2012 (Spoilers)

2012. A day where people shall be crying in the streets, begging for their lives to be spared from this wrath that will engulf all life on Earth and shall toss aside the pitiful race of man and will stomp on our remains. On this day, none can hide or escape its evil. It is the end my friends. Embrace it.

In case you were wondering, I am not referring to December 21, 2012. I’m referring to November 13^th, 2009, the opening day of the new Roland Emmerich film.

Now to be fair, this movie did not intend to be more than a disaster movie, and as far as disaster movies go, this passes with flying colors. As anything else that it tries to be…it fails, and ironically enough, it fails disastrously. It has special effects that are practically blinding, and sometimes are more ridiculous and over-the-top than Woody Harrelson’s acting, but in some cases, it works.

Our story begins in 2009, and the world is changing. Stuff happens. It isn’t important, trust me. 2010, Obama seems to have aged 50 years as the president is played by the corpse of Danny Glover. The head honchos of the world are told that they have a couple years left before we all die. We fast-forward to 2012, where our hero, played by John Cusack (I assume John Cusack was hired before they realized the character was supposed to be a hero) awakes from a nap…and everything goes downhill from there. John Cusack is a deadbeat father, and terrible writer (So is the character he plays). He goes to pick up his kids, played by Thing1 and Thing2, from their home where they live with their mother (Amanda Peet), and her boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).

Sidenote: Now, let me tell you a few things about Gordon. He is the boyfriend to the love interest of the main character. He is stupid. He is selfish. He makes sarcastic remarks. He says things that sound dougebaggy, but actually is the cruel truth. He also is a doctor who specializes in breast implants. I won’t tell you if he lives, or dies, but if you guess that he lives, then you are wrong.

Cusack runs into a crazy guy (Woody Harrelson) who tells him that the world is going to end, and the rich people are buying seats on spaceships...sure ok. So John Cusack is trying to save his family while this Russian millionaire is trying to get to the ship with his kids, girlfriend, and pilot. Also there is a scientist Adrian (some dude) is at the White House preaching fire and brimstone (in a completely scientific manner) and Oliver Platt plays the heartless jackass, Carl Something, who is everything we hate about government mixed together and given a forked tongue (the dude even lets his mother die. Hell, even Darth Vader loved his mother.) Also the president’s daughter is like there or something.

So in case you haven’t noticed by the premise that seems to best Homer’s work in length, this over-complex story suffers from having about 43 more characters than needed. I didn’t care about any of the characters because they all get about 10 minutes of screen time a piece. And they can’t have a basic story either, they have to make things complex. Why? What is the point? If you want a movie with good visuals and action, interesting characters, a message that will change people’s ideas, and a complex and interesting story, you need to get some better writers. It is clear that the people trying to make this story know nothing but earth-shattering kabooms. And that’s not a bad thing, just stick to what you know. This leads me to another grievance I have about this crap. The writing…or lack thereof.

The writing was atrocious. There is an actual scene where two characters are in a grocery store talking about their relationship while an earth-splitting (literally) earthquake is coming right for them. Norman says “This whole thing is tearing us apart.” Queue the earthquake to come crashing in between them. It was at this point I realized that mankind has not learned from the mistakes of Batman and Robin. Woe to you, foul movie.

But the issues with the writing don’t nearly end there. Throughout the movie, we are given these pretentious monologues about how important our decisions are to making this earth a good place. In fact, many of these speeches have such unfathomable cheeriness during the end of days, you just want to slap the bastards and recite some excerpts from Lord of the Flies. And the biggest problem is that this goes on for hours while bigger action could be taking place. But instead we need to listen to a presidential address that sounds like it was written by a five-year-old, and endless speeches about humanity. Does any meaning resonate in those heartfelt speeches?...fuck no.

The characters are blander than a piece of neutral colored cardboard with a picture of a John Cusack cutout holding another piece of neutral colored cardboard. Upon reading the Wikipedia article for the movie, I realized that there was an entire family of characters that I had forgotten about (and they had their own subplot and everything). That’s pretty difficult to do. This movie also has a thorough misunderstanding of how people work. The movie tries to be a popcorn movie for the first 2 hours, making the characters animated, and at the same time, bland. For the last half hour, these people are the kindest, most optimistic idiots ever. Ardian is apparently the only world leader who believes that all people are equal, and gives an entire monologue on why its important to help people. Everyone applauds, save for Carl, who is seething in a tub of his own hatred and evilness while he plots more ways to keep the working man down and steal away all his monies. All of the characters are entirely motivated by one thing each, and they have one thing about them that is unusual. That makes them interesting right? The girl collect hats, The boy likes Gordon better. Gordon is a jackass. Carl is government. Adrian is Jesus. John Cusack is the guy people should be able to relate to (but can’t). You can find deeper character development in Rocket Power (Yes. I went there. Do something Tito.)

It also seems that no one can just die. These people have to top the final destination movies in their grand ridiculousness, and top Passion of the Christ in their meaning (that’s right. Every 2012 death screams “It’s the Jews’ fault”). Seriously, must every single character with a name be a goddamn sacrificial lamb?! How many times to the words “Go on, I’ll catch up with you” or “It’s ok. I’ll stay behind” or “My God, why have you forsaken me?” echoed in our annoyed ears? 2012 has a lot of characters in the movie and by the time they are two hours in, they begin running out of creative ways for people to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. 45 minutes in, the president decides to stay at the White House, to help the people who have been hurt by that mean little Armageddon. 2 hours 20 minutes in, a father falls to his death by pushing his fat oaf of a son to safety. And the worst part is, when it works in war movies, or horror films, what the hell is the point of staying behind in a disaster film. Are you going to hold off the planet for as long as you can? Are you going to shoot down tons of enemy nazi tidal waves, before you are overrun? It doesn’t work like that. Look let’s compare shall we? I will show you how much easier and more entertaining it could have been to kill off characters:

Characters death

Charlie: gets hit with a flying piece of Yellowstone Park, because he would prefer to watch a cool explosion and die, rather than miss it, and live. Final Words “Remember people, you heard it first from Charlie”

Mr. President: Survives an earthquake just so he can be cockslapped by a quadruple disaster. A giant battleship getting carried by a tidal wave to crash into the White House, during an earthquake/nuclear winter. Last words “Baby…I’m coming home.”

How they should have died

Charlie: He should have lived.

Daughter: Peeing her pants. The overwhelming irony probably would have caused me to do the same. Last Words: There is no God.

Gordon: He should have lived as well. Plot twist!

The President: In full body armor, wielding dual shotgun swords, fighting off the waves of Nazi tidal waves, while chewing on the souls of the foul beasts of nature.
Last Words: Fuck you, nature!

Sasha the pilot: lack of hope. He gave up back when he was in Russia, and kicked back with a bottle of vodka and embraced the destruction of the Motherland.
Last Words: Это ваш капитан, подписывая (In English: This is your captain, signing off)

See, I’ve spent 5 minutes and already I like my version better.

Now, is it just me, or do disasters have some sort of vendetta against society in Roland Emmerich films. Day after tomorrow, the coldness practically hunts down Dennis Quaid. In Independence Day…well those were aliens with an agenda, not nature, but still. Disaster follows these people wherever they go. “They live in California? I’ll sink all of Los Angeles”. “They are trying to take off in a plane. I’ll make the runway crumble under them”. “They are in Yellowstone Park? What’s volatile in Yellowstone-Oh ok, I’ll just blow up Yellowstone Park”. “They are still escaping?! Time to throw meteors, fecal matter, and Russians at them. No one can withstand an attack of that multitude!” (Now reread those past few sentences, bearing in mind that pissed off nature sounds like Skelator from He-Man.)

As for the disasters, some of it looks spectacular (the special effects, not the disaster themselves) and some…well how would you react if a 30-foot donut was rolling at you? It’s all well and good, it just is overwhelming sometimes, and after you go through the adrenaline rush, they toss some Ritalin our way for another hour or so.

Overall, this movie is a lot like Glenn Beck. It mistakes being pretentious for being profound, it thinks it knows what its talking about (but really makes no sense), mistakes being annoying for being interesting, and really does nothing more than explosions and destruction. Now had the movie just stuck to the last part mentioned, and maybe made the characters tolerable, I would have given this a good review. And I know that this movie had good intentions, with an interesting idea, and some good potential, but let’s remember, Hitler had good intentions. Sometimes Hollywood swings for the fence and strikes out, and sometimes we think we will have Daniel Day-Lewis, and we get John Cusack.

Final Rating 2.5/10

Where The Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are: Everyone knows what it is; the quintessential children’s story; a creative imaginative story that left every children book author from Dr. Sues to Fredrick Nietzsche seething with envy. The story is simple; A child named Max is a tad bit of a jackass, so he gets sent to his room without any supper (A fate that made all of us quiver when we had our parents read that to us.) Max feels that he’d be better of in a land where the wild things are, so he conjures up some lovable monsters and they have themselves a party (Or rather, a rumpus). After some fun, Max comes to the same realization that MGMT came to in Time to Pretend, and Max goes back home where his real family is. That’s a nice little story, isn’t it.
Now let me tell you about a movie based on that pleasant book and foundation of our childhood. Imagine you have bi-polar disorder, a view on life similar to the latter of the two authors I mentioned previously, and read “Where the Wild things Are” while simultaneously reading Feud’s “Die Traumdeutung”. That night, your diagnosed with every disease ever (even the ones that could only be obtained by eating fecal matter of an ape native to Series-of-Unintelligible-Clicks, Africa) And every person you are related to suffers 3 heart attacks. You have nothing, so you decide to get out that Colt-45 that you haven’t used since back in the day, but right after you finish the suicide note to your friends and remaining relatives, hold the gun up, and are about to pull the trigger you say to yourself “wait, wait, wait. Fuck this shit. I’m gonna make a movie”. This would be an accurate description of how this film came into being.
The story we are given in the movie is very similar to the book, but with a completely different idea in mind. Max (Max Records) is feeling alone in his life. His sister is in her teenage years and doesn’t want to talk to him, his mother (Catherine Keener) is to busy dating Mark Rufflalo to play with him, and his teacher told him in class today that the sun will eventually burn out and everyone will die (presumably right after he told them that their dogs didn’t really go to a farm, Spongebob isn’t real, and their grandparents are playing soul shuffleboard in hell with Santa Claus and Mr. Rogers).* So Max, fed up with the cruelty that real life has shown him, decides that he will run away from home. He runs though the woods, takes a sailboat across the sea, and ends up in a new land where he finds a group of monsters/aspects of his own mind, which are the Wild Things. There is Carol (James Gandolfini)/Max’s doubt, rage and sadness; KW (Lauren Ambrose)/ creative, and adventurous; Ira (Forest Whitaker)/ Understanding, and caring; Judith (Catherine O’Hara)/ Hopelessness and jealousy, Douglas (Chris Cooper)/ Courage and reason, Alexander (Paul Dano)/ Loneliness and Awkwardness and Bull/ Shyness.
These emotions are not just confined to the characters. The movie has an excellent way of establishing these emotions in certain scenes. Every scene has a clear mood that it’s trying to present, and it works tremendously in most scenes. The scenes where everyone rejoices their first day of having a new king, and Carol and Max’s discussion on the devolving of the world and possible death of the sun how completely different tones and it works wonderfully.
The writing in this movie is simple but so well done. Since the monsters are all creations of Max, they all talk like Max, and they all learn from each other. Max’s self-journey shows him something about himself and the world that he lives in. Granted, what it shows him is that the world is cruel, people suck, and exposes him to the fullest of Hobbsian theory (Thank God he didn’t make a rule that only the one with the conch shell could speak).
There are some complaints I have. Some of the scenes become repetitive since, for the most part, the characters are static or suffer from Holden Caulfield syndrome*. As enjoyable as the characters are, they are held down by the fact that they each get 1/7 of Max’s personality and so many of the lines they say, or problems they face are the same thing. I eventually get quite angry with Carol since whenever there was something he would disagree with, he would storm away angrily and cause tensions to rise. There are times when the film seemed to drag on, and became repetitive in its conflicts (and there is never a lack of conflicts).
Now don’t get me wrong, I loved this film. It was just so amazingly depressing. I would recommend that parents take their kids to see it, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea since even today I can remember crying at the end of “Doug’s First Movie Ever” (But come on. They loved that sea creature so much. Why did it have to leave?)
But the real reason I would recommend it to kids is that its honest. The movie just sort of tells kids that “hey, this is life. Its shitty, people will push you down, you won’t get what you want, and God is dead” I guarantee you won’t get that harsh realism from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It also understands how kids think, and so it becomes so much more sincere when they have this real person doing what any kid would do. The interactions between Max and his mother, and Max and his sister and her friends are exactly what we do as kids (minus dressing in a wolf/bear/Sasquatch suit). And when Max is in the world of the Wild Things, we remember back to the days when we dreamed about that sort of thing; Where we left the constricts of reality and traveled to our mind’s utopia where…everyone suffers the same problems as those in reality. And this leads to why teens and adults should see it as well. It is an interesting character study of ourselves back in the day. This whole film is just watching the inner workings of this very strange child’s mind.
This movie was very well done, was far more then enjoyable, gives us an interesting look at the life and mind of a child, and although it was more depressing than Requiem For a Dream, it offers an important lesson conveyed through excellent writing, interesting characters, and a relatable yet original imagination.
Final Rating: 8.5/10
Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before the summer turns to dust
And if the children
Don’t grow up
Our bodies get bigger
But our hearts get torn up
We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust
I guess we’ll just have to adjust
-Arcade Fire
* If for some reason, Mr. Rogers did go to hell, he would have destroyed it in a day and taken his place at the round table next to Jesus.
*Holden Caulfield syndrome- when it is in the charters nature to prevent a story from developing or moving in an interesting direction.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself (Spoilers)

In the beginning, there was The Great Train Robbery. This was the first film created and was the beginning of something epic. Something that I want to be a part of. Something magnificent, creative, interesting, and unique. I talk of course about the film industry. Now as the years went on, people realized the potential for artistically expressing a story through the narrative of film. There was Citizen Cane, and Cassablanca. There were Alfred Hitchcocks and Stanley Kubricks and Martin Scorceses and Quentin Tarintinos. Then eventually there was an idea. Movies=Monies. Some credit this idea to the Terminators who went back in time and took over many corporations and replaced all people with heartless robots (Ironically enough, James Cameron has, in many ways, been responsible for the terminators because of Titanic, which remains the highest-grossing-film of all time.) Regardless, films began playing to audiences, which was good because they were entertaining people. Then they started to eliminate originality and just threw something that would put people in the seats. This is one thing that I really hate. Transformers 2 was the epitome of this idea.
Now for the twist. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself isn’t like those movies in the least. (I know!) See, the first paragraph was just to give you an idea of what bad movies are for the most part. This movie is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Tyler Perry isn’t whoring himself out in the way I thought before I saw this movie. Sure, he is making easy jokes, and is a black director making black exploitation movies but its more than that. Tyler Perry tries hard to convey an inspiring story of change for the better and the good in people prevailing over greed and selfishness. That being said…It is, in many ways, worse than Transformers 2.
That’s right. Let those words sink in. Have they stained your soul yet? Just read that sentence over until your spirit is thoroughly broken. In terms of my standards for what films deserve to be, and how they should be treated, sure, Transformers 2 is a crime against humanity since it is unoriginal, stupid, pointless, violent, and did nothing other than try to make money. However, when a movie decides that it is going to be a unique and special story, on its own, with no help from Hollywood, I am very upset when it comes out looking like this movie. Its like a situation where there are two students. One student is idiotic, immature and could have written his report but instead just smoked weed, watched porn, and slept for 15 hours (and the worst part is that people like him). The other student is bright, and shows great effort in class and cares about his work but then wrote a paper just as bad as Stoner McJackoff. I feel less upset with the kid who is lazy and just doesn’t have the brain capacity to write a good paper, than with the student who could have written an excellent paper. ICDBABM is the latter of the two students. Don’t push the metaphor to far though. I am not saying Tyler Perry has the potential to make good movies. I’m saying that he wants to be unique and do things himself, and he tries very hard, but the movies he makes just suck.
It was unoriginal, not funny, dull, pointless and just frustrating. This movie is so stupid, so ridiculous, so immensely unsatisfying, I found myself thinking how? How could Tyler Perry have had 2 box office hits in one year that were essentially the same movie. Madea’s family Reunion made more money than Watchmen did! Have you lost faith in humanity yet?
I will do my best to remain calm and collected throughout this review, though no guarantees can be made. Here it is; one of the worst movies of the decade: I Can Do Bad All By Myself.
STORY
The movie opens on the famous Tyler Perry character, Madea. Madea is put in almost every Tyler Perry movie and she always will make people pay money to see the garbage, and all the movies she is not in is a box office flop (Did you see The Family That Preys? I didn’t think so). So Madea is in bed and wakes up to a sound in her kitchen. She finds that three children (played by 3 unpleasant actors) are trying to rob her. She sits them down and finds out that their mother is dead and their grandmother never came home, and they only have one other relative, a girl named April (Taraji P. Henson). April works at a club and in her spare time enjoys drinking, having sex with married men, drinking, sleeping, yelling at people, and drinking again (her and Stoner McJackoff would make a lovely couple). April reluctantly allows the kids to stay with her. Eventually a Man named Sandino ( played by Adam “Seriously-this-is-the-bes

t-actor-Mexico-has-to-offer” Rodriguez) is sent by the church to help April around the house (the stench of an inevitable romance can be smelt from a mile away). From this point on, the movie just sorta tossed a bunch of events together and prayed that they made sense. April’s mother dies, the kids are upset, especially the girl who looks after her two younger brothers. Madea just sorta shows up every so often. The man April is seeing suddenly has very lustful thoughts for the girl (yes, that 16 year-old girl). April changes her ways, but then changes her mind about changing her ways, and re-changes her ways after that... Also the movie just decided to become a musical…trust me, you don’t even want me to talk about the writing in this “film”.
CHARACTERS
Taraji P. Henson as April: Henson is a talented actress in my opinion (though all of her work I’ve seen is this movie, Smokin Aces and her 5 minutes in Benjamin Button) though in this movie, the dialogue and 2-dimensional character of April makes it relatively difficult for her to give an amazing performance. Words like loathe, disdain, hatred, and anger don’t even begin to describe my feelings for this character (and I should point out that this is a compliment since I was surprised Tyler Perry made me have feelings of any kind for his characters). She changes without reason, she starts off as pure evil for no reason, and is impossible to feel sorry for her. This is one of the main problems with this movie. A main character that can’t be relatable, likable, or tolerable.
Adam Rodriguez as Sandino: Congratulations to this man for outdoing all other performances in blandness, worthlessness and leaving an impression the size of a shriveled pea (That is the strangest metaphor I have ever made…I don’t know why I wrote that. That was just…silly). This character is not likable for the opposite reason April is. Sandino is depicted as Jesus. Not Jesus-like, but just Jesus. He does not wrong, he doesn’t change, he is kind to everybody, and the only reason people listened to him was because of his six-pack abs. Rodriguez is a terrible actor, and I would ever go so far as to say that he is the male equivalent of a megan fox.
Tyler Perry as Joe and Madea: These creations of Mr. Perry are considered funny. These unoriginal, stereotypical, violent, unlikable people are considered funny. Do not want.
The three children: the girl- she’s pretty much the same as April except she cares about two people; her brothers. Apart from that, she’s kinda the same. She’s mean, selfish, and like most characters in the movie, has a moral compass that points in only one direction. Fat kid-he has one line of dialogue and it is the most laughable thing ever. Little kid- I have nothing against this kid. Hell, he just might be the best actor in this movie.
Brian White as Randy: No. Not “RAAAAANDY”. Randy. The man made out of concentrated evil. He isn’t an antagonist, he is Satin, and the movie makes that abundantly clear. Whenever he speaks, the most overly-ominous music plays in the background. Every word he says hints that he wishes to rape or kill something in the near future…also he becomes a pedophile 30 minutes in. Now this may sound ridiculous because...well, it is. I can’t really say much on the actor, because the character was so damn distracting. I guess he was good but I just can’t talk about him anymore.
TO MAKE THINGS CLEARER
Now, from what I’ve described so far has shown that the movie isn’t anything amazing, the characters are terrible, and the story makes the opposite of sense. It’s a very simple story with a happy ending and everything is ok in the end. Usual bullshit, nothing new is brought to the table, so therefore the movie should be around a 3. Not the worst thing, but not the best. But Tyler Perry’s decisions as a director drag this down even more. Forget the crapping characters, crappy writing, and crappy story. The actions in this movie are so…senseless I must further explain. I have compiled a list of 10 Moments that were so ridiculous, they made me laugh out loud in the theater and I was yelled at by others who were there to enjoy the movie. One lady got pissed off at my friend, who’s laughter was even worse, and she told him “he should shut the hell up and maybe he’ll learn something”. Now I am big on respect and I have to say that this person was completely justified in the first clause of her sentence. The second clause made her lose all credibility.(She also didn’t say please or asked us to be quiet). Regardless of the fact that these people liked the movie, and disliked us, I must show you the truth. So here are the top 10 whatthefuckmovie? Moments
Medea…why?: I should preface this by saying that Madea did have a funny moment in the movie. There is one part where she is trying to explain a Bible passage and screws up the story. That was mildly amusing. Now then, I hate this character. She is used as a stereotype to get laughs (which I think is one of the lowest of lows. Take some notes Michael Bay you cracker-ass hate monger)
She died!: Ok, this one has to do with acting, and this was the thing that got me some glares. The minister comes to April’s home and the audience can obviously guess at this point that the mother is dead. They walk in with a package, and sit April down. She asks where her mother is and the priest responds in the most over-dramatic voice “she died!” this alone made me laugh. I tried to gain control because I don’t want to disturb the people watching the movie. They the priest explains how her mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. The dialogue was so odd and uncomfortable and I was about ready to burst into tears of laughter. And then he pretty much says “oh by the way. This package we brought. They are her remains. She was cremated. Bye now.” This made me lol.
Ass zapping: This is one of the worst shot scenes. Ever. Let me paint a picture. Randy just tried to rape Jennifer. He claims she tried to pay him to have sex with her and she’s like “he tried to rape me”. April talks to Randy who is taking a bath. This dialogue happens
A: What happened?
R: I told you baby.
A: What happened Randy?
R: I told you what happened.
A: What did you do?
R: I didn’t do anything baby.
A: What happened?
R: I told you, she tried to offer me money to have sex with her.
A: What happened?
R: Baby? I told you.
She then leaves for a moment and comes back carrying a radio. Shit just got intense. Now I am actually interested in what will happen here. She Dangles the radio over the tub and demands that he tells the truth. She continues to shout at him and Sandino tries to talk her out of murder. She finally is overcome with anger and drops the radio. Randy tries to leap out of the tub, but one foot doesn’t get out in time and we then witness about 5 seconds of his ass jumping up, down, left, and right all over the screen, shattering any tension in the scene that was created.
Rousseau/Hobbs: This further explains the deplorable dialogue that is constantly dribbled out of the mouths of these scum and vermin (who discuss their heroine and child pornography). Every single conversation that takes place between Sandino and April, Sandino and Jennifer (little girl), and Jennifer and April can be boiled down to the single sentence arguments of the philosophers Rousseau and Hobbs. Every conversation is “man is generally good” “No. Bad is generally corrupt and evil and power driven” “love” “hate” “optimism” “realism”. This goes on for almost 2 hours. This explains why the characters are so dull. They just repeat one line over and over again. And when they change they just say “…yeah. Your right. Man is generally good”. The conversations are never brought anywhere. Now some people argue that the movie’s dialogue is realistic and should be praised for originality. 1) realistic dialogue is often insightful, or funny. 2) Tarintino and Kevin Smith write realistic dialogue. And they have likable characters to back it up. 3) Real people have a reason to say what they say, and they don’t just repeat themselves for 2 hours. 4) When people change, they do so for a reason. Like something amazing or terrible happens to them or they meet someone special or something. Anything!
Minister singing: I very rarely state that movies are “too long” in fact all the best movies are longer ones. Pulp fiction, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, Inglourious Basterds, and Braveheart are all at least 2 and a half hours. But this movie was looooooong. One of the contributing factors was that every scene that takes place in the church is just 10 minutes of the priest singing. What does this accomplish?: nothing. Does it change anything in the story: not really.
Continuity fail: Again, I very rarely complain about continuity errors in movies, but this was just stupidity to the highest degree. Scene: Woman wearing red dress in club on stage with band singing. Cuts briefly to April. Cut back. Scene: same girl, same song, but now blue dress, different background, different club, different audience, and a different freaking band! How does one get away with something like that. And its not like it was intentional either, because there was dialogue occurring before song, and then after its over, the woman gets off stage and continues her dialogue with the other character. This is just not fair!
Jesus to pedophile: Pedophilia is not a joking matter. It is also very difficult to handle in a movie. This movie can’t even handle a scene where a woman sings, do you think they can take on child rape? Randy is depicted as the greatest guy in the world, but then he sees Jenifer and within 5 seconds just devolves into Beelzebub. Why? Why the sudden interest? Tell me movie. Tell me! Explain! Then later in the movie, April, for nowhere, makes the accusation that Sandino must also be a child molester because he’s “so nice and good to children”. She actually says that he is so nice, he must rape children….just…I don’t get it.
Pedophile to jesus: About 5 minutes later, She apologizes to Sandino and thoroughly makes out with him. Then they get married and sing and dance and adopt the kids and they all live as a happy family for ever. Oh no, I hope I didn’t spoil the movie for you.
Musical minus fun: This movie is a musical. It has many musical numbers that make up about 40 minutes of the movie. However, these songs are all pointless, but are made to seem to have purpose as every time the song ends, a character is changed through…magic? Regardless, the songs suck, and a already touched upon the horrid church preaching songs.
Brain hemorrhage montage: This is hilarious and I feel like a terrible person for laughing at this. In one of the many musical numbers, the scene cuts to April’s mother (this is the only time she is in the film) and we watch her get on the bus. The camera focuses on her as we WATCH HER HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE AND DIE! This is supposed to be an emotional moment, but the way its shot is just hilarious. Death is not funny. Death to cinematic quality is even less funny. Knowing that you paid 10 dollars and 2 hours of your life to suffer through this: priceless laughter. There are some things money should not be spent on.
Too Much Optimism: now at this point, I’m entertaining the idea of suicide using nothing but a straw and an empty bag of M&M’s. But then the movie wraps up, and boy if they could make this story any fluffier. The movie teaches us that faith in Jesus (not Sandino. The real Jesus) heals all and makes things better (putting my views on religion aside, that’s just plain fucking stupid). It teaches us that everyone is good (putting my views on morality aside, that’s more optimistic than every Disney movie ending ever). And it teaches us that kindness will make the world a better place. (there is something I agree with. The only problem is that PEOPLE CAN’T JUST TURN INTO PEACEMAKERS OVER THE COURSE OF A HEMORRHAGE MONTAGE!
OVERALL
This movie is painfully bad, and might be the worst movie of the decade. Though I think Transformers 2 is a worse movie, I would rather watch it than this movie. Its brainless, odd, pointless, and overall is like the blood stain on my carpet. It’s a mess that you can never clean up because the guilt will remain with you, and nothing about it is funny, and nothing about it makes you understand what it means to be a good person (also someone died). This movie is bad. Some of the worst writing, worst acting, worst directing I’ve ever seen.
Mr. Perry I would like to challenge you in a battle to the pain. I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand you warthog-faced buffoon. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankle, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right. But your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be your to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out “dear god, what is that thing” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish. Wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Final rating:1/10

9

9. The new movie produced by Tim Burton and director of Wanted (name not important), is an animated film with a darker tone than most, taking place in a post apocalyptic world and jumping into the lives of the last surviving creatures; 9 ragdolls given the gift of life. So how does this movie fair as a Burton film? Or how does it stand in comparison to other animated movies or movies in general? The answer to all of these rhetorical questions; It was one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
I was very excited to see this movie, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be bad. It’s a movie about ragdolls in the apocalypse (Typical Burton). The animation looked fantastic, and Tim Burton, well..its fucking Tim Burton. But although the animation was excellent, it couldn’t save the movie from its numerous disastrous mistakes.
STORY
This movie focused a lot on the effects of the movie, and didn’t take into account the fact that story is often needed to make a movie. This entire film was based off a 9-minute short film and that’s all this movie really is; an extended short film that just uses cool visuals and terrible dialogue as filler space.
Now as I am writing this review, I’m keeping in mind that I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but then I also realize that there is no story to spoil. So I will give the basic idea of the movie (if there is one) and try not to talk about any key events in the movie (because there are just so damn many).
So life has ended on earth. Mankind had been trying to kill each other since the beginning of time, now they finally had the tools to finish the job (I feel the need to put in at least one Watchmen quote in about every single review). But somehow, life continued as 9 ragdolls were given a soul by a scientist, who died transferring his soul into them (apparently he was confused on how Horcruxes worked). 9, waking up in an empty world, comes across another ragdoll, 2. 2 tells him that he is a friend and that they should get to a safe place. And Just as he says it, a creepy robot rat skeleton thing (typical Burton) attacks the two, and 9, in standard heroic fashion, hides in a can, while 2 gets dragged away. Oh sad face. I miss this character that we grew to love in the 3 bland lines of dialogue he had. 9 reaches the others; 1,5,6 and 8. 1 is a douchebag. 8 is a tool. 6 is a nutcase. And 5 is John C. Reilly. That about sums up their characters. After 5 more bland lines of dialogue, 9 and 5 go to save 2, and they find him in an abandoned factory, where they also find 7. But 9, in heroic fashion, activates a huge evil robot who has no other purpose than to consume souls, and kills 2. And 9,5, and 7, in heroic fashion, flee. They meet up with the twins, 3 and 4 and together, they try to figure out what must be done in order to survive…..or something.
This movie has some of the most horrendous dialogue I have ever heard. I haven't heard words as bad as this since Batman and Robin. It isn’t pointless dialogue, or dialogue that tries to be funny but isn’t (and thank god for that, since the last time Tim Burton went funny was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure….yeah). But this writing is so bland, overly simplistic, and just fucking stupid. These are actual quotes in the movie: “we need to find him” “no” “lets go” “do it” “I’ll do it” “ill go” “no” “we need to be safe” “they helped us. Now we should help them” “NO” “go” “find the source” “NOOOOOOOOO”. All thats missing is "Its the car. Chicks dig the car". This bad writing leads to the next problem. Bad story.
There is no plot here. There could have been, but there wasn’t. Its just ragdolls trying to survive. That’s it. Despite the fact that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, the problems they encounter are really rather insignificant since they are just ragdolls. There is nothing compelling, nothing that is remotely interesting, and nothing meaningful in this movie. Shane Acker had many chances to make this movie have some sort of message, but he never does. It’s a sci-fi movie where mankind killed itself out of their greed for power. That’s far too easy. Talk about how mankind’s savage nature will inevitably lead to its destruction (watchmen quote 2), talk about how the advancement in technology makes man lose sight of what really matters in the world. Wall-E understood what happens when mankind screws with technology. That is a theme that is beaten to death, and it still didn’t occur to Mr. Acker, that his movie needed to make some sort of statement.
As many of you know, I'm kinda big on story. I love character development and good dialogue more than anything in movies (this is why I like Pulp Fiction, 25th Hour, Watchmen, and the show LOST and care slightly less for Transformers, and Year One). So because of the fact that this movie is lacking in both story and characters is well...quite sad.
CHARACTERS
9- Elijah Wood did a decent voice acting job though I think he was just hired because he is really good at shouting epic NO’s. Despite the acting, 9 is a very unlikable character who is the main cause of everything bad that happens in the movie.
8- Although people disagree with me, 8 was my favorite character. Sure he’s a dick to people, and he just follows orders from 1, but still, he’s badass. And he’s responsible for me favorite part of the movie: He gets high off of putting a magnet to his head. And the best part of his character is that he doesn’t speak.
7- Jennifer Connolly plays 7, a badass…woman? What’s this nonsense. A female defend the males from danger in the future? How absurd. Well, despite her fighting ability, she, like most of the characters, has no personality. She is the lover, girlfriend, wife, daughter, niece, mother, cousin, pet, slave, or something of 2. 2 dies. She cries. 5 minutes later she is ok….I know these ragdolls only have 1/9 of a soul apiece but that is just stupid, movie. This character sucks, and has no emotion. Moving on.
6- This is another typical character that we have seen in a plenty of other movies. That guy who at the beginning of the movie is insane, but at the end it turns out he was right all along. Not much to say here. There really is not development.
5- How did John C. Riley do this badly? I think he is a great actor (when he does dramatic movies.[No, Step Brothers does not count as a dramatic movie]). His voice acting was just very…fake. Although partial blame goes to the writers (and the lack of writing they did) Riley just doesn’t seem to add much. Sorry.
4- nothing. They can’t speak...yeah
3- nothing. They can’t speak… yeah
2- He dies like 5 minutes in. I got nothing.
1-This character is one of the more interesting ones (though that doesn’t say much). 1 is the oldest of the group and is considered their leader. He is not a man of action, but wants to keep everyone safe, even if that means someone getting killed off. But again, because of the writers hatred of storytelling and character development, 1 never changes or gets a chance to be explained. Like every other character, he ends up becoming very bland.
The Brain- ok, this is one of the better things in the movie. The brain is a terrifying machine created as an almost doomsday weapon by the humans. It is destructive, intelligent, and scary. A worthy antagonist, though it was still brought down a bit by the story. Oh well.
OVERALL
There is no story, the characters aren’t developed, they aren’t likable, and they don’t do anything except for fighting robots (and they don’t even do much of that since this movie was only 75 minutes long). This movie has the depth of a small puddle, and the intelligence of…a small puddle. It did nothing but provide a slight amount of amusement from the visuals, but that was only briefly entertaining, and despite the fact that it doesn’t last long, it gets boring very quickly; much like…a small puddle. This movie had such potential; such promise, but it squandered its gifts of decent effects and tossed aside the things that mattered like story and characters, and so 9 is nothing more than a small puddle in the world of cinema.
Final rating: 3/10

(500) Days of Summer

This is the story of boy meets girl. The boy Tom Hanson, grew up believing that he would never truly be happy until he found the one. The girl, Summer Finn, did not share this belief. You should know up front, this is not a love story.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Before we dive in, I would like to talk about a few other things not related to this movie. School has started, and I have very little free time, so reviews will now be posted weekly (on Friday Saturday or Sunday depending on how much writing I get done). What I have been considering for a while is several things 1) Instead of writing facebook notes, getting a blog and putting reviews there, 2) doing video blogs instead of writing the movies and possibly adding them to youtube 3) getting a website and posting all my movie things like reviews, upcoming projects, other movie thoughts etc.
So I want to know what you guys think. In addition to writing your thoughts on my review (because I know you all will) please comment on what you suggest I should do in the future.
AAAAAAAAAAND WE’RE BACK
I went to the theater with every intention of seeing Taking Woodstock. However due to the arguments of my friends (and when I say arguments, I mean bitching and moaning), we saw 500 Days of Summer. While in the theater, I came to two realizations. 1) Why bother with Taking Woodstock? Ang Lee is a terrible director. And 2) Wow. This movie is incredible. I shall elaborate on thought number 2. 500 Days of Summer is one of the most original, realistic and interesting movies of the year (since that was the exact statement I used to describe District 9, I will have to be more specific). 500 Days of Summer is real experience of a relationship, the end of a relationship, the attempts to make it work, and everything in between. It is not cliché, nor overwhelming with joy. It’s unique, meaningful, powerful, charming, and overall, very enjoyable.
STORY
We are told a story about a relationship between a greeting card writer/artist/ want-to-be architect Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and a secretary/free spirit/artist/bard/cleric,

Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel). The story is not told in chronological order, and we open midway through the (500) days, or if I want to show off what I learned from Freshman English class, we open “in medias res”, where Tom is in a state of depression because he was dumped. We then skip around to the break-up, the first time they meet, they first time they kiss, the progression of their relationship, their friendly argument about the coolness level of Ringo Starr, to their heated arguments about their relationship and love. (And for the record, I’m with Tom. Ringo sucks.)
This movie captures the attention of their audience with the narrator’s first line ending with “You should know up front, this is not a love story”. The narrator is a deceitful and evil man, who wishes to trick your children. This is a love story. And…..I loved it. This movie is all about love, but in the way that it’s about different perceptions of love, relationships, and life. It is not a romantic-comedy, or at the very least, not like what romantic comedies have been turned into (by the way, Sandra Bullock….stop it). This movie is quite romantic, and quite funny, but its so much more than that. This movie is charming and funny in a very original way. The joy that Tom and Summer experience is so real, that I felt like I was experiencing the same adventures they were (and that takes quite some talent from the writer, director, and actors). Take for example the elevator scene (The one from the trailer for the movie, not the one from Martin Scorcese’s “The Departed”. That is a far different range of emotions I felt there.) The elevator scene was a single shot showing the two in the elevator and she likes the same music he does. It’s something so very simple, so very real, that you cannot help but smile when watching. They have real conversations that real couples would have. (slight spoiler) They play the penis game in the park! It’s so…how could no movie about relationships have that?!
They really like each other, and care about each other, and it’s a beautiful thing. But this movie also shows the harshness of a relationship, and the brutal truth that “the one” will walk into your life. It gives us a philosophy that one must live life, and realize that there is no such thing as fate, or love at first sight, or true love, or the idea that everything that should happen, will. Love is complicated, and often cruel, and ultimately will leave you with nothing but terrible feelings and polluted memories…but we have to do it anyway. It happens.
The unique storytelling is not only involved in the “day-skipping” and interesting view on love, but director Marc Webb makes many interesting scene choices such as splitting a scene into two simultaneous scenes, one of “reality” and one of “expectation”, as well as a fully choreographed dance number (I know, it’s even more awesome than High-School Musical 7: We’re Still Shamelessly Continuing This Franchise Because It Makes Far More Money Than Movies Like Inglourious Basterds Despite the Fact That They Have Real Quality That We Lack: Seriously Movie-Goers Today Are So Stupid and Will Watch Anything). The movie has an “artsy and independent” look about it and although I find it annoying in many movies, this movie is one of the rare exceptions (another exception that comes to mind is Juno if that visual helps). Though really it’s the story of the film that matters, and this movie most definitely gets two thumbs up for it.
Side note: I loved the soundtrack for this. The soundtrack, writing, and directing all are excellent.

CHARACTERS
Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel did not just create characters in this movie. They created a relationship. I cannot stress enough how real this movie is when it comes to relationships, and shows Ian Deming how sad he is to have not enjoyed this experience and instead, stays at home alone all day writing stupid movie reviews (I’m just kidding. The gun isn’t loaded)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom Hanson: Gordon-Levitt plays the embodiment of male emotion (emotion, not action). He isn’t the Dr. Perfect with a P.H.D. in kicking ass and being good-looking. He is a simple person, leading a simple life, and a girl named Summer walks into his life. He is about finding true love, and wanting someone to be with that he can be with forever. He is a likable character, and we follow him through his 500 days, empathizing with him, laughing with him, hating him, loving him, and understanding him. What I found interesting is that not a lot is explained about his character at all, but character development isn’t really needed, because we feel that we have known him our whole life (or he is us…A better looking, more successful, and equally ambitious version of us). That’s the brilliance of this movie and its characters. We never feel like an action is stupid or unlikely because we feel so connected to the characters that we understand everything they do (I mean come on. What guy who has gained new confidence does not look into the mirror and see Han Solo. You are brilliant, movie! Brilliant!) Joseph Gordon-Levitt wins. Nuff said.
Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn: Now, if I again want to show what I learned from over 2 years of English class at my school, it’s that women are better people than men. Now if there is one thing that I have learned from romantic comedies, it’s that women treat Sex and the City as the Bible, the Bible tells them that they must find a man without flaws, and must have an amazing chest, an English accent, fangs, or is the most popular boy in school (Now I say this jokingly but that seriously covers most Matthew McConaughey movies, all Hugh Grant movies, Many Sandra Bullock movies, High school musical, Twilight, and all Twilight rip-offs [What living person could possibly have any dignity in ripping off Twilight is beyond me])…..Now since English class has taught me one thing, and romantic-comedies have taught another, I must believe that one is lying (and the 500 days narrator has lied before.) Now that my jokes are completely exhausted, and I have no idea what I’m talking about, let’s start talking about Zooey Deschanel’s performance.
Summer is another very likable character, and like Tom is depicted in the opposite way that cardboard- I mean characters are in romantic-comedies. She is a free spirit, and is all about living in the moment, and doing what you love (and if one person comments “then she must love Tom” I will hunt you and kill you in a way that Hugo Stiglitz would be proud of). Deschanel is a bit typecast for this role, but it doesn’t bother me. Her roles are interesting. I feel like I can relate to her character as well, but quite frankly, she was more interesting in Tom, so her lack of character story bothered me a bit. Regardless she does an excellent job.
Tom’s friends: I’m too lazy to look on imdb for their names. Rest assured, they do their job well enough. They are a bit cliché but it’s all good. It didn’t hinder the movie. They added some funny material. Good for you.
Chloe Moretz as Tom’s……sister?: the movie is quite unclear about her relation to Tom, but its assumed it is his sister. She’s good too.
OVERALL
Despite criticizing true love, and magical happy endings and greatness, (500) Days of Summer, ironically enough, was magical in its greatness. Its one of the best romantic comedies/romance movies I’ve ever seen. Granted, its no Eternal Sunshine, but it is damn good. Characters you care about, an interesting story, and unique way of telling that story and showing those characters makes this movie indescribably awesome (I know its contradictory since I’ve just described it, but trust me when I say that I haven’t at all captured the true meaning and quality of story in this review). So I absolutely recommend this movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love, and you will walk out of the theater deep in thought.
Right then, I’m dangerously tired right now, so if you’ll excuse me, I have a sleep to fall bed in.
Final Rating: 8.5/10

District 9

District 9, The movie of rookie director Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter “The Ringmaster” Jackson, is without a doubt, one of the best movies of the summer, and is one of the rare sci-fi movies that will make you proud of being a nerd. This movie did more than just keep me awake in my seat for an hour and 45 minutes, but it was so captivating, original, and badass, that it physically blew my mind (it is a very messy and embarrassing story, that I do not wish to share). Despite being a summer blockbuster, this movie was so different, and invented its own rules for storytelling.
Now, all movies have their flaws, and this is no exception. Some of the choices the director made I disagreed with, but apart from the small things I disliked, this movie was original, intelligent, cool, interesting, thought-provoking, and just simply oozing awesomeness. Let’s get to it.

STORY
Now it is difficult for me to say anything without spoiling the movie due to the fact that the trailers reveal very little. The story takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, where alien life forms have landed, or rather, been stranded. They have been on Earth for over 20 years and probably will remain forever. All of this information and history of the aliens is told to us by several MNU (Multi-National United) officials interviewed for a documentary. One man, Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), is put in charge of relocating all of the aliens to District 10, a more secure place, that is much farther away from the people of Johannesburg, who have become quite angry with the aliens living in their city. One alien, Christopher Johnson, realizes that they are not allowed to evict him from his home and refuses to leave.
And that’s really all I’m allowed to tell. I can say though, that this alternative world that is created is quite realistic because of the excellent detail, and the way they explain it (documentary format) is very well done. The entire movie is not shot that way though, only the first act, which I also liked. The first act of the movie, is an introduction, an explanation, and sets up the rest of the film while also serving as a different film on its own. As a documentary, it talks about the changes that are made when the aliens land, how they are treated, how the public feels, and how the government reacted. The alien discrimination was very interesting, and I think if the entire movie was a documentary about that sort of thing, it may have been worth watching (in a much different way than the actual movie). I enjoyed how they used the short documentary to give us an idea of what the government is like in the situation, and shows the aliens as more than just things from another planet, but as a similar race that, although not treated as such, seem very human. (I also think its hilarious that this discrimination is happening in South Africa[you know, in an ironic way. Discrimination itself is not funny and a major issue in today’s society and Spike Lee is currently holding a gun to my head telling me what to say]). So overall, first act is great, and I liked the documentary (and the camera is steadier than the Bourne movies. Thank God.)
Second act: development of the characters Wikus and Christopher. Though most of the stuff about this belongs in my review of the characters, I can say that the second act was very well done as well, moving the story along, and really getting you to sympathize with both characters, despite them being almost total opposites. Also, I’m not sure if it was because of the first act being a documentary, or the way the story in the second act was set up, but the pacing seemed to be slow at points. The movie was only an hour and 45 minutes but it seemed like it was a bit over 2 hours. I was never bored at any time in the movie, and it was never really “slow”, but it just seemed longer than it was. Regardless, second act is win.
Third act: This is what an action movie should look like. This was intense. What so many action movies tend to do (superhero movies are the worst with it) is that they have a good opening action scene, a action scene in act 2 that kicks ass, and then there is an anticlimactic battle at the end. I don’t think D9 really fits into the “Action” genre, and the final scene still left a boot print on the buttocks’ of many. It was so much action without ever being overwhelmed. There is no quick editing that ruins the scene, there is never a time when you can’t see what’s going on, and there is never a time when you feel disappointed or they had an opportunity to go bigger with the action and effects. 15 seconds into the scene, it was already better than anything Transformers 2 did. The effects were used perfectly and were far more real than what I’ve seen in any other movie. Blomkamp uses the effects without ever exaggerating them or relying on them, and that’s what makes these effects better than what James Cameron promised to us (I only use “promised” since it doesn’t seem like he’s actually going to give us something. Seriously, Mr. Cameron, after Terminator 2 things just went downhill didn’t they?). So overall, third act: A+.
Now complaints: Although it goes along with the realistic approach, I still think the writing is weak. A necessary sacrifice in order to be believable, but since writing always is one of the more important things for me, I just did not like it. But I’m putting this movie in a bad position since I’d be unhappy with it if it did have good and interesting writing since it wouldn’t fit. So really “good writing” changes definition with story, so it succeeds, it just ain’t my cup of tea.
The story is good; it’s just a bit deceitful. For the documentary, we are given something far different than the rest of the story. I would have liked it if the movie had focused a bit more on the alien discrimination, and the government’s greedy and selfish motivation for what they do. But in the end, its all there, just more subtle. And its not about that, its more of an underlying plot point. It’s really about Wikus and Christopher, and it’s pointless to say that there should have been more of the other plot since that would be a different movie entirely. So I guess its not an argument, just a suggestion for District 10.

CHARACTERS
Sharlto Copley as Wikus van de Merwe: First thing is first; he deserves an Oscar nomination. Now, the fact that this is the first time he has ever acted in a movie is beyond incredible since so few actors ever have a great performance in the first movie they are in (except for Ed Norton. Primal Fear. He is awesome.Bow before his might.) Apart from being sincere, realistic, and likable, Copley had to improvise most of the dialogue in the movie, only being sure to hit the beats Blomkamp wanted. This guy has skill. He can be funny one moment, tragic the next, intimidating, caring, and back to funny again within 10 minutes. He is able to develop his character through his actions and emotions, without ever really having to say something.
Jason Cope as Christopher Johnson: Jason Cope is the voice of the alien, Christopher Johnson (his immigration name of course). Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have to mention a CGI character, but this is the best CGI character since Gollum in Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”. The character is so real, and obviously Copley’s ability to have a conversation with a ball on a stick the will later become a humanoid though special effects helps both performances. The conversations are so casual and ordinary, you really forget that one of the characters in the conversation was made by a computer. The creatures don't even speak English, but if you look at their beautiful faces, you feel everything they feel. The design of the creatures was also original (I know I’ve used that word 20 times now, but this movie just bleeds originality). The creatures “barbaric” nature, and morality give a different (original) take on other “intelligent life forms” and this is shown in the way they look. Dealing with drug lords and giving them weapons for cat food, going through garbage, prostituting themselves, and not taking care of themselves all becomes more believable when you see what they look like. Overall, I liked the way they looked. It’s not like they look like some stupid blue elves- Goddamn it, Cameron!
David James as Kobus Venter: The douche character of the film, Venter, is a mercenary who is hired to keep the aliens in line, and get violent if necessary. He is insane, brutal, and kills things without a second thought. Much like the military (Do you hear me Michael Bay! They aren’t Jesus with bullets!)
OVERALL
D9 is one of the best movies of the year. I absolutely recommend it to all people who are capable of watching violent movies. It’s the best at what it does, but what it does isn’t very nice (yes I just made a reference to Marvel’s “Wolverine”. Pardon me, I meant Disney’s “Wolverine”). It’s a movie that is very different, and original, and original, and also original. It’s a movie where you don’t know what so expect, and its better that way. I recommend you don’t read this review. It will ruin everything…Its James Cameron’s fault.
Final Rating: 8.5/10

Funny People

quick note, this has no spoilers unless you did not see the trailer. The trailer gives away a bit more than usual, but whatever. Moving along.
Comedy has been the genre that has changed the most over the years. It has to, since people’s sense of humor changes, references become dated, different styles become funny and others are forgotten. Lets have a quick recap.
1950’s: I hate these films. They are all so phony and fake…..goddamn it.
1960’s: Dr. Strangelove occurs. Until then, comedies had not nearly been as controversial. Comedy seems to cover more realistic themes (that will die off in the 90’s). “You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!”
1970’s: In England, Monty Python takes off. English comedy gets more recognition, and in America, we get the low-budget black crime fighter movies (I found them hilarious). “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok. I sleep all night, I work all day.”
1980’s: excellent comedies start coming in and starting clichés that will be used throughout the ages. Breakfast Club, Back to The future etc. Mostly situational comedy. (R.I.P. John Hughes) “Fuck you, Claire!”
1990’s: Adam Sandler decade. People apparently like comedies that are nothing more than an angry and normally idiotic Jewish man who is placed in strange situations (people are stupid). Many movies are not based on realistic situations but are more farce-like and ridiculous. BUT HOPE! Realistic and funny dialogue comes into play (Kevin Smith makes Clerks). “37!”
2000: Raunchy comedies become favored. American Pie and its sequel are given applause. Movies start to cover more adult themes. (All quotes that come to mind are not things I feel like writing…ever)
2003ish: Will Ferrell begins to take over comedy…God help us all.
2004-2006: Anchorman (produced by Apatow) was funny…and Stranger than Fiction was amazing. Your ok Ferrell. “Yes. I am relieved to know that I am not a golem”
2005: Some Judd Apatow guy makes 40 year old virgin and starts getting praise. Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd get some recognition. “It’s like a bag of sand”
2007: Apatow makes sweet love to comedy with the amazing achievement “Knocked Up” which is still one of my favorite comedies. Seth Rogen Becomes a new comedy God (like most Canadian high school dropouts[that was a low blow. Seth I apologize. I love you]). “I don't wanna see "Spider-Man". I don't want to have to ask you to ask me. I want you to think of it yourself.”
2009: Comedy is abused, gets a cab, and goes to stay with her parents, leaving Apatow alone in the terrible thing known as “Year One” (but he was just a producer, so he can’t be blamed). (no good one-liner here. Don’t blame me. Blame Year One. It was terrible.)
There were also plenty of other great films Apatow has been a writer/producer of (examples being Superbad and Pineapple Express, or almost any movie with Seth Rogen). And we are finally brought to Funny People, and this movie was the genre I was expecting to some extent. Apatow seems to have inserted more drama into his movies over the years, Virgin being the comedy, knocked up being the comedy with some drama and sincerity, and Funny People was probably of the dramedy genre. It deals with accepting death, living life, making friends, making better choices, and learning about oneself…..oh and they are comedians. Well, lets get to work.
STORY
I love how Apatow can take the simplest thing and turn it into a completely original idea. Its like Kevin Smith movies (yes, I brought up Kevin Smith again, he’s amazing. Get used to it[ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice]). Its somewhat simple, but it becomes far more complex and interesting through beautifully crafted dialogue. George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a famous comedian and actor who used to be a god of comedy some years ago. He is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia, and suddenly doesn’t feel as funny as he used to. Ira (Seth Rogen) is a small somewhat new comedian who is not to great. At home his buddies Leo and Mark (Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman) seem to be doing better than him and more successful as comedians. Eventually, Simmons sees talent in Ira and hires him as an assistant/writer. The two learn more about each other and Simmons learns much more about himself. He says good bye to his friends and is overwhelmed with guilt that he didn’t make his life everything he wanted it to be. He them gets news that he is cured. Yeah! He then goes about trying to change his life for the better, now with a better idea of how he should live. He goes to see the woman he loved (Leslie Mann) who has now married Eric Bana (well, she didn’t marry the actor, Eric Bana. Eric Bana plays the character who- oh shut up).
So we have two interesting stories in two acts. We have George and Ira who do stand-up while George tries to finish everything left in his life, and then George and Ira go to see Laura after George is better. Its interesting that it doesn’t follow the typical conflict, climax, resolution pattern, and ordinarily, movies that don’t follow that pattern have no story and are not interesting. This movie somehow pulls it off almost perfectly (Im not 100% on the ending, but either than that; amazing). It also doesn’t have one main character. George Simmons may have a bit more screen time, and the story revolves around his actions, but Ira has his own story too, and not just as a subplot (I suppose you could say that its just really good character development).
I also enjoy the stand-up comedy in the movie that was written by the performers. Hearing Seth Rogen talk about Will Smith’s penis is far funnier than one might think. Apatow filmed all of the stand up (hours upon hours of material) and had about 10 minutes of it in the movie. Can’t wait for the DVD Mr. Apatow. The only thing missing from this movie was Paul Rudd. Overall, story works quite well. 20 points to the house of Apatow.
CHARACTERS
Adam Sandler as George Simmons: A funny comedian who was once a god, by being in tons of box office hits that the critics hate? Apart from the disease, Adam Sandler and George Simmons are the same person, and Sandler plays himself tremendously, without a doubt giving his best performance in any movie he’s been in (that I have seen). He really is a very funny comedian, but his dry sense of humor throughout a lot of the movie was my favorite. He created a deep character that may be a bit of a jerk, but was also very lovable, and I never lost interest.
Seth Rogen as Ira: Although very funny, Seth Rogen seems to have a bit of trouble with this role, and at times, seems out of place. I was quite surprised since I thought he did great in Knocked Up. His stand-up in the movie is funny, and as a comedic character he does well, but seems to fall short a bit in the dramatic scenes. Luckily, he doesn’t have many dramatic scenes, and is normally the comic relief sidekick character.
Leslie Mann as Laura: Leslie Mann is great in all of the Apatow movies, and I’m surprised she hasn’t done much in the past years (though this year she has been in four movies). I thought she did well in this movie. She was very funny, but was also able to do the dramatic scenes very well. There isn’t much else to say besides the fact that she did a good job.
Eric Bana as Clarke: Bana does surprisingly well in this movie, and is both funny, and intimidating as a villain of some sort; the scumbag husband to the woman Simmons loves. Bana is such a badass. It seems all he does today is amazing or epic movies than are- oh wait, Time Traveler’s Wife. Well at least the action movies he did were all- oh Hulk.
Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Leo and Mark: Funny guys.
Eminem, Ray Romano, James Taylor, Sarah Silverman, Andy Dick, and Ken Jeong have cameos. They are awesome.
Aziz Ansari IS Raaaaandy.
OVERALL:
This is a lovable and meaningful movie that is not just some regular summer comedy. I may say that this is even my favorite comedy of the year (better than Hangover and I love You, Man). It may not be 2 and a half hours of laughter, but you walk away with a lesson, and an open mind, and a few laughs, and maybe you will even think about it a while after seeing it. I fell in love with the story, felt attached to the characters, and enjoyed the stand-up and the wonderful dialogue.
Judd Apatow is a comedic genius and I can’t wait for his next project.
Final Rating: 8/10

Inglourious Basterds

The newest film from my favorite writer/director, Quentin Tarintino, maker of Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite movies of all time (and if you dare to say it was bad, my God have mercy on your soul). Now, this movie seemed like so many different things from the trailers, with elements of all of Tarintino's movies, but does it match up with his other work? Was it any good at all? The short answer: It was a masterpiece.
Now reviews have been mixed to positive about the movie so far, and I disagree with most of the critics, even if they did like it. Some said it was offensive, though Tarintino tends to put dark humor that borders on parody in many of his films like Kill Bill and Death Proof, however when the holocaust gets involved, people think he is being offensive to Jews...and nazis. Others said it was a gore fest, that served no other purpose apart from entertaining the people who watch movies like Saw and Rob Zombie's Halloween (you bastards know who you are). Others enjoyed it as a fun action ride, that kicks ass, and leaves no prisoners. This is also not the case. Violence serves the story (hell, no one complained about Saving Private Ryan being too violent), and it is used for character development. (Don't let Eli Roth fool you. This has nothing to do with Hostel). What I thought was this movie made jokes and used dark humor that should not be taken seriously, but this movie does have a lot of interesting things that should be taken seriously; a revenge story, a character study, a soldier trying to get a woman to love him. Its almost like Kevin Smith films in that, they tend to be overlooked because of the jokes put in there, but there tends to be a point (well, except for Clerks, but that was just funny[Weren't we talking about Tarintino?{how many parenthesize can I have for one statement?}]).
Now I promise no spoilers shall be said. But know this; this is possibly the best movie of the year so far. Tarintino says he had been working on it, before even thinking about Kill Bill, and that work paid off. I applaud you, sir. Right then, praise out of the way, lets talk about how awesome the story is.
STORY
We are giving a classic Tarintino opening, with one long scene filled with dialogue that would cause small children, Mothers Against Violence, and fans of Michael Bay films, to have instant mind implosions from not comprehending the amazingness of Tarintino dialogue (apologies to small children. That was a generalization. I’m sorry). The first ten minutes of this movie are almost as good as the last twenty minutes of Kill Bill (which was possibly the best thing Tarintino has created[R.I.P. David Carradine. We miss you]). Also like Kill Bill, this story is separated into chapters, so it has different stories; Not in a Pulp Fiction way, there are just a lot of characters spread throughout the film (not just about the basterds).
This movie also has the clear Tarintino style throughout (kill Bill style that is). A lot of the violence is exaggerated, it is difficult to tell when he’s actually going for a joke, and some things (like a sudden guitar riff with big yellow letters) are very random and seem out of place. But of course, Tarintino scores the most points for endless scenes of dialogue. There are two scenes in the movie that are about 10-20 minutes apiece, and they show the genius writing, have some amazing acting, and never get boring.
What is very funny about this movie is how it uses parodies and cliches of groups of people (ironically enough, it uses cliches to be original). Many of the Germans are looked at as monsters (with the exception of 1 or 2), and of course, The American military is seen as a bunch of war-hungry soldiers who are somewhat psychotic, and want to kill things because "they ain't got no humanity, and have to be destroyed"....you hear that Micheal Bay? The military is not the best thing in the world. The military kills people. 40% of people in the military have mental conditions. And get this blasphemy: violence doesn't solve all problems! (at this point I am cut off by the sound of gunfire).
So we have several stories, but again, its not something that is tossed around in non-sequential order, and it works wonderfully. Whats even more amazing is all the footage Tarintino didn’t use for this movie and all the things that were cut out (but this is what happens when you just keep writing a movie for 10 years). So much great dialogue, so much great character development, and so much stuff I can’t tell you about and you must witness for yourself.

And now, an intermission for poetry by Ian Deming. Enjoy.

Boy stands before judgment, and awaits fate
One True answer. No question. No debate.
His head is filled with dreams of salvation
His mind makes him travel to his own creation
Thoughts of the near future; eternal love
Happiness, and awe; a world to be proud of
Pretty butterflies, flowers, clouds, and sun
All thoughts to prepare for all his good fun
Boy walks to judge, to be given the path
Embrace his reward, or accept God’s wrath
Judge pierces Boy, with his cold leering eyes
And with his sharp quick words, the Boy’s dream dies
Hope is shattered; happiness shrinks away
His bright future burns, and all turns to grey
The life in his dreams were stabbed, cut and torn
Clouds turned to crack, flowers to bondage porn
All things just, were killed and thoroughly raped
The Boy was destroyed, his mind now reshaped
And so from this story, we all can see
That the boy is me
(movie guy asked for ID)

…..Now you understand why. Moving right along.
CHARACTERS
Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine- Pitt gives a fun, entertaining performance as the uber-American Lt. who wants to kill him some Nazis- yes, the poem was fucked up. We are focused on the characters now, I promise. Now lets move along. Its not a subtle performance, but its not a subtle character (so it works). Although he is very simple, he is not bland at all, and keeps the audience in their seats. Tarintino also makes the smart move of making Pitt the main character solely for the purpose of tying together stories, and having someone amusing in charge. Pitt does not have the most screen time, and doesn’t even show up until 20 minutes into the movie, but as a result, we never get bored of this simple character.
Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa- Who the hell is this guy?! Waltz, an actor who is completely unknown (by Americans at least) gives the best performance I have seen this year, and deserves an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Waltz plays Col. Hans “the Jew Hunter” Landa, a slightly crazed, jew-hating, power-hungry, nazi. This is the most developed character, most interesting, and has the most screen time (which is why I suggest he be nominated for best actor instead of best supporting). He is more than the evil nazi who just hates Jews without reason (well actually, he has a monologue about how he and many people hate the Jews without reason, but you understand the point I’m making). He is human. His actions to each character he interacts with is different, and as he becomes more desperate, he shows it. And his performance in the opening 10 minute scene alone is amazing. I applaud you.
Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus- Mélanie Laurent plays a French woman who’s heart is filled with the need for revenge. Another somewhat simple character with simple goals. But she does quite well, and we are able to feel sympathy as well as hatred for her character. Despite having a simple goal, the story complicates things.
Eli Roth as Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz- I don’t particularly like Eli Roth, and he isn’t much of an actor. He isn’t bad, and he has a somewhat minor role. It just would have been so great if Adam Sandler had been able to play the role (well, at least we were blessed with funny people). But I think you will agree that there are probably only 1 or 2 things in this world greater than seeing Adam Sandler been the crap out of a Nazi with a baseball bat shouting “Teddy Williams knocks it out of the fucking ballpark!”.
Daniel Bruhl as Fredrick Zoller- Bruhl plays a German war hero who falls in love with Dreyfus. This is a very interesting character (possibly my favorite after Landa). He also has the same sympathy hatred feeling that switches often. Nice.
Til Schweiger as Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz- HUGO STIGLITZ. One of the most badass characters in a movie. I obviously won’t spoil anything for you guys, but my prediction is that Hugo Stiglitz will become like Boba Fett. Everyone’s favorite character despite having about 3 lines of dialogue. There is a scene that is 15 minutes long, and he has one line, but he steals all of the attention with his emotion of awesome stuck to his face. His entire character is so….odd. In fact, I considered writing my character review of Hugo entirely in Wingdings Font. Darth Vader, Rorschach, Gandalf the Grey. They all tremble in fear before the might of Hugo. Congratulations Hugo, you shall become an internet meme very soon.
Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark- Diane Kruger’s best performance yet (though I haven’t seen a lot with her). She plays a German actress who is a spy for the British government. She doesn’t appear until about an hour and a half into the movie, but she makes her time on screen count. Her character isn’t exactly the most likable, but she does well.
B.J. Novak as Pfc. Smithson “Little Man” Utivich- Good job. I make a special note because I heard an interesting story. Supposedly on set, Tarintino said to the basterds “whoever does the best job of scalping the nazi bodies will have the most screen time. Whoever is worst will have the least.” Novak apparently was quite bad and so being in Germany with nothing to do, he spent hours practicing scalping nazi heads. He ended up with a decent amount of screen time.
OVERALL
This is really late at night, and I couldn’t spoil any plot stuff for you people. But if those two conditions did not occur, you would know how much I love this movie. This movie is amazing. This movie one of the best movies of all time! Inglourious Basterds shall be remembered, maybe not as Tarintino’s masterpiece, but an amazing movie none the less. Quentin Tarintino, you are the most talented director today, as well as one of the best writers, and if Inglourious Basterds is not nominated for best picture….well I won’t be surprised since Dark Knight and Wall-E weren’t nominated last year, but I will still be upset! The Basterds is the must see movie of the summer and I recommend it to children of all ages (having your innocence is overrated any way). Amazing writing, directing and acting, words can not describe. Go see this movie!
Final Rating: 9.5/10

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (Spoilers)

Now ordinarily, I would break up the review into STORY and CHARACTERS. But since the plot of this movie is “try to win”, and the characters were apparently developed in the first movie and don’t need anything more for this one, I’m gonna do things differently.
Now, I didn’t want to see Transformers because I thought it would be good, I didn’t even go to be amused by explosions. I went to see how badly Michael Bay fucked up. How much he followed every money making cliché. How much he dumbed it down to make a 150 minute brainwashing video to get everyone to believe that all one needs in life are explosions, military, a quirky personality, young women who can’t act, and massive gaping plot holes the size of Megan Fox’s- no. That joke is too easy. Point being, I watched this garbage from beginning to end. I made this sacrifice for you, so that you may understand that you have a choice. You may go along the path of righteousness, and spend money on the well reviewed independent flick, or perhaps a new Apatow movie. Or, you may continue the path of the sinner, and throw your money at the pile of fecal matter that is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
8:45 P.M. In the car on the way to the movie with several others. Two photographers argue about the concept of Transformers. The person next to me talks about the movie Milk, failing to say spoiler alert. I am not happy.
8:55 P.M. Getting food at the counter. I see a poster for G.I. Joe, next to a poster for The Final Destination. I am not happy with cinema.
9:05 P.M. We walk into the theater with the trailer for 2012 playing. I am not happy with John Cusack.
9:15 P.M. Movie begins. All trailers have been action movies, 2012, GI Joe, Final Destination. Its like my hopes and dreams were metaphorically raped by cinema.
9:16 P.M. We see the Paramount and Dreamworks Openings. Robot sounds are heard throughout. Michael Bay can’t wait for 10 seconds to hold off on effects.
9:17 P.M. We learn about the Fallen. Apparently they were ancient robots from Africa. They had this key that activated a weapon. When the tribe found out about this they all- oh never mind, scene is over.
9:20 We open to the military hunting robots. Oh cool its that cool giant robot with the wheel leg. Oh. Now they are sending in Optimus Prime. Destroyer of evil. Bringer of doom. The Messiah himself, the lord of all- oh action scene is over. That’s disappointing.
9:22We leave the robots who blow shit up, to see Sam (Shea Labowl) and his family helping him pack for college. Well, if we aren’t going to see robots at least we can rely on some witty comedy. We get to see mom crying in an over exaggerated way, thanks mom. We got pop telling sex jokes, thanks for that. And we have dogs humping…if I may….fuck you Michael Bay.
Ok. So This is where we get the closest thing to a story. Sam is off to college. Megan Fox’s character (I think its Michaela, but im not imdbing that crap. The name is said like 2 times at most). Sam got a rock, which is a piece of the cube, so that’s bad or something. So he goes to college and meets his roommate Leo (unknown inexperienced actor who will be in several TV commercials after this, but ultimately will become the assistant to the director of a bad soap opera that will be canceled after two seasons, and then he turns to drugs and OD’s on cheap heroine. His death won’t make the news. [I didn’t like him very much]).
(Approximate time) 9:45 Sam meets roommate. Everyone besides them is a very attractive woman. In the boys room we have a poster for Bad Boys II (thanks for that shameless self-propaganda Mr. Bay). We also have Sam’s roommates, who are all computer geeks. They talk about how there are robots in the world that are just covered up by the government…um…..no. Just no. For anyone who had the misfortune of seeing the first Transformers, there is a fucking battle in New York! You can’t cover up half of Manhattan being destroyed! Everyone knows! It would be like ignoring a giant alien squid monster in the middle of Time Square, you can’t just do that! Regardless, we also have Sam’s mother, who has now decided to eat pot brownies. Well, fair enough. At least know she won’t be over exaggerated like when she was crying earlier in- holy shit she just tackled a guy. Why?! Why did she do that. Was there PCP mixed in there?
9:50 Rein Wilson is in this movie now. I am upset. 1000 curses on your family, Dwight.
About 9:50 This Fallen dude is in space and takes control of a satellite to spy on humans. He sends a bunch of transformers down to earth and they invade a military base to take a piece of the cube to bring back Megatron. In the meantime, a toy car transformer (yup) tries to get the other piece of the cube, which is heavily guarded by…Megan Fox. Now this toy car brings me anger. Why? Imagine a talking rat that has a New York accent, swears constantly, is bitchy, stupid, horny, happy, crappy, and has turret syndrome…..yup.
9:55 Oh boy, we get to see the military, working with Optimus Prime. Oh look a bad actor, oh there is another, I- wow jackpot! This scene consists of 50 one word lines of dialogue interrupted by monologues of explanation that complicates a very simple story. Along with the military is a diplomat. He says the first thing reasonable in the movie. He asks why we should trust the “good robots” and maybe there is something that can be done to make the “bad robots” leave earth alone. He leaves angrily and black military guy says, and I quote “Man…that guy is an ass. hole.” Audience cheers. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
10:00 Some girl finds Shea LaBlah attractive and starts makin out with him. Hot chick making out with Shea, and then a metal tail comes out of her panties and she- what?!.....what?!.........

So here is the deal. Megatron needs Sam cause he holds the secrets of the Fallen in his head. The military wants to blow shit up. Sam wants a normal life. Megan Fox wants to be taken seriously as an actress. And Optimus wants nothing…he’s dead. Just remember, he died for your sins.
10:15 Sam hides out with Mikela and Leo, along with Skids and Mudflap two Transformers/ black stereotypes. As I watch these transformers that turn into ice cream trucks, I thought to myself, everyone on board the set of Transformers was good with this. Steven fucking Spielberg, said this was good enough to be seen be the world (then again, he also thought the world wanted to see Shea Labongo team up with Harrison Ford to defeat aliens and English actresses with bad Russian accents…sigh).
10:16 Skids has a gold tooth. I want to hurt something.
10:17 Mudflap called Sam a pussy and then pounded knuckles with Skids. I want to hurt something.
10:18 Skids says they gotta stay safe. Though instead, the words echoing in my head are, “mesah called Jar Jar Binks. Mesah ya humble servant.”…..I want to hurt something.
10:19 Skids and Mudflap admit that they are illiterate. I become curious if Michael Bay showed the same racism with Will Smith and Martin Laurence in Bad Boys.
10:20 Nothing, not even black robots can stand against the Deceptacons and The Fallen. They reveal themselves to the world, and demand that Shea Labaklava be handed over to them. (lets see the government cover that shit up.) Oh, and they also capture Sam’s parents.
10:21 The diplomat says that maybe its better to hand over Sam. One life lost to save millions works, and the ends justify the means. The military realizes that this means they won’t get to shoot bullets out of their boom sticks, so they say no. See, this shows that they are the good guys.
10:22 John Turturro makes a career mistake by being in this movie. He helps Sam and friends with their quest. After getting a lot of boring explanation from Steve Buscemi on speed (toy car robot), the gang heads to the museum.
10:25 close up on John Tuturro’s ass checks. This was more soul crushing then seeing a sex scene with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei. Its like Transformers was trying to put stuff in that no one would like. Black stereotype robots, mothers on PCP, and now John Tuturro’s ass. Why? While this inner monologue goes on in my head, the camera is still focuses on those ass checks. Move on please.
10:30 Jetfire appears. Despite being a robot, he has a beard, a cane, a bad cough, and a bad case of crotchety old man syndrome….he was my favorite character in the movie.
10:31 Toy car Transformer starts humping Megan Fox’s leg. I suppress the anger and instead think “do robots have hormones? Genetalia? Can they reproduce? What does robot semen look like?” I then remembered that I was watching a Michael Bay film and nothing should be expected to make sense. All of a sudden, I become aware that audience members are laughing at the robot humping Mikela’s leg. These are the people who don’t care. These are the people who probably don’t know who Steven Spielberg is. These are the people Rorschach describes. I am in an abattoir full of retarded children.
10:32 Through use of magic, the gang ends up in Egypt, where the symbols Shea LaBullshit saw, told him to go. They need to find a matrix of power that will bring back Optimus.
10:40 I become aware that Leo is still in this movie. There are far to many characters. I pray for a Scorsese elevator scene. Your days are numbered Skids and Mudflap.
10:45 They enter a pyramid and find a wall that has a complex painting on it. Perhaps it’s a puzzle. Or it tells a story telling us where to go next in order to find-…or you could smash the wall in, sure.
10:46 Speaking of smashing walls in, lets check in on the military. Oh, they are flying to Egypt with the body of Optimus Prime to help Sam. Well, at least the diplomat demanded to come along. Maybe if we are lucky, we will get some more words of wisdom (but they are spoken with arrogance, which means we should disregard what he says). Oh it looks like he has something to say, maybe-…they…they snapped…they couldn’t listen to him anymore, and they….they just threw him out of the plane…why? How? What the frick?!
10:50 My suicide attempt failed.
10:55 Sam and friends have found the Matrix, but alas, it turns to dust in his hand. Now what? Well, the deceptacons are coming so they better think fast. They head to a small abandoned town and wait for the military to arrive. Shit gets intense.
10:56 Skids punches a bad guy in the face and says something to the effect of “yeah, get some, yo!”. One seat in front of me, someone laughs, claps his hands and repeats that line. Yes, surely lines involving revealed parentage, offers that cannot be refused, gin joints, and biblical passages are nothing compared to the ultimate one liner “yeah. Get some, yo!”…this movie is a mind castration.
11:00 A 50 Transformer called Devastator is sucking up the ground and grinding it to pieces. Trucks, poles, signs, get destroyed instantly. This looks like the end of Leo here. Come on-…the gods have smiled upon me. For it is not Leo that falls into the belly of the beast, but Mudflap. Michael bay is one of the best directors in the history of cinema. Finally, he has defied the clichés he at first embraced, and has learned to- oh crap, he survived.
11:15 Action action action action action action action action action. And I can’t see whats going on at all. There is literally to much action.
11:17 John Turturro us under Devastator, under two wrecking balls that he refers to as the scrotum…
11:18 did you know that people can actually choke on water?
11:20 Megatron fires a rocket and nearly kills Sam. He smacks the ground and is unconscious…man he looks pretty beat up…I don’t think he’s breathing….dude, Sam’s dead! This is like Nicki and Paulo only 100 times better. Michael Bay, I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sure Optimus will come back, but at least Sam is gone from this. This so-…whats this white light. Is that the sun? why is he standing up again? No. Oh no. It can’t be….it..it can’t be. He..is talking to robots?! Holy shit! HE WENT TO ROBOT HEAVEN?!?!?! Seven people in the theater have brain hemorrhages and die immediately. 12 people suffer the after effects of opening the ark of the covenant. Me, I become completely and entirely unaware if I am dreaming or am in reality. To make sure, I turn to Charlie and make out with him.
11:22 This movie would be so much better if I had just been making out with Charlie the whole time.
11:24 Sam is back to life and so is Optimus. Fallen comes in and steals the Matrix of power. We know this because right after he grabed it he said, and I quote “my matrix!”. Jetfire tells Optimus he can beat Fallen with his parts. Jetfire then rips out his own heart and kills himself (he died for your sins). Optimus prepares for the final epic showdown.
11:24.39 He wins.
11:30 Everyone is happy. Shea LaBass goes to college. Optimus kicks back. Megatron flees. And they all lived hapily ever after. The lights come on. I don’t know what just happened. I kick away the carnage of empty popcorn buckets, and twizler wrappers. I walk out of the theater, as soon as I do, I remember what I forgot. I quickly run back into the theater and boo at the screen, despite being halfway through the credits (and by credits I mean Michael Bay written in green crayon 234 times. )
ANGRY RANT
This was everything Hollywood. It gave into every cliché there is, it had a simplistic story, bland characters, overwhelming pointless action, and stupid dialogue with zero character development. This is Satan in film form. Michael Bay is a whore. He pleased every producer who wanted in on this. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was busy fellating the military to the fullest extent telling us that only boring people talk and bring up valid points; cool people shoot first, and never ask questions. Actions speak far louder than words in this movie, and the words could have been spoken in Wingdings and made more sense.
This movie is pubic hair. That’s what it was. It was ugly, disgusting, it should have been left alone after messing with it one time, it serves no purpose, and yet for some reason everyone keeps it around and tolerates. Hell some people even like it. So what we have to learn- oh also it needed to be cut down in size a lot. So what we need to learn- oh. Only good in small doses. So what we need to realize is that- oh, it serves as nothing but a distraction (I really need to stop).
Dogs humping, hot chick transformer, black stereotype robots, messed up mom, pointless roommate, resurrection, a moral compass that always points to where guns are located, and robot heaven. And Robot Heaven! How does that even happen?!
FINAL THOUGHTS/ RATING
This really is one of the worst movies of all time. It is worse than Year One, and The Contract. In fact, I dislike this movie even more than Batman and Robin. It had some cool action, but did it for all the wrong reasons. Most of the action was bad anyway because I didn’t see what was going on. But then it also tries to have some funnies in there as well, so the movie can’t even take itself seriously. The worst part: this movie has made 850 million dollars and still going! Do you know how much money fight club made at the box office? 34 million! These movies will continue to be made as producers want nothing but money, the average person between the ages of 13-20 just wants to be entertained, and the people who believe that there is still art form, creativity, and meaning in the cinema are going to suffer a terrible fate…God help us all.
Final rating: 1/10
It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death...and yet...I think...this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. –Anne Frank