Immorality in Movies

The movie industry is no stranger to controversy, with actors getting into trouble seemingly daily for explicit activities. It's always just assumed that these illegal activities are immoral. So why is it that when the characters they portray do the same, it has to be spelled out for the audience that no one for no reason should ever do anything that the characters in this movie are doing? It's like a warning label put on toys that say “hey don't let your kid put these small pieces in their mouths because they might choke and die”.

Two movies I've seen this in recently are The Bling Ring and The Wolf of Wall Street (both 2013)

Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, said, “Coppola [Sofia, The Bling Ring director] neither makes a case for her characters nor places them inside of some kind of moral or critical framework.” Right. Instead, she tells the story she was trying to: of a group of spoiled kids who robbed celebrities' houses. What's wrong with that?

For The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonard Maltin said, “Without a moral center, [the movie] seems to revel in this cornucopia of bad behavior.” The movie was actually based on the book of the same title by Jordan Belfort, whose perspective the movie is from. He does exactly what Maltin says. He loves his hookers, he loves his cocaine. The book isn't a “learn from my mistake” book. It's a “this is what happened ps I still love hookers and cocaine” book.

Maybe this is just because I'm a high school student, but I'm not looking for morals when I go to the movies. I'm looking for entertainment, and these movies brought them. Even with Wolf and Ring's perhaps excessive partying scenes, my attention was kept.

And not that movies that give morals aren't enjoyable. In fact, the presence of morals has nothing to do with if a movie is good or not. Okay, maybe some people get their kicks out of morals. But, if that's you, why're you spending $10 plus for your entertainment. Just go to church or something. They'll moral the shit out of you there.

For Those Who Can't Psychologically Handle "The Conjuring"

This post contains absolutely NO spoilers to the 2013 movie, This is the End. No worries.

I don't know why I haven't written about This is the End yet, but I think it's about time I do considering I saw it for the second time last night. The end-of-the-world comedy, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, was released in mid-June and stars a plethora of actors and celebrities as themselves, including Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride (all of whom have starred with each other in endless movies such as Pineapple Express and Knocked Up). 

Appearances are also made by Emma Watson, Rihanna, Michael Cera, Jason Segel, Mindy Kaling, Channing Tatum, and many, many more.

The movie starts out light, just some guys getting high and listening to the Backstreet Boys. After partying at James Franco's new house, Seth and Jay go out to get food when an earthquake knocks Seth down and Jay sees what appears to be blue beams coming down from the sky and taking people up in them. They run back to Franco's, where the party breaks up and several people fall into a giant sink hole (fair game, it's in the trailer). Only the main guys are left. They decide to stay in the house and wait it out, but problems arise between them.

Jay has to learn how to deal with the guys he never wanted to spend the night with anyway while he and Seth also have to fight to keep their friendship alive and everyone in general has to survive what they assume is just some crazy storm.

This is the End is an utterly ridiculous movie. I mean, I wasn't expecting some of those scenes or conversations (I don't know why I wasn't. These are the same guys from Knocked Up). It should go without saying that this is a movie you don't watch with your parents. But it's so funny that you should really only drink between scene changes because I started choking on some soda about ten minutes in and almost had to leave.

The turn the movie took about half-way through was surprising. Walking out of the theater, my friend who had seen it for the first time last night said, “What the hell. The first forty-five minutes: comedy, comedy, comedy. But I was scared shitless close to the end. I thought this was supposed to be light-hearted.” I reminded her we could've seen The Conjuring.

A Lesson in Movie-Watching

Now that summer's returned, I'm able to spend my days making money, spending money, reading, writing, and not doing homework (okay, well I guess that's the same). And, when I have a few free hours, I'll check my DVR, Netflix, or my own collection for a movie to watch.

Last summer I tried to watch as many new movies as I could, with the belief that most movies are indeed educational in some, sometimes less obvious, way. For instance, The Last Song taught me how many different ways stereotypes can be used, Adventureland taught me that working in an amusement park isn't as charming as it sounds, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London taught me that Frankie Muniz is awesome and no shitty movie could convince me otherwise, Outsourced taught me how many other ways stereotypes can be used, and Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World taught me that Joel McHale might not actually be perfect.

Education!

Okay, so obviously watching movies like The Tooth Fairy and Barbie: Princess Charm School and Fantastic 4 isn't going to make you any smarter. Not book-wise, anyway. (I like to think that movies make you more street-smart in a sense. And you get all these little snip-its of trivia or situations that you can relate to in your own life. Like, “Your parents aren't letting you go to the party tonight? Wow, this reminds me of the time when the headmistress at Princess Charm School tried to kill Barbie and her friends. Haha.”)

But movies are a doorway into other worlds and lives and situations and OHMYGOD suddenly you're in a room with Hemingway and Picasso and wow Picasso's kind of a dick and then WOAH now you're standing five feet from where Batman and Bane are fighting and jeez you better back up or something they're really going at it.

I don't know, man. I started out saying that I think movies are educational, then I said they aren't, but I'm still thinking they are. They are. Maybe you don't learn geography or math or science (or maybe you do), but maybe you learn to love or to hate, what you like or don't like, things or people you want to do. Or maybe you're watching the crappiest movie on the lowest budget with the worst acting, but you still get a chuckle out of it.

And then it doesn't matter if you're learning anything or not.

Star Trek Into My Heart

This post contains spoilers from both the 2009 movie, Star Trek, and the 2013 movie, Star Trek Into Darkness. Dude, you've got to see these two movies.

Let's get one thing straight: if someone had told Young Me that, as a seventeen-year-old, I would love franchises like The Avengers, Batman, and Star Trek, Young Me would probably ask what a franchise was, because I was a bit stupid.

But then Young Me wouldn't believe what you said after you explained it because, well, I never thought I would ever like movies like those because those movies are for nerds and I only watch cool movies like John Tucker Must Die.

But the previously listed franchises have given me my favorite movies ever because they combine the things I absolutely love: explosions, men, swearing, and jokes.

Watching Star Trek Into Darkness, it reminded me how confused I was watching the movie's predecessor from 2009 for the first time. Like, utterly confused. In Star Trek, the element of time travel is brought up when Future Spock opens a black hole with the red matter to try to defeat Romulus but instead it sucked both of them into it and spat them out 129 years into the past. So then everything that happens after that happens differently than it did to Future Spock because now Romulus is in the past and eventually kills James Kirk's father. Even watching the movie five times last February left me a little frazzled still.

Anyway, director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman continue with the confusing yet riveting plot points with STID. The movie follows Kirk (Chris Pine, bebe) and the rest of the Enterprise and they try to cope with Captain Pike's death and capture the enemy, John Harrison.

Talking with my mom afterwards, she let me in on the fact that Into Darkness actually took from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which featured a lot of the same cast as the original 1966-69 television series. When, if you think about it, is just a nice little piece for everyone: the people who watched The Wrath of Khan get a bit of nostalgia, the writers get a short break from coming up with their own confusing plot lines, and anyone else just gets a fucking sad death scene (but okay).

Even with a few death scenes, everything about these two movies is perfect. The actors, the dialogue, the wit, the butts, the good guys, the bad guys, the music, and the effects are the reason Star Trek and its sequel uphold 95% and 87% on RottenTomatoes, respectively. They're the reason the franchise now holds a dear place in my heart.

They Should Just Call it "You're Out of Luck, Joel Edgerton Doesn't Show Up Until Two-Thirds of the Way Through"

I watched Zero Dark Thirty. A quick break-down of the reasons for doing so would be:

I get extra credit in my US History class- 70%

Joel Edgerton is in it- 20%

It's a recent, very well-received movie- 10%

I have the time- 0%

Well I made the time and I watched it, only half a year late for the buzz.

It's hard going into a movie knowing already what people think about it. I do it all the time (I'm looking at you, rottentomatoes.com), and I try as hard as I can to make sure it doesn't actually affect my opinions about the movie. That being said, with a 93% “fresh” rating on RT, I'm sure that it doesn't. At least not in this case.

Not that Zero Dark Thirty (about the journey leading up to the killing of Osama Bin Laden) was bad, I just didn't like it that much. It was a bit lengthy. I get it, you've got ten years and a war to cover in this film, but they had scenes just where the characters were talking about how little was going on. The acting, effects, and idea were all good, but sometimes it seemed like the film was moving in slow motion.

I like the name of the movie, though. The name's good. In all honesty, maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention, but where does it come in? Well, whatever. It's got a nice ring to it. It's like when someone says something and you don't understand it but it's sounds nice and sharp so you just repeat it over and over.

Go rent Inglourious Basterds instead.

Netflix Beer Me Strength

Freaking exams, man. I've never actually wanted to throw myself off a bridge more. So instead of crafting some sort of coherent post about a set topic, I'm just going to put out some stuff over what I've watched recently.

My new boyfriend's name is Netflix. He's like this really great guy with an amazing personality and he's maybe the reason there's been a small slip in my grades. Maybe.

Anyway, about a week and a half ago I decided to watch Warrior just because I wanted to evade my responsibilities and also, I mean, shirtless men punching each other? Why wouldn't I want to watch it? It turned out to be way more emotionally tearing than I thought and I kind of hate myself for watching it. I mean, it's a really good movie, but God Nick Nolte is just so sad and Tom Hardy is just so pained and Joel Edgerton is just so attractive.

I kept on my Edgerton-craze by watching Acolytes (2008), an Australian horror film about three teenagers who get into some deep shit and eventually get two deranged men (one of them Edgerton) trying to kill them (yolo swag). It's pretty decent.

And then I found some short films by Nash Edgerton, Joel's brother. The films, Spider and Bear, are about this doofus boyfriend who plays this pranks on his girlfriend that end up almost killing one or the both of them. It's weird how much I like them and how funny they are, given the previously stated premises.

On Saturday I went to go see The Great Gatsby.

We're not going to talk about The Great Gatsby.

Okay, I'll just say this: there were parts I really liked (mostly the acting (and yeah, I'm biased) and especially how the scene at Myrtle's apartment was done) and parts I really didn't (the whole Nick-at-a-sanitarium was an interesting idea, I just didn't like how it was executed. Also, there was music playing almost constantly. I get it, you've got Jay-Z and Florence and the Machine and Lana Del Ray on your soundtrack, but then there was just piano at times, too, and they really didn't need it over the dialogue in every scene.)

I found a quote in a review that pretty much sums it all up:

“The central problem with Luhrmann's film is that when it's entertaining it's not Gatsby, and when it's Gatsby it's not entertaining.” (Christopher Orr, The Atlantic)

And these are the reasons I just failed my AP US History final thankyouverymuch.

You've Got Your Work Cut Out For You, Baz

In order to prepare myself for what is sure to be an extremely emotional day (aka seeing Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby), other than packing my bag with tissues, cheap candy, a paper bag, and a few adult diapers, I also watched the 1974 version, even with the knowledge that it figuratively sucked balls.

And man, did it live up to those expectations.

The biggest problem that this older version has is the actors...and the script...and the directing. (Oh God, this is going to be a long post.)

The script follows the book too closely. Almost exactly, except for some of Nick's narrative. Listen, The Great Gatsby's a fantastic book, but if you just take the words and lay them into a script format, it's going to eff shit up. What holds the book together is Nick's constant narrative of everything going on. When you take that away, all you're left with is this shitty choice of actors whispering about their problems and sweaty faces.

Speaking of the actors (we'll get to the sweat later), I basically have a problem with each one in this movie.

Tom Buchanan is supposed to be this booming, powerful man who acts like he owns everything in the room. Instead it's this guy with a mousy face and a whiny voice and really isn't scary at all.

I suppose Mia Farrow did an okay job at being Daisy, only because Daisy's the most conceited, annoying character of all. So...

Jordan in the book is known to be an athlete, a liar, and overall reckless. In the movie she's this wispy, airy, shallow pool of annoyance. She's set up as Daisy in a minor role.

I don't really know how to describe Robert Redford's Jay Gatsby. He was just there.

Nick? Nick was okay.

But everyone, everyone was whispering. Why? You've got characters in this movie that are supposed to have over-exaggerated everything, but they're all speaking softly, like they're in church. I suppose it's like when you're in a classroom and no one's talking. Then, when someone does begin to talk, they do so quietly because they're the only one. Now if someone else wants to join the conversation, they're probably going to match the volume so as to not be a complete annoyance. But there are always those one or two people in the class that talk so loudly no matter if anyone else is talking. That's how Tom and sometimes Daisy and Gatsby should have freaking talked.

And everyone was so sweaty. No one is ever that sweaty in real life. I don't care if it really is so hot you decide to take your cars and go to the Plaza. You wipe that shit off your face.

So, Dear 2013 Gatsby, please don't let me down. Let Tobey and Leo and Carey and Joel and Isla and Elizabeth fucking rock this movie. And if not, at least I'll have some nice butts to look at.

They Scalp Nazis, Don't They?

This post contains spoilers to the 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds.

So you know what's pretty cool? A few weeks ago I finally turned the age I've been telling all the ladies at the bank I am. This new age is basically the limbo between getting a driver's license and becoming a real adult, but it does have one plus: I can now finally legally watch R-rated movies in theaters and rent them from the moldy noodle-smelling place down the street.

Another thing's that's pretty cool is that I recently found out I'm going to Germany this summer. So with this new age badge and the knowledge of a future trip, I decided to rent Inglourious Basterds, because, you know, it would totally help me learn about German culture and stuff.

I've watched Django Unchained, but that's the extent of my Tarantino film knowledge. And, well, that's all I needed to really know. But I was still surprised a few times when people pulled guns out of no where and others blew innocent Germans to pieces. But I mean that's just Tarantino, making gore and the absolute pit of any country's history into a funny and well-woven movie (which, by the way, follows the conception and then execution of two different assassination attempts on Hitler in a sort of alternate-history of his time. One group made of mostly Jewish American soldiers, the Basterds- hence the title of the film- started by just scalping the Nazi soldiers- hence the title of this post- and then worked their way up to assassination).

There are a few things I noticed while watching this movie. One is that Christoph Waltz is such a babe. Like, really. It was hard to not think of him as adorable, even as he sent his men to shoot down the hiding Jewish family in France or as he strangled Diane Kruger. Another is that I could thankfully understand a little of the German spoken in the film without subtitles. And also that watching Hitler be blown to pieces is very, very satisfying.

Looking past the just-confusing spelling of the movie's title, I really liked it. Like, really. Even more than Django, and that had fucking Leonardo DiCaprio in it. That's how much I liked it, with Adorable Christoph Waltz and Funny Brad Pitt and Beautiful Eli Roth (aka the Bear Jew).

And now I totally know my German history, y'all.

[REC]-It Clara

This post contains spoilers to the 2012 movie, [REC] 3: Genesis, which you have probably never heard of and will probably never see but whatever

Foreign films are some of the most cherished in America, mostly because, if they make it across the see/over the border/through the atmosphere, they must be pretty damn good. Movies like The Artist, Amour, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Biutiful are the reason the Academy Awards has a whole category reserved for foreign films.

Buuut sometimes a bad film or two slip through the cracks of this filter and make it to (at least) some very-limited release in theaters or just two copies in a video store, the latter being exactly how I found [REC] 3: Genesis.

Well, I had actually seen the movie's two predecessors before, which led to my renting it.

In short, the first [REC] is about these people who are trapped in an apartment building because of an outbreak in some crazy disease that turns people into zombies (kind of). I've been told it's the Spanish Quarantine. It was received very well, earning a 96% on RottenTomatoes among critics.

[REC] 2 follows the remaining humans in the apartment building, along with three new ones who sneak into the building via tunnel and also record the crazy happenin's. It received considerably less on RT, but still making it “fresh”, earning a 69%.

And now...[REC] 3: Genesis. In this movie, the characters, all different from it predecessors', are at Clara and Koldo's wedding when the uncle goes crazy and attacks. The bride and groom are separated, and the rest of the movie follows them trying to find the other, making tons of stupid decisions along the way. Some examples are (1) the fact that Clara keeps her heels on the entire time, (2) when Koldo goes out to look for her, puts on a suit of armor for protection, but doesn't cover his head, (3) the bride using a chainsaw to cut a weird v-shape out of her dress, (4) each and every time anyone stopped to look at the crowd of zombies approaching them instead of fucking running, (5) in the end, when Koldo picks Clara up after she's been infected and walks up to these police officers and starts making out with Clara, resulting in her biting his tongue off, and many, many more. (Frankly, it was no surprise that this movie got 38% on RT. It's one of those franchises where they just should have stopped.)

But if you're looking for a somewhat-gory, non-acclaimed, Spanish movie to watch with you kids or lover or something, you've got three to choose from.

4077

It all started with a link. A link to a website that streams dozens of classic television shows constantly. And, in my boredom, I made the fatal mistake of clicking on M*A*S*H. When I was younger, it was known as the boring war show my mom watched. Now it's my new obsession.

The bad thing is, I can't pause the series online, so while I search for some freaking place in this damned city that has it for rent, I figured I would watch the movie (that shares the name but not the asterisks), that was inspired by the book, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, but also inspired the TV series.

In short, MASH follows doctors Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce and John McIntyre through their daily shenanigans and life-saving on site during the Korean War. There are other characters (with some pretty good nicknames i.e. Radar, Hot Lips), too, who all add to the black comedy of the film (and series).

For the most part watching the movie, I was utterly confused. Why were lines of dialogue running over each other to the point of completely not being to understand any of it? Who was the twelve-year-old in the O.R. who slipped up and then began to cry like a little baby? Why did the whole 4077 assist with the dentist's suicide? (Like, they even threw a freaking farewell party.) Why did McIntyre suddenly punch some other guy in a closet? Why did Donald Sutherland sound like he had been drinking all day? These questions remain unanswered.

Speaking of Donald Sutherland, who played Hawkeye, he was so totally unlikable in the movie compared to Alan Alda's Hawkeye in the series, I could have cried. Like, Movie Hawkeye is such a dick. TV Hawkeye is more sassy.

The writing in the movie was also surpassed by the series, which is a little strange considering only one guy, Ring Lardner, Jr., wrote the screenplay for the movie, while over a dozen different people were involved in writing the episodes for M*A*S*H in the first season alone, including Alda himself. Usually those result in the opposite effects.

So I definitely like the series better, which is no surprise considering I love Alan Alda, yo.

I mean, effing look at him!

But it's also quite terrible because it's freaking eleven seasons long and no freaking video store in my area seems to have the seasons at all (which, I'll admit, is a good thing because I should be studying).

Reading Books for Fun and a Grade

Sometimes I read books. And while that sometimes is mostly pushed by the fact that I get a grade for it in class, my reading can also be because of interest in said stack of flattened trees. (Apparently this is how it usually goes.)

Writing Movies for Fun and Profit by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon is not a movie. So I guess you could go all Matthew-McConaughey-after-he-finds-out-his-mom-hired-Sarah-Jessica-Parker-to-date-him-in-Failure-to-Launch and call me a liar, because this is supposed to be a blog only about movies (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and talking about a book on here is kind of disturbing (what's more disturbing, though, is that spell-check thought I meant Matthew-Megajoules). But I'm going to do it.

This past summer I read WMfFaP. In the book they make some crude jokes and low-blows and swear a lot, and that's basically everything I do and love. The book and I got along great. Next week we're going to meet each other's parents.

Garant and Lennon basically lay out everything a screenwriter's got to do if they want a chance at becoming the next Woody Allen (except for less creepy). So really only read this book if you're interested in that kind of stuff. Or other movie production stuff would also suffice. Or if you want a long list of all the In 'n' Out Burger joints in the Los Angeles area (fo' real, Chapter 22).

And while the cover may totally turn you off (or on, idk), Writing Movies for Fun and Profit is a great read for all of you aspiring screenwriters, producers, agents, managers, or just fans of the authors (who am I kidding here? Forget the latter.)

The wonderful cover of Garant's and Lennon's book. It's a winner, ladies and gents.

Trailers, Trailers, Everywhere

Oh my God, y'all.

Not only is The Great Gatsby only like thirty-six days away, but a third and fabulous trailer was just released. This is big. Like, it's so close. I've been waiting for this baby for two and a half years.

And then there's this fabulous poster:

Earlier this week, trailers for the Pineapple Express reunion movie, This is the End, and for the indie hit, The English Teacher were also released. And e'erything's looking good.

Hopefully these movies will be able to make up for Safe Haven.

Picky, Picky

Ah, the great feeling of finding an article about movies that I can simply write about instead of having to think of my own original idea. That's the good stuff. More specifically: “How We Transformed Into Nitpick Nation”, an editorial by Dalton Ross, published in Entertainment Weekly in the February 22 issue.

“HWTINN” describes that, in the past couple of decades, television has gotten way more prolific and original. America can't just go back to Father Knows Best and Three's Company for their weekly entertainment (although the latter is some great shit) because they've already seen The Sopranos and Lost (and you can never unseen Lost). We're now programmed to watch these hard-hitting dramas and others like them and pick apart everything and find flaws and then comment on message boards so that everyone else will see the flaws too.

Now while Ross focuses on television dramas such as The Following and The Walking Dead, I can't really go further into that because (1) this is a blog about movies and (2) the only TV I watch includes tight clothing and Derek Hough (well those are the only things I pay attention to anyway).

But take, for instance, the dark days of my sixth grade year of school. Before Twilight was an ill-acted movie with an annoyingly-large fan base of emotionally-unstable preteens and middle-aged women, it was just an semi-popular book among middle-schools (oh my God, sorry for all the hyphens), one of which was me. I mean, I liked the series until half-way through New Moon, when it just got so Goddamn boring that I skipped a few hundred pages and got to the part with Edward and an unconscious Bella in the Volturi's lair in Italy. As the couple is leaving, Bella notices a group of tourists coming down and it's obvious (except to twelve-year-old me because I had to reread the freaking thing like three times before I got it): the evil Italian vampires pretend to give tours to attract people whom they then kill and feed on.

Once I understood this, I couldn't get over how ridiculous it was. What? Nobody had reported a loved-one missing, gone on a trip to Europe and never come back? Left the hotel for a tour and didn't make it to breakfast the next morning? These disappearances haven't been investigated with no correlation found between them that all of the people who are missing went such after telling someone they were going on some tour in the deep depths of Italy? But then I realized that the whole freaking story was ridiculous. I mean, Twilight centers around a girl who found love with a freaking vampire and must keep his and his family's secret, along with her friend's, because oh guess what he's a wolf.

A year or so ago, Young Alec Baldwin sucked me into watching Beetlejuice. The title character lives in Netheworld, and to be summoned his name must be said three times. When he and a young girl named Lydia first meet, she asks his name but Beetlejuice is like, “I can't tell you because then you might tell your friends and they'll be running around, shouting it everywhere.” So then he goes on this whole shebang, acting out his name with charade-like gestures, until Lydia finally guesses correctly.

Like, okay? So this chick can still tell all of her friends what his name is and they can summon him themselves. Why did he have to act it out? If he's that concerned with it then maybe he just shouldn't tell people his name. But yeah, it's a movie about “a recently deceased young couple who become ghosts haunting their former home and an obnoxious, devious 'bio-exorcist' named [Beetlejuice] from the underworld who tries to scare away the new inhabitants permanently.” (Wikipedia and sorry I'm so lazy).

Ross ends his article with admitting that he “should be happy that the medium offers so many exciting alternatives” and declares that he'll “do better” with ignoring some of television's discrepancies. I say that these writers need to get their shit together and also that I should've never read Twilight.

Not So Subtle Symbolism

I think that a little bit of symbolism is a good thing. It can take a poem from, "Oh, that was a nice little poem about ducks and beetles." to "Wait, it's supposed to represent society's industrialization and current social problems whhhhhaaaaatt."

But we're not going to talk about poems here; we're going to talk about movies, some of which actually have some pretty deep symbolism (like, I haven't seen Life of Pi, but I hear there's something crazy going on with the tiger). Sometimes I think that movies take their symbolism too far, though, or actually just are really bad at making it subtle. They basically just throw these things at you so that, afterward, you feel like a ton of symbolistic babies just threw up on you. And not in a good way.

There are tons of reasons why you should watch The Departed. Like, maybe that it won Best Picture, Director (Scorsese!), and Adapted Screenplay at the 79th Annual Academy Awards. Or that both Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon star in it. Basically the only negative thing about The Departed is Jack Nicholson's penis. Anyway, a short plot description would be that: Damon is a cop but really a rat for the bad guys and DiCaprio is a bad guy but really working for the cops and shit definitely goes down. At the end of the movie, in Damon's up-town, fancy new apartment, a single rat is shown running across the railing to the balcony. Yes, rats. How very subtle.

In one of the few romantic comedies I can stand to watch, Under the Tuscan Sun, the blaringly obvious symbolism makes The Departed's rat look as subtle as, well, something that's very subtle. I seriously don't have enough time to fully describe all of the symbolic things in UtTS, so here's a list:

-The old man with the flowers

-The dry/leaky/running faucet

-The Crazy Ass Bird Lady

-The renovations going on in the house

-The house itself

-The blue vase

-The “train tracks in the Alps” story

In spite of the obvious, and sometimes just ridiculous, symbolism in these movies, both got positive reviews on rottentomatoes.com (93%, The Departed; 61%, Under the Tuscan Sun).

And while the rat in the formerly mentioned basically teaches the watcher nothing, one might be able to actually get a little lesson (or twenty) out of all of the shit going on in UtTS. You know, if you're an emotionally-unstable woman looking for some guidance in your love life. The Departed can't really help you with that.

Do get the medium popcorn though you deserve it

This post contains spoilers to the 2012 movie, Django Unchained, which you really should have seen by now it's an excellent movie no excuses but I highly recommend it

“This Christmas was supposed to be all about me and Jay Gatsby. After an unfortunate turn of events, though, I figured I would just spend Christmas vacation crying in my room (you know, in between opening gifts, playing poker, and stuffing my face full of ham). Leonardo DiCaprio had another movie planned to be released this Christmas, though, and it taught me about the true meaning of Christmas.”

Is what I wrote when I thought I was going to be seeing Django Unchained before freaking March. And while I had correctly predicted how I spent my holiday break, I never finished the post (which is actually pretty good considering I was planning to somehow compare Django with another Christmas release, Les Mis, which now seems like an impossible feat and I don't know what I was thinking).

As my life would have it, I saw the strictly R-rated movie with my mother. The old lady guilted me into accompanying her to the theater to see Life of Pi, but we got there too late. And that's when I saw the show times; Django Unchained in ten minutes. It was like a holy ray of light shown down from the heavens above and led me right to the poster.

So yeah we went to the movie and I lost my Tarantino-virginity to his first (not going to actually fact-check that) Spaghetti Western. (Oh, God, should I even put Tarantino and virginity in the same sentence? Okay, I guess it's staying.)

Well, I love me some historical pieces (okay so I like, like, one Civil War movie) and also movies with genres named after my favorite food and starring my favorite actors, and this one was no different.

Once you get past all the blood (red corn syrup, anyone?) and the perhaps excessive use of the n-word (neither of which I actually thought was that bad), you get to the beautifully-scripted, excellently acted-out, and still mildly-inappropriate (did I mention the nudity?) film that got all sorts of buzz in the months since its release, and earned both Christoph Waltz and Tarantino Oscars.

If I had one complaint (which I do; just wait for it), it would be the fact that DOCTOR KING SCHULTZ TOTALLY DIES OH GOD WHY CHRISTOPH MY BABY. And also it was maybe a tad too long. Definitely not a medium-sized soda movie. Stick to the small.

But overall it was just (*sigh*) lovely.

And That's My Post

Okay, wait...what?

Didn't Safe Haven come out before this year started? I could have sworn it was released in early- to mid-December, got bad reviews, and grossed an okay 100 million dollars.

Did this not happen? What's going on?

So, like, apparently it doesn't come out until Valentine's Day.

Are you telling me that I still have to deal with this movie's press tour?

Oh God.

Like Your Mother, Very Unnecessary

Some stories can be told in two hours. Actually, most stories can be told in less than that. The thing is, though, with many movies making millions and millions of dollars within a few weeks, some people are inclined to make, like, five sequels after just one (semi) successful movie.

The first Michael Bay-directed Transformers was released in 2007. Starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, the movie got a dismal 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. But it also grossed over 700 million dollars internationally. Soooo, you can guess what happened; Bay pushed out a sequel, and then another one, and soon to be another. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) got 20% and 36%, respectively (RT). The former grossed over 800 millions dollars while the latter hit over one billion, both internationally. I mean, does the story of the transformer robot things really take seven and a half  hours to tell? Obviously I realize that these movies were made solely for the profit, but it's just completely unnecessary, like the fourth movie, which is planned to be released in 2014.

The 2009 movie, Avatar, was both a critical (83%, RT) and economic (grossing 2.7 billion freaking dollars) hit. Before its release, director James Cameron said that, if successful, he would make sequels of the film. After the almost-three-billion-dollar success, the answer was pretty obvious: there would be a sequel. Actually, earlier, Cameron stated that he had a "trilogy-scaled arc" in mind for the movie.

Do there really need to be two more of this movie? Didn't the first one kind of wrap things all up? (This isn't rhetorical; I really have no idea. I started watching the three hour movie once but, you know, it's three hours.) It's really a gamble for Cameron to try and spread Avatar's success through two more movies, too.

Pirates of the Caribbean was actually made to have sequels. The first movie, PotC: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) was followed by PotC: Dead Man's Chest (2006), and PotC: At World's End (2007). It was all good and stuff. The story finished after the third and, while the critics' rating steadily went down (in order: 79%, 54%, 45%, RT), they grossed over 2.6 billion dollars worldwide. Then, for whatever reason, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was released in 2011. Well, it was the worst received of the franchise. Buuuut, it wasn't over then. Earlier this year, Disney announced that there would be a fifth freaking movie.

This unnecessary sequel trend is popular with animated movies, too. Like with Cars 2, Finding Nemo 2, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Toy Story Freaking 4, which is just sick. And don't even get me started on Ice Age.

So yeah, how about we just think of some new ways to make billions of dollars other than squeezing the juice out of the orange until it's just a little lump of pulp and peel even though we all know the juice in the cup has been enough for a while.

Just Call Me James Cameron

(Blogger's note: Except for please don't.)

So I had absolutely no idea what to write about today. Then, as I was lying awake in my bed last night, well I didn't think of something to write about, but I somehow got this idea into my mind and it morphed and evolved and all of a sudden I had a whole plot to what seemed like an awesome movie in my mind.

This seems to happen a lot. In a state of half-consciousness my mind goes everywhere at once and I come up with an idea for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

It's happened while I slept too. The weirdest dreams that don't even make sense when you speak them could be potentially huge blockbusters. You know, once you get past the confusing characters, huge plot holes, and copyright issues, my dreams could be the next Avatar.

After this one dream I had January 2012 (because I keep an effing log, bitches), I immediately thought, This would be a great movie. I don't know why, considering I didn't even know what was going on whilst writing it down. I'll shorten it up to save you the time and utter confusion.

Last night I had a really long dream. I was like, in my furnace room (which wasn't supposed to be the furnace room) and I had to go through this weird obstacle course thing. I skipped the first step, then finished it, but had to do it because I didn't do the first part. The first step was something really difficult that I couldn't accomplish, but somehow got past it.

Then I was finishing the rest when I ended up in the attic of some weird barn. This was at the end of the obstacle course; I couldn't leave, though, because there was air coming up from the ledge of the exit (which was a known fact, that you couldn't leave then).

Anyway, I was like, "How are we going to get out now?" And then Joseph Gordon-Levitt was kind of being a dumb ass and jumped off the thing all like, "I can go through!" Well, he couldn't go through and died. I was like, "I'll say he died a hero: trying to save us."

Bailey grabbed me and we jumped through the doorway of the barn. She told me that, since she skipped the first steps, she was able to break the barrier of the door that killed Joseph Gordon-Levitt and go through.

It all made sense in my head.

(This is where the copyright problem kicks in.) So we got out of the obstacle course and were now in this field and all the Harry Potter characters were frozen in time, but they were all hugging so I assumed it was right after the defeat of Voldemort. I then realized that that was why we had to complete the obstacle course: to save the characters from being frozen in time forever, and we failed.

My friend posted something on her Tumblr a while ago about something similar, although she referred to it as “New-York-Times Bestseller Potential”. (And that's where we stand. Me, movies. Her, books.)

“So I had a dream last night...There was mystery. There was drama. There was romance. Some guy was out killing people, and I was working with these two other guys on the case. I don’t remember anything except that last five minutes of it, where we’re in the morgue—and the tall guy, the smart one who was in charge—-is having an epiphany on who the killer is. He leans forward, savagly over the dead body and tells us the body is a fake, that the real “victim” is actually alive—because his eyes are fake or something. He’s still staring intensely at the fake eyes and he opens his mouth to tell us who the killer was, where the real victim is, how it all occured—and in the preternatural, third person [omniscient] way, I knew that it was all going to be brilliant, intelligent, thrilling—-and then my fucking alarm went off.”

Why is it when we're in lesser states of consciousness, do we weave what seem to us like the best ideas for movies/books. I mean, even Ernest Hemingway wrote his best work drunk off of his ass. And can we really believe that some crazy ass shit like Inception or Fight Club were first thought of by someone who was sober or awake or even sane?

DreamWorks the Understated

(Blogger's note: Feel free to not even read this post. But seriously. I just gave up. It's Super Bowl Sunday and I sort of put off just this one post, which I don't like very much, but now I want to go and eat delicious food whilst watching burly men pummel each other and maybe there will be another commercial with Betty White in it. Anyway, I just hit word three hundred and five so I'm done here.)

Chances are, no matter how old you are, you’ve heard of the film studio DreamWorks. One division most are familiar with’s technical name is DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (wait. Okay, so Wikipedia just informed me that it’s actually owned by independent businesses now, which totally doesn’t even make any sense, but okay), which releases only, you guessed it, animated films. It’s the one with the opening that has the little guy sitting on the moon and fishing. Yeah, that. It’s also the second highest grossing animation studio, right behind Pixar.

Anyway, I started to look into DreamWorks because I had recently watched some of their animated movies whilst babysitting and thought I saw a weird theme in a good number of them. As I started a post, though, I realized that some of the movies I was using weren’t actually DreamWorks (damn you, Universal), but still figured that I could pull a semi-decent post out of my ass, which is what this is.

Most people think that Pixar is, like, the best animation studio because of its (usually) super creative and funny and also a little bit morbid movies, because, well, it is. I think that DreamWorks has a lot of really good movies, though, smushed between its big-earning franchises, like The Road to El Dorado and The Prince of Egypt.

So yeah that's this post for you thanks for reading please don't throw those tomatoes.

You've Got Seattle

I don't make very good decisions. I mean, some of them don't cause a huge problem, but others...others do. This post, though, is just about one of those that didn't cause a big problem. Just some confusion and light swearing.

A year or so ago, I was high on the fact that my family had just gotten a DVR and decided to record just about everything that wasn't a Twilight movie. Why? Because I could. So, I was going through the list of things I could watch and stumbled upon Sleepless in Seattle (1993), about a widow (Tom Hanks), Sam, whose son is so intent on his dad finding another wife that he calls into a radio station and makes his dad talk about losing her. All these women listening to the show send Sam letters with their panties enclosed, including Annie (Meg Ryan). Some really boring stuff happens and they end up meeting at the top of the Empire State Building. That's the movie.

Now I guess watching it wouldn't have been so bad except for that, almost immediately afterward, I watched another nineties romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, You've Got Mail. (Apparently these guys starred in three romcoms together in the nineties. THREE. The other being Joe Versus the Volcano (1990).)

You've Got Mail is about these two bookstore owners, Kathleen, who owns a local one, and Joe, who owns one of many in a chain. They pretty much hate each other, especially since Joe's store takes business away from Kathleen's. Unbeknownst to them, though, they actually chat online with each other; she as “Shopgirl” and he as “NY152”. They have no idea who the other one is, but are totally into each other, which just is really creepy. Anyway, their outside hatred continues while their online love blossoms. More stuff happens and then they find out about one another and stop hating each other.

I mean, these movies both have totally different plots and character developments and stuff, but I still get them confused because of how close in time they are and also, ummm, the effing actors.

Imagine watching Nicholas Sparks movie after Nicholas Sparks movies and then being told to deferential perfectly between them all. Well, you can't, because those things are pretty much exactly the same except for the characters' names.

Let's just pretend that these are the same sort of thing.