The S&M Show

Episode 42 Part II: Cops & Cocks

2011-07-23T00:00:00.008-05:00

In this conclusion to the first year-long run of The S&M Show, the Geeks bring it full circle, talking about their Fourth of July, Matt gets hustled by Jeremy Renner, then they end with an STR about the seat that claims to be hot. See you all in a few weeks.

STR runs from 38:00-49:00

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Episode 42 Part I: Talk Transformers

2011-07-16T00:00:00.005-05:00

The Geeks reflect on their one-year podcasting anniversary, then talk a trilogy that leads them to talk Transformers, talk Transformers, and talk Transformers. If you're not down with Transformers, this is not the episode for you. Part II coming soon.

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Episode 41: An Inaccurate History of Time

2011-07-02T00:00:00.005-05:00

The Geeks make an announcement, kick Ben Franklin's ass, and get detention.

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Alphasmart

Sam's Flog: Why Sam Doesn't Like X-Men: First Class (Consists of SPOILERS)

2011-07-01T02:43:00.020-05:00

Okay, so episode 38 covered both Matt and mine's opinions of the new X-Men movie. I really shied away from argument on the episode and let Matt say what he wanted to say because I could have carried on the entire episode, and as frustrating as it is to me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But if there's something Matt's appreciation of this flick shows, it's that a non-X-Men fan, or a casual X-Men fan will enjoy this film much more than those who love the comics and have loyalty invested in the first two films. 2000's X-Men, which may seem dated by today's standards, is still the first real successful comic book movie adaptation of the new millenium to start a movement of comic book films we're still seeing trend today. And personally I think it still holds up. But even if you have qualms with the rough introductory 1 hour and 40 minute try out that was X-Men, I don't see how 2003's X2: X-Men United doesn't completely deliver almost everything you could ask for in an awesome comic book film and sequel for that matter. It was a solid, character driven, well crafted action packed second installment to what could have been a fantastic trilogy.

That's when Bryan Singer went to do Superman Returns and Fox films, being the whores they are, couldn't wait to get the third film out there. So they brought in the shit pile that is Brett Ratner to direct as well as swap writers for a reason I don't know of to make a film that, as my brother sums it up more punctually than I can, basically says to its audience: "Hey, do you like X-Men? Well FUCK YOU!" Basically the third film throws everything it can in a poor pathetic fashion and decides to kill everybody or de-mutant them in a shitty-ass closing to what could have been a great trilogy.

If ruining the solidity and quality of a two part franchise wasn't enough, the solo Wolverine film that was supposed to be the first in a series of individual origin stories for X-Men characters was probably even worse than the third X-Men film. They were going to make a film called X-Men Origins: Magneto but after the reception and box office failure of Wolverine, and I'm guessing some angry chat boards, they decided to give Bryan Singer a call, and see if they couldn't make an origin story with more of a callback to the first two films. Or at least that's what I was told and decieved through advertisement to believe.

Here is a list of all the things I really didn't like about X-Men: First Class. It will contain SPOILERS and it will probably not be in chronological order, but I am going to try and get everything out of my system I can. But do understand, I tried very hard to like this film. I really did.

1. Kevin Bacon as a nazi...

Okay, I can't speak German, he seems to be doing fine (even though two people I know who studied German say different), so fair enough. The opening scene where he shoots Erik's mother in front of him right next to an eerie torture room is a powerful moment. Still though, that's a very distracting casting decision. I seriously considered singing "Footloose" outloud as soon as I saw him on screen, it seemed so out of place. And I like Kevin Bacon. Tremors and Stir of Echoes all the way, but he belongs in comic relief-type parts like his character Jock, in this years much more indie super hero film "Super."

2. Little boy Charles and little girl Mystique... Okay, first off, I hate it when Mystique takes the form of something either way smaller or way bigger than herself. How is little girl mystique taking the form of Charles's mama, who's more than double her size? Just seems to be pushing her abilities a bit far. And yes I understand it's a comic book character, but every world you make needs boundaries, fictional or not.

Second of all, this scene is fucking retarded. Where did Mystique come from? Where are the goddamn parents? This little boy, no matter how aristocratic, could not be talking like that and making such final decisions and not being freaked out at all by a little blue gremlin in his kitchen. And unless he hid Mystique in a closet or killed the housemaid and took her take her place, how the fuck did he get her to be his adopted sister for the next ten years or so? These are the kinds of things a movie needs to set up, and I don't care if it would have slowed the film down; when you make decisions like this you need to show more exposition. I wanted to see the parents and understand how Mystique was able to be raised alongside Charles. It would have cemented the otherwise vague backstory and told us more about Xavier's world growing up anyway.

But furthermore, how does this make any connection to the first two films when there was never once any interaction between Mystique and Prof X or any inference to be found of them once being close? We have our first nonesensical continuity discrepency right off the bat. Way to go already.

3. Charles Xavier has walked in the comics before, but I'm fairly certain he's always been bald. Okay, I can live with this one, but it's just one big hit of not following the comics.

4. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. Wait... he's going to be the villain for the entire movie? Wait... he has a secret lair in a Las Vegas casino, dresses like a pimp, and has a luxury submarine? He's a mutant, too? So Kevin Bacon is now a pimped out mutant Bond villian... in an X-Men film... What the motherfuck? That's distracting, cheesy, and stupid as all hell.

5. Kevin Bacon's "energy absorbption" power looks stupid special effects wise He basically just shakes around, making a double vison looking effect with his face and hands. I call it "Double Bacon."

6. At one point we're here, now we're there! I hate it when movies don't pace scene transitions right. Charles is all gung ho for finding Sebastian Shaw with the CIA immediately, and the entire shift from being in a parking garage to being on a boat late at night finding Magneto in the water (which Magneto was pretty cool in this scene, I must confess) just felt off, and the music felt overdone and cheesy. Not sure what could have made this work better but it's clearly an issue in scene pacing. On the subject of music:

7. Where the fuck did the score go? Sure, the music in this movie is okay, Matthew Vaughn does some cool stuff with a few 60's songs and even does a montage featuring an instrumental verson of the Gnarles Barkley song "Run," which is stylized anachronism I don't have a problem with, really. But the theme music, the orchestrated scores, were okay at best, but at times overbearing and silly as a backdrop.

Worst of all, there might, MIGHT, have been one scene to use a motif from the original X-Men score from the Singer films, but aside from that there was none of it. And the score from the first two X-Men films is badass. Tell me it's cheesy and I'll knock your teeth out. It rocks, and if they wanted to get back to the glory days like they made out as though they were trying to do, they would have pulled out that badass score.

But then again, it's almost better they didn't, because this shit going on on screen with that music would have felt like sacrilege anyway. Catch 22 I suppose.

Lots of Superhero films suffer shitty background music, and this is why we need Han Zimmer to do everything himself these days, poor bastard.

8. The mutant lineup... Remember in X-Men Origins: Wolverine when they forced Gambit into an origin story just to please all the fans who were pissed that they never once introduced him in the other three films? Remember how lame that was? They kinda do the same thing here, making sure the only X-Men we see here other than Prof X and Magneto are ones not previously introduced, aside from Beast. The "First Class" is comprised of Havoc, Banshee, Darwin (temporarily) Angel, BUT not our Angel, intead it's a bug-winged Zoe Kravitz (yes, Lenny Kravitz's daughter) who is an utter bitch on wings, at early stages Mystique, and of course Beast.

Of course it's impossible to really have the first class from the comics if you're aiming for a prequel, since the original comic lineup is Cyclops, Gene Grey, Iceman, Beast and the real Angel, who according to the other flicks only one of is possibly old enough to join in in 1963, and that's Beast.

But aside from Banshee, Beast and Havoc, who I'm happy to see. What the fuck are this bug winged cunt and Darwin doing in the lineup?

Oh, wait, apparently they're newer X-men characters introduced in the last 15 years or so that are minor and no one cares about enough, so we can do whatever we want with them. Including kill one off really quick for slapdash dramatic appeal. That's why.

And aside from that, these characters have no real back story other than being snatched up by Charles and Erik for the X-Men. It really felt like a lot of the film had no clue what to do with these characters development-wise other than give them stupid funny lines and show them getting ready to fight.

The Hellfire Club lineup is Azazel (Played by Jason Flemyng, which I never would have known had I not checked the cast list), Emma Frost, Riptide, eventually Angel and Mystique, and of course Sebastian Shaw. Which is also strange, but I'll explain later.

9. Banshee has no Irish accent...

Okay, once again, sounds like a minor complaint. But they went ahead and cast a kid who is utterly red headed, so why not give him an Irish accent? In the comics, Banshee's Irishness was exposed in every talk bubble he ever spoke, and it was supposed to give a wordly feel for mutants. In this, he's just a snotty little teen, whose likeable in a dorky way I suppose.

How hard would it have been to give him a goddamn accent? Hell, most of the cast was probably European! As a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain the two leads are Irish! It's called research!

10. Did Banshee Kill those fish? Did he kill those fish or make them swim away in that aquarium scene? Either way

10.5. Those fish were CGIed awfully.

11. Havoc... Something's just off here. Aside from Havoc being introduced as that badass who "Is the only prisoner who prefers to be in solitary!" who ends up just being an angsty teen instead of some kind of juggernaut, we know nothing about him or his family, including his lil bro Cyclops. He never, to my knowledge, ever shot lazers from his chest but always shot beams directly from his hands. Here he has an almost boomerang type ability he throws out from his arms, which is cool, but why did they even fuck with the dumb chest thing then? I could be wrong, but for god's sake, just give us the Havoc we know and love from the comics.

12. Angel... (technically it's "Angel Salvadore") I hate this character. She's almost metaphysical in her ability to unfold tattoo wings into little bug wings that make her able to fly, yet look like strips of cellophane that could come nowhere near being able to support her weight.

I did some research on the comic character and she was invented by Grant Morrison, already souring the plate. In the comic she's more like an actual housefly and doesn't have the ability to spit little chunks of hot asteroid-like rocks, instead she vomits acidic gunk that pre-digests her food like that of a fly. So why didn't she just do that? That would have been way cooler. Brundle-Fly style!

Aside from this and the fact that she introduces a whole other bag of confusion being named Angel when the original Angel is a badass bird-winged X-Men, appropriately named Angel, this character's just a whiney bitch. She pisses and moans after an assumably short amount of time that she can't take being seen as a mutant, so she joins the evil mutant league headed by a goddamn ex-Nazi right after seeing her friend be viciously murdered... Bitch!

13. Darwin... Just like the character Morph in the 90's X-Men Cartoon, we have our token "Dead Dude" as my college Hero & Quest teacher would say, whose only purpose is to die to advance the other characters with grief. But we really don't get to know Darwin, therefore it's okay because the audience doesn't care about him, and hey, while we're at it let's revert back to classic horror movie cliches and make him that black guy that always dies!

Yeah we forget Darwin pretty fast. His death was the biggest CG showcase of his powers his character got, that's how much we care about Darwin.

And nobody says a goddamn thing about him during the final battle. Like, Havoc could have said "You let our friend get killed viciously by a nazi you bug-winged whore!" before he clipped her wings with his lazers over the ocean. But no. Sigh.

14. Beast... When we are introduced to Beast being a mutant, it turns out he's been working for a technological division in the CIA unknown as a mutant, know why?

Because he's been wearing shoes. Yes, that's why.

He takes off his shoes to reveal freakish beast feet. Yet all the way through the movie he pisses and moans about not fitting in and being a freak.

Okay, but you can wear shoes, you asshole.

The comic Beast was ape-like all around. He was a big hulking guy with large hands and feet who even ran and walked around with an ape-like hunch. This Beast had weird feet. Put on some goddamn shoes and the fuck over yourself.

Also, his blue makeup and fur looked stupid as all get out. The 1941 Wolf Man looked more convincing.

15. Beast created Cerebrum In the first two movies it's said that Magneto helped build cerebrum with Xavior.

So, yeah, this prequel does a great job of showing the kind of friendship and technological prowess of Charles and Erik by having Beast build Cerebro in a jiff in 1963 for him. Not congruent with other films.

16. Sebastian Shaw had to bully every military power into pointing nuclear missles at each other to create the missle crisis So we've officially discredited all conflict in history. Nevermind, it was a mutant Bond villain.

My point? From the trailers, it looked as though the origin story was going to put the X-Men to the test by using their powers to intervene in the real missle crisis. Not discredit the entire Cold War American/Russian tension by having Kevin Bacon have everyone try to nuke themselves, which leads to my next point:

17. Nuke the world so that mutants can evolve past humans Yeah, that makes sense you fucking moron, because nuclear weapons don't discriminate against the genetically mutated.

Sure, he's a villian, he's evil, and probably crazy, so if that is a good enough excuse to you then so be it. But this guy had followers, and at no point did anyone in the film ever stop to say how stupid that idea was. Jesus, how over the top can you get? And the scene where they explain this theory through a toybox-level CGI landscape is just corny, poorly timed, and lacks impact or any eerie subltey. How much more disturbing would it have been had they played this voiceover to a practical set, showing suffering fallout victims? Even on a very small scale that would have been far more effective.

18. Characters in this movie make huge decisions at the drop of a fucking dime Characters switch teams with such litte consideration as to what they are doing and don't seem to give a shit about any of the consequential variables. Like I said before, Angel joins The Hellfire Club (Which is really the orignal Brotherhood of Mutants in this film.) even though she's just seen how viciously murderous they all are; stabbing people with swords and dropping them out of the sky in droves. She knows Sebastion is an ex-Nazi, and she sees him murder Darwin right in front of her, yet she joins their team in a heartbeat.

The same shit happens at the very end with Mystique swtiching sides even though she has such little reasoning to do so and, if anything, has just witnessed more evidence that she should stick with her loyal loving step brother Charles who has not done one thing to warrant the loss of her allegience. Instead she leaves him lying on a beach, shot and paralyzed to join the remnants of The Hellfire Club (remember, these are the vicious murdering mutants who sided with the Nazi who wanted to blow up the earth) and Magneto. Just a load of shit.

19. When Beast turns blue and fuzzy, nobody really gives a shit What's that you've done? Inject yourself with a serum concocted from Mystique's blood to make a cure for looking wierd, but it doesn't effect your powers....??? Wait, if your power is having weird feet, then doesn't that seem kind of impossible? Anyway, are you alright? Are you in pain? Could this kill you? Jesus christ what have you done? You blue freak! Anything in the way of giving a shit...

Nothing. Just "You've never looked better." "I think I have a new name for you, Beast." Okay, on to the next scene! Because this is good film making! Fucknuts.

20. Proffessor X never had the Jedi mind trick Knowing Marvel comics I'm sure that they've fucked with his powers all over the place. But the Charles Xavier I know never just put his fingers on his temple and yelled "Sleep!"

21. Emma Frost's diamond skin looked stupid, and poorly CGIed Maybe there's not much to do there in the first place, but shit it looked dumb.

22. Why was Mystique cuddling up to Magneto when, if this movie was trying to go with continuity, she should have been getting ready to fuck Azazel? If there's one thing the original movies failed to do it's show the sexual relationship between Mystique and Magneto, which I never picked up on in the first place. Partly because Ian McKellan's Magneto just seemed so... Well I would say homosexual, but I wouldn't mean it in a bad way. He just seemed preoccupied with other things.

But Bryan Singer did say in the X2 commentary that Mystique and Magneto had a sexual relationship. So okay, we want to see that being setup I guess, since this new movie is a prequel to the first two. But then we have Azazel, who is a scary red Satan-looking, sword-weilding, evil, mercillessly-murderous insane-nazi-following bastard. Yet, he's also the father of Nightcrawler! And guess whose da mamma? You guessed it, Mystique.

Fuck the what? This is just weird, because honestly, aside from Bryan Singer's commentary in which he states that "Mystique appeals to Magneto in some form, we just don't know what," I would never have known they had a sexual relationship, and I sincerely doubt most people would have gathered that either. So why bother with it? It's the one thing this movie could have changed without anyone knowing or caring, but they made a big deal out of it anyway.

23. Erik and Charles have little time to form a legendary friendship that turned to rivalry, therefore overall failing in the entire purpose of this film to begin with Okay so the movie is supposed to show Charles and Erik when they were buddies in the 60's, right? Well we rush through that pretty fast. The course of this movie takes maybe a few months at most, and these characters are just kind of thrown together. Then they separate into their own factions. Nothing shows me that they know each other that well at all. That's it? Okay then...

24. This film falls victim to the obligitory, yet relentlessly irritating and insulting to the audience "name game" "I want to be called Mystique." "Your a proffessor and your last name's Xavior, let's call you Proffessor X!" "He always wreaks havoc, let's call him Havoc!" "I adapt to things, people call me Darwin." "You're blue and hairy and monster-like, cool, Ima call you Beast." "The only thing that wails like Sean is a Banshee." "You should be called Magneto!" "It amplifiies your mental waves, I call it Cerebro." "You're not G-men... you're... X-Men!"

All of these are based on lines very similar, if not exactly, what were said in the movie. And I FUCKING GET IT! We know who they are, we came to see the movie, didn't we? I don't need you to spell it out for me. Godamnit.

25. Sebastian Shaw charges up an assload of nuclear energy, but there is no climactic showdown, he just gets a coin driven through his head by Magneto... Nuff said.

26. Magneto's abilities were exaggeratted as well For some majestic reason, Magneto occassionally flies. He does so in the comics and in the cartoons and once or twice in the previous films. It always irked me, but I assumed it had something to do with metal on him because in X2 he requires a flat metal plate to stand on in order to glide over a pit. Here, not only does he inexplicably fly, but he lifts other people and throws them with his powers. They aren't made of metal. Stupid. Unless I didn't notice, and he was using metal on their clothing to move them. If such is the case I will revoke this criticism.

27. Sebastian Shaw had Magneto's telepathy blocking helmet to begin with, once again negating any concept of Erik and Charles's ingenuity It was always implied to me that Erik built the hemlet to block out Cerebro/Charles, because he helped Charles build Cerebro in the first place.

28. That stupid shot where everyone's peering off the edge of the window to watch Havoc... What is this shit? Scooby Doo?

29. Decide whether it's going to be a reboot or prequel, don't halfass a lot of both and leave it up to the audience to make sense of the mess. By setting up a prequel to the original films you have alerted the fans of the REAL X-Men movies, therefore when you create all these inconsistencies with the original real X-Men movies expecting fans not to notice your lazy fuck ups you have insulted the intelligence of your audience. Fuck you, movie. Nuff said.

30. Magneto loses his moral compass, whether it was twisted to begin with or not, by basically confirming all the evil intentions his enemy ever had as righteous

Yes. I mean it. Obviously Erik was tainted apple from the git go, and rightfully so, those nazi bastards deserve every bit of Magneto vengeance they had coming. So naturally we're all waiting to see what he has in store for the evil motherfucker who shot his mom in fornt of him, and according to a quick flash edit, he was tortured and experimented on by as well. So we waited all through this film to see what Erik was going to do with Sebastian Shaw once he gets his magnetic grips on him. All the way through this film, I just kept thinking about that first scene where Shaw kills Erik's mom right next to that torture room. I just kept thinking "THIS GUY IS A NAZI FOR GOD'S SAKE!" Personally, I didn't want Erik to learn anything from Charles, or show mercy. I wanted him to torture and mutilate Kevin Bacon to death. I knew I probably wouldn't get that, and that's most likely not what film makers and audiences everywhere would want. But what I got was worse.

What does he do when he finally does get to Sebastian Shaw? He takes the helmet from his head and puts it on his own (obviously) has him in a position where Shaw is frozen, then looks him in the eye and says "If you can hear me, I want you to know I think you're right, we are the future, but unfortunately you killed my mother," then sends a coin through his head.

...Seriously? The character probably died happy, then. His monster just took his place. He didn't even at least say: "And you slaughtered my people, and tortured me, you nazi pig, go to hell." He just said, "But unfortunately, you killed my mother." The word "unfortunately" even implies that if he hadn't killed his mother he wouldn't want to kill him. How fucked up is that? And after this point in the film, Magneto expresses hatred for all humans anyway, so why should he even care about his mother if he's taking that approach?

I understand the irony in Magneto becoming a genocidal supervillain when his origins were in the holocaust, and in the other films he does completely want to wipe out humans. But here it just doesn't work. It's sick and twisted that he would confirm this evil son of a bitch's intentions as righteous. And then gives us a very anticlimactic murder scene.

In addition, he also took over leading Shaw's minions, when earlier he was content to try and strangle Emma Frost to death. I think he should have slaughtered the entire Hellfire club just for following a nazi around. Especially Azazel. But no, he just fills Sebastian's nazi shoes.

Conclusion...

I wrote this so that I can get all my criticism out of my system. When people ask me why I don't like the film, I feel exhausted already because I have so many answers, and honestly I'm confident there are even more reasons than the ones I just discussed. But at least now I can refer them to this note and feel theraputic for getting it out of my system.

Everyone's welcome to disagree with me as much as they want, but I'm sticking with my guns on this. This is how I feel about the film and the decision's it made.

At the end of the day, it's just a bad movie altogether and it isn't exactly worth this much critique, but X-Men had a huge impact on me, and it really shaped who I am. It made me start reading comics. Those first two films are extrodinarily close to me. And even though I gave up the comics because they were too convoluded, and most likely have jumbled up continuity in every way shape or form, I still am always going to be an X-Men fanboy at heart. The fact that the film doesn't follow through on comic book loyalty isn't that big of a deal to me though. But it's not fair to treat a beloved franchise like this, after two of the biggest blows I've ever seen in sequel/prequel history. It's the equivalent to watching someone beat a dead prized steed mercilessly over and over again screaming "Wake up! Do Something!" So this movie gets 1 & 1/2 stars from me. I'd give it two, because it was somewhat entertaining and better than the last two X-Men films, but the blow it took to the first two films, and the silly and outright poor decisions it made get half a star taken away. Overall I just disapproved.

And who am I kidding? I hate this fucking movie. The more I think about it the more I just get angry. And I'm tired of one specific person telling me I only disliked this film because I had subconscious expectations and my loyalty to the old films won't let me see past them. Not fucking true at all. This was just a bad film, and much like Iron Man 2, I'm just shocked by how anyone could really think it's a good movie. I was soft on it for a while, my original rating was 2 & 1/2 stars because going out of it the theater I thought "C-" but that's too good. Just because something is at times nice to look at and has cool people in it, does not make it consist of quality. And this is no exception.

Positives...

1. Michael Fassbender... just, Michael Fassbender

2. Jennifer Lawrence... dear god, Jennifer Lawrence.

3. The scene where Erik's mother is killed in front of him, it's pretty powerful, even with Kevin Bacon

4. Hugh Jackman/Wolverine's cameo

5. Loyalty to the original costumes (and a well pulled off effort I must say)

6. It is better than X-Men 3: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Now fuck this movie, and go see Super 8!!!

Sam's Flog: #4

2011-06-29T04:39:00.010-05:00

In this Film Log:

Due Date

Faster

Easy A

Insidious

Your Highness

Hanna

Barry Munday

I love You Phillip Morris

Buried

Rango

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Black Swan

Sam's Flog #4

Let me just preface this Flog entry by saying I apologize, if not to the readers, than to myself for not having done a slew of these by now. Since my last Flog, for various reasons involving school, editing the show, and just plain old procrastination I have neglected to write these and have them posted, yet I have seen probably at least 50 movies since then. So it'll be a while, but I vow to catch up and try my best to report all the films, big and small, old and current, that I have seen and my thoughts on them. Here is what I have for you in the meantime:

Due Date

Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis
2010

In2009 director Todd Phillips broughtunpredictable stardom to Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, and Bradley Cooperas well as himself. What people don’tremember is that before The Hangover he made a fairly popular comedy called Old School with a handful of A-listers whose popularity has seemed to dwindle along with the film. Before that he did an even more frat-boyish comedy called Road Trip that’s defined its status asa damp match with DVD release sequels. And after Old School he blurred out of focus with the big screen let-downs that were Starsky & Hutchand School For Scoundrels, anattempt to give Jon Heder a Post-Napoleon Dynamite career boostalongside a kooky Billy Bob Thornton.

Mypoint is, all of these were duds, and to me, The Hangover was destined to be adud as well. Starring a more unknowncast and being marketed as “From the director of Old School,” it rivaled mainstreamcomedies like I Love You, Manstarring much more current and marketable actors. Nevertheless, The Hangover was a triumph against odds, and shit, it wasa really funny movie. But now TodPhillips has gone from “the director of Old School,” to “the director of TheHangover,” and I’m not sure how long he’s going to ride this until he’s makingduds again. Due Date, is an example of alukewarm precursor to this possible downfall, neatly sandwiched between TheHangover and its upcoming sequel.

SincePhillips is back on top, he gets thrown Robert Downey, who’s at the best of hisbest right now as well. And as long ashe’s got our overnight hit boy Galifianakis in there, might as well push the two together fora road trip comedy that pretty much rides the nostalgic coattails of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Only it really misses the point of thatclassic. We have Robert Downey filling Steve Martin’s shoes as the uptightbusiness man trying to get back home, and Galifianakis in John Candy’s old getup as the annoying stranger our uptightbusiness man must endure his farce with. But John Candy was a sweet heart, and Steve Martin was just rough aroundthe edges. Galifianakis is a helpless,obnoxious, flamboyant man-child whose oddness almost borders the possibilitythat he’s mentally inept in some way. And Downey is so uptight he’s actually scary, and I mean that. He gets angry and spits on things, cussespeople out, and in one scene he punches an agitating child in the stomach…really hard. I still don’t know whetherthat scene is shockingly funny or just shocking.

Themovie has laughs, and it’s fairly enjoyable but the two main characterscouldn’t be further away from likeable. Ijust think this is an example of why we shouldn’t be so quick to put stock inTodd Phillips to deliver a hit product every time. I didn’t hate this movie, but I certainlywasn’t thrilled with it. I’m lookingforward to The Hangover 2, but if it misses its marker, I’m not going to besurprised.

3 stars

Faster

Dwayne Johnson, BillyBob Thornton

2010

Whydo I try? I like action movies. I like cool action movies. They don’t even need to be good, justcool. I read an article in EntertainmentWeekly where The Rock explained his return to R-rated cinema after taking adetour to do Disney films like The GamePlan, Race to Witch Mountain, and that tooth fairy thing… He’s stated that he likes the idea of makingfamily films, because their harmless and anyone can see them. That’s a really nice sentiment, regardless ofhow shitty those movies are. But here hestated he was holding off from action films until he got the right script, andsomething about this “Faster” thing seemed like it was going to be hot. …Far from the case Dwayne, far from thecase.

Suckfest. We have a bad revenge story, following anex-con who looks as though he’s going to explode from not being able toproperly rest his arms because his muscles are so jacked, and complimented withenough tattoos he could be the star of any lineup gang. Yet he goes about his business completelyvoid of any subtlety as he guns down the group of ridiculously comic-book evilbad guys who popped his brother in the head years ago, and still we have twohomicide detectives who look upon the situation sharing awfully written linesas though it’s a real mystery to be solved. If that isn’t retarded enough we have the unbelievable third piece ofthe film about a newly-wed British millionaire that participates in high-stakesassassination jobs on the side as some form of extreme exhilaration kick likeskydiving or something… And then afterone absolutely simplistic gun fight with our muscle bound Frankenstein Monster where hemiraculously misses the huge target over and over again he becomes convincedThe Rock is some kind of ultimate competition, claiming that he is “Faster”than himself.

Gimmea fucking break. This movie is a cementshoe from beginning to end. It eventries to riff off The Transporter byhaving a really poorly thought out getaway car chase scene. This feels like the kind of movie no one withacting credit should be in. Not even TheRock. And look, I actually like Dwayne Johnson. I think SouthlandTales proves he has acting ability, and I’m a fan of his quiet hits like The Rundown and Walking Tall, but what the hell was he thinking on this one? Bad movie.

2 stars

Easy A

Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes

2010

Iwatched this with my mother, at her behest, and did so with no enthusiasmtowards the prospect. Did my enthusiasmchange as the film played on my television set? Fuck no. I love Emma Stone, she’ssuper hot and on top of that she has comedic performance down better than any female newcomer of her age. But this was anawful tweenie bopper of a film that got blown out of one of Mean Girls’ festering zits. I hate these movies where high school is aconstant flow of stereotypes, sexual promiscuity and bubbly little quips. Fuck that, high school is a hell hole andwatching mindless little bleach blondes imitate this kind of behavior portrayedon film as they enter the concrete walls of academic and social limbo just makes things worse than they already are.

Emmastone deserves better. She was in Super Bad and Zombieland for Christ’s sake. This kind of film is below her, and someday I can only hope it’ll bebelow the entire film industry and its audience. Were there funny moments? Sure, I laughed a few times, Amanda Bynes wasgreat and I was overjoyed to see her on film. But mainly Emma Stone carried the entire movie on her shoulders. An actress off to such a great start shouldn't be dealt such a crap job.

2 stars

INSIDIOUS

Patrick Wilson, RoseByrne

2011

I went to see this movie on a Friday afternoon all by myself with noone in the theater other than four younger teenage girls sitting behindme. When the movie was over the girlswere nearly crying to get out of the room and I sat through the end creditsfeeling as though I had balls made of steel. This is a fucking scary movie. Ihaven’t been able to get it out of my head since I watched it, not because ithaunts me, even though I slept with the lights on for two nights afterward, butbecause it was just so damn awesome.

As amatter of fact, it’s so good; I’m not even going to waste my time describing itto you. All I’m gonna say is: go see it,and then we can talk.

5 stars. Justutterly terrifying fun.

Your Highness

Danny McBride, JamesFranco

2011

I went to see this on opening night with Matt. It was either that or Paul, which I was told was in actualitysome kind of conspiracy theory/sci-fi geek stoner film. And the only deterrence there was the stoneraspect. Something tells me I shouldn’ttrust my sources and I’ll like it anyway, but I wanted to see something freshoff the celluloid so that we could do a review of something current on theshow, which we don’t get to do as often as we'd like. Unfortunately Brady kinda fucked that up.

Anyway I had been anticipating thisfilm for a while with limited expectations, being that it was directed by David Gordon Green who previouslydirected McBride and Franco in the JuddApatow production Pineapple Express,which was absolutely 100% a stoner movie and for some reason I really justdidn’t like it. It had the façade inadvertisement that it was going to try and combine crime movie action withstoner comedy and I was looking forward to a successful hybrid, but to me itfailed. It wasn’t that Pineapple Expresswasn’t funny during parts; it just really didn’t deliver for the mostpart.

Nowironically I expected Your Highness to be a stoner film, after all it wasadvertised as such and the title is a play on words. But I was willing to give Mr. Green anothershot, this time combining fantasy adventure with stoner comedy for an even moreunique hybrid. Also it had Zooey Deschanel which is always animmediate sell with me.

Well I’m glad Idid give Mr. Green another shot because this movie was absolutely funny. Was it lewd and crude? Without a doubt, don’t go into it expectingclassy humor. I love how the actors faketerrible British accents on purpose and the lines will flip back and forth frompoorly written period dialogue to a character just dropping all of it and yelling “Fuck!” The film itself is anendearing spoof of several classic 80’s fantasy adventure films. To me the mostnotable homages were Willow and the original Clash of the Titans. And where my disappointment in PineappleExpress’s ability to introduce cool and exciting action sequences, YourHighness filled the void rather well.

I think what made this film work wasthe lead casting of Danny McBride, and the use of James Franco as a kind ofinnocent pretty boy. The strongest partof Pineapple Express was Danny McBride’s character and it was refreshing to seethat Seth Rogen was nowhere to befound. Not that I mind some Rogen, it just seemed fair that he sit this one out. Justin Theroux’s hilarious performance as the evil sorcerer Leezardidn’t hurt the show at all either. Ilaughed heartily throughout the film, and I’m sad to see that it has sunk deepinto the box office retirement home. Whether or not it’s a critical hit, it’s definitely one of my favoritenew comedies that I would absolutely be willing to purchase on DVDsomeday. My guess is that it will have acult status similar to the quick flicker that was Observe and Report, but either way if there was ever a sequel,which could be quite possible, I’d absolutely be down for it.

4 stars. It’sreally funny!

Hanna

Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana

2011

Yet another film Matt and I went to see on the same opening weekend as YourHighness. The best part of seeing thison opening weekend were the free shirts with the film’s motto “Adapt or Die”written in red text made up of tiny Hanna logos on a black T. However this film didn’t 100% live up to whatit made itself out to be. For somemaybe, for me not so much. Of coursethat is ironic because my initial reaction to the trailers was “Oh great, herecomes the beginning of the Hit Girlgenre” where now everyone will want to see the super elite prepubescent femalekiller kick ass. Only Hanna is a fewyears older than our 12 year old sociopath Hit Girl I believe.

The first thing that bugs me is thefact that there are so many plot holes regarding Hanna’s development. It’s almost as though she’s raised by wolvesin her feral viciousness, yet her super agent father on the lamb teaches herall kinds of information and almost every language you can think of, yet whenshe finally enters society after leaving their little hut in the coldwilderness somewhere she still goes bonkers when she finds out a light switchmakes light? What a waste of screentime, because later she does all kinds of things involving technology that don’t freak her out. The second thing that gets me is that the film isstyle over substance, and while the score by The Chemical Brothers is very cool, and there are some stylizedscenes enjoyable to watch, there’s also some very unnecessary shots and acontinuous amount of surrealism in certain settings that takes away from thegrit of the movie just to provide tactful eye candy.

But what aggrivated me the most out of allthe things in the film is an exceptionally long and awkward scene involvingour Hanna and an obnoxiously bratty tourist girl (aspiring to be an MTV slut while being raised by neglectful hippie parents I might add) who Hanna befriends along theway cuddled close together under bed sheets whispering to each other. The shots on their young faces and lips asthey move close together whispering gives an eerie unease of some kind ofsensual-virginal lesbianism that for the life of me I cannot see any importanceor purpose for in the film, and it makes me very concerned about the director Joe Wright’s intentions. The absolute best scenes in this film are withEric Bana, who kicks so much ass in such little screen time it just isn’tfair. It begs us to wonder why the filmwasn’t just about him instead. Overallit’s a style over substance spy flick with a alien-like pale killing machine ofa protagonist. It’s a good watch but itis easily forgettable, and I see it disappearing through the box office likethe ghost it is. Not a bad movie, butnot a profound one either.

3 Stars

Barry Munday

Patrick Wilson, MaeWhitman

2010

As my film watching journeys often lead me to do, watching Insidious andthinking about all the movies I’ve seen Patrick Wilson in made me investigatehis career. This recent little indiecomedy’s premise and the cast listing of Mae Whitman grabbed my attention onNetflix’s streaming service. PatrickWilson plays Barry Munday, a sleazy lady’s man with very few standards. He goes to see a movie one day and begins toflirt with a teenage girl, not realizing her age at first. She invites him to sit down next to her andhe does so uncomfortably at this point, when out of the darkness the girl’sfather comes marching in holding a trumpet. He then furiously strikes Barry’s genitals with the trumpet, sending himinto the future where he wakes up from surgery to discover the blow was so hardhe had to have both his testicles removed, and his baby-makin’ days arethrough.

Afew weeks later comes Ginger, played by JudyGreer, a mousy little thing made to look about as sexually unappealing aspossible, who claims she is the mother of Barry’s child and wants her monetaryentitlement. Of course this leads Barryto realize that this is the last chance he’ll ever have at becoming a father,so he embraces it and awkwardly accompanies Ginger through her journey.

Sadly,Mae Whitman is only in it for about three minutes, but the rest of the film ispretty charming. Patrick Wilson isactually pretty hilarious, as hard as it is to believe he could ever beunattractive and goofy ("Nacho time fo me!"). This is a nicelittle movie.

3 stars

I Love You PhillipMorris

Jim Carey, Ewan McGregor

2009

Thisfilm says it all to me from the very beginning when the text reads: “Thisreally happened… It really did.” Thenyou know you’re in for an amazing story. This film is a biopic about an outstanding con man named Steven Russell, both hilariously andgrippingly played by Jim Carey. Basically we follow Russell as he struggles with his existence afterlearning that he is adopted. He becomesa police officer, then quits his job, divorces his wife and moves to Florida tobegin his life as a con man after getting in a car wreck outside a gaybar. Oh, did I not mention Steven is ahomosexual, and this is a homosexually riddled film? Might be important. Anyway, after the death of his first gorgeousboyfriend, at some point Russell is caught and incarcerated for one of his cons. It is here that our film takes its vital turnwhen Steven meets Phillip Morris and instantly falls in love. They have a long talk in the prison library,and Steven is convinced it was divine intervention that brought them together,even though Phillip Morris is to be moved to a different ward and refuses tovisit the prison yard for fear of getting the ever-loving shit kicked out ofhim. But that won’t stop Russell. He sends letters to Phillip every chance hecan along with gifts and all kinds of favors, until he cons his way intobecoming Phillip’s cell mate and the two fall madly in love.

Theentire film after that document’s the couple’s relationship from there on in and out of prison; howSteven only advances his career as a con man to stupendous levels and will stopat nothing to secure his relationship with Phillip despite the disastrous damageSteven’s deceptions cause. I wasabsolutely taken away by this movie. Theacting is rock solid, the direction was done just right with the pacing and theshots. It’s hilarious, shocking andtwistedly-heartwarmingly romantic at the same time.

4 stars

Buried

Ryan Reynolds

2010

In my last flog I discussed 127Hours and while it is undeniably a riveting movie, I was disappointed with some of director Danny Boyle’s efforts tokeep the focus on the claustrophobic horror of Aron Ralston’s situation. Nocomplaints of that nature here. At all.

RyanReynolds plays Paul Conroy, a contract truck driver shipping cargo across theIraq desert in I believe the era of 2004-2006 during the Bushadministration. He wakes up in a coffin,with his Zippo, a flask and a cell phone with limited power left in it. The last thing he can remember his having hisconvoy attacked, and over a series of phone calls he realizes he’s been buriedalive by terrorists and held for ransom, and not only that, but it’s his job tosecure the funds.

Thecamera never leaves the coffin. Notonce. Ryan Reynolds’s performance is akind of frantic that is rarely believably faked on screen, but here it is executedto the T. The only other actors in thisfilm are either seen or heard from a cell phone. It is absolutely intense. This film is not for everyone, and you won’tfeel relieved when it’s over. But forthe challenge it took on and the dedication to never leaving the coffin, it isexcellent. It illustrates a damn good message of what happens when countries go to war needlessly and innocent people, not just soldiers, get involved in it. We should not beforgetting about Iraq at all.

4 stars

Rango

Johnny Depp, IslaFischer

2011

Isaw this film twice actually. The firsttime I was happy, but in a weird mood that day and wasn’t quite myself forvarious reasons, which always is a big factor in film critiquing that I’d like Roger Ebert to confess to. The second time I watched this, I couldn’tunderstand why I wasn’t overjoyed at the first. This movie was practically made for me! I’ve always thought it was about time someone rolled up theirsleeves and made one of these stupid computer animated films that depictcolorful, shiny, healthy, bouncy anthropomorphized creatures to rise up to the challenge of realism and make theanimals look real, and for that matter; ugly. Well here they just went out of their way. Not only were the animals realistic down to everydried wrinkle and crevasse. But not only that, they were desert creatures! And the story was adownright western!

Ifthat and the celebrity voices don’t sell you, this film has enough referencesto film, pop culture and western movies to make any self appointed guru of suchthings foam at the mouth and kick their feet in bliss. The characters are almost all lovable, if notjust downright cool or at the very least entertaining to look at (a lot of the characters are unidentifiable as animals, but more/less balls of scroungy dirty fur). The animation here is just amazing and eachframe is a mouthful of imagery to take in. Not one inch of it ruined by gimmicky 3D, I might add. Johnny Depp’s voice acting is adorable; he completely embodies a lovable geeky Chameleon. And the other voice actors are just gravy onthe biscuit. There are tons of Hollywoodnames to be found in the characters and some will have you in stitches bythe credits if you hadn’t allocated them already. There’s tons of awesome in-jokes and a fewsurprises I will not ruin for you!

Overallwhat I really liked about this film is that it really isn’t for children. There’s some stuff that kind of jumps acrossthe PG zone and most of the dialog and story, I would think, isn’t quite broadenough for a child to understand. That being said, it isn’t dark or frightening, just a tad grown-up here andthere, and I wouldn’t say it should be kept from children at all.

Theonly things that fell flat in this movie were some of the jokes. Otherwise, I’d say this and Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox get placed next to each other on the two bestanimated features to hit the big screen since WALL-E, the last good Pixar filmIMHO. It’s interesting that the originalPirates of the Caribbean trilogydirector Gore Verbinski did thisinstead of tackle the fourth Pirates film. He clearly knows where the shit’s at, and he obviously wanted to crackhis knuckles and make the film he wanted to make, no holds barred. Thanks Gore! I loved it!

4 stars.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Brandon Routh, SamHuntington

2011

Okay, so here’s where I stand on some things: A: SupermanReturns was a good damn movie. Itmight not have delivered the punch people wanted, but it did Superman justiceand Brandon Routh was gold. It was bigwhen it came out and nobody complained at the time, so I’m sick of peoplebitching about it now. B: I am 100% NOT in support of Zack Snyder fucking up Superman in acompletely unnecessary reboot, starring a brit. Sorry Henry Cavill, I knowyou’re probably a great guy and you’re a great actor and you look good in thatsuit, and can probably pull the whole thing off just fine, but Superman is andalways will be the one thing that should be 100% American. Superman is the fictional embodiment of whatevery American should aspire to be like in their moral conduct, and he was raised in the wheat fieldsof Kansas for fuck's sake. My Superman is American, andmy Superman is Brandon Routh. I was ready to see him be Superman again, but that was taken from me.

Wheredoes this leave me? This leaves me insupport of wherever Brandon Routh's career goes, not whatever else Hollywood wants to shit in my face regarding Superman. Thatbeing said, this film is horror/noir/comedy story about a PI that works the supernaturalunderground of New Orleans with hiszombie sidekick Marcus, played by the hilarious and talented (also underrated) Sam Huntington. Andthat shit sounds appetizing.

Unfortunatelythis film just goes lackluster. What canI say? It was good popcorn money but themajority of it just felt off. It wasplagued with a low budget which demolished the blockbuster action feel thetrailers shrewdly emphasized and the film really yearned to have. The vampires were no more imaginative thanthe ruffle-headed baddies from Buffy theVampire Slayer. The film was hauntedby this poorly executed noir narrative that awkwardly soured many scenes alongwith a bizarre choice of corny 90’s sleazy guitarist background music.

Howeverthe savior of the film was, without a doubt, Sam Huntington, whose funny linesand delivery had me, no shit, laughing my ass off. That much of the film is golden. Overall it’s enjoyable, but reallylacking. My conclusion is that if somehowthe DVD market spreads a cult revenue big enough to fund a sequel (because the thing tanked hardcore at the box office) ala Hellboy and Hellboy II, then the theater will haveanother $7 from me, hands down. There’smuch more to do with these characters in this world, and it can be revived.

3 stars

Black Swan

Natalie Portman, MilaKunis

2010

Fuck this movie. I believe I saidmy piece on the show, so I’ll try not to keep typing forever, but this moviereally pisses me off. Everything about this filmis nasty. Not one goddamn thing can seempretty, not even the ballet. When peoplekiss in this film, it’s revolting, it feels almost gory in the way they eattheir faces violently. There was a hypedup lesbian sex scene in this film between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, buteven that was just visceral and off-putting, as well as unnecessary, and believe me lesbian scenes are almost always necessary. The camerawork was annoying and irritatingly fluid, creating some pompous effort to capture the "chaos of the character's world" or some bullshit like that. To some, this may soundfantastically artistic, but I can honestly say I fucking hated it and after Iwatched it I felt unclean.

Whatkills me is that most of this film’s fan base seems to be female. I cannot think of anything more anti-feministand subjective to women than this movie, other than maybe Showgirls, and honestly there are LOTS of similarities betweenBlack Swan and Showgirls. And what killsme even more, is the Academy Awards and all the other award ceremonies and critics who gave praise to this film. This film does notthrill, does not keep us guessing or shock us with its every little predictabletwist and turn, it just goes through the motions repugnantly until it fizzlesout and leaves us (I say us, meaning me and the sensible film going lot I like to think I represent) overjoyed the damn thing is done and over with.

Tosum it up this film is a bleak combination of Showgirls and The Machinist. But unlike The Machinist this film isanything but edgy, it’s just gross, lacks imagination and is demeaning to theaudience’s intelligence as well as women in general. Fuck, thetrailers kept showing Portman pull feathers out of her back while her eyesturned demon black. Do you know how muchbetter this film would have been had it actually been about Natalie Portmanturning into a giant black swan? But fuck no, we know that shit’s a hallucination just from the trailers,and shit that’s predictability before we even watch the fucking thing.

Furthermore, (and this is my last summary of the film) this movie just takes a very weak,tortured, vulnerable female, and proceeds to beat the ever-loving shit out her mentallyand physically for the duration of the movie. She doesn’t grow, or gain strength in any way. I think this is a mean spirited and sicklittle film that has somehow masterfully wormed its way into being acclaimed assomething it isn’t under the false guise of a pretentiously successful directorwho somehow manages to trick certain individuals into believing there are allusionsto some semblance of some kind of meaning and talent hidden in the film when theresimply is not. FUCK THIS MOVIE.

Doyourself a favor and watch The Machinest, or The Box and learn what a well achieved,dark, psychological thriller really is.

1 star. I fucking hate it.

Episode 40: Foreskin is Good for Me

2011-06-29T00:00:00.004-05:00

The Geeks arrive a week late on this one (sorry, but you'll be comped soon); they pine over lost establishments; Sam has shit he can't understand about Matt, The Glee Project and circumcision; Matt finds an article discussing the inability of Kansas City drivers to detect running over a corpse via motor vehicle; and then they top it off with a smooth, sultry Sex Book Review.

Starting this week, new episodes will be uploaded on Saturdays, so hopefully the Geeks will be able to eliminate the shitness that is late episodes.

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Article

Episode 39: More Like... Super GREAT!

2011-06-15T00:00:00.003-05:00

The Geeks go see J.J. Abrams' latest, Super 8; Sam expresses some shit he can't understand, the duo does some low-end improv, and Matt has a bone to pick with the near future of DC Comics.

Our legal department would like to state explicitly that the following is for sketch comedy purposes only.

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Photo Cred Here and Paramount/Bad Robot

Episode 38: Mutant Appeal

2011-06-09T00:00:00.008-05:00

The Geeks go see X-Men: First Class, Sam isn't too hot about it, but Matt feels otherwise; they then introduce a long overdue Sex Toy Review!

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Episode 37: Girls Can Geek Out Too

2011-06-01T00:00:00.013-05:00

The Geeks pay a visit to Paperdolls & Pompadours, a groovy little local salon, to interview the fabulous Ms. Jessica Janean, a groovy local model & makeup artist, who teaches Sam & Matt that girls can geek out too.

Because this episode was recorded in a salon, there's considerable background noise; however, most of the audio should be interpretable.

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Photo Cred

Joplin Disaster Relief

2011-05-25T08:40:00.000-05:00

Sunday, May 22, 2011, Joplin, MO was hit by a tornado, killing 120, with 1,500 still missing, and destroying an estimated one-third of the town. Take a look at our Joplin disaster relief page. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
- Sam & Matt

Episode 36: Apocalypse How?

2011-05-25T00:00:00.037-05:00

The Geeks have a chuckle about the second false prophecy of rapture from Mr. Harold Camping, Matt has some funky thoughts, then the two get down and nerdy with Talk Trailer.

On a 100% serious note, please take the time to look at our Joplin Disaster Relief page to find ways you can help support Joplin, Missouri in its time of need.

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Captain America: The First Avenger
Conan the Barbarian
Fright Night
Green Lantern
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
X-Men: First Class - New

Episode 35: They Killed Bin Laden With Lightsabers

2011-05-18T00:00:00.009-05:00

The Geeks return from yet another two-week absence (apologies, apologies), discuss the recent death of one Osama bin Laden, Sam gushes about the return of his favorite soder pop: Mt. Dew Pitch Black, and they top it off with a few movie reviews just to smooth it all out.

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Photo with Jason Mewes, 5.2.11

Episode 34: B is for Badass

2011-04-27T00:00:00.008-05:00

The Geeks talk about Insidious, Sam's new favorite movie; Matt buys the official Marble Hornets DVD, and finally finishes his long-ass book. This episode features bleeps for words that could be considered spoilers, and a new sound effect to signal the changing of topics.

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Marble Hornets DVD

Episode 33: The Short Talk Trilogy

2011-04-20T00:00:00.008-05:00

The Geeks fail to record a new episode, so Sam harvests this 30-minute Talk Trilogy of the Back to the Future films with Brady.

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Matt's Insanity

Sam’s Flog: #3

2011-04-13T00:00:00.012-05:00

In This Film Log:

The Social Network

Get Low

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Monsters

Frozen

$5 a Day

The Incredible Hulk

It's Kind of a Funny Story

My Soul to Take

Battle: Los Angeles

The Adjustment Bureau

Night Shift

Mosnter House

The Fighter

Better Off Dead

Flakes

His Name Was Jason

Chloe

127 Hours

Unstoppable

Sam’s Flog: # 3

The Social Network

Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield

2010

So obviously most people have seen this bynow, but I caught up late. David Fincher is an amazingdirector, and this movie was very well shot and very well acted. Itwas really interesting, but I can honestly say I think the film is faroverhyped. I’m glad it got paid its dues with Oscar recognition whenit came to cinematography, but I’m just as glad it didn’t get best picture orbest actor. Jesse Eisenberg, in some backward way has climbed higherthan Michael Cera as #1 banana when it comes to neurotic pastywhite kids on the screen. I’m still a fan of Michael Cera, and whileJesse Eisenberg’s indie film origin (TheSquid and the Whale) give him noble credit, believe it or not, I chooseCera over Eisenberg. Not that Cera should have played MarkZuckerberg but my point is, if you listen to the Zombieland commentary, you’llget the vibe that Eisenberg is kind of an asshole, and honestly his portrayalof Mark Zuckerberg seemed just as stammering and jerky as his naturaldisposition, and therefore I’m bothered by the critical praise rained down onhis performance in this movie. Andrew Garfield and JustinTimberlake hit solid as usual however. Overall I really didenjoy the film, but at the end of the day I’m not sure what it accomplishedother than being an entertainingly shocking portrayal (yet still unclear inaccuracy vs. dramatization) of what went on during the evolution of Facebook. Asidefrom that I’m not sure what there is to take from this film. It’sreally good, it just isn’t the best movie of 2010, at least in myopinion.

4 Stars

Get Low

Robert Duvall, BillMurray

2009

I’ve been waiting to see this one for a while. It cameout at the Moxie, and I was literally inches away from seeing it but I hadother obligations at the time. Basically this is a period pieceabout an old hermit who’s exiled himself for something around twenty years, whothen comes to town to a funeral parlor hitting hard times run by Bill Murray,to coordinate an elaborate and expensive funeral that will take place in frontof a large audience before he dies, so that he can finally confess the secretof why he’s been hiding for so long. Really great performances inthis movie, and as always it’s nice to see Lucas Black (Crazy in Alabama, SlingBlade) still working, especially when it’s not The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift or Legion. Overall, goodacting, great direction and some memorable moments, but not really the kind ofmovie that’s worth jumping up and down over.

3 Stars

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

Lizzy Caplan, DwightYoakam

2009

Good god what a shit movie. I have a crush on LizzyCaplan, okay? I said it. I’ve only watched Hot Tub Time Machine a milliontimes just to see her walk around in the snow with a short skirt and stockings,and I admittedly skipped a big movie watching beat because I got addictedto Party Down. Ihate True Blood butI’m more than happy to watch her nude scene. That being said, when Isaw she played some badass chick in this western with ChrisKristofferson and Dwight Yoakam I thought I’d give it awatch. Jesus Christ was this bad. We have an openingscene where our title character gets shot down holding a Colt 45 in hishand. A Colt 45? Seriously? Anachronism can becool, but this is a fucking western, don’t waste my time being artsy, smacksome six-shooters in those outlaws’ hands! But it just got worsefrom there. With a jittery quick flash recap of things that alreadyhappened occurring every five damn minutes (you’d have to see it to know whatI’m talking about, it’s gratuitously pretentious and serves no honestpurpose)! And if the Colt 45 wasn’t enough, there’s a motorcycle anda car in it as well, just driving around rough western terrain! Thecharacters are overly whacked out and awfully stylized, obviously the maker ofthis film was a fan of the modern JonahHex comics and all their unnervingly weird brutality. Sothey decided they’d make a movie resembling that in a stupid 300-style reality with no budget. Lizzy Caplan was awful,her tough girl southern accent was as painful as the dialogue. As for the bignames that showed up, well, I hope they got a good paycheck, because I’d behumiliated to be in this one. Piece. Of. Crap.

1 & ½ Stars

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Joan Rivers

2010

I watched this with my mother withabsolutely no initial interest in doing so. However, this is a gooddocumentary. Joan Rivers is funny as shit live, and while mygeneration is used to seeing her plastered on red carpets, funny commercials,miscellaneous “past-their-prime” celebrity reality shows, and the Entertainmentchannel I’ve never seen her unfiltered standup. If Joan Rivers wasto come to Springfield, I would opt to go see her. This documentary,unlike her reality shows, is a really raw look at the life of Joan Rivers, thesadness that often ruminates in the lives of comedians, and above all the willto survive as an entertainer despite society labeling an elderly legend a“has-been.”

3 Stars

Monsters

Scoot McNairy, WhitneyAble

2010

Holy shit this movie! I saw atrailer for this thing on IMDb a long time ago, and thought it looked crazyawesome. Sadly I’ve heard no buzz about this film from anyone and iteventually surprisingly hit Watch Instantly really fast onNetflix. Man, this movie is fantastic. It’s just trulyoriginal. I think it’s a shame that movies like this don’t get Oscarrecognition because this one earned it. The premise is that in analternate reality, practically the same as our own, NASA had found evidence oflife forms within the solar system and sent a probe out to collectsamples. Upon re-entry the probe blew up over Mexico and plagued anentire northern region with the alien species, which has been deemed “TheInfected Zone” six years later. The film shows us none of this,that’s just back story. The film is about a naïve photographer,Andrew, who ends up having to escort his boss’s daughter, Samantha, back toAmerica. Of course everything goes perfectly wrong so that theirlast resort is illegally travelling through the infected zone.

Most of the film is a commentary on disasterrelief, giving us landscapes that eerily remind us of hurricane remnants, andeven more so it is a commentary on Mexican-American immigration. The“monsters” or aliens themselves are not the biggest focus of the film, and ifyou’re hoping for another Cloverfield you might bedisappointed, especially since the creatures themselves are nothing more thangiant octopus-like things, which I am not ruining for anyone; they’re revealedwithin the first five minutes. I assure you though, when thecreatures do appear, it’s memorable, and their screen time is wellused. But the real incredibility of the film is the chemistry betweenthe two leads that carry the entire film on their shoulders as utterlyconvincing depictions of real people. All the acting in this moviecounts, even the small parts just feel realistic. The sets areincredible, the cinematography is graceful and the music is well composed andmoving. It has some amazing shots of Mexico at night, illuminated bycandle light, and I’m a huge fan of scenes lit by fire atnight. It’s just an incredibly original film and I sincerely hope itgets much more recognition by the mainstream media soon.

5 Stars

Frozen

Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore

2010

Whew, this was a tough flick towatch! This is a fantastic example of how a truly horrifying filmcan be made using no monsters or ridiculous serial killers, but instead using ascenario that could really happen. Three stupid college-age kids goskiing and snowboarding for the day, have the great idea to do one last rundown the mountain before the park closes, and low and behold, the ski lift isshut down and their stranded multiple stories in the air with not much butblizzards, a pack of wolves, and their own bad attitudes to keep them companyfor the five weekdays the park is closed.

That being said, this film got reallyintense and graphically visceral, WAY more than I everanticipated. I honestly thought this was going to be a suspensefulsurvival story, but really it was straight up horror. Admittedly Iwent into this assuming it was based on a true story. It wasn’t,which made it less interesting, but also a bit relieving to know and a littlemore original oddly enough. My only complaint is just the fact thatafter watching the film, you wonder just how much of it is really plausible,and how much of it was really necessary. I don’t want to ruin thefilm for anyone but there is some serious gore in this flick, and because ithappens to come from characters who aren’t just naked bystanders of a slasherflick, it’s pretty upsetting to see. What I can’t decide is whetherless is more, and the effect could have been achieved without the graphiceffects, or if this was a situation where seeing it really made you feel theawful gravity of it. I don’t know, people are on the fence aboutthis one. I think any movie that makes me scream out louduncontrollably is pretty good film making regardless of the final productyou’re left with when the story is over. And I definitely made somesounds during this one.

3 Stars

$5 A Day

Christopher Walken,Alessandro Nivola

2008

I was feeling hungry for some Chris W, asone often does, or at least should. This looked light enough, and Ihappen to dig road trip flicks so I picked it out to fall asleepto. As I said, pretty light stuff. Not saying therewasn’t emotion and a story to be told, but just not that memorable in the longrun. What is funny, however, is the large portion of the story thatis supposed to be happening in Springfield, Missouri.

3 Stars

The Incredible Hulk

Edward Norton, Liv Tyler

2008

I’d been needing to see this one for a longtime, and finally it came on TV. I’m not a fan of the Hulk, andreally, Fight Club excluded, not a fan of Edward Norton. Ithink that the Hulk isn’t just a two-dimensional character, but really, aone-dimensional one. He gets mad and smashes things, without rippinghis purple pants (and by the way there are some great jokes about that in thisflick), and he has a horrible rogues gallery. Therefore, I find itdifficult to understand why television studios and Hollywood has been trying tobring the Hulk to life. Especially after the embarrassing awfulnessthat was Ang Lee’s bright green humongous HULK that came out in theearly 2000s. That being said, this film was OKAY. It waspretty popcorn, pretty low-level story, but I could cope. It hadfair action, and even though the Hulk still looked hella fake CGI, he was a bigimprovement on the last one, and his nasty bad guy was kinda cool too. Ilove Godzillamovies, so I guess I have a soft spot for big brutish forces duking itout. However, this movie wasn’t without some really painful moments,which I feel are nearly inevitable when trying to bring The Hulk to life in anymedium higher up than animation. On the other hand, there were somegreat nods, tributes and cameos to the classic 70s series as well as some greatjokes regarding the character that allowed some relief for all the disbelief,if you will. But above all, it was OKAY.

3 Stars

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

Keir Gilchrist, ZachGalifianakis

2010

Anybody that doubts the talents of ZachGalifianakis needs to watch this flick. And hopefully with time thestarring lead, Keir Gilchrist will be up in the A-list names as well, as hisportrayal of a neurotically over-worked high school student on the verge ofhitting rock bottom proves charming but unlike the Michael Ceras and JesseEisenbergs of our time, proves to be honest and more/lessrealistic. Parts of the story seem a littlefantasy-fulfillment-esque to me, which may be saying something really weirdabout my personality. But the story of a kid who is seriouslycontemplating suicide and is sent to a mental institution where he learns tolive life at its fullest and is all patched up in one week kinda seems like afairy tale. The movie is good, but shit, if I could meet some cutemember of the opposite sex (Emma Roberts) in a mental institution like thiskid does, I’m going to be showing warning signs until I hear someone say“Commit him!”

Aside from that, the depiction of thehospital’s mental ward isn’t too unbelievable, but I wouldn’tknow. It was nice that some of the patients he had to interact withweren’t altogether pleasant, or what Hollywood likes to go with; the sweet andharmless crazy person which, by the way, Zach Galifianakis’ characterisn’t. Don’t be fooled by the trailers. His character has realproblems and isn’t there just to make awkward little quips about masturbatingon airplanes. All in all it’s a good portrayal of a coming-of-agestory. I just think parts of it concluded a tad unrealistic in theirhappy outcome.

3 & ½ Stars

My Soul to Take

Max Theriot, DenzelWhitaker

2010

Man, I’m on the fence with thisone. I shouldn’t be. It wasn’t very good atall. My problem is that it should have been good, and could havebeen good. It wasn’t meant to be profound and that’s partly why Iwas excited to see it. Wes Craven can be hit or miss buthe’s flipped the slasher genre over twice creating scenarios that consist ofmore than just the grouping of horny teens and the systematic offing of them,even if those scenarios spawned franchises that did so in their sequels. Thetrailer for this movie had me pumped. It looked nice and twisty,mysterious, but mindless and vintage enough to be a fun horror flick to throwpopcorn at.

Basically, it’s about a small town that ishaunted by the history of a certain serial killer who turned out to be a lovingfather with split personalities, or as the film suggests he was possessed bymultiple souls. On the day of his death seven local children wereborn and town superstitions ensued as a result, theorizing that after he waskilled his soul(s) was/were divided up into these kids. Sounds dumbright? Well I wasn’t asking for brains but honestly that premisealone is a lot better than several horror movies made in the past fiveyears. Problem is, this film doesn’t really take its time to settleon anything. It just kind of tosses what feels like an unfinishedscript around for about an hour and a half with characters that aren’t fleshedout, twists and turns which aren’t set up well, bad dialogue, really justterrible pacing and editing, and pretty much no scares at all, except for maybeone or two minor jumpers that’ll have you pissed you fell for them.

Seriously though, the film ends in a waythat makes you think “That wasn’t bad…” but then you think “Yeah, no, it wasbad…” I think in all seriousness this should have been a goodfilm. I’m not sure if Craven is past his prime or if this was justanother one of his side projects like Cursed or They. Eitherway, he should have done a better job and gotten the script treated a fewtimes. If not even that, he should have just played producer andhanded the script to a director with more seasoning to contribute to theproject. I like slasher films. They aren’t intelligent byany means, they’re bad movies, but they’re fun and certainly take your mind offof things. I think a movie like this is what we needed; only itwasn’t left in the oven long enough. Which is a damn shame.

2 & ½ Stars

Battle: Los Angeles

Aaron Eckhart, MichelleRodriguez

2011

If you listen to Episode 29 you’ll hear all about this one. Matt and I saw it together,and are pretty torn on it. Matt hates it; I think it’s prettyalright. I might be an idiot though, because it has some roughreviews apparently. But it is, or at least was, the number-one filmin America, so either that means it’s pretty good or reallystupid. It was pretty much a no-brainer. I think at heartit was Black Hawk Down withaliens. Which sounds bad, but I don’t think it is. It wasthe classic war movie setup of a small group of fighters sent on a relativelysimple mission gone to shit, only this time the force the good guys were upagainst was completely unpredictable.

I enjoyed the fact that the film wasted notime questioning the fact that the invaders were aliens. They simplydid their job and fought the bad guys. There were some awful clichésin the first third, mainly just badly written war hero banter and some stereotypicalpersonas. But after the initial first act, it kinda cuts thebullshit and just doesn’t let down on the action. And despite Matt’sfeelings, I really liked the action in this film, and that’s something it’sgetting hard for me to be satisfied with in modern films. This onedid it for me.

I also enjoy how there’s no “force field”and that with enough fire power the aliens are vulnerable. In manyfilms the aliens are made way too close to invincible, but here they weren’tentirely unstoppable, which actually makes the conflict more interesting towatch. Many parts of this film could be considered militarypropaganda, but I’m not such an anti-patriot that I think a movie that paintsthe military in a positive light is a bad thing. We see marinesdoing what they’re supposed to be doing and doing it dutifully and proudly, andas much as I could say that’s right-wing propaganda, the marines in this movieare the marines I want to be sent overseas and representing America and ifthat’s what kids are signing the dotted line to be, then I say that’sadmirable, even if the governmental body in control isn’t.

3 & ½ Stars

The Adjustment Bureau

Matt Damon, TerenceStamp

2011

I liked this movie a lot. Thiswas the film Matt and I went to see after Battle:LA. I think it’s the first romance we’ve ever really watchedtogether, and while on the show Matt argued that it wasn’t really a romance, Ithink he’s 100% wrong. Remember, that’s the guy who also arguesthat It’s a Wonderful Life isn’ta Christmas movie. (Webmaster’s note: Fuckyou, Sam.) No this was a romance based on a Phillip K.Dick (perhaps my favorite science fiction writer) story called The Adjustment Agency. Importanttitle change, right? I haven’t read the original story but I hope tosometime in the future. Whether the meat of the original story wasabout how much one person would battle fate for true love or not, there was agood five or ten minutes that you could just feel Phillip K. Dick in thewriting, and I really appreciated that, since I had read in an EntertainmentWeekly article that the film was going to be loosely based on thestory.

The image the advertisements gave off seemedmore like a kind of science fiction, very reminiscent of “The Observers” seenin Fringe. Howeverthe rules and logic of the film are much more fantasy thansci-fi. They even suggest religious explanations. Butbelieve it or not, I’m a sucker for fantasies and romances, especially storieslike this. A lot of people don’t like the romantic core of Cloverfield and how the protagonist goes through hell for the person heloves, and this film is much the same, and that’s a concept I sincerely canunderstand and relate to. This film just had some cool concepts andideas regarding consequence, effect, destiny vs. free will, and mostimportantly: true love.

4 Stars

Night Shift

Michael Keaton, HenryWinkler

1982

Wow, who ever thought a movie about runninga brothel out of a morgue could be such a funny and surprisingly heartfeltfilm? I was expecting this to be all full of raunch and lewd humorand I really just wanted to see if because I jones for Michael Keaton periodically, andknew this was one of his classic roles. Of course Keaton washilarious in it, and unlike so many motor-mouthed oddball goofs we write intomovies these days, his character was really quite lovable, and seemed likesomeone who actually cared about the welfare of the othercharacters. But the thing I loved about this movie was HenryWinkler, the mild-mannered mortician who just can’t stand up for himself, andfalls on the wayside of everyone else’s lives. He’s completelyrelatable, for me anyway. The two characters have a greatrelationship and really, I just loved this film. It actually hadheart, and I think it’s a classic more people in my generation should knowabout.

3 & ½ Stars

Monster House

Steve Buscemi, MaggieGyllenhaal

2006

I remember when this film cameout. Looked like fun, and it was produced by StephenSpeilberg so you’d think that’d be a win right there. Irecall the trailers being well received by audiences, all laughing at the rightqueues. But it kinda tanked. I always wanted to seeit. It looked like kind of a Goosebumps throwback, the classic tale of neighborhoodkids going up against a supernatural force that all the grown-ups mysteriouslycould not see or be bothered to consider a reality. (BTW SUPER 8 looksamazing!) Well it kinda was, and like Goosebumps, it pushed the freakin’ line. But this wasone of those instances like Coraline wherethat just seemed to make it cooler and more intriguing. The storywasn’t perfect, and the aspect of a house that literally turns to a monsterwhen no one’s looking is hard to take seriously, most likely because it wasn’tmeant to be. But the film gains and loses momentum with someseriously whacked out shit. I liked it. And I thought theanimation was super cool, the opening shot alone says a lot for artisticendeavor these computer animated films seem to lack.

3 Stars

The Fighter

Christian Bale, MarkWahlberg

2010

Two words, er,names: CHRISTIAN. BALE. If there’s onedecision the Academy Awards made right this year it’s giving best supportingactor to Christian Bale. Good god did he blow it out ofthe water, with his pale emaciated self. Not only that, but with animpeccable Boston accent as well. Mark Wahlberg yousay? The rest of the film? Yeah, those were good too, nodoubt. Don’t expect this flick to be Rocky and I meanthat in a good way. All the depictions of this small working-classfamily in the lower end of Boston felt pretty fucking legit, even though Idon’t come from Boston. Even the damsel of the film, AmyAdams, was made to look rough and tumbled just like everyone else wholooked as though they had been living without air conditioning all theirlives. It’s a good movie, really about family, love and secondchances more than boxing. But then again, I think the boxing aspectswere pat down pretty good themselves. All in all, another good moviethat came out this year with an absolutely unoriginal title, but a great storyand great performances.

3 & ½ Stars

Better Off Dead

John Cusack, CurtisArmstrong

1985

Cute, nutty little ‘80s movie. Iwas recommended this by my media teacher, who brought it up in a JohnCusack conversation. I had heard of it and knew the premise anddecided since I’m a pretty big fan of Cusack I’d give it a go. As muchas I love darling little ‘80s quirky comedies, this one missed my target. It’sjust silly, and yes I know that’s the point, but sometimes weirdness and cutefactor rule out any kind of substantial story. I think this flick ismore for chicks with a soft spot for baby-face Cusack, back in theday. Which is understandable, gosh was he adorable. But he alsolacked the ability to act, just sayin’.

The film is harmless ‘80s slapstick, I’msure much more suited to people more relaxed than I am. I just kindawanted some real-life sentiment mixed in, due to the subject matter it sellsitself as being host to. But it was played off more cutsie andhappily-ever-after than my morbid expectations.

The best part of this movie is the dreamsequence where a claymated burger comes to life and dances to Van Halen. I even tried to find it onYouTube to share on Facebook, but sadly it’s not around, so someone should getto uploading that.

3 Stars

Flakes

Zooey Deschanel, AaronStanford

2007

If your typical “indie comedy” consistedmore of stuff like this than your average love triangle bullshit, I’dbe a happier person. This flick had a really interesting businessidea, which the idea of alone was entertaining. Now build a storyaround it and throw Zooey Deschanel in there, and we have a winner! Thestory is about a struggling little hipster named Neal who takes his job workingat the dingy little cereal restaurant called Flakes (run by a stoned-out ChristopherLloyd) way too seriously. He’s angsty, anti-establishment andaltogether inconvenient in attitude, and it takes a huge journey battling aclean-cut rip-off of Flakes across the street started by a scorned customer(remarkably drawing parallels to the classic indie coffee shop vs. the much-hatedStarbucks battle). Eventually he gets dumped by his neglectedgirlfriend (oh Zooey, how I would always put you first if you were mine! Divorceyour husband! I’ll get into shape; we can make the age gap work!)and has to learn to quit being a little douchebag about everything. It’sa great commentary on small business vs. franchising, the stupidity ofprotesting progress and the altogether misplaced pompous smarminess of hipstersin general. Great little flick.

3 & ½ stars

His Name Was Jason

Kane Fodder, TomSavini

2009

Not sure why I picked this one out of boredom, just sounded likesomething different. I enjoyed Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film enoughto give this one a stab. Shit, I can’t resist those horror film puns. Anyway,I can proudly say (and I don’t know why, it just doesn’t feel right to say I’mnot proud) that I have sat through all the Fridaythe 13^th films. All of them. Andwhile I can’t recount each one in detail, I can recall a good overview of eachfilm. I never watched them because I really liked themor was a Jason Voorhees fan,but I love ‘80s slasher films in a Saturday morning cartoons/guiltypleasure kinda way. They’re so bad they’re good and good god do theyalways capture the essence of the time period they were filmed during. Anyway,the people in this documentary really do like themovies. And as messed up as it is, it’s kinda fun hearing themexplain why they love these films, in their own backward ways. It’seven more disturbing how well they can recall every film in thefranchise. And lastly it’s interesting to see what these one-timeB-film teens have to say about their only full frontal claim to fame. It’sreally bizarre, but hey if there’s one thing you should never do, it’sunderestimate the loyalty of a horror film fan.

My biggest critique on this documentary,because honestly I can’t give it much flack when it was easily thrown togetheras a fan tribute and didn’t really explore a deeper context to the films, isthat Tom Savini’s awful little segue sketches are just awful. Heobviously is reading off cue cards to pay off a car he just bought.

3 stars

Chloe

Julianne Moore, AmandaSeyfried

2009

I watched this for the lesbianism and nudity. There, Isaid it. Am I glad I did? Kind of... The filmis pointless. In my un-credible opinion erotic thrillers arepointless. I fail to see much use in the art of being sexy inmainstream cinema, unless you just want to make porn with more of an intriguingstoryline and dialogue, in which case go for it, that’s cool. As amatter of fact somebody should make that popular. Porn with aconsiderate story, shot as a movie with lots and lots of sex. Icould get behind that. Teehee.

I’m trailing off. Uh, anyway thefilm isn’t good. It’s just not believable and it tries way too hardto act like it has something important to say. For instance there’ssupposed to be some allegorical-type connection with the sexual activity of theteenage son (played by My Soul toTake’s Bug himself: Max Theriot oddly enough) and the lack thereof in themarried couple’s relationship. But it’s nonexistent. Thedirector is obviously a snobby prick, because he put his name in theadvertisements when his name is literally unknown by most. Icertainly don’t know his backlog. It felt like a bad indie film thatsomehow hired well-respected actors.

Basically Catherine, played by JulianneMoore, hires Chloe, a high-price prostitute to tempt her husband David (LiamNeeson) in order to see how well his fidelity held up, because shesuspects him of being unfaithful. Little Chloe goes and fucks LiamNeeson then reports back to Catherine in vivid, romance novel narrative detail,and somehow this begins making Julianne Moore aroused? Weird. Thisleads to her eventually having sex with Chloe, because that’s obviously thesolution to her problems and the right thing to do in this situation. Ofcourse then Chloe shows her crazy side when she then becomes obsessed withCatherine. But just when Chloe starts being a crazy psychopath, thefilm ends, not really giving us any thrill at all. So seriously, ifyou want to watch this film, I suggest you pay a visit to mrskin.com beforehand and make your viewing experience morepunctual.

There is one thing I really want to say, andthat’s that Amanda Seyfried is absolutely gorgeous, Red Riding Hood & Dear John aside. Andseeing her half nude only reinforces that statement. I don’t knowwhat her acting ability is, I haven’t seen any of her other work to myknowledge. I don’t know if she can be considered praiseworthy, shecertainly didn’t do anything special here. But I will say I hope tosee more of her in good movies in the future of her career. ‘Causeshe is awful easy on the eyes.

2 stars, it was a badmovie.

127 Hours

James Franco, AmberTamblyn

2010

Hmm… A movie about Aron Ralston, the dude who cut his own arm offafter venturing out on his own into Blue John Canyon and getting pinned in by arock… directed by Danny Boyle? I wonder how that will work out, Ithought to myself months before the movie’s release when reading about it in Entertainment Weekly. Irecall seeing Ralston on DavidLetterman a few weeks after the incident in 2003. Hewas a charming character and he discussed the visceral elements of “operatingon himself” quite calmly. It was an interesting story, but how thefuck were they going to make that into a full-length movie? And Ilove Danny Boyle, but I was still sore over Slumdog Millionaire. The whole idea justseemed bizarre. But I still wanted to see it. And afterhearing that there was a wide phenomenon of people passing out during the filmdue to its gory detail I was even more intrigued.

As it turns out, the story of Aron Ralstongoes far beyond the aspect of a man who cut his own arm off. Most ofthe film is spent in the middle of the rock formation during the days Ralstonspent starving to death, slowly dying, trying every way possible to free himselfwithout amputating his arm. And to me, that was more grueling towatch than the actual amputation. Danny Boyle manages to slam itpretty hard into the viewers’ heads just how shitty of a state Ralston wasin. I’m not going to give much away, because it’ll take away theshock factor if you haven’t seen it, but there are definitely some overbearingscenes that make the viewer cringe and feel sick without blood and guts. Theone aspect of the film I didn’t appreciate was the mirage of weird flashbacksshown as a way to get the audience away from Aron and the rock. Andsure, some of it was very crucial to show, and in Ralston’s book: Between a Rock and a Hard Place thethoughts that went through his head during the experience are a huge factor inthe story. I just got tired of them in the film because it seemedlike an easy way out, and a lot of them didn’t make much sense or were done inan artsy way that kind of cheated the whole challenge of making a move about aguy stuck in a canyon by a rock.

As for the actual amputation? Yeah,it was brutal, but it was kind of a cop out as well. I expected itto get much more screen time, and the honest truth is that it didn’t, and evenwhen it was on screen it periodically cut away to try and save the viewer someanguish. Which felt cheap to me as well, but hey, I’m fuckedup. Aside from that, I do have some criticisms as to things thathappened in the real event that weren’t bothered with in the movie that seemedvery important. If you have the time, go look up Aron Ralston andwatch some actual interviews. It is an amazing story that goes farbeyond “that guy who cut his arm off.” James Franco did a finejob playing him, and for the most part I’m cool with Boyle’s directingjob. Even though SlumdogMillionaire still sucks.

4 stars

Unstoppable

Denzel Washington, ChrisPine

2010

Awesome flick. Just great. When TonyScott gets together with his middle-aged muse, Denzel Washington, goodthings happen, and yes that includes the surprisingly entertaining Taking of Pelham 123 of2009. I believe this is the fourth or fifth film the two have madetogether, my favorites being Manon Fire and one of my favorite films ever: Déjà Vu. Add a recently-surfacedyouthful star, Chris Pine, and a badass exaggerated story based on trueevents about a runaway train full of combustible material moving 70mph, we have a fantastic little action movie. Tony Scott hasbeen directing movies since the ‘80s, and unlike so many directors out there,he seems to just get better with time, and his style is one that goeshand-in-hand with the current time period. He proves over and overagain that despite the recognizable quirks and mannerisms of Denzel Washington,who unlike Tim Burton’s Johnny Depp, isn’t a vampire-likepreserved heart throb in his forties, isn’t a one-trick pony, and can turn outthe goods time and time again. This time Washington is the everyman,much like he was in Pelham 123, onlyhere he’s sassy and bold, not timid and oppressed. He gets throwntogether with baby-faced Chris Pine who seems to be shirking on the job, buthas bigger personal problems going on. They bicker, pretty muchaccording to cliché but when it comes to fighting the system to save the daythey both take charge and kick train #777’s unstoppable ass.

I know this film is based on a true event,and two real life heroes, but it’s obvious it is greatly expanded for actionand suspense. I recall watching the trailers, making my oftendumbass assumptions, thinking: That lookscool, but trains follow a track. How can this be interesting? It’snot like a car chase movie where all sorts of things can happen. Wellshit, they made a movie almost equal in mechanical acceleration suspense as1994’s timeless Speed. Lotsof action, lots of suspense, some funny characters and a great visual style byMr. Scott.

4 Stars

Episode 32: The Long Top 5ive

2011-04-13T00:00:00.008-05:00

The Geeks share their thirty-second with an old friend and a persistently loyal fan: Mr. Brady Drake Choat, then twiddle away the rest of the hour counting their Top 5ive favorite TV and movie badasses. There is much more content to this episode. Look forward to future extras.

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Pic Cred

Episode 31: Knocked Up With Rock & Roll

2011-03-30T00:00:00.002-05:00

The Geeks bond over AC/DC, Sam paints a picture of his rock'n'roll back story, Matt is put off by the sexual undertones of Thundercats, and the two pay tribute to Dan...

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Episode 30: The Plan 9 From Outer Space of Songs

2011-03-23T00:00:00.003-05:00

The Geeks arrive late, again, Sam goes to Silver Dollar City, and Matt dances all over what could possibly be the best-worst song ever.

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Matt's Favorite Song in the World
Girl In Pink Dancing
Photo Credit

Episode 29: Extended Absence Greeting

2011-03-16T00:00:00.008-05:00

The Geeks return from a two-week blip, have a monotonous and mundane spring break, go catch some flicks, argue over the quality of those flicks, and overall sink back into the status quo.

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>>> American Red Cross Earthquake Donation Page <<<

Matt’s Flog: The Millennium Trilogy

2011-03-01T23:59:00.007-06:00

In This Film Log:

The Millennium Trilogy
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Men Who Hate Women
- The Girl Who Played with Fire
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest / The Air Castle That Blew Up

Matt’s Flog: The Millennium Trilogy

The Millennium Trilogy
Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist
2010
   Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson submitted the manuscripts for three books in 2004, and died shortly after. Supposedly, he left a near-complete fourth book, parts of a fifth, and plans for ten books total. The novels became a huge international success, being made into films in Sweden in 2010, then exported to other countries. I have not read the books, only seen the movies.
     David Fincher is currently adapting the books for American cinema. Normally I am against remakes; however, the Swedish movie trilogy is itself an adaptation, and as Fincher is a talented filmmaker, I have no problem with there being new movies.
   He has cast Rooney Mara (The Social Network) in Noomi Rapace’s role and Daniel Craig in Michael Nyqvist’s role.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Swedish Title: Men Who Hate Women

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

The first book and film are widely known as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, their original title being Men Who Hate Women. I think this reflects on the plot. Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander, a goth/emo/punk girl seemingly with some kind of antisocial disorder, supposedly Asperger’s. She’s the girl with the tattoo. However, this tattoo has barely a mention in the story, and no effect on the plot. What does affect the story, however, are her past and present interactions with human males. It seems, from her perspective, that all men she has known have abused her in some way, be it mentally, physically, or sexually. (There’s a violent rape scene. If you hate movies with rape scenes, you’ll hate these movies.)

Michael Nyqvist plays reporter Mikael Blomkvist, much like Steig Larsson himself, running a struggling magazine called Millenium. At the beginning of the film he is convicted of committing libel through one of his articles, though accidentally. In his time remaining before his (somewhat short) prison sentence, he and Lisbeth are brought together – he for being a great investigative reporter, she for being a brilliant computer hacker – and hired to work on a decades-old case of kidnapping with mysterious circumstances, along with, of course, several men who happen to hate women.

The relationship between Lisbeth and Blomkvist rollercoasters through the series, not only in the quality of their friendship, but also in its nature, including a few funny yet awkward sex scenes. From Blomkvist comes caring and concern. Lisbeth is tough, but distant with every person in her life. Blomkvist comes off as a “nice guy.” Lisbeth – you see all this terrible shit happen to her, and to a certain extent, she takes control of the things around her, or at least tries to. (What she does soon after the rape scene is powerful enough to stick with you for years.) The rape scene has seemingly no point to the plot (other than building character), but becomes important later in the series. As Blomkvist shows Lisbeth that not all men are pigs, you desperately hope she’ll understand that.

The mystery itself wasn’t as thick as I would have liked, especially as this series is reported to be “tech-noir.” However it does have its nuances, such as the bit about the flowers and the babysitter. It felt much more like the mystery was put in the story to get these two people together and develop their relationship, which it does superbly, but as the mystery takes up such a large portion and was a bit of a let-down, I’m not comfortable giving it a full five stars. The ending is sweet.

This movie really got me into foreign films, I give it that.

4 Stars *****

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Director: Daniel Alfredson

Ferociously entertaining. I fucking love this movie. It picks up sometime after the first left off: Blomkvist is released from his prison term, Lisbeth is seemingly on top of the world, keeping the main antagonist of her life in check, but has not talked to Blomkvist in some time.

From the first scene, the difference in direction is highly visible: the atmosphere is completely different than the first, it is faster-paced, and overall exudes the feeling of being a cool movie.

A reporter works with Millennium to publish a breaking story on sex trafficking, but due to his involvement, people start being killed to cover it up, and all the clues seem to point to Lisbeth. Blomkvist sees what is happening, and knowing she is innocent, tries to help Lisbeth, despite the fact that she is nowhere to be found.

This film expands upon some flashbacks from the first movie, detailing more of Lisbeth’s past. When Lisbeth is framed, she strikes out on her own, suddenly becoming the most badass bitch since Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. Her, em, “methods” had me cheering for her. Despite the fact that Rapace and Nyqvist have maybe all of 30 seconds of screen time together, the chemistry between their characters is still alive, through their electronic communication. The mystery this time around was intriguing and thick. An improvement on the first film, I feel.

The end is a cliffhanger of sorts, leaving you wondering if things will be resolved in a happy way at the beginning of the third film, similar to Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Nolan’s Batman, etc. It’s a kind of ending I love.

5 Stars *****

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Swedish Title: The Air Castle That Blew Up

Director: Daniel Alfredson

Usually. I usually love that kind of ending, when it’s resolved well. However, Hornet’s Nest seems to me to stand out as the weakest of the three. The plot is at its thinnest. Lisbeth, who in Fire was built up so well to be this total badass, is now a minor character, or at best is given a subplot. Her friends in this film try to help her the best they can; her enemies try all they might to have her torn down; she’s in a good portion over the movie, but her character takes a back seat to all these minor characters we don’t care as much about. She spends much of the movie confined, and the big problem in this installment is not a mystery, but rather her being on trial for murder. By the third act, the biggest action is the court proceedings. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people that needs action to enjoy a movie. But all the movie builds up to is a court case. Sure it’s for a character we love, but this particular adventure is anything but. And at this point, the relationship between the leads has broken down severely. Yes he helps her out, arguably more than he should have, but there’s so little actually happening between them. The only draw here is to see if Lisbeth was okay. It just wasn’t compelling like the first two. If David Fincher improves upon Nest, it’ll be a great flick. I am sure he is able, it’s a matter of if. Now, if he improves upon the first two, holy shit they’ll be even more awesome than they already are.

3 Stars *****

- Matt

Matt's Log - Introduction

2011-03-01T23:58:00.000-06:00

Sam had this idea about using the Site to upload written documents in addition to the episodes. He started with some flogs (film blogs), which I'll be doing some of as well, but Sam watches many more movies than I, so I'll also be doing books, comics, things of that sort. It's also a good way for us to share our written thoughts in general, if said thoughts seem like they would not fit in an episode. Essays, perhaps. Perhaps not. Fuck essays. Rants, maybe. More thought out than my Lord of the Rings rant. Anyway, the rating system I generally use goes as follows:

1 Star: The work actively goes out of its way to offend me.
2 Stars: Bad, but ultimately harmless.
3 Stars (Low): Worth a watch, but not that good.
3 Stars (High): Worth a watch, surprisingly enjoyable.
4 Stars: Really good, but lacking the hook of a perfect book/movie.
5 Stars: Loved it, perfect, favorite, among the best.

Aside from the threes, I don't use half-stars. Hell, sometimes I give up on giving something a star and simply say "Good" or "Bad," à la Siskel & Ebert. So, enjoy.

- Matt

Sam's Flog: #2

2011-02-27T12:41:00.006-06:00

In This Film Log:

A Boy and His Dog
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Adaptation
Being John Malkovich
Too Fat For 40
Gung Ho
Cherry 2000
Johnny Mnemonic
The King’s Speech

Sam's Flog: #2

A Boy and His Dog
Don Johnson, Jason Robards
1975
I live for weird shit like this movie. I recall some girl explaining seeing this on TV once and when I read the plot synopsis I knew I had to watch it for better or for worse. Basically it’s a post-apocalyptic story about a nuclear bomb ravaged wasteland, dominated by the scourges of men left behind. I love that in the opening text exposition, it simply says “World War IV lasted four days” while showing Hiroshima footage in the backdrop. Basically we follow a young guy named Vic, as he walks through a depleted wasteland with his telepathic dog (who only can talk to Vic) that helps him smell out food and more importantly, women. We learn not to look for too much integrity in our protagonist within the first few minutes as he discovers the remains of a dying rape victim and expresses disgust for her attackers, but only because they cut her up when she was “Good for at least four more rounds.” Anyway, eventually Vic gets taken to an underground society that is some kind of sick fascist regime modeled after classic 20th century farmland values, and everyone wears clown makeup… It’s great stuff. It’s a cheap ass movie and the quality it’s been preserved in doesn’t help, even though there are scenes with relatively no lighting at all to start with. I think a Netflix reviewer spelled this out better than I can, saying that “I imagine most women would hate it. This is the best movie to see if your girlfriend has just dumped you. If you are having trouble getting through the film, just be patient - the ending is worth it.”
And it so is. 3 and ½ Stars!

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Jake Gyllenhaal, Alfred Molina, Ben Kingsly
2010
Hey, don’t knock it till you try it, right? The thought of Jake Gyllenhaal being an action star isn’t unreasonable at all, that much I’ll say. But being the only white person in a gloriously fictitious ancient depiction of Persia with a horrible British accent just thrown in to be pretentiously posh just isn’t pleasant. That being said, fuck it, it’s popcorn. The action is pretty fluent and not bad at all. And really, I realized while I watched this, I don’t think I would have done anything different directorially, other than ditch Gyllenhaal. Some movies are just saturation potential, ripe for quick money-back marketing, and this is fresh produce.
3 Stars. It’s fun enough!

Adaptation
Nick Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper
2001
Oh man, I do not want to try and explain the plot to this. It’s unbelievable to me that anyone would even make this movie, based on the far out script that basically tells an exaggerated altered reality of the making of the film’s own script! If that doesn’t make sense, gosh, I can’t do better, just watch the movie. Nicholas Cage is gold in this, packing on the pounds, the nervous-white-boy disposition, the balding Jew-fro and above all the portrayal of a happy-go-lucky twin brother of himself! This is a great movie, and only Spike Jonze could make it. It manages to send some really good messages about life, love, honesty and passion in a way I can most definitely relate to. It makes me wonder what the hell happened to Nic Cage doing good movies… Lord only knows.
4 and ½ Stars. It’s really good!

Being John Malkovich
John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich
1999
I saw this movie once when I was around 12 years old. I hated it, but it stuck with me, and after my deep appreciation for Spike Jonze developed after viewing Where The Wild Things Are, I’m Here, and Adaptation I decided I should give it another shot, after all I think it has most likely inspired the weirdness in my creativity. The result of re-watching? Not different at all… I love the absurdity of this movie, I really do, and it’s right up my alley. Spike Jonze even does a fantastic job visually capturing its bleak absurdity. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I absolutely hate the characters. The bizarre themes of sexuality still leave me clueless as to a moral achievement the movie has at all, and the ending is just plain fucked up.
2 and ½ Stars. The half is for the originality.

Too Fat For 40
Kevin Smith
2010
Obviously I’m a big fan of Kevin Smith. I don’t like all his movies, and I especially didn’t appreciate Zack and Miri Make a Porno. But the man is a master of conversation. It shows in his writing, in his movies, in his podcasts and interviews, but most of all in his live performances, making the art of answering a simple question with tangential story telling amazingly funny. I’ve seen the first two Evening With Kevin Smith specials, not the third, but thus far this one takes the cake. I laughed really hard and was absolutely amazed with his honesty; not only being candid about his own flaws, but not afraid to be honest about others who most would probably shy from accusing (Bruce Willis). 4 Stars. I laughed my ass off.

Gung Ho
Michael Keaton, Gedde Watanabe, John Tuturro
1986
I’m a weird kid, I fucking love Michael Keaton. I thought this was a political drama, then was relieved when it was a business… dramedy? Eh, it fell flat. Keaton’s character was an asshole, the Japanese race was needlessly stereotyped as an uptight and mean race (but haha, they’re so silly when they loosen up!) and the last few minutes slap cookie cutter inspirational mush all over the audiences better judgment.
2 and ½ Stars. Ron Howard, you fail!

Cherry 2000
Melanie Griffith, Tim Thomerson, David Andrews
1988
Here’s the deal, I love B-grade pulp, especially in the form of science fiction. I added this movie to my instant queue offhand, as I do with many. Then I noticed that my Hero & Quest teacher has watching this movie in class on his scheduled curriculum. I was supposed to be reading a morbidly boring text document for the class, and I decided rather than that I would watch this and have something else to be smug about knowing ahead of time. Obviously my teacher intended to demonstrate the timeless tradition of katabasis story telling through his wacky sense of humor and I imagine a similar admiration for B-grade pulp to mine. The Netflix member review consensus for this one was, once again, below three stars. I’m so glad I haven’t learned anything about my better judgment because this was a classic! The story is wacky, dark, campy, and well, sexy. But honestly the foundation the movie begins with is pretty legitimate as far as serious story telling goes. The protagonist basically unintentionally allows his sex robot (a Cherry 2000 model) to get fried while rolling around in a sea of sexy foam erupting from the washing machine. Only the thing is, this guy loved his robot, like, for real. So much so that he’ll do anything to get his hands on another model, so he can install the surviving memory chip of his Cherry in the identical body. And just to make you understand the normality of this character, it shows a satirical future where the relationships between men and women are reduced to contracts drawn up in bars by lawyers, negotiating overnight escapades showing no more genuine romantic relationships exist in this future dystopia. (Laurence Fishburne pops up for about 30 seconds. No clue man, no clue.)
So anyway, there’s one problem. The Cherry 2000 model is practically extinct. So our hero embarks on a journey into a lawless wasteland with a hired tracker who also happens to be one sexy mid 1980’s condition Melanie Griffith. Anyway, you can guess what happens later or just watch the friggin’ movie. Either way I loved it, it’s just the kind of thing they should be showing late night on the Sci-Fi (not Syfy) Channel instead of MegaCrocosaurus vs. Giant Liger-Shark 3. It has great action, and great campy satire. It was nice for me to see Tim Thomerson in something not made by the Full Moon company (I’m a fan of the Trancers series (well, the first two anyway)) even if it was still B-grade sci-fi, at least this had a budget and what must have been a fairly new camera at the time. All and all, it’s a pretty fun watch.
3 and ½ Stars. It’s fun.

Johnny Mnemonic
1995
Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Udo Kier, Henry Rollins
     Oh what to say about this film. It is an odd fucking movie. It’s one of those flicks I grew up staring at the box cover when the ancient tradition of VHS rental stores was still in vogue, but I never rented it. I tried watching it on TV once around the same period of time (When WGN used to show Hercules & Xena, so this was a long time ago) and it played like an overly complicated, badly dubbed Japanese film. I was too little and my mom was too impatient, so we scrapped it.
     Over the years I’ve continued to be curious about it though, especially after hearing it called a “Cyber Punk” classic in some cult film circles. And since I was little I have grown quite a strong acquired taste for weirdness as you can most likely tell. So when the blessing of Netflix Instant Watch and insomnia combined I landed on this to satisfy by curiosity. This is a weirdass movie, un-doubtable. I mean the opening expositional text scroll is enough to give anyone a headache, the pacing is bizarre, and Keanu Reeves is hit or miss with all the unusual lines he’s been fed. You can say he’s a bad actor, but damnit he tries his best, you can see it in his face.
     But it’s also so weird it’s hard to quit watching. It is definitely cyber punk, if anyone even cares about that subgenre anymore, and for the most part it’s style over substance. But that’s not to say the amateurism doesn’t try to send some half cocked message about flesh over technology in there for good dystopian measure. I think the two contrasting concepts of the film of a disease somehow caused by the over-advancement of technology and a future where illegal digital information is transported in human couriers are pretty cool. However, that idea is weighed down by the weirdness of the rest of the film. You have a mid 1990’s Ice-T leading an underground resistance of soldiers dressed somewhere between The Sex Pistols and The Cure, but with guns. We have Dolph Lundgren hulking around as a bible obsessed psycho killer with a giant knife in the shape of a crucifix. And if that and all the other weirdness isn’t enough, the deus ex machina of the film is a cyborg dolphin…
3 stars. It’s just fucking weird.

The King’s Speech
2010
Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham-Carter
Finally a substantial review! Only I’m not the person to talk about such a movie. I liked it, it was very good, but I review pulpy science fiction and other dumbass things. I have to say, as good as this movie is, it was everything I expected it to be, and maybe that’s just me, but it felt like a film I’d have been assigned to watch in class. It was funny, sad, uplifting and inspiring. But like I said, that’s what I expected. The best part of this movie is Colin Firth, who I’ve never admired so much before, however his performance was really good. It is a good story, and I’m glad they made a movie out of it. But I don’t think an inspirational historical piece should get critical praise showered upon it just for being one. I’m not saying this isn’t a good movie, because it most definitely is, I just hope the academy awards try to open their minds to pieces with more original concepts.
4 stars. It’s a good movie, but I don’t think it’s the best this last year had to offer.

- Sam

Sam's Flog: #1

2011-02-27T12:36:00.005-06:00

In This Film Log:

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Operation: Endgame
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
The Red Riding Trilogy
The Runaways
The Bounty Hunter
Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways
Cyrus
Bedtime Stories
The Missing Person
Bad Company
Assassination of a High School President

Sam's Flog: #1

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Banksy, Thierry, Space Invader, Sheppard Fairy
2010
I watched this because I saw that it was up for an Oscar in the documentary section this year, and it's been suggested to me by Netflix’s instant watch robot for some time now, and the premise was interesting enough to make me watch it. It was a very interesting documentary after all, documenting Thierry (pronounced Terry) who emigrated from Italy to L.A., and became obsessed with constantly recording everything on his camera. Later on he goes on a journey with a family member who also happens to be a street artist named “Space Invader.” He films as Space Invader glues small cutouts of pixilated arcade game characters all around the town while dodging the authorities. Later on his following of Space Invader introduces him to a slew of street artists, including Sheppard Fairy (Obama Hope poster, and the Andre the Giant OBEY propaganda), but most notably the British street artist “Banksy” who was thought to be utterly impossible to contact in person or otherwise, and just so happens to direct the film without giving up his real identity under the guise of a pixilated face and a digitally distorted British voice.
The film asks the question: “What does it really take to be an artist?” It raises questions as to the purpose of this temporary art form recognized by most as just plain vandalism, and what the artists get out of it. And the ultimate outcome of the film will have you questioning the talents of all the artists previously shown, wondering whether art is anything more than mimicking and manipulating the work of others.
Four stars.

Operation: Endgame
Rob Corddry, Zack Galifainakis, Odette Yustman
2010
I’m a giant fan of Hot Tub Time Machine, which is practically my favorite comedy, as recent as it is. I honestly think it’s funnier than The Hangover and as little as I pay attention to The Daily Show I can’t help but crack up at Rob Corddry’s performance every time I watch it. I had seen this movie available on Netflix instant watch for a while and was intrigued primarily because it featured Zack Galifainakis amongst a body of oddly cast actors and comedians. I put off watching it because it had an average rating of under three stars and the member reviews were mostly bad. Anyway, I watched the flick for Rob Corddry basically, and his performance was definitely enjoyable. For the first half of the film I was really curious as to why it was rated so poorly. It was a seriously dark comedy with some brutal kill scenes and a neat low budget spy story. But the direction the film went in during the last third just lost its mojo, and the twist ending slapped a big what the fuck on everything, leaving me and the majority of everyone else who watched it unhappy campers.
Two stars.

Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
Rob Corddry
2006
Continuing on my Rob Corddry kick, and wanting the disappointing aftertaste of Operation: Endgame out of my mouth, I took a totally random stab at this one, not knowing what to expect. Basically it’s a mockumentary about a paintball star, Bobby Dukes (Rob Corddry) who returns to the game ten years later after he disgraced the game in a tournament by wiping off a paintball. Dukes finds out quickly that grudges don’t die in the paintball world when no one will join his new team, so he is forced to put together a rag tag group of eccentric losers. Rob Corddry was amazing in this movie, playing a really nice, laid back, gracious, understanding guy just wanting to return to what he loves and make up for his past. Unlike the characters in Hot Tub Time Machine and Operation: Endgame, Bobby Dukes is not an asshole at all, he was completely and utterly mature and likable which was a really refreshing. In addition to Corddry there’s a ton of comedians. Ed Helms, Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) both make very small appearances before their NBC days. In addition Paul Scheer, Rob Riggle, and Rob Huebal all have big parts just to name a few. The dialogue was most likely ad-libbed but hilarious nonetheless, the paintball fights are surprisingly engaging and fun to watch, and really the movie is just about as inspirational as any sports film. I absolutely loved it!
Five stars. I mean it.

The Red Riding Trilogy
2009
A friend of mine suggested this to me while we were talking about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy and how gritty and noir it was. Honestly parts of the Millennium Trilogy were a bit much for me. As I said to Matt, basically I view it as a giant three-part episode of Law & Order if you exaggerate the crap out of it and make sure every villain is a pedophile and a rapist. Not that I don’t like the trilogy but I have a hard time dealing with stories that seem to blatantly throw in as much abysmal deviance as possible just to seem edgy. That being said, I went ahead and tried out this trilogy, and surprisingly, even with all the low down sick grime added by the author of The Red Riding Quartet which revolves around the Yorkshire Ripper of the early/mid 70’s with even more fictitious corruption and seedy morbid crime thrown in, I really liked it. Somehow the characters, the direction and the story were just believable and intriguing enough to get me hooked.
Trilogy as a whole: four stars.

Red Riding Trilogy: Part 1: 1974
Andrew Garfield, Sean Bean
2009
Andrew Garfield plays Eddie Dunford, a young and hip and very 70’s journalist working for the Yorkshire Post. When a series of grisly child murders, all involving little girls lands on his doorstep he selfishly and ambitiously takes it as an opportunity to write a big story. As he becomes obsessed with the murders his motives stray farther and farther away from journalism as he gets personally wrapped up in a conspiracy involving police corruption and a seemingly inescapable town. He obviously is the classic naïve noir reporter in over his head, and thankfully his moral compass has done a 360 by the end of the movie. The ending to this flick wraps things up in a nice tidy bow that left me satisfied, obviously not ending 100% happy, that’s for sure. Only one major question is posed at the very end, but aside from that this could have been a standalone film. It’s bleak, it’s dreary, it’s dark, and it’s depressing. It’s also beautifully shot, and really gripping.
Four Stars

Red Riding Trilogy: Part 2: 1980
Paddy Considine, Maxine Peake
2009
This chapter is the weakest link of the trilogy. It suffers from a lot of complication, and admittedly I had to go back and forth between pausing the film, then checking its Wikipedia page to try and get a grasp on what was going on. This is most likely because the film has to compact information from the book Nineteen Seventy Seven which was completely left out of the film series due to budget. This is the only film in the trilogy that actually does focus on the Yorkshire Ripper, even though the story still winds up dealing more with the corruption of the police department among other things. It will make you wish you had paid closer attention to 1974, as characters who hardly spoke a word now become very important. This flick ends crappy, most likely to make you want to see some reconciliation in the third film. I wasn’t very crazy about this one but its unavoidable if you want to understand the entire story.
Three Stars

Red Riding Trilogy: Part 3: 1983
David Morrissey
2009
This is the best of the three, in my opinion. Going back to the first chapter and finally wrapping up all the loose ends after another little girl has been found murdered exactly the same as in 1974. This chapter follows a portly lawyer who takes on a challenging journey to find the truth as his sense of morality ends up overpowering his gluttony. The other story is the redemption of an officer who we barely know anything about in the last two chapters, but is placed stage front and revealed to be plagued with guilt and shame, and a deeper sense of justice at heart than any of the other corrupted characters. Great acting and great cinematography help this one out quite a bit, and even though the end doesn’t show all of the villains put to justice, the ending is fulfilling enough that the viewer is left with the feeling that everything will finally be rectified. Four Stars

The Runaways
Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon
2010
The moment I heard Kristen Stewart was being cast in a biopic of Joan Jett I nearly threw up all over the floor from the shock of sheer rock and roll blasphemy. Later on somebody told me Stewart wasn’t bad in the movie, which shocked the hell out of me. Then I saw it had Dakota Fanning playing right side to Stewart as Cherie Currie the 16 year old front girl for The Runaways. The movie was on Netflix available for streaming, so I said what the hell, and tried to find out just what kind of balls this casting director had. And the result was sadly what I expected. Kirsten Stewart lifelessly huffs her way through being Joan Jett for two hours, just spiking her energy up often enough to make optimists think she had done a passable job; however I found the random excursions of artificial emoting painful to watch. Dakota Fanning, bless her heart, was placed in this role as somebody’s hopeful idea to give the young actress some kind of breakout role by playing a little drugged up rock star, but it just didn’t mesh. The film was well shot, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt genuine to the era and the lifestyle here and there. But as a biopic on a rock band, it really failed to grasp a story of an ensemble, completely disregarding Lita Ford and Sandy West as well as the two bassists the band went through as central characters. The highlights of the film are Michael Shannon (who I’ve admired since I saw BUG) who does a spectacular job as the infamously eccentric and verbally abusive record producer Kim Rowley, (bearing a scary resemblance to the real man I might add) and the film’s soundtrack, which features both original recordings and surprisingly decent cast-composed covers (ala Walk the Line) from The Runaways, and songs by Suzie Quarto, The Sex Pistols, The Stooges, Joan Jett, David Bowie and MC5.
Three stars.

The Bounty Hunter
Gerard Butler, Jennifer Anniston
2010
The Top 5ive we did for our Valentine’s Day special made me realize I really don’t watch chick flicks. I like Gerard Butler, I even liked Gamer, and the premise of this one seemed tolerable. I was surprised how hot Jennifer Anniston seemed in this flick, I will say that. But otherwise, it was lukewarm. I can’t say it was bad, and I can’t say it was good. It was tolerably adequate. Much is the case for a lot of quick-fix romantic comedies these days.
Three stars.

Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways
The Runaways
2004
After watching The Runaways, I became a fan of the classic band’s music. However I did not want that movie to be the only knowledge I had of the band. So I watched this, which was filmed and directed by Victory Tischler-Blue, the band's second bassist in their five-year run. It features interviews with everyone except the big cheese herself; Joan Jett. If you want to get the real facts about The Runaways, watch this. My only complaint is that it is horribly made as a documentary, playing music in the background constantly too loudly, and a bunch of bizarre B-roll montages that were awkwardly put together and lacked in purpose other than simulated stylistic flair. Also, it shifts from black and white to color randomly to give it some amateur artistic panache but ultimately is just annoying. And lastly, Cherie Currie is interviewed twice in two different settings which made her footage inconsistent and irritating. Aside from that, it’s absolutely informative, and very saddening, especially regarding the drummer Sandy West, who lived a hard life after The Runaways broke up and died shortly after the filming of this documentary.
Three stars

Cyrus
John C. Reilly, Marissa Tomei, Jonah Hill
2010
John C. Reilly plays a poor lonely, awkward shmoe who falls in love with oddball Marissa Tomei only to find out he isn’t the one with real problems as he becomes acquainted with her scary-close relationship to her 21 year-old son Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill. But apparently he does not see the light as the viewer does as this creepy little flick takes us way too close to the Oedipal complex than needed. The film’s intentions of comedy and drama remain unclear and unnerving to me.
Two stars

Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler
2008
It came on TV, so I gave it a shot. The first third was magical, and took me by surprise. I’m actually a sucker for stories that cherish and take host to a child’s imagination. I can’t say the whole film fell flat, but the ugliness of Adam Sandler’s character’s selfishness really washed away most of the fantastical aspects of the film, in addition to some predictably stupid Happy Madison film making decisions here and there. However, it was better than I expected.
Three stars

The Missing Person
Michael Shannon
2008
Feeling hungry for more Michael Shannon after The Runaways, and more film noir after The Red Riding Trilogy this was the perfect film to land on! I have to say, the film was a tad drab, and unlike most noir stories it really didn’t put much meat into the mystery at all. It was very simplistic, but maybe that was the point. Michael Shannon was cool and the sentiments regarding September 11th brought forth felt genuine enough. I just could have used a bigger story.
Three Stars

Bad Company
Anthony Hopkins, Chris Rock, Gabriel Macht
2002
I remember the trailers for this when it came out around 2002, the major highlight of the commercial being Chris Rock screaming “I want to watch Oprah!” while driving in a high speed car chase alongside Anthony Hopkins. I never knew what it was about but was always mildly curious, even though it was directed by Joel Schumacher. So when Netflix flagged it as a movie that was going to be taken off watch instantly soon I figured I’d better watch it. It wasn’t bad, even though I think it had a lower reviewer rating than Operation: Endgame. But I can see why it did poorly, basically setting up a serious spy thriller with Chris Rock in a role that could potentially give him serious credibility as an actor even if the part was comic relief, much like Eddie Murphy’s performance in 48 Hours. But the plot really stretched the disbelief factor, and it wasn’t helped out one bit by the horrible lines that came spewing from Chris Rock’s ignorant and selfish character in an otherwise ridiculously serious situation. It didn’t help that the movie kind of stalled from any major plot points until the last fourth, then petered out quickly thereafter. For me the most interesting thing about watching this was seeing Gabriel Macht, before The Spirit which he was fantastic in regardless of how horrible the movie was received.
Three stars

Assassination of a High School President
Mischa Barton, Reece Daniel Thompson, Bruce Willis
2008
This was an interesting flick. The only promotion I ever saw for it was a cardboard display outside of Wal-Mart advertising its availability as a straight-to-DVD release. But don’t let that discourage you from giving it a shot. Initially I was only interested because of Bruce Willis, because I will sit through anything that man is in. But still on quirky a noir kick after The Missing Person, I figured this was next in line. Now inevitably this movie is going to be compared to Brick, an independent cult sensation with the very same premise of adapting classic noir motifs to a high school setting. Brick will ultimately rein superior, being the much darker, complex serious genre experiment. This film, on the other hand, really goes in a different direction, trying to fuse high school raunch with a quirky noir story. Unlike Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character in Brick, who is a seasoned tough, scowling sleuth, this film’s protagonist is a pipsqueak nobody, with no clue how to take on the role as detective, and still learning the ropes of being a teenager. It’s pretty funny, definitely exaggerated, and at times relatable. And Bruce Willis was one damn funny militant principle with a hang up over chewing gum.
Three and a half stars

- Sam

Sam's Flog: Introduction

2011-02-27T12:31:00.000-06:00

So something people should know about me is that I watch an assload of movies. When I say I’m a movie buff, I mean it. I try to watch a movie whenever I can, and many times I watch one when I should be doing something else. Me and Matt would love to talk about every film we’ve seen between recordings every episode, but that would take forever and isn’t always relevant or entertaining. So I’m going to keep a log of all the films I watch, and do my best to give short (it’s a work in progress) reviews. Being an avid worshipper of Netflix, but needing a little more wiggle room, I’m going to use the 5 star rating system with the option of giving half stars. For those unfamiliar, it works like this:

1 Star = Hated it. Sucked. Absolute crap. Offensive, stupid, pointless etc.
2 Stars = Didn’t like it, wasn’t a 1 star per se but sucked nonetheless.
3 Stars = Anywhere to “Liked it but it could have been better” to “Just okay” to “Just plain medium.”
4 Stars = Great flick, really liked it, but not worth all 5 stars.
5 stars = Loved it, loved it, loved it!

Episode 28: Caesar Crossword

2011-02-23T00:00:00.029-06:00

The Geeks chit-chat for 20 minutes or so, Matt washes some dishes, Sam gets Taco Bell's back, they both suck at waking up, and then they conduct their first-ever interview in a noisy coffee shop. (Sorry for the audio quality guys, we'll do better next time!)

Photo by Caesar Crawford

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The Dead Timez
Black Dove Designs

Episode 27: Cow S*** Month

2011-02-16T00:00:00.011-06:00

The Geeks bitch & moan about the holidays, proposing which ones should be removed in a fascist manner; they bitch & moan about the educational system, discuss some Super Bowl trailers, and Matt gets a job.

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Captain America: The First Avenger
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
X-Men: First Class

Episode 26: Valentine's Day Special: Artificial Comfort

2011-02-09T00:00:00.006-06:00

The Geeks fall in love, make some love (STR ends at 18:12), stare at the suns, and finish a book.

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Sun Article
Malice Review

Episode 25: Titschool

2011-02-02T00:00:00.008-06:00

The Geeks go to school, go to the movies, Sam fiddles with his microphone, and Matt neglects to do easy research.

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Article

Episode 24: Celebrity Rehab with Bruce Wayne

2011-01-26T00:00:00.014-06:00

The Geeks check some casting news and counter-bitch about the Golden Globes. Photoshop credit: Will Kimball.

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Inspiration for this Episode

Episode 23: The Geeks' Favorite

2011-01-19T00:00:00.019-06:00

The Geeks read a magazine, neglect the innocent, go back to school, create not one but two new segments, share some thoughts, and build up & tear down some deserving TV shows. Photoshop credit: Will Kimball.

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The Dead Timez
Black Dove Designs

Episode 22: Literal Grit

2011-01-12T00:00:00.008-06:00

The Geeks compare and contrast an original classic to a new one, get freaky with this month's STR (ends at 40:30), and cuss out the sons'a'bitches that think it's alright to rewrite Huckleberry Finn.

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Episode 21: Nose to the Grid

2011-01-05T00:00:00.005-06:00

The Geeks return in the year 2011, discuss the trifles of their disappearance, including the loss of three wisdom teeth and a three-week stint of pill popping, then they go see Tron Legacy and have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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Episode 20: Spider-Man vs. Wes Craven

2010-11-17T00:00:00.004-06:00

The Geeks travel through time and miss Art Walk.

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Green Lantern
Forbes article
Joker picture
Splendorman

Episode 19: Taking the Monster

2010-11-10T00:00:00.002-06:00

The Geeks get together and ruin Toy Story 3 for Bueno in an episode FULL of explicit content.

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Salad Fingers