Monthly Archives: July 2010

Movies, Reviews

Predators (2010)

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Robert Rodriquez earned the deserved love of millions by sacrificing his own precious bodily fluids to make his first film, back in ’92 (when we were still trapped in a room without a view). Ever since, he’s become a one-man production studio, which is apparently all you need to do to win the label of “outlaw” in modern, mainstream Hollywood circles. Rodriquez is now the Quentin Tarantino of Spanish-flavored gangster films: rich and powerful enough to do more-or-less whatever he wants to do, so long as “whatever he wants” involves flogging the corpse of El mariachi. Or From Dusk Till Dawn. Or Spy Kids.

But that’ll be Machette. In tonight’s case, Rodriquez has flogged the corpse of a film he so obviously loves…almost as much as I…though I suspect for completely different reasons. He’s better at it than the army of inarticulate hacks who took a pair of sheers and some gaffer’s tape to the Aliens vs. Predator films. Whatever else you can say about the man, Rodriquez has the Tarantino Eye for Unflappable Talent. Things could’ve (and have) been much worse…but that feels like the faint praise it used to be before I realized how fucked and shitty things really are. (The films of Michael Bay will certainly do that to you.) {More}

Movies, Reviews

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010)

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He's a saa-aad Batman...The day I discovered NOVA’s The Elegant Universe was a grand day at around this old Batcave o’ mine. I rejoiced that physicists had finally figured out what we comic book nerds have known for over fifty years: our world is but one of an infinity of universes, operating on parallel levels of what we so blithely call reality. Bully for you, Science. Welcome to the party.

As with so much else, superheroes had a large part in popularizing what was once the esoteric pipe dream of clever sci-fi authors. The Justice League first met their “evil” dopplegangers, the Crime Syndicate of America, back in 1964. And while those original Silver Age comics have…shall we say…mellowed…in their old age, I still respect the CSA’s original motivation for jumping dimensions: sheer boredom at the ease with which they’d conquered their own world. (with the exception of one Alexander “Lex” Luthor). The Justice League cartoon series updated and expanded up this plot to great effect in its second season two-parter “A Better World.” And while this Justice League cartoon was originally meant to be a transition into the series’ third season, life, and a tight production schedule, intervened. It still works as such, but feels oddly out of place coming so far down stream, after I (for one) thought Warner’s Animation department had run this idea into the ground. {More}

Movies, Reviews

Saw (2004)

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Swirlycheeks: the sign of madness everywhere.Torture porn will probably never go out of fashion. Somewhere, in the dank bowls of some abandoned warehouse, or the Glade-scented heights of California office buildings, freshly swept by underpaid immigrant workers, filmmakers will continue to feed expendable characters into increasingly-ridiculous grist mills. And people will pay to see it, always and forever more. Self-appointed moral guardians should take note of this and realize the futility of their mission. It’s the way of the Force, kid, get used to it. Move on, and take your goddamned squeamishness with you. The rest of us will be over here, wondering how in the hell people can be so stupid to mistake this for a horror movie? {More}

News from Within the Empire

Memo From New Zealand: Twilight Kills!

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What's a little murder between friends?

Wednesday night, police discovered a twenty-three year “transient” slumped in his car, dead, outside a Wellington, New Zealand theater screening of Eclipse, the latest film installment in the unfortunately-popular Twilight series.

To paraphrase my favorite Quaid, I’ve been saying it for years. (Ain’t I been sayin’ it, Miguel?) Twilight is undeniable blueprint for murder, more potent and viable than all the “violent” video games I’ve ever played in my life put together.

The official cause of death is yet to be determined at press time…but I think we could hazard a few guesses. I’m living proof that puzzling over Twilight series continued success can inspired more than one bout of suicidal depression. Frankly, its nice to know I’m not alone. So I’d like to salute you, anonymous transient man, and let the whole world know that your death was not in vain.

(h/t Jezebel and the NZ Herald, with preemptive apologies to all those actually involved in this tragic loss of life).

Movies, Reviews

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

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Bromance! 2007It’s amazing how unmemorable a film like this can be. Twenty-four hours and it vanishes from your mind like a bad dream. Oh, to wake in a world where Marvel Studios did not chose to produce Fantastic Four films in conjunction with 20th Century Fox.

At once flagrantly pandering and incoherently pretentious, Rise of the Silver Surfer is undeniably worse than its prequel. All thanks to production logic that threw aesthetics under the bus in favor of expediency and marketing tie-ins. Got to crank them out quick before the marks get wise, see? And we are getting wise, though the general mass (who still, even after all this, refuse to read comic books) continues to throw cash at whatever crap’s offered us. And so it goes. {More}

Movies, Reviews

Predator 2 (1990)

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Targeting your children since 1997.
Targeting your children since 1997.

It’s easy enough to feel like the Predator during an opening shootout, when we as the audience have no real idea who the hell anyone is or what’s going on. Except we know at once that we’re trapped in an action film, and a fairly gratuitous one at that. No problemo there. Gratuity and I are old friends. But Predator 2 is unique in that it lets us know, almost from the first, that it knows we know how gratuitous all this is.

I think this extra level of aesthetic intelligence contributed to Predator 2‘s near-universal condemnation. Genre fans failed to appreciate the time, effort and thought that went into this production (at least at the time…most have woken up since, and the rest of you should keep reading – this one’s for you guys), while non-fans…well…we all know there’s no reasoning with them, don’t we? Yes. {More}