MovieOx

That’s just about enough.  E-titfucking-nough.

The second season of The Killing concluded this past Sunday; and a bunch of critics (Time, MTV, Entertainment Weekly) had to try and save face.  They have no idea how to do that so they just looked really hard for something to bitch about.  They’ve been hating on The Killing since the 1st season ended without resolving the titular murder mystery.  The second season brought the mystery to such a poignant and beautiful end; it had critics scrambling.  It was tough to continue their bitchy talking points in the face of what has now proven itself a masterfully assembled story.  Maybe if I work at it enough I can suck at life enough to review TV for Time.

Yes, the 1st season (the show is more or less about a murder investigation) ended without revealing the killer.  How dare a TV show do something nobody’s ever done before!?!  The same assholes (other than MTV: they are the main perpetrators) moan about the lack of quality programing.  What they mean is they wish M.A.S.H.had never gone off the air.  Fucktards.  God forbid a show take risks.

I love The Killing.  Or maybe it’s loved.  The show has not yet been renewed for a 3rd season.  But it should.  Breaking Bad is entering its last (per the creator not the network) season and then AMC’ll just have Mad Men, a mediocre zombie show, and a shitty western. 

Why do I love The Killing? 

1.  The mystery.  The show begins as a bloody sweater is found in a random field outside Seattle.  Cops aren’t even sure there’s been a murder.  Detective Linden (who is leaving Seattle in 5 days with her son and fiance to marry and live in Napa) is handed the case so she can train her replacement; Detective Holder.  The diminutive Linden isn’t the type to do things half assed; and her gut tells her somethings wrong.  They eventually find a trail that leads to a lake.  The victim is found tied up in the trunk of a car at the bottom of said lake.  All we know is she has her father’s credit card on her and the car belongs to the campaign of a local politician running for mayor of Seattle.  And after talking to some people; the detectives come across about…  38 or so suspects.  We’ve got a flat who-done-it.  Always loved those; ever since Agatha Christie.  And this one touches so many different people so believably that you really don’t know who did it until they flat out tell you.

2.  Linden and Holder are fucking awesome.  Linden (Mireille Enos, Big Love) is a slightly-taller-than-dwarf-height former foster child who uses her massive OCD in the service of the greater good.  Her pending marriage and single mother status are constant distractions from her mentat like thought process.  She loves both her fiance and son; but she’s finding the fucking killer.  Holder (Joel “soon to be Robocop” Kinnamen) comes off as the acme of douche bag when we meet him.  Its an act.  He’s always working.  If you think he’s trying to pick up some teenage ass or score drugs or if you think he’s being horrifically rude; he’s at work.  He’s like a dog whisperer for people with something to hide.  Oh and if you think he’s being a pussy; that’s him at his most dangerous.  Because you’ll get juuust too close or cocky.

3.  The Point of the Show.  It’s not who killed Rosie Larson (chick in the trunk).  That’s what everyone who bitched about the ending to the first season missed.  And its not a portrait of city and the forces at war in it like The Wire; and it certainly doesn’t share that show’s gleefully encyclopedic knowledge of modern bureaucracy.  The point of the show is the surface of people and what lies beneath.  People are flawed creatures who have limited control over what they desire.  If they want what they want, there are trade offs and sacrifices.  Nothing is without cost.  And the piercing light of a murder investigation peals back the surface and forces everyone to deal with what is beneath.  And what is beneath is not pretty.  But that’s not the whole truth because the closer you get to the desires and motivations of people you realize its not pretty because its beautiful.  But nobody said it wasn’t sad.

4.  The slow burn.  The show is masterfully paced.  One might say it has a formula; in that whatever you assume the direction of the plot will be; you are wrong.  And usually tragically wrong.  Many times there will seem to be enough facts to safely assume what’s going on.  And someone usually suffers for that assumption.  The show paints a picture, slowly and methodically, but each episode manages to get rocking and rolling.  And you lucky bastards who haven’t seen the show yet will get to watch it marathon style.  Which is probably the best way to watch it but you’ll lose a couple days.  If you have all the episodes; I bet money you won’t be able to watch less than 6 in a row.  Your work will suffer.

Do yourself a favor and check this show out.  And after you’re done crying at the end you’ll thank me.

Before I get going here, let me admit I am a huge Ridley Scott fan.

Blade Runner is the gold standard for science fiction.  Alien is arguably better and blends sci-fi with horror better than anything else to date.  The Duelists is one of my all time favorite movies and is an unreal combination of a Napoleonic epic, an epilogue to A Tale of Two Cities, Alexandre Dumas, and Bruce Lee.  Kingdom of Heaven (the director’s cut) is amazing and may be the only good medieval film ever made.  Ridley’s even made arguably the best chick-flick ever in Thelma and Louise.  The guy has it.  A miss by him would be a win by everyone else’s standard.

But that’s unfortunately what Prometheus is; a miss.  The film began life as a by-the-numbers Alien prequel that got sidelined when Fox started to develop Aliens vs Predator (which the assholes completely fucked up; all they had to do was make the comic book into a movie and they’d have made Avengers money).  None of this would be a problem except you can tell.  The different direction the story takes (from Alien) feels tacked on.  The film wants to examine the nature of life on earth and life in general and it has compelling characters; but ultimately if falls short of its grand ambitions.

Most of the problem is that the middle of the movie doesn’t feel very well thought out.  For instance, a scientist is lost in what appears to be a giant alien pyramid and encounters alien life.  He sees what looks (and acts) like a eyeless king cobra rise from a puddle of black goo.  What is his response to being confronted by the first alien life humanity has ever discovered?  Well, he squats down and starts talking to it like it’s a toddler.  What does he do when it bares large fangs and starts acting like a cobra does when its about to kill somebody?  He inches into death range and continues cooing and tries to pet it.  Damnit Archer!  Its shit like that that reminds you, you are not watching a finished product.  Though it looks spectacular, the lead actors give great performances, and there’s plenty of intelligent plot to go around; the film still contains an unacceptable amount of stupid.

What’s good?

Michael Fassbender is once again awesome.  He’s a Bishop type android and he conveys a very amusing robot sense of not-quite-humor.  Naomi Rapace is pretty freaking awesome as the lead scientist.  She’s involved in some pretty gruesome self surgery that is the most disturbing and awesome thing in the movie.  Idris Elba is pretty awesome as the seen-it-all pilot.  Charlize Theron is also solid as the corporate oversight.  Can’t knock any of the actors, they all brought their A stuff.

And the film looks amazing.  There’s no debate there.  The screenplay, however, is not worthy of the actors working it.  Its like they knew what they wanted to start with and what they wanted to end with but just fucked the dog in the middle.  And they supposedly spent years on the screenplay.  Well, it needed a couple more.

All that said, you won’t be offended by the movie.  It’s not awful by any means.  And really, Naomi Rapace is always worth watching.  And there are several scenes that have the stuff to be iconic.  They’re just not roped together very well.

Verdict: meh.

For as stupid as I thought this movie would be; it definitely surprised me.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s fucking stupid, but it actually had potential.

Everyone (and don’t tell me you don’t liar) knows the story of Snow White.  An evil queen wants to kill a young looker and she escapes to the forest to be sheltered by some dwarves until her prince (am I confusing this with Sleeping Beauty?) comes to the rescue, or the queen tries to kill her again, or…  Well you get the general idea.

If I had to compare this movie to something I’ve seen it’d be First Knight.  It takes a well known story and tells a shit version of it that doesn’t really make sense.  But like First Knight, Snow White and Thor is very visually appealing.  And Charlize Theron (I always mangle her name and I’m not looking it up because I’m writing this review on an old Blackberry) is really impressive as the evil queen.  Twilight chick is actually good as Snow White.  The girl can yell.  Helmsworth is good as the titular Huntsman.  The dwarves are actually kind of cool and creepy.  I suppose if I had to summarize the film; I’d say it was Snow White told with World of Warcraft characters. 

So why is it stupid?  Because of the words that come out of everyone’s mouth.  This movie is over 2 hours long and filled with dialogue.  And as far as I can tell, nobody actually said shit.  Visually impressive, and the actors bring their game, but they were given very little as far as lines that make sense or a non-retarded plot to work with.  This movie should have been 20 minutes long, containing no dialogue, and been some sort of rock opera.  It would have worked like that.  Instead everyone talks endlessly about nothing.  The actors are so good it won’t piss you off for the 1st half hour; but the movie is much longer than that.

The writer(s?) probably needed to take a month to figure out what the hell they were trying to say.  There really was potential here.

But stupid is still stupid.  Verdict: skip it.

Before I tell you what I think about the third installment in this popular film franchise; I’d like to take a minute to bitch about what might have been.

The origions of MIB are very similar to that of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It started as a black and white comic with a decidedly dark tone.  Later when Movie and TV people got hold of the property they injected color and theme park happiness into it.  TMNT got lucky that its cute injection happened when they made it into a cartoon.  (and to be fair, not a bad saturday morning cartoon, especially compared to others at the time)  When time came to make it into a movie, it (and its interesting that this is still a novel approach) reached back past the cute and popular cartoon to the simple black and white comic with a harsh tone to tell a story.  Now, the TMNT movie wasn’t without its cartoonish elements; afterall the cartoon is how most people even know about the property.  But, those of us who read a black and white comic about turtles wearing masks that should have been absurd yet somehow was terribly gripping were also satisfied.

However, MIB didn’t spend that long in development.  They grabbed the Addams Family director and took a comic property that had some iconic imagery and smashed a comedy into it.  Now, Men in Black was not nearly as popular as TMNT was, so there was no overarching rabid fanbase to satisfy, so the movie could do anything it wanted to.  But I wonder…

The comic The Men in Black was not a comedy and the titular organization policed and repressed all supernatural activity on Earth.  This included aliens, occult, extra-dimensional activity, and anything that might upset the balance of order.  The organization was in effect a shadow government with a high tolerence for violence.  Jay and Kay were a newbie and vet respectively, that much is unchanged, but their job was never cute and it was loaded with moral compromise.  It would have made a disturbing and possibly game changing movie.  But that wouldn’t have made as much money.

So, all bitching about source material aside, I generally like Men in Black.  I like the rude, cowardly, chain-smoking french worms, the clevage, and I think Will Smith and Tommy Jones are charming and well suited to play off each other. 

This 3rd installment has a much better bad guy than the 1st 2.  Flight of the Concords’ Jermaine Clement is a multi-personality continuum named Boris (do not call him Boris the Animal) who tangled with Kay in the past.  Of course he escapes from incarceration and travels to said past to undo his defeat.  And of course Jay has to follow him.  Anyway, Jermaine is awesome as always. 

Smith and Jones are still cool and Emma Thompson’s in charge now.  Josh Brolin is utterly believable as young Kay.  You’ll forget he hasn’t always played Kay within 2 minutes. 

Anyway, this is an entertaining and light piece of summer popcorn. 

I’m just one of those guys who can’t help but think what might have been.

Overall impression: Stupid.

I’ve generally liked Sasha Cohen’s films.  I thought Borat was inspired.  Or at least funny as shit.  But what should have been a tip off for me on this movie was his turn in Taladega Nights.  He just wasn’t funny in it.  I’m not sure he can be funny in a scripted comedy.  Any examples?  I can’t think of one.

The Dictator would work if it were 2 or 3 SNL shorts.  There isn’t enough material for a whole movie.  And the main character in Cohen’s other movies (the horrified general public who don’t know his character’s fake) is missing here as this is an actual movie with actors and a script(ish).

There are a few laughs, and some cock; but the film is utterly missable.

The best part is when Cohen’s dictator describes how awesome America would be if it had a dictatorship instead of democracy.  His hypothetical description is accurate to today’s America.  Which is a useful point, but it does not make a movie.

Skip the shit out of it.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: unless your standards are very low, you will be underwhelmed by this movie.

First, I think this film is further evidence that Tim Burton is gigantically overrated.  What’s his best film, Edward Scissorhands?  Nightmare Before Christmas?  Beetlejuice?

Credit for the 1st 2 goes to the wonderful Caroline Thompson.  She’s a wonderful writer.  Beetlejuice is the creation of Michael McDowell, who is one of the most original fiction writers I’ve had the pleasure to read.  And he’s memorably quoted as claiming ‘writing for the ages is dumb’. 

Sooo…  What else?  1989 Batman?  I’ll give you that one.  That movie was badass.  Heath had to court death to top Jack’s Joker.  And Keaton is still the best Batman, but Bale reigns supreme by a wide margin as Bruce Wayne.

But Mars Attacks?  Planet of the Apes?  Ed Wood?  Burton is severely overrated as a storyteller.  He admits as much, claiming he “wouldn’t know a good script if it bit him in the ass”.  He’s a setting guy, somebody else has to take responsibility for the story not being shit.

So you ask me, how’s a movie based on one of the dumbest shows of all time supposed to have a good story?  I don’t know, why are you filming the fucking thing?!?

However, the tragedy is the film opens well.  Marketing that seemed to paint this film as a screwball comedy seemed misplaced at first.  There’s a brooding, ominous opening and interactions that seem comedic but are also unsettling.  There was kind of a faint Twin Peaks vibe about the whole thing (except we hadn’t found the body yet).  But once everything was set up, nothing else interesting happens.  Well we explore Depp’s passion for stupid hats, but that’s it.  We have a solid intro and then…  Stupid.  Yards of Stupid.

You have my permission to skip this one.  If you have to see it please don’t be sober.

I’ve got to hand it to Marvel Studios, they make better comic book popcorn than anyone. 

Warner Brothers has had complete access to the DC pantheon for years and they can seemingly only find gold with Batman(and even then they’re 3 for 6).  Green Lantern was some of the most God Awful Shit I’ve ever seen anyone spend millions on.  And I’ve met some lottery winning crackheads.  Although, I did like Superman Returns.  But that fanbase is too, well base to accept a subtle Superman story.  Superman fans are by and large boring idiots who like to read boring idiot bullshit.  But with those 4(?) exceptions Warner Brothers really sucks (I suppose they distributed 300, but they didn’t have shit to do with its production).  League of Extraordinary Gentleman was almost as large of a failure as GL because of the pure gold standard storytelling in its source material.  (William Hurt – “How do you fuck that up?”)

And its not like other studios are any better.  Fox (and George Lucas) are simply not aware of why people liked their original Star Wars and Indiana Jones films because they just keep destroying the memories of their apparently accidental appeal.  And Fox whiffed on what might have been the single easiest comic book character to make a good movie about (Wolverine).  Disney (who owns Marvel Studios) did a similarly competent job of assfuckery on John Carter.  I forget who made the new Conan, but that’s another fine example.

So what am I saying here: basically that making good popcorn is not near as easy as it is to watch.  Starting with Iron Man, Marvel Studios has been able to launch several new film franchises by understanding their own properties.  They understand Tony Stark’s appeal.  The character is so well realized that Guy Ritche slapped a british accent on him and called him Sherlock Holmes.  Likewise, the recruitment of Kenneth Branaugh to direct Thor was inspired.  Thor isn’t the most accessible character in Marvel.  Who better to make Norse gods accessible characters than the man who made a 4 hour Hamlet film, not only watchable but pretty fucking awesome.  Capt America could also easily have been another GL.  Cap can be the cheesiest character ever written.  But he has bouts of awesome.  They come when he channels the “Fuck you, I’ve killed Nazis” attitude of the “greatest generation”.  And Marvel Studios actually understands all this. 

So you’re going to make a movie where all your newly minted franchisees join together to save the world.  Who better to direct the world’s most expensive ensemble than Firefly‘s Joss Whedon?  The dude knows his way around insecure rivalries and witty banter.

Avengersworks very well.  It is easily the best take on The Hulk so far.  Mark Ruffalo and his Green Screen alter ego are the best parts of the film.  And readers of Hulk will appreciate finally seeing the monster’s unique brand of humor on a movie screen. 

Loki (who apparently survived falling through the universe a the end of Thor) returns to earth via a mysterious alien patron to conquer it.  He brought with him a spear that is equal parts grenade launcher, mind control device, and Tolkein’s One Ring.  Oh, and a bunch of giant aliens.  Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury is apparently one of those guys the government wishes they could fire, but knows too much.  And after deducing that the army can’t go toe to toe with the magic aliens; he assembles his supergroup.  Well I guess Thor technically crashes the party uninvited, but the rest are asked to help.  But Loki is a decent bad guy.  Kind of a Hannible Lecter meets Freddy Mercury.

ScarJo and J Renner are just normal badasses who round out the team.  (you really shouldn’t go anywhere without an interrogation expert and a sniper when aliens attack)

Downey Jr.  is still working his Iron Man character at the level we’ve come to expect.

Capt America is my only complaint from the main team.  In his movie, they gave him a functional look.  In this movie he looks more like his stage costume from before they actually let him fight.  In short, Capt America’s look is stupid.  And he doesn’t carry a gun like he did in WW2.  I guess he only shoots Nazis?

In closing, this is good popcorn.  It’s not quite to the level of Chris Nolan (The Dark Knight) popcorn.  That’s because when Nolan makes popcorn he pretends he’s not and its awesome.  But Avengers is good, solid, enjoyable popcorn nonetheless.  And apparently that’s really hard to come by so we should all enjoy it.

*Spoiler – Those of you who thought they spotted the infinity gauntlet in Odin’s vault in Thor are spot on.  Check out the 1st of 2 post credit scenes.

Damn Few.

Act of Valor began life as a training video for Special Warefare Combatant Craft crewmen.  After working with real Navy SEALs, filmakers Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh got several ideas for an action film.  Active duty SEALs started out as advisors on the film but it quickly became clear that the only people capable of portraying the SEALs as written were…  well, the SEALs themselves.  And as the Navy saw this as a recruitment opportunity they required active duty SEALs to participate.

So the stars of the film are completely anonomous as their names have not and will not be released as they are currently somewhere killing someone who’s an asshole.

The movie begins as a SEAL team is sent into Columbia to rescue a CIA asset who has important information (her CIA contact has just been brutally murdered).  The information is about a plot about a large scale terror attack designed to hit several US cities simultaniously.  The information leads to several more missions.

The supporting cast are all actual actors, and decent ones.  I especially like the Eastern bloc Muslim terrorist and his childhood friend who became an international smuggler.  Though the smuggler is Jewish and their adult relationship is complicated, the smuggler is still willing to help his friend.  Pretty decent job by both actors.

Obviously the SEALs are better at the action scenes than the small scenes of human interaction required by the plot.  They are not actors.  Although…  Now that I say that, one of them is a pretty good actor.  Their Senior Chief is in charge of interrogation and he’s gifted at his job.  I laughed my ass off during the interrogation scene, but it’s because I’m a bad person.

The action sequences are pretty awesome, my only issue is I thought the 2nd and 3rd major sequences were too similar to each other.  I would have liked to have seen a little more ninja and less rambo in at least one of them.  The 1st action sequence (CIA asset extraction) might be the best of the year.  And don’t discount those dudes who drive the boats.  They can lay some pipe.

This is a unique movie experience, I’d give it a look if I were you.

Ok, here it comes…

The Hunger Games is a stupid movie.

There I said it.

This isn’t to necessarily take a crap on Susanne Collins’s novel.  I kind of like the combination of Shirley Jackson’s classic The Lottery with a Thesius type story. 

Let me take a step back, the story is set in a future where North America (I think) is one giant nation controlled wholesale by a technoligically advanced capitol.  The entire rest of the nation is divided into specific districts who are 2nd and 3rd class citizens, and due to a rebellion in the past they are required to offer up one boy and one girl to participate in a Survivor/Royal Rumble extravaganza each year.  The selection process is borrowed from The Lottery and the tribute from Thesius.  (note: I mean no disparagement, good writing is knowing from whom to steal)  The whole thing has a reality show package, combining elements of Dancing with the Stars and Survivor in a technoligically enhanced gladitoral free for all.

Anyway, why is the movie stupid?

1)  They pussify the combat.  The book was written for young adults and all the authorial laziness that entails (nod to Steve King).  But it was visceral.  If you make a movie about how a sick culture makes children beat each other to death on live telivision, you can’t pull punches.  It’s supposed to horrify people.  Other than the knife throwing girl, the actual combat was boring as shit.  And what’s up with my boy Thresh having an American accent and dying off screen?  (note: don’t write me and say they were going for a PG-13 rating to make more money.  What the fuck do I give a shit, I’m in the thing for the story and glossing over the horrible deaths of children does a diservice to the story.  I’m unconcerned about the financial viability of anything, I just want the best film possible.  Take a lesson in film making from Mel Gibson and don’t be a pussy)

2)  You have to do some world building.  The film doesn’t have the benifit of Katniss’s interior monologue and the film itself does not do a great job about explaining its environment.  I don’t need voice over but the telling of the story should shape the environment.  I don’t need an explanation of the 3 fingered sign (that was kind of cool) but they needed to work in some explanation of the various cultures at play here.  And do a better job of reflecting the differences in culture.  Other than having some people pink and rich and everyone else Winter’s Bone.  Also everyone had the same accent, though some people inexplicably faked a British one.  The novel has several scenes (hairdressers for one) that flesh out some of the culture.  You can’t assume viewers have read the novel.  The film has to stand on its own merits or it’s stupid.

3)  Peeta’s supposed to be kind of a chunk.  He’s a fattish baker’s kid so nobody can tell there’s actually some twisted steel under the soft.  Because Peeta’s actually pretty strong.  The kid who played Peeta cannot portray strong.  He’d lose a fight to a 10 year old girl.  Bad casting.

4)  The nuances of Katniss’s strategy regarding Peeta are one of the more interesting parts of the story and the film leaves you to guess at them.  Her strategy was explicit, and in this case it harms the story (and is lazy) not to include her premeditation.

5)  Boring.  The training was boring, the interviews were boring, the clothes on fire was boring, and for the most part the fucking fighting was boring.  This is a movie about glorified death.  There were a million opportunites to disturb the audience.  Instead I got the impression of plastic things vaguely complaining for most of the movie and no battle payoff once we finally get to the arena.  Somebody do something interesting for fuck’s sake.

Here’s what worked: the reaping (selection).  I believed that scene.  Stanley Tucci is always awesome (he’s the play by play guy).  And the riot in District 11.  I believed that as well.  The rest of the film was softer than Nickolodeon. 

And once again, don’t give me that shit about it being a kid’s movie.  That’s the same lame excuse George Lucas uses.  Lazy is still lazy.  Fine, you don’t want to show a bunch of violence.  You have to replace the violence with something else interesting otherwise it’s just fucking boring.  Now the movie has made a mint already and nobody listens to me anyway, but this movie is stupid.  Lazy and stupid.

If you haven’t seen it, don’t waste the money.