granted, not every movie has a Spielberg-sized budget. But the solution for that is: if you don't have the money for convincing CGI, don't put a fully CGI character in your movie.

But you know what movie DID have a Spielberg-sized budget? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--because he directed that.

And Christ that had some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. I'm looking at you, CARTOON GOPHER that opens the movie:

C'mon, this is blatantly a fucking CARTOON. 

Another good recent example is Wrath of the Titans, that movie no one saw. Here's a pic of the Cyclops from that movie:

Beware the Walking Penis Man!

LOOK AT THAT THING. HOLY CRAP. 

3. American Remakes of Recent Foreign Films

The Raid recently came out here in STATES. It was a pretty fun movie, full of people beating the shit out of each other. And already they want to remake it for "America." Why? Sure, the Raid is subtitled, but no one is going to see the Raid for the dialog. They want to see foreign people kick each other in the skull. And the reason the fighting in The Raid is so good is because pretty much everyone in that movie is a real martial artist/stunt man.

An American remake will cast some bland actor and use a stunt-double for all his fight scenes. WHY BOTHER?

Perhaps the most egregious recent example of this trend is the remake of Let the Right One In, called LET ME IN. 

Let the Right One In is a near-perfect movie (except for that scene with the awful CGI cats--hey, bad CGI again!). It's a beautiful, heart-felt movie that pumps new blood into the horribly anemic vampire genre. 

Remember this scene? Let's do it again! Only more yellow!

So what do we do?? Remake it! Now--there was room here for something good. For one thing, the original movie was based on the book, and the book has a LOT of stuff in it that the movie doesn't. Filmmaker Matt Reeves had an opportunity to do a more faithful adaptation of the book and make something different. Instead he just did a shot-for-shot remake and added some dumb subplot about a cop looking for Satanists. Thanks, America! 

2. Passing the Torch / Movies skewed towards "younger audiences."

Now, I get it. Movie studios want to make money, and who goes to the movies the most? Dumb kids. So studios have gotten into this mode where most films are skewed towards youth. Have you ever noticed how a lot of movies these days feature casts made up of people who look 19 years old? 

Personally, I call foul on this. When I was a kid, I loved movies that featured ADULTS. Yeah, I liked some movies that had kids, like the Monster Squad. But when I was a kid, I didnt want to BE a kid. I wanted to be an ADULT (note to young me: you're an idiot). So I'd rather watch movies about adults doing adult things--things I could only dream of doing, like shooting people in the face.

Lumped into this is the "passing the torch" idea that has been infecting older franchises. 

Die Hard 4, aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, sucked ass. It had a lot of things wrong with it--especially that PG-13 rating. But one of the worst mistakes it made was trying to appeal to a "younger audience" by giving John McClane a kid-sidekick, played by that guy from Jeepers Creepers. And they're doing it AGAIN with Die Hard 5, which is currently filming and features McClane teaming up with his SON.

I LOVED Die Hard movies when I was younger, and I sure as shit didn't want Bruce Willis running around with some kid. I wanted to see him covered in blood, shooting people and making jokes.

Another example is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Again, there was a lot wrong with the film (terrible CGI included!). But high on the list of wrongs was adding Indy's son MUTT WILLIAMS. There were several interviews before the film came out where professional moron George Lucas said he could easily see the Indy franchise continuing with MUTT in the lead. NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING SEE THAT. NO ONE.

"People are going to LOVE that scene where you swing through the trees with some cartoon monkeys!"

Bill Murray caught a lot of flack for refusing to do Ghostbuster 3. Not from me though--I applaud the man. Because do you know what the plot of Ghostbusters 3 was going to be? It was going to be the Ghostbusters training a bunch of new, young Ghostbusters. NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING SEE THAT EITHER. Do you know why people like the ghostbusters movies? IT'S BECAUSE OF THE GHOSTBUSTERS. They like the original cast, they don't want fucking, Jonah Hill strapping on a proton pack. That's stupid.

I would rather watch a movie with the four original guys, all fucking fat and gross and old, than watch some dumb-ass movie where they train young, hip new ghostbusters.

1. BASED ON A TRUE STORY horror movies.

This is an age-old ploy. I mean, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre did it for crying out loud. But back then, that was a fresh and cool thing to do. "Oh my god, this movie about a cannibal chainsaw family REALLY HAPPENED!" (it didn't.)

These days, however, every other dumb horror movie that comes out gets slapped with a BASED ON A TRUE STORY or INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS. I'm not talking about found-footage movies either.

Recently, The Silent House (which, hey, was an American remake of a recent foreign film! there's a pattern here!) featured INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS in both the trailer and on the poster. NO IT WASN'T. STOP LYING. Unless you mean at some point, somewhere, in history, some woman was in a house, then yes I guess it is based on true events.

INSPIRED BY TOTAL BULLSHIT.

The Mothman Prophecies is another example. I like that movie, and yes, a lot of the stuff that happened in it was inspired by a true story. But it was also so far removed from what "really" happened that it's just pointless to even put that tag in there. But again, I guess people think that sells tickets. 

Which reminds me, did you know this blog post is BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS?????????????????????????????????????