OCTOBER 31, 2011 NEXT: THE ADVENTURES OF DONKEY! Puss in Boots opens at number one and while I was never a big fan of the Shrek series, I fully credit Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) for help saving the second film along with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) who was the saving grace of the first. As a vehicle for Mike Meyers hamming it up, Shrek himself was never really funny to me. This is why a movie about Puss in Boots solo is so ultimately disappointing. You'd think free of Shrek and able to run wild in the land of fairy tales he'd thrive, but apparently they forgot that Shrek was all about fairy tales. You wonder if the makers of this even saw the four other films, so limited are they in dealing with other fairy tales and nursery rhymes and even when they do they offer no humorous take on them. It starts promisingly enough with Jack and Jill as a couple of murderous thieves carrying three magic beans that Humpty Dumpty and Puss plan to steal…and then that's kinda it. Little Boy Blue shows up for one lame joke about his horn, but when your funniest joke is a joke about film noir (I'm sure all the 10-year-old got that), you're in trouble. I give them credit for just wanting to tell their own story, but then why use Humpty Dumpty, magic beans, a beanstalk and the Golden Goose!?! You can't have it both ways. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE TO ANOTHER THEATER Paranormal Activity 3 is down to number two, followed by In Time at number three and this is the latest from writer/director Andrew Niccol who specializes in very pretty science fiction, with pretty people with very thin metaphors about the human condition. The first was Gattaca where the society was divided into the genetic elite and their inferiors. It was followed by S1mone, which was a tad ahead of its time with a totally virtual celebrity, but inspiration didn't help a lackluster execution. He also wrote The Truman Show In Time has the look and feel of Gattaca in that it's about very pretty people who live in retro-future where fashion and style stopped in 1963, but technology went ahead and went too far, stopping aging at 25, but if you want to keep living you have to earn more time, which is the currency in this world. The rich literally have all the time in the world while the poor live day-by-day (yes, 1% and 99%). Again, literally. Subtle Niccol is not. Nor is he deep. All his films are essentially Outer Limits episodes stretched out to film length with no real proportional increase in the depth. This is no exception, despite some nice observations about wealth and society (one man gets suddenly rich and is dead in a day because he spends it all on booze; poor people don't rise up because they remain convinced that somehow they're going to be immortal one day too). You could condense this to 45 minutes and lose nothing. Just as in Gattaca you have your hero (Justin Timberlake) challenging the system, but rather than it being his focused will and effort to beat it, this time it's fate that drops 100 years into his lap and when his only real use for it dies literally in his arms (Olivia Wilde as his mother), he decides to rage against the machine aided by a rich man's daughter (Amanda Seyfried) who is a more than willing gun moll in four-inch heels (this takes on an absurdist air given they literally have to run for their lives more than once). Just as in Gattaca there is a cop defending the system against those who'd change it. There was a payoff there because he ultimately had a connection to the protagonist, actually adding a layer to their conflict. Here, we again learn there's a connection between Justin Timberlake and Cillian Murphy as the cop, but it's never really explored and unlike the cop of Gattaca. He was a beneficiary of the system so you knew why he protected it, but here we learn cops in this world are treated as poorly as our own, only given a literal per diem so his devotion is unknown. This is especially problematic when something else is revealed in literally the last few minutes of the film. But it's damn pretty, filled with nothing but pretty people. Clearly character actors were informed "Not this time." See what I did there? YOU'LL ALWAYS BE OFFICER HANSON TO ME Footloose is down to number four followed by The Rum Diary opening at number five and this is the latest in Johnny Depp's love affair with Hunter S. Thompson and the second time Depp has portrayed him onscreen the first being Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Thompson appeared briefly as a character in Durango). I know nothing of this book or movie and could care less. Seriously, the fans of Hunter S. Thompson always annoyed me as a bit hipper-than-thou and Depp's devotion to him just kinda drives that home for me, as I find him to be a total bullshit artist who's created this iconoclastic air about him, while doing nothing really to deserve it. What exactly is so rebellious about dating actresses and models and doing Disney films? Similarly, Thompson fans tend to upper middle class twits who fashion themselves as edgy. CAN YOU FEEL THE IRONY? Real Steel is down to number six and with a $110M budget a worldwide take of $159M isn't exactly outstanding. I personally thought it could have used more robot fights and clearly I'm not alone given how it's falling off and word-of-mouth really isn't doing a lot. I enjoyed it for the most part, but they'd have done themselves a favor if they'd actually dealt with the dystopian nature that caused robot boxing (the public's desire for violence) than making it so much about a father and son. A better filmmaker would have realized you can have both, but this came from Steven Spielberg and the director of Night At The Museum so multi-dimensional was kinda beyond them. THIS IS HOW WE DEFINE A CRIME AGAINST CINEMA The Three Musketeers 3D is down to number seven and this is such a waste of talent. Now Mila Jovovich literally made her bed and is sleeping in it when she married the director. There's no saving her. But Mads Mikkelsen and Ray "Titus Pullo" Stevenson!?! I can only hope they were well paid and got a nice trip to Paris for some of the filming because this is as big a waste of their time and talents as were Clash of the Titans and Punisher: War Journal. Orlando Bloom is sadly looking like one of those pretty boys for whom age is not a friend. Too bad because needs one if these are the kinds of decisions his agent is making post Pirates of the Caribbean which was clearly a Johnny Depp success. Bloom's really got nothing on his own (though I personally enjoyed the hell out of Kingdom of Heaven). MY COUSIN VINNY UNFORTUNATELY SET HER LEADING MAN CAREER PATH The Ides of March is down to number eight and also in this is Marisa Tomei and it's her luck that the first time she's in a movie with two good looking leads she's playing a character who sleeps with neither. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in this and her last sex scene was with him. Yeah, I'm still having nightmares too. THE END Moneyball is down to number nine followed by Courageous aka Good Christian Firefighters returning to the top ten. HOW'S HE GONNA HANDLE THE LITTLE MERMAID OR THE RED SHOES? So the fall season finally wrapped up with Grimm, the second TV show about fairy tale characters in the real world, this time as a police procedural, while the other, Once Upon A Time, is a soap opera. This time a homicide detective learns his descended from The Brothers Grimm who are apparently monster hunters and apparently a lot of these characters live in…Oregon? Not New York, LA or even Europe, you know, where they're from. No, they all went to Oregon. That's the most difficult thing to accept about this whole thing. Monsters are the easy part. It's not a horrible concept, but they don't do anything with it. There's no wit or inspiration behind it like Buffy (though that he befriends a Big Bad Wolf is funny), so at the end of the day it's just another police show with a few more special effects in it. GEEK SKILLS So rather than go to a Halloween party this weekend, I got myself some posterboard and paint and made Captain America's first shield. It happened because I briefly contemplated going out as Cap, but wasn't going to pay $40-60 for one of those bullshit plastic shields. I found literally dozens of instructions online on how to make them from the good to the you-must-be-fucking-kidding, but having just bought the movie on blu-ray, I was kinda taken with the original. So much so, that even after I lost interest in going out (fuck all you people who wanted fall and winter to get here so fast) I still spent Saturday night doing that and think it came out decently, given arts and crafts were never my thing. Next, I'm gonna make that circular one because I don't think my bedroom alienates women enough. OCTOBER 24, 2011 AS IF SPIELBERG NEEDED MORE MONEY Paranormal Activity 3 opens huge at number one and remember this when you're bitching about all these annoying "found footage" movies this time next year. You people made this happen. They keep making them because they're low budgeted and rarely lose money. Let me put it this way: this cost $5M. It made almost eleven times that in one weekend. They can totally pull it out of theaters and start selling it without losing a dime, it's already made such an insane amount of profit. But not from me. I don't do the scary. WHO HAD THE BEST SHIT-EATING GRIN YOU EVER SAW? Real Steel is down to number two followed by Footloose at number three and the dad in this is Dennis Quaid, which must be sobering for him as in the 80's he was always the hellraiser character with the cocky smile and six pack abs. In other words, the star. Now he's the old guy trying to keep the star down. On some level that's gotta hurt. WILL THE MUSKETEERS EVER HAVE FRENCH ACCENTS? I love the Three Musketeers. I love them so much I actually read the book. I love them so much I saw the awful version with Chris O'Donnell and Charlie Sheen. Fucking Charlie Sheen as a musketeer!!! I love them so much I briefly contemplated this steampunk version from Paul WS. Anderson, but then I asked myself "Have you ever seen a film directed by this man and not come away thinking two hours of your life had been stolen away?" Clearly, the answer was "No" and so I got some much-needed rest. For those of you who don't know, Paul WS Anderson has to call himself that lest people confuse him with the actually talented director, Paul Thomas Anderson, who brought the world Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood. This guy is a B-movie director who has been behind the Resident Evil franchise, whose greatest achievement has been to keep his wife, Mila Jovovich as a B-list actress when she seemed about to be reach "A." Needless to say, she's here again, showing that love will outweigh common sense each and every time. I'll give him credit for realizing he didn't have what it took to make a good Three Musketeers movie and decided to just abandon it entirely to a science fiction version by adding "steampunk" to it. Steampunk is when steam is used to power extraordinary devices set in a past time. Wild, Wild West was totally steampunk long before the term was created. By going "steampunk" on The Three Musketeers, Anderson not only mitigates the ability to criticize it in comparison to other Three Musketeers movies, but also moves it into a genre where he's had his only success. Not that it helped, given how low it opened. At least there's no shitty song this time around. NEEDLESS TO SAY, ELLA WAS WRONG The Ides of March is down to number five, followed by Dolphin Tale at number six and also in this is Harry Connick Jr., who once upon a time was another musician who tried out acting. I don't think anyone now even remembers he was a bit of a prodigy who received the blessing of none other than Ella Fitzgerald. That's what happens when you make a lot of shitty movies. Seriously, his two best movies are The Iron Giant and Independence Day. One is animated, he dies in the first act of the other and in neither is he the star. I'm just sayin'… BLONDE ON BLONDE Moneyball is down to number seven and imagine my surprise to see Robin Wright turn up as Brad Pitt's age-appropriate ex-wife (last time I saw her she was the ex-wife of 20+ years older Robert DeNir0). Now I'd actually like to see them in a movie together as a couple. Pretty people together are what I pay for when I go to the movies. And not to be cruel, but there's no way two people this pretty create that little girl. Oh, fuck off. You know I'm right. SAY IT AIN'T SO, SCULLY! Johnny English Reborn opens at number eight and seriously, who the fuck finds this shit funny!?! English humor is either awesome or utter shite it seems. Just a lot of anvil dropping obvious crap, as subtle as a baseball hitting someone in the nuts. I know we have it too (the entire career of Adam Sandler), but somehow I expect better from the Brits so the success of something like this is a complete and total surprise to me. Though it really shouldn't be given I've seen some of their crappy sitcom TV. And poor Gillian Anderson. I know you're a wannabe Brit, honey, but have some dignity. You can do better than this. And by "better" I mean something where you take your shirt off. NO-THING The Thing drops massively down to number nine, doubly humiliated by the success of Paranormal Activity 3, showing it's not that people don't want horror, they just don't want this shit. THE END Finally, 50/50 closes out the top ten at number ten. AND THEY WATCHED TV HAPPILY EVER AFTER We're getting to the end of the Fall TV rollout and I know it seem strange that I would watch Man Up when I wouldn't watch How To Be A Gentleman, but I loves me some Teri Polo. I even watched her horrible wedding planner show from noted misogynist David E. Kelly. But only once. I'd say I was only going to watch this once, but given that it'll probably be cancelled by the time you finish reading this I really won't have a choice. Also the first of not one but two fairy tale based TV shows debuted with Once Upon A Time, which is actually not based on the comic book series Fables which is also about fairy tale characters exiled into the real world (I despise the writer of Fables so I'm delighted he won't be getting a dime from this). In his stories they all know who they are, but in Once Upon a Time after losing to Snow White and Prince Charming, The Evil Witch casts as spell that will take them all to some place horrible, wipe their memories and leave them trapped in time for all eternity. That it's Massachusetts is clearly someone taking a shot and I for one support it. Their only salvation is apparently the child of Snow White who will find them once she turns 28 and the final battle will begin. This is juxtaposed with the hot, blonde bail bondsman, whose lonely 28th birthday is interrupted by a kid with a fairy tale book who is the son she gave up for adoption at 18. He tells her all this and how she's supposed to save them. She takes him home were we meet the doppelgangers of everyone we've seen in the fairy tale universe and a few we didn't including Little Red Riding Hood, who's apparently a slut in our world, which should make her relationship with "the wolf" somewhat interesting. I'll admit there's something a tad intriguing of how it's all going to work out and they're smart to stretch the story out by flashing back to the fairy tale universe to tell the origins of the characters to give more dimension to who they are here. Otherwise this is a yet another mini-series which should be wrapped up in half a season. However, it's not a "must see" and won't go in the DVR. I just may look at it from time to time if the Sunday Night Football Game is boring…like last night. OCTOBER 17, 2011 IT SURE AS HELL AIN'T BECAUSE OF HIS BROADWAY CAREER Real Steel holds at number one and given how tall, good-looking and charismatic Hugh Jackman is, it's kinda sad how few hits he has. Take away playing Wolverine and you've got what exactly? Kate & Leopold? Somebody Like You? Swordfish? Van Helsing? The Fountain? Australia? Pretty much every one a big studio film with a big female star and a big disappointment. And it's not unusual. Most of Brad Pitt's movies are flops. Same for George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow. Rare is the Tom Cruise, whose superstar status was built on actual returns. But it's clear all you need are a few well-placed wins. So long as Wolverine makes money, Meg Ryan and Ashley Judd can't hurt you. Also, there's what a former co-worker called "The F Factor." A large part of stardom is based mostly on how much the general public wants to fuck you, hence Lindsay Lohan's continued presence in the spotlight. THEY SHOULD HAVE CUT LOOSE A LITTLE MORE Footloose opens at number two and I simply could not work up any motivation to see this once I learned they were using the exact. same. damn. songs. as the original. I mean, what's the point? That was current pop music in 1983. Why not use the pop music of 2011? Even the plot was timely, as banning current music and dancing was actually happening in small towns in the 80's. After learning that and seeing it was damn near a shot-for-shot remake of a film that wasn't that good to begin with (though I remember it fondly) I had to take a pass. Not to mention the shrinking of the cast. I realize going with actual trained dancers this time around reduced your casting pool, but were there no male dancers who could feign acting over 5'6"? In the original, I mocked how a town of kids who couldn't dance suddenly bustin' serious moves at the big dance, but now they're not even pretending as the entire young population of the town break into a dance number any time, any place with a Madonna like precision. And it's "modern dancing" meaning a lot of bumping and grinding to the point where I actually understand why you'd prefer your 15-year-old not be doing that in her tiny, little denim cut-offs. Speaking of whom, somewhere Miley Cyrus is either pissed because that girl is little more than a clone of her or laughing her ass off because they did ask her and she turned them down and it couldn't break #1. THE THING: THE EARLY YEARS The Thing opens at number three and this is not officially a remake of the 1982 remake of The Thing, but a prequel. If you remember that film opened up with Norwegians trying to kill a dog---only to learn that "dog" was really an alien who decimated their group. This answers the question that no one asked: how that happened. Surprise! Surprise! It happened exactly the same way as it would to the Americans. From the scientist figuring out what happened, to the dogs freaking out first, to everyone turning on one another. Hell, there's even a black guy. Yes, in a Norwegian expedition. This is good for me because I didn't care for the 1982 version. It was a bunch of special effects set pieces strung together with no real suspense in my opinion. Add that to a movie so uninspired they're simply Xeroxing another and what will undoubtedly be an overuse of CGI and you've got me at home catching up on my episodes of Nikita or watching the original from none other than Howard Hawks on AMC. Laugh if you want to, but there was something genuinely creepy about James Arness as a blood-sucking carrot. JUST 'CAUSE THEY DON'T MAKE MONEY DOESN'T MAKE THEM SMART The Ides of March is down to number four and this was originally a play, so all that talk about plays being smarter than movies is clearly bullshit because the more I think about this damn movie, the dumber it gets. AREN'T ALL SPORTS TECHNICALLY "MONEYBALL" Dolphin Tale is down to number five, followed by Moneyball at number six and I finally saw it and while not the most exciting film ever made that they took a book that's essentially about applying statistics to building a baseball team and made interesting at all is amazing. They do this by adding the story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) whose own initial scouting report made him seem like the second coming and when the Mets threw a bunch of money at him, he passed on full ride to Stanford only to crash and burn in the majors. In this way, choosing numbers over the "instincts" of scouts validates his still lingering anger over the choices he's made in life, though mercifully not beating us over the head with it. Pitt has never been a bad actor, but the problem is the cast is otherwise filled with character actors, the kind of grizzled professionals you'd expect to see working in baseball and he sticks out like a sore thumb he's so pretty. Granted, he is supposed to be unique as player turned General Manager, but not that unique. Watching him walking alongside Jonah Hill is so visually funny sometimes you think they accidentally walked onto this movie from the set of a comedy. I'M A BIRD WATCHER/I'M A BIRD WATCHER/WATCHING BIRDS GO BY… 50/50 is down to number seven, followed by Courageous at number eight and The Big Year opening at number nine, which is tad odd given it's got three supposed comedy superstars in it: Luke Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin. Like Moneyball, it's based on a non-fiction book that most people would not find interesting: competitive bird-watching. Actually that sounds pretty funny to me and I could see it easily being the subject of a mock-u-mentary from someone like Christopher Guest with one of his grand comedy ensembles. Well, it wasn't clear to these guys so they went this direction and once again I'm right and they're wrong. The major studios should lift their restraining orders against me and take my advice. FINE. I DIDN'T LIKE THE LION KING ANYWAY. Finally, that movie none of you seem capable of buying for me closes out the top ten at number ten. Fuckers. I HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS ME My buddy, O.G. (Original Geek) was in town again this weekend attending the New York ComicCon. He has a podcast where he interviews comic book talent for his own site called sidebarnation.com. Now, I've never listened to it, nor have I been to the site, but as a friend of 30 years I'm freed from that as he's free not to read this…and I know damn he doesn't. Muthafucka. I had no plans on going. I don't like comic book conventions because like any good geek I hate myself. Not to mention nothing kills your love of something like meeting other fans. It was enough for me to see the geeks in the street, especially in costume. Men bulging out of costumes not meant for people whose main diet is pizza and otherwise rational women essentially dressed like mega-sluts because 99% of all female science fiction and fantasy and comic book characters are only 10% covered ("But officer, I'm not a hooker. I'm Superman's cousin from another dimension." "Sure you are, honey. Get into the wagon with the rest of the Justice League."). Also the con blows because it has no good screenings. If Marvel is generating buzz for The Avengers then they should have run every single movie they control, which would be all the characters in it: Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk and Captain America. Not to mention their Avengers animated show. They didn't. DC/Time Warner is trying to push a gigantic DVD set of the decade long run of Smallville. Perhaps a screening of the favorite episodes as chosen by fans? Nope. O.G. told me the con is run by a company that does trade shows which are for professionals, but this is a gathering of hobbyists and should have a more communal feel. Speed-dating for geeks isn't enough. And you only wish I were kidding. I only hope someone filmed that so I can laugh at it on YouTube. Though that would have been impossible in my day because we didn't have girls, much less girls who know comics and are actually attractive. When I was young there were none and if there were they pretty much looked like geek dudes in drag. I asked O.G. to find some things for me I he could, but he came up short. However, he left earlier than he planned and gave me his press pass in case I wanted to give it a shot. I initially refused, but given the only place I can find the Captain America t-shirt I wanted online was friggin' Malta, I gave in…and was reminded of why I don't go. Even though Sunday is the slowest day there was still a crush of people but now the range of people seems relatively normal, all the costumes not withstanding. Normal looking men and women and their kids all in attendance---though this only drives home the importance of having something more for them to do than listen to panels and buy shit. I couldn't find any of the three things I wanted (t-shirt, action figure, out-of-print book), but I did find two other things I'd always meant to get and I got them both for less than $20. So I took my tiny victories and then got the hell out of dodge---as a group of people took pictures of a half-naked woman in white with giant wings in front of the Jacob Javitz Center. Damn, I hate geeks. OCTOBER 11, 2011 HOW CAN YOU BOND WITH THAT OTHER PARENT GETTING IN THE WAY? Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots, er, Real Steel opens at number one and this is actually based on a short story by Richard Matheson called "Steel" which was used as an episode of the Twilight Zone way back, so its origins aren't nearly as bereft of genuine inspiration as one might think. That said, this is a Disney movie from Steven Spielberg (executive producer) and that pretty much says it all. It has lots of fun special effects and a heart-warming family center where mom is dead. Seriously, the Disney thing about dead mothers never stops being creepy. In this case as a former boxer with poor impulse control, Hugh Jackman cuts a bargain with the husband of the sister of his now-deceased girlfriend that he'll take the boy for the summer in exchange for $100K so he can buy a new fighting robot. Needless to say, the boy is actually excited to be part of the world of robot boxing and unlike his father, does have some degree of vision and impulse control, so when they find an old sparring robot and put it into the ring, success soon follows to the inevitable showdown with the champion. The only cliché left untouched here is the one Hugh Jackman where almost destroys their chances by reverting to his old ways just once more and honestly I can't say that I miss it. It's not a bad movie, but certainly not an ambitious one either. You can't help but wonder if they'd just set their sights a bit higher they might have had an exceptional science fiction fantasy family film instead of just an pleasant one. In retrospect it's amazing that Hugh Jackman is allowed to be such an unrepentant asshole for the first third of the movie. Or that at the core of the film is the blasé acceptance that the reason there is robot boxing is because the human need to see violence exceeded what they could get from humans without them becoming actual death matches. But don't most Disney films have a really dark center when you think about it? ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MORONS The Ides of March opens at number two and this is supposed to be a political suspense thriller but it stumbles because for it to work the characters we're supposed to accept as being smart and savvy have to do very dumb and naïve things. Ryan Gosling is supposed to be a brilliant whiz kid who is Number 2 in running George Clooney's campaign for president, yet everything is set in motion when he does something utterly stupid and follows it with something else stupid and even when he does something smart, he does something utterly stupid right afterwards, because if he does what a smart, seasoned political person would do, you'd have no movie. At one point they actually have Paul Giamatti give us an entire monologue about how smart and skillful Ryan Gosling is---as Ryan Gosling is doing something utterly stupid. And it doesn't stop there. Evan Rachel Wood is the daughter of the Democratic National Committee Chairman but acts like she just got off the farm with her behavior because again, if she's as smart as she's supposed to be, you'd have no movie. If you can get past that, it's a movie filled with nice performances from pretty much everyone involved, especially seasoned vets like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei and Jeffery Wright.
BUT NOTHING'S PRETTIER THAN AN OSCAR, PHIL! Dolphin Tale is down to number three, followed by Moneyball at number four which gives Phillip Seymour Hoffman two films in the top ten where the lead is a less-talented pretty boy. SUNDAY MONDAY, HAPPY DAYS/TUESDAY WEDNESDAY HAPPY DAYS… 50/50 actually holds at number five and also in this is Bryce Dallas Howard and you know you're old when you're not only on your second generation of a Hollywood family (her father is Ron Howard, so yeah, ginger bred ginger), but you actually remember when the first generation was young. JUST CAN'T WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO BUY THIS FOR MEEEEE! Courageous is down to number six, followed by The Lion King 3D at number seven, dropping like you knew it would after the DVD came out---not that you fuckers bought me a copy. OH, IT'S OKAY TO STEAL JOBS SO LONG AS YOU'RE PRETTY? Dream House is down to number seven and also in this with Daniel Craig are Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz stealing jobs from American workers as neither of them is playing British or Australian. I can understand why Naomi Watts isn't because that would just be odd in a small New England town, but why is Daniel Craig playing a Brit, but Rachel Weisz as his wife (they move there from NYC), is not? Did they flip a coin and loser is the American? PERSONALLY I BLAME THAT HORRIBLE SPIKE LEE MOVIE
What's Your Number is down to number nine and also in this is Anthony Mackie who is also in Real Steel giving him two films in the top ten this week as well. Remember when he was the "Hot New Young Black Actor" of the moment? I'm sure he does too. That was before everyone found out he was only like 5'6". Also, judging by his film roles, he does lean towards the smaller, indie stuff. I can only assume he's here for this because he had car payment due and wanted to give a finger to the gay rumors by playing closeted gay guy.
THE END And again, Contagion closes out the top ten. BOOKS ARE FOR LOSERS The Fall TV roll out continues and this week it was An American Horror Story. Now, you know normally I don't do the scary, but I'm trying to watch everything and I do like looking at Connie Britton. I mean, never enough to watch Friday Night Lights, but enough for one episode of this. For me it suffers from the basic flaw in all horror movies: stupid people doing stupid things. Now, I'll give you not believing in ghosts, especially when Dylan McDermott is a psychiatrist, but when weird shit begins happening in the house where the last residents committed suicide and you've got Jessica Lange chewing scenery as the weirdest neighbor and a previous resident tells you he murdered his wife and children because the house told him and you still choose to stay? No, this is just too dumb for me to watch. The big moment of contrived stupidity was the creepy housekeeper who appears young and beautiful to him, but old to his wife. One normal exchange about her would have revealed they were seeing two different people, but it never happens because then your show would be over…But I must issue a "mea culpa" for Terra Nova, because I actually forgot I didn't see the whole thing (a clear indicator of just how memorable the show as a whole is). I lost a half-hour in the middle and that's apparently when they do discuss the idea that they've gone into an alternative timeline. This just pisses me off for all new reasons, the primary being that an entire generation of mainstream science fiction entertainment is being dictated by the crappy Star Trek: The Next Generation in that all time travel means the creation of an alternate timeline. It's science-fucking-fiction. The "fiction" meaning the "science" does whatever the fuck you want it to…also a mea culpa for Hart of Dixie, which is every bit as ridiculous a I said with the bad accents, story situations and sheer implausibility, but it still charmed the shit out of me, which is twice the shame being that I was born in Alabama…Two Broke Girls has fallen out of favor with me thanks to declining laughs and a nonstop barrage of casual racism that I'm supposed to find funny, not the least of which is the heavily accented Asian owner of the diner. Then again, it is about young white hipsters who believe Brooklyn belongs to them, so maybe they're just keeping it real. Just as well. The DVR is already full even though this year I've also dropped House (no Lisa Edelstein in push-up bras and fuck me pumps? I'm gone), Glee (just wore out its welcome too quickly with too much preaching) and yes, Gossip Girl (it was pretty much over the second they left high school, but I actually liked the closest thing they had to brown in the cast and now she's gone). OCTOBER 3, 2011 KISS THE GIRLS 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO Dolphin Tale rises to number one and also in this is Ashley Judd and remember when she was the hot young thing? Hooked up with the male hot young thing, Matthew McConughey? Now she's supporting in family films while he still has some solid B-lead status. Granted, Hollywood is more harsh on women than men, but she played that "I'm just a lil' southern girl" card just one too many times while developing a "difficult" reputation on-set. But mostly she didn't stick to what put her over the top, which was the suspense thriller. You know, like the one she made with again her co-star again here, Morgan Freeman. Yeah, High Crimes didn't do as well as Kiss The Girls, but that doesn't mean you give up. Matthew McConughey never made even one good romantic comedy, but he didn't stop making them and they kept him in the game. Make as many bad suspense thrillers as you have to. One will stick. TO BE FAIR HE'S ALWAYS GONNA WIN Moneyball holds at number two showing that people are still interested in baseball, but not overwhelmingly so. Also in this is OSCAR WINNER Philip Seymour Hoffman. I say that because aside from a quick glimpse, you wouldn't know he was in this movie. He's a freaking Oscar winner! Usually, that's all over every movie trailer---except when your leading man is a mega-star like Brad Pitt. So not only did he give Jonah Hill an eating disorder, he's diminished the stature of a better actor. Brad Pitt 2; Fat guys 0. JUST SAYIN' The Lion King 3D is down to number three and will be released on blu-ray this Tuesday if anyone wants to buy me a gift. BUT THIS SETH ROGEN, THIS I WILL NOT FORGIVE! 50/50 opens at number four and this is was inspired by a true story and since that guy is still alive you know this won't be a mope-fest. Still, nothing's overcoming the presence of Seth Grogen to me so I gave it a pass. And I like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and totally forgive him for (500) Days of Summer. Anyone else co-starring and I'm in there. JESUS WANTS YOU TO SEE THIS MOVIE Courageous opens at number five and this is basically "Good Christian Cops" from the people who made "Good Christian Firefighters" last year, better known as Fireproof. Honestly, I'm glad these films exist and enjoy success because it limits the whining from these people about how "dirty" Hollywood is. You've got your own movies. Leave the rest of us and our sex and violence alone. TO THE WINNER GO THE SPOILS Dream House opens at number six and this is the victim of a really bad trailer. I mean really bad. This should either have been sold as a horror movie about a family dealing with a potentially haunted house or a movie about a man trying to find out who murdered his family. The commercials and trailer try to sell it as both, clearly something not a lot of people wanted to see and you can blame the studio. Director Jim Sheridan fought with the studio head over the movie and eventually had it taken from him. It's not like this man had made critically praised movies that win Oscars. Oh, wait. He has. Somewhere in Dublin he's raising a glass to karma biting the studio in the ass for fucking with him. Or because he's Irish and in a bar. THE WOMAN WHO CREATED THE ACTION TANK TOP Abduction is down to number seven and also in this is Sigourney Weaver and a smarter man would have made this about her teaching Werewolf Boy how to kick ass and take names. You would have instantly increased the audience beyond the teenybopper contingent. But John Singleton directed this so "smarter" never plays into it. NOT IN THE AUDIENCE FOR THIS: MADONNA AND YOU What's Your Number opens at number eight and I'm not sure why so many think Ana Faris is such a talented comedic actor that she's being wasted in something like this. She started off in the Scary Movie franchise, so I'd say she's stayed at her level from that, to Best Friends, to House Bunny, to this. Her one true moment of comedic brilliance came in the form of Sofia Coppola's revenge on Cameron Diaz in Lost in Translation. Not to mention usually when someone is thought of to be a great comedic female actor, it's not because of timing or delivery like a man is, it's because they'll sacrifice being pretty for a joke and not being pretty for a woman is clearly a gigantic obstacle for women to over because it's like not breathing, amirite fellas? What a crock of shit. By that definition every idiot ever humiliated in every slob comedy is a great comedic actor. Likewise the very fucking premise of this movie, that she buys into the concept there's only so many people you can sleep with. It would be different if she came to the conclusion on her own. After one hook-up too many she decided that she wanted more, but to have your protagonist be a moron submitting to some clearly patriarchal notion of how much sex a woman can have is just stupid. Especially when you consider they're your target audience. You're basically calling anyone who's exceeded 20 a whore. A better version of this was a TV series where a woman is told by a fortune teller that she's already dated the love of her life so that's why she starts looking back, not that she's about to become some unredeemable tramp. ARE YOU SHOOTIN' AT ME? ARE YOU SHOOTIN' AT ME? Contagion is down to number nine, followed by The Killer Elite at number ten and one of the reasons I saw this was because the trailer shows a clearly enthusiastic Robert DeNiro ready to throw down. He's 70 so you know this movie was just a good time for him. He's barely in it and when he's in it he's in Paris, so basically he got paid to go to Europe for a week. And there's still more dignity than working with Jason Statham than the whole Meet The Parents franchise. SOME PEOPLE READ BOOKS II The new TV season continues…Subugatory is a sitcom about a teen being relocated to suburbia by her overly-protected dad who just now realized he was raising a child in New York. Apparently, the penises of teenage boys were more threatening than all the crime the previous 15 years (which would include 9/11). It's trying a little too hard and shooting in LA is not passing for Connecticut, no matter how much you think all suburbs look alike. It had its moments and could be something if it went a little more subtle…some things I just flat out will not watch and one of those is How To Be A Gentleman which is dragging the Oscar & Felix archetype out one more time, which is fine, but I'm not buying Kevin Dillon as being in his 30's. Half the jokes on entourage were about his age in comparison to everyone else… Hart of Dixie wants you to accept Rachel Bilson as a doctor. Yeah. And it's downhill from there. Not only have these people clearly never been to the south, it's debatable they've even met doctors...Terra Nova is Steve Spielberg's big science fiction show about mankind going back in time because they've basically made the world unlivable. Now, any science fiction geek is going to ask you what about time paradox? Clearly the idea is doomed, because if mankind succeeds and establishes in the past, they alter time and change the future so there is no current day to need saving from. Or maybe they know this and there's a race to get established before the ripple effect catches up and wipes out the present day. If this had come up even once I'd be interested, but it didn't but instead introduces uninteresting subplots about warring factions in the dinosaur era. Not even dinosaur fighting once a week and Stephan Lang apparently doing his Avatar character again can save this for me.
REAL FREAKY-NAUGHTY! I wasn't in any rush to get Aliens on blu-ray, but the shitty, shitty transfer TNT uses every time they run it (which is seemingly every week) so annoyed me that when Best Buy put it on-sale I had to grab it…and it's glorious. Maybe too much so. I don't recall seeing tufts of Sigourney Weaver's pubic hair sticking out before. Archer was also 50% off, so that was a no brainer. Other recent additions also include Dodgeball and yes, Star Wars. I tried to be an angry implacable geek about it, but the simple fact of the matter is a) I don't watch Return of the Jedi beyond Han's rescue, so I could care less what he's done, b) it's gorgeous and c) I have a bootleg DVD of the digital transfers from the laserdisc untouched by any and all of the revisions done by Lucas so I'm good.