Oz the Great and Powerful

Here is a list of the things I liked about Oz the Great and Powerful:

1).  Some of the (CGI) scenery.
2).  The banter between Finley (the monkey) and the china girl.
3).  Some of the tie-ins to both the original source material (e.g. Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, as she is in the books), and the 1939 movie (e.g. the Wicked Witch of the West is green and has a broom like the one in the 1939 film; some of the characters in the beginning appear as characters in Oz).

Here is a list of things I didn't like about this movie:

1).  EVERYTHING ELSE.

My biggest issue with this film was that there was SO MUCH potential for a great, interesting story about the Wizard's origin (as well as that of the wicked witches), but that was HORRIBLY and irrecoverably WASTED in favor of computer-generated bullshit.  Also, all of the acting (with the exception of Zach Braff, who spent most of the movie as the VOICE of a CGI monkey) was fucking awful.

I fully realize that there was no way this film could have ever lived up to the 1939 original, which is probably my favorite movie of all time, and has been since I was a kid. (For the record, I know that the 1939 movie is not much like the original Oz book, which I've read).

I knew from the first time I saw a preview that this movie would probably either be a stand-alone original take on the Oz universe, or maybe even based more on the original books.  I did not expect it to be like the MGM movie, but I did hope that it would at least be good.  I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

ARGH.  We all know that I'm a Disney lover, but holy crap, Disney, what did you do to Oz?

Killer Joe

My brother and his girlfriend and I walked out of Killer Joe after literally two minutes, so I can't really review the whole movie. I can tell you the first two minutes are FUCKING TERRIBLE.

We scooted over to the next theater and watched Searching for Sugarman instead.

TO BE CONTINUED???

Movies I Don't Want to See: What to Expect When You're Expecting

We were in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to see tiny singer-songwriter Paul Williams perform his greatest Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas-related songs, and it was great. The casino had a theater and we're too cheap to gamble, so after being all dressed up for the concert, we put on our sweatpants and went to see What to Expect When You're Expecting. Nobody wants to see this movie. It was exactly what we expected, so I can't really even get mad about it. I definitely can't spend the time it would take to list every thing that was horrible about it. And it's not like you need my warning to avoid this movie. If you saw it, you clearly also wanted to be eating movie popcorn in your sweatpants. And that's okay. Just don't let it happen again.

The Anger Games

Yes, I read the book, and yes, I liked it, and yes, I was disappointed by the movie, and yes, I'm 38 years old and The Hunger Games was clearly not made for me. I get it. But I'm still mad, because in their slavering pursuit of idiot Twilight fans, whoever made this piece of junk really missed the opportunity to make a movie that appeals to everybody. Why wouldn't you do that? Even George Lucas managed to do that.

But Lady Blogpants, you're asking, if you are not in junior high school, why did you enjoy the book, which was written for kids in junior high school? Because it had a compelling story idea and was well-written. The movie had the same compelling idea, but failed because the story fell by the wayside. And also because of bad casting (Gale and Cinna--GIRL PLEASE), exposition of only the most obvious and least-needing-of-exposition plot points, shitty CGI (seriously, the "girl on fire" scene" looked like I did it in my computer animation class at ICDC College), failure to ground the story in any kind of dystopian reality, and goddamn SHAKY CAMERAS.

The horrible handheld camera work really got in the way of telling the story, to the point where you couldn't even see what was going on. That last fight scene was basically a Renoir painting. Why would you spend however many hundreds of millions of dollars costuming extras and creating complex sets if all you're going to show is a blurry half-second flash of it?

GET OFF MY GODDAMN LAWN, THE HUNGER GAMES!

What I Do Have Is a Very Particular Set of NOT FIGHTING WOLVES WITH BROKEN AIRPLANE BOTTLES ON MY HANDS

Yeah, The Grey is total bullshit. It's marketed as a movie where Liam Neeson fistfights wolves, but he does no such thing. He wanders around Canada thinking about his daddy issues, trailed by some dudes who get picked off one by one by some ridiculous CGI werewolves that wandered over from Twilight.

I do like the scene when Liam Neeson asks god to help him, and when nothing happens, huffs "FUCK IT, I'LL DO IT MYSELF." But that's immediately nullified by the fact he says this after rolling around in a river for about 20 minutes and then just chillin (HA HA) in his wet clothes on a snowbank, instead of LYING THERE BEING DEAD OF HYPOTHERMIA.

I saw this movie in a special sneak preview thing where the director did a Q&A afterward. In true idiot auteur fashion, he scoffed at how everyone in his focus groups said "hey, you know how this whole movie builds up to a wolf fistfight and then the screen cuts to black and the movie's over and there's no wolf fistfight? That's total bullshit." He thought those people were so foolish not to understand his vision that it was MORE ARTISTIC to NOT SHOW the ONE THING THAT EVERYONE WANTED TO SEE. But he directed The A-Team, so I guess he knows from good cinema.

Take Me Home Tonight. Wow.

The first 20 minutes of Take Me Home Tonight are mind-bogglingly unpleasant and ill-advised. I don't know what the rest is like since that's when we stomped out and got a refund.

On the upside, I saw DUDAMEL in the lobby.

Catfish

This movie is the biggest load of stupid indie bullshit I've ever seen. The only reason anyone goes to see it is because it's marketed as a movie full of MYSTERIOUS QUESTIONS, namely WHAT WILL HAPPEN? and IS IT REAL? Let me answer both questions for you. ANNOYING SHIT will happen and IT IS NOT REAL. After the first minute, I leaned over to my brother and said "it's fake." After the first ten minutes, I leaned over to him and said "if this doesn't end in a bloodbath I'm going to be VERY disappointed." After twenty minutes we weren't even bothering to lower our voices anymore and were just telling the stupid main character how much we hated him.

Now I don't want to spoil anything for you, but let's just say OH WAIT I DO want to spoil everything for you because this is a TERRIBLE MOVIE YOU SHOULD NOT SEE. There is no bloodbath, the whole goddamn thing is made up, and at the end the "dumb" guy magically unspools this whole ridiculous allegory about CATFISH so you're like "oh, how wonderful that this REAL NOT FAKE PERSON came up with the perfect allegory about his situation which ENCAPSULATES THE WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE in a TOTALLY NATURAL AND UNMANUFACTURED WAY despite the fact that he's supposed to be HALF RETARDED."

FUCK YOU CATFISH!

Movies I Don't Want to See: Sex and the City 2

Ugh I just sat through the goddamned trailer for Sex and the City 2 and I almost killed myself right there in the movie theater. It was pretty much the worst thing I've ever seen. I can't put my finger on what's most depressing: seeing Sarah Jessica Parker in a lady tuxedo, hearing that tranny one from Big Trouble in Little China saying the words "Abu Dhabi", or knowing that a lot of women are going to go see this piss-drenched horrorshow and actually enjoy it. And then they're going to try to act like the horrible assholes of Sex and the City 2 (The Skankening) like it's a thing people should do. OK, I guess that last thing is the most depressing.

Now here's the rub: I didn't hate that TV show. I didn't love it, and I was annoyed by the "ladies love brand-name shoes" conspicuous consumption, but I liked that it was about four women who were friends. They didn't compete with each other or steal each other's menfolk, they were just friends, like normal ladies are in real life but hardly ever on the teevee. But that first movie, holy fucking hell, what a nightmare. All those stinky bitches did was change their outfits and have sex with gross dudes. It had none of the charm or humor of the original. Terrible. But you know what's more terrible? SEX AND THE CITY 2!

I mean, in this godforsaken thing, stupid turkey leg wearing a wig Sarah Jessica Parker walks into some sparkly room or whatever and actually says "We're not in Kansas anymore!" IN THE TRAILER SHE SAYS THIS. OH AH HA HA HA HA NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE. Even James Cameron had second thoughts when he had the bad guy say that line in Avatar. Oh, he used it anyway, but he hesitated for a moment and thought "wait, is this TOO hacky?" And I don't think it was in the TRAILER. Wait, was it? Actually, I think it was. OK, so cleverness-wise, at best Sex and the City 2 is at the Avatar level. AT BEST. Is this what we should be striving for, women of America? Is this what you want in your entertainment? AVATAR-LEVEL CLEVERNESS?

OMG YOU GUYS I'M SUCH A "MIRANDA"!!!!!!!!

Nine Is Terrible

If you go to Nine hoping to see Daniel Day Lewis's character from There Will Be Blood burst into song, I am here to tell you you will be sorely disappointed.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (DVD Review)

....

Okay, don't get me wrong. I love a good puzzle-solving, scavenger hunt type movie, and I really liked the first National Treasure, but I have several issues with this one. I enjoyed everything, even, until they went to Mount Rushmore. But then things got a little out of hand. The archaeologist/historian in me went batshit insane.

I was going to type my actual thoughts and grumbles here, but decided in the end to spare you all. I assure you, however, those ramblings involved the words, "fucking insane"; "insulting"; and "HELLS TO THE NO". None of the writers did any kind of research including, but no limited to, actual HISTORY. Douchebags. (I know its just a movie, but while you can fudge the date a little of when the HMS Resolute was decommissioned, its a little different to supplant an entire ancient culture...but I digress).

But the first part was fun! And I love Riley. THE END.

P.S. The Olmecs had nothing to do with fucking Mount Rushmore. MEXICO, people. Assholes. (the writers, not the Olmecs).

I refuse to spell this movie's title the way it's spelled.

The original Inglorious Bastards is a pretty amazing movie about a ragtag group of American outlaw/scallywag type soldiers on their way to army jail when their MPs get killed and they decide to carry out a mission against the Nazis. It's very entertaining. So when I heard Quentin Tarantino was going to make a remake, I figured it either wouldn't be quite as good as the original, or would be way better.

Wrong on both counts! It's way worse! First of all, unnecessary misspelling of the title for no good reason. Boo. Contrived. Second, I know it's not really supposed to be a remake of the original, but then why the hell use the same title? Then, the movie is supposedly about this group of Jewish Nazi-killers, but stupid Tarantino barely even introduces any of them so you don't give a crap about any of the characters. Having Brad Pitt trot out one of his backwoods accents is not enough. There's a secondary story (actually, it's sort of the primary story) about another vengeful Jew which could have been totally fucking awesome, and it does have a good payoff, but without enough buildup to make you really feel the catharsis one should feel when a Jew burns down a theater full of Nazis. Spoiler alert.

What this movie doesn't have: context, good storytelling, human interest, or innovative visuals. What it does have: the same old soundtrack, a lot of inane conversations, and another chance for Quentin to bring up his creepy foot fetish. Yuck.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (DVD review)

So, I was kind of exited about this movie, being that I am and was reared by a giant nerd (hi dad!)

It had some pretty awesome special effects, and for once Keanu Reeves mannequin-like performance worked for his character (he was actually, dare I say it, CREEPY). I did like that there was a bit of a "biological" twist--though I would rather have seen Gort stomping about destroying everything, and zapping people with his laser. I also appreciated that there was actually a part where the earth did, in fact, stand still!

However, THEY NEVER SAID THE FAMOUS LINE!* "Klaatu barada nikto!" One of the most famous nerd lines ever! (behind "May the Force be with you," of course). DUDES.

When the credits began rolling, my brother, father and I just sat there and looked at each other in stoic silence. My nerd spirit has been broken.


*There is a part, when Klaatu first comes off the ship and Gort comes to his rescue, where he MIGHT say "barada nikto!" but its not very intelligible and therefore, doesn't count.