Movie Review: Smother

(a Google Image search for the movie poster turned up a bunch of explicit pictures. Something tells me my kid-safe search option is not turned on.)

Anyhow, we're talking this Smother, starring one laconic Dax Shepard, one gorgeous Liv Tyler, one [adjective] Diane Keaton and one underused Mike White. A recipe for comedy gold, if you were me, would be fooled into thinking. Oh, but what a mistake!

Let it be known that death by smothering is more enticing than sitting through another minute of this insult to film. Unless the intention was to glorify lazy comedies with an overly-convoluted plot that relied heavily on overacting to deliver the set up, punch line and entire gag. If that was indeed the intention, bravo, dear Tim Rassmussen and Vince Di Meglio, for you have achieved a film unlike any other; It is virtually the anti-thesis to a comedy. Film-making schools will look upon it in the future and analyze what not to do in making a film of this genre. I think I speak on behalf of my generation when I say, thank you for your contribution. May you pave the way to a future filled with quality comedies that actually incite laughter.

That is all.

For Your Consideration: Michael Jackson

Shaaaaamona! (This is how I remember Michael Jackson best.)
I recently purchased 'Michael Jackson Number Ones' from JB Hi-Fi and as ridiculous as this sounds, considering I like to consider myself quite the little pop culture trivia enthusiast, I just found out that that song that I never knew the title of which always annoyed me whenever I hear it on the radio is 'Human Nature'! I feel like an absolute retard, but what else is new?

Listening to MJ's major hits reminds me that behind the myth and tabloid fodder of the freakish persona lies one really talented pop star. When he's got it, oh, he can't stop till you get enough, alright. Personally, I like the guy. I think he's really misunderstood, and as a result of growing up in a non-traditional environment, doesn't always act according to the traditional rules that govern life. I mean, cut the guy some slack. He's been groomed to be a star at the age of us when most of us are only starting to learn the difference between our toes from our arses. All that inappropriate sleeping arrangements around young children at the Neverland Ranch, I believe, he did with innocent and pure intentions. If I had to guess, I suppose the behaviour stems from an underdeveloped sense of right/wrong that comes from the bizarro toxic spotlight of fame acheived at a young age. Drew Barrymore, another victim of that dreaded light, was an alcoholic by age 13! When you pair the excesses of fame with unhealthy mentors or lack of guidance, you get, well, Britney Spears circa 2007 (who by the way contributed to some of the best pop music in the late '90s- early '00s, coincidentally).

It shouldn't matter what skin colour he was/is. Or that he named his kids the awesomely ostentatious, Prince I and Prince II. Hell, it don't matter if he may in fact not have a nose left. We need to take a step back, separate the weird from the talent and realize that when push comes to shove, Michael Jackson deserves your respect for being a total badass and making some of the best damn songs in pop history.

In the disposable arena of pop music, MJ churned out some of the most definitive hits of our entire generation. I'm pretty sure most of us can remember the exact moment we first witnessed the insane 'Thriller' music video and our reaction to it (1994; "WHAT THE FUCK?! WHOAAA" was mine). How about 'Black or White'? As a child of the 90s, my family owned a copy of HIStory on laserdisc and that poor music disc was played to every inch of it's brutally short plastic life. Maybe it's my own bias. I've heard the saying that the music that you end up loving most will be the one that you grew up with. So my memories of MJ are his prime days from the late 80s/early 90s period, which thankfully, was his best.

It kinda was all downhill from there but revisiting Michael Jackson past all the scandals, shenanigans and accusations, I'm happy to report the self-proclaimed 'King of Pop' remains just that.

Verdict: An oldie, but a goodie.

Random trivia: At age 9, I won a trivia contest because the final question was "Which pop singer is infamous for wearing one glove on his hand?"

Linkety LinkLink: Childrens Books and Vanity Fair

"I don’t know why I enjoyed killing teenagers so much, then I realized I have one at home."
- R.L. Stine, children's book author extraordinaire

via Yale Daily News.

As a young bookworm working my way to really, really, ridiculously bad eyesight, I devoured the Fear Street series in its entirety. The Goosebumps appeal was just slightly out of my age group and Christopher Pike, was way more explicit than I could handle (seriously, read it again now and you'd be surprised at how porn-y and sexed up the content is), so it was all about that one weird street where the supernatural and freaks reside.

---

And completely unrelated but this retrospective of the annual Vanity Fair Hollywood covers by the Film Experience blog provides a really good indepth coverage of those featured, pre- and post-VF cover.

Annie Leibovitz shot the very first cover back in 1995. Every year since, she's continued to shoot the three page layout for Vanity Fair featuring Hollywood's up-and-coming talents of said year. While some of the actors featured haven't gone on to do much, it's really interesting seeing the trajectory of everyone's career and the Film Experience blog does a great job of chronicling just that.

This is 1995. Featuring from left to right: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Uma Thurman, Nicole Kidman, Patricia Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julianne Moore, Angela Bassett and Sandra Bullock. Read about it here.


This is 1996. Featuring from left to right; Tim Roth, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthey McConaughey, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Rapoport, Stephen Dorff, Jonathan Schaech, David Arquette, Will Smith and Skeet Ulrich. Read about it here.


This is 1997. From left to right; Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Claire Danes, Renee Zellweger, Alison Elliot, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett, Jennifer Lopez, Charlize Theron and Fairuza Balk. Read about it here.


This is 1998, one of the better covers with most of those featured still relevant in the industry at present time. From left to right; Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, Natalie Portman, Djimon Hounsou, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Claire Forlani, Gretchen Mol, Christina Ricci, Edward Furlong and Rufus Sewell. Read about it here.



This is 1999. Left to right; Adrien Brody, Thandie Newton, Monica Potter, Reese Witherspoon, Julia Stiles, Leelee Sobieski, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Polley, Norman Reedus, Anna Friel, Omar Epps, Kate Hudson, Vinessa Shaw, and Barry Pepper. You can read about it here.

This post will be updated when more covers are released by the self-described Hollywood Historian.

With reference to There Will Be Blood and the infamous "I drink your milkshake" quote:

So, yeah… Seriously. What the hell is the milkshake thing?

“As I understand it (NOT having seen the movie), and to cross two memes together, “I drink your milkshake, I drink it up!” is a way of saying “I have inflicted massive pwntangage on you.” He might belong a base or two as well.

I do not know if there is a milkshake present that the pwntanged individual was drinking, and whether or not said hypothetical milkshake was indeed drunk a la Jules Winfield.

But that seems to be the gist.” — Jay

Taken from Pajiba's Eloquent Eloquence weekly comment awards.

Fandom meme

As stolen from Sofa Chip.

Choose 10 characters (preferably from the same fandom) and answer the questions that follow. No peeking until your list is done!

1. Nick Andopolis (Freaks and Geeks)
2. Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars)
3. Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)
4. Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
5. Daniel Osbourne (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
6. River Tam (Firefly)
7. John Dorian (Scrubs)
8. GOB Bluth (Arrested Development)
9. Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
10. Jim Halpert (The Office)


1. Characters 4, 9 and 10 are at an arcade. What game do they choose to play, and who wins?
Street Fighter 2. Since all the characters are essentially goofballs, I imagine a lot of smack-talking and non-competitiveness. Xander would win just cause he's the biggest geek but Dean would put up a good fight cause he's a manly man!

2. Make up an e-mail address for 6.
crazy@maybenot.com

3. If 8 had an iPod or some kind of music player, what kinds of songs would you find in it?
Europe - The Final Countdown!! Lots of Journey and stadium rock too.

4. What would you do if 9 suddenly paid you a visit?
Stare in awe at his prettiness then turn into a ball of mush. I'd go extremely red from blushing so much too. I wouldn't be able to say anything because my mind would be going, "Hubba hubba hubba."

5. Do you think 6 and 4 are made for each other?
Ha! One's an unstable genius and the other a lovable goofball. I really think River could kill Xander for being so inane.

6. 1 challenges 3 to a no-holds-barred duel. Who will win and how?
Lorelai Gilmore. She could speak circles around Nick and confuse the hell out of him. Nick may have the height and the build but Lorelai, especially a hyper-caffeinated one, will layeth the smack down if need be.

7. 7, 2 and 1 order a pizza. What toppings does each one request, and what do the others think of the choices?
Nick would order lots of cheese. Veronica lots of pepperoni and JD heaps of anchovies. Veronica would be loving Nick's cheese but disgusted at the anchovies on JD's. Both guys would love Veronica's choice though.

8. What subject would 1 teach if s/he were a teacher/professor?
He'd be a really terrible music teacher. Or the kind of PE teacher that every kid loves. He wouldn't ride people very hard and have a 'run, if you feel like it' attitude to class.

9. 5 and 10 go on their first date. Where would they go, and what would they do?
They're both dudes and very straight so I'm going to consider this question null.

10. 8 sings karaoke and dedicates a song to 7. What song would s/he dedicate and why?
Europe's 'The Final Countdown'. It's the first song that comes to mind whenever I think of GOB. But I guess realistically, he'd probably makeup a song along the lines of 'Brosephs for life'.

11. How would 8 court 6?
By stalking her. River will hate every single second of GOB lavishing her with attention.

12. Describe the relationship between 2 and 8 in the canon. Would you change it? Why?
Yikes. I guess I understand now why the rules same fandom.

13. In your list, who do you think is the perfect match for 3 and why?
Xander Harris. Something about his goofiness would complement hers and whenever she gets too stressed out, he'd be able to calm her down with his lame jokes that she will most certainly laugh at.

14. 2 has a dream where 10 tells him/her to save 1, who is facing certain doom. What would 2 do?
So Jim would tell Veronica to save Nick? Veronica would probably save Nick. She's a do-gooder deep down, and in this scenario I'm actually imagining them dating.

15. 9 and 6 are about to get married, until 3 crashes their wedding and abducts 9 against his/her will. 6 follows them, but must forge an uneasy alliance with his/her archrival, 1. They must then hijack some form of transportation from 8 in order to get to 3’s lair, where they must fight against 3’s evil zombified minions. What will happen next?
To make this clear; Dean is going to marry River, get abducted by Lorelai and River will forge an alliance with Nick. River will naturally kick all the zombie's asses while Nick cowers in the corner. However there won't be a happy ending for River and Dean because Dean would have realized his affection for Lorelai, which she naturally reciprocates. Them two will ride off into the sunset. Meanwhile, River spurned from Dean's betrayal will channel her frustrations into martial arts and become a champion martial artist. Nick will die three years later still cowering in that corner.

16. 8 receives a gift from 9. Does s/he open it or not? If so, what is inside?
GOB will definitely open Dean's gift. Inside would be a switchblade which GOB will scoff at and throw into the sea ("return from whence you came!)

17. 4 is walking home when s/he sees a cute fluffy creature, which promptly begins rubbing itself against his/her legs. Will s/he kick it away, or take it home?
Yeah, Xander would take it home and name it Captain Spankypants regardless of its gender.

18. 8 is dared by 4 to strip while pole-dancing in front of 7. Write a short dialogue about this.
GOB, Xander and JD? Hee..

GOB: Do you understand how attractive dancing on the pole can be now, JD?
JD [hysterically]: My eyes! My eyes! They burnnnn!
Xander [giggling]: Dude, you gotta strip! Let's make that little piggy squeal even more!
JD [hysterically]: Turk, save meeeee!
Xander: Strip! Strip! Strip!
GOB [sleazily]: You asked for skin, now you've got it.
GOB proceeds to pull off his velcro-ed stripper pants in a flash.

Ugh. Righting that was like writing really bad fan fiction.

19. What smiley/emoticon would best describe 5?
Actually, none. Oz is simply too stoic to warrant one.

20. If you had the chance to rewrite 1’s life, how would you change it?
He would realize that his flirtation with disco was completely retarded and go back to hanging with the guys. He'd also get back with Lindsay Weir and stay together till the end of high school.

Fighting in the Streets

So news of a new live action Street Fighter movie has been shaking up the interwebs of old school fanboys and girls.

This new movie tentatively titled Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, will explore the background of Miss Hundred Rending Lightning Kick herself. Slated for a worldwide 2009 release, the new film will be headed by Kristin Kreuk of Smallville fame as said female protagonist. I'm going to assume that Kelly Hu, Maggie Q, Zhang ZiYi, hell even Brenda Song, were not available when casting agents came calling.

Or maybe the producers of this movie figured since the 1994 live action cult classic could justify a French-accented William F. Guile, the supposed most American of alpha males in America, they could get away with casting an actress who looks about as Asian as Carrot Top does normal.

In other Street Fighter related news, enjoy Jackie Chan in drag as Chun-Li:



Wikipedia tells me that this is from a film titled City Hunter. So LOL-tastic it'll have your mind imploding with the sheer awesomeness of the spectacle.

Finally, take a look at College Humor's Street Fighter: The Later Years series. It's a re-imagined take on the series 10 years after the 1994 film. Highly addictive and fairly good given the limitations.

Dear casting agents of the movie, if CH could find an actress who's Asian enough to fulfill the obvious requirement of the role but not too Asian to alienate the popular demographic, I'm sure you can too. Let's celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series by actually sticking closely to the source material.

Top 10 quotes from the classic 1994 action film:

10.Ken: This sucks! Those guys are good guys, like us!
Ryu: Lately, I don't feel very good.


9. Cammy: Cammy here, are you all right?
Colonel William F. Guile: I'm okay. I'm just half dead.
Cammy: And Bison?
Colonel William F. Guile: All dead.


8. [Ryu and Ken have been grabbed by the neck by Sagat during the ambush of Bison's party]
Victor Sagat: [raging] Are you with me, or against me?
Ken: [desperate] Uhh, is that multiple choice...?


7. Bison: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.
Chun Li: You don't remember?
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.


6. Colonel William F. Guile: It's the Collection Agency, Bison. Your ass is six months over due, and it's mine.


5. Zangief: General Bison is a bad guy? If you know then why do you work for him?
Dee Jay: Because he paid me a freakin fortune, Man! If you know what's good for you you'll save your own ass!
Zangief: ...you got paid?


4. Dee Jay: Oh, Yes. My mama didn't raise no fool, baby.
[he sees someone coming]
Dee Jay: Oh man, I should have stayed at Microsoft.


3. Balrog: [Balrog and Honda are chained in prison. Balrog grabs his chain] Honda, give me a hand.
E. Honda: We've only been in prison two hours. Maybe next month.


2. Capt. Sawada: A single boat against everything he's got? The pilot would have to be out of his mind.
Colonel William F. Guile: Luckily, Bison has driven me crazy... so I'm going to do it.


And numero uno goes to ...

Colonel William F. Guile: Troopers! I have just received new orders. Our superiors say the war is cancelled, and we can all go home. Bison is getting paid off for his crimes, and our friends will have died here... will have died for nothing. But... we can all go home. Meanwhile, ideals like these - freedom, and justice - they get packed up. But... we can all go home. Well... I'm not going home. I'm gonna get on my boat, and I'm going up-river, and I'm going to kick that son-of-a-bitch Bison's ass so HARD... that the next Bison wanna-be is gonna feel it. Now who wants to go home... and who wants to go with ME!

Ranks right up there with Bill Pullman's Independence Day speech for pure inspiration.

Movie Reviews: They

It's been an on-going obsession of mine to hunt down a really good Western horror movie. You'd think it'd be a pretty easy task considering the large quantity of films Hollywood churn out per year. However when you take away films that are true-gore masquerading under the horror genre (Saw, Audition, every Eli Roth movie), the Asian remakes (The Grudge, The Eye, The Ring), the old '80s film remakes (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, every George Romero remake), the video game remakes (Resident Evil, Doom, House of the Dead) and films by Uwe Boll, the pie chart gets a lot smaller. And let's not even consider the abomination to the genre that are the films which pitch two classic horror icons against each other.

Horror, as it is, is such a loosely defined term. What makes one person scream in terror, is another's idea of comedy (re: Uwe Boll). To me, good horror is atmospheric. It gets under your skin and makes you doubt what you think you know. Those irrational fears as a child that you've long forgotten comes back to the surface and you wonder, just maybe, there might be something to it there. It could be something simple as darkness, aliens or zombies. Urban legends is a good one, but Urban Legend 2: The Final Cut (2000) wasted away the opportunity. A good horror movie subverts all the modern cliches that have become attached to the notion of horror. Yeah, we know the amped up music indicates the looming death of a peripheral character, but how will it be different from all the others is what will set a good and bad horror movie apart.

Which brings me to They. Plot wise, it's been done to death; what haunted a bunch of children when they were younger, has returned to claim them later. As per your standard text book horror film, the cast is attractive and the dialogue leaves nothing to the imagination. What makes this stand out, apart from the fact that I had watched it following Pulse and frankly, anything after that cinematic piss-pile of IQ-diminishing junk would be Oscar worthy, is the fantastic tension that runs throughout the film. I mentioned atmosphere being the most important component in a horror film, and They delivers unequivocally on that front.

Having witnessed her best friend, Billy, shoot himself in his brain after mumbling erratically about night terrors and things that go bump in the night, Julia (Laura Regan) begins to find that the night terrors she suffered as a child has returned. The running theme of reality versus paranoid delusions is executed quite perfectly to a T. The decision to write Julia as a student psychologist makes her hyper-awareness an interesting aspect little seen in other horror movies I've seen. In one scene where she speaks to her psychologist, having her self-examine her own case lays out quite explicitly what we've all thought about in times when we thought we saw something at the corner of our eyes.

Just before he offs himself, Billy tells Julia to run when the lights go out, darkness being their main source of existing. Actually that's another brilliant point from the film. 'They' are never quite shown. Basic understanding of psychology tells us that humans are afraid of what they don't know, things they can't see. Cloverfield, for the most part, was a pretty interesting film, right until the actual monster was shown in all his fidgety-camera glory. For the film to never explicitly reveal the true faces of the 'they' heightens the tension; best encapsulated in the climax where Julia is fending them off in a subway tunnel. To get back to the original point though, throughout the film, TV news report warn off rolling storms that affect the electrical output in the city. So when lights start flickering, like Julia, you're never quite sure if it's because of the storms or them exactly.

I read on IMDb that many found the ending pretty weak. They were unhappy with such a depressing conclusion and thought it cheapened the meaning of the film. On my Region 4 DVD, I found both the film ending and the alternative ending very satisfactory, one celebrated the visceral desolation that of reality while the other completed the theory of paranoid delusion vs reality that was hypothesized. Either way, the movie is certainly one of the better Western horror movie I've seen in ages.

And just because this post isn't long enough, let me throw in what I think are some worthy horror moments in modern film:

1. The opening sequence of Boogeyman. Watching it, I was so sure it'd be a pretty damn awesome flick. But 'tis not to be. The rest of the film rates up there with Pulse in the race for "Worst Horror Movie Ever, No Hyperbole, Seriously!"
2. Nightmare On Elm Street, Part 1.
3. The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock.
4. The opening sequence of 28 Weeks Later. The film isn't bad by any count, just lackluster to Danny Boyle's original.
5. Ju-On. Although this might have been indefinitely scarier because I watched it in the most run down movie theatre ever. We're talking the kind of place people go to die at in horror movies.
6. "They're hereeee."
7. The Exorcist, but not where it should matter. Personally I only shudder when Linda Blair goes for her very thorough medical examination. What can I say? I have issues regarding sticking foreign objects in bodies.

Last but not least, I'd just like to add that if anything should be learned from They is that horror movies don't need gore, sex and slash to make it good. Eli Roth, do take note!