movies are pretty cool i guess

weekend box office

2010-05-17T10:35:00.002-07:00

What? Is it Monday? The weekend's over! So what happened at the Canadian box office? How will I ever find out?! I might as well shoot myself! No! Don't! I have the weekend box office right here. Stay with us. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

1. Iron Man 2: $4.59 million

Obviously this is number one. I've heard a lot of different things about it, but as soon as I saw the suitcase gif (after the jump) I knew I would have to go.

2. Robin Hood: $3.72 million

Russell Crowe, who I have on good authority is a giant asshole, is Robin Hood in this two and a half hour film by Gladiator director Ridley Scott. Again, mixed reviews.

3. Letters to Juliet: $998 340

Why would anyone want to send letters to Juliet? She was fourteen and she killed herself because of a stupid reason. I haven't read the play in a while... anyway.

FULL CHARTS AFTER THE JUMP!

Top 20 Movies in Canada - Weekend of May 14, 2010

This Week	Last Week	Title	Studio	Weekend Gross *	Total Gross *	Total Weeks
1	1	Iron Man 2	Paramount	$4.59M	$17.52M	2
2	-	Robin Hood	Universal	$3.72M	$3.72M	1
3	-	Letters to Juliet	E1	$998,340	$998,340	1
4	2	How to Train Your Dragon	Paramount	$572,653	$19.52M	8
5	3	A Nightmare on Elm Street	Warner Bros.	$366,623	$4.03M	3
6	6	Date Night	20th Century Fox	$322,501	$8.37M	6
7	4	The Back-up Plan	Alliance	$296,536	$4.34M	4
8	5	Furry Vengeance	E1	$231,876	$1.62M	3
9	-	Just Wright	Fox Searchlight	$143,461	$143,461	1
10	7	Clash of the Titans	Warner Bros.	$112,836	$15.89M	7
11	9	Millenium 3	Alliance	$97,353	$730,333	3
12	-	The Trotsky	Alliance	$96,756	$96,756	1
13	15	Avatar	20th Century Fox	$90,382	$94.43M	22
14	8	Oceans	Walt Disney	$86,958	$2.02M	4
15	-	Green Zone	Universal	$85,978	$4.67M	10
16	11	Le journal d'Aurélie Laflamme	TVA	$83,796	$924,528	4
17	12	Alice in Wonderland	Walt Disney	$80,539	$36.49M	11
18	14	The Last Song	Walt Disney	$74,449	$6.67M	7
19	10	Kick-Ass	Warner Bros.	$58,152	$2.44M	4
20	18	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Alliance	$56,491	$2.74M	5

* CAD		SOURCE: RENTRAK CORPORATION

Top 20 Movies in North America - Weekend of May 14, 2010

This Week	Last Week	Title	Studio	Weekend Gross *	Total Gross *	Total Weeks
1	1	Iron Man 2	Paramount	$53M	$212.16M	2
2	-	Robin Hood	Universal	$37.11M	$37.11M	1
3	-	Letters to Juliet	Summit	$13.75M	$13.75M	1
4	-	Just Wright	Fox Searchlight	$8.5M	$8.5M	1
5	3	How to Train Your Dragon	Paramount	$5.12M	$207.76M	8
6	2	A Nightmare on Elm Street	Warner Bros.	$4.7M	$56.11M	3
7	4	Date Night	20th Century Fox	$4M	$86.7M	6
8	5	The Back-up Plan	CBS	$2.47M	$34.2M	4
9	6	Furry Vengeance	Summit	$2.3M	$15.15M	3
10	7	Clash of the Titans	Warner Bros.	$1.26M	$160.15M	7
11	8	Death at a Funeral	Columbia	$1.15M	$40.51M	5
12	9	Babies	Focus	$1M	$3.89M	2
13	11	Oceans	Walt Disney	$778,000	$17.7M	4
14	13	The Last Song	Walt Disney	$547,000	$61.24M	7
15	12	Kick-Ass	Lionsgate	$540,000	$46.62M	5
16	10	The Losers	Warner Bros.	$475,000	$22.78M	4
17	15	City Island	Anchor Bay	$456,000	$3.62M	9
18	-	The Secret in Their Eyes	Columbia Pictures Classics	$415,899	$2.14M	5
19	14	Alice in Wonderland	Walt Disney	$410,000	$331.5M	11
20	18	Diary of a Wimpy Kid	20th Century Fox	$400,000	$61.99M	9

* USD		SOURCE: RENTRAK CORPORATION

I GOT ALL THESE FROM HERE!

Zoom: Academy for Super Heroes (2006)

2010-05-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

I've often thought that any anecdote about a cute kid is actually an anecdote about a STUPID kid. "The other day I told little Timmy to put on some pants, but he thought I said to eat some ants! So he went out into the backyard and stuffed his face into an anthill like he was at a pie-eating contest!" "Ha ha! Yeah, kids are idiots."

Yes, kids are pretty dumb. For this reason, Hollywood studios have exactly zero incentive to make children's movies anything but stupid. The rule, as far as I can tell, is that if you're a good writer, you either want to make movies for adults or you work at Pixar. Why bother making a great piece of cinema if only a bunch of mouth-breathing kids are going to see it? There's no good reason.

It is with this in mind that we must approach Zoom: Academy for Super Heroes, a near-effortless production if there ever was one. Join me after the jump for an in-depth review.

Zoom, or as I like to call it, "The movie that made me hate Smash Mouth," begins with a quick animated montage briefly outlining the adventures of a superhero group called the "Zenith Team." Apparently there was a team of superheroes, one of them, named Concussion, turned evil and killed the rest of them except one- Zoom, his brother. Zoom managed to kill Concussion but he lost his powers in the process.

The terrible Smash Mouth song which accompanied the montage fades clumsily into a John Williamsian film score. A helicopter flies by a mountain. Movie title:

Great landscape choice. Looks like a close up of a turd.

Inside the mountain there is a secret laboratory- area 52. Rip Torn, army general, talks to Chevy Chase, scientist. Chevy helpfully explains that "We've been tracking a pan-dimensional anomaly that seems to be moving toward our time/ space continuum!" Rip Torn snarkily responds "Dr. Grant, I speak Greek, not GEEK!" Note that this is the first joke of the movie. If you're surprised, remind yourself that this is a children's movie.

So remember that bad guy who died in the opening scene, Concussion? He's not actually dead it turns out! There's a picture of him on a giant screen in this secret lab, and a timer indicating how long it will be before he bursts through the pan-dimensional anomaly back into existence- 13 days.

Spent all our government money on this giant screen, didn't have any left over for small screens for the lab scientists.

A lot of movies, particularly action movies, have computers that aren't real (Like B:EvS), but this is one of the worst examples I can recall. How does this technology work? How do they know exactly when this guy is supposed to reappear? Why is the screen arranged in such a way, with half of it devoted to a portrait of Concussion? And what's with "Status: Inactive"? Has anyone in Hollywood ever even SEEN a computer? Oy vey.

And so we cut to America's sweetheart, Tim Allen, who plays Zoom. He puts some bananas and some chocolate into a bowl, looks around to be sure he's alone, and his finger begins to vibrate rapidly, emitting a loud buzzing sound. He puts his finger into the bowl and blends himself a little smoothie. Note: At no point in the movie is there a joke about Tim Allen's vibrating dildo finger. Not once. It's like cancelling Christmas.

I hope he washed his hands. That vibrating finger's probably seen its share of places. And by places I mean vaginas.

Out a nearby window, Tim Allen sees an attractive girl and immediately stops fingerblasting his smoothie. This woman is Courtney Cox, attractive and clumsy psychiatrist from Area 52. This part of the movie is confusing and stupid, so I'll explain it as best as I can.

Courtney Cox puts her hand up to her ear and says "Okay, he sees me, go NOW." A car screeches around the corner. Although Courtney is standing on the sidewalk, totally out of the car's path, Tim yells out "Hey lady! There's a car coming!" Thanks, man! AFTER he yells out at her, Courtney starts walking across the road, but she slips and falls after about two and a half steps and is not remotely close to the car when it passes. Even though all that happens was she fell on her ass, Tim helps her up and walks her into his house. Out of nowhere, Chevy and some other scientists appear- I guess they were in the car? Chevy explains that they need his help at Area 52 but won't say why. Then he pulls out a gun. Courtney is worried and hits the gun so it points at the ceiling, but Chevy accidentally shoots it and a tranquilizer dart ricochets off the ceiling and hits Tim, who falls asleep.

Four things:

1. What was the point of the fake woman-narrowly-escapes-being-hit-by-car thing? It didn't work, why didn't she just walk up to him?

2. Why did she have to go first? Why couldn't they all have just gone at once? He wasn't upset to see them, didn't try to run or anything.

3. Why didn't Chevy Chase tell Courtney Cox about his plan to shoot Tim with a dart?

4. Why wasn't there a joke about Tim Allen's superfinger?

We now go to the movie's second montage, also set to a terrible Smash Mouth song. This one's a montage about a bunch of kids in regular society who have superpowers. There's a little girl who can lift up a truck, a fat kid who can cause his own butt to grow many times its size, a teenage boy who can become invisible, and a girl who uses telekinesis to throw food at some cheerleaders. Biff from Back to the Future has a tiny cameo in one of these quick segments.

At least he didn't get Parkinson's disease.

Tim Allen wakes up in Area 52. His new job is to interview kids with super powers, see who gets to be part of the Academy and who doesn't. This is depicted through the use of the movie's third montage, and its second montage in less than three minutes. It is accompanied musically by yet another terrible Smash Mouth song.

The four kids we've already been introduced to are the only ones accepted- Fatboy, Strongirl, Invisiboy, and Telekinetigirl. Not much of an academy if you ask me. Invisiboy hits on Telekinetigirl, setting up one of the movie's terrible romances.

Before you can blink, though, we're in for ANOTHER MONTAGE. It's a training montage, the kids are using their powers but they aren't that good yet. Strongirl throws some stuff around, Telekinetigirl makes some skittles fly around, Invisiboy tries to turn an apple invisible, and Fatboy presses Tim Allen against a pane of glass with what is implied to be a greatly expanded ballsack.

Also a great metaphor for Tim Allen's career.

Throughout all of this, Tim Allen is less than enthusiastic about teaching the kids anything. He's actually a huge asshole, effectively telling the kids there's no point, they'll die unhappy, and cutting them down any chance he gets. Courtney Cox asks him why he isn't doing a better job teaching the kids, to which he responds for some inconceivable reason "What are you, bipolar?" What?

So the next day Tim Allen grabs the kids out of bed in the middle of the night and takes them into this huge room with a flying saucer in it. He loads the kids into it, teaches them how to use it, and they all fly off to the local Wendy's for some delicious product placement.

That reminds me, I want to eat a Frosty.

Even though they stole a huge alien spaceship, presumably considered a high breach of security at Area 52, the scientists don't even find out until they see a news report with footage of the saucer at the Wendy's (and a guy who theorizes that the ship is powered by ice cream). They don't even care that much- though Tim Allen gets a bit of a scolding the scientists seem generally willing to just chalk it up to Tim Allen being a lovable goofball (especially since he brought Courtney Cox a hot chicken sandwich so she can eat great, even late).

Guess what folks? Time for still another montage! This one's another training one, accompanied by a Smash Mouth cover of "Under Pressure." Never watch this movie. Never watch this movie.

Invisiboy gets mad at the scientists and walks out of one of the training exercises. They place him in solitary confinement. Seems a bit harsh- I forget, are they in jail or at an Academy for Superheroes? Anyway, Tim Allen goes to him and they have a heartwarming talk. Tim Allen teaches Invisiboy to close his eyes and "see" places that he's not in with his mind ("It's called 'MINDSIGHT'). Invisiboy uses it to look inside Telekinetigirl's room. She's in there dancing. Tim Allen tells him that he has to be the leader of the group (though this never really happens in the movie). Invisiboy asks about the old Zenith Team, and Tim Allen explains that Concussion killed all of them, including his girlfriend. Invisiboy somehow guesses that Concussion is Tim Allen's brother. I thought he was just invisible, what's with all these mind powers all of a sudden?

On that dark note, we go into ANOTHER MONTAGE of all the characters sitting around looking sad. Why anyone but Tim Allen and Invisiboy (the only ones involved in the previous sad scene) would be depressed is beyond me. The music for this one? "Superman" by Five for Fighting, which, while not technically a terrible Smash Mouth Song or even a terrible song at all, is still unbelievably cheesy in this context.

After this sad montage, we find ourselves in a classroom with the kids. Where's Tim Allen? He hasn't shown up yet. Maybe he's still depressed from the last montage. People start talking about how they've lost faith in Tim Allen. Then he appears, happy as ever, leading into ANOTHER TRAINING MONTAGE BECAUSE THIS MOVIE IS THE DEVIL. Music: "The middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

So now Chevy and Rip are standing in the desert looking at a bad special effect, which is the trans-dimensional anomaly through which Concussion is set to emerge in only 48 hours. Chevy says he has a plan: while the kids distract Concussion, he'll ensnare him in a sonic net. Rip asks, "Is that the only option?" Chevy says "Well, if [Tim Allen] still had his powers, his speed could create a mega-vortex, which could trap Concussion and reverse the dark effects of the gamma rays."

Jeepers, the writers of this movie sure know a lot about science!

This is an example truly terrible writing. Tim Allen DOESN'T have powers, right? But this statement by Chevy would only be in the movie if Tim Allen was going to get his powers back, and was going to be able to use them after the sonic net fails. All tension has been lost. It is absolutely true that if this scene wasn't in the movie, the movie would be better.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's a "prom" for the four students of the academy. The three romantic pairs have awkward flirty moments- Invisiboy compliments Telekinetigirl's dress, Tim Allen asks Courtney Cox to dance, and Strongirl dances with a robot.

And the fat kid dances with NOBODY! Ha ha ha! Cinema verite.

Rip shows up- "PARTY'S OVER!" He sends everyone to their rooms. Tim Allen sneaks into their room and wakes them up. "Where are we going?" "Somewhere the cameras won't see us," Tim responds. After they were easily able to steal a spaceship, though, Area 52's security has lost a lot of its credibility anyway.

In the super secret room Tim Allen finds, they give themselves superhero names which I will not repeat here because I prefer my names. Then they put their hands together. Invisiboy says, "Now we're a team." Tim corrects him by yelping "Now we're a FAMILY!"

Zenith team, more like Nadir team ha ha ha ha ha ha

Right after this little hand-touch, Invisiboy's mindsight goes off and he finds out that they're being trained to kill Concussion. He tells Tim Allen, who's PISSED. So... I guess he didn't know that his brother was coming back from the dead? Okay... The reason he's mad is because he doesn't think the kids should be allowed to fight Concussion because they'll probably die. Fair enough, they're just kids, and Concussion was able to take out almost an entire Zenith Team who were older and more experienced. After voicing his displeasure to Rip Torn, he gets thrown in solitary confinement.

As the kids are marching down the hall to fight Concussion, Courtney Cox saves the day by blowing all the guards and letting the kids run free. Haha, not like that, silly. Like this:

Would you believe they didn't make a "Courtney Cox blew everyone" joke?

So they all escape from the guards and then bust Tim Allen out of jail. Then they steal the spaceship so they can go... fight Concussion together? WHAT THE FUCK THIS MOVIE MAKES NO SENSE.

The fight with Concussion is somehow the worst part of the movie. Bear in mind that, from the films very first scene, we've been periodically cutting back to a timer showing when this ultra nemesis is going to show up. It's what the kids have been training for, what everything's been building to. This is how it goes down.

You can tell he's evil because his eyes are red.

Tim Allen goes to talk to him, but it's no use. Concussion blasts him with "concussive waves," which throw him back but don't seem to really hurt him. Chevy Chase throws the sonic net at Concussion, but it misses. Wuh-oh!

Concussion says to Tim Allen "I hope you've got an army behind you." Out of nowhere, the superhero kids appear. "Or a little girl with pigtails," quips Concussion. Strongirl runs at Conky in anger, and he shoots a concussive blast at her.

JUST THEN Tim Allen gets his superpowers back, and runs at Strongirl, knocking her out of the way of the blast. She's okay.

At this point, all the dramatic tension is OFFICIALLY DEAD, thanks to the earlier scene where Chevy Chase told us that Tim Allen would be able to use his powers to save the day.

Tim Allen then saves the day- with the help of his kids, of course! Make sure there are no sharp objects nearby as you read how they do it:

Invisiboy turns invisible and sneaks up on Concussion, pushing him into Fatboy, who pumps out his stomach, shooting Concussion into the air. Strongirl rips a huge metal beam out of the ground (they are in the middle of the desert for fuck's sake) and swings it at Concussion, who flies toward Tim Allen's SUPER VORTEX. But- oh no! It looks like he's going to narrowly miss the vortex! Luckily, Courtney Cox blows him and he flies into the vortex. Fuck this movie.

This whole climax, which was built up and built up over the movie, lasts only a couple minutes. It's close to the worst thing ever, but not as bad as what happens next:

Concussion, if you'll recall, murdered the original Zenith Team, including Tim Allen's girlfriend. The supervortex does not kill him. It makes him into a good guy. After he comes out of the vortex (which is just a big tornado), everyone's happy and he actually JOINS the Zenith team. Tim Allen doesn't seem to care about his old team of superheroes. Fuck this movie.

Guess what's next? If you guessed a montage, you're right. The movie ends with a montage of the kids being reintegrated into society. But I thought they were part of a team, nay, a FAMILY? Nope, they've all moved back in with their parents and lead totally separate lives. Fuck this movie.

Zoom's faults are numerous. Here are a few:

-So many plot points show up once just so they can pay off at the end. Invisiboy's mindsight power is introduced in the middle of the movie, ONCE, and used once at the end, just so Tim Allen can find out about Concussion. The spaceship is set up during the Wendy's trip, and used at the end only as a way to get to the bad guy. The idea of Tim Allen creating a super vortex is mentioned, and then he does it at the end to save the day. Horrible, horrible writing.

-I didn't really get into this, but Courtney Cox is supposed to be a mega nerd. She wears huge glasses and collects comic books in five different languages, never taking them out of their plastic sleeves. Oh, is that what a comic book nerd looks like? Fuck you, Hollywood.

-Tim Allen really is a terrible actor. With 154 credits on imdb as of today, it's hard to imagine why he's kept at this game for so long- he must have enough money to just quit show business. Love of the craft maybe? In trouble with the mob?

-The montages. I would propose as a general rule that one montage is the maximum that can be allowed in a movie- it's a useful technique but it quickly becomes irritating, and this is less a film than a series of pointless montages strung together by overwhelmingly meaningless scenes. This movie does for montages what Battlefield Earth did for canted angles.

-I didn't hate Smash Mouth before I watched this. I think I've probably only heard "All Star" before, which I have fond memories of. It makes me think of grade five for some reason. But after the onslaught of terrible music I suffered through at the hands of Smash Mouth, particularly the "Under pressure" cover, I can say with feeling that I now hate Smash Mouth.

Children's movies have their apologists- "It's a kid's movie and it's good for what it is!" "My kids love it, that's all that matters!" I probably would have liked this when I was a kid. That's because I was an idiot. And so's your kid, and so were you when you were a kid.

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 4

Terrible acting all around. Rip Torn and Chev chase stumble through this movie, not really caring, and everyone else just seems to suck completely. 4 points for the guy at the Wendy's drive thru.

Directing: 2

Continuity errors, three shots with boom mics visible, fifteen thousand montages. Fuck this movie.

Dialogue: 3

"I can speak Greek, not geek!" Terrible dialogue delivered by terrible actors.

Plot: 1

It has the worst pacing of any movie I can think of.

Entertainment: 2

Not even going to give this one a chance. So unentertaining it's actually painful.

TOTAL: 24%

Opening this weekend

2009-12-20T03:26:00.000-08:00

The weekend's basically over! But here's what already just came out:

Avatar: James Cameron. What a guy. If you haven't read his epic New Yorker article or the story about how he almost drowned, do that right now. If you don't want to go see this movie afterwards, you and I probably aren't going to get along.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?: Starring the British guy you probably hate and the ugly girl from Sex and the City (solid show). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this movie isn't going to do well. Some might blame Avatar for opening on the same day, but in all truthfulness, movies with no appeal don't do well no matter what else comes out at the same time.

Limited Release:

Nine: Pros: It's a musical version of Fellini's excellent 8 1/2 starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Cons: From the director of Chicago... with Kate Hudson. You should still probably see it.

Crazy Heart: Jeff "The Dude" Bridges as a country singer with a dark past. Iunno, looks all right.

Okay cool, I'll see you on Monday and we'll look at how things turned out.

Thai just can't wait: Hangover 2 news?

2009-12-20T03:03:00.000-08:00

One of the funniest movies to come out over the past year, The Hangover, is obviously in talks right now for a sequel. A source close to the project is reported to have said "I think this is a great idea. I can't foresee any way a sequel to a movie with such a perfect, self-contained close-ended plot could be anything but equal to the original. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some microwaves to put my head in."

According to some douche with a secret identity, the sequel will take place in Thailand, a country so ripe for frat-boy comedic material that it's a wonder nobody's thought of it before now.

Some fun facts about Thailand:

The capital and largest city of Thailand is Bangkok.
David Carradine, legendary Kung-Fu actor, was found dead in a hotel room in Bangkok. He had a rope around his neck and his penis, and was wearing fishnet stockings.
Thailand experienced major economic growth between 1985 and 1995, and is today considered an industrialized nation, the main industry being tourism.
The average age for a Thai prostitute is 14. The average age.
Hence the expression "Tight like a Thai hooker," or as the bastardization you probably know, "Tight like a tiger."

HA HA HA! Statutory rape.

HEYOOOOOOO

2009-10-05T15:55:00.001-07:00

Awesome Enemy of the State review. "You've murdered your ex-girlfriend in cold blood, so there!" Click to enlarge.

Hey what, where have I been for the last over a month? Not on the internet apparently. Actually, I've been at school, which is taking up a lot more of my schedule than I remembered. So, without further ado, here's my new structure for this site.

Fridays: I'll post what's new in theatres.

Mondays: I'll post what did well over the weekend.

Wednesdays: An item of film news.

Whenever I want: some links i guess, movie reviews

All right! Have fun with that, bitches!

In other news, I just noticed that Jesse Eisenburg was in movie called Adventureland and now he's in a movie called Zombieland, but I'm too lazy to turn that into a joke, so there it is.

Surprise video after the jump? Sure.

Seth Green, who I sometimes refer to affectionately as "The single redeeming factor of Family Guy," flipped out on a security guy. What an asshole! Well, from what I can figure out, the security guy was supposed to be watching some expensive camera equipment and it got stolen. So it's pretty justified. No Christian Bale here.

Still, it's pretty sadistically entertaining to watch a little guy like Seth Green scream at some big security guard.

some links i guess: presented by Li'l Trooper

2009-08-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?

We're back with another exciting installment of some links i guess. How this works is, I put up some links and you go to them. A lot of them won't have anything to do with film, but suck it.

20 pictures of nerdy cupcakes: I don't know if I want to eat it or put it in a locker. Oh, now I remember, I want to eat it. via geekpadshow.com
I'm inconsistent: Turns out Scott Stewart, who I've praised, is directing Priest, which I've made fun of. I feel like a fool. via cinematical
Sandwiches evolve past the need for bread: I want you inside of me. You, not this sandwich. I'm a vegetarian. via Asylum
Best original film scores ever: This list is huge, the guy just loves everything. By the way, John Williams isn't so great. via gunaxin
More than a punching bag: I hope this ad stays up forever.
100 years of special effects: All this progress and Avatar still doesn't look quite real. via collegehumor
8 Local News Segments Gone Horribly Wrong: Title sounds promising. via Cracked
Funny license plates: a lot of these just seem like a bad idea on everyone's part.

Thanks to ctrlalt_dance for finding most of these.

Surprise video after the jump!

I'm going off to school tomorrow so here's this.

Took me forever to find one that will embed because Asher Roth is trying to get people to forget about this song. TOO BAD FOR HIM!

Inglourious Basterds Reviouw

2009-08-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

I'll talk! I'll tell you where the Nazis are! Just don't make me watch Hostel 2!

Yeah, it's hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I probably liked this movie more than Pulp Fiction. Probably.

There was just so much to love about it. What you get is a solid two and a half hours of pure Tarantino.

The dialogue, for instance: QT's often praised for being an excellent writer of dialogue, and I'm sure he is. To be honest though, I've found much of his dialogue, while interesting, to be a little unnatural. That's not how Inglourious Basterds is. The characters are brought to life, and there's not a lot of suspension of disbelief as far as the actual written lines go. Tarantino's trademark fucked up situations are there, only this time we're in Nazi-occupied France so the stakes have been raised. There's the popculture and film references, though this time they're to some obscure German directors (oh yeah I like Pabst too... he's the beer guy, right?). And of course, there's the Tarantino ultraviolence- a lot of people die in this film, including at least one person whose death I'm sure you won't see coming.

QT-pie is always able to really draw out performance, and the actors do a great job, particularly Christoph Waltz. Jesus! Where did that guy come from? Seriously what else has he been in? Best supporting for sure.

Did anybody else spot the Harvey Keitel cameo? Or the Kill Bill musical recycling? Or the fact that Hitler responds to the killing of the Allies in the film-within-the-film (which was, incidentally, directed by Eli Roth) in the exact same we (or at least I) respond to the brutal Nazi killing in Inglourious Basterds itself? There's a million little details in this movie and I'm going to buy this on DVD the second it drops. Oh, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to buy it so hard.

Complaints? I came up with a few but I had to really think about it. For one there wasn't enough Nazi killing. The Basterds get a few short scenes and an amazing ending, but they're not in there for too long- I could have easily watched Brad Pitt and his Jewish buddies kill Nazis for four hours straight. Though I suppose that wanting to have an actual plot shouldn't be complained about. Another complaint was that Samm Levine, one of the funniest guy from Freaks and Geeks, had maybe one line. It's a shame, that guy was awesome. Third complaint: Mike Myers and his fake accent had one embarrassing scene, which thankfully ended before it got annoying.

Go see it, it will kick your brain in the balls. If you don't like it you're probably a gnat-see.

links:

Inglourious Basterds comic (read it before or after you see the movie, it's all good)

http://www.playboy.com/articles/inglourious-basterds/

Inglourious plumbers:

Samm Levine on Rejected Jokes:

Zombieland has a new trailer

2009-08-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

I await Zombieland with considerable trepidation. I mean, I'm all for killing zombies and it looks like there's a good deal of that in this movie. But for one thing, I'm not a huge fan of Jesse Eisenberg and, from this trailer anyway, it looks like the movie is going to centre around him and his Michael Cera impression. Also, I'd like to say that I liked this movie a lot better when it was British and had Simon Pegg in it.

On the other hand, zombie headsplosions. And Bill Murray has an undead cameo. Why is life so difficult?

Sounds like a devil of good time, GOULET

2009-08-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

"And then it turns out the air... was bent all along! WHAT! I know, it's awesome."

So I guess M Night Shyamalamadingdong, a director who usually shoots his films pretty close to Philadelphia, is making a movie in Toronto, Canada. That's pretty cool. I've liked all the M Night Shyamalan films I've seen generally a lot better than most people. I even enjoyed Lady in the Water, which was pretty widely hated. I haven't seen The Happening, but whatever, I'm sure it's not that bad.

Devil is a supernatural thriller. Or as Eli Roth likes to say, a horror film. It's co-written by the guy that wrote 30 Days of Night which would have been pretty good were it not for Josh Hartnett's faux six-packs-a-day smoker voice overs.

Teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender after the jump.

It's based on a popular Nickelodeon show. Hey, remember Ren and Stimpy?

Edit: some jerk won't let me embed this.

There's been a murder... IN YOUR MIND

2009-08-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

@ Yahoo! Video

The first trailer for Inception dropped today. Christopher Nolan, who directed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight as well as Following and Memento, is set to do another batman sequel after this one's out of the way. Which is fine with me, The Dark Knight was easily the best Batman movie ever made.

Inception is about a CEO involved in some kind of blackmailing scandal, like "Give me money or I'll tell everyone that you fight people in zero gravity hallways."

Another week at the box office

2009-08-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Concept art from my upcoming screenplay, "The Box Office Success".

It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Inglourious Basterds made the box office its bitch this weekend, because that's the movie that I told everyone to go see.

Quentin Tarantino's misspelled war epic made back more than half of its $70 million budget, stomping District 9 down into second place (which has already made its budget back a few times over, so don't worry). The Time Traveler's Wife took third place, despite the fact that Rachel McAdams* gave the entire plot away during her daily show appearance.

Not everything was sunshine, lollipops and nahtsee scalps, however. A lot of people are for some reason still paying actual money to see GI JOE, and it seems like Canadians are too dumb to figure out the ugly truth about The Ugly Truth, which is that it's a piece of shit. Tarantino's best buddy Robert Rodriguez' new movie, Shorts, took seventh place. OUCH.

Full lists after the jump.

*who lived in the same residence as I did

Top 20 Movies in Canada - Weekend of Aug 21, 2009

this week	last week	Title	studio	weekend gross **	total gross **	total weeks
1	-	Inglourious Basterds	Alliance	$3.48M	$3.48M	1
2	1	District 9	Columbia	$2.18M	$8.42M	2
3	2	The Time Traveler's Wife	Alliance	$988,512	$4.02M	2
4	3	G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra	Paramount	$892,756	$9.49M	3
5	4	Julie & Julia	Columbia	$714,682	$4.88M	3
6	5	The Ugly Truth	Columbia	$443,135	$11.74M	5
7	-	Shorts	Warner Bros.	$426,311	$426,311	1
8	8	Extreme Movie	Walt Disney	$400,238	$9.27M	5
9	6	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Warner Bros.	$374,840	$29.31M	6
10	7	The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard.	Paramount Vantage	$294,010	$1.2M	2
11	-	Éléphants	Fox Searchlight	$255,107	$255,107	1
12	17	Father and Guns	Alliance Vivafilm	$147,176	$6.01M	7
13	11	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	20th Century Fox	$133,949	$19.26M	7
14	12	Ponyo	Walt Disney	$123,033	$429,330	2
15	-	Les pieds dans le vide	TVA	$108,689	$441,341	2
16	9	Funny People	Universal	$107,067	$5.26M	4
17	16	(500) Days of Summer	Fox Searchlight	$103,888	$1.25M	6
18	-	Under the Sea 3D	Warner Bros.	$90,790	$3.81M	28
19	14	Shorts	Warner Bros.	$87,268	$24.8M	12
20	19	Sticky Fingers	Alliance Vivafilm	$84,151	$1.05M	4

**CAD

On the off chance that you're American and can still afford to see movies:

Top 10 Movies in North America - Weekend of Aug 21, 2009

this week	last week	Title	studio	weekend gross ***	total gross ***	total weeks
1	-	Inglourious Basterds	Weinstein	$37.6M	$37.6M	1
2	1	District 9	Columbia	$18.9M	$73.49M	2
3	2	G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra	Paramount	$12.5M	$120.53M	3
4	3	The Time Traveler's Wife	New Line	$10.03M	$37.45M	2
5	4	Julie & Julia	Columbia	$9M	$592.88M	3
6	-	Shorts	Warner Bros.	$6.6M	$6.6M	1
7	5	G-Force	Walt Disney	$4.21M	$107.32M	5
8	7	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Warner Bros.	$3.52M	$290.28M	6
9	8	The Ugly Truth	Columbia	$2.85M	$82.89M	5
10	-	Post Grad	Fox Searchlight	$2.8M	$2.8M	1


***USD

via tribute.ca

some links i guess: presented by Michael Bay and the Explosiongirls

2009-08-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

Michael Bay taking a few minutes to reflect on life's simpler pleasures, like Wulong tea or children's laughter.

We're back with another exciting installment of some links i guess. How this works is, I put up some links and you go to them. A lot of them won't have anything to do with film, but suck it.

The Number to Heaven: A new short film by the guy that did Hobo with a Shotgun and I think also worked on Trailer Park Boys. It's in a contest, so make sure you vote for it. via jasoneisener
The stance: It's possible to be both winner and a loser. via Unrealitymag
Terminator: Salvation producers file for bankruptcy: Some of the people who helped finance the new, second worst Terminator movie aren't doing well. If you understand money at all then you'll probably get a lot more out of this article than I did. via LA Times
Barney Frank tells it like is: Makes me wish I had the guts to do something like this to idiots, like people that won't hire me (everyone).
Your masturbation fantasies, coming soon to theatres: I'll see you in line opening night. We'll wave at each other knowingly. (Spoilers after the third paragraph). via ScriptShadow
CNR: Weird Al, genius, has found a way to make Chuck Norris jokes funny again. via JibJab
Hugh Grant quits: Is that a promise? via FilmDrunk
Family Guy to run final season: Is that a promise? They should have canceled this show years ago. Oh right, they did, and people complained. Where's Barney Frank? He's good at dealing with these kind of people. via Edmonton Sun

Surprise video after the jump!

This, not Clerks, is the funniest video Kevin Smith has ever made. Just watch.

And everything checks out on imdb, so it's almost DEFINITELY a true story.

What already opened this weekend

2009-08-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Stop looking at me like that, Eli. No, not you, Brad, you just keep doing what you're doing.

I think in the future I'm going to try and make one of these posts every Friday, unfortunately last night I was sobbing on the floor of a public bathroom covered in my own vomit while I should have been blogging, but what can you do eh? Here we go:

Inglourious Basterds: I'm going to see this bad boy on Tuesday so expect a review. Based on everything I've heard it's pretty good. If you like Tarantino, you'll probably like it. If you don't like Tarantino you're probably either ignorant or trying too hard to be edgy.

Shorts: Tarantino BFF Robert Rodriguez' new movie. Don't expect it to be anything like Planet Terror, this one's for kids. It has a pretty solid cast including William H Macy, John Cryer, and Leslie Mann. Take the kids! Otherwise you can honestly probably just wait for the DVD.

Post Grad: MAN does this look stupid. "Ryden Melby had life ALL PLANNED OUT. Graduate from College, get a job, start a family. But when her worst enemy takes the job she was hoping for, Ryden will be forced to *RECORD SCRATCH* MOVE BACK IN WITH HER FAMILY!" And somewhere along the line she's likely going to fall in love. Seeing this instead of Inglourious Basterds is a god damn travesty. On the other hand, I haven't seen it, it could be good. On the other other hand, it definitely won't be.

Limited release:

World's Greatest Dad: Two reasons you should see this if you can: It's Robin William's best role in years, and it was directed by some guy named Bobcat Goldthwait. SICK BALLS.

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven't seen District 9 yet that takes priority.

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)

2009-08-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

Battlefield Earth was scientology's answer to The Ten Commandments. It was a pet project of John Travolta's, a movie based on an L. Ron Hubbard book. No studio wanted to make it because of the link to Scientology- no studio but Franchise Pictures, that is. It was filmed in Quebec, Canada, for around $45 million.

What we ended up with was a two hour long piece of shit, completely unwatchable and impressive only in that such a horrible thing was able to have been made.

Battlefield Earth starts with a Star Wars like crawl explaining the story this far, not surprising since director Roger Christian worked as a second unit director for The Phantom Menace.

It's kind of like Star Wars, only green and stupid.

The humans are almost wiped out, and aliens called Psyclos have enslaved them. There's a few humans living in little primitive tribes here and there but they're mostly enslaved. The Psyclos call humans “man-animals”.

We go now to one of the aforementioned tribes.

A girl is worried because her boyfriend hasn't come home, he's outside of the little fortress where they stay inside to be safe. He went to get medicine for his father. Some old guy (either her father or a priest) tells her that he's probably dead, so don't worry about it. She won't accept that answer obviously. Then, he shows up- he's alive! But his father died while he was gone. He says, “No! NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

So that night all the tribe is sitting around a fire and this guy, who's named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, complains that he doesn't believe in the gods that his tribe is always talking about. The old guy from the beginning is mad that Goodboy doesn't believe in gods, so Goodboy decides to go out on a hunt to see if he can find proof either way. Before he goes, his girlfriend gives him a necklace that she says his mother gave to him before she died. What? I thought his father just died? I guess she's been holding onto this necklace for a while. She says to make sure that it, and he, come back in one piece. *loads chamber*

So Goodboy gets on a horse and fucks off to the wilderness. Out of nowhere his horse flips him off and he lands next to a giant statue of a dragon, which at first he thinks is real so he hacks and slashes it for a while.

The dragon symbolizes that the rest of the movie is going to just drag on. Haha.

Once he realizes it's obviously just a big rock, he laughs and says to noone in particular “so YOU'RE the beast we're all afraid of.”

Some assholes with spears show up and are about to kill him. Then he offers them some dead rabbits to eat and they decide to show him proof of the gods.

Their proof of the gods is the one and only cool part of the movie. They take him to an abandoned city, overgrown with plants. Goodboy's two new friends explain that the giant statues were gods who the other gods didn't like and so were turned to stone, while mannequins were people turned to stone by the gods. They go to an abandoned mall, it's kind of interesting to see Goodboy, who's been living his entire life in a wild tribe, discover modern day things like glass windows.

They make a bonfire in the mall. One of the assholes, completely unprovoked, says “Where I come from a good woman is hard to find. So if you were stupid enough to leave one behind, why don't you tell me where she is so I can find her for myelf?” Goodboy gets pissed and tried to strangle this guy. All of a sudden, an alien shows up and grabs all three and puts them in a cage on the bottom of a flying alien ship thing.

I'll mention now that 90% of the shots in this movie are canted. It's annoying as hell.

So this ship takes him to a futuristic alien city underneath a glass pyramid. Notice that we've gone from a stone age environment, to the remains of the modern age, to a technologically advanced futuristic environment. Oh boy oh boy!

When they land, the humans can't breathe. The Psyclos give them stupid looking little spaghetti strings to stick in their nose, and then they are able to breathe. A title on the screen informs us that we're now in “Human Processing Centre- Denver.”

Goodboy picks up a gun, the aliens seem unconcerned. Then he shoots and kills one of them and runs like hell, but bumps into John Travolta, who picks him up by the neck and carries him back.

They should never have hired the camera operator with the one short leg.

Apparently, no man-animal EVER has figured out how to use a gun. John Travolta laughs. The aliens, at first, spoke in some kind of grunting language, and then there's a horrible cut and they speak English. We hear the aliens in English, but the humans can't understand them, and they can't understand the humans. John Travolta's accent fluctuates between an American and a British one the entire movie, but I guess it's okay since he's not speaking English at all.

Goodboy is taken to the jails where he's washed down. A Psyclo takes his mother's necklace and destroys it. He doesn't seem that upset by this and the necklace is never again mentioned. Then why include it? Oh yeah, because this movie is stupid.

Some Psyclo asshole shows up and meets with John Travolta. They talk about how much they hate man-animals and laugh a lot. There's a meeting with JT, this new guy, and a bunch of other Psyclos. Watch it here, I'm sure as hell not explaining it.

Yes, that is Forest Whitaker.

Yeah so Travolta's pissed about having to stay on Earth forever. He immediately goes out and starts drinking some cups of green alcohol that he calls “Pans”. I hope that's not a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster reference from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Meanwhile, aliens pour some gunk into the cages where Goodboy is. Goodboy beats the shit out of a guy and teaches the other humans to share, something they've never thought of. A recurring theme in BE:ASOTY3K is that Goodboy is smarter and better than anybody on Earth at everything, and everybody else is a big idiot.

Later, all the humans are walking through the city chained together. Suddenly, things start exploding. Goodboy grabs a chunk of something that just blew up and uses it to break his shackles, then he starts running away.

Did the camera operator just get fillings on one side of his mouth?

John Travolta is busy being a dick to Forest Whitaker. He tricks him into saying something incriminating and records it so he can show use Forest as a patsy in his evil plan. I am not going to describe John Travolta's evil plan, because it's not important to the movie.

Meanwhile, Goodboy is in a place he can't breathe so he jumps into a pipe and winds up in the sewers, where he CAN breathe. Good job man!

I cant stand this cinematography.

Somehow, John Travolta and Forest meet up with Goodboy in the sewers, even though they weren't in the sewers when we last saw them and they weren't even chasing after Goodboy. They decide that Goodboy is pretty smart and would probably be good at mining, so they take him to a mine.

When he gets to the mine, instead of picking up an axe and digging for gold like all the other humans, he goes straight for the computer that's set up right by the miners. John Travolta realizes that this man-animal is actually pretty smart and decides to teach him everything ever. He picks Goodboy up and straps him in a chair where knowledge is beamed into his head.

Just too much Dutch.

Goodboy learns mathematics (which he calls “The unifying language of the universe”), the principles of composition and design (if only HE had shot this movie), how to fly alien ships, and how to speak the Psyclo language.

CUT TO! His old girlfriend back in the camp. His horse trots into the tribe's lair without him, so she gets on her own horse and goes after him, not before that old guy tries to discourage her. “Hope is an admirable emotion, but foolishness is not.” “I'm not a child anymore! I believe he is alive!” *cocks pistol*

AND WE'RE BACK! Goodboy has used his new knowledge to break into to alien's weapons storage and he's given all the miners guns. They try to rise up and kill John and Forest, but it turns out the guns aren't loaded.

All the sets were built on the side of hill.

WHOOPS! John Travolta beats him up a little, then Travolta growls, “I think it's time that we show our little friend here a thing or two.” FIELD TRIP!

John Travolta takes Goodboy to the remains of the White House an explains that when the Psyclos attacked, the entire war lasted only nine minutes. The humans were utterly demolished and made into slaves. Wow, kind of crazy. He says to Goodboy, “Look at anything you wnt- BECAUSE NOTHING CAN HELP YOU!” Goodboy finds the Declaration of Independance and reads it, nodding in agreement with the founding fathers. It's stupid.

Then John Travolta takes a bunch of humans to a field in the middle of nowhere to watch him shoot cows. While he's got his back turned, a human tackles him and they all gang up on the fallen Psyclo, pointing a spear at him. He's as good as dead.

Sometimes the Psyclos have five fingers, sometimes six. Here, John Travolta has five.

While John Travolta's down, Goodboy riles up all the other troops ad convinces them that the best way to eventually escape is to let John Travolta capture them again so he can go back to the knowledge machine an learn more. They agree. So they let John Trvolta up and he immediately takes control of them again. So why did they push him down in the first place? Because this movie is stupid.

Travolta reveals to Goodboy that the Psyclos have captured his girlfriend, then they kill one of Goodboy's friends. Then they go back to Denver.

Back in jail, everyone hears about how Goodboy can speak Psyclone and starts freaking out with happiness. The Psyclos don't know what's going on.

Was the camera itself just too heavy?

Meanwhile, John Travolta gets an alien hooker to lick him all over his fully clothed body with her gigantic tongue. No, really.

Hey, remember Pulp Fiction? That was a good movie.

So then John Travolta drops Goodboy off in the middle of nowhere and tells him to mine a bunch of gold and bring it back in some timeframe. Goodboy read somewhere back at the White house that there's a bunch of gold in Valley Forge. So instead of mining, they go to Valley forge and get all the gold they need. They spend the rest of the time training for Goodboy's complex and brilliant plan to defeat the Psyclos and restore freedom to all the humans. It boils down to:

1.Blow up the glass pyramid with all the Psyclos inside it.
2.Blow up planet Psyclon.

TRAINING MONTAGE. The humans (who are all primitive, totally uneducated wildmen) learn how to pilot F-16s in one day. It's stupid.

Meanwhile, Forest Whitaker has made an incriminating tape of him own of John Travolta talking about his evil plan, which, again, I'm not going to get into. John Travolta shoots off Forest Whitaker's hand. Forest is pretty unconcerned about the whole thing.

Everyone on this set was likely drunk, the entire time.

So now Blondie's back at the prison, even though he's supposed to still be mining. He lets all the humans free and gives everyone guns and rocket launchers.

There's a giant uprising. Things explode everywhere. The explosions aren't the fiery kind, they're more just dust, like when you clap chalkbrushes together. In any case, the humans do pretty well with thousand year old weapons and it's hard to believe that the war between them and the Psyclos lasted only nine minutes because they're doing pretty well.

Right as they're about to blow up the pyramid (which everyone in the movie calls a dome), John Travolta appears and just fucks up everyone's day as usual. The explosives don't manage to destroy the entire dome, so the one guy crashes his ship into it, but it doesn't work. He looks over and sees a bunch of barrels labeled “FUEL”, so he shoots them with a bazooka and the dome finally collapses.

This man's horrible journey is finally over. The audience still has a half hour left.

I'll sum up the next sequence by saying that huge chunks of glass fall everywhere, all the Psylos die and all the humans live.

Well, John and Forest are still alive. Goodboy fights with John Travolta, giving his friend the opportunity to sneak into the teleporter with the bomb, teleport to Psylon, and blow it up (scrificing his own life). Goodboy explodes John Travolta's arm. John Travolta looks at his smoking arm socket with disapproval.

It's just a flesh wound.

EPILOGUE: The humans are back on top. What's this, though? John Travolta is still alive! Imprisoned in a cage surrounded by gold.

Straight up, every shot is canted and it makes the movie look retarded.

Ironically surrounded by the very thing that he tried to attain! Hoho! Goodboy comes by and taunts Travolta for a bit. Suddenly, Travolta laughs and says “There's one thing you man-animals weren't smart enough to figure out. Kill them!” Everyone spins around and there's Forest Whitaker with a gun in his hand! He walks up to Goodboy- and hands him the gun, saying “I fixed the problem with this gun. It works now.” Because he's now their technology expert, you see! *puts barrel up to head*

THE END, directed by Roger Christian.

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 1
While there are some actors I liked in it, like John Travolta (yes) and Forest Whitaker, nobody has done anything close to a passable job. The shifting accents, the odd noises everyone makes, nothing Oscar worthy here. If I were Forest I'd be pretty embarrassed right now.
Directing: 0
Hoho! The director is an idiot. Everything he knows about moviemaking he learned on the set of The Phantom Menace. This movie has too many canted angles, repulsive editing and awkward jump cuts, long series of close ups, and bizarre performances from actors otherwise proven to be talented. Never watch this movie.
Dialogue: 4
It's bad but it's not the worst I've ever seen.
Plot: 0
It's hard to believe that anyone liked this as a book. Religion can make smart people do stupid things.
Entertainment: 0
I want to give this a negative score. This movie didn't entertain me at all, it just made me angry.

Total: 10%

The Psyclos are the lamest aliens I can recall. They're humans with yellow teeth, yellow eyes, big disgusting beehive dreadlocks, stupid facial hair, enormous crotch bulges and giant boots. Oh, and they have gross hands that change digit amounts shot to shot. John Travolta's voice is too high pitched and wimpy to sell him at all as an antagonist. The plot is overly complicated and assumes that the audience gives a shit. I was bored as hell the entire time. Every time I paused to take a screenshot, I'd find myself a couple of minutes later surfing the web, and I'd force myself to keep watching. If I wasn't writing this review there's no way in hell I would have watched the entire thing.

I'd like to say that everyone involved in this movie is an asshole. It's a movie by assholes, about assholes, for assholes. I will never watch it again. It was one of the most unpleasant two hours of my life.

Animators make good directors

2009-08-20T16:16:00.001-07:00

No wonder you've got no money left, America! Stop making shitty movies!*

District 9 was a good movie. It was directed by a guy who did a lot of 3D animation before he got to sit in the director's chair. But guess what? It's not the only movie by a former animator. Apparently there's quite a bit of crossover. Par example:

Extract

Office Space, director Mike Judge's first film, is among my favourite movies of all time and definitely on my desert island top ten picks. His followup, Idiocracy, was a Swiftian masterpiece that I think a lot of people mistake for fart joke movie. Whatever, those people are prolly 'tarded and all faggy or sumpm. Above is the trailer for Extract which is set to be released September 4th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOSS!).

Mike Judge, as you probably know, actually started out in animation. He was the creator of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill, and Office Space was even based off of some SNL shorts he did about Milton, Stephen Root's character.

Mike Judge isn't the greatest animator. None of his animations are going to win any awards. However, good animation isn't really a requirement for a good animated show- it just has to be entertaining. Judge's experience making animations seems to have given him the chops he needed to pull off a good live action film. Either that or he was just always good, and he could have done Office Space a lot earlier in his career.

Legion (that's the red band trailer holmes, enjoy)

This trailer came out a little while ago and from what I've read people don't know what to think of it. It's distributed by Screen Gems, and the release date is January 22 2010, a month notorious for bad movies. I for one am pumped beyond belief for this bad boy. Burn baby burn!

Turns out that Scott Stewart's directing. Who? Scott Stewart is the co-founder of The Orphanage, who have a pretty impressive resume of CGI work (before today I would have sworn that they also did Frank Darabont's The Mist and Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, but maybe that's not true). Legion's special effects are definitely in The Orphanage's style, which is a good thing, and the performances look pretty good too. Wait... did Dennis Quaid just die? In the trailer?

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

I almost forgot to mention Terry Gilliam, a former member of Monty Python. His cut-and-paste style of animation gave birth to South Park and all forms of Animutation. After Monty Python shit the bed, Terry Gilliam became a feature film director, with films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Fisher King, and the superb Brazil to his name.

Imaginarium is coming out this Christmas. It's the last film we're going to see with Heath Ledger in it, who died during filmmaking. Gilliam completed the unfilmed scenes with Heath's character using not one but three different actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Looks pretty weird.

Outland

Michael Davis directed Monster Man, one of my favourite horror films, and some low budget teen romantic comedies. To pitch his first Hollywood big budget feature, a script called Shoot 'em up, he created a fifteen minute long animatic- all the action sequences shot for shot. Michael Davis is an experienced animator, often using animations instead of storyboards to plan out the action scenes. The satiric nature of Shoot 'em Up was, like Idiocracy, lost on a few audiences. Too bad, it was a great film and I highly recommend it. Paul Giamatti: "Fuck me Sideways."

He hasn't made a movie since but it's possible he'll be doing a remake of the 1981 film Outland which starred Sean Connery.

Michael Davis once said that "having been a storyteller, having been an illustrator, being an animator, I feel that creating a motion picture is the ultimate art form, that it combines all of the things that I like to do." This is one of my favourite quotes and probably one of the reasons why I'm interested in films today. I think it sums up why animators make good directors- the sense of composition, of images, storytelling technique and the importance of motion are all skills that become honed by animating.

And hey, in case you were wondering I do a bit of animation myself. Check it.

*I should mention that GI Joe and The Simpsons made all of their money back and can't really be considered failures. It's just interesting how much more money is spent on inferior movies.

The other trailer that came out today

2009-08-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Some old movie remade by Jumanji director Joe Johnson. Benicio del Toro is a werewolf. Anthony Hopkins is his dad. Hugo Weaving's in there somewhere too. Looks awesome. Oh right, it's called The Wolf Man or something. Those transforming effects were pretty cool, which is the best way to judge a werewolf movie. I saw a vampire movie a while ago where they just jumped in the air, there was a flash of light, and BAM, they were a wolf (NO PUN INTENDED!). Lame. Anyway, I'm actually maybe a bit more pumped for this than Avatar.

What do you mean there's no dildo tie in?

Of course this exists

2009-08-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

The very thing Stephanie Meyer should have kept inside of HER can now be kept inside of YOU!

Sorry for all these Twilight posts but this is hilarious. Tantus, Incorporated, everyone's favourite sex toy emporium, has released the perfect gift for the Twihard in your life. It's called The Vamp (link NSFW) and it's got just about everything. Some awesome quotes from the description:

Yes the The Vamp retains hot and cold temperature. Toss it in the fridge for that authentic experience. ["Your skin is ice cold..."]
We promise this vamp won't be the only thing coming for you in the night.
with a deathly pale flesh tone reminiscent of the new moon's glow.
don't save this for just nocturnal escapades, try taking our Vamp out in the sunlight and watch him sparkle. [Is this good advice?]
reminiscent of the new moon's glow... calling to you in the twilight... Don't let this eclipse pass into the breaking dawn, place your order today. [I guess mormon author Stephanie Meyer didn't give Tantus Inc. official authorization]

Personally I'm holding out for Chan-Wook Park's Thirst fleshlight. It's shaped like a foot.

Avatar teaser trailer, for real this time

2009-08-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

Here you go, nerds:

Click here to see it in HD on apple's site

All I can say is that this movie had better be pretty god damn amazing. When has there ever been this much hype about a movie? Snakes on a Plane? I think we all remember how that turned out (awesome).

James Cameron invented a new type of camera that shoots in 3-D for this film. I have mixed feelings about movies in 3-D but the fact remains that he believed his vision wouldn't fit into any existing type of camera.
The teaser trailer (above) had a countdown ticker on apple's website. Jesus.
Sixteen minutes of footage are being screened in Imax theatres all over the place this Friday. Don't worry, you're too late, tickets are all gone. In fact, Fox's website exploded from all the traffic of people trying to get tickets. Tickets to see a commercial. Yeah.
Remember James Cameron's last movie? It was Titanic, which came out in 1997. Remember his last science fiction movie? It was Terminator 2 in 1991. It's been a long time coming. Did we wait almost two decades for Blue Cat People: The Movie?

Anyways, all skepticism aside, this trailer probably looks awesome. I haven't seen it yet, I'm writing this post at 2:30 in the morning while I wait for it to be released at 10.

SPOILER ALERT: This movie's going to trigger some pretty massive waves of furry porn.

some links i guess: Presented by Mark Hamill, cutie pie

2009-08-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, there was a time when ladies hungered for Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Probably not so much anymore (click image to enlarge, n00bs)

We're back with another exciting installment of some links i guess. How this works is, I put up some links and you go to them. A lot of them won't have anything to do with film, but suck it.

A Collection of Videos Proving Neil Patrick Harris’s Awesomeness: A stranger once told me I look a lot like NPH. It was the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. via Unrealitymag
Quentin Tarantino's favourite 20 movies made since 1992: Turns out Hamill's not the only QT on this list! Get it? Anyway, Quentin counts down his favourite movies made since he started making films. via WOODDDDDDDYAMOVIES2 (so THAT'S who took the YouTube name I wanted) (full version via Sky Movies)
Absolutely AMAZING Avatar Trailer: Released a day early, watch the trailer for James Cameron's highly anticipated Avatar, for which a new type of camera was invented to film. via Topless Robot
Girlfriend Doesn't Realize Boyfriend is on Vacation: Why does it feel like I'm watching Snatch? via College Humor
Do you wanna date my avatar?: You know, the video everyone's been linking you to for the last few days. Felicia Day, who writes and stars in The Guild, gyrates and sings under heavy autotune. via The Guild
AWWWWWK-WARRRRRRRRRD: Awkward interview with some lady from Entourage. Almost as funny as that one with John Cusack from a while back. via Warming Glow
5 things you didn't know about District 9: Jesus tittyfucking Christ this is interesting. Watch District 9, then read this article. via io9

Surprise video after the jump!

This woman won Ukraine's Got Talent by digging in the sand, and it sounds lame but it's actually AWESOME. This is (apparently) the story of how Germany attacked Ukraine in WWII and everybody was sad and blah blah blah.

ENJOY!

Sand is her bitch.

So apparently vampires are cool again

2009-08-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

To answer the tagline's question: Ever.

Twilight, a movie about vampires, was extremely successful this year, and the collective thought that went through Hollywood's hivemind was, of course, "Wow, I now see that vampires have a lot of cinematic potential. Let's focus our energy and make sure not to overdo the amount of vampire-themed movies we produce." Ha! Just kidding, it was actually " SO... Kids like vampires, do they? Well, we can give them vampires. WE CAN GIVE THEM SOME GOD DAMN VAMPIRES! AHAHAHAHAHA! WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE RICH!""

Proof:

Castlevania

It's based on an awesome (except, I am told, the second installment) video game series about a family (The Belmonts) who hate Dracula so they kill him with whips in game after game. Tagline: "DRACULA BEGINS." What are the chances that this will be good? Well, let's see, James Wan is currently attached to direct, who hasn't made a decent movie since Saw, and the amount of good movies based on video games comes up to approximately zero. I'd put the odds of this being decent somewhere on the high end of nothing.

(When it says 'from the director of Resident Evil etc' at the top, that just means that he's producing. He's not directing.)

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Watch more AOL Movies videos on AOL Video

From American Pie director Paul Weitz. Hey there John C Reilly! Anyway, this one makes no bones about being a striaght up Twilight cash-in even going as far as borrowing the exact Twilight fas-vampire-blur visual effect, which is pretty lame. I actually read the book by Darren Shan this movie is based on and it was pretty legit, although I was 13 and was still reading R.L. Stine at that point so take that as you will. From the trailer I can't tell if they've taken out the whole subplot about the vampire's pet spider which was actually pretty awesome. I'll see it, but one thing's for sure: JCR had better say "bullshit" and not "bull" in the actual movie or I'm walkin' out.

Daybreakers

I think you'll agree (and if not then whatever) that this is a pretty fresh idea for a vampire movie. Plus it has Willem Defoe as one of the folks with the crossbows. Awesome.

The Vampire Chronicles: The Vampire Lestat

Hey, let's reboot Anne Rice's vampire books! With Robert Downey Junior as a french vampire! Okay! I've never read an Anne Rice book because I am not a lonely sexually unfulfilled housewife. However, I like Robert Downey Jr. so this looks somehow good to me. Anyway, nothing at all has been decided for this yet so don't get your panties in a knot. Or I'll have to untie them. With my tongue. Wait, what did I say?

Priest

Starring Cam Gigandet (who was the bad vampire in Twilight with the stupid hair). It's a comic book movie about a guy who's daughter is stolen away from him by vampires and he chases ater them and blah blah blah I'm bored already. Hey, maybe this movie is a vampire too, because it's clearly going to suck.

Thirst

I saved this one for last because it's the best one out of all of these. Directed by Chan-Wook Park (Who directed Oldboy, Joint Security Area, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) Thirst tells the story about a badass vampire priest who bones women and licks their feet. By the way, if you're not a fan of South Korean Cinema you're missing out. Persciption: Watch Shiri, My Sassy Girl, Oldboy, The Host, and Memories of Murder and call me in the morning.

I'm ashamed to admit that I contributed to Twilight's $350 million gross by seeing it in theatres. My reasoning is a) I didn't know it would be so terrible and b) I had to choose between Twilight and Four Christmases.

There's one part where the faggy vampire guy's talking about how evil he is and whatever and he's like "You don't want to see what I'm like in direct sunlight. Trust me, it's horrible" and she's like "No, I do! Show me!" So he starts walking to the sunlight, and I sat forward in my seat because I though it would be something cool, like he turns into a bat or a skeleton or something gross. Guess what happens to twipires when they're in the sunlight? They glitter. Oooooo look, it's a big scary glitter-monster! Kill yourself.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you liked Twilight you're probably stupid.

NEWS FLASH: District 9 is good, you heard it here first

2009-08-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

Don't be sad bro, you made back your tiny budget in one friggin weekend.

How the fuck did they make this movie with $30 million?

I saw District 9 today because I wanted to be able to use the internet again without having anything else spoiled for me. All anyone can talk about is how awesome this movie is. I was pretty skeptical of all the hype, but holy butt, it was way better than I expected. It's a genuinely interesting story and even if that's not your cup of tea it keeps your attention with its awesome CGI aliens and sexy alien weaponry (there's lots of explosions). The lead character, Wikus, is at some points kind of a dweeb, going against the stock "all-around badass" action hero. That's not to say District 9 is cliche free, but the cliches it does have are the awesome kind. In my mind it was basically a perfect movie. THAT'S RIGHT, PERFECT. It's at the very least the best movie ever made where a guy is killed by a flying pig carcass.

Director Neill Blomkamp is from Africa but is now based in Vancouver (that's in Canada!). He has quite a bit of experience doing 3-D animation, and even worked on one of my favourite Vancouver-shot shows, Stargate SG-1, before making District 9. I'm guessing his experience doing CGI helped them be efficient and keep the total cost down. It's either that or the entire crew was made up of impoverished African children working for pennies a day. It's still mind bending, because the prawns look amazing, hands down the most realistic looking CGI aliens that I can think of.

Anyway, it's nice to see something good take #1 at the box office after a summer that had Transformers 2, GI Joe, The Proposal, Angels and Demons, and I'm going to stop listing movies now because I'm getting depressed.

After the jump, check out the original short film made by Neill Blomkamp that District 9 was based on. The effects aren't as good (and by that I mean the CGI sucks and the prawns are just people in masks with blankets on) and the short isn't even all that great, but check it out anyway.

Blomkamp, more like Blom-CHAMP, am I right? No? Okay, fine, I know where the corner is. *puts on dunce cap*

Budgets for some other weekend box office winners this summer:
GI JOE: $170 million
Transformers: $200 million
Angels and Demons: $150 million
The Proposal: $40 million

Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

2009-08-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, all the movies I've ever reviewed on this site are from 2002. Weird eh? I'll do something different next.

Ballistics: Ecks vs Sever, starring Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu, was a 2002 box office failure. One reason for this was probably the name. It's hard to imagine a worse name than Ballistics: Ecks vs Sever. Many people, myself included, have trouble thinking of names for characters when writing a story. The fact that this title made it past producers, focus groups, the final draft of the script, shooting, and when it was time to send out posters tells you that there's something very wrong with the Hollywood system.

BEVS starts with some pretty standard opening titles, stock helicopter shots of a city. The director really phoned this one in. By the way, the director's name is KAOS. Seriously. I can't even imagine the amount of pussy a guy with that name pulls in.

You may have the rotten tomatoes worst reviewed movie of all time under your belt, but at least your name is Kaos. That's awesome, bro. Give yourself a pat on the back.

After these useless city shots we go to a woman driving a car with her son in the back. Some guy stops her, and he mentions some kind of child custody thing, like “The boy's father wants to see him,” and she's all like “But he just got back,” and then the guy's all like “Too bad so sad, his dad wants to see him bad.” And he grabs the kid out of the back and puts him in another car. Okay.

So the kid's riding in another car now and then, exactly 4 minutes into the movie, INCLUDING the opening titles, BUH BAM! A car next to them explodes. There's a shot of a huge truck T-boning a parked car, although I'm not sure exactly why. Everybody in the car with the kid gets out, they all have guns of various sizes. One guy's trying to shield the kid with his body.

In comes Lucy Liu, hooded badass. She kicks the shit out of everybody with her asian fighting skills. The entire fight, from the moment of the first explosion, lasts about two minutes. She kicks the last guy in the face and takes the kid with her.

Nice raincoat, O-Ren Ishii.

CUT TO! Antonio Bandaras in the role of “Ecks,” sitting at a bar drinking like a fish, looking miserable.. He's got some pretty bad stubble and long greasy hair. Some FBI guys are behind him. “Hello Ecks, we're the FBI and we're taking you in.” But Ecks doesn't want to go, he just likes drinking I guess. One of the FBI guys puts his hand on Ecks' shoulder- BIG MISTAKE!

Mariachi style ass-kicking, T-minus one second...

So he beats the crap out of the two FBI agents, and some other FBI guy whose name I forget shows up. Let's call him 'Bobo.' Bobo says, “Hello Ecks, we need to talk.” Ecks responds “The answer [to whatever you're about to ask me] is no.” Then Bobo drops a bomb- Ecks dead wife, the reason, we can only assume, that Ecks is so depressed and alcoholic, is actually still live! Buhwhuuuuuuuuh? But Bobo wants Ecks to do something for him first. “Where is my wife?” “When the job is done I'll tell you what I know.” Ecks says no, I guess he doesn't believe him or something. Cut to: Ecks walking in slow motion through the rain, intercut with the same repeated shot of a car exploding. I guess that's how he thinks his wife died, in an exploding car.

Ecks changes his mind (maybe the alcohol wore off) and goes back to talk to Bobo who's still at the same bar. “You'll be joining an FBI transnational special task force,” says Bobo, which is odd, because for the rest of the movie Ecks works with only one guy max, and everything takes place in America (I think). There's no special task force and no trips to other countries. It's a strange line. Anyway.

MEANWHILE! Lucy Liu is keeping the kid from the first scene in a cage.

This kid shows absolutely no emotion through the entire movie. Here he is locked in a cage and he's reading a book or something. Kids are dumb.

Okay, enough of that! Let's get back to Ecks. He's being briefed on whatever it is they want him to do. It's pretty confusing and it's pretty hard to care at all about the plot in this movie but from what I gather somebody had invented a tiny little robot assassin that goes into your veins and kills you from within, but it was stolen by the kidnapped kid's dad, who the FBI likes to call “The Prince of Darkness.” What do they call Satan, then?

They watch some surveillance cam footage of Lucy Liu beating the shit out of people. Ecks explains that she must have been one of the many rejected Chinese baby girls adopted by the United States Government and trained to be an assassin. Bobo says “We need you to find her.” “Of course you do,” Ecks smugly replies.

So now Ecks and his new partner are sitting in a cop car listening to the police radio. Ecks' partner who is I guess a pretty new FBI recruit, notices Ecks looking at a picture of his family he has taped to the dashboard. The following cheesy dialogue is spoken:

Partner: It's my wife and daughter. (takes other photograph of daughter from wallet, displays) Her name's Mali!
Ecks: Do you love her?
Partner: (Shocked, offended, confused) Of course!
Ecks: Then get out of this business.

So Lucy Liu has been spotted at some mall or something by the police, who for some reason don't tell Ecks/ Ecks' partner. A guy walks right up behind her and puts a gun up to her back, and says something to the effect of “OH SHIT! We got you this time!” Of course, Lucy Liu pulls some Kung-fu shit and grabs the gun from him.

BAM PUNCH PUNCH BAM!

Lucy Liu now has a different gun, not sure where she got it, which she shoots in the air, and all the innocent bystanders hit the deck. Lucy Liu has a huge, long fight with what feels like the entire United States Army.

Over the police radio, Ecks hears “Attention all Units. Shots fired. Suspect is female. Vancouver Library” and hilariously deducts that it's the person he's supposed to find. Lucky there wasn't some crazy lady with a gun anywhere else that day, that would have been embarrassing for everyone. So they peel off and head for the library. Also, I'm just now realizing that maybe the 'Couv is what they meant by transnational. Huh. Canada eh? Does that really count?

So meanwhile, there's a big stupid fight with Lucy Liu and a whole bunch of guys in army uniforms. There's actually one absolutely spectacular shot of a guy falling off a building and landing on a car which is crushed, the camera follows him smoothly and at a very steady distance all the way down. It's actually incredible and by far the most impressive part of the movie.

Now what's a pretty young shot like you doing in a movie like this?

To end the fight, Lucy takes out about six fully armed guards with a pair of little stick things and then hops up onto their military assault vehicle, which has a huge gun on the back, and proceeds to kill the shit out of everybody.

So you heard there was a lady with a gun at the library, and you brought a military assault vehicle. Nice move there buddy.

After that, she just walks away.

So in the aftermath of this massacre, Bobo's talking to this British guy who works for kidnapped kid's dad. It's a heated argument and I forget what it's about, but it just lets you know that kidnapped kid's dad is a bad guy, if you hadn't figured that out when people started calling him “The Prince of Darkness.” Ecks is there, late to the fight (typical) but he's convinced that she's going to come back for more carnage. He tells Bobo to call off the police who are investigating the crime scene. “But calling off these people at this point would be career suicide!” complains Bobo. “Not quite,” says Ecks. And, BAMMO! Bobo gets shot in the chest. His dieing words to Ecks are “She knows... she knows where your wife is!” while pointing at the woman who just murdered him. Oh, Bobo! You're so selfless.

Ecks chases after her and runs down an alleyway looking for her. “Where is she!” he yells. Suddenly, a yellow car crashes through a wall. Guess who it is? I'll tell you! It's Lucy!

“Yes, I'd like my custom licence plate to say 'BAD' on it, because I'm so BAD.” “Very good ma'am. Anything else beside 'BAD'?” “Yeah, just put three random numbers after, I don't care.”

I have no idea how to explain the action sequence that followsso instead I think I'll just give you a flash gif I made. Enjoy!

BEVS: The Animated Series

So after that shit show, Ecks finds Lucy, again, and they have a little talk. He's got the drop on her with a gun, so she says “You kill me, you kill Gant's [Prince of Darkness] son!” “I don't work for Gant. I just want my wife.” Whoa there, Harrison Ford! She doesn't answer him, they have a hilariously awful fight.

Let me break this down: He had a gun, she grabbed his gun hand and his face, then he somehow threw the gun into his free hand.

Long story short, she gets away. CUT TO! The living room of Ecks' partner, his daughter Mali sitting in a chair across from Ecks. She looks about ten years younger than she did in the picture the guy showed Ecks earlier, which is a little weird.

Ecks asks his new friend for a laptop, and he goes onto the database that everybody has access to in these movies and SOMEHOW, without even knowing her name, comes up with the full profile of Lucy Liu's character, who, it turns out, is named “Sever.”

CROSS CUT WITH! Lucy Liu, at HER computer in her secret lair with all the cages. She's looking up Ecks on her computer! She's overriding passwords and everything! She does some research and reads up on what happened to his wife. Anyway, all this parallel action is getting spliced together. It would be cool if these magical databases weren't a dumb Hollywood cliche.

After reading up on Ecks' life, she does some X-Rays of the kid she has locked up, and underneath a bandage he has on his arm is one of the assassin nanobots!

What operating system is that?

Meanwhile, some guys burst in and arrest Ecks, I couldn't tell you why though. Something about murdering some Mexican guy. Maybe something he did while he was still an unemployed drunk.

Sever (Lucy Liu) calls Gant (The Prince of Darkness). More cheesy dialogue.

Gant: Where's my son, Sever?
Sever: Maybe the same place MY son is.
Gant: You can't blame me for what happened. You broke profile.
Sever: Is that what you call having a child? CLICK! (She hangs up, she doesn't just say "CLICK")

Gant calls the police and gives them the order to kill Ecks. So now Ecks is riding in an armoured bus, handcuffed to his seat. He;s got a paperclip though, and he's breaking his cuffs. He looks ahead, at a bridge over the highway they're driving on. It's Sever, and she's pointing a huge gun at the bus! He breaks his handcuffs and grabs a huge gun of his own which is hanging on the wall of the bus for some reason. Sever shoots the bus, there's a stupid explosion, the bus flips. Now, the bus is sideways on the highway, scraping along the road at great speeds. Ecks climbs out a window and shoots at Sever from the side of the bus, which is now the top of the bus.

Remember, Ecks was about to be executed, so however this ends for him, it's going to be better than that at least.

Ecks jumps off the bus and steals a motorcycle. Sever has a motorcycle of her own. There's a motorcycle chase scene that ends up in a junkyard. A few thousand exploding cars later, everyone is dead except Sever and Ecks. Sever has the opportunity to kill Sever, but she doesn't. Instead the gives him an address on a little slip of paper: 35 Lionsburg. “You want your wife? You'll find her with Gant.” Why is she all of sudden helping him when literally second ago she was trying to blow him up? She's just crazy like that.

Meanwhile, at a Beluga aquarium, Ecks' not-actually-dead-wife is looking at some belugas. Ecks shows up. They reconcile and between the two of them piece together the completely retarded diabolical plot that kept them apart.

The lighting in this scene is terrible. It would have been cooler with silhouettes.

Apparently, Gant, the Prince of Darkness, blew up a car that Ecks thought his wife was in, and blew up a car that Ecks' wife thought Ecks was in. They both thought the other had died. Ecks' wife ended up marrying Gant. This doesn't make sense to me. Ecks has already mentioned there was a funeral for his wife, and I assume there was also a funeral for him. Wouldn't they have had some of the same friends at both funerals? Does everybody in the world know about this evil plot but them? And what bout his wife getting married? Wouldn't she have had to prove she wasn't still married to Ecks, who the legal system would have found out was still alive because he was? They were both alive and living in the same town, they never ran into each other? There's a lot of holes in this story.

Anyway, then Ecks' wife says that she still loves him and blah blah blah, but guess what? Turns out the son is actually Ecks'! Holy jumpin'!

Anyway, they leave the aquarium and Sever just shows up in her car and they both get in. They go back to Sever's secret lair, where Sever lets Ecks' son out of his cage.

“Hey son, how you been doin?” “Uh, I just got out of being locked in a cage for a week.” “That's cool. I escaped from an exploding bus.”

Right after his new found son is let out of his cage, Ecks decides to lock him right back in, this time with Ecks' wife. “You'll be safer in here.” What? All right.

Sever has a huge collection of guns. She remarks, “Some women collect shoes.” Heh heh, good one.

UH-OH, BAD GUYS! Sever talks to Gant for bit, then things blow up. I'm not getting. In this scene, Kaos has artfully decided to go with a distinct theme: big dumb asplosions. Explosions are repeated multiple times from three or four camera angles. Things are getting blown left and right, and not in the good way either. It's like this was the last scene they filmed, and they realized how many explosives they still had, so they just decided “Fuck it! Let's blow everything up.”

I think Ecks is a pretty cool guy, eh walks away from explosions and doesn't afraid of anything.

So everybody dies except for Ecks, Sever, and Gant, and of course Ecks' wife and son. All five meet up in Sever's lair, and Ecks, Holmeslike, explains to everyone what Gant's evil plan was: He stole the robot assassin and injected it into his son (actually Ecks' son) to smuggle it across the border. Gant pulls out a stupid ray gun looking thing and presses it to his son's (actually Ecks' son's) arm, then exclaims “It's not here! Where is it?”

Props guy: Oh man, I forgot to get that ray gun ready for today! Okay uhhh, how about I just put a sticker on a glue gun, nobody will ever know.

Lucy Liu shoots Gant him with another ray gun thing. It doesn't seem to hurt him. Gee, I wonder what she shot him with?
Gant: All that training. Is that the best you can do?
Sever: No. THIS is. (presses button on secret remote)

We dolly in House MD style to Gant's innards, where the assassin robot is! It uses its pinchy claws to grab something that looks important ad rip it apart. Gant dies.
CUT TO: Dock. Ecks and Sever, friends forever, stand there looking at the sea.

Ecks: Thank you.
Sever: Take care of your wife and kids.
Ecks: I will.

He looks over at Sever- but she's gone! He looks around, confused. What's this, though? Looks like she's left behind a little origami swan.

Big deal. I can make one that flaps its wings when you pull its tail.

THE END!

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 5
Fault whoever you want for the poor performances here, the director, the actors, whoever. The fact remains that Ecks and Sever are about as unbelievable as El Mariachi and O-Ren Ishii were awesome.
Directing: 1
Absolutely terrible. I'll give Kaos one mark for that awesome shot of the guy falling off a huge tower onto a car.
Dialogue: 1
I can't believe that this script was picked up to be made into a movie. The dialogue is so terrible it's a joke.
Plot: 1
Boring, complicated, full of holes, and pretty stupid overall. Not a good plot.
Entertainment: 10
So bad, it's good. I haven't laughed this hard at a movie in a while. The sequence at the end with all the explosions was probably the worst/ funniest.

TOTAL: 32%

some links i guess: Presented by Guess Who Jules

2009-08-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

What?

Time for a new feature on movies are pretty cool i guess that I like to call "some links i guess." How this works is, I put up some links and you go to them. A lot of them won't have anything to do with film, but suck it.

Tim Burton's Movie Pitch: From a very early age my mother has stressed how much she doesn't like Tim Burton, and now I believe that all Burton's films are basically the same. At least she never taught me religion. Thanks mom! via albinoblacksheep
Neverending Rapevan Story: Vince Mancini from Filmdrunk posted a story about a van decorated with pictures from The Neverending Story. A few months later the people who own that van are pissed and they won't stop commenting. It's hilarious (Three links there, click each word). via Filmdrunk
Stupid French: Annnnnnnd it looks like google's up to its old tricks. via google?
8 Videos of People Who Look Like Special Effects Creations: It's all there in the title. I used to think CrackedTV wasn't funny, then it hit me: it's Those Aren't Muskets that isn't funny, not CrackedTV. via cracked
Best Rap Video Ever?!: Yeah this is old but whatever, it's my favourite mediocre film. Can you spot Kim Evey's (Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show's "Kiko") cameo? via mediocre films
Dear Zachary: An amazing documentary about love, loss, evil, and my country's terrible legal system. It's a serious doc and I feel a bit weird posting it next to these other links, but I watched it today and it officially brought the number of movies I've ever cried during up to four (the others: Heidi, Tom Yum Goong, and Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny). via YouTube

11 terrible DVD covers and movie posters

2009-08-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's a DVD box. If you can think of a funny caption for this picture you should probably start your own blog... dick.

I can't watch terrible movies every day, so why not do something popular to blogs everywhere involving almost no effort? A list of stupid things! All right! Here we go!

There's a lot of terrible DVD covers and posters out there, for great movies and terrible movies alike. These can fall into a few categories: floating heads, terrible photoshops, or just all around bad layout.

Take the European release of Children of Men for example.

The layout and the colour are pretty bad, and what's going on with Clive Owen's eyes? I've heard a lot of people complain about the North American Children of Men cover, but at least it was simple, and the colour scheme representative of the movie's actual texture.

This one is just straight up terrible photoshopping. Looks like they're trying to paste William H Macy's face on somebody else's head. The “Loser...Schmoozer” lines are pretty hilarious too.
This is one of my favourite things in the world. “1-Disc Unrated Edition!” I think a better marketing strategy would have been to just go ahead and call it the “Unrated Edition,” not brag about the fact that it includes the absolute minimum amount of DVDs needed in order to be sold. But hey, I'm not paid to make DVD covers, I'm just a guy who sits in his basement making fun of other people's hard work, so what do I know, really.
Two things wrong with this photoshop. One of them doesn't matter and one of them does. First of all, that's not how reflections work. We can tell from the level of the horizon and the level of batman that he's in a tall building of his own, so the refection on the floor should be of the sky, not the city. Second of all, Batman's staring at a giant black post.

Three things I know about this graphic designer:

He likes fire.
He doesn't know how arms work, so he probably doesn't have arms of his own.
He's anti-gun, so he refused to photoshop a gun into Nicolas Cage's hand.

Vanishing Point took a bit of a strange turn on its international release. Purple was an odd colour choice for an action movie about driving a muscle car across America. I like that they've included an actual “vanishing point” around the car, though. Anyway, this cover is the one I have and it's way better.
Here's an old one. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the three James Bond movies I've actually seen, it's pretty awesome. But it's funny that in an age before photoshop people were still making the same kind of mistakes. That's not how skis work.
Clearly the graphic designer mistook Martin Lawrence for a ten-year-old and photoshopped him as such.
Seriously guys, either take a few online photoshop tutorials or just go back to painting movie posters like you used to, those always look better anyways.
I guess once you've hired Nicolas Cage for your low budget vampire comedy you can't afford to spend more than three seconds working out the DVD cover design. Makes sense.

Three pictures of Forest Whitaker? I would have been happy with one, but yeah, mathematically this should be about three times more awesome.

That was fun! I should do this again some time. Making fun of DVD covers is like shooting babies in a barrel, except without an erection.

I think we've got this internet thing pretty much nailed down

2009-08-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

No idea who painted this but it's safe to say they're about to take the art world by storm

So I enlisted the service of my best buttbuddy Nic, who you might (or might not) know as "Lostgame" and he figured out how to change the background colour. You may have also noticed that the longer posts have a "click here for more" button, which is thanks to another friend of mine named K-Kwan AKA ctrlalt_dance. Makes the blog easier to navigate or whatever. Let's try it out! After the jump you'll find my favourite trailer of all time ever. Hold out to the 1:18, that's when shit gets real. "FROM THE MAKERS OF ONG-BAK..."

YEEEEEEAH! What did you think of that, Hollywood? What taglines have you come up with lately? Honestly if this trailer alone doesn't make you want to kick a guy with a fanny pack in the face I don't think we can be friends.

Swept Away (2002)

2009-08-15T14:53:00.001-07:00

Guy Ritchie has had a somewhat odd career. Chances are you've seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, both of which are amazing. He followed that up with Revolver, which kind of sucked, and most recently put out RockNRolla, which wasn't that bad, really. He also directed the upcoming Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr., which I'm nervously excited for. Hopefully it'll put Ritchie back on top.

The Guy Ritchie film that isn't usually talked about is Swept Away, incredibly made between Snatch and Revolver. It's a remake of the 1974 Italian film called Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August. Ritchie's version stars his wife Madonna as the female lead, and Adriano Giannini in the same role his father Giancarlo Giannini played in the original.

We begin with some pretty solid opening credits. It introduces some of the characters, is visually interesting, and well-edited (one of Ritchie's strengths). What we have is a group of rich people, including Amber (Madonna) and her husband, about to go on a boat cruise.

If you like gap-toothed women, you'll love this movie! Actually you'll probably still hate it.

When they get to the dock, it's established right away that Madonna's character is a complete bitch and that Madonna is a terrible actor. She doesn't want to get on the yacht because she thinks it's a piece of junk (I don't know what kind of boat she's used to but I thought it looked pretty spiffy). At least there's a gym, she says. Madonna and her party, which includes Elizabeth Banks, get on the boat. Banks is hot and awesome as always.

Now we're introduced to the other main character, Italian fisherman Giuseppe, who Madonna hilariously calls “Pee-Pee”. Right away she asks for him to show her the gym. “Ah yes, right away!” he responds, and brings her back an exercise bike and a jump rope. Wuh-oh! She gets mad and yells at him and whatnot.

During dinner, Elizabeth Banks lays some pipe by delivering the line “This is a really good idea, a trip from Italy to Greece! Just imagine all the deserted islands along the way.” Well now, that was awfully expository.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth Banks, the best part of the movie. Actually... the face that other girl's making is pretty awesome too. Best SINGLE FRAME frame of the movie, right here.

They go swimming, all except Madonna who sits in the boat under an umbrella and insults Giuseppe. The audience, at this point, hates Madonna and loves the funny little Italian fisherman. He sounds like Mario! He's mostly polite and good-natured around Madonna, but when he's out of her sight he makes remarks to the boat crew like “I'm going to kill that fucking bitch with a kitchen knife!” At one point she overhears him and asks the captain, “Did one of your crew members just swear in front of me?” The captain, thinking on his feet as captains do, plays it off like “fuking” is the name of a fish, because saying “I'm going to kill that fish bitch with a kitchen knife!” is okay. She responds, in one of the strangest lines in the movie, “I don't care if it's fuking, puking, or a fucking kung fu king! I want fish and I want it tonight!”

Madonna continues to be a bitch, Giuseppe continues to fulfill her every request. There's a truly satisfying dream sequence where Madonna complains that the fish is bad, and Giuseppe says, “Well, if you don't want to EAT it, you must want to WEAR it!” And he dumps it on her head. She gripes and complains and then he picks her up and throws her overboard, proclaiming himself in charge of the boat.

The other best part of the movie, and my computer wallpaper.

Of course, you know what kind of movie this is, so it's pretty obvious that SOMETHING or other's going to happen and they'll fall in love, right? Hope I didn't give anything away there.

Later, Madonna's drunk on the boat and bumps into Giuseppe in the hall. He's carrying a huge fish. She asks to dance with him, and he says “I don't wanna dance with people I don't like.” OH SNAP!

You want to dance, eh? What do you think, Mr Fish? Do you think I should dance with her? What's that, Mr Fish? Why, I think you're right, she DOES have a gap in her teeth.

The next day, Madonna wants to go visit the caves. Giuseppe warns her that the caves are far away, there's a strong current, it's getting late, etc. Madonna still wants to go. They get on the boat, Giuseppe warning her that it's a bad idea the entire time. Madonna asks if he's scared, he says something like, “Scared? Woman, I was conceived on a boat and born on a boat, there's no wave or storm that frightens me.” Predictably, the boat breaks down midway through this line. Try as he might, Giuseppe can't start it up again.

Guy Ritchie: “Could you look a little more worried, love?” Madonna: “Shut up! I'm the material girl!” Guy Ritchie: “Righty ho then.”

There's some very nice wide shots of the dinghy in the water, and day fades into night. Again, the movie looks great, the colour of the water is perfect and the camera moves well. You can probably tell from these stills that this ain't no Cheerleader Ninjas. Anyway, some boring stuff happens, the days pass, Madonna shoots the dinghy with a flare gun and then they find land. Civilization! ...or is it?

Nope, it's a deserted island. “It's a deserted island,” Giuseppe tells Madonna, who says “That's impossible, you idiot. It's not 1492.” They have a fight, she calls him a “dirty black midget,” he calls her a “whore”, they part ways. This is followed by a little montage of them trying to survive on the island. Giuseppe makes a spear gun out of wood, finds a little shack, fills a coke bottle with fresh water from a waterfall, and picks berries while Madonna gets hurt, falls down, and sticks her tongue into a rock crevasse to catch some tiny drips of water.

PAN UP to reveal GIUSEPPE relieving himself on the top of the rock pile, drinking from his coke bottle. He points at the camera and winks. GIUSEPPE: Live on the COKE side of life!

So, Madonna's hungry and tired while Giuseppe's having an awesome time. He's eating some fish that he caught, sitting in the shade and chuckling to himself. Madonna moans, “Give me some fucking fish you scumbag!”

I'll mention now that, for all my complaining, the movie so far hasn't been terrible. The cinematography and editing is very nice, and that alone makes it pretty watchable. It's brought down by Madonna's terrible acting and some unnatural dialogue, but honestly I didn't really mind it. It seems just like any other terrible romantic comedy.

So back to the action. Madonna asks the scumbag for some fucking fish. Then, he slaps her across the face and she stumbles back. Whoa there! That was a little weird. At first I expected it to be another dream sequence, but nope.

SLAP!

From this point on the relationship between Madonna and Giuseppe changes to that of master and slave. Giuseppe makes some rules:

Don't insult Giuseppe
Giuseppe's the boss
If you want Giuseppe's fishes, you have to EARN them!
Wash Giuseppe's clothes (here Giuseppe strips naked, hands Madonna his clothes)
The plural form of "fish" is now "fishes" (seriously)
You have to call Giuseppe "Master."

At first, Madonna doesn't want to be a part of this, but then he slaps her again and she reluctantly goes and washes his clothes for him.

Look at that badass, he doesn't give a SHIT about proper pluralization!

Giuseppe's now waited on hand and foot. He gives a small amount of food to Madonna, but he's a huge asshole to her as well. He spends a lot of time slapping her around and kicking her until she falls over. She spends a lot of time curled in a ball, crying softly to herself. It's uncomfortable to watch, and probably has no place in a romantic comedy, which I thought this was supposed to be. The only thing that makes watching it a little bit easier is Madonna's terrible acting, so, good casting, I guess.

At one point he forces Madonna to sing and dance for a meal. This goes into a dream sequence where Madonna lip-synchs to “Come on-a my house” in front of a band.

This would probably be more entertaining and glamourous if it wasn't a metaphor of a physically abused woman being forced to sing and dance for some raw fish to eat

So I guess she gets some food or something, but anyway, the next day Madonna's on her hands and knees cleaning the grill Giuseppe uses to cook fish on. Then, out of nowhere, Giuseppe says “Show me your tits, now!” and kicks her in the stomach. “Help! Help!” Madonna cries as Giuseppe attacks her. “Shout, shout! Who's going to help you, idiot!” Madonna kicks him in the balls and runs off. He chases her, tackles her to the ground, rips her clothes off. She screams and screams, calling him a pig and a rapist. He kisses her and asks her to beg him for sex. She eventually does, and at that point he says “No! Only when we fall in love!” and gets up and walks away, leaving Madonna to lay in the sand and cry. It's fucked up.

Quickest way to ruin a rom-com: rape scene. Or, cast Madonna

After the rape scene, slow, romantic piano music plays. Shots of a crying Madonna fade into shots of a regretful Giuseppe. Then, the montage shifts to show Madonna going up to Giuseppe and kissing his feet, then the two having sex on the beach, in Giuseppe's shack, in the forest, everywhere. Madonna is so happy! Giuseppe remarks, “Dear Mrs Amber, you have never looked so happy on the yacht.” The audience feels physically ill.

Indeed, Madonna does seem to prefer this life. A yacht (maybe even THE yacht) sails by close to the island, and she crouches for cover so she can keep living with lovable ol' Giuseppe McRapeypants.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll direct your attention to the right you'll see Madonna hiding behind a bush. A common sighting in the Mediterranean.”

That night, Madonna and Giuseppe sit around a campfire. Madonna's sad because she thinks Giuseppe longs for a younger woman. He says no. Still, Madonna can't help but think that they never would have ended up together if they weren't stranded on an island (which is pretty obvious, really). Later, the two find some alcohol, drink it, and play charades.

Not again!

They laugh and have fun acting out Charlie Chaplin, Jesus Christ, and a flapping penguin. The next day, Madonna tells Giuseppe she loves him. He doesn't say it back.

Though he doesn't slap her around as much anymore, Giuseppe is still a dick. One day Madonna surprises him by catching him an octopus. Angrily, he says “I catch the fishes around here, you cook them!” and throws the perfectly good octopus on the floor.

One day, a yacht arrives offshore. Giuseppe goes to catch its attention, but Madonna says “Let's hide! I love you!” Giuseppe responds, “I need proof.” So he runs out into the sea, yelling and waving.

That's him on the shore there, see?

They get on the boat. The movie cuts to Madonna hugging her old husband. Giuseppe's there, too. He looks sad and walks away. The husbands friend gives Giuseppe a literal bag full of money. Giuseppe spends it all on a wedding ring for Madonna, then he gives her a call.

Giuseppe: I love you, I am yours, I always will be!”
Madonna: “I love you too my darling, I love you more than life.”

They arrange for Giuseppe to come up with a plan, write that plan on a note, and give Madonna the note and she'll do what it says. Through a series of Shakespearean-style-letter-mix-up circumstances, they both end up believing that the other betrayed them. Madonna flies off in a helicopter with her husband, Giuseppe chases after her and tries to throw his ring at the helicopter (real smart move there, buddy). The ring falls into the sea. The camera follows the falling ring as the credits roll.

Kind of a depressing ending, but any sadness is far outweighed by the relief that the movie's over.

Swept Away is a terrible movie. It's hard to feel sympathy for Madonna's character, and even harder to laugh at a rapist. This should have been a romantic comedy between Elizabeth Banks and Jason Statham. Hey now, that's a pretty awesome idea. ARE YOU LISTENING, HOLLYWOOD?

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 5
Madonna was awful, but the other actors weren't bad. I'll give it a 5 because Madonna shared one of the only two parts for most of the movie.
Directing: 7
The directing was fine. As I've said, most of the performances were fairly well brought out, and the shots and editing were excellent.
Dialogue: 6
Not bad either. Pretty standard dialogue for this type of movie.
Plot: 2
You'd have to be a fool to think this is a good plot. I haven't seen the original, but Guy Ritchie wrote the script for this one. I think there would have been a better way to have them fall in love than through Stockholm Syndrome.
Entertainment: 2
Right up until the slap I would have given it about a five. It wasn't a great movie but it wasn't terrible. Once the abuse started the movie was just embarrassing to watch. It's certainly not “so-bad-it's-good” either.

TOTAL: 44%

It is kind of interesting as a film, if only to show that even a great director can make a terrible movie. If you want to learn that lesson, though, watch Revolver, there's no rape and it even has Jason Statham.

Bonus Fun Fact!: Madonna's character is named Amber Leighton, which is the name of Sigmund Ritchie's real life mother. Wait, I meant to say GUY Ritchie.

That post looked a lot better in OpenOffice

2009-08-14T18:11:00.001-07:00

Hilarious immature theatre employee circa 2006 is going to win your heart.

Hello friends, just a few things I think I should mention while things are still starting up here.

1. I'm having some trouble with pictures on this site. It's a pretty huge enormous pain to upload them to photobucket and stuff. So the formatting is a little stupid right now. Sorry about that.

2. I'm taking screencaps of the screencaps with captions, uploading them, and shrinking them. If the captions are too small for your tired old eyes, you can click on them and they'll open up bigger in another window/tab. Eat some carrots.

3. I'm playing with the layout right now as well, trying to figure out how to get rid of the green (Right now I look too much like Filmdrunk, which is a sweet site). Being wider would be nice as well, kind of annoying how small I have to make the pictures.

4. Keep checking this site because I've got a buttload of terrible movies to talk about. You could fill up a butt with all these terrible movies. Maybe I'll even talk about some good movies, why not eh?

Have fun! Don't do anything I wouldn't do! There's nothing I wouldn't do.

Cheerleader Ninjas (2002)

2009-08-14T17:19:00.000-07:00

Lionsgate Films. The thing about Lionsgate is that they seem to pick up any movie that nobody else wants to. Sometimes this allows great movies that otherwise wouldn't have had a chance of being distributed a chance, like the original Saw, The Descent, or Crank, which is awesome. But then we have all the movies that other studios passed on for good reason, like Alone in the Dark, See No Evil, Saw 2 – 6 and, apparently, Cheerleader Ninjas. Directed, written, edited, co- produced, narrated, and starring (as “Dog-humping boy”) Kevin Campbell.

All right, let's pop Cheerleader Ninjas in the old video machine. I hope you like fart noises and stereotypes!

We begin with a PSA about how porn makes you gay. A kid gets pulled into his computer by a green monster hand and a guy who introduces himself as the “narrator” says something about how homosexuals should have the letter “H” tattooed on themselves so people can identify them. All right. The camera pulls out to reveal that this is a video being watched by a club at a Catholic high school called “Catholic Mothers with Too Much Time on their Hands,” which is a strange name for a group because it's insulting towards themselves.

So this club has only four people in it, and only one is actually important to the plot, that lady in the picture there. They talk about how the cheerleaders at another, non-Catholic high school are evil because they have a porn site, which she brandishes a flyer for. I should also mention, not because it has any bearing on the plot, that one of the Catholic mothers is pregnant and her water breaks during the meeting. This mother's name is Madonna. A biblical metaphor? I just got a film student boner.

CUT TO! Cheerleader practice. These are the good cheerleaders, they're called the Hamsters. Watching the cheerleaders practice from the bleachers are the school nerds. At least, I'm pretty sure they're the nerds, it's pretty subtle but I think the message is there. A few of them have laptop computers, so that's pretty nerdy, right? Oh, and they're all wearing Star Trek uniforms, so I guess that's a little hint. The only other tool Campbell has given us to identify this stereotype is a sign in front of them reading “geeks, dorks, walking pustules of filth.” A pustule is a small amount of pus, for those of you who don't sit behind this sign. Anyway, the nerds are filming the cheerleaders and then they say, “Come on, back to the clubhouse! We've got subscribers you know!”

After cheer practice, the Hamsters stumble upon a flyer for a porn site- starring them! Apparently this is news to them, and they decide it must be the nerd's fault, leading to this delightful exchange:

Angela (the smart one): I'm gonna kill those worms!
Cheerleader 2: Ugh! I hate worms!
Cheerleader 3: Yeah! They remind me of... worms!

Hahaha! It's funny because they're stupid.

Now we're at the Blessed Virgin Sacrifice Reform School for Girls, where gay teacher Stephen is beginning a lecture called “How to run a death camp for cheerleaders.” Suddenly, in walks the Catholic Mothers from the first scene! The head Catholic mother offers him the chance to kill the Hamster cheerleaders because he hates them so much. There's an elaborate flashback revealing the reason for his hatred of the Hamsters: last year he tried out to be on the squad but was denied because he's gay (I would have thought a better reason for denying him is the fact that he's around forty years old, but eh, whatever). And so, the plot moves forward: Stephen's off to murder the Hamsters.

Meanwhile, the cheerleaders confront the nerds in their nerd-den. Angela grabs the nerd leader, Maverick, by the throat a la Darth Vader.

Angela: Maverick! I thought I smelled your foul stench when I was brought aboard.
Maverick: (gasping for breath) We're- on- a- dip-lomatic- mission...
Angela: I think you're on an E-mission, 24 hours a day! (throws Maverick into chair).

Get it? Stench, emission? Because nerds smell bad, you see.

Some pointless sci-fi references and farting noises later, the nerds reveal that they weren't the ones who made the flyers (“I really didn't make the poster! I would have made her boobs bigger.”).

At school the next day, the Hamsters run into Stephen's ninja cheerleader squad. The film's first terrible fight scene ensues. Here are some complaints I have about it:

-The line “Ninja formation! Wait, we don't even know Kung Fu!” Because Kung Fu and Ninjitsu are the same thing.
-A pretty obvious dummy (actually an inflatable sex doll) is used as a stunt double. It just looks retarded.
-The editing makes no sense, it's a three on four fight, but with the quick cuts it ends up feeling much larger. There's a lot of shirts ripping and the exposed breasts of several obvious body doubles, but when the fight's over all girls are fully clothed and back to normal. Huh. Weird.
-The nerds are there, taking pictures and videos of the topless cheerleaders, which is strange because they just explained that they haven't been taking naked pictures of the cheerleaders
-The sound effects guy is going fucking nuts. There's fart sound effects where it doesn't make sense, cats meowing (I guess because it's a “catfight”), sword slashing when no swords are being slashed, and more. Sound effects are strange and unnecessary throughout the movie, but they're particularly bad in this scene.

After the fight it's back to the nerd den, because “we need to learn some Kung Fu! Last time we were here Maverick was working on a web page for a Ninja master!” The nerds agree to give them ninja lessons from some long haired hippie “Ninja master”. At some point during this encounter, there is a bizarre homage to the scene in American Beauty when Kevin Spacey is watching some high school cheerleaders when he begins fantasizing about one of them. In his fantasy, she rips open her uniform and rose petals fly out. In the Cheerleader Ninja homage, one of the nerds is fantasizing about watching a cheerleader, and when she opens her uniform, a fat retarded guy throws a bouquet of roses at her and laughs. I'm sure Sam Mendes wrote Campbell to thank him for this sequence.

Stephen goes and meets up with a badass black dude known only as “X” who is, I think, the head bad guy. You can tell he's badass as shit because he's literally smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at once, also because he's big and black.

X gives Stephen a folder that has secret information about Angela, only to be opened in an emergency, which doesn't really make any sense but I guess it moves the plot along somewhat.

Now, Stephen's evil cheerleaders confront the nerds and invite them to a slumber party to which they accept. Writer/Director Kevin Campbell, obviously from the “show them don't tell them” school of storytelling, is trying to make us hate the evil cheerleaders for being depraved. When the nerds show up, all the evil cheerleaders are looking at porn. Then, the head evil cheerleader emerges from the bathroom and proclaims “Hey girls, check out what just came out of my butt!” The other cheerleaders, excited beyond belief about looking into a toilet, run into the bathroom to examine it. One proclaims with glee, “Jesus, girl, what did you eat? A truck?”

Meanwhile, there's a training montage with the Hamsters learning to be Ninjas. At one point a cheerleader throws a ninja sword and it hits a bear standing behind a sign that says “Very Rare Bear.” This is my favourite part of the movie. I especially love that it rhymes, and that the word “very” was included. Anyway, the point is that now the girls know Kung Fu and are therefore Ninjas. Right.

Once their training is done, the cheerleaders somehow run into Stephen, the evil gay guy, sitting on a pile of rocks in a field, stroking a puppy. Director Kevin Campbell interrupts and announces, “For the benefit of those watching at home, the following scene will be in 'nese': Chinese, Japanese... and Pekingese!” I guess Pekingese was the punchline? I've learned that I don't understand most of Campbell's jokes.

For the next three lines, characters say things like “Toyota Nissan Honda Suzuki!” and the subtitles say things like “On my planet, overpopulation is a serious problem!” It's all very hilarious and cutting edge. Then people start talking in English again, and the subtitles say things like “Suk mi chu mi likety lesbo goo cu bu fu,” which is the language that I imagine Kevin Campbell's thoughts to be in. Then everything's back to normal.

Evil cheerleaders show up, and here we go with another stupid fight sequence. ALL of my complaints about the first fight scene apply to this one as well, with one addition. This one ends with all the cheerleaders, good and bad, getting on pogo sticks and hopping after each other through a sprinkler. If that sounds at all erotic to you, have faith that this movie can make it look stupid and gross and keep the image untainted in your imagination.

So they chase off the bad guys and it almost seems like the movie's completely over. The nerds and the Hamsters go back to the nerd den and party down, drinking William Shatner Brand beer and William Shatner brand chips. Beer, Chips, Star Trek, and Cheerleaders- a nerd's dream come true! There's some little plot about Maverick tricking Angela into going on a blind date picnic with him but it's confusing as hell and I hardly care at this point, so forget about it.

Maverick and Angela realize that somebody's hacked the internet and there's a “zombie enslavement program” turning all nerds (which means anybody that uses the internet in this movie) into zombies. They hurry back to the party to warn the other nerds and Hamsters. The bad guys, who were the ones that planned this whole thing, realize that the nerds and cheerleaders found out about them and... anyway, something happens and here we go with another fight sequence.

-This one starts with Stephen yelling “You better hope your tombstones are on sale!” What?
-The fight starts with new cheerleaders, never before seen in the movie, running up and kicking the Hamsters in the face. Okay, fine. Then there's a cut and the new cheerleaders are gone, never to return. What the fuck?
-A bunch of mascots run out of the woods and they start fighting the Hamsters. Any casual observer will notice that they reused the bear costume.

The nerds, to help the cheerleaders, make their own plans. “Flamer! Get this over to the nuclear power plant where you work part time in the computer department. Hook your laptop up to the download feed.” Later in the movie, this bit of computer wizardry is going to allow the nerds to make anything they want spontaneously appear. But we'll get to that in a second.

The mascots are defeated, and Stephen mourns their loss.

The original evil cheerleaders show up. They combine to form a “megazord,” just like in Power Rangers. Is that an actual thing? I'd always just assumed that it was just from Power Rangers. Shows all I know. The giant zord, towering over a cardboard city in front of the most obvious green screen you've ever seen, fights off planes, X-Wing fighters, and the USS Enterprise, all of which are created by the nerds from their computer lab on top of a hill. The evil cheerleader zord snaps the Enterprise in half and wipes its ass with it. The nerds make idiotic sc-fi jokes every three seconds. It's unbelievably lame.

Then, the zord crushes the local shoe store (somebody cries, “Ahh! My crippled baby in a wheelchair!” Why would a baby be in a wheelchair? Do you mean a stroller?) and the cheerleaders have had enough. The nerds give them these ribbons to wear arond their necks called “hologram receptors” that will allow them to become a megazord too. This happens. The two megazords are hitting each other with giant double-ended dildos that make farting noises. I would peg this as the lowest point in the entire movie.

Retarded story short, the Hamsters win and the evil cheerleaders fall to the ground dead. Then we see Stephen, and the evil cheerleaders walk up to him. Wait, what? You guys all just died! One shot ago! Ugh. Honestly, whatever. I don't care what happens in this movie now.

Again, the movie FEELS like it's over. They've already killed the bad guys a bunch of times and spent a lot of time celebrating. Somehow, it's not. It keeps going. I guess the zombie virus is still spreading throughout the internet. By the nerds' calculations it will have taken over the entire internet within two days. Some shit goes down and everybody ends up at the head bad guy's hideout, where the movie's two twists come into play.

Twist one: The person responsible for the zombie virus is Todd, a rival computer nerd who I haven't even told you about until now, but if you watch the movie you can call this twist about an hour before the big reveal. The thing about this “twist” is that it changes nothing, the bad guys are still just as bad because they just hired this nerd to help them, so it could just as easily have been any one of the non-surprise bad guys that were responsible for the whole thing. Anyway.

Twist two: We've known throughout the movie that Angela, the smart cheerleader, is going to college on a cheerleading scholarship, we just don't know for what. Well, turns out she's going for computer science! She's a nerd! Wow! Angela uses her nerd skillz to hack the internet and save the day and I can't believe I just wrote “skillz.”

Okay, so they've saved the world enough times now, right? Everything's wrapped up? Not by a long shot. We're in for about sixteen Lord of the Rings- style repeated endings. Two cheerleaders turn out to be lesbians, Stephen joins the squad, Maverick gets a blind girlfriend (he licks her black glasses a lot), and some other stuff. Whatever. This movie sucks and I'm sick of telling you about it.

Numbers out of ten:

Acting: 4
The acting, for a movie that feels a lot like a porno, was surprisingly not completely terrible. Not that it was good, by any stretch of the imagination.
Directing: 2
No. The directing was awful. Props for actually finishing this full length film, and I feel like the director is really proud of it, but it should never be seen. Campbell edited this film as well, which is surprising to me as well because the scenes are shot in a way that I can't imagine they would be by anyone with editing experience. Most of the movie should have been reshot. Actually, now that I think about it, shouldn't have been shot in the first place.
Dialogue: 2
You should already be able to tell from what dialogue I've included here that it's pretty awful.
Plot: 1
The plot was too complicated and incoherent.
Entertainment: 3
Some movies are known for being “so bad they're good”. Not this one. I think it's hard for comedy movies to fall into this category. Failed attempts at drama or horror can be hilarious, but failed attempts at humour are more or less just pathetic. By the time two megazords were fighting with farting dildos over a city I was pretty much done with this movie. I would have turned it off many times but for this review. I would not recommend it to my worst enemy.

TOTAL: 24%

Edit: Out of curiosity I checked RottenTomatoes out on this one. There's only one review, from a site called filmthreat. Anyway, I thought it was interesting because the filmthreat guy apparently LOVED this movie. Some blurbs:

"Sorry if my memory's a little foggy, but there's quite a lot happening in this flick and I was too busy laughing my ass off to give a shit exactly what was going on. All's I know is, director Kevin Campbell is a comic mastermind."

"Yes, my friends, this is the ultimate party movie!"

"Cheerleader Ninjas: it turned my bad mood into giddiness and now I go get naked and play around in a freeway. [What?] That's a good movie for ya!"