Summer Reruns: The Double Volumes of Kill


The epic volumes of KILL BILL 1 and 2 gave me the chance to try out more simple animated ideas in 2003-2004. That idea being to butcher the brand with swordplay and paint the result in blood.

Well I tried.

Volume 1 offered the chance to re-create Tarantino‘s recreation of the color scheme originated by Bruce Lee. Playing with the 70s typeface was a trip. If you blink, you’ll miss the Hattori Hanzō affect the perfect kill-shot.



Michael Bay Out-Awesomes Himself, Makes TRANSFORMERS Sequel Blurrier, Boring


TRANSFORMERS2

THE QUICK
Never has so much movie been given to so many people for so very, very little story. I know Michael Bay has the emotional depth of a monster truck rally staged on an aircraft carrier while Raptors fly about firing missiles at Bigfoot and Gravedigger as they jump through metallic hoops of napalmed awesome. But did I have to pay 10 bucks for TRANSFORMERS 2 to confirm that he’s an asshole of the highest order?

In a mad attempt to prove he’s a more successful Uwe Boll, and by “successful” I mean ” people willingly put money on his movies every fucking time,” Michael Bay gave us TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. Two weeks and $200 million later, I’m pretty damn sure Bay will be given the keys to the outhouse and manage to crap out TRANSFORMERS 3.

*Sigh*

I can’t worry about that now. Today the focus is on ROTF.

What some would call spoilers but I call fair warning not to waste 10+ bucks follows:



The Best/Worst Overload to Keep You Busy


The year’s nowhere near over but the best/worst lists are piling up like week old laundry. I don’t have anything against such year end reviews. I just never made the time to see/watch/read/do all the things discussed on said lists. Any reviews I make would be damn incomplete. So I’ll rely on others to do my dirty work.* Then judge them appropriately when I find their results wrong.

Heh.

Entertainment Weekly’s Best & Worst of 2008
It’s surprising how a crap magazine can get a few things right once in a while.

himym-indyshoot

I’m tempted to pick up EW tomorrow for the HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER photoshoot. The entire cast acts out random moments in 2008. If the show were as cool as the cast seems to be, I’d still be watching HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

Pitchfork Media put forth two bits of bests so far. For those who don’t know, they’re the Indie Rock Pete of the online music media game. Bursting forth from the ashes of what Rolling Stone used to be, maybe 20 years ago, I look forward to running through their tracks to discover something new and majestic and not found easily on mainstream radio.



My Hour of the Wolf Won't Let Me Sleep


I feel like drowning in a sea of 80s bubble gum sentiments, a malaise of selfish intentions, and great quantities of vodka.

I settled for Real Genius

..and my last few bottles of Fosters.



Speed Racer: Embrace the Fun


Here’s how it worked for me. The last minute decision to see SPEED RACER in spite of those who judge a movie’s success wholly on it’s opening weekend box office came upon me swiftly. I decided it was a flick worth seeing in the theatre and I was not wrong.

If you’ve seen anime and know all the trappings involved with them and/or if you are a Speed Racer fanatic you’ll get a major kick from this film. Also, as it was quoted to me:

“The ads are very accurate; cut and filmed exactly like them, so if they turned you off, you just aren’t ready for it.”

I went in unsure about what the Wachowskis were gonna give me. Their love of anime is honestly the only thing that allowed me to fit the movie in my budget. I’m glad I did. I thought it was pretty fucking fun. It really was *Speed Racer* with only minor tweaks to make it movie-worthy.

Please note for future reference:

The Anime Laws of Physics
* Those who have not viewed much anime in the past, or read much manga, may be a tad confused by the very liberal approach to physics that Japanese artists tend to take.

* It should be noted that the laws of physics for anime are quite different than American cartoons, due to different cultural symbolism and sense of humor.

* The copyright owners have granted permission.

* It’s funny as hell.

I don’t think the mainstream American audience was ready for the mix of: over-the-top humor, angsty angst, violent death, corporate-finance conspiracy, and solid family drama. For whatever reason, most folks don’t like their movies to be that broad.

In the end, whether you like or dislike this movie will fall completely on personal taste (and the quote mentioned above).

*I* thought it was brilliant.

And I’m crossing my fingers that the DVD/blu ray release will give SPEED RACER the popularity it deserves.

Next up: PRINCE CASPIAN



A Time To Watch a Lot of Fictional People Die


Internet,

Stop trying to please me.

These lists you insist on making in order to fill content on your sites and evoke some kind of reaction(see insane Nerd Wars), at first I found them distasteful. At worse they were lazy and unimaginative. But now you’re showing me things, wonderful things that I can actually agree with. It’s becoming very disturbing. Are you becoming more like me or am I becoming like you?

Please don’t answer this.

I’ll sit back and try not to drown in either possibilty. Instead, I’ll reflect on this list of cinematic death you’ve placed in front of me.

And I’ll call it, ‘good.’

Groonk

Top 5: Pre-Death Monologues in Film

PS. It was a tough decision but I believe you can figure out my favorite choice from the list. Although, that Dennis Hopper bit is a damn close second.

Now that you’re done dying, have a little hope.



IRON MAN: The Awesomest Thing Since Awesome Came to Awesome Town


That was the funnest, most awesome “comic book” movie I’ve seen to date. Robert Downey Jr *was* Tony Stark. He made you want to *be* Tony Stark. I’ve never been a fan of Platrow, but somehow she just glowed in this role. I don’t know what pagan goddess she prayed to, but she needs to keep that up.

I had seen the one-sheets of Obadiah Stane and found him unrecognizable. I never bothered to look up who was playing him. I did not realize til Stane opened his mouth on screen that it was The Fucking Dude, man! I about shit myself. He *owned* that role. he didn’t have much to say but Jeff Bridges ate up the scenery whenever he was on.

The inside comic geek references were perfect. The 10 rings. The mouthful of a government agency which I should have caught on to but the sheer brilliance of the movie distracted me from nitpicking it to death. Those little nods were there for those who knew Iron Man yet those who didn’t were not left out of the joke. The bit with Rhodes looking at the silver armor and promising, “next time” made me pop a little geek boner.

It was embarrassing.

I had to stay til after the credits before it went away. Which is where I saw a certain one-eyed super-spy make his appearance. He left the snakes on the plane this time.

That’s it. IRON MAN was subtle when it needed to be and action-y when it had to be. It was faithful to(what I know of) the story. It was the Spirit of Awesome in the House of Win.

And I’m gonna see it again.

Other IRON news:



Can't Stop Watching New Speed Racer Video. Brain Possibly Broken


Those Wachowski brothers have the best damn visual sense of any creative team these days. That’s the only thing that can describe why I’m fascinated by the new Speed Racer video.

I have to say this increases my anticipation of the movie. It looks gloriously stupid but so was the original series. Another thing the original Speed Racer had was fun. It was better than any other cartoon of the time and that time in question: 1967. Do you recall a cartoon that’s lasted in conscious memory that long?

Neither can I.

Let me also say that it’s the video’s visuals that sell me on the song. The video sold the radio star.

So what’s next on the remake list, Senor Wachowskis? If you tell me it’s Robotech consider my first born your forever indentured servant.



A Zach Galligan Interview Wherein I learn "Nothing Lasts Forever"


Movie Special effects were tricky some 20 odd years ago. Some may say the FX were better, but those folks are only half right. Simpler is a better description. Simpler is usually the best way to solve any problem. That’s just how it works.

Reading an interview with Zach Galligan I learned just how complicated the GREMLINS 2 gremlins really were:

And when he[Rick Baker] came in, some of the stuff he did with some of the Gremlins in Gremlins 2, at the time, it was absolutely jaw dropping. I mean, with the intelligent Gremlin, the brain Gremlin, that was voiced by Tony Randall, he came up with this system that works with the voice. And once you have the tapes, you had this thing where the computer was attached to all of the wires.

So this combination of pulling on the wires would create this facial expression that mimicked the letter E. And this pulling on the wires would do the letter G, all the way through the alphabet. And they’d get the voice, would phonetically transpose everything by computer for the facial expressions, and there’d be a two and a half second delay. So you would play the tape, it would go through this incredible computerised thing, and the Gremlin would sit there and would be talking, and it would be about two and a half seconds behind. Then, all you had to do was move the tape up two and a half seconds and it fit perfectly. So when you played the tape back, it looked like the thing was talking. And remember, he did that in 1989, way before the Internet, and way before computer programs were sophisticated. It was on another level.

You should have seen – when he demonstrated that thing, everyone was stood around like it was some kind of magical invention. It was unbelievable. It was an incredibly high level of sophistication.
Zach Galligan

The Den of Geek interview made mention of a 23 year old movie called NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. A movie which looks like a thing worth watching. Too bad it was treated so shoddy back in the day.

Here I am doing a movie with Saturday Night Live people, with Lorne Michaels producing it, and Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and even John Belushi was going to be in it, until he passed away about a month before we were going to start shooting it.
So here I am the lead, with all this stuff going on. And then I did the movie, and it turned out very differently, I mean. It’s very artistic and offbeat, and interesting: it’s peculiar and dreamlike, it’s just not a commercial movie. As a result, MGM just had no idea how to market it.
Zach Galligan

He goes on to say that some time after that the studio wrote it off as a tax loss. This meant no DVD. Yet they dols it to Turner Broadcasting and they have been showing it in Europe where a Dutch kid saw it and wrote a book about it called Nothing Lasts Forver.

Screenings have been held the last few years around the USA and it’s getting good reviews. 23 years later, a movie finds its audience.

Now how do I get my hands on it?

*schemes. plots.*

Looks like I got my Quote of the year(so far):

“…the difference is that people in Los Angeles are interested in success, people in New York are interested in achievement. There’s a very big difference. The people in New York want to achieve something, the people in LA they just want to achieve success.

Sure it’s a broad statement. But as a person on the outside looking in, that’s how it appears to work.

(Den of Geek Galligan interview: part 1 & 2)



CLOVERFIELD: A Big Angry, Hungry Baby*…


…or “whine. STOMP! Roar! SLASH! whine. whine whine.”

If the main characters of CLOVERFIELD weren’t rejects from some godawful Felicity episode, I would have liked it more. But obviously, monster flicks are more candy than dinner, so I’ll do my best to ignore their tired twenty something shenanigans.

THE GOOD
The You Tube style documentation. They captured every bit of the “man on the scene” video flavor. From seeing only glimpses of the Ocean Critter at first to seeing it in the altogether for fleeting moments, they hit the mark spot on.

Ocean Critter on a stroll through Manhattan. Fuck me runnin’, that was some awesome special effects. Call me crazy but I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. 21st century style, of course and mostly from the front when Hud gets an up close and personal view. (I can’t give a side by side comparison cause I blanked and didn’t save the screen shot of the monster that sparked that realization. My bad.)

Marlena: It…it was eating people.
Awestruck terror and emotion. Yes. More of that please.

Short bursts of newsfeeds , unsure glimpses of a rather large tail or leg, the military giving their best to slag the beast: all good things. That makes it the most real monster experience I ever hope to have.

Ratatat was played in a movie. Sumbitch, there’s hope for you bastards yet.

THE BAD
The You Tube style documentation. What was brilliant in more than one instance became pretty fucking tedious in the long run. Hud’s “amateur cause it was supposed to be” camera technique was irksome as all hell towards the end.

There is a reason why I didn’t watch Felicity or Gossip Girl or The OC or Dawson’s Creek etc etc. That reason was all those useless people at Rob’s going away party. I was never so thankful for a monster attack as I was after being subjected to that damn party for a solid 20 minutes.

Little to no character-love. Many Creature Features at least try to make you like the main monster fodder(waves happily at SLiTHER). All we got were the same archetypes we always see. The pussy-whipped, unsure about his feelings for the girl in question CEO. The girl in question who is confused by said CEO’s asshattery and yet manages to move on with her life. The damaged chick who wishes the lovestruck idiot with the camera would get a clue and move on. The clueless brother and his girlfriend who was actually the most useful human being in the entire thing. She was also the one who didn’t get a lot of screen time. That’s not a coincidence, I’m sure.

EXTRA NON-CLOVERFIELD RELATED BAD
Chatty bastards in a movie theater. Why on this fresh, verdant Earth do random asshats feel the need to sit behind you and talk as loud as they fucking please in a theater in public is beyond me. I blame your asshat parents. They obviously didn’t have the sense enough to train you in how to use an inside voice or how to respect others in public. For that, all of you should be flogged within inches of your lives.

And to the guy sitting next to me, upgrade your robot programming and learn how to emote like a human. Also, please stop pointing out the obvious. I was there. I know it was the Statue of Liberty’s head on the ground. It’s okay. It wasn’t the real Lady Liberty’s head. It’s fiction. Chill the fuck out and do it silently.

THE KILL STOMP
Critters ran amok. Shit went boom. Uknown critter-bite plagues were spread. Suspense/action was moderate. That’s an overall grade of a solid C in my book.**

*JJ Abrams claims the monster we saw was just a baby. This makes me consider the sequel possibilities.

**That grade may drop when I finally see THE HOST and it proves the better monster mash.