wesley bloggs...

RoboCop

2011-11-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

Theatrical Release: July 1987

Genre: Futuristic Robot Sci-Fi Crime Actiongasm

Starring:

Peter Weller as Murphy

Peter Weller as RoboCop (aka Murphy's corpse)

Nancy Allen as Anne Lewis

Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker

Expectations: Midrange. They say "never meet your heroes" but I met RoboCop at a car show once when I was 9 or 10. More accurately, I met some first-year college theater major dressed up as RoboCop. And I could see the duct tape holding the suit together.

Stop! Or I'll turn off the air and involve you in a moderate speed chase!

Overview: In the future, the city of New Detroit is rampant with crime. Old Detroit having been completely leveled by riots in 2015 when the Pistons won the championship. In New Detroit, women are raped in broad daylight by knife-wielding mulletheads hopped up on a suitcase of Natty Light, murder is more common than um, non-murder, and the citizens routinely cough without covering their mouths. As with most problems in life, the only solution is, of course, robots. Or in this case, a cyborg comprised of some stainless steel and the likely slowly decomposing head of a former New Detroit police officer. He has a bigger gun, brass balls (literally), and drives a badass Ford Taurus. (Editor's note: There is nothing badass about a Ford Taurus). New Detroit better watch its ass. RoboCop's about to open a jar of baby food all over that town.

One thing I really like about RoboCop is that it's an original idea. There's nothing heavily borrowed from graphic novels or a Japanese movie/anime from the 80's. RoboCop is 100% 'Merican, as evidenced by all the gunplay and still more gunplay. A Japanese crossover version might involve time travel or a RoboCycle or incorporating some martial arts or... Wait, why would that suck? Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct), RoboCop takes a look at a society in what has to be something like the early 2000's, as it's falling apart faster than a game of Jenga with Michael J. Fox.

RoboCop opens with a news broadcast from da future, one where South Africa is nuclear and shoulderpads are still the height of fashion (for both men and women). New Detroit is a vision of a city near total chaos. The police force has been taken over by Omni Consumer Products (OCP), a private organization cashing in on the paramilitary-industrial complex. Think Halliburton. With robots. In order to put a stop to New Detroit's meth-fueled orgy of crime, OCP debuts the ED-209, an enormous robot with gatling guns for arms and Darth Vader's voicebox. Unfortunately, ED-209 tries too hard to make a good first impression, gets a little overzealous, and when your only method of communication is shooting 20mm high explosive incendiary rounds at people, well you can imagine that board meeting didn't go so well. Meanwhile OCP has another trick up their sleeve: RoboCop. All they need now is some cop to die in the line of duty so they can wedge what's left of him into a stainless steel suit and... Hey, guess what just happened to some guy named Murphy? Jackpot!

How to sell a movie.

The problem with setting any movie in the near future is that in a decade or so, people will be able to watch the movie again and laugh at Hollywood's predictions. There's a big difference between good sci-fi that forewarns of man's dependence on technology (think Philip K. Dick or Arthur C. Clarke) and the kind of sci-fi that Hollywood churns out just to show Sigourney Weaver in her underwear. And while I wouldn't categorically define RoboCop as futuristic sci-fi so much as an action flick, it's still set in a future close enough that you and I are probably living in the time RoboCop is supposed to have existed. So it's hard not to watch RoboCop and point out where they got things wrong and where they came pretty damn close on some predictions.

What They Got Right:

Americans love stupid TV shows - Even if you only saw RoboCop once, chances are you remember "I'd buy that for a dollar!" Who cares what the name of that show is? You can tell from the pointless catchphrase and scantily clad sluts that the same people who write "The Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men" write "I'd Buy That for a Dollar" in the RoboCop universe. I'm also pretty sure I saw someone watching "Jersey Shore" in New Detroit.

Buy it... For a dollar!

Outsourcing law enforcement - Surprisingly, this is becoming increasingly popular in cities like Oakland and New Orleans, where crime rates already reach New Detroit levels. No word yet on which city will be employing the ED-209 first.

The mall is now closed. You have 15 seconds to comply.

Cyborgs - Yes, cyborgs. Maybe we're not to the point where a human head can be transplanted onto a fully robotic body designed to fight crime and shoot a .50 caliber Desert Eagle at jaywalkers but we're getting there. There have been amazing advances in the field of prosthetics: robotic arms and legs that connect with nerves in the body and respond to the brain's electrical impulses, moving them just as easily and fluidly as a flesh-and-bone limb. Scientists have also succeeded in preventing seizures by using electronic implants directly into the freakin' brain that detect seizures before they happen and bathe the brain in ooey-gooey anti-seizure medicine. Robocop might be a mere decade away, just in time to recruit him to fight for the humans when the machines become self aware.

With optional handgun attachment.

Of course, for every nearly accurate vision of the future in a futuristic movie, there are dozens more laughable predictions and technological oversights. It never hurts to bring in some technical experts to advise on up and coming technologies or trends in law enforcement, rather than just supposing what the future of policing will hold because it'd be "pretty fucking awesome if everyone wore black and had lasers, fuck yeah, lasers!"

What They Got Wrong:

No cell phones - Maybe it's generational but I'm painfully aware of the lack of cell phones in every movie I watch made before 2000. Problems like passing along some vital information to MacGuyver can always be easily solved with a quick call to his iPhone, provided someone hasn't rigged it to an IED. Sure RoboCop was released in 1987, but so was Wall Street. And nearly a decade of bag phones and big gray Motorola monsters followed but if Gordon Gekko had the foresight to invest in a cell phone, couldn't Paul Verhoeven see the writing on the wall? RoboCop didn't need to have 4G or a Bluetooth (like an asshole) in his shiny helmet but some form of instant communication seems like a given in any dystopian vision of the future.

"It's a tickle in my throat. Should I worry?"

Where are the computers? - I can almost understand a lack of cell phones in da future. Even the brightest minds of sci-fi couldn't have imagined the global hard-on the world today has for devices that allow us to play Angry Birds. But when you realize Verhoeven's millenial America doesn't have computers anywhere other than inside RoboCop, it feels a little lazy. Not just a missed target, like portraying computers as massive megalithic machines that take up a gymnasium, but to leave them out completely is like saying "Computers? Those are just a fad. I don't see any practical purpose for them in the future." And you know they have computers in New Detroit because, well, RoboCop.

Less computing power than my coffee maker.

Non-lethal weapons in law enforcement - No tasers, no rubber bullets, no guns that shoot nets, no light sabers, not even a handful cricket bats are considered for the police force of New Detroit. Just guns and robots with guns. Even RoboCop, who's bulletproof, goes right for his enormous sidearm first when apprehending a criminal. Never mind that he could walk right up to someone while they're emptying their clip on him and subdue them. Nope. In the future, cops shoot bigger, badder guns and ask questions later. And judging by ED-209's mini-guns-for-arms, that trend isn't going to reverse itself.

Soon to be replacing the red light cameras.

RoboCop is still a good standalone movie. Peter Weller's robotic movements are either flawlessly executed or it was a real metal suit and it took every ounce of his strength to move in it. Either way, the RoboCop presence is menacing and original. Combine the underrated sound effects of his motions and the above-par musical score of the film, and RoboCop stands out as a decent movie, despite some of it's shortcomings. The movie might not stand the test of time but very few movies about the future ever do. And yes, as much as I love Back to the Future, I'll still be one of those peckerheads on November 5th, 2015 (which is exactly four years from today, oddly enough) running around with my checklist yelling "Where's my hoverboard, Robert Zemeckis? Where are my self-lacing shoes and flying cars?!" But I digress... RoboCop isn't a movie about da future so don't get too wrapped around the axle about the stuff that is and isn't accurate (that's what I'm for). It's a movie about robots with human heads who have guns embedded into their thighs and stab Red from That 70's Show right in the throat with a chrome knuckle spike. Which is all pretty badass.

Best Scene: Say what you will but I'll never forget this one. Which reminds me, I need to get some windshield washer fluid...

Likely Porn Spin-off Title: RoboCock.

RoboCop Trivia: Peter Weller gots a big ol' brain. After he was implanted with RoboCop's super computer brain, he went on to get a Master's degree in Roman and Renaissance Art from Syracuse University, where he teaches a course in ancient history. He's also completing his Ph.D at UCLA in Italian Renaissance art history. In short, Peter Weller is Tom Hanks character in The Da Vinci Code.

Overall: 7 out of 10. I friggin' love RoboCop. But aside from a cyborg cop oozing with vengeance, there's a lot about this movie that seems hastily written. Cops going inside an abandoned factory alone to arrest coke-fueled, shotgun-wielding career criminals, hand grenades that explode entire houses, and in the final scene, RoboCop blasts some guy out the window of a skyscraper. The only reaction from the room? The friendly smirk from the CEO. "Shucks, that's our soulless killing machine, RoboCop. What a scamp!" the smirk seems to say. Freeze frame. Roll the credits while the Family Matters theme plays in the background.

If you can get past the vision of RoboCop without his helmet on, which is downright creepy, most of this movie is enjoyable. It's bloody, it's got cool effects, a great score, and a future society falling apart is always fun to watch. So enjoy RoboCop! And pretend there were never ever any sequels made...

Yuck... I'm pretty sure this was a Garbage Pail Kid.

Oh! Before closing, take a moment to appreciate the amazing work of one of my favorite artists, Joseph Griffith. And while unfortunately you can't buy this print anymore, he has many other equally mind-blowing prints for sale on his website, which you can link to here.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

2011-09-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

Theatrical Release: August 1985

Genre: Live-action cartoon

Starring...

Pee-Wee Herman as Himself (Ok, fine, Paul Reubens plays Pee-Wee Herman, happy?)

Elizabeth Daily as Dottie

Mark Holton as Francis Buxton

Overview: Pee-Wee Herman, local man-child and bow tie enthusiast treks across the country in search of his stolen bike.

Expectations: So very high.

When I was growing up, my folks were stationed in Italy for a number of years, which brought with it different experiences that most other people my age cannot share with me. My sister and I lived on a villa in Sicily with an enormous orchard in the back filled with date trees, and figs, and blood oranges, and two big cement water storage tanks that had carp in them "to keep the water clean." Although now that I think about it, I have to wonder how much carp shit I ingested as a child. Our gardener, Raphael, taught us enough Italian to ask for gelato and how to change our allowance into lire to play pinball in the restaurants. No joke, this was my childhood for many years. We had no concept of the life we were missing back in the not-as-of-yet morbidly obese US-of-A, except... Once a month, we received a box of VHS tapes from one of our friends back stateside. He or she would spend what seems now to be an inordinate amount of time recording TV shows for us and sending them in a big box filled to the brim with America. See, we only had one TV channel on the military base and it was the Armed Forces Network (AFN). For those of you unfamiliar with AFN programming of the mid 80's, the selection was a little... Dated. Sure, there were plenty of Burt Reynolds movies and gripping reruns of Barnaby Jones and The Fall Guy for the grown-ups to watch but when it came to kids shows, we were allotted a two-hour block on Saturday morning only. And this was the 80's, when Saturday morning cartoons were a staple of kid-dom. There was no Cartoon Network or old episodes of Spongebob in the DVR to fall back on. While all my American counterparts were living it up watching The Flintstone Kids, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and DuckTales, I had... Aquaman. And Shazam.

Why is his cape held on with a rope? Oh yeah... So he can go hang himself out of shame.

You can understand why the box was received with quite a lot of fanfare. With each new shipment of VHS tapes, there would inevitably be one six-hour long cassette just for us rugrats filled with Saturday morning goodness. And of course, by special request, Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Me and my sister would watch -- nay, absorb -- every episode we could get, repeating the secret word and then screaming uncontrollably until our mother would chase us out of the house yelling at us to watch more Shazam, which didn't incite any screaming, ever. For the duration of our time overseas, we reveled in our Pee-Wee's Playhouse reruns and when we got back to 'Merica, I quickly made a lot of new friends with my still dead-on Pee-Wee impression.

You could say Pee-Wee Herman was a big part of my childhood. So it should come as no surprise that my childhood effectively ended at age 11 when Paul Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida in 1991 for jerking off in an adult movie theater. I had to learn in one jaw-dropping conversation with my mom who Paul Reubens was, what "masturbation" was all about, and who that homeless man was everyone kept referring to as Pee-Wee.


No, I don't have any spare change!

At the time, I felt betrayed by Pee-Wee himself but as I've gotten older, I realize I had no one to blame but a bloodthirsty media for my hero's fall from grace. I'll never understand why or how some celebrities weather their scandals and bounce back immediately while still others have to live in obscurity for years before their careers enjoy a second wind, if at all. For every Hugh Grant, Robert Downey, Jr, or Martha Stewart, there's a Mel Gibson, Jesse James, or Tiger Woods sitting on the sidelines, poring over the PR strategy employed by those who came before them, got caught getting a hummer in the Oval Office, and walked from it all nearly unscathed. But I'm not here to turn this into a discussion about scandal. We all know what happened.

There's supposed to be a movie review in here somewhere, so let's get on with it.

In Tim Burton's first major directorial debut, we're drawn into the incredibly random world of Pee-Wee Herman, with its Rube Goldberg-esque breakfast machine, Willie the Water Bug lawn sprinkler, and the undeniable combo of Mr. T cereal on pancakes. Pee-Wee exists in a state of arrested development but not in the way your dickhole of a former roommate does with his all-night Call of Duty marathons and insistence that he lost his job because he was "too fuckin' good at it" and that his boss was threatened by that. Man up, Jake, you're 33! No, Pee-Wee is completely comfortable in his own eccentric skin, with "eccentric" just being a euphemism for "weird" provided you have some money. Which begs the question, what does Pee-Wee do for a living? I like to think he lives off the settlement money paid to him by Dow Chemicals for all the paint chips he ate as a kid. It would explain a lot... The only thing Pee-Wee takes seriously in the whole world is, of course, his tricked-out chick magnet of a bike.

"The X-1 needs to cool down."

When his prized bike is stolen while visiting his bestest girl, Dottie, at work, Pee-Wee goes absolutely bananas and embarks on a voyage to find his beloved two-wheeled conveyance. After a hot tip from Madame Ruby the psychic, Pee-Wee sets his sights for San Antonio and the basement of the Alamo which, as we all know, is the ideal place to run a bike thievery ring. Off on his journey, our hero must make his way across the country in a world where apparently airlines don't exist or maybe Greyhound wouldn't take Pee-Wee's payment of a suitcase of Mike & Ike's as legal tender. So he has to hitchhike, which is a great thing to show children it's ok to do. Pee-Wee makes many new friends on his journey, starting with the first person to pick him up while thumbing it, an escaped convict named Mickey driving a Ford Edsel. Roughly 35 minutes into the film, Pee-Wee commits his first of many criminal offenses by aiding and abetting a known felon by disguising himself and Mickey as newlyweds. They get away from the police roadblock without being found out and Mickey later repays Pee-Wee by leaving him in the middle of goddamn nowhere to die in the desert in the middle of the night.

Fortunately, Pee-Wee is rescued from death in the desert by a friendly trucker named Large Marge who regales him with a story about an accident she once witnessed. When describing the aftermath of the accident, Large Marge turns to Pee-Wee and says that when they pulled the driver from the twisted wreckage, his face looked just like this:

This is still a kid's movie, right? I didn't stumble onto the set of Creepshow?

Okaaaaay... Pee-Wee is politely informed by the patrons of the restaurant he's been dropped off at that Large Marge is, in fact, a ghost. The Large Marge scene still reigns supreme as the scariest movie moment from my childhood, even beating out Tim Curry's Pennywise from It and the entire 101 minutes of Watership Down.

Once Pee-Wee has fully recovered from his encounter with the poltergeist who was nice enough to give him a lift, he meets Simone, a square-jawed waitress who stops short of throwing her panties at Pee-Wee but still invites him to watch the sunrise from inside a dinosaur's mouth, so long as he doesn't mind the very real threat of her crazy ex-boyfriend Andy showing up to bash his skull in with an oversized femur. When that's exactly what happens, Pee-Wee commits his next serious crime when he hops a freight train to get the hell out of there and befriends a toothless hobo who, unlike real hobos, does not try to stab, rob, or sodomize this newcomer to rail riding. Pee-Wee does, however, have a twisted nightmare featuring evil clown doctors, sets that came from a Salvador Dali print, and some of the creepiest music imaginable. You didn't think this was going to stay a friendly kid's movie for more than 20 minutes, did you?

After hurling himself off a moving train to get away from the hobo (now possibly blazed out of his mind on rubbing alcohol), Pee-Wee finds himself in my least favorite city, San Antonio, and tracks down the infamous Alamo only to discover... There is no basement at the Alamo! Thanks, Madame Ruby, for proving once again that all psychics are full of shit, billing you at $4.99 a minute.

Crushed and humiliated, Pee-Wee tries to make his way back home. After some friendly bikers offer to rearrange his face, Pee-Wee wins them over by dancing the best dance ever put on celluloid, then crashes his newly acquired motorcycle through a billboard (really, really hard, I might add). Pee-Wee recognizes his bike on the TV shortly after and heads out to Hollyweird to put right what once went wrong.


No copyright infringement intended there, Mr. Bakula.

Once Pee-Wee finds his bike on a movie set, he "steals" it away from Kevin Arnold's older brother and leads the entire Warner Brothers movie studio on what I'd dare call the best bicycle-led chase scene of all time. And it might just be me but I can't see a movie where the cast runs amok at the studio without thinking of Blazing Saddles. All that's missing was The Great Pie Fight and Dom DeLuise screaming at his flamboyant dancers. Regardless, once Pee-Wee's made a clean getaway from the long arm of the Warner Brothers studio's security guards, his complete escape is hindered by -- of course -- a pet store that's on fire. After rescuing all the animals inside (snakes included), Pee-Wee is arrested, offered a movie deal in lieu of jail time, and then rides off into the sunset with Dottie while James Brolin plays him in the over-dramatized story of his life.

You're saying he's not retarded?

Paul Reubens' ability to tap into his true inner child and conjure up Pee-Wee Herman is an unappreciated feat of acting. Not until Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat has an actor so completely immersed himself in his role that the public may not even been aware it was an act. Even Marlon Brando, a pioneer of method acting, was rumored to have not known that Pee-Wee Herman was a character invented by Paul Reubens. Adults thought Pee-Wee was weird because he either A) Was a grown man acting like someone with a learning disability ("I know you are but what am I?") or B) Was a grown man with some form of annoying mental defect. In reality, Paul Reubens was simply able to find his inner 8-year-old, put him in a gray suit and red tie, and let him run loose driving toy firetrucks into his action figures ("Look out, Mr. Potato Head!") I'm so glad to see Pee-Wee enjoying a revival in popularity, thanks to my generation realizing that maybe Paul Reubens got a raw deal. From his hit Broadway show debuting in the fall of 2010, to his appearance at a Dallas Cowboys practice session, to his surprising night out with Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live doing shots until a chair had to be broken over Anderson Cooper's back, Pee-Wee Herman is back and better than ever.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is just what the title says: One big adventure, filled with amazing characters, jumping from one shenanigan to another, and is there a lesson to be learned here? Probably not. Other than don't take rides from trucker ladies.

Pee-Wee Fun Facts: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was co-written with Paul Reubens' longtime friend, Phil Hartman, who has a brief cameo near the end of the film.

Debi Mazar

Other cameos include Milton Berle, Tom Berenger, Cassandra Peterson (the real-life Elvira), Lynn Marie Stewart (aka, Miss Yvonne), James Brolin, Morgan Fairchild, and Dee Snider.

Paul Reubens was not involved in a long-term relationship with Big Top Pee-Wee star, Valeria Golino, as rumor had it. He did, however, have a very long relationship with Debi Mazar, an equally hot brunette. Chicks dig the bow tie.

Judd Apatow is developing the next Pee-Wee Herman movie. Dear sweet Lord, keep Adam Sandler away from that thing.

Pee-Wee's Playhouse starred Laurence "Morpheus" Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis and Phil Hartman as Captain Carl. The show also won 22 Emmy Awards during its five-year run.

Best Scene: This one's a no-brainer...

Face it, you never hear "Tequila" without thinking of this scene.

Overall: 9 out of 10. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure loses a single point for scaring the shit out of me. But I still love you, Pee-Wee. You were the single biggest influence on my sense of humor next to Mr. Show, which I didn't even discover until age 18. Pee-Wee, you truly did get a raw deal and I'm glad you're finally getting the appreciation owed to you. And as my homage to you, here's my next tattoo...


"I'm a loner, Dottie... A rebel."

Inception

2010-09-03T22:03:00.003-05:00

Theatrical Release: July 2010

Genre: Thriller? Sci-Fi? Action? All of the above. A psychological triathlon...

Starring...

Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb and NOT in a Martin Scorcese film!

Ellen Page as Ariadne, a bitingly sarcastic pregnant teenage dream architect

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, the only cast member with Werewolf of London hair

Marion Cotillard as Mal, pronounced "Mall"... So why not just spell it that way?

Ken Watanabe as Saito; Watanabe played a samurai in The Last Samurai. He did not play THE last samurai, however, because that role should obviously be played by Tom Cruise

Cilian Murphy as Robert Fischer (not affiliated with chess)

Michael Caine as Miles, classin' things up a bit

An old fat guy who looks a lot like Tom Berenger

Lukas Haas as Nash, a forgettable character but it's nice to see the big-eared kid from Witness is acting again

Mind = Blown²

Overview: Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, M.C. Escher, Timothy Leary and Christopher Nolan got a key of Peruvian flake, rented a bungalow in the south of France, and emerged six months later with a rumpled screenplay in their hands. After they slept for the next 72 hours, they awoke to read over what their collective contributions had produced...

Expectations: Initially, low. I thought it would be another three-hour, overblown DiCaprio movie. Then people wouldn't stop talking about how good it was and how I had to see it or I was an Obama-huggin' socialist who hates America. And hey, I was born in America, buddy. So my expectations were peaked for about two weeks before I saw the movie...

Finally. A movie that treats me, the audience, like I'm not an idiot. From the very beginning, Inception will keep your attention by making your brain perform the mental equivalent of The Triple Lindy. If you're not a conceptual thinker, if you're not a good multi-tasker, if you don't dream in color, or if you spend more time talking about people than events or ideas, you should probably just go see Step Up 3-D.

Look, they're dancing on their heads! In 3-D!!

Inception opens, although we don't know it right away, near the very end of the film. Cobb (DiCaprio) washes up on the beach like a severed foot and is dragged to see an old Japanese man. In order to throw off any notion you might have that this movie is going to follow the rules of linear time, you're immediately treated to the next scene featuring the same Cobb, only now he's in a tuxedo and - hey, isn't that the same Japanese guy, just 50 years younger? Ok, so I guess we're doing a high socitey industrial espionage thing now. So then Cobb tries to steal some industry secrets from this Japanese guy, Saito, but then - now wait a sec, why is he asleep in a chair all of a sudden? Is he in a dream? Is Cobb invading the dream of Saito to steal his industrial secrets? Ohhhhhhhhhhhh... Ok. Good. Got it. Now I'm with you, 100%. So Cobb is rooting around in Saito's subconscious but Saito's wise to this kind of thing from the look of the precautions he took so when the whole plan goes awry, the only thing left to do is wake up the Real World Cobb by dropping him in a full bathtub. Now that everyone's awake we can get to the bottom of - are you shitting me? A dream within a dream? Now we're on a high speed train to Tokyo and I think something went wrong just now but there's that Japanese guy again. Why not?

Good advice: Pay. Attention.

And so goes your thought process upon the opening of Inception. The good news, however, is that if you do pay attention, you'll be fed all the necessary information you'll need to piece together this very complex film. And I appreciate the way the information isn't spoon-fed to me in a conversation taking place very early in the film that seems a little out of place. Think of the scene in the first third of Avatar where Giovanni Ribisi explains to Sigourney Weaver that the main character, Jake Sully, is a twin and what unobtainium is and how much it's worth, all of which her character undoubtedly already knows but in order to inform the audience, this is sometimes the only way a key plot point can be revealed. (For a great pirated copy of this scene from what I can only assume is the Russian Comedy Central, click HERE, comrade) And while I maintain Avatar is a great movie, that scene is a little forced. In Inception, however, you start with knowing very little or nothing about what's going on or how or why and you're slowly but steadily thrown bits of important information. You have to stay engaged while watching this movie. If you're too busy texting and you have to ask the person next to you why Cobb's little spinning top is important, then you should just leave the theater so no one else around you has to listen to you asking about shit they learned by paying attention. I'm talking to directly to the three loudmouth Red Hat Society ladies who sat directly to my right. But I digress...

When movie tickets are $10 each, you need to shut up, Nana.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan (who also wrote and directed Batman Begins, Memento, and The Dark Knight), Inception is a complicated movie. Complicated in the way that Mount Rushmore is a rock. At any given time, you're not sure if you're in reality or in a dream constructed by the lovely Ellen Page. The inability to separate dream-reality from waking-reality is one of the demons Cobb is trying to overcome. I like that I was never able to tell right away. You slowly learn the reasons Cobb wants to "chase the dragon" and escape back into his own subconscious and the depth of his character is gradually revealed. It's also very commendable that the supporting characters didn't seem two-dimensional, although they had little-to-no backstory to speak of. I'm tired of supporting characters who exist only to demonstrate how truly badass Neo is. No, the characters surrounding Cobb are played by some of Hollywood's real up-and-comers in roles I'm sure will be remembered for allowing us to see Juno and Tommy from 3rd Rock from the Sun as genuine actors. And for the record, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is very underrated.

I'm not interested in dissecting this film, mostly because it would be like trying to tell someone how to find their way out of a labyrinth. It's an individual experience and you're not going to explore it all in one visit, and you definitely shouldn't venture out in it in a snow storm. But that's sage advice anytime you agree to take the winter job as the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. I think I went a little off track there... Let's use the labyrinth analogy again, as it's referred to often throughout the movie as more than just an analogy for the subconscious mind. Dream architects have to create simulated worlds so detailed that the victims of these Dream Thieves (I'm pretty sure they used to tour with Midnight Oil) would never suspect they're romping through someone else's staged dream. As if that's not a monumental task as is, all details of the simulated/pirated/fabricated/staged dream world has to be so precise that even the subjects own mind won't be able to tell it's not dreaming its own dream. Carpet fiber. That's the one and only detail overlooked by one dream architect, played by Lukas Haas, and his whole operation unraveled. The last you see of him, he's being dragged away by the Yakuza to be dealt with as the Japanese code of honor dictates... An appearance on Most Extreme Challenge.

MXC - Top 25 Most Painful Eliminations

As you can see, the last thing you want is the subject of your nocturnal invasion putting it together that the stranger in his dream asking about the Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices isn't merely a figment of his imagination but - gasp! - a spy! And if the secret you're after is buried deeeeeeeeep in someone's brain? Or if that someone had an inkling a long time ago that Leonardo DiCaprio was trying to steal his thoughts while he was asleep and his tin foil hat wasn't enough protection, so he trained his subconscious to go Branch Davidian on your ass? What then? Well, you construct a dream within a dream. But like most people, I had no idea that the word "inception" meant "source" or "origin" and was the industry term for planting an idea in a subjects brain rather than stealing information that's already there. Many say it can't be done, since you always know where you get an idea from. Like if someone else told you your handlebar mustache looked gay, you would know that wasn't your opinion. But if you came to that conclusion on your own, you might act on your idea and go shave that stupid hipster trash off your face.

It takes a lot of work to look like you don't care.

So this is where Inception takes a turn from "Ok, I kinda get what's going here" to "Holy shit, now we're in a Pakistani opium den?" The common belief being that inception (planting an idea in someone's mind and letting it take hold as their own) is impossible, Cobb accepts the challenge to implant an idea in an insecure millionaire with daddy issues' brain (Cilian Murphy as Robert Fischer). To accomplish this seemingly impossible task, his team of ragtag, uh, dream commandos have to go deep inside Robert Fischer's subconscious, using the false persona of a trusted friend who looks a lot like a pregnant Tom Berenger. Once they've convinced him they need to get deeper inside his own mind because "someone" is after the information locked away in his brain, he somehow gets talked into going under yet again, and keep in mind, this is all within his own dream... Or something like that. It's hard to keep up when you're watching the movie, let alone try to explain it all afterwards.

Now, to make sure you're following me, they went inside Robert Fischer's dream using a powerful sedative, and then had to dose him in his dream with the sedative. So a dream within a dream. Now in that second dream, Robert Fischer is convinced to take the sedative again (to keep the boogeyman away) so he ends up in another dream within a dream. That's right: A dream within a dream within a dream.

Scientific representation of Russian sleep study results...

By this point, you're having a lot of trouble remembering what's real, who's left in what stage of whose dream, and you're wondering why Charlize Theron hasn't made an appearance dressed in Princess Leia's gold bikini (it is a dream, after all). To give the knife a final twist, time slows exponentially from dream within a dream within a dream so that if you went four layers deep in your subconscious, the 20-30 minutes you're actually asleep seem like decades. In level four, you can experience 50 years in your mind until The Kick pulls you out of all levels of your dream state. Baffled yet? The Kick, by the way, is the real-world physical jolt forced on the sleeping subject in order to awaken them from a deep sleep. It could be a drop in a full bathtub, a van driving off a bridge, your ex finally pushing you down the stairs, anything that gives you that feeling of falling that will wake you up.

The movie is perfect for watching with a group of friends and talking about it afterwards for days and days. I wouldn't recommend seeing it in the theater, rather you should watch it at a friends house who has an awesome surround sound setup. You can pretend to care when he talks to you about the different listening environments his Dolby 7.1 puts out with the DTS optimized, just make sure you have a good picture with optimal sound to enjoy everything coming at you. You'll contemplate this film for days after you've seen it and you'll watch it again to see what you missed. It's the LOST of movies. It deserves discussion between the "initiated."

It's just about impossible to do a review of this movie that does it justice. You need to be able to think in four dimensions to grasp it and you need to be able to think fast. Those two semesters at community college are finally gonna come in handy. If you like to watch movies that make your brain run on high octane, check this film out.

Overall: 10 out of 10. My favorite movie of 2010, so far. DiCaprio is still a terrific actor. Chris Nolan consistently makes films smarter than all the Harry Potter books combined. Best Picture Oscar nominee (possible winner), Best Original Screenplay winner.

Best Scene: The last scene, duh.

Seriously, if you've read this far without watching the movie, stop reading NOW.

May cause severe tire damage.

I'm curious what you think... Does the top keep spinning? Has Cobb been dreaming the whole time? Did he really make it back to the States? Is it all an elaborate trap to get him back in America and suddenly Dog the Bounty Hunter steps in through the screen door with a fire-extinguisher-sized can of mace?

My friend Helen raised a few convincing arguments...

1) Michael Caine lives and works in Paris, remember? Why is he suddenly ahead of Cobb and meeting him at the airport?

2) Cobb walks into the house where his kids are and it's deserted. What about the grandparents who didn't give a crap about him? Does the key still work or something, he seemingly just let himself in.

3) Also, why are his kids still young when he finally gets to see them again? Weren't they noticeably older on the phone at the beginning of the movie? And they're sitting in exactly the same position, wearing exactly the same clothes he always remembers them in? C'mon... The rest of this movie is so well made, this just doesn't add up.

My favorite dissection of Inception, though, comes in this article. You get a full explanation of the seven (yes, seven) dream layers and a final twist you probably didn't even think of but is totally plausible... My hat's off to Taylor Holmes.

Ultimately, I think the ending would've sucked if it were revealed whether it was a dream or not. Here's the final scene, one last time. Judge for yourself...

What my wife said: "I just want a f***in' answer... and for those clucking hens sitting next to us to SHUT UP."

Likely Porn Spin-off Titles: Insertion; Incestion

Who would enjoy this movie: People who hate Larry the Cable Guy movies; Freud; My dad... Yes, Dad, if you're reading this, you need to take Pat to see Inception. Also, I'm buying you the LOST box set for Christmas. You, of all people, would appreciate that show.

Watch it if you like: A Beautiful Mind; Memento; Flatliners; The Prestige

Next in the Q: It might be a while before I get the time/motivation to post another review. All my free time is now consumed by homework and pre-winter "battoning downs" like cleaning out the garage and stuff.

I leave you one final observation from Inception that'll blow your mind, provided you have anymore mind to left to blow by this point...

No Rick-roll this time, I promise...

Zombieland

2010-04-27T21:56:00.072-05:00

Theatrical Release: October 2009

Rated: R for "Rampant zombie-bashing"

Genre: Dark comedy. With zombies. So... "Zombedy"

Starring...

Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee: A tough, no-nonsense zombie hater from the suburbs who just wants to prove that he can serve beer in a Boston dive bar with Wesley Snipes

Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus: The scrawny, jittery, terminally awkward guy normally played by Michael Cera. But since Cera's little star has risen like Hef after a Viagra-rita, this film couldn't afford our little George Michael, so we're stuck with this low-rent Bleeker

Emma Stone as Wichita: I feel like I should know this girl but I just look at her and see every other 20-something actress who can turn her head to the side and smile for the cameras while wearing more eye makeup than Billie Joe Armstrong

Abigail Breslin as Little Rock: Yep. Little Miss Sunshine.

Overview: Well, I called it. How does civilization as we know it end? Not with a meteor crash or nuclear winter or even something retarded like plant toxins killing everyone... Nope, it's a zombie apocalypse. And in the post-apocalyptic world, a skinny little virgin with a double-barrel pairs up with Woody from Cheers so they can trek across the country in search of a Twinkie and possibly a sanctuary city. Along the way, they get screwed by a couple of girls (and not in the good way) but eventually reconcile as they make their way to Los Angeles. Because there's no better place to be when a zombie infestation has taken over the living than a densely populated urban area.

Expectations: So-so. Zombie movies have been done to death in the past few years and with rare exception (28 Days Later; Shaun Of The Dead), they were pretty predictable and sorta... Meh. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of zombies. As evidenced by the Easter eggs I made this year...

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

In the decades since George Romero brought us Night Of The Living Dead (link is for entire movie!) in 1968 and the sequel a decade later, Dawn Of The Dead, there have been scores of crappy zombie movie imitators to sift through. (See: The Stuff; Return Of The Living Dead; and The Evil Dead, which - face it - sucked) Zombies movies, like vampire movies, are a dime a dozen. For a long time, Hollywood was content to even crank out the same kind of zombie over and over, with few changes to the formula if any. Zombies were almost always just dead people, risen from their graves thanks to a secret government weapons-grade fog or comet passing too close to the Earth. Their characterisitics were boring and not too frightening, just a group of cadavers walking slowly with their arms outstretched and a low gutteral moan begging for some "Braaaaaiiiiins!!" The rules were always the same... 1) Dead bodies risen from the grave - 2) Stiff, shuffling gait with arms outstretched - 3) The only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain. If you wanted to make a different kind of zombie movie, you had to either move locations ("Let's set 'em loose in a swamp!"), utilize better effects than your predecessors, or do it in space or some shit like that. Zombies were zombies and there weren't gonna be no changes.

Unions are notoriously slow to change...

Sometime around the turn of the 21st century, however, zombies moved into a scarier realm: The sprinting zombie. Gone were the days of finishing your sandwich, tidying up the kitchen, weedeating, and checking the mail before the slow-moving undead made their way into your neighborhood. Suddenly zombies were keeping up with Usain Bolt. Add to this newfound ability to haul ass, the second transformation to the zombie genre that made it more frightening and more real: the mode of transmission. While your grandpa's zombies were slow and mostly decayed, the 21st century zombies are just normal people infected with some sort of super-virus, usually manmade (The Rage from 28 Days Later, for example). Now, when a zombie bites someone or vomits blood on them or a you smash their head with a banjo and you get a little blood in your mouth, chances are you're infected too. A short while after transmission, you've got another crazed flesh-eater wreaking havoc at the PTA meeting. And then they bite two friends... And then they bite two friends... And then they bite two friends... And then they bite two friends... Fortunately, the best thing about zombies is the one thing that hasn't changed. Hell, no one's even tried to improve upon it. The very best thing about zombies is that they're easy to kill. Provided you just destroy the brain. In any manner you find appealing! Shoot it; crush it in a vise; set it on fire; light a stick of dynamite disguised as a cigar, offer it to a zombie and run; it doesn't matter! Just destroy the brain...

And my favorite part of this next generation of zombies is that they usually attack in the daylight. No spooky abandoned warehouses or cemeteries to avoid. They'll find you at two in the afternoon, at the $5 DVD bin at Walmart if they have to. A zombie attack in good lighting, when you can see everything, is much scarier than a partially hidden one. And I'm a big fan of the new breed of zombies because, frankly, the shuffling corpse variety is completely unbelievable and easily solved with enough ammunition and a high vantage point.

Headshot!

Now that we've established why Zombie 2.0 is now the preferred version to feature in your movie, let's talk about Zombieland. A virus has swept the country, possibly the world, and left the few remaining survivors in a post-apocalyptic world akin to Mad Max meets Resident Evil. Now surviving isn't strictly about a person's physicality so much as it is a mindest, although it never hurts to be in shape when zombies run. If you don't have the will to survive, you're going to end up as zombie poop, no matter how many crunches or chin-ups you can do.

That's how we're introduced to Columbus, our protagonist of Zombieland. Together with his relunctant sidekick, Tallahassee (no names, it lends to getting emotionally involved with someone) they travel from Texas eastward, headed to their namesakes to find... I dunno, maybe they forgot their wallet on the nightstand. I wouldn't go back for anything except my kid.

Not Michael Cera...

Columbus and Tallahassee are very different people. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is a loveable redneck who wears a snakeskin jacket, cowboy hat, and seems to have born to think up new ways to kill zombies. Columbus (not Michael Cera), on the other hand, is jittery, nervous, formulaic, and has devised his own set of rules that he literally lives by regarding zombies and how to stay prepared to stay alive. The entire list (the highest number rule is 32) is never laid out in the movie but I'll take care of that after we examine the partial list below...

Rule # 1: Cardio

Couldn't agree more. In fact, if you wanted to survive the zombie apocalypse, it might not be a bad idea to pal around with some well-armed fatties. Eventually they're going to have to reload, which means they'll have to run away, which means they'll eventually peter out. According to Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide, since zombies feel no physical sensation whatsoever and their stamina is not dictated by pain or exhaustion, they can go on running indefinitely. FOREVER. How long do you think a redneck smoker with a 40-pound beer belly carrying a 7-pound Mossberg can run with two 3-pound boxes of shotgun shells banging around in his cargo pockets while trying to reload? Not nearly as long as it took you to read that sentence. So try jogging a little. Because you just have to be faster than one person.

Zombie food...

Rule # 2: Double tap

This one's a no-brainer (Zombie joke!) To avoid the sudden reanimation of the zombie you were certain you just put down, go back and hit / shoot / stab / drive over that thing one more time. Just to be sure...

Alternate Rule # 2 (Deleted scene): Ziploc bags

Wouldn't it suck if your matches, ammo, map, or cigarettes got soaked. Like Not Michael Cera says: "You've got enough problems in Zombieland without moisture being one of them."

Rule # 3: Beware of bathrooms

Unless you can forever poop with a loaded 12-gauge pointed at the stall door. Me? I gotta relax a little more than that. I would recommend finding a bathroom with a locking door made of heavy metal.

Rule # 4: Fasten your seatbelt

Because zombies, unlike T.J. Hooker, can't hang on to the hood of your car when you jam on the brakes at 65mph. Also, seat belts save lives...

Rule # 6 (Deleted Scene): Cast iron skillet

In a house where virtually no other weaponry is available, this is gonna have to do. Not to mention it's solid and heavy so any pan-to-skull contact is gonna feel like hitting the sweet spot on a Louisville Slugger.

Rule # 7: Travel light

You certainly don't wanna be hauling around Her Royal Highness's matched luggage. Just a clean pair of underwear, socks, 2-3 shirts, and an extra pair of jeans. Everything else you can pick up on the road, if need be. Our hero, Not Michael Cera chose one of those gay little suitcases with wheels on it. I take issue with this and I'll be covering this more in-depth later.

Rule # 12 (Deleted Scene): Bounty paper towels

Although a good rule to keep unwanted fluids at a minimum, I felt this deleted scene was a shameless commercial. Eat it, Bounty! I use Brawny!

Rule # 15 (Deleted Scene): Bowling ball

Apparently this makes a helluva weapon according to Oh-Shut-The-Hell-Up. A bowling ball is a terrible weapon. It has no handle, it's nearly impossible to control, and it's stupid heavy. You might as well just carry around a big ass rock.

Rule # 17: Don't be a hero

Both versions are true. It just depends on who you're willing to be the hero for. Choose wisely...

Rule # 18: Limber up

Kinda goes hand-in-hand with cardio. The couch potato fatties will be the first to go in the zombie apocalypse. No one wants their epitaph to read:

"Eaten by zombies when he pulled a hammie. Shoulda stretched"

Rule # 22: When in doubt, know your way out

Great bit of advice. Always have an exit strategy. Don't get yourself backed into a corner. Don't always assume you can run roughshod into Iraq some unknown building unless you have a clear plan of action with a known egress point.

It's called "planning", Bobby. It's its own reward...

Rule # 29 (Deleted Scene): Buddy system

Like a field trip to science museum, the buddy system works. Unless you're both overpowered and eaten by zombies but at least you died with your buddy nearby.

Rule # 31: Check the back seat

Right. Because zombies are known for their cunning use of the Hiding-In-The-Backseat-So-No-One-Can-See-Me technique. This rule should be amended to "Check the back seat for anything useful."

Rule # 32: Enjoy the little things

In this case, the little things are Twinkies, Ghostbusters, a secure place to poop, and getting to first base with a girl who left you for dead.

Rule # 33 (Deleted Scene): Swiss Army knife

Not a bad idea. Provided your Swiss Army knife looks like this...

Seriously. This is Zombieland. Not the Boy Scout Jamboree...

I can't tell you how much I really liked this movie. There's something about watching a movie about surviving a zombie apocalypse that sets me to daydreaming about how well I'd do in just such a scenario. It's the same rush of adrenaline I get when I watch Survivorman and scrutinize a professional by telling myself what I'd do better. Personally, I think I'd be fucking awesome in Zombieland. And not just because I've already developed a contingency plan that involves heading to the mountains of West Virginia with a rented camper and the fact that Omaha is a badass nickname). While this might seem a little arrogant, don't judge me until you read my list of additional rules...

Add Rule # 5: Always carry a non-firearm weapon

This is where I shine. Your arsenal just can't be a bunch of guns. Guns rust, they run out of ammo, they jam (remember SPORTS!), they take time to reload, and ammo is very heavy and not always available. When you're out of ammo, you're just a guy being weighted down by a big metal stick.

Your best bet for a full zombie attack armory can be found by raiding your local Home Depot's Lawn & Garden section. My personal favorites...

Round Point Shovel: Easy to find, requires no cleaning or special training. Sharp steel tip, great for stabbing at the zombie's head. Great multipurpose tool. The handle on the end is recommended, for optimal thrust. Fiberglass shafts only.

Steel crowbar: Another great multipurpose tool and a favorite of Max Brooks, the man who literally wrote the book on surviving the zombie apocalypse. Short, comparatively light, easy to swing, and great for close-range bludgeoning or stabbing.

Machete: A good standby weapon. Always have a couple of these where you can reach them, including one sheathed on your belt. Works equally well for Rwandan genocide...

Ditch Bank Blade: My personal favorite. Lightweight for its size, sharp as hell, and it gives you a good 2-3 feet of distance between you and the infected. Ya know, so you don't get brain spray on you. Is the guy behind me a zombie?

Claw hammers are no good because, although weighty and fun to wield, you have to get awfully close to use it. Matter of fact, any weapon with a claw end on it is no good at all. Axes and pickaxes, especially, will get caught in a zombie like they do in a wood-splitting log. Then you're screwed. But don't think of this list as all-inclusive. After all, it's your zombie apocalypse, too. Get creative!

But if you're the kind of person who has to have a gun...

Add Rule # 8: Always reload immediately

As soon as your clip is emptied or both barrels have been fired, reload. Don't wait. Even if you think the coast is clear.

Add Rule # 9: There's safety in numbers

Don't try to go it alone. And don't break away from a group of people because you don't wanna get too attached. In one scene in the movie, the girls run away from their male survivor counterparts because... They're hormonal, shit, I don't know. Maybe they thought being "safe" meant being "vulnerable." Ultimately, it almost cost everyone their lives. So... Way to go.

Add Rule # 10: Backpacks

The most universal tool you can have. It carries food, medicine, ammo, smaller handheld weapons, and your Ziploc baggies. They also free your hands in order to fend off an advancing attacker, reload your pump-action, or unwrap a Twinkie. Everyone on LOST wore them and they survived a time-traveling island that keeps the evil out of the world.

Add Rule # 11: A mode of transportation NOT gasoline-powered

Eventually, you're gonna find yourself stranded without a gas station. When that happens, you can either live in that GMC Suburban which used to be a fort on wheels or you can pull that 10-speed out of the back and ride it somewhere safe. Or a Razor scooter, whatever...

Of course, everyone is going to have to survive depending on their particular environment when if zombies overrun the Earth. But this movie just takes an obsessive-compulsive's rules for surviving an unsurvivable situation and allows you to laugh at it. A funny exploration of a genre that, quite often, takes itself a little too seriously. But not as serious as vampires. The sequel should be Vampireville...

Overall: 8 out of 10. A hilarious movie. I forgot how good Woody Harrelson was at doing comedy. And that's what this movie is. It's not to be taken seriously and you shouldn't try to glean any life lessons from the subtext. It's just a funny movie about bashing zombies. Kissed him upside the cranium with an aluminum baseball bat.

But it was just too short! Excluding credits, the movie was about 1 hour, 25 minutes or, according to Rob, just 3 minutes short of the Spongebob Squarepants movie. There was easily another half hour of story with killer jokes that could've been included, just by adding the "rules" from the deleted scenes. Also, for zombie survival purists like myself, there were a few glaring omissions from The Rules.

Best Scene:

**SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT**

Bill Murray. I have no idea why he chose to play himself in this movie but it was awesome. Maybe he needed the paycheck. Maybe he knew someone on the production staff. Maybe the producers just came to him and said "We want you in this movie. You can shoot it in one day and you never have to leave your house. And don't bother learning any lines, just make shit up as you go. Also, we'll pay you a gazillion dollars. We cool?"

If you haven't seen it yet, I've already given too much away (Why didn't you pay attention the SPOILER ALERT?!) When Tallahassee meets Bill Murray and goes off on a fanboy rant about how awesome he is, I am Tallahassee in that scene. And then to sit around in Dr. Peter Venkman's house, smoking pot, listening to BOC, playing Ghostbusters(!), well I can't believe that was all in this movie.

Best Lines:

Tallahassee: I'm not good at farewells, so... That'll do, pig.

Little Rock to Bill Murray, as he's dying: Do you have any regrets?
Bill Murray: 'Garfield', maybe?

Little Rock: Who's Bill Murray?
Tallahassee: Look, I've never hit a kid before...

What my wife said: She was too busy gloating over her choice. She picked this movie out. I wanted to watch The Informant.

Who would enjoy this movie: TV producers. Because when there is a zombie apocalypse, you better believe that shit's gonna become a reality show. The real SURVIVOR.

Braaaaaaaiiiiiiinnns?

Watch it if you like: Shaun of the Dead; Army of Darkness; Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Next in the Q: Maybe Howard the Duck... Depends on how dated it feels when I watch it.

Pulp Fiction

2010-04-12T10:46:00.051-05:00

Theatrical Release: October 1994

Genre: Quentin Tarantino

Sub-Genre: Violent Crime Gangster Flick

Starring:

John "I turned my driveway into a runway" Travolta as Vincent Vega

Samuel L. "I want a purple lightsaber" Jackson as Jules

Bruce Willis as Butch (Spoiler Alert! He's dead the whole time!)

Ving Rhames as Marsellus Wallace

Uma Thurman as Mia, Marsellus Wallace's wife

Eric Stoltz as Lance, your friendly neighborhood smack peddler

Rosanna Arquette as Lance's annoying mullet-headed wife

Tim Roth as Pumpkin (aka: Ringo), the annoying limey who thinks robbing restaurants is a great idea

Amanda Plummer as Honey Bunny, the other dumbass robbing the restaurant currently being patronized by one Bad Motherfucker and his Scientologist Sidekick

John Provost as Timmy

And of course... Lassie

Overview: Let's start with a British guy and his possibly cancer-stricken girlfriend (seriously, girl, get some sun) eating breakfast while smoking in a Denny's, discussing their recent revelation that they should've been robbing restaurants all along. Robbery begins, then cut to the credits. Moving forward...

Two hired thugs dressed like Men In Black rejects, Jules and Vincent, start by going to Brett's apartment (Brett's not important, except to note that Big Kahuna is a tasty burger!) to impart the message from Marsellus Wallace that debts must be paid on time. Jules proceeds to get all biblical on Brett after eating his Big Kahuna burger and slurping the last of his Sprite. Meanwhile, it's not OK to give another man's wife a foot massage and in Amsterdam, the quarter-pounder is called The Royale with Cheese. Next scene...

Bruce Willis (Butch) breaks the record for marathon sneering in one of the longest continuous scenes of no dialogue spoken. Well, Marsellus Wallace is talking but he's off camera. Wallace tells Butch "Your ass goes down in the fifth," referring to a boxing match he's paying Butch to throw. There's a brief pissing contest between Butch and Vincent Vega with no clear winner, then in the next scene, Butch is jumping out of a window into a back alley because - surprise! - his ass didn't go down in the fifth. Not the smartest thing a guy could do, choose his pride over the shitstorm he would encounter by double-crossing LA's most notorious gangster. While trying to get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of town, Butch realizes he forgot his father's watch. Technically, his hot (yet annoying) French girlfriend forgot it when she was packing. Why is the watch so important that Butch would risk certain torture at the hands of Marsellus Wallace to get it? Why don't we let Christopher Walken explain?...

I only have two simple requests if I should meet an early death:

1) I want the lyrics to Jethro Tull's "Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of A New Day" to be my eulogy and...
2) I want my eulogy read by Christopher Walken.

Believe it or not, Butch does get his watch back (with a bonus Pop-Tart!) but as he's driving away, he just happens to encounter Marsellus Wallace. In the crosswalk. Randomly. In Los Angeles (population: 9,280,600 in 1994). Butch realizes this encounter could cost him his life so he decides that Marsellus should "encounter" the front end of his Honda in order to get out of there and save his own ass. There follows shortly after a scene in the basement of a pawn shop that I have a hard time remembering due to its traumatic nature. Most of my memory is being repressed but I know it involved a security guard named Zed, a hillbilly, some ball gags, and a gimp. But FYI, Butch exacts revenge via a samurai sword. Weapon of choice: Badassery...

There's also a cheesy storyline whereby Vincent Vega takes out Mia, Marsellus Wallace's wife, while he's out of town on a gangster business trip. They go to Jackrabbit Slim's, a corny 50's-themed restaurant where the waitresses look like Mamie Van Doren and the waiters look like a jaded Steve Buscemi playing Buddy Holly. Mia and Vincent have a great time but like all non-dates with your Super Gangster boss's wife, it ends with Mia accidentally overdosing after snorting a lot of heroin because she thinks it's coke.

Expectations: Medium - High. I hadn't seen this movie in more than 10 years but when I had it on tape (yes, VHS, that is correct), I must've watched it every week for two years straight (circa 1995-1996). I know what's coming... Was it a better movie now that I'm older? Or did it feel dated?

For being one of the most original movies I've ever seen, Pulp Fiction opens with probably the most clichéd beginnings I could conceive of: the literary definition of a word. In this case, the word "pulp" and it's pronunciation and definition are shown in white letters on a black screen long enough for you to read it. You're supposed to reflect on the definition as it pertains to the story that's about to unfold. On any given high school graduation day, no fewer than 97% of all graduation speeches begin this way...
"Webster's Dictionary defines 'perseverance' as..." And then some nerd prattles on for 8 minutes about the trials and tribulations that lie ahead for his graduating class in The Real World, a subject he has NO EXPERIENCE with which to base his advisory speech on. It's predictable, it's boring, it's beneath Quentin Tarantino. But I'll allow it.
So how do you know if you're watching a Quentin Tarantino flick? Ask yourself these simple questions as you watch the film...

Are there scenes of brutal violence sprinkled throughout?
Does the dialogue sound like Andrew Dice Clay with Tourette's Syndrome?
Is Samuel L. Jackson in it?

If you answered 'Yes' to all three of these, chances are you're watching a Quentin Tarantino film. And Pulp Fiction is no exception, although it was definitely the film that gave him carte blanche in Hollywood.

Being a gangster flick, you expect the scenes of brutal violence. What I still find surprising is the relationship between Jules and Vincent. If you didn't know any better listening to their banter, you'd think they were married. Bickering about whether foot massages are sexual or friendly, gossiping about people at work, and eating together at Denny's. It's unclear which of them would be the Butch and which would be the Bitch, but I'm leaning towards Vega being the man in that relationship, despite his Morticia Addams hairdo.

Altogether kooky...

Somehow, despite my natural inclination to leave the room when John Travolta comes on the TV, I found his performance in this movie to be just above decent. I still really dislike Travolta movies but he was able to pull off the role of Vincent Vega, a thug who wasn't suited to be anything else in the whole world but that. He's even believable shooting heroin with a needle older than Betty White.

As far as the dialogue, there isn't any that sounds forced or uncharacteristic. Yes, there's a lot of bad language and casually dropped F-bombs, but you have to remember the world these people live in. There aren't many well traveled, Ivy League educated gangsters out there. The word "fuck" is just an audible pause in a lot of circles and this is no exception. In between scenes of tense showdowns, brutal violence, Uma Thurman doing a bump in the ladies room, or Marvin accidentally getting shot in the face, there's also interesting and introspective dialogue taking place. Sometimes it gets a little wordy and unbelievable (Jules reciting Ezekiel 25:17 before he smokes some foo') but other times it's honest and random and you know you've had similar conversations with your friends (the Royale with cheese). In short: very well-written.

The last sign that you're watching a Tarantino movie is usually the most obvious: Samuel L. Jackson. Not sure if he's in the movie? If there's a man who appears to be constantly on the edge of killing someone or is already yelling obscenities about snakes being on a plane, you might be watching Samuel L. Jackson. For final verification, please review the following photo. Is this the man yelling?

"I thought I told you 'no peppers' in my Denver omelette."

My favorite element to this movie, though, is The Case. The briefcase that neither Jules nor Vincent would give up for anything. The case with the mysterious light shining out, the one that caused all the trouble for Brett before he got "churched up" and shot down. A few people get to see inside the case and Ringo is downright amazed by what's inside. But we, the audience, never get to see it. So what the hell is it?! Cash? Diamonds? Human souls? An iPad? And that's my favorite part... It's whatever you want it to be. You get to imagine another storyline revolving around the case and the characters in the movie and what would be so valuable people would wreak such carnage on others to get the case back. Another recent example of this kind of extra-dimensional screenwriting is from Lost In Translation, when Bill Murray meets Scarlett Johansson just before he leaves Tokyo and whispers something in her ear. What did he say to her? I guess that blank is left for me to fill in. By using this element of mystery, in a way Tarantino creates a different movie for each person who watches it. So what do you think is in the case? Leave your responses in the comments at the end of this post.

It was fun to watch this movie again, especially since I got to introduce it to my wife. It didn't really feel too dated, except that no one used the internet for anything in the movie. At times, I wondered if I wasn't cool enough to "get" this movie anymore. Have I grown up or grown old since I was the badass little punk who watched this movie weekly? Where did my rebellious nature go? Did I sell out?! But then my wife brought me some popcorn and a beer and we talked about going to the Home Show next weekend before we have some friends over to grill pork chops with... Now that's pretty cool. I dig it the most.

Overall: 8 out of 10. There's no denying the iconic nature of this film. Google search "Top Ten Movies of the 90's" and Pulp Fiction comes up in almost every list by every smug, pretentious, snotty, self-important internet film critic... Mine too! Pulp Fiction had no real genre to categorize into, kinda like John Denver. Except not dead in a plane crash...

Why only 8? One person: John Travolta. Even though this is his best role, I'm always aware that I'm watching someone act when I watch JT. Plus he dances in this film. Again. In a bolo tie. Find me one Travolta movie where he doesn't dance and is not based on the piss-poor sci-fi of a pedophiliac L. Ron Hubbard.

"Candy, little boy?... Vodka?"

I'm also docking a point for loose script-writing during the final scene in the restaurant. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are robbing the place, Jules produces a bigger gun, drops some science on Tim Roth about God, destiny, being a bad mofo, all that junk... The whole robbery plus standoff takes about 15 minutes... During which time NO ONE walks into the restaurant?! I call 'bo-shit.'

Best Scene: The dumbest story has the best scene. For a quick recap, Mia has just overdosed on her platonic date with Vincent after she accidentally snorted a large line of heroin (I'm sure we can all relate). As you'll recall, Mia is Marsellus's wife and Marsellus would be justified in castrating Vincent if Mia died. Just for fun, let's throw in the added complication that Mia cannot go to a hospital because of the federal indictment shitstorm that would rain down once the biggest gangster in LA's wife checked into the hospital due to an overdose. Please to enjoy rest of story...

Trivia:

The "Bad Motherfucker" wallet actually belongs to Quentin Tarantino.

Contrary to what all your stoner friends tell you, all the clocks in the movie are not set to 4:20. Just the ones in the pawn shop. Cuz I guess 4:20 is as good a time as any for... I can't even type it out. But you know what it is...

Daniel Day-Lewis wanted the role of Vincent Vega but Tarantino said "No way, Christy Brown." Somewhere, the 90's breathed a sigh of relief...

Pulp Fiction is also the movie that started the 90's craze, Movies with Soundtracks to Sell (see The Crow, Empire Records, Romeo + Juliet, or click on the titles to buy the soundtrack from Amazon).

What my wife said: She'd never seen this movie. I decided not to clue her in to the pawnshop basement "Bring out the gimp." scene. No words could convey what this expression does..

"They're not gonna... Oh. They are."

Who would enjoy this movie: 16-year-old Wes; That dude who lives on your couch, doesn't have a job, never shaves, wears the same bathrobe all day, every day, eats all of your goddamn cereal all the time, and kinda looks like Eric Stoltz.

Watch it if you like: Samuel L. Jackson. This is the movie that made him a star, despite being in some 40+ movies prior to Pulp Fiction.

Next in the Q: Inglourious Basterds. Yep, I'm on a short Tarantino kick. Also, my spellcheck keeps flagging this title in my list of movies to watch...

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

2010-03-15T20:43:00.005-05:00

Not long after I saw Avatar in January, me and my friend Sean were casually discussing TV shows that were incredibly good but poorly marketed and subsequently cancelled before finding a larger audience. The usuals were tossed around: Arrested Development, Mr. Show (my all-time favorite show), Boomtown, blah blah blah, you get the gist. Somewhere along the line, my friend referenced an episode of Lost and I had to admit my never having seen it. I explained it wasn't like I didn't want to but it seemed like one of those shows that you couldn't pick up mid-season and really "get." Even with a dedicated Lost Groupie in the room with you, explaining who each character is, how they're all interconnected, who fucked who, who wanted to fuck who, what the Dharma Initiative was/is, why that nerdy little Ben guy keeps getting his face pummeled by everyone who comes onto the screen, what's up with John Locke, etc, I knew I'd have to start with Season 1, Episode 1. It would take a Mormon-style commitment but Sean called it "the best show he's ever seen" and coming from him, that carries some weight.

As it turns out, you can watch all the past episodes of Lost on a number of websites, everything from Netflix to Hulu to ABC.com. I Q'd up season 1 in my Netflix and said to myself, "If this is one of those gay-ass bandwagon shows like American Idol, I'm gonna be so pissed."

That was eight weeks ago.

I became the worst kind of addict to Lost. Season 1 got in my brain like heroin and I was hooked. That show is like Gilligan's Island on PCP. They should rename the show Lost: It's Complicated. But once you start, much like hookin', you can't quit. My wife was on the phone with a producer from 'Intervention.' I would spend an entire weekend watching show after show after show. Not just to get caught up but because I wanted answers, goddammit. It was really touch-and-go for a while there. About a week ago, I got completely caught up with the show and now I look forward to Tuesday nights like compulsive eaters look forward to buffets opening. I still have more questions than answers but I'm hoping this final season will tie everything together finally or I predict riots. No joke, I'll loot and burn things if no one explains the damn numbers by the end of the series finale. I'm also 99% certain there will be a tie-in to another J.J. Abrams show, FlashForward. If you haven't been watching that show, the new episodes premiere this week, March 18th!

So for those of you that have been persistently asking what the hold-up has been on another review: That's where I've been... I never intended to quit doing my blog but once you've heard Kate's siren call, it's Game Over, man. Once I snapped out of it and came crashing back to reality, not spending every waking moment trying to squeeze in "just one more episode!" or recruiting my friends, cult-style, to watch the show with me, I had some free time to start watching movies again. Last week, I blew the dust off the DVD's I got in the mail several weeks back and sat down to enjoy...

Theatrical Release: Christmas Day 2008

Genre: Drama

Sub-Genre: Para-Chick Flick

Starring...

Brad Pitt as the one with the Curious Case

Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott (a British redhead who's about as appealing as copy paper)

Cate Blanchett as Daisy (the redhead he seriously trades-up for)

Jared Harris as Captain Mike Hawk (at least that's how I heard his name pronounced)

Taraji P. Henson as Queenie (who never aged until one day she was just dead)

Overview: A baby is born on the same day The Great War ends. Also making it's debut on this day: A clock in the New Orleans train station that runs backwards. I'm sorry, no one was pissed about this? I realize the guy the city of New Orleans commissioned to build a giant clock was blind but he said he purposely built the clock to run in reverse. Asshole... It's a useless clock now, isn't it?! By the way, 'The Great War' is the name for World War I that's used by people so old they were literally born in a barn, then got on with their chores. So Benjamin Button is born on this wackiest of days looking more like an angry, wrinkled old man than most babies do. He's also born with old man afflictions: Arthritis, cataracts, an addiction to NCIS, and an inability to control his bowels. Naturally, Benjamin's birth mother dies rather than raise a baby with reverse progeria, and his father drops him off with cabfare on the steps of an old folks home, where he can access all the oatmeal and Fox News and old man wants.

As Benjamin grows up, his old fart's body gets younger but he's mentally just a little kid. This leads to cringe-worthy scenes of discomfort, like when you see an 80-year-old Benjamin up in the middle of the night with a 6-year-old Daisy, playing "fort" under a table. I got a little bile in my throat when Benjamin says to Daisy, "I'm not as old as I look..." which I'm sure is on a NAMBLA bumper sticker somewhere. So Ben gets older (younger?), discovers girls (thanks to a hooker with a heart of gold), and gets a job on a tugboat with a tattooed old sailor. He bounces around the world, never stops loving Daisy, nails a married chick, goes to war, finds out who his Dad is, becomes a millionaire button empire magnate (Button's buttons, seriously?), and buys a shrimping boat with Lieutenant Dan.

Expectations: Low to Medium - The preview always showed Brad Pitt riding a motorcycle... without a helmet! Not very safety conscious.

I refuse to feel sorry for a birth defect that causes you to be born old, ugly, and crippled and then you "deteriorate" into Brad Pitt. Hell, I was born with a harelip but I'm not growing into Girard Butler as the years go by. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is based on a short story written by the full-time alcoholic and part-time author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The idea is a good one, a baby born old who grows younger as his life progresses, but when I watched the movie I found myself creeped out more often than I felt sympathy for Benjamin. The only time Benjamin could really enjoy his life is somewhere in his mid-30's to mid-40's. Before then, he'd just be a 20-something who looks 60 (think Nicole Richie) and then you end up falling for some middle-aged lady who looks like Conan O'Brien when she says, "I can feel the wind in your cheek." On the other hand, if you wait until you're 60 but you look 20, you're gonna be the weird college-age kid in the club wearing a cardigan, sensible loafers, and Brut by Faberge. I could never get past this feeling of awkwardness and it carried through the whole movie for me.

I also found myself drifting off repeatedly thinking of questions the movie never addresses or seemed incongruent with the symptoms of Benjamin Button's disease. Some of these questions I couldn't (and still can't) seem to answer...

Is he going to be a 70-year-old who looks 7 and has a thing for geriatrics?

If Benjamin was born with all those old man maladies and then he had zits when he got older/younger, why did he also have dementia (an old man's disease) when he was physically 10?

He dies as an old baby. Nine months after he's dead, is he just going to be a sperm in a coffin?

When he's 21, he looks 60 and ends up nailing Tilda Swinton, who's about 40. Does that make her a Cougar? Is she robbing the cradle or robbing the grave here?

As he grew younger, he shrank into a little baby. Why wasn't he born a full-grown old man? It would've explained his mother dying during child birth. No detailed explanation needed. I saw Aliens, I can imagine it would've been a lot like this for her...

I guess all of these glaring, unanswered questions were no big whoop for the Academy Awards, um, academy, who nominated the movie for 13 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Actor (which should've gone to Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler but instead went to that tool, Sean Penn). The film went home with three Oscars, all for Makeup, Visual Effects, and Art Direction, which the film admittedly deserved. I think it was too mediocre a movie to win Best Picture but apparently that doesn't matter anymore, does it? I'm looking right at you, The Hurt Locker.

Not a bad movie if you've got a rainy Saturday afternoon to kill or if you've got a new girlfriend and you wanna play a lengthy movie to make out during. As far as I'm concerned, I'll probably always want answers to my questions about this "disease."

Overall: 5 out of 10. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, this movie is just too damn long. It's a full half-hour longer than the movie it's ripping off in the first place, Forrest Gump. The only difference between the two films is the disease the title characters are suffering from: Benjamin Button has reverse progeria (aka Benjamin Button's disease) and Forrest Gump was a moron. Here's a laundry list of identical plot points and characters featured in both films:

Benjamin Button	Forrest Gump
Daisy	Jenny
Capt Mike	Lieutenant Dan
Adventures on a tug boat	Adventures on a shrimping boat
Daisy rejects Benjamin's love when she's young and having fun	Ditto. Replace “Daisy” with “Jenny”
Set in the South (New Orleans)	Set in the South (Greenbow, Alabama... It's in the county of Greenbow)
Becomes independently wealthy when his Dad dies	Becomes independently wealthy through sheer dumb luck
Battle scene with German U-boat where Capt Mike loses his life	Battle scene with VC where Lt. Dan loses his legs
Queenie	Mama
Daisy returns to Benjamin one-day, out of the blue	Jenny returns to Forrest one-day, out of the blue
Daisy gets hit by a car	Jenny gets hit by the AIDS
Benjamin Button disease	Asperger's
Set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina, for no discernible reason	Hurricane Camille is in there somewhere
Ran away to India to get over Daisy	Ran across the country because he “just felt like running”

I'm just sayin', someone should be getting sued.

Best Scene: The battle with the German U-boat. There are some tense moments immediately before the tracer rounds start flying through the air at the tugboat. Awesome imagery of the gunfight, gratifying end result. Poor Theodore, though...

What my wife said: "I figured since they showed him as a baby-sized old man, wouldn't he be an adult-sized baby?" Well put, Jessi...

Who would enjoy this movie: Girls who are into The Bachelor. Guys who are into girls who are into The Bachelor.

Watch it if you like: Forrest Gump. Better yet, just watch Forrest Gump again...

Next in the Q: I've got two movies on the way, Pulp Fiction and District 9. Not sure if I'm gonna do a review of either but it'd likely be Quentin Tarantino's Travolt-Comeback Vehicle, if I had to choose between the two...

If Vinny Barbarino was from Oklahoma.

Avatar

2010-01-18T12:38:00.048-06:00

Theatrical Release: December 2009... In 3D!!

Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy Adventure

Sub-Genre: True Epic (suck it, Baz Luhrmann!)

Starring:

- Sam Worthington as Jake Sully (Doesn't keep his Australian accent very well hidden)
- Zoe Saldana as Neytiri (Looks like Beyonce without thick thigh syndrome)
- Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine (Ripley is helping aliens now? WTF?!)
- Stephen Lang as Colonel Quaritch (Never served in the military, despite the fact that his voice constipates me, just like my drill sergeant's did)
- Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge (Best character in the movie; Manifest Destiny incarnate; He gets to utter this gem of a line: "Killing the indigenous looks bad, but there’s one thing shareholders hate more than bad press and that’s a bad quarterly statement.")
- Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy (Best rack in the movie)

Overview: Set in the year 2154, the Marines have become the Blackwater security detail for the Halliburton-esque RDA (Resources Development Administration) mining "unobtainium" on the moon planet, Pandora. For those of you just coming out of a coma, Pandora is populated by a race of tall, skinny, blue humanoid creatures called the "Na'vi" which literally means "giant Smurf." Jake Sully, a crippled Marine (which is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) somehow gets tasked to inhabit his dead brother's biologically engineered Na'vi body. And here's a little something that pisses me off... "Avatar" is the term for the created alien body Jake inhabits. It is NOT the name of the race of indigenous people. Keep this in mind when we're engaged in conversation about how awesome this movie is.
Proper usage: "In the beginning, when Jake inhabits the avatar and goes to the jungle..."
Improper usage: "My favorite part is when the Avatars regulate on the Marines coming in..."
Avatar means "embodiment", not "blue tiger-striped people." Anyway, Jake eventually lives with the Na'vi and learns their ways. He comes to "know" the hottest one of them, Neytiri, in the Biblical sense. Keep in mind, Jake is still in the avatar so, really, Neytiri had hot alien sex with a puppet. Love me, love my doll, I guess. (And yes, you need to check out that link...) As you can imagine, Jake sees the folly of his ways and fights to stop the RDA from destroying everything the Na'vi know and love... In 3D!!

Expectations: Hmmm... Despite James Cameron being a bit of a tool, he makes terrific movies. Aliens. The Abyss. Terminators 1 and 2. Friggin' Titanic. Expectations were through the roof on this one.

If you want controversy, look no further than Avatar. I've heard less critical dissection of the Bush administration. You only have to watch the movie one time to understand that it's a metaphor for the plight of any indigenous population stupid enough to exist anywhere white people wanna exploit. The whole movie is summed up in one line, spoken by the main character when he realizes the bulldozers are pressing forward, despite his best efforts...

"That’s how it’s done. When people are sitting on shit you want, you make them your enemy. Then you’re justified in taking it."

The pope took issue with the movie because it portrayed a worship of nature over the worship of God. But when has anything said by 82-year-old man been relevant?

"So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter,you'd say..."

You get my point. This is also the guy who told the African continent that condoms would, in fact, make the AIDS epidemic worse.

"Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war...."

At 2 hours and 40 minutes, I went in expecting to have to pee 90 minutes in to the film. Before I knew what was happening, the movie was over. When people tell you "it doesn't feel like two and a half hours," they mean it. This movie grabbed me from the opening scene and never let go. James Cameron has invented an amazing futuristic world with plausible technologies like translucent computer screens and cryogenic space travel. As if that wasn't hard enough, he decided to create a bioluminescent alien world that was beautiful, believable, relevant, and fantastic. Realizing that he was James Cameron and could pretty much do whatever the hell he wants in Hollywood, he decided he also wanted to make this movie in digital 3D and casually ask for -- pause for effect, you're gonna shit -- $500 million. Read it out loud: "Half a billion dollars." To make a movie. That's more than the gross domestic product of some countries. Not important countries but you get where I'm going with this. Given Cameron's track record, it's no surprise the studios made their money back on this. In fact, as of Sunday, 17 Jan 2010, the movie has brought in $1.6 billion worldwide. Like the stimulus package, sometimes you gotta spend money to make money. In fact, from now on when the country is on the verge of economic collapse, Congress should appropriate a few billion dollars to give to James Cameron. He could make the best movie of all time: IMax, 3D, CGI battles, smell-o-vision, and in select theaters: "happy endings." America's next chief export could be James Cameron movies. Let Japan make our cars, let China make our toys, and let India take our customer service calls... We've got James Cameron movies. U-S-A!! U-S-A!!

But why is the movie so popular? As mentioned earlier, you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to see the similarities between the Na'vi and the American Indian. Or the Australian Aborigine. Or indigenous Peruvian tribes. Insert any other subjugated race of people. The only thing missing from the film is smallpox blankets. So it should be a huge downer, right? Not when you throw in a white guy! Borrowing the same technique Kevin Costner employed in Dances With Wolves (and the same story, for that matter), white viewers can go into the tribes as a spectator without feeling intrusive. "We're cool here. We've got a white guy on the inside. Right?" I think this is the only way a vanilla audience will stomach a story like this, is telling it through the eyes of a Caucasian. See also, Pocahontas. It diminishes our white guilt by lulling us into believing that if we knew then what we know now, we would do things differently. The only difference in this case is that Pandora exists a full 300 years after the oppression of the American Indian. So... I guess we can learn from our mistakes unless we're talking about mining unobtainium, then all bets are off. Sorry, Na'vi, that shit's $20 million a kilo and what do you expect T-Pain to make his Bentley's 22" rims out of? Platinum?! Na'vi, please! And how fucked up is it that the savior of the Na'vi people is the white guy? Ok... Rant finished.

**WARNING - SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT - WARNING**

So why is the movie popular? Because it's a do-over. Typically, the indigenous people fight the futile fight but history tells us you can't stop progress. It also tells us you can't stop gunships and daisy-cutters with bows and arrows and horse-lizards. While I was watching the movie, I found myself repeatedly choked up, knowing that these epic ground battles and amazing aerial shoot-outs were hopeless ventures. Because you know how it's going to end for the Na'vi: badly. I couldn't think of a single episode in history when the natives fought off the technologically superior invaders and won back control of their homeland. Except for Vietnam but the Na'vi weren't using punji sticks and the North Vietnamese weren't innocent bystanders, defending their way of life. We were fighting communism, dammit! Tomāto, tomӓto...

But then... You're treated to the most amazing ending ever. I would call it "unbelievable" but the movie takes place in 2154 on a moon planet inhabited by giant blue aliens who live in an enormous fucking tree and have sex using their tails... In 3D!! Nothing is unbelievable in this movie. There really was no other way to end the movie than for Jake to be transformed into his Na'vi body, thanks to Mother Eywa. But watching the Na'vi march the developers into their retreating ships and run them off the island... Vindicating. I even ignored the cynic in me that screamed, "They'll just come back with bigger guns and more Marines!" In my mind, the Na'vi never had to worry again about outsiders destroying their planet. They were left alone and the RDA went somewhere else to find unobtainium. James Cameron created an endearing alien world that we were able to get completely lost in. The 3D only helps this process along. If you aren't fortunate enough to have seen the film in 3D, take a Saturday and go somewhere where you can. For two and a half hours, you'll be completely transported out of the theater and placed right in the thick of a visually mesmerizing world and an unbelievably well-told story. And that's why the movie is so damn popular.

Overall: 10 out of 10. Amazing effects. Epic story. Watch for this movie to win the following Oscars: Best Visual Effects (that's a given); Best Director; Best Original Screenplay; Best Film (nominated, but will most likely lose to The Hurt Locker for some reason). Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang should both be nominated for Supporting Actor roles but probably won't be...

Best Scene: Trying to pick out the Best Scene for this movie is like trying to pick the best coconut Hershey's Kiss out of the bag. It doesn't matter which one you choose, they're all good. Even the mundane scenes in Avatar are visually amazing. Here's a quick scene from early on, before Jake is "adopted" by the Na'vi.

Pretty bad ass, right? Now imagine it... In 3D!!

What my wife said: My wife didn't see this one. She claims she will not see it, either, since it is a certified "downer." While talking about Avatar at work one day, a co-worker of mine mentioned that the movie was just Fern Gully repackaged. Initially, I dismissed her claim until I saw this...

Holy shit. Avatar is Fern Gully.

Who would enjoy this movie: I have yet to come across someone who disliked it. My father-in-law should see it but he won't. Rana has seen it more times than I saw Forrest Gump in the theater.

Watch it if you like: Dances With Wolves. The Last Samurai (again, you're telling me the last samurai is a white guy?!) Somewhat sexy scenes of Na'vi side-boob.

Next in the Q: Whatever... I don't live play by The Man's rules! I'm a loner, Dottie... A rebel.

Seriously, I have no idea. I start college classes in two weeks, I have upgrade training at work, I'm trying to watch Lost from the first episode because I heard it might possibly tie-in to Flash Forward which, if true, will blow my fucking mind. I'll keep posting, they'll just be a little farther in between... Thanks for your understanding...

A Christmas Story

2009-12-20T10:25:00.014-06:00

Theatrical Release: November 1983. The same month the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Coincidence?! Most likely, yes...

Genre: Family Comedy

Sub-Genre: Christmas season viewing staple

Starring...

Peter Billingsley as Ralphie - All he wants for Christmas is a firearm. God bless America...

Darren McGavin as The Old Man (Ralphie's Dad) - Darren McGavin went to fix that big furnace in the sky in 2006.

Melinda Dillon as Ralphie's Mom - She just wants Randy to eat his meatloaf. Smeatloaf. Double beatloaf.

Ian Petrella as Randy - The little piggy who can't put his arms down.

Overview: Ralphie's life is incomplete without something to shoot his eye out with. Knowing full well that a football would merely stun his vision temporarily, he asks for an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle (with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time). Along the way, we're witness to Ralphie's obsession with Li'l Orphan Annie, his inability to change a tire without swearing like a sailor (a trait he's obviously inherited from his father who can't fix a furnace without "weaving a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan"), and his kid brother's fool-proof bully defense: Laying there like a slug.

Expectations: High.

As anyone my age can attest to, this is the movie you watched every year as a kid, nearly every day from Thanksgiving until Christmas day itself. You could count on this to be on some channel or another, on any given day, 24 hours a day. Just like Tiger Woods news coverage is today, this movie was always on somewhere. Somewhere in the mid-90's, American billionaire (and part-time manic-depressive) Ted Turner bought up the broadcast rights to Ralphie's movie and decided he was going to invent his own Christmas classic. Sure, A Christmas Story is a great movie to begin with but it wasn't really iconic until Turner decided to refrain from constant airings of the film, then unleashing it on the public in twelve consecutive showings on Christmas Eve's, resulting in 24 hours of ooey-gooey Christmas joy. Now you have to wait all year in anticipation of Christmas Eve when this movie owns television during the marathon on TBS. Starting at 8pm (7pm, Central!) on December 24th, you can flip on the channel that you normally gloss over to avoid Atlanta Braves baseball games and watch A Christmas Story any damn time you feel like it. Myself, I like to have it on in the background while we're opening presents, occasionally shouting things out like...

"It's a major award. I won it!"

"It was... It twas... Soap... Poisoning!"

"Wow, a fire truck, that's mine!"

"I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!" (followed inevitably by...)

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Good times.

Since I was practically raised by television, it occurred to me from the literally hundreds of viewings of this movie in my life, that it would be impossible not to glean a few nuggets of wisdom from the subtle (and the not-so-subtle) messages in this film. It's safe to say that nearly everything I know about Christmas, I learned from A Christmas Story. Such as...

Furnaces never need replacing. Only perpetual fixing.

You will shoot your eye out. In fact, most overused advice from adults is likely to be true: If you keep making that face it will stay that way; Those boys at school keep making fun of you because they are jealous (of what, exactly?); If you keep playing with it, you will go blind.

If you're dumb enough to stick your tongue to a flagpole when it's 10 degrees outside, expect emergency crews (fire truck, police, National Guard, ninjas) on-scene in less than 3 minutes.

You can effectively defend your home against black-and-white striped shirt-wearing burglars with a BB gun.

All TV/radio-based giveaways are just sneaky ways to advertise Ovaltine. And that stuff sucks!

Lamps are major awards.

Turning off the leg lamp in the front window saves electricity, even if every other light light in the house is on.

Bar soap will take the "potty" out of your "potty mouth."

If you're going to deliberately destroy your spouse's most prized possession, make sure you use all the glue beforehand. On purpose!

Mom will make it better.

Santa will be happy to provide you a boot in the face if you interrupt the flow on children by wedging yourself on his slide.

Calling out "That's mine!" automatically makes a gift yours.

Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas Day.

I'm not gonna waste your time here with any long-winded opinions about this Christmas classic. You've all seen it (except for one person I know). You all love it. Hell, most of us know this movie backwards and forwards. Have you ever been in a group of people trading Christmas Story quotes with one another and someone botches one? Bad?

"Fra-jee-lay! That means it's French."

That poor girl never saw the ass-whooping coming. Clearly, she was a Russian spy sent to infiltrate our small group of middle-class nobodies in order to report back to Vladimir Putin how best to secretly take over the U.S. and A. and finally win the Cold War (which they're still fighting). Otherwise, how do you not know how that line goes?!

Moving on, I thought I'd include an always popular Where Are They Now? segment to prove, once again, that not all child actors grow up to be felons or addicted to cocaine or felonious cokeheads.

Ralphie - Peter Billingsley has worked in Hollywood nearly all of his life, believe it or not. With no real acting success to speak of after A Christmas Story (which would be like trying to find another decent car to buy after owning a Porsche), he's quietly been kicking ass behind the scenes as a writer and producer of movies you've actually heard, like Four Christmases (seriously), and Iron Man.

Randy - Ian Petrella found himself in very few roles after the film. He quit acting early in his teens, moved out west, and now works as an animator/puppeteer. You can regularly see him at the Christmas Story House in Cleveland, when they hold their annual convention. If you haven't gone to the website yet, you should. It's fantastic.

Mom - Melinda Dillon was twice nominated for Academy Awards before appearing in A Christmas Story. Afterwards, she continued to act and manages to keep her personal life very private. Even from the prying eyes of the internet. She played the mom in Harry And The Hendersons, a therapist in Magnolia, and someone not sleeping with Barbara Streisand in The Prince Of Tides (which also came out at Christmas). Since I can't uncover more about her, I'll make this up: She went on to astronaut school and currently DJ's at underground gay clubs in SoHo.

The Old Man (Dad) - Darren McGavin was a legitimate actor for many years. He enjoyed a long career on TV, movies, and on the stage. After A Christmas Story, he continued to work, winning just one Emmy in his career for a brief role on Murphy Brown. Gen X-er's most likely remember him starring most recently alongside Adam Sandler as Billy Madison's father. He did, unfortunately pass away in 2006. He will continue to live on with each Christmas.

Flick - Undoubtedly, Scott Schwartz has the most interesting post-Christmas Story bio. During the 80's, he bounced from TV show to TV show, even starring alongside Matt LeBlanc once for an episode of a forgotten show called "TV 101." (I've never heard of it either) In the 90's, however, Schwartz starred in more than 15 adult movies with the likes of Jenna Jameson, Christy Canyon, and Asia Carrerra. He left the biz after the 90's, claiming he "didn't like the job." He also regularly attends the Christmas Story house conventions and seems like the nicest guy you'd ever meet who used to nail hot chicks for money.

Scut Farkus - Zack Ward, like every other child actor, has tried to stay in the spotlight since his flashbang appearance in this movie. He's had bit parts on TV shows here and there, and most noteably had a recurring role from 2000-2002 on Fox in a surprisingly funny (in a dysfunctional sort of way) show called Titus. Why all child actors grow up to be struggling young adult actors, I'll never understand. Who wants to do the same job they had when they were 12 or 14? If I'd spent the last 15 years trying to get my dishwashing job back at Linoma Beach Restaurant, that'd be pretty pathetic. Although, it was pretty cool... no one noticed when we stole beer.

So there you have it, folks. A dissection of one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. Consider this my Christmas present to you. I know I covered this movie a little bit in last year's Top 5 Christmas Movies posting, but I felt this movie deserved a little more. Only in America would one of the most beloved stories of all time involve a little boy's burning desire to get a gun for Christmas. Happy Festivus, everyone!

Overall: 10 out of 10, of course. Without a doubt, the very best non-Chevy Chase Christmas movie of all time.

Trivia: Jean Shepherd, author of the book this film is based upon (and the narrator of the movie) has a small part in the Santa mall scene. He's the bearded man in the killer hat who tells Ralphie that the line starts here and ends back there.

Best Scene: Everyone has their favorite part but for me, it'll always be this one...

Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra, ra-ra, ra-ra!

What my wife said: She's been using quotes from this movie as her Facebook status for weeks now. This review was also her idea. I told her I was considering a mock review where I playfully pointed out the plot holes, unrealistic fulfillment of childhood demands, and subtle racism of the movie (Black Bart?). This did not go over well. She locked up the brakes (did I mention we were driving on Highway 6 to see her folks?) and without mincing words let me know what she thought of that idea through pursed lips, flailing hand gestures, and more than a little profanity... So. My wife loves this movie. Nearly enough to kill me if I chose to desecrate it.

Who would enjoy this movie: Everyone. Seriously, even the Taliban likes this movie. This is how ingrained in the American psyche this movie is... This is a Christmas card my friends, the Sherman's sent out this year...

(click on the image for a larger view)

They win at Christmas. Forever...

Watch it if you like: Christmas. Sunshine. Puppies. You don't hate puppies, do you?!

Next in the Q: It's an all-out battle for the title of Worst Chick Flick!

or...

Fargo

2009-12-02T21:00:00.001-06:00

For the uninitiated...

Theatrical Release: March 1996 (or in Minnesota terms, "mid-winter")

Genre: Crime Thriller

Sub-Genre: Classic Coen Brothers Dark Comedy

Starring:

- Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson (who won a Best Actress Oscar for playing the Brainerd chief of police)
- William H. Macy as Jerry Lundegaard (Oscar nominated for knocking a hundred bucks off of that Tru-Coat... They put that on at the factory, ya know?)
- Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare as Carl and his associate Gaear (respectively). The only connection to the city of Fargo in the whole film is when Jerry Lundegaard travels there to meet with Carl and Gaear

Overview: Well, from what I can get from the trailer there, that Jerry Lundegaard fella's got a problem with the defrost on his Oldsmobile. Ya know, my cousin's got the same problem with his Grand Am. Yup, turns out a mouse ran in to his air vent somehow, oh who knows, there's a million places they could crawl in, sure, well one crawls up in his defrost there and up and dies. Maybe Jerry could take it to down to Tanner Motors there by where the Freedom used to be and get them to take a look at it. Well, yeah, he could take it to ole Dondelingers up the road a bit but I know a guy at Tanners there and I just trust them anyways... So Jerry's giving the burnt umber Sierra to Steve Buscemi as partial payment for kidnapping his wife which I don't get but whatever, he's from The Cities and who knows why those people do anything down there, I s'pose... Anyways, the Brainerd cop without Asperger's, the pregnant one, sure, she gets all mixed up in this somehow thanks to that "execution type deal" up in Brainerd and brings some decent-lookin' nightcrawlers to the bald guy. I gotta say now, those aren't bad-lookin' nightcrawlers but if you're gonna go ice fishing, especially out there on Hole-In-The-Day Lake for the Jaycees thing, you're not gonna get a heckuva lot with those dinky crawlers. They're just gonna freeze up on ya and quit movin'. I'm tellin' ya, ya gotta go with some big fat leeches, trust me. Unless you're walleye fishing down on the Whitefish Chain there in Crosslake, then you just

get yourself some lipstick jigs and kinda bounce 'em off the bottom. Anyways, it looks like it gets pretty darn complicated after that. Marge Gunderson, the Brainerd chief of police, has some questions for Jerry, and he cooperates, just like he says. Also, Steve Buscemi isn't circumcised... I don't see how that's any of, oh jeez, ya know, that's totally inappro... Just... Jeez.

This may come as a surprise - nay, a shock - to my fans but here goes... I am from Brainerd. Allow ample time for gasps and dispensing of smelling salts. I consider myself forever a resident of Omaha but my past is inescapable. My family still lives in Brainerd and I still go visit them; I graduated high school there; I know what a pain in the ass "Citiots" are (again, for the uninitiated, those are idiots from The Twin Cities, or simply "The Cities"); I can recommend a good "winter car"; I've been ice fishing; I've worn a blaze orange winter hat; I've mindlessly agreed with people by uttering, "Oh yah?"; I know the trick, the only trick, to ending a conversation in Minnesota (you just have to interject, "Well, I s'pose..." at any point); To clarify, when it comes to the Great Northwoods of Brainerd, I don't fake the funk. I lived the funk. You betcha...

So you can understand why I take my perspective on this particular film a little more serious than your average moviegoer. Let me just get this out of the way first: I friggin' love this movie. I was living in Brainerd when the film came out and the locals were up in arms. Well, as up in arms as you could expect 13,000 lutefisk-eating Lutheran barn dancers to be. Minnesota Nice quickly turned into... Well, it was only Minnesota Irritated but it quickly went right back to nice. Not even the two Academy Awards (Best Actress, Frances McDormand; Best Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen) softened the movie's reception in town. Who the hell did these Coen brothers think they were, anyway, with their fancy Hollywood movies and whatnot? Never mind that the Coen's are from Minneapolis (Oh, there ya go, see, they're from The Cities, that figures...) and they were using the bleak, frozen Minnesota landscape in much the same way they've done with a lot of their other films: Raising Arizona; . Brainerdonians (sure, let's go with that title), according to themselves, were portrayed as naive and simple, people who exist in nearly another country, with it's own set of values, and it's own dialect. Like Canadians who've wandered too far south.

Well I'm here to set the record straight. Let's do a little Minnesota: Fact or Fiction, whaddya say?

Fact: Most people in Minnesota have that accent...

Everything you see in this movie is about as accurate as you can get. The accents, in particular, while occasionally a little overdone, are spot-on. This can be attributed to the Coen brothers outstanding screenplay. which included every little "Yah..." and "Real good now, you bet." And I know Sarah Palin's got a bit of the Minnesota twang but I guarantee you she plays up that Jeez-Golly-I'm-Just-A-Girl-From-Up-North routine. The accent is prevalent all across the northern US, from the Dakotas to the Michigan UP, as well as all of Canada. In Brainerd, it can even be so thick you hard time understanding someone, especially if they're several generations deep in Brainerd. "Boat" becomes "bo-uht", "road" becomes "ro-uhd", "outhouse" is easily trimmed down into "oathoase", and no one in Minnesota has a "roof" over their head. That's a "ruff."

The lack of monosyllabic words aside, the accent is quite endearing and you'd be hard-pressed to come back from Duluth or Bemidji or Longville (Turtle Racing Capital of the World!) without a few new colloquialisms.

Fiction: This movie is a true story...

THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

So reads the opening slide of the film, setting the stage for a story so bizarre, you wouldn't believe it if it weren't true. And it has to be true, otherwise the movie studios legal department wouldn't allow this sort of thing to open the movie. Right? The Coen brothers, the genius pair behind Raising Arizona, No Country For Old Men, and There Will Be Blood (two out of three ain't bad, I s'pose), know how to tell a story. The opening slide, by their own admission, was just a ploy to pull you into the story right away. It's bullshit. These events never happened. No harm, no foul, right? But here's something tragic that did happen...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200112/s437052.htm

No follow-up stories on the amount her family was able to sue for...

Fact: "Minnesota nice" exists...

That nearly absurd level of politeness people from Minnesota maintain, even in the face of tragedy, horror, certain death, or multiple homicides. Fargo does a perfect job of capturing this enigma of the American Midwest. It's the juxtaposition of Minnesota Nice and the brutal face-to-face killings that happen left and right (final body count: 6) that give the movie its overall creepiness. Things like this shouldn't happen in a place like Brainerd but if it did, well heck, we'll just handle it like we would anything else since we're just a buncha Joe Six-Packs around here. See how weird that is?

Fiction: Minnesota is really that flat, desolate, and cold...

Complete lie! Brainerd, where most of this film supposedly takes place, is right on the Mississippi River so there are lots of foothills with trees and wildlife to hit with your SUV (ya Citiot). In fact, the Brainerd area is to Minneapolis what Long Island is to New York. Everyone rushes up there on Friday afternoons, screws around the lakes for 48 hours, getting drunk and killing geese, and clogging up the one road into/out of town. Here's a terrific aerial view... And here's one from the ground... (Photos courtesy of the Brainerd Lakes Chamber) And Minneapolis/St. Paul is one of the largest cities in the country, with a diverse population (everything from Norweigans to Swedes!), a theater district second only to NYC, a kickass local music scene, an amazing skyline, and - oh yeah - the motherfucking Mall of America. Does your town have a mall so big you could land a space shuttle in the amusement park? That's right! The Mall Of America has an amusement park INSIDE! I win!!

So, flat? No way.

Desolate? Hardly.

Cold? Holy shit, does it get cold there...

Here's an actual picture I took two winters ago on Groundhog Day at my sister's house....

You're reading those two frozen wolves correctly: -25 F.

If you can't wrap your mind around how cold that is, imagine it's 25 degrees outside. Pretty cold, right? Now imagine it got 50 degrees colder. And this is before wind chill. It's literally too cold to snow. The snot in your nose solidifies in seconds upon stepping outside. You have to plug your car into an outlet overnight or it positively won't start the next morning. Eskimos won't even live here... Stop laughing, this is all true.

Fargo wasn't filmed in Brainerd. Or Fargo. Or Minnesota. The iconic scenes of snow-driven plains and yes, even the statue of Paul Bunyan (created solely for the movie), were all filmed in that vast wasteland of a state west of Minnesota... It's um, shit... No one goes there, how the hell should I know - NORTH DAKOTA! - That's right... Fucking. North. Dakota. In the northeasternmost county of the state in a truck stop of a town called Bathgate.

Overall: 10 out of 10. A movie unlike any other. Nearly impossible to categorize (Comedy? Thriller? Action? Crime? Documentary?), it seems to have something for everyone. This movie sits comfortably in the middle of my Top Ten Movie list.

PS: If this is a movie you own and have seen a dozen times, I'd highly recommend watching it again after going to the Special Features and enabling the Trivia Track option. It plays the movie with pop-up info boxes. Like a Pop-Up Video!

Movie Trivia: During a scene in the cabin on Moose Lake, where Gaear is watching the Barely-Comes-In Show on the requisite Vietnam-era TV (standard with any Northwoods cabin purchase), who should happen to be the actor in the soap opera? Damn right... That's Bruce Campbell.

Best Scene: The woodchipper scene...

Did you see who that was on the TV in the very beginning?!

What my wife said:

Me: I know it was a little offbeat and kinda violent but I wanted you to see what Minnesota's really like before I took you home with me for Thanksgiving. So did you like the movie?

Wife: Oh, you betcha...

Who would enjoy this movie: People from 49 states.

Watch it if you like: A Simple Plan. No Country For Old Men. Other Coen brothers movies.

Next in the Q: Something Christmas-related, I guarantee it!

High-five, Paul!

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-11-06T19:03:00.087-06:00

Theatrical Release: October 2009

Genre: Children's Book Adaptation

Sub-Genre: Not for children...

Starring: Max Records, a 9-year-old unknown who's already a better actor than Nicolas Cage will ever be; Catherine Keener, who you might remember "deflowered" Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin; Wild things (and not the Denise Richards/Neve Campbell kind... Sorry.); A cast of very talented voice actors...

Expectations Going In: Here's a confession: I have no recollection of ever reading this book. I'm certain it was either read to me or I glossed over the pages at some point in my life but this book holds no special place in my heart. But I'm a big fan of Spike Jonze's work so I had to see this movie despite being indifferent to the story. Not familiar with Spike Jonze? He brought you this; and this; all of this; don't forget this; and finally this. He kinda kicks ass. So my expectations, since learning that he was behind this story I was only slightly aware of, were very high.

Overview: In case you were genetically engineered, weened on a slurry of high-protein, low-fat egg white drinks, and raised far away from American civilization, you know that this movie is based on a popular children's book of the same name, written in 1963 by Maurice Sendak. It's cool if you never read it but it's not cool if you never knew about it. It's like not knowing about baseball cards or Bazooka Joe or Sarah Palin's illiteracy. Easy jab, I know, but do you really think she reads anything more topical and informative than Cosmo? Back to the flick...

You wouldn't think a movie based on one of your favorite childhood books would suck to bring kids to. Don't get me wrong, it's not an inappropriate movie to bring your little booger-eater to, he/she/it will probably just not get it. The monsters look fun and furry and they have big smiles and they play with kids so Brayden/Kaylen/Taben/Mason/whatever-your-kids-name-is should get their friends and go see it, right? Take my advice, bring the birthday party to see Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs instead.

Most people I know who've seen the movie, didn't like it, including my wife. That's fair. No one enjoys watching kids trash their sister's room because her teenage friends destroyed his snow fort or ruining their single Mom's chance at getting a little sumpin-sumpin because they want attention. On the surface, these actions immediately fall into the "shitty little kid behavior" category. When Max goes off the deep end and dons his old, dirty wolf costume and yells for his Mom to "Feed me, woman!", no one in the theater is really sympathizing with him and no one was really laughing quite as hard as I was. Max is obviously a bright kid with a healthy imagination but he seems to have no friends. His teenage sister, who up until very recently was probably very close to him, has more important adolescent issues to concern herself with like texting and jellybeans and stickers and whatever the hell you kids are into nowadays. Max's father (who's most likely a wolf, based on Max's wardrobe tendencies) isn't in the picture either, thanks to a recent appearance on Maury, and the one guy who's trying to stick it to his Mom could really give a shit about Max. But when Max runs away and escapes into his imagination, you get a much better idea of what's going on in his mind. Max is at that awful age where you're coming into puberty and everything is awkward, more so without a stable male role model around. His Mom is constantly preoccupied with either work or maintaining even a modest personal life, his relationship with his sister is nothing like what it used to be, and he has no friends to play with. It's never mentioned in the movie outright but I also got the feeling that Max may have recently moved to this new house and neighborhood after a divorce. No Mom, no Dad, no sister, no friends... Max is just a lonely little boy at the worst age to be lonely. After a final violent outburst, Max leaves his house faster than Guy Ritchie left Madonna. Max, being caught on the cusp between being a boy and turning into a young man, deals with it the only way he knows how: By retreating into his imagination. To the island where his playful and possibly dangerous monsters live.

No 10- or 12-year-old is equipped to cope with such heavy emotional issues. As an armchair psychologist, these are my observations on the monsters that live in Max's imagination and what they represent in his daily life.

Carol (James Gandolfini): The inner Max. The one behind the wheel. If Max could say exactly what was on his mind at any given time, it would be Carol speaking. Carol is regularly second-guessed and over-ridden by the other monsters on the island. He also has some simmering anger issues.

PS: James Gandolfini is a better voice-actor than most live actors...

Alexander (Paul Dano): The insecure Max. The abandoned Max. Alexander is most likely the direct result of the divorce. He's the part that feels like no one notices him and he'll always get forgotten or left behind when the fun stuff starts. Alexander is who you see in the classroom when Max is playing with a toy at his desk instead of paying attention to what's going on around him.

Judith (Catherine O'Hara): Max's relationship with his sister. Judith is always very distant with Max and threatens to eat him more than once. She ridicules him constantly but occasionally goes out of her way to have fun with him. She likes to remind Max that while she knows that the other monsters like him, she's gonna stay at arm's length from him.

Ira (Forest Whitaker): The relationship Max wants to have with his sister. Or his family... Do I look like Sigmund Freud to you? Ira and Judith love each other immensely and always have each others' back.

Douglas (Chris Cooper): Max's super-ego. The part of his psyche that strives to do the right thing, all the time. Douglas and Carol go hand-in-hand and at one point Carol declares that if he were stuck on a desert island and could only bring one thing with him, it'd be Douglas. You get a glimpse of Douglas when Max shows his Mom what he's done to his sister's room. And the scene where Carol rips Douglas's arm off, to me, represents Max shutting down his conscience temporarily in an angry outburst which he's prone to doing. Douglas is voice-acted by Chris Cooper who played a toothless guy banging Meryl Streep in a movie about writer's block called Adaptation (also a Spike Jonze flick). Which sucked. And yes, you read that correctly, Carol rips Douglas's arm off. Clean. Off. So... Fun for the whole family! (?)

The Bull (Some no-name actor with only one line anyway): The adult that Max will surely grow into some day. He just kinda hangs around on the periphery of most scenes and doesn't say anything. He's large and foreboding but keeps to himself. He has one line at the end: "Max... When you go back, will you say nice things about us?" I read another review somewhere else that said The Bull represented 'depression' by being so close to Max's other working parts at all times. I only disagree because of this last spoken line. I think Grown-Up Max is worried about forgetting these imaginary friends and how important they've been to him in working through such hard times...

KW (Lauren Ambrose...Who?): Max's relationship with his mother. KW has disappeared for a while because she made some new friends somewhere else on the island. Friends max can't understand but it seems KW is crazy about them. She only checks in occasionally and hardly talks to Carol at all anymore, even though the two of them used to be inseparable. When you see the movie, you'll be amazed at how perfect an allegory KW is for Max's relationship with his mom. I can't tell if this is the work of Maurice Sendak or Spike Jonze or David Eggers but it's absolutely brilliant.

It's OK if you didn't like this movie, I don't expect everyone to relate to Max. But that's where I think the disconnect is. If you've never been a little boy whose parents were divorced or who changed schools (again!) or who needed some attention from their Mom/Dad/sister who used to be your best friend or any of the hardships Max is going through, then you probably can't sympathize. I'm sure you had your own issues as a kid but not everyone has found themselves at Max's emotional crossroads. Just a lonely little boy trying to deal with grown-up feelings on his own. So what you see on the screen isn't your typical story with a problem that needs to be resolved and a subplot and a predictable slapstick character for comic relief. What you see is the inside of a little boy's head while he deals with some major stuff... The child in him just wants to play with monsters, build a kickass fort, and be king but the slowly evolving adult in him is trying to cope with overwhelming emotions using his "imagineered" monsters. All Max's monsters want is to live happily with one another and sleep together in a real pile, like they used to. And eventually, after some quality play time, Max knows he has to leave his Island Of Wild Things and go back to his problems, which are much too big for such a little boy. That's why I figure a lot of people didn't like the movie. They took their kids to it, expecting silly monsters to swing from trees and play with Max and maybe David Bowie would show up and sing a song about Dancing Babies while wearing a codpiece and eyeliner. Or they weren't expecting the ever-present feeling that something truly evil was impending. One reviewer, who I don't care to cite here since I'm paraphrasing anyway, said this movie was more about being a kid than it was a kid's movie. Play that phrase over and over in your brain as you watch this film.

Poor Max...

So what will YOU think of this movie? I don't know. Your kids, I'm sure, will be bored at this movie. If you wanna take your offspring to a matinee this weekend, why not go see another crappy Disney movie starring Dwayne "I'm Not The Rock Anymore, I'm A Real Actor For Realsies" Johnson? They'll be studying Where The Wild Things Are in their college Psychology classes anyway.

Overall: 10 out of 10. Film appreciation schools and psychology majors will be taking this movie apart for years.

Best Scene: The one with your mom in it.

No, I really can't pick one scene out. The whole of this movie is greater than the sum of it's parts, to borrow more psycho-babble.

What my wife said: I leaned over to her 15 minutes into the movie...

Me: You hate this movie, don't you?

Her: Yep.

Me: I figured.

Her: Well who wants to see a movie about a shitty kid?

Who would enjoy this movie: My dad. Your inner child. James Lipton.

Watch it if you like: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Rushmore. Building snow forts.

Next in the Q: Who knows? I'm using my Netflix account to watch Strangers With Candy at work on my lunch breaks (you've gotta watch the preview). I'm sure I'll watch a great movie with my sister at Thanksgiving. Maybe in honor of going back to Brainerd, I should review the only movie about the Great North Woods town worth watching: Fargo.

You betcha.