Uberfluff

 
 
So, I finally saw the new Star Trek movie, and (as much as it pains me to admit this) I really liked it.  I've never been much of a Star Trek person--it always had too much goofy alien stuff and not near enough shooting for me--but I do have a rudimentary awareness of the characters.  (Other Star Trek gripes: Do the shields ever not fail on the Enterprise?  Why even bother having them if even the simplest space fight has the damn shields immediately diminishing to the point that all energy has to be shifted to the forward ones?  And don't get me started on the silly relativism of the Prime Directive.  Which they don't even always follow anyway.  Probably because of the aforementioned silliness.)


Anyway, I thought that the new movie was fun.  And actually pretty ingenious in how it dealt with the problems of continuity and authenticity in a re-make.  (I don't think it will spoil things too much if I say that the movie essentially creates an alternate Star Trek universe.)  To some extent, it was about watching younger actors do impressions of the classic Star Trek characters, but more in an "old, forgotten friend" way than in a bad acting way.  (And isn't bad acting the essence of Star Trek?)  Eomer from Lord of the Rings and Sean from Sean of the Dead (like you would recognize the actor's names) do an especially good Dr. McCoy and Scotty.


And speaking of Eomer (barely), the gossip says the script for the new Hobbit movie is finally complete.  Apparently, they're breaking it into two movies, and while Guillermo Del Toro is on to direct and Ian McKellan will be back as Gandald, they're still casting Bilbo.  The names being thrown around consist primarily of British actors I'm totally unfamiliar with (that guy from Dr. Who, for example), so I don't really have an opinion about it.  Except that I hope that this version doesn't require quite so many soulful shots of wistful hobbit eyes.  I had my fill of that in Return of the King and can probably draw the upper half of Elijah Wood's face from memory.


Anyway, have a Happy Thanksgiving.  And if your holiday plans have you driving through Breezewood, Pennsylvania this weekend . . . then you have my sincere condolences.


PS--There's also a new Daily Fluff today.
 
 
So I did get to see Inglourious Basterds this weekend.  And yes, it was good fun--with The Hangover, it was probably one of the most enjoyable movies I've been to all summer.


Honestly, I was starting to wonder whether it was possible to have a good time at the movies anymore without going to a comedy.  Adult comedies have been going through something of a renaissance recently, and while I'm grateful for that, it seems to make them one of the only viable movie theater options.  Which I'm not so grateful for.  The other choices seem to be: brain-dead action flick (of the Michael Bay variety), gooey and/or depressing female drama, inspirational tale of human triumph (yawn), and "meaningful" dramatic film full of sophmoric philosophy (otherwise known as Oscar bait).  It's nice to see something other than a Judd Apatow picture from time to time.


Tarantino's hallmarks have long been clever dialogue, violence, and nods to genre.  And while he checks off each category here, you feel like you're watching a movie that someone enjoyed making.  The action and dialogue move along without any of those redundant "recaps for the stupid" that weigh some movies down.  (Sample recap for the stupid: "Hey, secondary character, please explain what just happened in that last scene and why it's important to the plot under the guise of discussing our feelings.")  Also awesome?  No one talks about their issues with their father.  Daddy issues are the new black of screenplays.  Apparently, it's the laziest way to introduce psychological depth to your character.


As far as violence goes, I would actually place it at below-average gore.  For a Tarantino movie that is.  Above average for everyone else.  But hey, it's a revenge movie.  A gleeful revenge fantasy rather than a grim one, but what is gleeful revenge without some viscera?  Brad Pitt is fun and doesn't overwhelm the movie or make you think, "Hey look! Brad Pitt!" everytime he shows up on screen.  That may seem like a small thing, but I haven't seen Tom Cruise pull it off in years.


Rumor is that Tarantino considers this his masterpiece.  I'm not positive I would agree--after all, I think both Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction are impressive in their own rights--but there's definitely an argument to be made for it.  Basterds shows a maturation of the Tarantino style--the basic elements are still there (dialogue, music, people getting scalped), but he seems to be a little more restrained in how he uses them.  Though that still doesn't explain his guest mentor spot on American Idol.
 
 
So I recently saw The Ugly Truth.  If it doesn't ring a bell, that's probably because there's nothing particularly unique about it.  It's your basic summer romantic comedy with the oh-so-groundbreaking premise that men want sex and women want romance, though with a little Cyrano de Bergerac (or maybe it's Pygmalion) thrown in for good measure.  Gee, was it Cyrano or Professor Higgins who would recommend slowly eating a hot dog to get someone's attention?  Anyway, do the neurotic career woman and boorish man's man dislike each other from the get-go?  Will we learn that there's more to the guy than his macho act?  Will they overcome their conflict and realize that they're perfect for each other?  Don't make me slap you.  It's a formula movie for God's sake.


Still, I don't have an automatic problem with formulas if they're well-done.  Lord knows a well-done, well-written formula movie can be much more entertaining than some avant garde dreck that exists only to push the envelope.  (Avant garde in an effort to make a point can be good, but not if that point is, "Hey, look how avant garde we are!")  I wish I could say that The Ugly Truth was a well-done formula movie, but I'm afraid it stops at "competent."  The script feels like it was written by someone who really likes Judd Apatow films (or likes his box office receipts, anyway), but it never feels real.  Gerard Butler is charming and likeable as a walking issue of Maxim, even if we never buy that he's as shallow as he's initially supposed to appear.  And Katherine Heigl, the female lead, has a few moments of great physical comedy.  Though it's asking a bit much to have me believe that her character is beset by man troubles.  When you look like Katherine Heigl, there are always guys willing to put up with you, no matter how neurotic and annoying you may be.  I won't even touch the part where she's smart because she knows the names of a few pieces of classic literature--is it too much to ask to have screenwriters show us that their characters are intelligent through some method other than reciting their sophomore English Lit reading list?


Hmmmm.  And now it seems that I didn't like the movie.  Not true.  I enjoyed myself.  But I also forgot all about it within 2 hours of leaving the theater.  It's that kind of formula.


Oh, by the way, don't forget to check out today's Daily Fluff.
 
 

As you may have guessed from today's Daily Fluff, I saw the latest Harry Potter movie this weekend.  Overall, I'd have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  Having read the books, it becomes kind of hard to judge the movies fairly--not because I think the books are so wonderfully written (ahem . . . on the contrary), but because Rowling stuffs them with so much detail and so many subplots that adapting them must be the stuff of screenwriter nightmares.  And if I recall correctly, Half-Blood Prince was especially tough, as it was mainly about people's memories and teenage love, with very little action or real drama and an annoying amount of Harry mooning around about Ginny Weasley and moping about Dumbledore or Voldemort.   Full credit to the screenwriter, who took a lot of this dreck and made it sweet, human, and even elegant at times.  I suspect that someone who hasn't read the books may be a little lost at times, but that may be the best possible compromise between appeasing the fans and revealing details that are not only anticlimactic, but a bit confusing as well.  (E.g. When I told Gator why the actual Half-Blood Prince had that name, it was enough of a letdown from the dramatic promise of the title that he wished he hadn't bothered to ask.)

[Note of clarification: Despite what it may sound like, I did enjoy the books, despite my problems with the quality of the prose.  The writing itself may be mediocre, but the story and characters are--for the most part--first-rate.]

 
 

So, I finally got to see The Hangover.  Not only does it get a solid "thumbs up," but it restored my faith in movies a little.  I know that summer is the season for brain-dead blockbusters, but sometimes it feels as though the intelligence level of our big flicks (never high to begin with) has been slowly draining to the point where I begin to imagine the script being written by a slightly slow second-grade child.  That's definitely where they seem to peg their audience's ability to follow plot and dialogue at least.

But I suppose I shouldn't review the new Transformers movie before I've seen it.

Anyway, the Hangover is one of those movies that's going to movie line heaven, where guys repeat the best bits at each other forever and ever, amen.  What I find most interesting about it is how it handles the "crazy stuff happened when we got drunk last night" cliche.  My biggest problem with movies like this is that I usually don't believe that the characters involved really took part in all of this mayhem--it always seems so staged.  But somehow, I completely accept the bachelor party in the Hangover.  I'm not sure why--though I think it may be because the actors seem so ordinary and grounded that they seem to be sharing the audience's bewilderment at what went down the night before.

Oh, and Zack Galifianakis practically steals the movie with his clueless, socially awkward man-boy brother-in-law role.

(P.S. There's also a new Daily Fluff today that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything.)

 
 

Understandably, not everyone is a huge fan of Team America: World Police, but I confess that I really, really enjoy it for three primary reasons:

1. The way that they make fun of actors, especially Matt Damon.

2. The "We Need a Montage" song.

3. The "Pearl Harbor Sucks and I Miss You" song, wherein they ponder why Michael Bay gets to keep making movies.

It's number three that I'm focused on right now--and for the record, I think it a legitimate question.  No, the first Transformers movie wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.  Bay doesn't make movies.  He makes wasted opportunities.  And his plots are so rigidly formulaic that you could swear they're actually written by a monkey with a laptop and a Screenwriting for Dummies book.  Which is why I bring you this parody of a Michael Bay My Little Pony movie:

 
 

Having watched most of Transporter 3 last night, I'm really in a mood about retarded evil masterminds.  (Though I didn't give up on it because of the dumb bad guy.  I gave up on it because of the obnoxious hot exotic chick, who spent the entire first half of the movie being a sullen, annoying twat.  Then, suddenly, she turns all seductive and vulnerable and our hero, instead of telling her to get bent, sleeps with her, then gets all protective of her.  This doesn't necessarily match up to my vision of hot, tough guys, who can generally get enough hot girls on their own, and are less likely to put up with crap from a random one who happens to be endangering his life.)

It has always annoyed me a little when movie villains shoot one of their henchmen on a whim.  I know that there's no better way to establish one's evilness than by killing one of your own, but it seems like a poor management decision.  It's hard enough to find good help without complicating matters by killing your employees based on your mood swings.  You know that can't help your retention rate.  And in Transporter, we have a guy who spends (what has to be) millions of dollars on an elaborate kidnapping scheme, including a highly sophisticated bomb system  meant to entrap the "best driver in the world" to take part in the plan--and all to coerce a government official into some toxic dumping contract.  Why not spend that money bribing some official in another country to do the same thing?  It would probably be cheaper, and have far fewer unpredictable variables.  Hell, for the cost of this scheme, you could probably have hired a scientist and figured out how to recycle the stuff into plastic lawn chairs.  And then you wouldn't have made the mistake of giving a James Bond clone hero a lasting grudge against you.

 
 

So, er, has anyone out there seen Australia already?  Because I got it from Netflix about a week ago and still haven't managed to watch it.  Mostly because the damned thing is 3 hours long.  That's a huge commitment to make with my evening.  If it's awful, I've more or less blown an entire night for one movie.  I'm not sure why I requested it in the first place--Netflix greed, I think.  I was just drunk with the power and rush that comes from adding things to your queue, and it somehow snuck into a high position, vaulting over things like Volver, which has sat forlornly at number 8 for months while other things get moved around it.  (I want to have seen Volver, but I'm never actually in the mood to watch it.)

The reason I can't seem to pull the trigger on Australia is largely Nicole Kidman-related.  Though Hugh Jackman isn't helping things either.  I know he's supposed to be a nice guy and a good actor, etc., etc.  But he seems a little smirky to me.  Plus there's that Wolverine hair.  And it really, really bugs me that his name sounds like Huge Ackman.  As for Nicole Kidman, well, I respect her for the Tom Cruise divorce, but she just keeps getting skinnier and skinnier.  Watching her now is like watching a skeleton in a wig.

I know I could just return it without watching it, but that seems like admitting defeat.  Plus, then I'll probably find out that it's great or something and have to put it back on my queue.

 
 

I kind of love these sort of things anyway (and thanks to K for the link), but this is even above the average urban ninja-type fare.  No surprise that he's a stuntman.  (From the UK, in case you were wondering.)  Right now, he's apparently working on the new Wachowski brothers film, Cloud Atlas.  (In case it's on the tip of your tongue--the Wachowski bros are most famous for that plummeting descent into nonsense and pretension otherwise known as The Matrix Trilogy.  Also, on an unrelated note, but still included here because I enjoy a good piece of gossip, Larry Wachowski enjoys cross-dressing--which has caused some confusion as to whether he has had a sex change operation or not.)

Anyway, back to the video, which to me raises the important question of why foreigners don't do better at Ninja Warrior:

 
 

So, today's Daily Fluff is about "That Guy."  You know, the actor that you've seen in dozens of movies, but only as a henchman, or member of mission control, or nameless soldier,  etc., etc., etc.  You're very familiar with his face, but can never quite place it to a name, so when you see him in a movie you inevitably say to yourself, "Hey, it's that guy.  You know, the one who played the terrorist who got his hand blown off in Predictable Action Flick 3."

It's not a derisive title, by the way.  I personally think it would be pretty damned cool to be a "That Guy."  And it's only fitting that I honor the King of That Guys, my personal favorite, Al Leong.  (Of course I googled his name--you think I just knew it off the top of my head.)

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Recognize him?  Come on, of course you do.  He's played the Asian bad guy in practically every recent movie that required an Asian bad guy.  He's been in Die Hard, Deadwood, The Scorpion King, 24, That '70s Show, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and roughly a kajillion other things.  Plus, you gotta love the goatee.