And now for something completely different!

So, I saw Superbad sometime last year and didn’t quite enjoy it. Was I too old for it? Out of the target age group and all that? Maybe. Maybe it was just stupid, with the inability to connect to the two main characters and their dilemmas?

Whatever the case, there was one character in the movie that I could support, someone who I could sympathize with and whose anecdotes were all that saved the movie for me – they were more interesting and slapstick than those of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera’s characters.

I’m talking about Fogell. AKA McLovin.

Whatever the case, the fact is I also love Worth 1000’s occasional Mate-a-Movie contests (along with several other re-occurring contests on the site, but that’s besides the point). Which leads me to post the following Will-Smith-turned-Christopher-Mintz-Plasse vehicle:

(Personal note — I haven’t written movie reviews on the Stonegauge in quite a while with thanks to participating at times in a forum discussion at Skyscraperpage.com about movies that were last seen. The following is an elaborated, blogified version of the post I made on the forum thread)

I had one question every time I saw positive reviews this summer for Live Free or Die Hard. It’s a rather basic question that no one would really answer — or would give aloof answers to: Does this film live up to the Die Hard franchise standard? I’ve posed this question directly to professional movie critics without an answer

Die Hard, in general, was built on an ultra simple principle: a situation at a location with a reluctant hero caught in the middle of whatever the hell was going down. It’s part of a generation of action movies where everything was “Die Hard on a…” Die Hard on a Bus, Die Hard on a Plane, Die Hard on a Train, Die Hard on a Battleship…

The original — 1988’s Die Hard — set the standard for the genre and began the franchise with out-of-place NYPD officer John McClane – barefoot, outmanned and outgunned, with the cops outside working against him. The second film (Die Harder) was Die Hard in the Airport: not as good but it was still the story of John McClane in the wrong place at the wrong time… Same character but with some graveness to his dialog which made the movie weird. Instead of a tower, it was Dulles Airport that was under siege.

Die Hard: With a Vengeance elaborated the setting. It wasn’t a fixed location but all of New York. It still worked if you ask me because you had John, you had a semi-fixed setting on Manhattan Island (and around New York)… You had deep links to the first movie with references to the past, and yet this time it wasn’t John out of his element, but thrust into things in his home. Oh and John McTeirnan directed (who filmed the first Die Hard). You can see the resemblance to the original with the cinematography employed, and McTiernan’s trademark directly-behind-the-actor light shots. Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson played well off each other to boot. It’s not as highly regarded as the first but it beats the hell out of the second film.

Then you have this… this… this piece of shit that they pushed on moviegoers this summer.

The balance of good-guy, bad-guy (on screen time) is too even — that’s the first sign this doesn’t stand up. Less is more. It’s also hard to feel intimidated by “ready the video uplink”, “start the download”, etc…

Then you have McClane himself — it’s not the fact he’s older or his head is shaved, he’s a caricature of himself while playing a minimalist role. John McClane is a rambling, sarcastic, insulting, sometimes arrogant, belligerent asshole that isn’t the character portrayed on screen by Bruce Willis this time. Oh, sure, he’s got his moments but this isn’t McClane. This doesn’t feel like McClane. This felt like The Terminator — especially with all the shit John is put through, where he’s tossed around like a rag doll, falling several floors and bouncing off blunt objects and he still gets up and keeps going with seemingly no damage. That’s not John either.

I mean, come on! The every-guy, mortality of John McClane was one of the things that made him great. Who can’t remember John running around barefoot in Nakatomi Tower? And what happened — he got shot, he got tons of glass put through his feet, and you saw him suffer that and doubt he’d survive. You had less of that in “Die Hard 2″, but you had more of it (except the jump-off-a-bridge absurdity near the end) in “With a Vengeance”. This time? No — he’s got some cuts but he’s too much like the energizer bunny (which he mocks in “With a Vengeance”) to be hurt. He wheels around Matt Farrell (the Mac guy, Justin Long) and who do you think of but Ah-nold playing the Terminator, wheeling around Eddie Furlong in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (all of this helped along by that minimalist dialog that I talked about).

Oh, and the location isn’t fixed. If the first three films can be directed at exact settings (“Die Hard. Die Hard at the Airport. Die Hard in New York”) this film can’t. (Die Hard America? Die Hard in Cyberspace with real world consequences? Die Hard avoiding Traffic?)

This might have been a great stand-alone movie but it sucks as part of one of the biggest action movie franchises in US history. It doesn’t fit. It’s odd that the original movie was conceived as a Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle… Because this film plays exactly like one.

You know those movies where a guy gets stuck between two women? Or maybe even just thinking about a divorce and the children who get caught in the middle of it: You’re being pulled two ways, you want to be with evreyone and help everyone but it ends up feeling like it must be either-or. That’s how I’m feeling right now.

Ya see, I help out some people free of charge and there are plenty who have taken notice to what I do. That being said, there is currently a conflict between the guy I work for and a former employee and I’m being used by the former employee to get revenge on my “boss”

Which is petty bullshit.

Seeing I’m an adult fully capable of making my own decisions, I can tell you I do not like being used as a pawn between waring factions. My “boss” doesn’t present me as such but the ex-employee does.

I don’t like my name being invoked as a comeuppance at public functions, especially if it’s done to misconstrue the truth. I don’t like it, I don’t appreciate it, and I certainly won’t stand for it.

Now if I could just figure out what I am going to do…. **sigh**

So it’s exactly a month since surgery-eve and I’m doing ok physically… Aches and pains still but I’ll manage. Not wanting to go out in public much due to my eyes not being tip top, nor my hearing, or my hair for that matter. I’ll live though.

There are some things starting to get to me though. I guess I was spoiled rotten during my hospital stay and my recovery and now I feel like I’m socially in a black hole. Limited reach outs from friends, limited shout outs and more, and less.

There’s also a lack of focus I am experiencing right now that un-nerves me. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been spot on with focus. On the ball. I see something that needs to be done, I do it. If someone else has something that needs to be done and isn’t sure of steps, I consult. I consult when not requested (and not in a rude way, it coincides needed productivity for a dormant product). I was all over the friggin’ place. AND I was hitting the ball out of the park on this shit! It was incredible, it was a rush…

…It was temporary?

I’m procrastinating more right now — with incoming emails, with to-do projects and what not — than I have at any time since I went to the hospital. There’s just this… social dread? I dunno… Part of me wants to get it done, knows I gotta get it done, knows I NEED to get it done.

The other part of me wants to chill out and surf the web and wait for someone to distract me. The people I want to distract me get credence while the people I don’t drive me back to work.

How about that? “Test your worth to John! Send him an IM during anti-social/anti-productivity hour and if he drops you for a project, you know your value!”

Newest skill test at the state fair, ya’ll. :-p

Oh, one other thing that is getting to me lately… Why can’t I enjoy movies any more? I feel a horrid pain when I watch Superman Returns (who hasn’t?) due to Bryan Singer’s epic scoping of the film and lack-of-editing to make Superman seem more likable. I saw The Two Towers before surgery and thought it (again) a disaster of editing proportions. That’s what I am seeing everywhere — edit, voice-over, edit, edit, chop, dissolve, blah, blah, blah… And these aren’t action sequences where I see them (most of the time)! Is it just heightened perception or should I burn my DVD Collection, get rid of my cable box and renounce Speilburg?

Ever since Chris Columbus left the Harry Potter movie franchise I’ve found the movies to be both entertaining and thrilling. I had read the first book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone) and was totally aghast when I saw how incredibly lame it came off.
It compelled me not to read another Potter book to avoid similar disappointments… at least until after I had my curiosity piqued by way of the film adaptations of Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire.

The latter film had enough of a hook to make me want to know what was going to happen next… It nagged at me. I didn’t care for the film as much as Prisoner of Azkaban when I first saw it because it ran so long and had so much going on… But it grew on me. Repeated watchings made me appreciate it more and the ending compelled me to return to Potter literature.

Cal it a Wrath of Khan/Empire Strikes Back negative closing and how it makes you ponder where the story goes from there. Goblet of Fire pulled it off (even if the film lacked the multiple side stories that J.K. Rowling worked into the book).

So I picked up Order of the Phoenix and read it through – finding Rowling’s narration exquisite and the story compelling just as I found the first book to be. While I’ve read about the new movie (due out this summer) through Entertainment Weekly and about which side stories are shelved (Ron playing quidditch, Dobby the house-elf making a return, etc) there is enough going on to keep you interested.

And after seeing the International trailer for the film — I’m dying to see this adaption:

Last year, there was a bit of a hoopla made out for Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige… A tale of dueling illusionists at the turn of the century. The castings of Christian Bale and Michael Caine made me think Nolan was tied up with his Bat-crew. Hugh Jackman being cast gave my fan-boy heart a lift. Wolverine vs. Batman! In turn of the century London! Bloody good show!

So when I read Stephen King lauding the film in Entertainment Weekly late last year, it just refreshed my desire to see this film and it’s “outstanding twist of an ending”.

(EDIT NOTE: King lauded The Illusionist. I suspected this and had rented the movie specifically because of it. It was my brother who made a big deal about The Prestige’s twist ending)

A few weeks back, I watched The Illusionist with Edward Norton and after my older brother watched it — he told me it wasn’t shit compared to The Prestige. “There is a surprise ending. It’s awesome. I saw it in theaters, you have gotta get it when it comes out on DVD.”

Me and Michael usually can enjoy the same movies so I thought I would be in for a real treat by the time I got to see the film on DVD.

I’m still waiting for that “surprise ending.”

Maybe it was because of the tip offs that the ending had a twist, but more likely it was a failing of craftmanship by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (superb filmmakers, I’m just a blogging critic with no credibility) in trying to hide the ending. Hell, maybe they didn’t set out for it to be a surprise at all? Never the less, I wasn’t floored by the “fooling” that took place.

While I loved The Illusionist specifically for it’s cinematography (19th century Vienna done gorgeously), I loved Prestige more for it’s actors as I had said above. Jackman, Caine, Bale — a superb threesome at the top of the bill. Yet as the movie unfolds, the pairing of Caine and Jackman’s characters over and over again don’t seem to properly balance with Bale. In fact, Jackman and Caine came off like antagonists at times, while Bale’s character’s shroud of mystery was both too revealing and too charismatic. You knew things would turn around for him at one point and all you had to do was wait. Wait. Wait.

They didn’t really turn around but lets just say he won in the end, and the fact he did wasn’t a secret or a surprise ending. Anyone watching can deduct what was going to happen by simple banter between Bale and Jackman before the two illusionist trainees had their falling out.

Nolan’s tale is worth checking out even without my little clue listed below. It reaches across two continents and has a grand mixing of characters and incidents. But from the get go you could see enough to know the hook….

***SPOILER WARNING (vague but a Spoiler) ***

A total devotion to ones craft is mentioned early in the film, and like any mystery it’s the line that should stand out. In fact, this is something that should easily be deduced even before the film starts. Any magician has to put on a charade for the public. A grand charade both on and off the stage in order to convince people.

Dual personalities, dual physical characteristics and conditions, dual memories. Dual memories.

While someone forgetting what knot they tied around the hands of an assistant who gets killed tragically makes sense — the grief, the horror, the shock all taking it’s tole on the psyche — it makes more sense if you weren’t there at all when it happened. You need to make an excuse and your other persona needs to employ that excuse in order to keep your character believable.

Yeah, that’s not a clear revealing of the “surprise ending”. The movie is good enough to watch that you should. Just pay attention.

You know, I get my thoughts out pretty well on here. It might be snipping about personal matters, it might be poetry, it might be just re-listing song lyrics (which seem to be popular with the Search Engines) or quoting movies. Whatever the case, I blog here not-so-much but I do blog here from time to time.

I also blog elsewhere… And tonight I figured I would blog on DFA-link int he Pinellas County DFA group about my fondness for Al Gore and how I am holding out for him to enter the 2008 Presidential primaries.

The only thing I didn’t expect when I blogged this was the fact the post was going to get wider exposure than what I was aiming for. Much wider. Hugely wider.

Blog for America front-paged wider.

More than three years ago, I never would have dreamed in my wildest imagination that I would be featured on the front page of Blog for America — the then-It blog of the Howard Dean for President campaign. Dean failed in his attempts, but he founded Democracy for America in an effort to organize Democratic support better. Blog for America lived on and is still highly thought of on the liberal/progressive blogosphere.

And at 11:45 PM ET, on February 12th 2007 — yours truly has made it to the front page. Whodathunkit?

OK so today is my birthday (October 7th)…

It’s also the birthday of Shawn Ashmore who plays Bobby Drake/Iceman in the X-Men movies.

Coincidentally — the character Bobby Drake and his birthday is also supposed to be October 7th.

Yeah, they are filled with bonus material. Yes, the movies tend to be really cool or funny…

But is Universal Studios and Universal Home Videos able to CLOSED CAPTION a single DVD? Noooooooooo.

Instead, what Universal does is SUBTITLE films, thinking this will cover the hearing impaired just fine and dandy. In some cases — things are indeed fine. But white text on a bright or white background (any given movie image) makes Subtitles a pain in the ass and impossible to read. It’s quite possible to entirely miss out on certain scenes from films because the text subtitles blend in to well.

The above is an example image of a CLOSE CAPTIONED broadcast… See how the text is laid against a black screen?

This is an example of a Universal DVD with subtitles. Notice the location of the titles? On the picture with absolutely nothing to contrast the text with. It’s easy for the text to become illegible depending on the scene.

Of course, most computer DVD playing programs let you change the subtitles around a bit — make them different colors, different fonts and so forth… You don’t have that option on stand-alone DVD players…

Universal prefers subtitles to keep things on teh cheap. It doesn’t matter if hearing-impaired fans have a hard time (or can’t access the bonus materials — a common problem from all Home Video companies). It just comes down to their financial bottom line. Cheap bastards.

It’s been 50 years since Doctor Emmett Brown discovered time travel…

Just noticed the date and had the memory of Chris Lloyd talking to Marty about the red letter date in the history of science… “November Fifth, Nineteen Fifty….Five… Yes, of course, November Fifth, Nineteen Fifty Five… Hah!”

One of the greatest movies of all time, and even in fiction – it’s hard to just overlook the day for pop culture sake