Boogie Nights 2

Yeah, not even gonna do the cute typed intro. Right to the point: I'm just INSANELY proud of how well this one turned out. Enjoy!

REVIEW: The Simpsons Movie

I don't like the "The" before "Simpsons Movie" in the title. It feels like it's trying invest the proceedings with a level of import or portent that it neither requires nor should even have in the first place... as though the film marks some kind of definative evolution of the franchise - "it's not just 'a' Simpsons movie, it's THE Simpsons movie!" And at this point, it wouldn't only be a mistake to try and make "THE Simpsons movie," it'd be a bad idea and probably impossible.

There's not a tremendous amount of precedent for TV shows, especially animated TV shows, getting the feature-film treatment while the original show is still airing; but the ones that are remembered stand out for a reason. "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," to use the best example, came along at the initial zenith of the series' introduction to the pop-culture mainstream and was able to act as a "coming out party" for the creators' potential genius: "Oh my God... THIS is what these characters and their world are capable of being!!??"

What MUST be realized is that "The Simpsons," 18 full seasons old and counting at the time of IT'S movie release, can't and really oughtn't be aiming for that level. Now the longest-running and possibly greatest sitcom ever created, "The Simpsons" has ALREADY stretched it's wings and shown it's full range of capabilities hundreds of times over - it has nothing to "prove." Having gone from subversive to celebrated to INSTITUTION, Matt Groening's yellow-skinned creations have already shown their chops for all manner of comedy, plus genuine drama and multiple levels of fantasy. Want to see the Simpson family head off on a flight of fancy? You get it once a year in the Halloween episodes. Looking for an epic citizens-of-Springfield ensemble yarn? Hello, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" In other words, don't go looking for the movie to take "The Simpsons" to the next level... there IS no next level. "The Simpsons" already beat the game.

And so, the movie wisely heads in the opposite direction. You'll find no huge make-or-break experiment or day-of-a-thousand-inside-jokes fan-wank here. Instead, what's offered is a "typical" classic-formula "Simpsons" adventure, one that easily could've been an episode of the series (for fans: It has the overall air of a "Season 1" story with a "Seasons 3-5" aesthetic) but with a specific set of occurances JUST large-scale enough to require an extra hour of running time. In shorthand: Homer and his new pet pig innadvertently cause an evironmental disaster, (the effects of which ought to put a smile on longtime-fans faces) leading an overzealous EPA leader (Albert Brooks) to trap the residents of Springfield in a giant glass dome to "protect" the rest of the country. While Homer tries to escape his responsibility, the family finds themselves less inclined to continue supporting his cluelessness - and Bart has even started to envy the parenting of neighbor Ned Flanders. The animation is just a bit more detailed and sharper, the language is just a bit rougher, a few gags just a bit more risque, the dramatic stakes just a bit higher... but when all is said and done it's unmistakably and unashamedly a Simpsons story.

Which makes it hard to review, when all is said and done, other than to say that it's funny as hell and you should go see it. There's really no way to discuss "how" it's funny, and even quietly brilliant, without giving away the jokes. For what it's worth, I AM glad to see how "retro" it is in it's choice of show-eras to encapsulate - overlooking the "yeah, even WE know we've been on forever at this point" winking of the recent seasons in favor of the foundations: Springfield as an eco-catastrophe waiting to happen, Homer as a dolt, Bart as troublemaking brat, Lisa as brainy knowitall and Marge as the put-upon glue holding it all (barely) together. But fans of winks and nudges and in-jokes don't worry, you've got plenty to look forward to as well: Including a tremendous bit of business with Martin Prince and one of the most instantly-quotable Ralph Wiggum lines of all time. And yes, the trailers are correct to dwell on it: "Spider-Pig" rules.

So, then, it's funny as hell and you should go see it. Quickly, so that we can all get about the business of memorizing the gags and quoting them back and forth to one another. It is, after all, "The Simpsons."

FINAL RATING: 9/10

"Cloverfield" has a poster

Hey, look! I'm blogging about "Cloverfield." I feel so... "in." ;)

Anyway...

The best movie poster of 2007 was/is the initial teaser poster for "D-War" (aka "Dragon Wars" now.) Now, while it doesn't even have an official title yet ("Cloverfield" is a code-name) JJ Abrams mysterious "giant monster attacks Manhattan as seen by people with camcorders" movie already has the early lead as the best poster of 2008:



First thought: Whoa.

Second, longer thought: Umm... wow. Does that shot sorta... I dunno, REMIND anyone of anything? Something like this, for example:



The similarity seems to either be intentional or at least unnavoidable. In fact, I can easily imagine some NYC theatre locations not wanting to put it up. Now, Michael Bay can get away with it when he claims that he doesn't think of 911 when crafting city-destruction scenes because, well, Michael Bay was born without a human soul. But Abrams and company, being both human and extremely insightful about humanity, MUST have either intended the analogous gut-punch this poster provides or at least recognized it and decided it was appropriate. I'm now even more strongly thinking what I was only considering when the blurry "spy" shots of this first appeared: Is this the real key to what this mystery-movie actually is?

Any monster movie lover worth his salt will tell you that the original "Gojira," ("Godzilla: King of the Monsters,") the giant-monster-attacks-city movie by which all others MUST be judged, is in large part so effective because of it's broader metaphoric meaning: It was a bombing-of-Hiroshima movie with a massive irradiated dinosaur standing in for the Enola Gay's atomic payload. Japan made THE rampaging-behemoth movie because they were able to draw on the recent memory of what it was ACTUALLY LIKE to feel the ground shake and see buildings turned to ash by sudden, unnamable force.

The 1998 American remake failed in no small part, by contrast, because of how little weight and meaning it's carnage had. Don't believe me? Go back NOW and try not to cringe at how flippant it is in it's playful trashing of the Big Apple ("Wheee! There goes the Met Life building!") and then remember that, in 1998, WE (Americans) had no shared national experience to draw on when imagining a metropolis crumbling under what seems like the wrath of a god. But that was 1998, and as photo #2 should remind you: Now we do.

So, is THAT the idea here? If "Gojira" was Hiroshima with a monster standing in for The Bomb, is THIS going to be 9-11 with a monster standing in for Mohammed Atta? Given that camcorder and news footage is how the majority of the country "experienced" the WTC attack, and that that's how we'll "experience" the events of Abrams' film, I'm definately intrigued.

Holy. Mother. Of. GOD: Part II

Some of you may recall THIS post... http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2007/06/holy-mother-of-god.html ...wherein I offered my not-exactly-subdued enthusiastic optimism for the upcoming Korean monster movie "Dragon Wars," which as near as can be determined is about a FUCKING ARMY OF DRAGONS, KNIGHT'S RIDING THERAPOD-LIKE DRAGONS, QUADRAPEDAL DINOSAUR-LIKE DRAGONS WITH FUCKING CANNONS MOUNTED ON THEIR BACKS AND SOME "GODZILLA"-SIZED COBRA MONSTER... ahem, sorry... waging war on some fuedal Korean village and then later waging more war on the city of Los Angeles whereupon the GIANT FUCKING COBRA MONSTER STRANGLES A SKYSCRAPER AND FUCKING DRAGONS HAVE FUCKING DOGFIGHTS WITH FUCKING APACHE ATTACK HELICOPTERS!!!!!

Who stars? What else is it about? Don't know. Don't care. See above. My ticket is bought, my DVD is bought, my Region Zero 3-Disc Korean Special Edition is bought, my Sideshow Collectibles Resin Statue of the big whatever-it-is coiling up the building is bought. In any case, the film (which will apparently screen at Comic-Con) now has a trailer for it's September 14 U.S. release, which some nice fella was nice enough to put on youtube:



Bob. Want. Movie. NOW!!!

This is NOT Nintendo's new ad campaign in the wake of Wii sales domination...

...But it ought to be ;)

REVIEW: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

The advantage of mid-budget, studiously-mainstream comedies like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" is that they can be made with relative-quickness enough to be "of the moment." It probably won't even take a full decade for this age-of-gay-marriage-as-a-talking-point riff on the old "buddy comedy/false-identity scam" routine to feel as dated as it's spiritual ancestor "The Gay Decievers," but for now it's a genuinely hysterical comedy mining the zeitgeist of the day for every just-uncomfortable-enough gag and well-intentioned message it can. It doesn't quite unseat Frank Oz's underappreciated "In & Out" as the Citizen Kane of "gay" movies aimed at a mostly-"straight" audience, but it's heart is in the right place and it's cheerfully comfortable with it's own modest aspiration - namely to deliver unto, well.. Adam Sandler fans a genteel message of tolerance for gays (and maybe even gay marriage) while admitting and benefitting-from the fact that the gay/mainstream culture-clash and the "gay aesthetic" itself remain ripe comic targets in their own right.

Granted, the basic premise - two devoutly heterosexual men, one a widower and the other a self-styled lothario, pretend to be gay in order to collect Domestic Partner benefits - was innevitable the moment "gay marriage" became a national topic, and the film doesn't really have much interest in straying from what you imagine the basic outline to be. But then, given the subject matter at play, that was probably the smart move: When an unfortunately-sizable portion of the population is primed to be enraged at the very IDEA, familiarity and safety are the way to go with the execution.

Thus, you won't be too surprised to learn that our heroes are a pair of regular joe Brooklyn firefighters, nor that they're squad is populated by a colorful collection of wacky sidekicks primarily played by Sandler's Happy Madison regulars. You will also be correct in assuming that Larry (Kevin James) is the more grown-up "serious" of the pair, while Chuck (Adam Sandler) is a devil-may-care wiseacre with a sex-drive roughly equivalent to "Family Guy's" Glen Quagmire. You'd also be correct in assuming that the main antagonist, a city insurance auditor determined to sniff out the fraud (Steve Buscemi, who incidentally actually was a firefighter in New York at one point) is a snively beaurocrat and that the lawyer assigned to defend their case is a hottie (Jessica Beil) with whom Chuck is immediately smitten. You'll probably also prefigure gags, twists and reveals involving Larry's "disturbingly" effeminate son, a surly new fireman (an intimidating Ving Rhames) and Beil's flamboyant brother (Nick Swarsdon) and the unfortunate under-use of Dan Akroyd as the Fire Chief.

All said, it's kind of dissapointing that James, a hugely talented comedian who previously stole "Hitch" right out from under Will Smith and who really can't be blamed for how bad "King of Queens" usually is, is here mainly playing the "straight man" with the weightier dead-wife backstory and young-kids responsibility angle while Sandler get's to cut loose as the "fun" one. On the up side, this arrangment has it's benefits: James get to show some subtle dramatic chops as he comes to terms with his wife's passing, while Sandler's Chuck is freed by James-as-Chuck's "handling" of the nice-guy chores from the super-nice/super-naughty schizophrenia that afflicts too many of his past characters. Chuck is a "Moe" cut loose from the obligation to also be Larry and Curly, and it's fun to see Sandler actually play a charming but also frequently-crude jerk who's not (as) constantly stopping to remind us he's actually a swell guy (it also makes it easier to forgive Sandler for having the "so whats" to produce himself into a movie where he's having group-sex with "Hooters Girls.")

What it comes down is that "Chuck & Larry" isn't really inventive enough to be a great movie, but it's polished enough to be a good one and it's DEFINATELY a funny one. It covers the bases of it's "hot" topic broadly enough that, if it becomes a hit, it's going to be something you'll eventually feel obliged to see to join the conversation. Good news: You'll probably like it, to boot.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Mario & Sonic E3 Trailer

People who say that the Wii doesn't have enough coming out to appeal to "Hardcore" gamers... I don't get `em. Textbook example: I've been waiting for THIS GAME for SIXTEEN YEARS. And I know I'm not the only one. If THAT'S not "hardcore," I dunno what is.

In any case, this is it: The official E3 trailer for "Mario & Sonic at The Olympic Games," in which the longest-running and onetime most-heated character rivalry in video game history finally comes to a head in an actual game. My inner-child (is that even still a term of use in psychiatry?) is still pretty mopey from "Transformers," but THIS did an awful lot to cheer him up. And, hell, adult-me will have to admit as well: When I saw the shot of the two sets of shoes walking into the auditorium, the hair honestly stood up on the back of my neck.



Words fail me. Well done, Nintendo/Sega... now, REALLY thrill me by secretly dropping Sonic into Smash Bros.

Mitt Romney's anti-freedom campaign ad

Mitt Romney is running for President. Putting aside any personal politics for a moment, think about what it means to run for President right now. Regardless of who you are or what party you represent, if elected you'll be facing an ongoing (or, hopefully, recently-concluded) unpopular and disasterous war, looming nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, a rising China, an ongoing war with Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists and the very real possibility that the planet might be COOKING US TO DEATH. These are huge questions of immediate and vital importance, so when campaigning it's equally vital that YOU tell the American voters what issues are most important to you.

With that in mind, I give you the Romney campaign's latest TV commercial, as posted on the Romney camp's official YouTube page:




Yes, folks. In the face of war, climate-change, terrorism and worldwide instability, Mitt Romney wants YOU the voter to know that he's all tore up over... um... violent video games and internet pornography. Way to prioritize, Mitt. He goes on to wonder-aloud about how "we" can clean the culture up - the obvious implication: Make me president and I'll try to make the objectionable stuff go away. He even goes so far as to echo Peggy "What's My Relevancy Again?" Noonan's opinion that this "culture" was the cause of - wait for it - The Columbine Massacre.

Now, let's just be clear here: My problem isn't if Romney actually believes that the existance of Grand Theft Auto and MrSkin causes schoolchildren to become mass-murderers. It's his RIGHT to believe that if he wishes - it makes him an IDIOT, yes, but it's still his right. No, the problem is the unmistakable implication that Romney ALSO believes it'd be his job as president to forcibly remove such "toxins" from the culture. THAT I have a problem with. This is the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic. As such, the government is to have no influence or interferance with the content of the press, art, TV, movies, etc. In a free, capitalist-oriented society, such things are the realm of the private sector and the citizenry. Period. A system where the government would be "cleaning" the culture of objectionable material would be fascism. Or Socialism. Either one works, in this case.

Here's the thing: Romney is running as a Republican and calls himself a "Conservative." But look at the ad, and what it suggests. He essentially advocates a government deciding what content is "good for the culture." That's not any kind of Republic I've ever heard of. The word "conservative," as applied to politics, has only ever ACTUALLY meant one thing: limited government. In what Bizarro World does increasing the role of government in private citizen's decisionmaking LIMIT it? If this silliness was coming from, say, Hillary Clinton (spoiler warning: It will be soon enough) it'd at least be consistent: Mrs. Clinton, a liberal, is SUPPOSED to support increased government. Ayn Rand and George Orwell would BALK at this kind of Nanny State nonsense coming from a "conservative" politician. But Rand and Orwell were of a time when politicians still respected the English language and politics was still the realm of intellect and reason, and that's no longer the case. Politics is now about whipping up "the base," and "conservative" politics especially. is all about genuflecting in the direction of paranoid, backward-looking religious/superstitious regressives who actually DO believe that GTA will turn their lil' darlings into murderers.

Credit where it's due: Jason Apuzzo, the high muckety-muck at the right-wing "Libertas" blog, had this to say about the ad: "Why does the odor of McCarthyism still cling to conservatives? Precisely because of rhetoric like Romney’s." http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=5891

In any case, ads like this are designed to influence voters, and in my case I can safely say it has made up my mind about Romney for me: I won't vote for him. If he is the nominee for president, I will vote for the Democrat. If the Democrat is Mrs. Clinton, I will vote for a third party. Period.

P.S. Settle down. No, I don't have anything against Mormons. Just this one.

Called it!

Sadly, given my luck THIS will be my one "Harry Potter" prediction that comes true...

Reviewing "Harry Potter & The Order of The Pheonix" yesterday, I wondered aloud about the likelihood that the same "conservative" film critics who tried to claim "300" and "Transformers" as "part of the family" would make a similarly silly jump in the the direction of Hogwarts based on the film's "Harry forms paramilitary squad" storyline. As it turns out, said jump-of-silliness was taken today by one "Dirty Harry," resident-reviewer over at the pachyderm-enthusiast Liberty Film Festival "Libertas" blog, (whom I will say for the record, though I find his premise in this case to be kind of a reach, is a generally fine critic in his own right and author of an immensly readable how-to film production series at the same blog,) in his review of the film: http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=5846#comments

Money-quote from the review: "The bottom line is that Harry’s readying his troops for war here. The word “war” is even used. They’re going to fight evil even if the Democ– er… Ministry of Magic won’t."

Bee Mario Revealed!

You'll find few bigger "Super Mario Bros." fans than me, but even I've got my likes and dislikes. And one the big DISLIKES about the franchise lately (at least since the N64 days) has been the lessening of Mario's once ever-expanding "power-ups." Yes, I'm firmly in the "Super Mario Bros. 3' was the BEST entry in the series" camp, and all the fun costumes and extra powers are a big part of it. Face it: Mario has never had a cooler weapon in his arsenal than the mighty Tanooki Suit.

Well, my Nintendo related dreams have a habit of coming true lately thanks to the Wii: Nintendo back on top of the gaming industry? Check. Playing original-style NES/SNES and Genesis (which I never got to own for real back in the day) games on one machine? Check. An actual-for-real Mario versus Sonic the Hedgehog game? Check. And now Miyamoto-san and company have gone and given us the return of the power-up costume in the form of "Super Mario Galaxy's" E3-revealed "Bee Mario!" (pictured below with a series of it's fellow Mario suits, for nostalgia's sake.)

Pictured (counter-clockwise): Bee Mario, Fire Mario, Hammer Mario, Frog Mario, Dr. Mario, Tanooki Suit Mario, regular Mario

REVIEW: Harry Potter and The Order of The Pheonix

Prologue:

Surely the most at-once annoying and unintentionally-entertaining fun to be had in the reading of movie reviews this year has been had in the watching of "political subtext-hunting" in films that have no real plausible political dimension. Already this year we've seen Iran flip-the-hell-out over feature-length abs-n-stabs epic "300" because they thought it was a work of American pro-war propaganda, only to find themselves in essential agreement with American "conservative" critics (inanity.. now in stereo!!!) who were falling over one-another in a rush to declare the film a rallying cry for the Bush war policy. And as if that nonsense wasn't a veritable BUFFET of sad absurdity, last week a full-scale Blogfight broke out when "Transformers" first-draft story writer John Rogers over at Kung-Fu Monkey... http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/07/hey-libertas.html ...took exception to some of the GOPstriches over at "Libertas" jumping up to claim Michael Bay's latest affront to humanity as part of the flock: http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=5790

What's fun about this is that the silliness goes in both directions: For every nutbag "conservative" who LOVES "300" because he thinks it's "on his side," there's a nutbag "liberal" who HATES "300" because he thinks it's on "the other side"... and BOTH of them have decided this based on the "compelling evidence" that it's an action movie about a leader who marches himself and his men into an unpopular war. If THAT'S all it takes now for an otherwise apolitical movie to get either enshrined or condemned as "pro-war/pro-Bush," I'm a little scared to imagine what'll happen when such enshriners/condemners get a load of this 5th "Potter" installment, which revolves around the boy wizard and his compatriots trying to beef up the war-readiness against He Who Must Not Be Named despite the interferance of (of course) cowardly beaurocrats and their media conspirators who insist that the Bad Guys don't exist and that the whole thing is just a fearmongering push for political power. Stupid, you say? Of course it's stupid, but so is locating the same message (and then getting all happy or bent out of shape over it) in a Grand Guignol splatterfest like "300" or a junkpile like "Transformers," and yet people are STILL going on about both.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

The "Harry Potter" films, now numbering 5 with two more to go including the final book in about 9 days, are now officially starting to feel much less like a rapidly-released series of movies and more like a TV series with especially-long seasonal hiatuses. The good news is that, even if it feels like a TV show, it's still a good one. At it's worst (or, at least, most formulaic or obligatory-feeling) moments, it has the tinge of Roger Moore-era James Bond: Less and less consistently innovative, but still consistently entertaining (read: No "Moonraker" just yet, and "Prisoner of Azkaban" equals "The Spy Who Loved Me.")

Now decidedly past the halfway point of the overall story, "Pheonix" carries the weight of serving as a kickoff to a climax - and feels like it: Story points are coming to a head, "this has to go somewhere" is starting to look like "somewhere" and a general air of immediacy has finally overtaken the proceedings (despite the fact that we're still basically tracking another semester at Hogwarts.) Head-baddie Voldemort, (Ralph Feinnes made up to look like offspring of Sinead O'Connor and Skeletor,) ressurected at the end of the previous film, is "putting the band back together" i.e. his evil "wizard supremacist" club called Death Eaters.

Following an uncharacteristic "real world" attack by the nasty Dementors, Potter discovers that The Order of The Pheonix - the collection of "good guy" grownups, most of whom we've already met, who helped counter the baddies before - has reformed. He's keen to join, but easier said than done: The less-than-spine-filled officials of the wizard government are insistant that Potter and Hogwart's headmaster Dumbledore are fabricating the reports of rising evil to cull political power in their favor, and are hard at work undermining both of them. To that end, they've installed at Hogwarts a lackey/enforcer in the form of Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton from "Vera Drake,") a petty tyrant who insists on rigid rulemaking, textbook-adherance and seems to derive a sexual (or at least reeeeaaally inappropriate) satisfaction from inflicting (literal) pinprick-tortures on her young charges. Still fearing an impending attack by You Know Who, Harry opts for the "Red Dawn" route: Organizing his fellow-students into a paramilitary squad and helping them hone their wand-fu in a series of secret training sessions which are almost begging the soundtrack to momentarily morph into "Eye of The Tiger."

First things first: Aside from Michael Bay, Staunton's Umbridge is 2007's most abundantly hateable movie villian so far. It's a terrific bit of "will someone PLEASE kill this bitch already?" wickedness and obnoxiously-upbeat condescension - altogether the creepiest spin on "Matronly English Cat Fancier As Sadist Control Freak" since Judi Dench in "Notes On A Scandal." She flat-out deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination for this turn - and I'd LOVE to know who came up with the subtle bit of "stair choreography" when she engages in a stare-down with Maggie Smith's Professor McGonagall, an exchange that plays out like the Lee-vs.-Norris of Thatcheresque verbal sparring.

I'm fairly comfortable in saying I enjoyed this "Potter" the most out of the series thus far. I'm not certain that it's the asthetic achievement that "Azkaban" was, but it's just as solid on the story front and the actual goings-on are more on-target for my tastes: I dig the bold mash-up of the series' whimsical occutremants and what's eventually a big-scale action flick - right down to a final battle that manages to take the sight of rival teams of garishly-costumed British character-actor mainstays shooting fireworks at eachother from their ruler-sized wands and invest it with the energy and edge of a Hong Kong handgun melee.

It's also nice to see the various supporting characters still back in form, year after year. Definately nice to see some more fun with Brendan Gleeson's "Mad Eye Moody" and Gary Oldman's "why, yes, I AM the coolest guy in the room" turn as Sirius Black. And I'm really, really hoping to see a lot more of Helena Bonham-Carter as baddie Belatrix LeStrange.

I've still got my nagging issues with the series (one in particular, the lack of clarity or consistency as to how "aware" the Wizard and Muggle 'worlds' are of one-another becoming more glaring here) and I'm still at a loss to discern WHY the adults keep hiding vital information from Potter when it ALWAYS turns out a lot of trouble would've been avoided by just telling him on day one. But considering what has to be an amazingly difficult undertaking year after year it's still a wonder that the series is still as solid as it is. When all is said and done, this is going to be a monumental achievement even if a brick or two is out of place.

FINAL RATING: 8/10



Oh! Hey, since this is on topic and since every other blog (especially Geek Blogs) has done so by now...

BOOK SEVEN PREDICTIONS (in no particular order):

1.) He's not dead. But he might lose his powers and/or connection to the magical world.
2.) Snape is good, or at least not as bad as it would seem, and a high candidate for a martyr.
3.) Either Ron, Neville or both are as good as fragged.
4.) At least one long-term "bad guy" has to go good. My money would be on Draco - going "good" and then getting pwned to prove it would be a decent way to finally kill the little shit while still making him more well rounded than "guy who's been asking for this since book 1."
5.) At least one long-term "good guy" probably has to go bad, though probably not by their own choosing (this is why supervillians with mind-control powers HAVE mind-control powers.) Best candidate: Hermoine. Because she'd probably stand a fighting chance against Harry even without his reluctance to fight her, because it'd really throw people, because it'd be a HELL of an "undercard" to Harry-v-Voldemort, and because she's got Fantasy Fiction's Mother-of-ALL-Villian-Exploitable-Weaknesses: Pride and ambition. Just ask Boromir. Or Anakin Skywalker.

Please make all betting-pool-percentage checks payable to cash.

Alvin & The Chipmunks

At this point, can a simple "WHY?" suffice?

I'm serious. This is MISTER "A good movie can be made out of anything" talking here, and even I've got to ask what the hell the point of this is? Is this franchise even on the radar of the kids it's targeting (since the new Ghetto Fab-a-lus redesign rules out the prospect of this being nostalgia bait)? The Chipmunks were a late-50s novelty album and cheap (even for 60s TV) cartoon based SOLELY on the premise that voices sound squeaky when you speed up a recording. Briefly got popular again in the 80s with a revamped series. Hasn't really been heard from outside the odd DVD quickie since. So exactly what's the profit prospect on this? Did the two "Garfield" movies really earn that much?

Meh. Poor Jason Lee (though I'm still getting the vibe that "Underdog" will be good). Part of me feels I should be more aghast at the "updated" look, but I'll hold my fire at least until the Chipettes show up with tramp-stamps. Not holding his fire is the reliable Devin over at CHUD, already lobbing a warning shot in the direction of anyone who dares wax nostalgiac over this:

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=10945

Transformers: Take 2

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REVIEW: Transformers (2007)

"I hung up and said, 'Thank you, I'm not doing that stupid, silly toy movie,'" --Director Michael Bay, on his initial reaction to being offered the directing duties on "Transformers"

That quote seems to pop up in nearly every remotely-in-depth interview with Michael Bay regarding the making of the film. I'm not sure what amuses me more about it: The idea that Michael Bay, maker of the most empty, commercial-esque films of ANY A-list director, somehow feels he's "above" making a movie based on a line of action figures; or the idea that he feels he's in a good position to turn down a near-garaunteed hit after having just made "The Island."

"Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?" --The End of An Act, "Team America: World Police"

Acting, as all Movie Geeks find themselves acting at one point or another, as the Geek in Residence among both ordinary folks and the odd oldschool "Film Buff," I often find myself answering "on behalf" of my fellows - at least to the best of my ability. From the "Buffs," one question that tends to come up a lot is "Why do Movie Geeks by-and-large give such a pass to Michael Bay?" It's a fair question, given the amount of hyperbolic vitriol the general Geekdom sends in the direction of "Hack Pack" filmmakers (Tim Story, Brett Ratner, Paul W.S. Anderson, etc.) versus the "meh, his stuff is good for a laugh, especially "Bad Boys 2!!" backhanded-praise it generally floats toward Bay.

The best reason I've been able to offer is, basically, that those others have "offended" Movie Geekdom "personally" in ways Bay hasn't: By the "screwing-up" of hallowed geek-appeal franchises. Anderson is not loathed (perhaps too much, I think in his case) for being an iffy filmmaker, he's loathed for making an iffy film out of "Resident Evil." Story's crime is the two "Fantastic Four" attempts, while Ratner managed the impossible feat of making a dull Jackie Chan film AND drove "X-Men" into a wall. Bay has "skated," for the most part, because as far as Geekdom tends to be concerned his output- however questionable it may be- has never "defiled sacred ground." (Though I know a few WWII vets/afficionados who would disagree i.e. "Pearl Harbor.")

I bring this up because, as of this most recent film, Geek "sacred ground" is looking pretty damn defiled... and Michael Bay's "free ride" from the Geek Community (for whatever it's worth) has probably come to an end. "Transformers" is easily one of, if not the, worst films of 2007.

A certain number of you are already discounting the entire review for that. Because you've seen the banner up top, read the other posts, and are thus already saying some variation of "Whatever. Guy's a geek, he's just mad that they changed the way the robots look and remixed the story so that people OTHER than nerds who memorized all the mythology can follow it."

And I'm not gonna lie to you or pretend that all the other easily-searchable posts on this blog about "Transformers" didn't exist: I've been wary of this one for awhile, and yeah, I am a huge, huge geek especially when it comes to sprawling scifi sagas about giant alien robots. I'll say it up front: My "dream" version of a Transformers movie would be a 100% robot-centric, humans-as-background-details epic dripping in fifty Wiki's worth of continuity and mythos about Cybertron, Vector Sigma, the Matrix of Leadership and Energon Cubes; Soundwave deploying Laserbeak from his chest and Megatron inexplicably morphing into a gun twenty times smaller than his normal size, and everyone looking as close to their "original" conception as possible... ALL OF IT played at the level of deadpan portentousness usually reserved for Biblical epics.

But I'm also enough of a realist to understand that I was probably never going to get that version, in the same way and for the same reasons that I'll probably never see "The Silmarillon" announced as an in-production LOTR prequel. The most any reasonable person could ask was that the film be a solid, mostly-serious scifi/actioner, that the characters be engaging and reasonably similar to their original incarnations and that the overall result would be a fun "newcomers welcome" reimagining of "Transformers" mythology. In short, a decent action film about battling good and evil robots hiding out on Earth in the form of cars, planes etc...

...and even on THAT narrow criteria, "Transformers" proves itself a devastating failure. It features an awful screenplay, built on a flimsy structure and draped with some of the worst dialogue ever spoken even in Michael Bay movies. It's human characters are too numerous, badly developed and horribly acted - any actor who CAN give a bad performance is giving it here - while the mechanical ones are largely indistinguishable, uninteresting or annoying. If there's a misstep that can be made, it's made. Better movies are ripped off, interesting ideas are tossed aside.

It's tempting to consider that having ANY high expectations for this sort of film is a losing prospect. The original "Transformers" series (and yes, it IS germane to the discussion since without it this franchise wouldn't have become so enduring as to be worth making into a shitty Michael Bay movie) that the film takes the bulk of it's main inspiration from was such a "lightning in a bottle" thing... somehow what was only ever meant to be - what perhaps only ever had any business being - a toy commercial in narrative form wound up with a gift-from-the-gods vocal cast and an ambitious writing staff and somehow transformed ITSELF into a genuinely worthwhile peice of youth-oriented pulpy scifi. It wasn't Tolkein, sure, but at it's very best it could occasionally approach, say, Burroughs. But thats the exception, not the rule, both for the genre and for the franchise overall. But even that hard truth can't excuse how truly, stunningly bad most of this movie is.


Props to the "Pinkagumma" guy who made this.

Just so we're all on the same page, short version: There was a civil war on the machine planet Cybertron between rival factions of Transformers, (sentient robots who can "hide" by changing shape to resemble indigenous technology,) that eventually destroyed the place. Now, matching teams of Autobots (good guys) and Decepticons (bad guys) are continuing their fight on Earth, hiding out in the form of cars and trucks (in the Decepticons' case, military and police vehicles) while seeking important items scattered around the planet. In the series, it was "Energon," in this film it's "The Allspark Cube," a Cybertronian relic capable of turning ANY mechanical device into an instant-Transformer.

What is at first immediately apparent is that Bay and most of his associates clearly have no interest whatsoever in the material they've been assigned to make a film out of. Despite being the title characters, the Transformers themselves are pushed to the sidelines and reduced to guest stars in "their" own movie. Instead, Bay occupies an INSANE amount of time spinning his wheels on his preferred visual subject matter: Masturbatory shots of vehicles in motion, heroic magic-hour slo-mo tableauxs of American military personal striding toward and away-from helipads, huge roomfuls of Pentagon suits barking orders at a sea of deskbound techies and autumn-hued explosions - every once in awhile, he plugs a Transformer or two into the background just so we remember which movie we're watching.

Still MORE time is spent rehashing a lot of business we've already seen done 100 times better in "Independence Day," as Defense Officials, bright-young-thing hacker wizards and a cut-rate MIB knockoff called "Sector Seven" go through the motions of a generic Alien Invasion movie. Amid all this, Bay also proves himself a singular talent at misusing good actors, coaxing a shockingly bad performance from John Tuturro and a shockingly dull one from Jon Voigt. Meanwhile, Josh Duhammel and Tyrese Gibson stand around as survivors of a Decepticon-decimated army squad, so that Bay can mark time indulging in his juvenille fetishism for "Army Stuff" (when it came time to actually MAKE a serious movie about the Military, it was "Pearl Harbor" and he wasn't up to it.)

But the majority of the film is centered around "it-boy" Shia LeBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a dorky High Schooler who just found out his new car is the Autobot "Bumblebee" and is going through a "boy becomes a man arc" thats plays out like Bay's demo-reel trying to prove himself adept at aping executive producer Big Poppa Spielberg's signature "E.T."-isms. Let's be clear, here, and "Transfans" especially hear me loud and clear: The movie is about LeBeouf as a cut-rate Elliot, and the Transformers are just his glorified sidekicks. Aside from leader Optimus Prime, who gets lots of expository narration, even the most random human characters get more overall screentime than any of the Autobots, and aside from two cameos the Decepticons don't even show up until the final twenty minutes or so. LeBeouf is a promising actor, and it's been understandable elsewhere why Spielberg has flipped for him, but here he's getting no help in a godawful role in a godawful film.

The desire of the producers to ground the story in a generic "reality" is regrettable, but understandable. Problem is, the focus on LeBeouf's story leads the film into it's most unimaginably awful territory: HUGE scenes that go on forever focus on the cutsie-poo "comedy" of Bumblebee helping not-yet-robot-aware Sam score with the object of his desire (Megan Fox in the role of Assembly-Line-Maxim-Hottie-With-No-Business-Trying-To-Act) by spontaneously tuning in love songs on the radio and other "Herbie"-like foolishness. Bay and company even go so far as to steal from "The Iron Giant" with a hatefully bad scene of Sam trying to "hide" his new Autobot pals in the backyard.

And then there's the Transformers themselves. Look, I'm still not a fan of the overly-busy new look for most of them, back that would be easily forgiven if they just weren't such awful characters. Of the whole lot, only Peter Cullen's Optimus Prime manages to come off decently, despite his ill-advised flame paintjob and goofy gorilla face, thanks to the voice-acting vets solid delivery (yes, fans, "transform and roll out," "one shall stand, one shall fall" and "freedom is the right of all sentient beings" are all spoken at least once.) The rest of them are either incredibly annoying (looking as YOU Bumblebee and Jazz) or uninteresting (Ratchet and Ironhide, who may as well not even be in the film.) The Decepticons fare a little better, since they're in the film even LESS and thus can't be as faulted for being badly characterized, but it's STILL a dissapointment to report how anticlimactic and dull a Big Bad Megatron turns out to be.

There's badness in this I haven't even touched on yet. Seriously, pages and pages could be written about the uselessness of all the extraneous characters, the shameless cribbing from movies WAY too recent and well known to be "okay" to lift from, and how craptastic the second act is. But I think you get the basic idea: Even with my lowered expectations going in, "Transformers" is a complete dud. And, damn it, it depresses me to say that. Not only because, yes, as both a Geek and a child of the 80s I can honestly still imagine a GOOD movie having been made from this material; but because I've always been a staunch proponent that ANYTHING can be made into a great film, be it a Peabody Award winning book or a line of toys... and the complete artistic failure of "Transformers" makes it that much harder to argue that point.

Still, I can take at least two comforts in this. First: That the film is going to get SLAUGHTERED at the boxoffice in it's second week by "Harry Potter," an event which will mark the most satisfying instance of something getting the crap pounded out of it by a scrappy Englishman outside of a "Transporter" sequel...

...and second, that the pile of money it's going to (regretably) make in it's FIRST week will probably insure the greenlighting of every other 80s toy-toon thats been snapped up for film deals in the runup to this. Which means A.) others are free to try and succeed where Bay has failed, and B.) either way, I'll get the fun of watching CHUD's Devin Faraci have a cow every time one gets announced: http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=10575
http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=10315
http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=10039

FINAL RATING: 2/10

REVIEW: Live Free or Die Hard

Better than #2, close to #3, not as good as #1. That really kinda covers it.

It's endured because it remains a masterfully-crafted example of the action-thriller, but the first "Die Hard" was a massive success at the time owed to two more-immediate factors: First, it's overriding wish-fulfillment fantasy theme (one scruffy, balding, streetwise New York City cop can manhandle an army of high-tech European supercrooks because his streetwise, balding scruffiness imbues him with the living spirit of All-American Cowboy Machismo AND show the snotty L.A. yuppie types his ex-wife was so impressed with what a REAL MAN can do) and second, Bruce Willis' starmaking ability at inhabiting the character of John McClane.

It's somewhat interesting to note that, while "Live Free or Die Hard" is now the 3rd "Die Hard" sequel, it's the first one to (intentionally or not) "rhyme" the original's theme outright: In the original McClane was a rough "cowboy" matched against the slickness of Reagan-era big-dollar criminality; in "Live Free" he's the angry oldschooler duking it out with the eeeevils of the Digital Age - an Analog Avenger here to save us from the dark side of the iPod age and show a team of glorified Techno-Snob effigies that a bullet doesn't care how smart they are. Expectedly, the film lays all this on so thick it's kind of miraculous that McClane doesn't tell any of them to "blog THIS!!!" before blowing them away; but then this is "Die Hard," so subtlety isn't exactly to be sought after.

As per the series' rules, it's once again coincidence that draws McClane into the action and sense of duty that keeps him there: Homeland Security is having computer-hacker trouble, and Detective McClane is dispatched to pick up one of the top talents on the hacker watch-list (Justin Long) and bring him to Washington. It rapidly unfolds that all the other kids on the list have been assassinated by the real baddies, save of course for the one who had John McClane to watch his back. Luckily, he's also the one capable of figuring out what's really going down: A disgraced Government tech-expert (Timothy Olyphant) has taken over and shut down the nation's computers, aka the entire country's infrastructure, in order to prove a point and earn a tidy extortion sum.

Which is, at the end of the day, of a better-than-necessary reason to send Willis and Long hopping around the East Coast fighting off attacks by car, helicopter and hails of gunfire as they try to outwit and outshoot the bad guys. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or give the franchise some uneeded new depth, save for obeying the Action Hero Rule dictating that Action Heroes get progressively less-destructible as they grow older: In the original McClane found himself severely impaired (for awhile) by a lack of shoes and an abundance of broken glass; this time around he essentially wrestles a fighter jet to the ground and walks away looking amused with himself...

...and he still has energy left to show a pair of (bluntly) designated representatives from "newfangled" action-movie styles "who's boss" by dusting off a French master of parkour (read: Jackie Chan stunts as-performed by fashionably-unkempt European dudes) and Maggie Q as Hot-Asian-Kung-Fu-Hardcase-Girl ("enuff with th' kung-fu crap!!" grumbles McClane to the expected delight of those for whom action films have shown entirely too much grace and finesse as of recent.) One of these folks even gets smooshed by an SUV... Twice!!! for good measure.

It's a good movie. It's "Die Hard." It's a good "Die Hard" movie.

FINAL RATING: 7/10