One New York Life

Not nearly as good as I wanted it to be. Predictable finish (of course) where Vince Vaughn realizes that everything he’s been honest about for years isn’t really what he wants. Funniest part of the movie was Vaughn’s high school buddy who married Vaughn’s divorced mother and it wasn’t given nearly enough time. Also, can anyone explain to me why both main characters’ Northern California families — except Jon Voight, who probably said “what is this bull-sh*t?” — have southern accents? When was the decision made that every “off” person in new movies must have a Southern accent regardless of what region of the country they actually live?

Being as this movie was marketed as “From the director of Superbad” and starred Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader, I made the assumption it was a comedy. I was blindsided by it actually being the latest volume of “The Suburbs Really Really Really Suck”. I was another in (apparently) a long line of people who fell for the FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SUPERBAD!!! marketing. Maybe I was extra-annoyed because I went in expecting a light-hearted comedy and instead got Garden State 2.

Only people who go to college are enlightened and normal Mr. Director. Everyone else is clueless or a douchebag. We got it. Really.

Ever watched a movie so bad it actually made you angry? This is that movie. The “plot” at the end was fine holy crap did the set up to get there involve some of the worst nonsense ever — including a bank teller threatening to send a kid to jail because she gave the wrong person the account’s money. This after the kid leaves the school and drives off into the middle of nowhere with the creepy porn producer.

Is this something else to blame on Kim Bauer? I’d have to go with yes.

I think I need to create a new category called “Last Person To See”. Regardless… two-year-old spoilers below.

1) Claims of the movie being 84-minutes long were greatly exaggerated considering the first twenty are spent in the interminable loft party. Like, isn’t this the exact same movie without the contrived “I have to go rescue this girl I’ve loved for 15-minutes” plot? I mean, the Brooklyn Bridge got trashed. There are only a few more options downtown. Nuke the East River crossings and the Battery Tunnel (which no one outside the city knows about anyway) and they have to go uptown anyway.

2) It’s really not a fun thing to be reminded how poorly this island evacuates. On some level, everyone who lives here kind of understands that any massive GTFO exodus will cause most of the island to be generally screwed. It would be comforting to know if the island has an escape plan. Maybe it’s an extra bit of scare watching it.

3) And speaking of plans — I know that the Armed Forces are probably the most efficient organization run by our federal government, but how the f*ck did they get tanks on the ground in Manhattan that quickly? Is there a secret army base on Manhattan I should know about?

4) I thought this movie did a WAY better job of using the single camera point-of-view stuff to capture cloying panic than the Blair Witch project did. In Blair Witch, the kids were just really dumb and shouldn’t have been in the forest alone. This movie was panicky enough that I forgot the silly plot and it unraveled the way something like this actually would. People would have no idea what’s going on. They really would just catch glimpses of the monster as they were running the hell away from it. It would just be general panic and running and chaos. The first-person camera captures that better than any far shot ever could. If anything, there weren’t ENOUGH people on the streets of Manhattan running and panicking. I know Memorial Day weekends in Manhattan are empty but the streets go from panicky and chaotic to completely empty bizarrely fast.

5) I understand now why Ron Bennington of the Ron and Fez show called it “9/11 Porn”. I understand it’s hard to shoot a movie about destroying Manhattan without using that kind of imagery — but the collapsing Woolworth Building (which is about a block from the World Trade Center Site) and the plumes of smoke and the people taking cover in the drugstore and the dust-covered people in the streets were, well, 9/11 porn. From where they’re watching the Woolworth Building collapse, the Towers would be just behind it to the right — so I don’t know if the building selection was intentional or coincidence but it was jarring. But then, as we’ve learned with Fringe’s season finale, Abrams isn’t above to using the Towers to evoke visceral reactions… a lot. It was jarring for me, so I can only imagine what it was like for people who lived through it.

6) I was not told there would be parasites. I did not like them. I would like to know the evolutionary purpose of parasites hanging on a monster until he comes out of the water. Especially ones with stomach-rupturing poisonous bites. The parasites were a great little extra for a monster that can’t be everywhere at once but, really, a 30-story monster attacking a 10 square mile area was probably sufficient.

7) They could have done a little bit to make the “Spring Street Subway Station” look a little more like an authentic subway station. I mean, they went far enough to get accurate looking signs. They couldn’t have at least painted it the right colors?

8) I also call shenanigans on the fact the subway tunnels would be that empty. My personal Plan B evacuation route involves getting in the R-Train tunnel and walking to Brooklyn and I absolutely can’t be the only one who has “subway tunnel to the Bronx” on their short list of “get out of Manhattan” options. This is part of the more general complaint about Manhattan not being nearly crowded enough. And, once down there, if I saw a herd of rats heading in one direction as fast as they could — I wouldn’t waste time gawking at them. Rats know which way to go to get the f*ck out of dodge.

9) I think the end of my quest to rescue the girl would have come when I saw the girl’s building leaning in to the building next door. First off, climbing 50 flights of stairs is somewhat questionable (and, in possibly the most ridiculous part of the movie, he tries the elevator first. Really? You expected the elevator to work in post-apocalyptic Manhattan?). Secondly, leaping out of a building to the roof next door, which is lilting at a 30-degree angle… look, I’m scared of heights. That was quite possibly scarier than the monster.

10) The monster’s swath of destruction through the city is impossible to track. He starts near the Statue, pulls down the Woolworth Building, pulls down the Brooklyn Bridge, and then we lose him. But we know at some point he knocked a building over in Columbus Circle, then went to trash Grand Central, then got the crap bombed out of him on 2nd Ave. In the DVD extras, they explain that the thing is a just hatched baby — so it’s kind of like an indestructable, 30-story kitten trying to move through Manhattan. The destruction was just kind of a mistake and the path doesn’t really have to make sense — just my own stupid thought process in trying to track how it moved after it came out of the water.

Final Thought: Other than silly nitpicks, I really liked this movie. I actually got a tight feeling in my chest in a few scenes and it didn’t rely entirely on cheap jump scares. The subway night-vision “don’t f*cking talk just RUN” moment was probably one of the best slow terror moments. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. Just give it all your attention and turn off the lights to get the full effect. I’ll have to watch this again once I finally get around to buying the HD/Surround Sound.

It worked with Star Trek — it’ll surely work with Buffy.

Here’s the problem in four quick points.

1) JJ Abrams’s name was attached to Star Trek. At the moment, there might not be another human being on the planet who has more sci-fi cred than JJ Abrams. He’s responsible for Lost, Fringe, Cloverfield, and Alias — all pretty well-received by the same fanbase who would be going to see Star Trek.

2) Trek fans, no matter how much we like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, know that those guys are done being Kirk and Spock. George Takei is a running joke on the Stern show. Nichelle Nichols looks like an elderly grandmother. Leonard Nimoy can hardly talk. They literally can’t (whether they want to or not is besides the point) play the young, dashing characters they’re supposed to be. At some level, the fans understand this. We either get new people playing these characters or these characters go away.

3) There’s no new Star Trek television show on the horizon. Maybe ever. The base sort of understands that these movies are what’s left. The general failure of Enterprise may have ended Star Trek on television for a good long time. A movie every few years may be what’s left. If they’re going to put a good guy who respects the material at the helm of the franchise, then it’s probably OK to support.

4) Gene Roddenberry is gone. Abrams didn’t have the guy who created the franchise and made it successful sitting on the sidelines locked out of the loop.

None of those points apply to Buffy. This isn’t a new, well-respected genre guy taking the reins from the original creator. This is the people who originally ruined the franchise taking the reins from the guy who made it successful. There are times when rebooting a franchise works. Terminator, for instance, is about 10 years from being rebooted. Star Trek was ready. I’d even argue that had the Buffy TV show never happened, now would be a great time to remake it. But the TV show did happen and all these mid-30s actors and the show’s creator are sitting on the sideline while the people who have proved nothing other than their ability to make a terrible movie out of a good idea get set to create another movie. Simply put, it’s just too soon to do this.

And really, who are they expecting to see this? Fans of the show aren’t going to see it without Joss’s blessing. Fans of the movie don’t actually exist. Are they expecting some random blonde will bring in the teenage boys? Do they think that teenage girls are going to flock out to see it because there are vampires in it like Twilight? Slight problem — the vampires in the Buffy universe aren’t “eternal romance” types. They are “eat you while you’re still alive and screaming” types.

And really — am I the ONLY one who noticed that the series finale sets up any number of movies? When the series ends, there are Slayers all over the world. The idea of calling the movie Slayer and using any number of the girls who became Slayers via Willow’s spell didn’t occur to anyone? Doesn’t this make everyone happy? The television universe still matters, Joss gets some credit, the show’s fans are happy because Joss’s stamp of approval is on it, the movie gets a cool name, and suddenly there’s a Bond-esque franchise where any actress can be the Slayer for any given movie. Doesn’t that make sense? One girl is the Slayer for a few movies, then another girl is the Slayer for a few more. Now the franchise isn’t locked in to negotiating with the same girl over and over and the franchise doesn’t have to be rebooted every few years?

Just me?

I haven’t watched many Oscar movies since moving to New York. No specific reason — it’s just that most of my Netflix time has been spent catching up on TV Shows. I recently hit a run of movies following the end of Battlestar Galactica and Syriana was by happy coincidence in line as I’d recently finished reading the source material.

I don’t really understand the Oscar nod for George Clooney here. Clooney essentially plays the same plain-talking badass he originated in From Dusk Till Dawn except here he put on some weight and threw in some facial expressions to communicate confusion. What, exactly, he brought to this supporting actor role that he didn’t bring to previous movies I don’t really understand. Add in to that he was up against Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain? Really?

Sadly, this movie didn’t stick as close to See No Evil as I’d hoped. The Bob Baer storyline was just one of four ongoing things in the Traffic-like multifaceted storyline. Since I didn’t really love Traffic, this whole thing is kind of lost on me. I always feel like when a movie gets filled up with multiple things going on, some of which are intentionally unrelated, it ends up with things going on I don’t care about. Like, did I really need to see the investigator’s alcoholic father randomly showing up and not doing anything but drinking and grunting? It didn’t add anything for me. I don’t find them hard to follow, I just don’t enjoy them.

Did it communicate a similar message as the book? Sure. I can absolutely buy the idea that the US Government via the media and their corporate interests would decide the prince who wants Iran to be free and democratic with equal rights for women is a terrorist because he wanted to sell the country’s oil rights to China instead of the US. I can buy the US Government supporting the other prince as the country’s savior because, while doesn’t care about his people, he’ll continue to operate business as usual like his father. The whole thing was summed up by Alexander Siddig’s Prince Nasir Al-Subaai: “When your government has a budget shortfall, my father orders a dozen jets.” He wanted to stop that, so the US Government plotted to get him out of the line of succession.

On top of that, I feel like the movie really didn’t break any new ground. We get it — suicide bombers exist because their lives aren’t all that great to begin with. The cynical among us think the US’s interests are for sale to the highest bidder. I don’t even disagree with any of it. If anything, the recent XM/Sirius merger puts it in perspective. Senator Herb Kohl actively drew out the merger talks to keep the industry struggling. Surprise, Senator Kohl has a financial stake in terrestrial radio. Getting that kind of message out isn’t a bad thing, I guess.

It’s also entirely possible I expected it to follow more closely to the book than it did and thus came away disappointed.

An entire 90 minute movie and a trip to Germany based on the premise that someone blocked your E-MAIL address? F*ckin… really? Who wrote this movie? A 95-year-old retired coal miner?

Other than that — nothing says funny like a movie that hits on every good European stereotype.

I finally saw this on the train coming back from Boston. I remain one of the only people on Earth that doesn’t get the whole Gwyneth Paltrow thing.

I was never an Iron Man fan (I followed X-Books and Superman almost exclusively) so I can’t argue any specifics about how well it follows canon or anything. But from what I know of Tony Stark, it seemed like a great portrayal. If I had one complaint it was that Robert Downey Jr played Tony Stark a little too close to Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne. Downey, however does the character much better than Bale. I don’t buy Bale’s rich playboy as much as Downey’s… probably because Downey’s been that guy for quite some time.

Allow me to be the eleven-billionth blog to post some thoughts on Watchmen. I saw it Wednesday night and it was my first experience in an IMAX theatre. Much more fun is someone brought their four-year old… to an almost NC-17 movie… getting out after 10pm. Be jealous.

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1) First thing’s first — I totally understand why general movie reviewers didn’t dig this movie. Let’s be honest; most TV news review guys are to the movie review industry what Bill Plaschke is to the sportswriting industry. They’re crotchety old dudes who don’t like much of anything. A three-hour marathon BJ to fans is not going to be met with much respect. Honestly, they’re not wrong. Someone going in to this movie who never read or didn’t love the book would be excruciatingly bored. I loved the book and even I thought some parts ran way too long, the monologue-ing got out of hand, and it could have been cut down by about 20 minutes. It’s frustrating to hear reviewers talk about the movie and know they’re totally missing the point (Senseless violence against women! Campy! Naked blue penis!) — but I don’t know how much of the point Joe Schmuckatelli can be expected to get without the book’s additional exposition. The fact is that non-fans will probably hate this movie. And that’s fine.

2) That said, as a companion to the book it’s incredibly well-done. It hits most of the important stuff, buries some non-important stuff, and drops some more stuff en route to the new ending. The problem is, mostly, that Moore was correct in saying this was a story written for its original medium. The movie was decent, and it worked, but standing by itself without having read the book already… I don’t think I would have liked it much. At this point, I don’t think I know anyone who’s seen it without having read it first.

3) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie in which the performances ranged so much between “amazing” and “nigh-unwatchable.” I had a terrible time taking Malin Akerman’s Silk Specter seriously. Her performance reminded me of Elizabeth Rohm’s terrible and stilted delivery on Law and Order. She just didn’t communicate emotion very well. Also, I hated Ozymandis. And not in the “you’re supposed to hate him” way, but in the “way too much monologue-ing” way. I understand what he’s supposed to be but it’s another thing that just worked better in a written form. In this case, I don’t know if it was the actor so much as the writing. On the polar opposite end of that, Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan), Jackie Earl Haley (Rorschach), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Comedian) all brought the character off the page with a frighteningly close translation to how they live in my head. Rorschach was done perfectly, up to and including the “You all don’t get it. I’m not locked in here with all of you — you’re all locked in here with me” line. Crudup was able to keep Dr. Manhattan bored and disinterested instead of boring. And it’s really hard to pull off remorselessly shooting a pregnant woman carrying your baby and later pulling off a heart-touching moment.

4) Even as someone who read the book, the film’s timeframe jumps around so often that even I had a hard time following it. The Comedian/Sally/Laurie triangle is the best example of this. It’s almost impossible to follow in the movie before it climaxes with Laurie’s realization in a five-seconds of recall. Even still, when the viewer figures it out, the timeline seems odd because the brutal (and well done) rape scene occurs 40 years before Comedian’s death and Laurie’s only in her 20s. It was hard to make out exactly when they were in the 40s, 60s, or 80s.

5) Seriously, one of my life goals now is to own an Upper West Side brownstone with access to abandoned subway tunnels. I can’t even handle the volume of awesome a man room down there would be. I mean, machines with questionable physics aside, if you could figure out how to keep the rats away that’s a place to watch a damn Super Bowl Party AND survive a nuclear holocaust.

6) Awesome soundtrack. On the way out, my friend Steve and I discussed that if you were to look at that soundtrack on the shelf, almost none of those songs would seem to fit. However, in the context of the movie, it worked amazingly well. On the other hand, I don’t know if it was necessary to have full montages set to entire songs. But… 12 songs on the official release, and lacking Everybody Wants To Rule The World, 99 Luftballoons, and First We Take Manhattan? And MAN is Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah jarring after getting used to Jeff Buckley’s. Also, leaving off Smashing Pumpkin’s The End Is The Beginning Is The End kinda sucks, too. I’ll assume the fact they bought a domain just to sell music means we’re in store for multiple soundtrack releases.

7) I’m going to go ahead and assume that Silk Spectre’s smoking habit was removed by Warner Brothers executives. In an R-Rated movie? Really, guys? I’ll just complain that one of the funniest sight gags in the movie suffered for lack of it. When Laurie is sitting in Archimedies and presses the flame-thrower button, she does so because she thinks it’s the cigarette lighter. I guess Comedian’s cigar chomping was OK because he was a crusty old bad guy while Laurie’s cigarette habit would have glamorized it for all the four-year-olds in the theater. I guess you have to protect all the fragile young minds watching R-Rated movies?

8) The fight scenes. I know that when we see Batman take out 25 bad guys we accept it and move on. That’s because it’s Batman. I had no problem accepting Comedian or Rorschach as legitimate ass-kickers because it’s well-established that they’re sociopathic maniacs. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, not so much. Again, I know that this is part of the point. Maybe that means it’s better making the point?

9) The Dr. Manhattan history monologue had as much trouble expressing the point as I thought it would. They gamely tried to describe Dr. Manhattan’s view of time in a few words but it just didn’t work. I’ve read columns talking about why Dr. Manhattan didn’t stop everything if he knew it was going to happen (he didn’t… part of the plan) and NO ONE gets the concept that he experiences his entire existence at once all the time.

10) There aren’t enough words to express how much more I liked the movie’s ending. The giant squid was a huge letdown for me after enjoying the content of the book so much. The book’s ending is on the short list with the Hand Of God ending in The Stand and, more recently, the unconscionable ending of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle for the most disappointing endings to good books. The plot in this movie is so far and away better it defies logic. Especially because the use of Dr. Manhattan as the fall guy, and his complicity in allowing it, makes it even more meaningful. Calling the think Project SQUID was enough of a nod for me.

I’m really glad I didn’t have a teacher cruel enough to assign me this book in fifth grade. Instead, we got to read the infinitely cooler A Wrinkle In Time. What is it about children’s authors from the 70s who thought writing horrifically sad books would make 12-year-olds enjoy reading? It’s going on 25 years since I read Where The Red Fern Grows and, not only would I never read it again, I’d never suggest anyone read it, and I still hate Wilson Rawls. If you haven’t read it — never do. The end of the Futurama episode Jurassic Bark is the only thing that comes close to being more sad.

Of course, the sad part of the movie was very much marginalized. It was quickly done (off camera), just as quickly over, and they moved right on to his “recovery”. The final scene between Jesse, Leslie, and Prince Terrien — in the rain with her looking over her shoulder and waving good-bye — was sadder then anything that happened during the mop-up

I didn’t get it, I guess. The major plot point didn’t even seem like it was that big a part of the movie.