ZOMFG STAR TREK!!!11!

Yes, I’m being silly. But DAYUM! That movie just blew my socks right off my feet and into the asshole of the poor sap in the row in front of me. Full review to come this weekend, but for now, let me just say that if you are even slightly a fan of Trek or science fiction in general, get ready to be defenestrated from the tower of awesomeness. JJ Abrams proves once again that he is made of win.

It’s Movie May!!!!

ES MAYO DE LAS PELICULAS, PUTAS!!!!!!!

     In honor of the beginning of the blockbuster season, I am celebrating the merry month of May by watching and discussing a slew of summer blockbusters, both current and from years previous. We’ve already kicked it off with that fucking abortion Wolverine, and Star Trek is less than 24 hours away! Between the big-time releases this month, I’ll be revisiting old classics with my lovely wife, and hopefully grabbing some opinions other than my own to spew onto the interwebz. I always really love to get her take on the films that I subject her to, and she’s probably got more in the Snark Department than I ever hoped for, so it’s win-win, really. I haven’t decided what’s first, but it’ll be up shortly after my Star Trek review, so I at least know that much. There’s a weekend fast approaching, so signs are pointing to Escape From New York and a review within the next week. 

 

WOOHOO!!! IT’S MOVIE MAY!!!!!

Watching the Sadness of Self-Destruction… David Hayter on How AWESOME he and Watchmen are.

No pictures, no images, no funny captions or hyperbolic nerdgasms. Just a little bit of disappointment for a weird turn of events that I think might actually be a little damaging overall to whatever those involved were actually hoping for. So as many of you may already know, David Hayter (one of the writers on Watchmen) recently made a little statement about the reaction so far on said film, which I find a little premature and possibly damaging… You know, scratch that. I’m not really going to parse words here. This was a stupid and actually kind of childish jump-to-conclusions response to a middling level of controversy that was handled with all of the tact of a rampaging 11 year old jerk. You heard it here first, folks: David Hayter is a fucking douchebag. Wow, it’s kind of funny that when I decided to jump in and post this entry, I meant to be a lot more understanding and kind of analytical about it, but there really is no excuse for this amount of arrogant grandstanding. Especially by one of the people who should kind of be relishing the sheer amount of uproar his work has created in the geek world as a whole. Look, I’m not saying that a public statement for the purpose of addressing the differing opinions and urging a second look was a bad idea at all. There were probably about eleventy different classy ways to attempt such an idea, however, and David Hayter told those approaches to shut the fuck up. At every level I really hope that this cat simply took the initiative to be a jerk on his own, without any corporate urging for marketing purposes. Because if Warner Brother’s had even a little bit of sign-off on this little tirade, and decided to just let it roll, I’ve just lowered my estimation of that company to nearly what I think about Fox Studios.

As I said, I really don’t oppose the idea of addressing the controversial difference of opinion outright in an effort to generate more buzz at all. In fact, I can think of half a dozen ways in which an action such as this could actually have been quite a coup. But by essentially telling people that they should be grateful for the opportunity to see a violent, odd film that apparently doesn’t “puss out”, and that they are assholes for bitching about it… and then to tell them that you “get it” if they just don’t like it, but that they don’t have a reason to call the film out… What the fuck was this guy thinking? Dude, just tell the people that whatever their opinion, the movie is causing a stir and it needs to be caught on the big screen. Tell the people that the only way to have an adequate leg to stand on is to judge it for themselves, and that anything being talked about this much clearly deserves to be judged objectively. But don’t you fucking dare tell people that they don’t have a right to their opinion just because people put a lot of work into something. And definitely DOUBLE don’t you dare act like a manipulative kid who wants a toy by BLAMING the fans for a possible lack of nerd-film in the future, all dependent upon whether they get the stick you seem to think they have in their ass, immediately out. You can’t just threaten people into changing their tune on something you created by setting up the logical fallacy that it’s so good, they’re just not getting it. But they damn sure better if they ever want to watch anything they like again. That is purely calculating, manipulative HORSE SHIT. And David Hayter (and anyone who signed off on this statement) should be fucking ashamed of themselves. Have a little integrity, for christ’s sake. This is some pretty low-down dirty pool, even for people in the movie industry. Let the work stand on it’s own if you respect it so much. This little rant just sounds like desperation, and strengthens your case not one iota. If anything, this simply gives lots of credence to those who do their level best to tear the film down no matter what, and alienates people who might otherwise have been on the fence because the first association they have with the film will forevermore be some douche with a goatee threatening their film-viewing future with a bullshit argument. Yeah, I don’t know about you, but I don’t really have fond memories of things I was threatened into. People don’t need to be hit with a stick right off the bat (hur hur hur). Especially when they aren’t even yet aware that there is a carrot out there for them, or that there was even something they were doing which would necessitate guidance by either method. Way to poison the well, asshole. And this is coming from someone who spent a lot of time trying to find a way to tell people that, yes, they need to experience it for themselves. Maybe more than once to grasp the whole of the heady mixture that has been thrown together.

In closing: Does anyone remember when a little film called HULK (2003) came out, to a similarly mixed level of reviews? Yeah. At least then the people involved embraced the controversy. Take a fucking page from the book you puppet tool. Have just a little grace and dignity next time, and maybe realize the difference between sticking up for your work, and calling people ungrateful when maybe they’re not as into it as you might like.

Hey, if they’re talking about you, you must be worth talking about. Better luck next time, dickhead.

 

 

 

Iron Man 2 News That Both Rules and Sucks at the Same Time

 

ACTING!

 

 

On the tail end of the news that Marvel Studios decided to stop fucking around and wasting everyone’s time by actually offering Samuel L. Jackson a real salary (not a bad idea if you want to rope someone into 9 fucking movies), comes the very recent news that they also decided against trying to screw over a resurgent Mickey Rourke to the tune of $250k, and offer him some respectable scratch as well. Look $250k is a lot of money to you and me, but you don’t fucking toss what amounts to a Hollywood tip to a veteran in the middle of reclaiming all his glory if you hope he’s going to help carry a franchise entry as a big time supervillain. Also, you don’t fuck with Samuel L. Jackson. Period. I have to say that Marvel was on the fast-track to squandering a lot of the goodwill they generated last summer by showing faith in creative teams to handle their properties with guidance and care. In a span of what seems like months they essentially followed up a bunch of deserved hype by doing their level best to undo every step they’d made in the right direction. Lucky for us, I guess someone beat the shit out of Joe Quesada before he could continue to posses the living and influence the studio into more Quesada like blunders. Granted, Quesada probably had nothing at all to do with this, but I think he’s a tool and the studio’s crappy decisions seemed very much in tune with his own terrible ideas for the world of Marvel. So the day is saved for now, and Marvel can get back to making a bad ass set of flicks to wow us with until Iron Man 2 comes around. In less pleasant news, it seems that through no fault of Marvel’s (STRANGE, I KNOW!!!), those rumors about Emily Blunt being replaced with Scarlett Johannson are no longer rumors, but sad reality. Apparently, Blunt was forced to fulfill a previous contract obligation elsewhere, so they had to go with ScarHo, who apparently they originally turned down. If it weren’t for the fact that ScarHo apparently got absolutely shafted in the deal, and that there are so many good pieces of geek stuff floating around like the new Terminator and Star Trek trailers, I think I’d be even sadder about this. Oh well. Back to the grind.

Sam Raimi Will Send Me to Heaven, Before He DRAG(s) ME TO HELL.

 

I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!

 

Sideshow Bob references out of the way, Good God, y’all. I forgot how much I miss Sam Raimi directed horror! I forgot how much I miss Sam Raimi anything other than Spider-Man films in general, for that matter (though I still love those). Though I’m still utterly tired of everyone’s endless bitching about what movies are rated and what that will inevitably mean for movies they haven’t even seen yet, I’m still taken aback that they went and made a PG-13 horror flick with Mr. Raimi at the helm. Taken aback, but nonetheless committed to seeing this frakking movie post-haste. I mean it just looks like the master is on form here, and he’s pulling out all the stops. What I love about Raimi is that no matter what he’s doing, you never have to see more than a few seconds of footage for this guy’s love of movies, and the process of making them, to spread to you like syphilis from a stripper. I just get amped every time I see this trailer. Pure anticipation for what looks to be mainlined fun at the cinema. CHECK IT OUT, YO!!!

The Belated and Unnecessary Watchmen Review Nobody Asked For

 

Uh... I got nothin'

 

Okay, so it’s been nearly a week to the day that I saw Watchmen at the beloved Alamo Drafthouse Enema, and I’m typically late to weigh in. I won’t go into the bugfuckery of litigious paperwork which has kept me away, but rather cleverly disguise my unreliability with some comment on how this film will likely affect all who endeavor to see it. I’ve been thinking about Watchmen a lot since I saw it. I’ve spoken to a lot of people from a pretty big cross-section of society who’ve seen it as well and all of the input kind of brings me back to my initial feelings on it. Without self-editing or over-framing (but with over-hyphenating), I’ll boil it down. It’s an imperfect mess that I think everyone really should see.

JCVD – Review

Well, I finally got to see JCVD, and the verdict is that it’s a resounding success.

Prince of Darkness – the not quite review

Only the hottest ladies make it to this blog.

So over the course of the last few days, I had a little free time in which to basically watch whatever I wanted. Blockbuster didn’t have most of that, and some of it is illegal in this state (I keed, I keed), but they did have John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, which was probably number one on my list at that particular instant. For the uninitiated, Prince of Darkness would be the second film in what Carpenter has referred to as his “Apocalypse Trilogy”. And though I never saw either Apocalypse, or even any x-men at all in any of the three films, I think he meant that as an allusion to the word they created in homage to the mutant menace, as the themes of growing strife and the nearing of the end percolate throughout all of the films in a steadily building, and ominously unstoppable fashion. Further info for those unfamiliar are the titles of the films, which start with The Thing, continue into Prince of Darkness, and fittingly (or not) end with In The Mouth of Madness. The three films all tend to share a kind of Lovecraftian dread and horror at the malevolent unknown, and they are better pictures for the ideas that Carpenter tried to bring in regarding class, human nature, trust, and yes, the end of the human illusion.

Watching the Watchmen

Alan Moore gonna break it off in ya ass, heard?

So, it’s become obvious to anyone who actually checks in over here at this site that I’ve gone pretty much tits-up with regards to regular updates. For this, I make no excuses. All my favorite sites that have pulled the same crap have listed their litany of reasons why it’s hard to update on a regular basis for this reason or that. Reasons why it’s hard to actually do what you set out to do and type some paragraphs up about stuff that you supposedly get moist over and hit a friggin’ spellcheck once in a while. I’m not going to make any excuses. To use a term I recently almost wore out on my letter to DJ Caruso, I have been a douche, and for the 1/4th of a person who still actually checks this site: my deepest, least moisturizing apologies. I won’t do it again. I have lots of ground to cover, and most of it is happening this weekend. Let’s get to the show.

The reason I even left that first paragraph in is because it highlights my utter shame and bewilderment over how utterly absent all developments regarding Watchmen were in the months past. And for a project and campaign so utterly up my alley to have been so well executed, but relegated to not even a mention is kind of ridiculous, and a little puzzling to at least myself. I have to play the subconscious card here and blame my own apprehensions about the adaptation of this material. It’s a feeling that I’m sure has plagued anyone who is a fan of the source material, especially anyone with any working knowledge of film or even the process of adaptation from one medium to another. It’s a brutal, unkind process and it doesn’t really have a lot of room for kindness or blind hope if you hope to create a product that is successful in a creative, or commercial sense. Look, obviously, it’s not easy. If it were, you wouldn’t see ten Ghost Riders and Uwe Boll movies for every Spider-Man or Dark Knight. And the prospect of taking a source as highly regarded and inherently untranslatable as Watchmen and adapting it is daunting enough that versions have been in the works for over a decade. The problem I tend to come across myself is that I am equally as much of a film enthusiast as I am for any other medium, if not more. So when I sit in the theatre watching an adaptation of anything, my first impulse is to judge how something works as a film, then worry about the adaptive prowess of those involved as a close second. So I think that aside from simply being distracted by more immediate things around me, there was a level of avoidance on my part to look very hard into the events surrounding the development of Watchmen, or at least to jot my thoughts down on it. But the fact is that an incredibly well executed marketing campaign has been a vital part of that development, and I would say between the online character journals, vintage in-universe news reports, clips, and 80s style viral video game, it’s clear from face value that the creators and especially Zack Snyder really get the property on a real, tangible level. And I don’t think it really and fully hit me that OH MY GOD THERE’S A WATCHMEN MOVIE until I recently purchased my tickets to an early midnight showing of this two and a half hour possible disaster/masterpiece. 

Summing it up: Yes, I have my tickets for a March 5th midnight showing at the beautiful Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar location. I’ll be there, towing my unfortunate (and likely sleepy) wife along with me to witness the event, and then, yes, review it. On my never-was-a-scout’s honor, it will be done. It’s a weird concept for me to be this stoked, but still totally unhyped. I’m hoping this will be a nice way to judge as critically as possible, and I think that a big reason for that is that I’m of the opinion that you don’t need to be so slavish to the source that you lose your ability to create a vision that is uniquely your own. In fact at some points, after I had been reviewing the output for this film and hearing key statements about using the book as a story board and what not, I almost began to think that might be the worst way to approach it, since there are beats and moments that are totally and completely unique to the original medium on this one, and it would be a travesty to pass off a hamfisted fan-vid as an honest to God film version of such a great work. TOO much devotion to source gives you awful junk like BATMAN: DEAD END which, I’m sorry, is crap. Yes, I know, it was made  on a nothing budget by devoted fans. Look, that doesn’t make something not suck, no matter how you slice it. I remember people saying that Boner kid was the best Joker ever to grace a screen. I wanted to wretch! I digress. Yes I’m going. I’ll report back on it. Hope some of you lovely folks come back here to check it out. PEACE!

 

Oh, what the hell, HAVE A LOOK AT THE AWESOME NEW PRODUCTION VIDEOS WITH CAST AND CREW!!!! Here’s a link to them on GeekTyrant. They’re pretty cool, and they twitter all day, so sign up!

Wolverine Trailer Debuts: Blows Shit Up While Doing So

        Well, we’ve waited, we’ve bitched, we’ve moaned, we’ve talked a considerable amount of smack, and generally dogged the necessity of the longest title ever in cinema history (source: the internet), but it’s finally upon us. Wolverine has SNIKTed his way onto the interwebs and he’s brought friends. This is the most mutant packed trailer in recent memory, to varying degrees of success. There’s a lot going on here and much of it is extremely well handled in my opinion. Aside from maybe a few gripes about some of the tonal choices, and the inclusion of characters like Emma Frost, Beak, and (little?!) Storm, I am far more impressed with this than I thought I would be. Most of that really comes from the fact that we’ve got Liev Schreiber jumping in for Sabretooth, which is the best idea ever (as opposed to Will. I. Am jumping in as Colonel Wraith, which is the worst choice ever). Ryan Reynolds as a mask-less Deadpool is kind of a mixed bag, unless they straight up give him cancer in this movie, which will make me super happy (the character, not the actor). Kevin Durand as Blob will likely be hilarious,if ridiculous. But Danny Huston as a younger William Stryker is just excellent.

        I have to say that the most effective stuff is right at the beginning, with the many shots of past wars Logan has fought in, and the glimpse into what is one of the most depressing lives ever in comicdom. Let’s see, murderer before adolescence, family killed by uppity half-kin, wife brutally attacked and murdered by best friend, and then you get to be brainwashed and tortured by the government. I thought BATMAN had it bad. And this is all very key to why this trailer works on the levels that it does. These things are visible, if not actually elaborated upon (it’s a trailer, cut them some slack), and the drama with Logan and Sabretooth looks to be pretty compelling stuff.

        On the action front… I mean come on, did you freaking see Gambit? That is AWESOME. I still think Josh Holloway would have been a better choice, but this Taylor Kitsch kid looks to be able to handle the part (it’s not all that complex). If anything, I’m a little unsure of the need to cram as many characters as possible into the whole Weapon X storyline as they seem to do here, as it kind of lends itself to Logan busting all the kids out of the nursery as some ersatz protective daddy. No one wants to see Wolverine hanging out with a bunch of freaking kids. Kids ruin movies in anything other than small doses, and most of this comes from the fact that I’m really not sure Hollywood writers know all that much about childhood or pre-teens other than what kind of pop-culture they consume. BLARG. Anyway, if a little overblown on some set-pieces, there looks to be enough of the kind of stuff here that drew unsuspecting audiences to the character in the first place, plus some extra mood for points. Besides, if it wasn’t bat-shit crazy with the jumping at the helicopters, and the ’splosions and the oh god it cuts me it wouldn’t be a Comic Book Movie, now would it. Not everything can be as resonant or grounded as The Dark Knight, nor should it be really. That’s Batman’s shtick, and it works well for him in that setting.

 

 

But come on… Will. I. Am as Colonel Wraith? Wraith may be many things, but seventies urban cowboy isn’t one of them. Will could have at least tried to wear a costume, and not his regular everyday shit. Did he film this scene, then go be a hologram for CNN? WTF, man?

 

BTW, Wraith totally is a seventies cowboy in the comics. I just felt some wierd need to pick on Will because he didn’t need costuming for this role.

Any way, GO CANADIANS!!!!