Tag Archives: entertainment

April 21, 2012 · 9:13 am

For Love of the Game

Kevin Costner did a lot of baseball movies. Over fifty-seven by some estimates. In this one he plays an aging pitcher throwing the last game of his career. Sam Rami directs it, and it is really down to earth, especially considering some of the crazy stuff he’s done in the past. The film flashes back and forth between fictional Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel facing the New York Yankees and key moments in Chapel’s relationship with his on again/off again girlfriend, Jane.

John C. Reilly plays Gus, Billy’s reliable catcher and friend. J.K. Simmons plays the Tigers manager. Brian Cox plays the owner. Jena Malone plays Heather, Jane’s daughter. And the always sexy Kelly Preston plays Jane Aubrey, the sexy love interest.

The baseball playing is really just a trick to lure guys into watching this film. It’s really a chick flick. It’s bearable because of the baseball to an extent, but this is a love story. There is way more about love and relationships than there is cool stuff about baseball. And there’s no nude scenes, so the love story part isn’t that cool.

Vin Scully plays himself. For some reason he is announcing a game between the Yankees and the Tigers. It doesn’t matter that he’s the announcer for the LA Dodgers. Whatever. It’s dumb to get permission to use real teams from the MLB and then have the wrong announcer from the wrong side of the country calling a game for the wrong league.

I’ve seen a lot of Kevin Costner baseball movies. This one probably isn’t even in his top twenty. If you see it while channel surfing, it’s ok to watch it. Just don’t go out of your way to see this movie. You aren’t missing much.

There are worse chick flicks than this. But just remember that it is a chick flick pretending to be a baseball movie. That’s manipulative Hollywood marketing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh by the way, he pitches a perfect game and gets the girl. Life is great sometimes.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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April 18, 2012 · 10:36 am

Tupac at Coachella 2012

So in case you’ve been living under a rock, Tupac performed on stage at Coachella. Ok, it’s not really 2Pac; it’s just a state of the art hologram of him. It gave me chills when he mentioned Coachella by name… the festival started 3 years after his death. It was a dynamic performance too. He actually has stage presence, he dances and struts around, and he lets the crowd shout out the lyrics at times. His chain swings around and his clothes move naturally.

Snoop comes out, and you see the two of them onstage again, interacting and doing their thing. It must have been weird as hell for Snoop to perform with him again. It seems like they are actually playing off each other. At the end of the set, Tupac stands in triumph and then disappears in a flash of light, and his glowing remains fade away.

Tupac is a legend, larger than life. A bunch of people already thought that he faked his death and is just hiding out somewhere. This defiantly won’t clear up any confusion. There is a whole generation of 2Pac fans that never got to experience one of his shows. This new technology is as close as you can get to seeing him live. It’s eerie, it’s haunting, it’s mesmerizing.

The implications of this new technology are amazing. Whole virtual concerts with ghosts rocking out with living legends. Imagine see Paul and Ringo jamming with John and George again. It could happen, it should happen. You can create the ultimate super group with all the members of the 27 Club: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse. You can even reanimate the Rolling Stones.

You can use the hologram technology for things other than music too. You could record a Broadway show and replay it like it’s a film. Imagine museums where they have dinosaurs roaming around and over-scaled insects flying around. Imagine Skype acquiring hologram technology and how much more awesome video chats would be. You could also make your own R2-D2 unit complete with hologram Princess Leia.

For now, we must be content with Virtual Tupac. And that’s pretty amazing. The future is now. Check out the video. Even if you aren’t a Tupac fan, it will still give you goosebumps.

Critically Rated at 16/17

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April 16, 2012 · 8:58 am

Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick is responsible for some other cinema’s greatest films. Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange… and Full Metal Jacket. Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Baldwin, and R. Lee Ermey turn in amazing performances, but the Vietnam War is the main character.

There are a few films about the Vietnam War that are required viewing to call yourself a film buff. Oliver Stone’s Platoon is one. Francis Ford Coppala’s Apocalypse Now is another. But Full Metal Jacket is the best of the bunch.

The film starts with a new group of Marines arriving for basic training. The two main recruits are Joker (Matthew Modine) and the bumbling Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio). Pyle isn’t cut out for the Marines; he is fat, slow, and lazy. To make matters worse, their Drill Instructor, Sargent Hartman, has it out for Pyle. He targets him, humiliates him, punishes him, and tries to break him. Nothing works, so he makes Joker responsible for training him, and for a while things get better.

Pyle keeps fucking up, and eventually Hartman decides to punish the other Marines instead of Pyle. This causes the other Marines to start hating Pyle, and they let him know that he sucks. Pyle eventually becomes a model Marine, but suffers a nervous breakdown. In a disturbing scene, he shoots and kills Hartman and then turns the gun on himself. And just like that, two of the main characters are gone.

Joker ends up reporting for Stars and Stripes, and goes to Vietnam in time to experience the Tet Offensive. Joker meets and interviews a bunch of Marines and they all have different views on war and combat and life in general. During a patrol a single sniper begins picking off the Marines. They track down the sniper and discover it is a teenage girl. Talk about a mind fuck. Joker kills her out of mercy, and he gains the thousand-yard stare of a man who has seen war.

Full Metal Jacket shows what war does to a man. It can make him, or it can break him. Joker made it, he became a good Marine, he saw war, and he survived. Pyle didn’t make it. He wasn’t ever cut out for the Marines, and lost track of who he was. He went crazy, and his descent into madness is one of the most memorable moments of this movie.

Props go out to R. Lee Ermey. He isn’t even acting; he is a real life drill instructor that they hired as a technical advisor. You can’t contain him. He spews out poetic insults like Shakespeare pops out beautiful sonnets. Half the stuff he says is improvised, and Kubrick was a control freak, so you can’t deny his talent.

This movie doesn’t have a strong plot. It kind of meanders around loosely, but that adds to the theme of the movie: that war is pointless. Pyle and Hartman die halfway through the film. But the movie doesn’t end, just like the war doesn’t end just because someone died.

Full Metal Jacket is a classic. You owe it to yourself to experience this film at least once. Kubrick is a great director, and this might not be his best flick, but it is definitely his best Vietnam War movie.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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April 15, 2012 · 10:13 am

Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice is the best Tim Burton movie that doesn’t star Johnny Depp. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play the Maitlands, and they are living in wedded bliss, but then they die, and things aren’t so great anymore. They are stuck in purgatory for 125 years and must get used to being ghosts. A New Yorker family moves into their house and they must rely on a bio-exorcist named Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice) to get rid of the Deetzes.

Beetlejuice is a classic film. Everyone has seen it at least once, and if they haven’t than they suck. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play an overly happy, extremely lovey-dovey couple. All they have are each other and a handcrafted scale model of their hometown. The first few scenes of the movie showcase their nearly perfect life. About eight minutes into the movie, they crash into a bridge and careen into the water. Not to ruin anything, but they die.

The movie explores the afterlife, but Death is portrayed as a bureaucracy, something you have to deal with, like going to the DMV.  The Maitlands receive a guidebook called the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. There is an afterlife waiting room with a receptionist and numerous dead employees. The afterlife reception waiting room is this movie’s Cantina scene. The Maitlands are assigned a caseworker, who offers them advice on dealing with the Deetzes, but her most important advice is to avoid soliciting help from Betelgeuse.

The Maitlands don’t like the Deetzes initially, but they gradually form a friendship with their daughter Lydia, played by Winona Ryder. She is a Goth chick and can see ghosts, because everyone knows that Goths see ghosts.

Michael Keaton plays Beetlejuice. He only has about seventeen minutes of screen time. He is not the main character; he is just the title character. There is a difference. Keaton is like Alan Rickman in this movie, he just does so much with so little. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis do a great job, but Keaton steals the movie. It wouldn’t have been as good with any other actor.

Tim Burton movies are very distinctive. CG advancements have cheapened his vision though. Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands are his two best movies, and they were made without much computer magic. Second-rate effects don’t cheapen a movie if it is made with heart. This movie proves that.

Death is scary. This movie makes it funny. If the afterlife is half as cool as it’s depicted in this movie, I can’t wait to bite the dust. I hope death is lip-syncing Harry Belafonte songs and fighting sand worms. I’m pretty good at both already.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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April 14, 2012 · 9:07 am

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II

Alan Moore is the shit. The League or Extraordinary Gentlemen proves that. This is the second installment, and solidifies Alan Moore as a Comic Badass. The first issue in this series brings together a bunch of Victorian Literature characters together, and this second volume reunites them. We already know the characters so we can have fun with them. That’s that Moore does. He jumps right into the story, and it’s a better story than the first one.

The first issue of this series is important, because it introduces the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now that we know each character and what the represent, the new conflict will either make or break the ensemble, and there is more drama and tension if it does so. There is much more at stake than in the previous story. The plot recreates the War of The Worlds, and so not only must man deal with foes from beyond, but they must deal with themselves internally.

Mr. Hyde and the Invisible Man go at it. Much of what occurs between the two is implied, but it is horrific. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but there is man rape in this story. Savage, dirty man rape. And it is justified. Literature doesn’t have to spare feelings; it just needs to reflect the real world. And man rape is a part of the real world.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen celebrates literature. The second volume rejoices in it. You have cameos from John Carpenter and creatures from The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Wind in the Willows. The character are much more active and independent from their creative author, Alan Moore gives them much more room to explore their boundaries.

Alan Moore has fun unifying classic literary characters. He pays homage to their origins, but also makes them his own. Mr. Hyde is the best example of this. Everyone who pretends to be cultured knows about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Moore makes Hyde more of a villain and more of a hero than Robert Louis Stevenson ever could have fathomed. He redeemed Mina Murray in a savage and brutal, yet honest way, the only way that he could have.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is a great comic. There are more than two volumes, but they are all the evidence you need to prove their longevity. They are essential. They are necessary. They  are worth reading, so get on it.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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April 13, 2012 · 11:01 am

Coming to America

John Landis directs Eddie Murphy in Coming to America. This is Eddie Murphy’s best movie, hands down. Eddie Murphy plays an African prince who comes to America in search of a bride. He brings his faithful manservant along, and hilarity ensues. Contrary to popular belief, Eddie Murphy does not play every single role in the movie. Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall each play four characters though. That’s a lot of comedy.

Murphy plays Prince Akeem. Arsenio Hall plays Semmi, his servant and friend. They come to Queens and land jobs at a McDonald’s clone called McDowell’s. Akeem falls for his boss’s daughter, but she already has a boyfriend. He keeps his regal status a secret, and eventually Lisa begins to notice him.

She gets rid of her boyfriend, and Akeem and Lisa start a relationship. Akeem’s parents show up, she finds out that he’s a prince, and she gets mad that he lied about being a goat herder and breaks up with him. Um, ok, why not? He goes back to Africa, and has to take part in an arranged marriage. When he lifts up his mystery bride’s veil, he sees that it is Lisa! Oh, what a happy ending.

This is a good movie with a good cast. Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall are at the top of their game, each playing multiple characters, and each one is funny. Eddie Murphy carries the movie, but it wouldn’t have been half as good without Arsenio Hall. They play off each other well; they should have made more movies together. James Earl Jones plays Akeem’s father, the King of Zamunda. Samuel L. Jackson, Louie Anderson and Cuba Gooding, Jr. have cameos. Shari Headley plays Lisa. She’s stunningly beautiful and I wonder why her career didn’t take off.

Eddie Murphy gets credit for coming up with the story, and David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein wrote the screenplay. Or did they? A guy named Art Buchwald wrote a script treatment for an Eddie Murphy vehicle in 1982. It went into development hell for a few years, and eventually was shelved. And then they made it in 1988 and Buchwald sued them. They settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Pretty shady, but I think the studio is more to blame than Eddie Murphy.

This is a cult classic. It gave the world Sexual Chocolate and Soul Glow. It gave Eddie Murphy the idea he could do anything. It gave you a reason to forgive Eddie Murphy for shit like Pluto Nash and Norbit, and that’s saying something.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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April 11, 2012 · 10:11 am

The Quick and the Dead

Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead) directs Sharon Stone as The Lady, a deadly female gunslinger The Quick and the Dead. Sharon Stone enters a quick draw dueling competition in a small town run by Gene Hackman. Raimi directs an all-star cast and using every single cowboy movie cliché imaginable to create an original and entertaining period piece.

The Quick and the Dead pays homage to the early cinematic westerns that AMC used to show before they became a real TV network. They have the saloon and an evil sheriff and a hired gun and a reformed criminal and a trick shot expert and a clock tower and honor and redemption and revenge. But they also have a pretty diverse competition. There is an Indian, a black guy, a woman, a Swedish guy… pretty much anyone can enter if they want. And that’s nice and democratic.

There are a lot of stars in this movie. Some of them were still up-and-comers at the time, but some were established. Sharon Stone is the main character and Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Gary Sinise all play supporting roles. There are also a lot of character actors that you will recognize from a bunch of different movies.

It’s not the best western, but it doesn’t try to be. It is more of an homage to cowboy flicks than an attempt to be serious. It is very stylized, and there are a lot of elaborate sequences that are very distinctive of Raimi. You can recognize his style a mile away. It’s a B movie with a budget. It has heart. Being made with love makes it better than it is.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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April 9, 2012 · 11:21 am

Team America: World Police

The world is in trouble, and only Team America: World Police can save it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone created South Park, and they are back on the big screen again, and this time they have puppets. Trey Parker is a genius. Matt Stone is lucky he works with a genius.  And we get to watch what they create.

Team America is a parody of Michael Bay movies and other action films, done with marionettes. The puppets are top of the line, the sets are impressive and detailed, and the script is very witty and clever. But they never let you forget the fact that the characters are puppets. They play around with it, showing the puppets looking at real life Washington D.C. monuments, using regular house cats as jaguars, and even knocking a puppet over with the camera. The fight choreography looks like as amateur as you can get, but is hysterical because of the intense music they use.

An actor by the name of Gary Johnston is recruited to join Team America, because they believe he has the acting ability to save the world. He’s reluctant to join at first, but decides that he must give up his dreams for freedom. Meanwhile Kim Jong Il is planning a peace ceremony hosted by Alec Baldwin as a diversion to launch a global terror attack. Can Gary’s acting ability help Team America save the world?

Not only is this a great comedy, but it’s a terrific musical. There are some memorable songs like “America, Fuck Yeah”, “Freedom Isn’t Free”, “I’m So Ronery”, and the “Montage” song. “Freedom Isn’t Free” is one of the best country songs of the last ten years.

It’s a very political movie obviously, but you’ll notice they don’t bash George W. Bush. He’s not even mentioned in the movie at all. The opening scene in Paris where the team saves the day but destroys the city sums up how the world views Americans and how Americans view themselves. And there are hardcore puppet sex scenes.

This is a funny movie. It is a smart movie. It pisses a lot of people off, but it makes a lot of people happy. A good piece of art will be controversial. That’s what this movie is, art. Trey Parker is an artist. Matt Stone is lucky he knows an artist.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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April 8, 2012 · 9:52 am

White Water Summer

Long before Kevin Bacon was a creepy guy on The River Wild, he was a creepy guy in White Water Summer. White Water Summer is about a kid named Alan (played by a young Sean Astin), and a few other kids who go on an extended backpacking trip with an older guide name Vic (played by Kevin Bacon). Vic uses the trip to teach the kids valuable life lessons, but in dangerous and careless ways. Alan has a problem with this, and the two of them butt heads and the tension between them rises.

Sean Astin narrates the movie in an extensive interview that’s intercut throughout the film. It’s very jarring, especially because it was filmed two years after the rest of the movie. He looks way older, is sitting on a chair in the woods,  he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and it seems like a blatant rip-off of Ferris Bueller or something. It doesn’t suit the tone of the movie.

The bulk of the movie is filmed outdoors. It makes you want to go camping. There are a lot of cool scenes and shots of them hiking and canoeing, and it makes you want to get outside too.

Vic tries to teach the boys to respect nature. He just wants them to respect it the same way that he does. He teaches them fishing techniques, but gets mad when Alan does things his own, more effective way. Vic wants the boys to become men, he just does it in an over the top manner. Alan is just a little whiney bitch who thinks that he is the shit because he is a teenager. Granted Vic is fucked up in the head, but his heart is in the right place. Alan is stubborn and unwilling to listen to a point of view that differs from his own.

There is a part of the movie where the boys and Vic part ways. The boys all end up huddled together, sleeping on the ground, some of them using their sleeping bags as pillows. WTF? Did it not dawn on any of the actors, producers, writers or director to have them actually sleep in the sleeping bags? Seriously, that shit bugs me more than any nitpicky thing I’ve seen in any movie. FUCKING SLEEP IN YOUR SLEEPING BAG, THAT’S WHAT IT IS FUCKING FOR.

So anyway, at one point Vic breaks his leg, and Alan must use his wilderness skills to get him safely off the mountain. It is a very anti-climactic ending. Vic doesn’t go totally crazy, and Alan never kills him in self-defense. The whole movie builds up a tension that only escalates into a mutual respect for each other. This is America, we want violence and death.

This is a lame movie. It is not a classic. It is not very good. I am only writing about this because I saw it on HBO a few weeks ago and was duped into watching the whole thing. If this is your favorite movie, I am pretty sure that we are not friends.

Critically Rated at 3/17

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April 6, 2012 · 9:16 am

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One

Alan Moore is a genius. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is proof of such. There are a few volumes out already, this rant is about the first Volume. A bunch of characters from Victorian literature work together to recover a stolen item in order to prevent an aerial attack on British soil. Mina Murray, Allan Quaterman, Hawley Griffen (the Invisible Man), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and Captain Nemo are the Extraordinary Gentleman (and Woman). A bunch of other literary characters also make cameos, it’s rewarding to whoever paid attention in English class.

Kevin O’Neill’s artwork is scratchy and rough, a good fit for Moore’s storytelling. It feels old fashioned, and it captures the vibe of Victorian London.

It is quite a chore to take characters from different authors and different genres and be able to tell a story that would actively involve all of them. It’s a pretty dense story, and Moore is able to give each character time to develop and contribute to the action. A lazy author would be content merely writing famous characters into an original story, Moore makes them his own and gives them something to advance the plot.

There’s a lot of steampunk technology, but it’s nowhere near as obnoxious as Wild Wild West. I won’t even comment about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie fiasco. That shit was just insulting.

This is a cool comic book. It is essential reading if you like Alan Moore. You can bring up this book in literary conversations and advance the dialog. It’s a very smart comic, you have to have read classic literature to know these characters. Moore assumes that you know them, or at least know about them, and brings them together in a clever way.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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April 3, 2012 · 10:04 am

Sucker Punch

Zack Snyder made a couple of cool movies like the Dawn of the Dead remake, 300, and Watchmen, and so I was pretty excited about seeing his first movie based on his original story. It looked awesome: sexy girls, crazy visuals, over the top action, and highly stylized world. I saw it in the theater. I was never bored watching it, but I was never enthralled by anything either. When it was over, I was indifferent. I believe my initial feeling when I left the theater was “Meh”.

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it. This is the cinematic equivalent of being black out drunk in on a crazy night in Vegas… lots of pretty girls, flashing lights, loud noises, crazy fights, and you have no idea what the fuck is going on. I know there’s a plot. It’s just not a good one and it gets lost in the chaos.  The story follows Babydoll (Emily Browning) who gets committed to a mental institution by her evil stepfather. She’s scheduled to be lobotomized (never a good thing), and she escapes into fantasies, which parallel her real-life escape plan. Of course it gets needlessly complicated, and you aren’t sure what’s real and what’s imaginary and you don’t really care either.

This is one of the movies that you have to watch more than once. Not because it’s that good, but because it’s that confusing. It is so convoluted and chaotic that repeat viewings are required to comprehend what’s going on. There are a lot of cool visuals and elaborate sequences. It looks unique, and it blends a few different genres that should clash, but end up meshing well. The problem is that the story sucks. All in all, it is entertaining. But it’s not essential to own or even to watch. People think you’re weird if you’ve never seen Star Wars, but no one will ever bash you if you go your whole life without seeing this flick.

Critically Rated at 9/17

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April 2, 2012 · 9:48 am

Drumline

If you remember hard enough, you might recall that Nick Cannon was a moderately successful actor before Mariah Carrey ate him. Drumline was his masterpiece. You’ve seen the plot a million times before: a cocky kid with natural talent joins a team, clashes with them for a bit, learns about teamwork and grows up a little bit, and leads the team to victory. Along the way he meets a girl, gets her, loses her and gets her again when he leads the team to victory. The twist in the plot is that the kid with talent is good at drums and the team he joins is a college marching band. It’s not original in the slightest, but the music makes it entertaining.

Nick Cannon plays Devon Miles, a drummer who gets a full scholarship to join the prestigious and fictional Atlanta A&T University marching band. He’s a great drummer, music comes naturally to him. He is really cocky. I mean really cocky. There’s no reason why anyone would like this guy. He’s a dick. He’s selfish. He doesn’t bother learning how to read music, unlike all his fellow band members. He didn’t want to cut his hair as required by the team so he quit. He changes his mind a little later, shows up to a party with clippers and everyone cheers. Yeah right, fuck you man, you just quit the team like a bitch, but whatever, its ok because you’re good at drums. He challenges the student leader and questions authority. He is not a team player, and the film vilifies the few characters that treat Devon like the asshole that he is.

Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) plays Laila, the love interest. There is no reason why she would possibly like Devon. First off, he’s a stupid freshman, and she is a sexy upperclassman. She has a car, doesn’t live in a dorm, and can legally drink. The first few times they meet he comes off as being really arrogant, stupid, and acts superior to her. There is no reason she would ever talk to him, let alone fall for him. Zoe Saldana is sexy even when she’s a nine foot tall sparkly blue cat.

The music and the marching sequences are the redeeming aspects of the movie. The band choreography and music selections are exciting and will have you tapping your feet to the beat. A good marching band runs like a machine, each part has to work perfectly or it sucks. You get a glimpse into how marching bands function.

So the plot sucks, but the movie is redeemed by the music. Nick Cannon sucks, but his character sucks even more. The supporting cast is much more interesting and likeable. It’s a very flawed movie, but if it’s on TV I wouldn’t bash you for watching it. I wouldn’t set the DVR for it though.

Critically Rated at 6/17

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March 31, 2012 · 8:57 am

Ronin (comic)

Frank Miller’s Ronin is one of his breakthrough comics. Ronin is the story of a disgraced samurai and his demon enemy who are reincarnated into a desolate, futuristic New York City. It’s heavily influenced by manga and Japanimation.

The story begins in old time Japan, where a young samurai loyally serves his master. His master gets assassinated by Agat, a powerful demon. A samurai without a master is a ronin, hence the title. The ronin and Agat do battle and somehow get transported to the future.

The world has gone to hell, and New York City is in shambles. There are gangs of freaks and mutants, lots of bums, lots of anarchy. The city is also home to the Aquarius Corporation, known for their pioneering work in biocircuitry, which they hope to weaponize.

Billy Challas, an armless, legless telekinetic lives in Aquarius and uses his telekinesis to control the biocircuitry. The Aquarius Corporation has an advanced A.I. system known as Virgo. Virgo acts like Billy’s friend and babysitter. Billy has strange dreams involving samurais. He eventually uses the biocircuitry to grow himself limbs, and starts transforming into the ronin. Good thing too, because Agat is back too.

There is a lot more to the story than what meets the eye. This is a story of past and future, east and west, man and machine, of honor and duty. Miller’s version of the future is dark and gritty, and his rough and aggressive artwork compliments it nicely. Miller does comics for men, not for kids.

It’s a cool comic. I realize my half-assed plot summary seems a little confusing, but the story isn’t that convoluted. There’s cool characters, a cool concept, and it’s hard to put down.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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March 28, 2012 · 9:46 am

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (film)

David Yates directs Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe once again as the Harry Potter movie series reaches its epic conclusion. Harry, Ron, and Hermione track down the remaining Horcruxes and Harry and Voldemort face each other for the final time. And it’s all in mediocre 3D!

This movie marks the end of an era. You realize that you were spoiled by having eight awesome movies based on seven amazing books coming out over ten astounding years. You saw the kids grow up on screen, like British Olson Twins, but their careers didn’t end when they turned eighteen. With the 19 Years later epilogue at the end, you get to see them age into middle-aged adults. It’s cool to see how much those little tykes have grown.

Almost everything in the movie happens during one long day. Everything from the Gringott’s raid to Harry breaking and throwing away the Elder Wand happens pretty much within a 24 hour period. Harry’s day is way crazier than anything Jack Bauer ever had to deal with.

Harry’s quest to destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes takes him back to Hogwarts. The Order of the Phoenix and Harry’s supporters all show up to take on Voldemort and the Death Eaters in one of the biggest and best battles in cinematic history. There are spells and creatures and death and destruction all jumping out of the screen and smacking you in the face. It wasn’t the best 3D movie, but it wasn’t the worst either.

Alan Rickman finally gets more than a few lines. Snape is the best character in the books, and Deathly Hallows is kind of his coming out party. His secret past is revealed at last. Harry exploring Snape’s memories in the Pensieve is one of the highlights of the film. It is brief but thorough.

I was a little nervous that Neville wouldn’t get to kill Nagini. In the book, Harry finds Neville and tells him to kill the snake. In the movie, Harry tells Ron and Hermione to kill the snake. Nagini was about to attack Ron and Hermione, but than Neville comes out of nowhere to decapitate the snake and relieve my fears. Neville is my favorite character. If he didn’t complete his story arc I would have written David Yates a strongly worded letter voicing my displeasure.

The movie was a pretty faithful adaptation for the most part. There are a few nitpicky things that would have improved the movie. They should have included Dumbledore’s backstory and not just hint at it. And Harry should have used the Elder Wand to fix his broken wand before he gets rid of it. Both the book and the movie screwed over Lupin and Tonks by killing them off-screen. I was hoping the movie would show how they bit the dust.

This is the only Potter movie to make over a billion dollars at the box office. Part 1 and 2 were made for $250 million, and took in $2,284,510,930 combined. That’s a spicy meatball. Take that Twilight.

I was sad when the movie ended. Harry Potter is over. No more books. No more movies. No more reason to live in this cruel world.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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March 28, 2012 · 9:36 am

Ahmed Best

Ahmed Best is an actor and musician. He’s released a few albums with his group The Jazzhole, he’s performed nationally on stage in Stomp, and he was in the biggest movie of 1999. He did everything right in order to become a successful working actor…. But he played the worst character in cinematic history, in one of the most disappointing films of all time. Ahmed Best is Jar Jar Binks.  What movie ruined the Star Wars franchise? The Phantom Menace. Why did the Phantom Menace suck so bad? Because George Lucas fucking hates me. And Jar Jar Binks was in it. Stupid, racist, annoying, CG stereotypes can make a bad movie even worse. And Ahmed Best will tell you that shitty parts mean a shitty career.

Critically Rated at 7/17

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March 8, 2012 · 10:19 am

Titanic

James Cameron is one hell of a filmmaker. This is a movie where you know the ending. You know that the Titanic is going to sink. You know that it is doomed, but you don’t care. This was the first movie to make over a billion dollars at the box office, it just kept making money. Everyone and their mom saw this movie. It was everywhere. It didn’t even open at number one, people just saw it and kept coming back and it blew up by word of mouth.

This movie has it all: romance, adventure, death, destruction, DiCaprio…. The special effects are a little dated, but they still hold up because the story holds up. Everyone likes to make fun of this movie. They are ashamed they saw it three times in the theater and still get mad when Rose lets go. The fact is that a movie can’t make an absurd amount of cash if people aren’t going to see it. Titanic is like Nickelback, you shit on it in public, but you know every word by heart. They write some amazing songs guys.

Titanic has a case for being the best film of all time. It won eleven Oscars out of fourteen nominations. It made over 1.8 billion dollars. It was the number one film for fifteen weeks straight (until Lost in Space came out, remember that gem?).  Of course it’s not the best film, but that’s really beside the point. This movie was a sensation, it was an event. And it’s coming out in 3D so get ready for that.

Titanic really launched Leonardo DiCaprio’s career. It wasn’t his first movie, but it was bigger than anything anyone had done before. It set the tone for the rest of his filmography; he would never do a paycheck movie. He would chose quality scripts and even if they weren’t box office sensations, at least he was always good in them. Kathy Bates gets a shout out for playing the Unsinkable Molly Brown. She had a bit part, but stands out. Billy Zane steals the film as Cal. He is a very compelling actor, and I wish he starred in more films. He’s wearing a hairpiece in this film; he’s been bald since the early ‘90s. Kate Winslet did a decent job as Rose, but it was really amazing to be a kid and see full on boobs and nipples in a PG-13 movie. Maybe that’s the secret to box office success: titties for kiddies! 

There’s a lot of corny lines that get quoted often, but the most quoted is, “I’m the king of the world!” The thing is, when you go back and watch the movie again, that line is not corny. It is spontaneous, real, and a triumphant line. All those scenes at the front and the back of the ship are cliché, but they work because Cameron makes them genuine. He knows film, and he knows how to manipulate emotions. None of his stories are unique, you’ve seen them a thousand times before, but you haven’t seen them presented like this. It’s grandeur, it’s spectacle, but it’s also relatable. You try doing that.

The Titanic hits an iceberg and begins to sink. And then you see the best and worst of humanity. You see the greedy and corrupt lie and cheat their way onto lifeboats. You see others who have given up and decide to go out on their terms. You see mothers gently caressing their kids. You see people working together and fighting each other. The best and the worst often go hand in hand.

And of course there is that ambiguous ending. Is Rose dead? Is she dreaming? Will the top stop spinning? Does it matter?

Critically Rated at 12/17

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