I have no idea what you mean by "Facebook ramblings", sir. You are mistaken.

It's been a miserable fucking summer during a miserable fucking year if you're into hope and faith in your fellow human being, but enough of that, no one wants to hear that. Hi lady and gentleman. I hope you are doing well. Here are my ramblings on some of the non-Nice Guys movies I watched this summer. Because I watched The Nice Guys four times this summer, meaning this summer was the summer of The Nice Guys. The Mad Max: Fury Road Holy Shit You Saw It How Many Times?! award goes to...The Nice Guys.

Hey wait a minute! You know what kind of took me by surprise (the way I just took you by surprise by not talking about movies like I just said I would)? The school year beginning earlier than I expected. I mean, I've been out of school for the longest and so I wasn't aware of how much changed between back then and right now. In my day, the school year ended in early June and began again after Labor Day. College was similar, with summer break beginning mid-June and ending mid-September. (By the way, I'm speaking of school in the United States of Soon To Be Great Again Murica, I don't know nor give a shit how other countries do it because that's how Murican I is.)

Now kids are going to school in mid-to-late August, which kinda bummed me out until I thought of how these kids don't even know about how shit used to be, this is normal for them. This is their paradigm. You deal with the bullshit until mid-May, I guess, and then it's summertime and the livin's easy until mid-August. It appears Hollywood has made this easier for them by releasing summer movies earlier than ever, because I remember in my day summer movies didn't come out until Memorial Day at the earliest.

But then you have something like Captain America: Civil War out in early May and here we go. I enjoyed CA:CW (as we in the know call it, I'm sure), and at this point Marvel has their assembly line working tip-top top-of-the-line A-number-one and you get what you want from these films. What really stood out for me was how this movie felt like a big Fuck You to the DC Cinematic Snyderverse -- with a middle finger stretched out to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

I'm sure it's all a coincidence, given how both films came out a few months of each other, but who knows, bros? Who's to say that Marvel's spies weren't scanning script pages of that film during production and they made sure to do the opposite of whatever the fuck DC was doing. (Don't Do What Donny "DC" Don't Does.) It's like they read this script about a superhero who wasn't sure whether or not he should intervene in big time situations that could benefit from his help, whether or not he should step in and save lives -- and they answered back with a movie filled with characters that would give you a look, smack the shit out of you, followed by another look for even entertaining those kinds of thoughts.

Fuckin' Supes is all mopey on a mountain with Kevin Costner's ghost crying about "Oh woe is Me with these superpowers", while Tony Stark and Captain Muthafuckin' America are way past that shit -- they're like "We have the powers and the tools and we know what we gotta do" -- and instead they're about to throw down with each other about whether the Avengers should be allowed to get involved in Worldly Bad Shit free agent-style or should they have some fuckin' middlemen giving them the go-ahead. (And they give good arguments for both arguments; ultimately I'm on Captain America's side but the movie gave me totally understandable reasons as to why Tony Stark would feel the opposite way.)

I'll be honest, I still am not totally convinced about Cap's love affair with Bucky the Winter Soldier being so strong that he's willing to overlook all the previous murders that motherfucker's committed. I mean, even Winter himself says something to the effect of "Yeah, I know I was being mind-controlled, but I still killed all those people" but hey, that's me and my belief in paying what you owe and making things square with the house again -- in movies, anyway.

It's good stuff, fun stuff, this Civil War stuff. My only problem is that the first half's action scenes are shot in that bullshit high shutter stutter style which does not lend itself well to the quicky-quick-quick editing, nor does some of the bullshit "let's film this awesome shit in close-ups rather than pull back and let us see what's going on" camerawork. The filmmakers finally snap out of it by the midway point, thankfully before we have the centerpiece rumble between Team Cap and Team Stark. It's also by that point where it really gets fun, because that's when they bring back Ant-Man and introduce the latest model of Spider-Man, adding a welcome helping of Funny and Gee Whiz to the going-ons.

I like how some people were giving shit about Marisa Tomei as Aunt May being too hot and too young for the part -- in this universe protected by hotness such as Black Widow and Peggy Carter -- even though in reality she's actually closer age-wise to your usual aunt and might even still be on the older spectrum of Parent's Siblings but that's OK with me because age ain't nothing but a number AM I RIGHT, FELLAS? -- unless the number is under 18, then you're dealing with a new number, like Prisoner Number 9428441 or something. Say hi to Woody and Roman for me, cuz.

My current abode had to have its air conditioning fixed in June, and it was still being fixed when I came home one Friday afternoon after work so I left and used the time to go check out whatever was playing at the local cineplex. Whatever turned out to be Central Intelligence, starring walking Alpha Dwayne Johnson and current It Funny Black Guy Kevin Hart.

It started off pretty strong with a flashback to the 90s introducing us to our main characters in high school where Hart was the super-popular jock and Johnson was an overweight nerd and the principal was played by the principal from Election. But what started as promisingly funny/dark in an almost lighter Heathers sort-of-way then downgrades to harmless and forgettable, which kinda stung a bit because this really could've been so much more -- especially once the premise gets established (Hart is bummed out about being 20 years past the best years of his life, while Johnson is now a badass-yet-still-socially-awkward CIA agent who needs his help). It felt like the kind of movie that probably had a stronger and sharper and darker script when it was greenlit but then got studio'd down many hack rewrites later into a nice easy-to-swallow bland foodstuff for the masses, like Soylent Green except instead of people this shit was made out of dead high concepts.

It has its moments, though; Johnson's character has a thing for the film Sixteen Candles, and there are occasional references to it that gave me some chuckles. There are also a couple of uncredited cameos I wasn't expecting, and those appearances were among the few and far between moments when the movie felt like it was amping up to get better. In retrospect, I'm getting kinda pissed off because Hart and Johnson were so obviously up to the fuckin' task but the movie let them down -- fuck it, it let ME down. I told a friend around the time that I saw this that I thought it was entertaining in an "I need to kill two hours in an air-conditioned theater" sort-of-way, but now I'm thinking fuck this movie.

I also watched Matthew McConaissance in Free State of Jones, which was a lot bleaker and non-summer-ish than I expected -- I guess this was that "counter-programming" I hear so much about in the movie biz lexicon. The movie takes place during the Civil War, but we ain't talking some Iron Man and Captain America bullshit, this is the real one, the one that I was taught about in school and was told ended with the Union winning over the Confederacy. And it was back then, in my young book-learnin' years that I had this strong, so very strong belief that because it was so long ago, clearly everyone moved on for the greater good. We moved forward. We became better people. Smarter people. More compassionate. Willing to learn from our mistakes. We improved. We grew stronger. We became united. We evolved.



My man McC plays a dude named Newton who was a medic for Johnny Reb, but after losing a brother or cousin or whoever that guy was, and seeing how the Confederacy is fucking over his fellow peeps with taxes and what not, he lickety splits and eventually finds himself hiding out in the swamps with some runaway slaves. The main slave is this dude with a fuckin' Goodbye Uncle Tom-style cage on his head, that's how I know he must be the main slave. I could only imagine how much more horrifying it could be for that guy if someone decided to put a covering over that cage and then dump some bees inside that thing to turn this poor brotha from Luke Cage to Nic Cage.

Newton and his new slave friends hook up with other Rebs who don't want to fight anymore and end up going Wolverines! on any Confederate troops who try to break up their little slice of Freedomtown they call Jones County. Every once in a while, the movie flashes forward to the 1950s where some White dude is on trial for wanting to marry his White girlfriend, because it turns out he might actually have enough African-American blood in his ancestry to qualify him as Black enough for prison, because once upon a time we were assholes like that about race and it's a good thing we don't have any of that racist residue left on our souls.

It's a good film, but like I said it's as bleak and ugly as life itself -- which makes sense considering this is some real life shit we're watching here. It's the kind of movie where nice Black people get hung from trees and the next morning Matthew McConaughey finds the body and weeps below the dangling legs and the White people responsible probably grow old and die loved by many and I'm filled with rage and sadness walking out of the theater at all the injustice while the people most in need of seeing a movie like this won't ever bother.

Matty M is great in the film, as is everyone else, but this deliberately paced drama with the occasional moment of gunfire probably had a better shot coming out around Oscar season, rather in the summer where it would probably bewilder audiences who were expecting something more like The Patriot (the Roland Emmerich one, not that Seagal bullshit) because honestly, that's what the trailer makes it look like. This movie isn't even loud, it's so quiet you can hunt rabbit while watching it and not fuck up your game. So guess who felt like quite the douchebagga in the audience with his popcorn and nachos? What can I say? Tasty snacks help the racism go down easier.

Speaking of war and racial strife, I also caught the Rifftrax/MST3K reunion that was being broadcast live in theaters. The Rifftrax trio of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett were joined by their former MST homies Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, and Bridget Jones-Nelson. They also brought in the host of the new incarnation of MST3K, Jonah Ray.

They riffed various shorts in pairings; Hodgson & Ray, Beaulieu & Conniff, Pehl & Jones-Nelson, and the Rifftrax trio. Their riff quality ranged from Cute to Very Funny, with Beaulieu/Conniff being my faves. Then at the end, they all joined together to riff two more shorts: an old Superman one starring that one guy who shot himself, and one about the many uses of grass (the kind from your lawn, not the kind that makes you forget you're living in a real life cartoon populated by one-dimensional characters).

Now I'm a fan of Rifftrax but I do admit it's not as funny as MST3K and this reunion was an unintentional example with contrasts and comparison to help you make this conclusion. From what I understand, Rifftrax's riff tracks are written by Nelson, Corbett, and Murphy and a few more writers who are new blood/younger generation types that weren't involved with MST3K. Which is all fine and dandy but you can tell it's not quite the same. There is this mistaken belief that because Mike Nelson was the credited head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that meant that he wrote the bulk of the jokes and that is as wrong as the thoughts that go through my head when I look at my female boss because I'm telling you, I'm getting vibes from her, I think she fuckin' wants it, bro, I knew she wanted this dick the second she caught a whiff of my AXE Body Spray. Oh, so yeah, Mike Nelson as head writer would compile the best riffs for the movie, that is my understanding.

I don't know who does the head writing for Rifftrax now, but the fact that so many of the MST writers are no longer involved, you don't get the same kinds of jokes being thrown a movies way. I also notice that your average Rifftrax riff can get a little long-winded. But it's still good, I'm just saying, you know, it's a solid B compared to the A game MST3K was usually pulling off. This reunion was some A game stuff, though, and it was clearly because you had the old gang adding in their style of riffs to the movie-mocking bouillabaisse. Rifftrax needs Beaulieu and Conniff to join in, at least as writers if not fellow riffers. They already have Pehl and Jones-Nelson riffing shorts for Rifftrax, but they do it on their own, not with the trio; I'm assuming this is a scheduling thing, otherwise I think having Pehl & Jones-Nelson join the guys would make it even better AND let's get Beaulieu & Conniff while we're at it! OK, that's it, I either made sense or I didn't, I'm moving on.

The Biggest Disappointment of the Summer award (aka The Spawn) definitely goes to fuckin' Independence Day: Resurgence, which rarely felt as fun and goofy as the O.G. ID4. Really, the only time I got that old lame magic back was when Judd Hirsch's character showed up and even then, the Komedy didn't go Full Borscht Belt until Hirsch and Goldblum's characters were reunited. By then it was too little too late as I had to deal with a far more glum and listless film (yet barely clocking at two hours!) focusing mostly on a bunch of young generic good-looking twenty-somethings and all I could think about was the litany of Young Adult Dystopia Movies they probably worked on and would go back to after this movie, and how I wouldn't recognize any of them if I even bothered watching any of those fucking movies.

And yeah yeah, I know what you're gonna say: "This was intended to be the second film in a planned trilogy and what's wrong with the second film in a trilogy being the darker one, I mean, fuckin' Empire Strikes Back, motherfucker?!" Well, first off, have you seen the box office tally for this? I wouldn't hold my breath for Independence Day: Re-Resurgence anytime fuckin' soon. (But then again, they made a sequel to the remake of The Mechanic, so who knows?) And second, The Empire Strikes Back was dark in a good way, the way a good movie can be dark. This was dark in the way that a really shitty Syfy movie with no sense of humor tries to be dark.

I really wanted to have a good time with this flick. I went all out on snacks. I was gonna get all sugar'd up, all carb'd up. OK fine, what else is new? Only this time I was doing more of that shit.

You know what? I'm gonna give this movie a break. I'm thinking about it, and I still don't like it, but it's probably not that dark or terrible. I think it was seeing Robert Loggia's weird silent barely standing-up cameo in the film that fucked up my mood, because I knew that in order to pull that off meant they either CGI'd Robert Loggia into the film or they got the real Robert Loggia who was at death's door rockin' full-on Alzheimer's and probably thought the cameras were giant cannons and he was surrounded by the Japanese demanding he surrender to Tojo or something. Either choice equals A Case of the Sads for me.

The screenplay is credited to five writers which I feel is three writers too many because when it comes to Independence Day, the only names that fucking matter to me are Roland Emmerich and most important of all, my man, muthafuckin' Master of the Dad Joke Mr. Dean Devlin. And maybe that's what happened, that with the three other writers this movie wasn't getting full-on Devlin'd. Whatever. In conclusion, I sincerely no-bullshit believe that their version of Godzilla was a better sequel to Independence Day than this sequel to Independence Day.

So then came July, and I got to celebrate my birthday by catching a midnight showing of Inglorious Basterds at the New Beverly Cinema. The last time I got to see a midnight show on my birthday was in 2011 with a screening of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Good times then, good times now. Basterds holds up, man, it's really really good; I actually came out of it thinking I cut Tarantino too much slack on The Hateful Eight as a result.

Christoph Waltz was such a terrific villain in Basterds, and he's no baddie slouch in The Legend of Tarzan either. His character looks like he might be one of those weak types who needs bigger stronger men to do his fighting for him, but looks are deceiving because he handles himself pretty well. Watching him in any movie is good times, and this movie? The Tarzan movie? It's good times too, man, a good old fashioned example of summer movie entertainment. Fun, respectful of its audience, well-made with cinematography that let you take in the sights and editing that let you register the sights you just took. I felt like I was watching a good summer movie from the mid-90s or something. It would make a good double bill with The Phantom, and if you didn't like that movie then you better duck before I slam the evil out of your ass.

Wow, that was quite the Tobias Funke sentence I wrote up there, wasn't it?

I don't know who this Skarsgard is, all I know is that my coworker has the hots for him which is why she saw the movie, and that he was good in this movie as Tarzan. He didn't annoy me by being douchey, and neither did the film, for that matter. This movie wasn't some overly long two-and-half-hour commercial that openly hated its audience and shat out pure contempt and smugness with a look that said "See you in two years when we throw more of this slop at you!" It was no Transformers, this flick. But this movie? The Tarzan movie? I would totally line up to see if they made another one.

You know who else I liked in the film, aside from everyone else? Margot Robbie. Like Skarsgard, I wasn't left thinking "I'm supposed to like this jerk?", no way Jose, I was totally with her and not only that, her Jane can handle her own -- for the most part, because this is still a Tarzan movie. I mean, yeah, she gets jacked by that bad Christoph Waltz, but she certainly doesn't make it easy on him. No, she doesn't do that struggling "let me go, you creep" thing, she's looking at every angle, exercising every option on either Getting The Fuck Outta Here or Fucking This Dude Up. She's not so much scared by the situation -- she's biding her time. Also, she's very pretty. Please don't hashtag me out of existence for that, people. I'm merely a man with needs and wants and the ability to have physiological reactions to elements that please me.

I didn't know Samuel L. Jackson was in this, which is a foolish thing to say because he's in every movie, right? He also does those credit card commercials. I can't help but think of an interview he did where he said something like how he was paid a big salary for the Shaft remake, which meant that his wife started spending more money. The problem, he said, was that because he likes to work he would also do lower budgeted non-studio-backed films that interested him but paid less, and yet his wife kept spending like he was still making Shaft money on every one of those films.

I dug that they didn't go full origin story with this Tarzan, the filmmakers assume you know his deal, and even if you don't, they do cool flashbacks that don't take away from the story or the pacing. They pick the right moments to take a break and give you piece by piece on how the legend began. But if that's still not enough for you, I don't know, go watch Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and just change the ending in your mind and treat it like a prequel. That might work well enough, and besides, we all need some more Christophe(r) Lambert in our lives. Isn't that right, Chris?



Near the end of the month, I had myself a double feature -- that's two movies for the price of two! -- beginning with Star Trek Beyond, which I hoped wasn't going to be too confusing for me, on account of my not really having seen the previous Trek, Into Darkness, where I instead had it on in the background while I was cleaning my place. But this new one holds up on its own without any knowledge aside from what was gathered from the '09 film. You have your main crew and they're pretty much the same as the Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, and Chekov we've known from the old television and film series with only minor variations and then you have Sulu who doesn't come off very much like the Hikaru we've seen back in the day -- and that's because you can't duplicate The Takei, nor should you ever try.

Speaking of trying, I guess the filmmakers tried to make the Trek universe more openly diverse by giving Sulu a husband or boyfriend or baby papa, because that's what they did. You see Sulu happily greet his man but I don't recall seeing them smooch or anything like that, I think one put his arm around the other, which is kinda playing it safe, isn't it? That way your more conservative haters can interpret as the two men just being really good bros or something. Anyway, I guess George Takei was disappointed by it because he preferred to see a new gay character be introduced into the series. I get where he's coming from but at least they didn't queen Sulu up all of a sudden and now he's mincing about like he's onboard the U.S.S. Birdcage or something.

I'll tell you what, if I were a nameless small fry crew member, I would be praying to every God -- human or alien -- that I end up on the U.S.S. Birdcage instead of the Enterprise, because based on the last couple films, that ship must have the highest mortality rate in all of Starfleet. The last couple Treks, man, you have lots of red shirts being blown up, shot up, sucked out into the merciless void of space, etc. In Beyond, they also get their life forces sucked out or disintegrated by some kind of fuckin' nano-bees, because that's how the Big Bad in this movie gets down.

Anyway, it was good, man. If you liked the '09 Trek, you'll probably like this one. If the last one was Wrath of Khan All Over Again, then I guess this one is Search for Spock Except Spock Is Already With Us So Let's Get The Fuck Outta Here. Two things bummed me out, though:

1) seeing the late Anton Yelchin as Chekov
and
2) watching this alternate future world populated with human beings who have moved past The Bullshit long long ago and instead are out on spaceships and doing far off galaxy exploring and what not -- something that I used to believe as a kid would happen sometime during the existence of our species but now I'm slowly feeling that we never will, and we sure as shit won't live to see a hint of that possibility so if you ever want to see what wonders our species is capable of accomplishing, then you can go see that shit in a movie, along with the rest of the fake ass fairy tales. But hey, I guess Hooray for Movies, right?

Because, really, what's the point of evolving when we have bigger fish to fry -- like these fucking bitches thinking they can rape my childhood by taking my Ghostbusters away. Don't these slits understand that Rape is a man's sport?

Seriously though, the idea of a Ghostbusters reboot not only didn't bother me, I thought it was the right move. Harold Ramis is gone. Bill Murray wasn't interested in doing another one, he didn't even really want to do part II. Sure, Dan Aykroyd was excited about making a part three but why wouldn't he be excited with some more of that shining spotlight plus millions of dollars more in the bank to share space with those House of Blues and Crystal Skull Vodka ducats? Then you have my man Ernie Hudson who likes to work, so why not? And Sigourney Weaver's like Whatever, I'm probably gonna be in the next Alien film and they'll probably Obi-Wan Kenobi me into the Avatar sequels, so I'm good either way.

Meanwhile, Rick Moranis is too busy living life and not giving a single solitary fuck about some fuckin' movie.

But here we have Paul Feig and company busting out with Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, trying something new with it and holy shit here come the haters. I've never seen any of Feig's films because Melissa McCarthy was in them, but I understand they're all very funny, so I figured this joint was in good hands. But my hatred for dickheads getting pissy over some bullshit is stronger than my dislike of McCarthy, so I went to go see it.

All this bitching and moaning and no one ever brought up the real crime committed by this film: associating with Papa John's Pizza. Yup, our ladies are munching on that bullshit pizza in the movie and I even caught an advertisement on television featuring the company's founder/spokesman, John Schnatter playing a Ghostbuster, and no one batted a goddamn eyelash. This is the dude who shows up in all the commercials for that joint, and back when Obamacare was going into full effect, he made some comment about how in order to cover his employees health care he was going to have to raise the cost of pizza something like 15 cents. Paying an extra 15 cents so someone making minimum wage can go to the fuckin' doctor doesn't bother me a bit, what bothers me is Shithead McCuntface saying that shit like it was a negative, like he thought customers would get pissed about it and stand behind him, when in reality you can tell it was just him being annoyed that he had to pay for someone else's health insurance. Why, that money should be going to buying me a bigger boat! he probably thought, this walking shit stain. Because Left or Right, it doesn't matter -- it's your money, it's your business, do whatever the fuck you want -- but if you own a popular chain of eateries and you're the public face of the chain whether we like it or not, have the decency to be a private cunt, don't be open and proud about your cunt-ery.

Look, for all I know, the late Wendy's founder/spokesman Dave Thomas hated the concept of a living wage and he probably dreamed nightly of building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. made out of petrified burger patties bonded together with gallons of leftover Frosty to keep the mojados out but you'd never know because he never talked about that shit in public.  Sony and Feig, you fucked up -- you can cast any lady you want to bust ghosts in your movie, but when you pick a business headed by some attention-seeking anal wart of a man as a sponsor, you're crossing a fucking line that you cannot come back from nor erase. That and there's like one too many fart jokes in your movie.

But aside from that bullshit, I dug it. It's fun. It's Ghostbusters. To be real with you, I never worshipped the original GB joints the way many do. The original was an above-average Bill Murray joint, one of his better ones, but it was never my childhood. I mean, if we're talking mid-80s comedies with dashes of the fantastic that reek of My Childhood, I'm more of a Back to the Future dude, yeah that's what I'm talking about! And you know what? I wouldn't have Problem One if they ever remake that with women so long as they have good peeps on both sides of the camera. Shit, let's really get some knickers in a twist and cast a Black actress as Marty McFly. Hell yeah! (Except I fear a film where a young black person is doing nutty shit in the 1950s would have a much briefer running time and a much sadder ending.)

I liked Ghostbusters: Answer the Call and if they make another one, I'll check it out. But honestly, I'd much rather see a spinoff featuring the characters played by Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, or pull a G.I. Joe: Retaliation and kill off Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy and make it about Jones/McKinnon only, or fuck it, forget Ghostbusters entirely and just make a buddy movie with those two because they were awesome. Jones has this way of just being naturally funny -- you know, just being herself -- that had me laughing at the way she reacted to all the supernatural weirdness going on. It always felt, I don't know...true. Everyone else is kinda playing it as a Character but she comes off like a relatively normal person in this universe except Normal doesn't equal Boring. McKinnon had a touch of the chaotic agent in her, throwing things off kilter the way fellow Agents of Chaos like Harpo Marx in the pre-MGM Marx Brothers films, Johnny from Airplane!, and Wakko Warner from "Animaniacs" -- to name a few -- did in their worlds. She came off to me like a character from a Buckaroo Banzai movie we never got to see or even knew existed, like she would've felt right at home as a Hong Kong Cavalier or a Blue Blaze Irregular or HOLY SHIT -- as Buckaroo Banzai herself.

Haha, it's too bad The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the 8th Dimension wasn't a blockbuster smash, because it would've been worth remaking just to see all those sensitive-assed Reddit-types beating their heads against a wall (while beating their meat) over remaking that shit with a girl.

OK, maybe I went too far there. Peter Weller is the man and I'd love to see him come back as Banzai, so maybe they can bring in McKinnon as his daughter or one of the other aforementioned roles or a villain! Just put her in a Buckaroo Banzai movie, is what I'm saying. Make another Buckaroo Banzai movie is what I'm also saying. And Leslie Jones needs to be in this Buckaroo Banzai film too! But keep McCarthy away. I don't like her.

But I do like Jason Bourne, both the character and the movie. My viewing of this film was preceded by a steak lunch and bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. I was going to have a couple glasses, but I looked at the price per glass versus the price of the bottle and it was just better savings to go all the way -- that is to say, savings in the wallet if not savings on my liver. And so I stumbled down the block to the movie theater and I bought a Cherry Coke for a little caffeine jolt to keep me from going into a red wine slumber or getting a red wine headache.

That was a long way of saying I was a bit (a bit?) tipsy when I watched this film, this film that I liked but not as much as the other three Jason Bourne flicks. It didn't feel like it went up another level, it's really just more of the same. Now that's fine because that means it's a solid Bourne film, which I guess are probably going to be like Bond movies or Fast & Furious joints now if they keep this up; some will be awesome, some will be shit, and some will be fine. Jason Bourne is fine. And Matt Damon is fiiiiiiinnnneee!

OK, that's kind of a joke (or is it?). But he does look good and I actually think a little more age on the face makes him look more badass. I haven't seen the first Bourne in over ten years but I bet if I put it on it'll be like watching a baby play spy, in comparison to the bad motherfucker in this film. But then again, in this film they'll cut occasionally to Tommy Lee Jones' weathered-as-fuck visage and Damon's back to looking goo-goo-gaga again.

Paul Greengrass has to stop with his shaky camerawork and edit-whatever-you-want style, it's actually coming off more lazy than planned out. Fuckin' Captain America: Civil War looks like fuckin' Ozu's best compared to this shit. I'm sure the previous Bournes didn't look this bad, or maybe they did and it didn't bother me as much. But it bothers me now. There are fight scenes that are expertly choreographed -- at least that's what I read in the making-of articles, because I certainly can't tell in the movie. It's all close-up-close-up-medium-close-up-close-up-extreme-close-up with the sounds of kicks and punches to help you put it together. There's what I'm guessing is an awesome car chase through the Las Vegas strip but again, I'll just have to assume based on the snippets Greengrass and his ACADEMY AWARD WINNING EDITOR allow us to glimpse at. No joke, watching the action scenes made me wish I was some kind of Howard Hughes type holding the purse strings on this production so I could fire the director and editor and hire someone else to reshoot those scenes.

So this is a movie where I was more into the lead-up to the action than the actual action itself, because the lead-up is that fucking good and the action is that fucking bad. I'm not kidding when I say the Vegas Strip airplane crash landing sequence in Con Air made more visual sense than this shit.

I dug the story, if not necessarily the action. If I recall correctly, his character was believed to be dead at the end of the last movie (I haven't seen The Bourne Legacy, so for all I know JB pops up in that one after the credits to tell Jeremy Renner about the S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative), so based on what he's doing here at the start of the film, then I guess you can say that the afterlife for the now deceased Jason Bourne is to be stuck in a purgatory consisting of your average 90s direct-to-video kick-puncher about underground fights for money where the rules are There Are No Rules. Thankfully, Julia Stiles is busy being involved in some Snowden-esque fuckery and she ends up having to call on Bourne for help, otherwise we'd have no film.

And it was when I saw Julia Stiles show up that I remembered she and I are both the same age, and when I first saw her in a film she was a teenager which meant that I was teenager. But I see Julia Stiles today and it hits me that she is no longer 10 Things I Hate About You Julia Stiles, she's Old Enough To Run For President Julia Stiles. She's looks like a 35-year-old woman -- which is not a bad thing nor some kind of negative comment. I'm saying that it reminded me that I am 35 too, at least in age, if not behavior or intelligence. I'm impervious to seeing people like Matt Damon get older because Damon's 10 years older than me, which might as well be 50 years away. But Julia Stiles is MY age. And seeing similarly aged friends or relatives or anyone else I grew up watching in movies & television and actually noticing that they look older, well shit, that's getting a good long look at my own personal Dorian Gray painting right there.

Then I go back to what I said about Damon being 10 years older and I remember that just yesterday it was 10 years ago and Children of Men had just come out and in a few months Grindhouse would be hitting theaters and fuck yeah it's going to be so awesome!

2006 was last night. I'm sure it was.

My God. The time. It's going faster.

35 years old.

My father was 72 when he passed.

He never did drugs and wasn't a super-boozer.

I had already earned master degrees in both by my 20s.

So let's say I have until 70, tops. And that's if Crom doesn't go extra cruel and take me earlier.

That means I'm already halfway through my life. It's halfway over. But it only feels like I'm a quarter into it. And what have I accomplished? There's so much to do! I'm just getting warmed up! It can't be halfway done!

My God -- if there even is one.

Shit, if this fear keeps up I know I'll end up running arms wide open into religion or I'll go mad in another way.

What does that song say? "If I live too long, I'm afraid I'll die".

Too fucking right, chief!

It's feeling warm in here. I'm sweating. Now it's humid. So much green.

Jesus Christ.

Where am I?