The thievery of ambition, and other things like that

(This entry has fuck-all to do with movies and is more of some regular life shit, so you can stop reading at this point. Thank you.)

I don't know what the ratio of Bullshit-to-Genuine is when it comes to people who get Medical Marijuana recommendations, and I really don't care. I just know I wish I was one of the Bullshit patients, but as a recent unplanned doctor's visit turned out, I happen to have one of the ailments that is legally recognized in this great state of California when it comes to the MM. It's something I figured I was dealing with as far back as high school (what a surprise), but never really did anything about it until now. So I decided to turn lemons into a refreshing citrus drink (the name of which escapes me) and figured I should try getting a bona fide Medical Marijuana recommendation.

For the record, my weed intake is pretty low and not at all resembles anything routine or consecutive. I still rank as an amateur in this sport. It is merely one of many weapons in my arsenal in the on-going War Against Sobriety I've been fighting half of my life. I just like the idea of having the ability to acquire this shit in a far more legal manner. To know that you *can*, is sometimes enough for you to go on.

So I did the research and looked up the places, settling on one that I will not name for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I called, made my appointment for the following Saturday and then Saturday came and I went. The location was inside a bank building in a nice business section of town; I went to the office and was greeted by an attractive blonde in her mid-to-late 20's with a Midwest-Gone-California feel about her. She gave me some forms to fill out and told me there were more seats further down the office. I passed by a lady in her 40's and a young dude who looked early 20's and very much from the Bullshit echelon, but then again, this is me judging a book by its cover like some kind of asshole who judges books by their covers. I sat down at a table and answered the questions such as what ailment do you suffer from, who is your health care provider, are you taking any medication, have you taken marijuana before as a substitute/avoidance of said medication before, and some other shit I can't remember because I smoke da reefa. There's also a bunch of shit to initial, making sure that you're aware of both the possible benefits and drawbacks of Doctorological Mary Jane.

Directly across from me was the entrance to the physician's office, and I knew that because a deep booming voice could be heard from behind the door, saying things deliberately slow and overly enunciated like "But you have to tell me if it's pain that you believe can...". During this, another gentleman entered the room and was welcomed by the receptionist. This guy was either hard core Genuine or really trying super-fuckin-hard to sell the Bullshit, because the entire time he was filling out his forms a few feet away from me, he kept muttering to himself, and it there's such a thing as violent muttering, that's what THAT motherfucker was doing.

The door to the physician's office opened and out came two men of the Asian persuasion, escorted to the receptionist/secretary/important papers lady to cross some T's and dot some lower-case J's (one acted as a translator for the other, hence the slow/deliberate talk from the doc). His next patient was the Shoulda-Been-A-Cougar-But-Isn't, and they both walked in and the door was closed. It really did no good, this door; you can hear everything. This made me nervous. The young stoner in his early 20's then made a comment to the blonde, something like "I bet you don't get people like that much in here, huh?", referring to the two men from Southeast Asia. "I'm from Oklahoma and I've heard every kind of accent, but I never heard something like *that* before!" she responded. They giggled the kind of giggle that had nothing in common with each other; her giggle was coming from a "Those wacky Chinamen!" vibe and his was more "It would be so awesome if we fucked."

He then asked her if in addition to her office duties was she also a patient, which to me seemed a little too personal a question, I don't know. But she didn't miss a beat, she told him she was and he then asked her what the difference was between certain kinds of plants and she straight out demonstrated her expertise in that shit. It might as well have been math equations this chick was talking about, otherwise I'd kinda remember it enough to write it down. Me, I just know the difference between an indica and a sativa. These two were becoming fast friends, whereas I was sitting a few feet away from a man I was hoping to God was actually having a Bluetooth conversation rather than an imaginary one with God himself.

Meanwhile, it wasn't sounding so good in the office; in an even-tempered but booming voice, the doc was telling Cougar Town that he needed ANY kind of medical record from a doctor or chiropractor that said she had what she claimed to have. Shortly after dismissing her ("She's *mad*", remarked the blonde after the lady's departure), the doc told Blondie what had happened. Turns out that Stiffler's Mom was trying to get a rec. for her back pain with only a bottle of Ibuprofen from Costco to back her up. Oh, what laughs the doc and Blondie had (along with Skater Dude who was trying to bang this broad)! I was next.

So we go into his office, and in addition to his large desk and two large comfortable leather office chairs, there was an examination table to the side as well. Up until my arrival, I kept expecting someone like Dr. Lexus from Idiocracy or Jack Elam from Cannonball Run, but instead I got a man who looked to be in his late 60's and looking as doctorly as a doctor could look. He looks at my form, and I tell him my story. As I do this, he would occasionally go over and scribble notes and make comments on how it sounds like a clear case of >>CONDITION REDACTED<< and that these >>SYMPTOMS REDACTED<< I've recently been having are obvious >>DETAILED SYMPTOMS REDACTED<<. I had a copy of my medical record and a prescription bottle, which he looked at, and told me that in his opinion, I could benefit from Medical Marijuana. The doctor then went on to tell me the potential risks and benefits of medicating with dank; he spoke loud and clear and carefully, like he wanted to not only make sure that you understood everything he was telling you, but make sure that in case you were recording any of this, he would be legally free and clear and that there was no shenanigans involved with my diagnosis.

He escorted me out and gave the forms back to Blondie, then went back in with Skater Dude. Blondie asked me for the $150 fee (you pay only if you get the recommendation, which is only fair) and had me sign a few things with her pen that had a weird bubbly kooshball at the end of it. Among the documents I received was my official Medical Marijuana recommendation/Physician's Statement (doctors can not actually prescribe it to you), a wallet-sized version of said Statement, and a glovebox version of the statement -- all signed by the doc. I also received a Patient Handbook with all the info one would need about this whole thing, in case you didn't know any of it; laws, effects of marijuana use, web addresses to relevant sites, methods of use and medicinal effects of particular kinds of bud. There was also an application for a Medical Marijuana State ID, which I'm not yet sure about signing up for. On the one hand, it renders you practically bulletproof with John Q. Law. On the other, you're officially noted with the State of smoking pot and even though I'm legit, I still feel uneasy about those motherfuckers knowing that shit. All this is good for a year, then I'm supposed to come back in about a year for a renewal (and I'm guessing another sitdown with the doc to catch up).

You should already know where the dispensaries are, and legally, the people at this joint (see what I did there?) can't tell you anyway. I had already looked around online and was surprised by the sheer number of them in my hood. It was interesting to be able to price compare items with names like OG Master Kush and G13 and Buddah Kush and AK-47 online, you couldn't do that on the street unless you really felt like giving the guy and yourself a hard time. Half of these places cleverly(?) give themselves names that spell out THC in acronym form or have the word Green in there; if there's a place that manages to spell out WEED, that's like, well that's like Wow as far as I'm concerned.

An hour ago I was sitting in a pot doctor's office, filling out forms. Now I was walking to one of my many local pot dispensaries. A security dude kept watch behind a desk in the large lobby (about 2/3 of the entire space, of which 1/4 was being used) and there was a bank teller style window to walk up to. The guy behind the glass showed up with a shaved head, goatee and basketball jersey; he asked if it was my first time and then had me fill out a form while he checked out my Physician's Statement and driver's license. I sat down on a couch in front of an HDTV and a table with free cookies to fill out the form. After giving the form back, the guy buzzed me in and I walked inside to the room of weed.

The room is as big as someone's bedroom; glass display counters with different kinds of bud in jars. On top of one of the counters was one of those magnifying glass/light deals you can check the weed with, should you so desire. The guy behind the counter was nice and looked to be in his late 40's/early 50's, and looked like someone who probably knew Cheech and/or Chong personally. The basketball jersey dude told him that it was my first time here, so the counter guy gave me a free pot cookie with my purchase. The corner of the room had one of those multi-screen security monitors, because you just never know, I guess. He invited me to smell the buds and check them under the lamp. And even though I just wanted to get this shit, get outta there and just fuckin' blaze -- schwag or dank, be damned --  I took him on his offer. Every once in a while, Basketball Jersey Dude would suddenly exclaim "Ice Cream and Cake! Ice Cream and Cake!" like that Baskin Robbins commercial, for reasons known only to him.

I ended up getting a gram of an indica and a gram of a sativa; Buddah Kush and Maui Wowie. It was still early in the day, and I figured I would take advantage and catch a movie while enjoying my free pot cookie. In the end, I went with Clash of the Titans in 3D. Even though I heard horrible things about the last-minute post-production 3D, I didn't care. It's not like I really wanted to see this goddamn movie in the first place, shit, I'm gonna commit some motherfuckin' sacrilege and confess that I admired the original more than I actually liked it. I mean, I love me some Ray Harryhausen, but that's pretty much all the love that flick gets and I don't jizz all over that movie the same way I geek-bukkake over something like say, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I just wanted to trip out on something after ingesting some cannabis Mrs. Fields. It must have been some good shit too, because not only did I really dig this fuckin' movie, I don't get the hate over Jake Sully's acting either. Again, that cookie was some good shit.

Come November, there is a possibility that this shit will get even more legal in the state of Caulyfoneeya (Schwarzenegger pronunciation, please) for those over 21, that is if the proposition passes. I'm betting that it will; in the same way that Obama did his Health Care Reform thing right around the time that I FINALLY got health insurance after a two-year period without it, now every fuckin' adult is going to be able to walk into a joint for a joint now that I scored a MM rec. Just my luck -- and everyone else's for that matter. 

Squid

I had finished dining alone and directly across the street was a cool-looking bowling alley, as most bowling alleys are, and I figured I should go. Into the street I went, and into the left turn lane I merged. I made my turn and it was at that moment, as I was inches away from making my way into the entrance, that I misjudged the distance and location; the entrance was another ten feet to the right and I was headed for hard curbed concrete. Perhaps it was the two glasses of stronger-than-usual wine that I had with my meal, perhaps it was my already nervous state-of-being (whenever I'm behind the wheel), or perhaps it was me making an inexplicably stupid move caused by some odd synapse going wrong or maybe I'm just a Dumb Fuck, but rather than make a three point turn, I instead decided to drive the ten feet for the entrance -- in the wrong direction.

This incredibly dumb decision was made slightly smarter by the illusion that there was no oncoming traffic. I swear this to be true, there were no cars in sight. Yet as I made my move, sure enough, a goddamn speeding exodus approached my way, horns honking & lights flashing at me in a sort of morse code that translated as WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY YOU'RE GOING TO KILL SOMEONE GET THE FUCK OFF THE ROAD. I quickly hugged the curb, trying to make as much room as possible for the rightful drivers, and finally making it into the bowling alley and screeching to a halt at the first available parking spot. For some crazy reason, I thought it was best to immediately stumble out the door and make like I was having some sort of attack. I coughed and wheezed and spasmed because in some retarded way this made sense to do. Maybe if one of the drivers I nearly Death Proof'd on the highway decided to come over and Zoe Bell my ass, seeing me suffer from some kind of hitherto unknown medical affliction would overcome him or her with some kind of sympathy.

After about two minutes of this, I calmly walked to my car, got in, and drove away just as calm. After passing down two blocks, a fleet of cop cars drove past me in the opposite lane -- flashing red/blues, sirens wailing -- and I wondered if maybe, just maybe, someone had made a frantic call to 5-0 about some possibly drunk piece-of-shit of Latin descent driving the wrong way toward oncoming traffic. This wonder was made even wonder-er when 3 out of the 6 cruisers entered the bowling alley parking lot. I eventually made it back on the road, heading home, radio turned off for some odd made-up-at-the-moment superstition that convinced me my goose would be cooked if I kicked up the tunes. Halfway home I was tempted to get all Woo! and celebrate like I got away with it, but I knew I shouldn't do that. Because it would be like that asshole from Creepshow 2 declaring his win over that man-eating oil slick, and we all know what happened then, don't we? Nom nom nom. Except for me, the man-eating oil slick would be the cops and a different kind of Nom nom nom-ing would be happening to me in jail. I made it home, sighed in relief, and took a 30-minute disco nap because I decided that perhaps the best course of action would be to go to the New Beverly Cinema and catch this Rockula movie all the cool kids were talking about. 

While waiting in line, the movie's composer stood behind me and was telling whoever he was with stories about somebody fucking over somebody money-wise, the kind of stuff that I suppose is unfortunately normal business in Hollywood. Inside, Cathie was up front handing out tasty treats -- it was her birthday, and this was her b-day movie. Clu Gulager was in the front row being his usual cool self. He was in a lot of cool joints, one of them involving him and fuckin' Lee Marvin owning motherfuckers. I found out that this guy was there as well, and later that night he tweeted that we shoulda said hi. Alas, Mike, I was unfortunately born with swollen testicles and that makes it impossible for me to go up and say hi to people. I'm also a master of the awkward situation and I think it is only responsible of me to spare people of said awkwardness by leaving them alone.

The star of Rockula, Dean Cameron, was there for a Q&A before the flick. If you don't know him by name, you'll know him by face. One of his best known roles was as Chainsaw in Summer School, and I think he's the same Dean Cameron who also created a small metal pocket-sized Bill of Rights shortly after 9/11 for use in fucking with airport security. Mr. Cameron does not look the same as he did in the Summer School days, which of course is something that happens to most of us when 20 years go by. This is not an insult; he actually looks more distinguished, carrying a more serious look about him rather than the young goofball type he used to resemble. I have no fucking idea why this matters to me, but allow me this; looking exactly the same most of your life isn't what it's cracked up to be, and if you don't agree, just ask Dick Clark and he'll be glad to slur his thoughts to you on this issue. That motherfucker was blessed to always look 30, then one day God had it with that bullshit and punished Dickie Boy with the goddamn stroke-to-end-all-strokes, putting Billy Squier to fuckin' shame.

The Q&A was moderated by some dude who runs the midnight shows at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco (and sounded every bit of it). I love this motherfucker because he used a term that I'm gonna run with in these here ramblings: "Neo-Sincerity" (or "Post-Irony", I can't remember but I prefer the former), something about how we've been living in the age of Irony for quite some time and now it's time for Neo-Sincerity, when you can like some shit because you actually liked it, not because it's incredibly bad and you laugh at and feel all superior and shit over it. He talked about how he didn't love a flick like Rockula in an ironic sort-of-way, he genuinely loved it from the heart, and these days I think most people are kinda self-conscious about admitting to digging something everyone else might find lame. I understand that we as a people will be submerged for eons in Irony, I understand. But we need to lay off of that shit for a bit. Listen, I love a good bad movie just as much as the next asshole -- I inflict them on a regular basis to my friends (which is probably why I've precious few nowadays). But not every single goddamn movie has to be The Room and maybe, just maybe, you like Roadhouse because goddamn it, Patrick Swayze is a fuckin' badass in that film. I'm speaking for others, of course -- I'm too busy laughing at that shit. Ahem.

I could sense a lot of that when I went to see Hausu a couple of weeks ago or maybe I was just being a sensitive douche or both. But it seemed like some people around me thought they were watching the reincarnation of Edward D. Wood Jr., and I sure as shit didn't feel that way. I fuckin' loved it, and you can call it weird, you can call it insane and you can call it 90 minutes of sheer WTF -- but you couldn't call Hausu a bad movie. The Japanese motherfucker behind that shit KNEW what the fuck he was doing, he fuckin' KNEW. But as far as the dudes behind me were concerned, that movie might as well have been directed by Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's. If you're going to make comments and can't keep it down to a whisper to the guy next to you, here's a handy way to determine if you should in the first place: Unless the movie you're watching features a muscular long-haired actor of indeterminate origin or age getting cheated on by his blonde-hair/black eyebrow'd wife and his possibly gay best friend, unless it involves Tim Curry in drag, or unless you once worked on the writing staff for MST3k and/or are currently under the employ of either Rifftrax or Cinematic Titanic, you should probably just keep your goddamn mouth shut and save that shit for when you bro out with your bros over chili dogs at Pink's.

But yeah, back to Cameron. He was cool and very funny. Sometimes he got a little too self-deprecating on his past work and I think this unfortunately resulted in Castro dude taking that shit a little personal sometimes. It was interesting to observe because I think Cameron sensed that his words may have been misconstrued, and if he didn't at first, he certainly did by the time a guy a couple rows ahead of me who looked like Buzz from the Home Alone movies started yelling out his disapproval on Cameron's disapproval on stuff like Miracle Beach. Cameron then clarified what he meant, saying that he had nothing against those movies and was very happy that people were fans. He just didn't think he was as good as he could've been and can only see the flaws in his performances. In the case of something like Miracle Beach, he felt his career was pretty much in the tanking stage and a flick like that wasn't helping him mood-wise, either. This guy is also an excellent shit-talker. Best part was when he talked about Charlie Sheen accidentally shooting Kelly Preston, ending with something to the effect of "if you knew Kelly, you'd want to shoot her too". Dean Cameron is fucking awesome. At the end of the Q&A, some guy in the back said that it was also his birthday (that makes 4 -- Cathie, Mike, Quentin Tarantino who is always there in spirit, and this guy) and asked Dean to do his tension breaker scream from Summer School. Rather than politely tell this man "I understand and respect that it's your birthday, but it's 12:45 in the morning and I'm not a trained seal", he went through with it. And you know what, he's still got it, that one.

They showed trailers of some of Cameron's work, like Men at Work (for which he got paid a shitload of money for minimum work by holding out) and Ski School. Of the flicks shown, I'd really want to see Bad Dreams, that looks like an awesome flick. Plus, it's directed by the guy who did The Craft, Dick, and Hamlet 2, so it's got that going for it, which is nice. Then the movie started. Rockula was co-written and directed by a guy named Luca Bercovici. He also directed some other joints like Ghoulies and acted in quite a few more, but I mostly know him as the jerk who learned the hard way in Drop Zone that it's best not to go skydiving near power lines, especially if Gary Busey's your wingman. But I guess Luca didn't learn his lesson, because a couple years later he directed that crazy fuck in a movie. Real quick, did you know one of Kathryn Bigelow's first short films starred Busey, who later went on to ask Utah to get him two in Point Break? Fuckin' A.

So, yeah, Cameron plays this vampire named Ralph who's been around for centuries, living with his mom, played by Toni Basil. I never cared for her song Mickey, but I was definitely a fan of her performance here, particularly when she hissed and showed her fangs. That always made me laugh for some reason. Anyway, this dude, he's under some kind of curse where he falls in love with the same chick every 22 years but on Halloween she ends up getting killed by some hambone-wielding pirate. Yeah, man. And I guess this curse involves having your reflection in the mirror talk to you and give you shit, because that's what Ralph's got going on here. Anyway, Ralph's tired of going through this all the time, so this October he decides to stay and do nothing about it. He's just going to chill out at his favorite watering hole with Susan Tyrell, Bo Diddley, and some other fuckin' dude I guess I should know but don't. Also, I don't know if they know that he's a vampire. I mean, they know his story about the curse, so either they don't believe him and they're humoring him, or they do and they're cool, or maybe they're vampires too. I mean, it IS Susan Tyrell, after all. The set-up of this movie made me feel like I came in 20 minutes late, kinda like what that John Landis-looking motherfucker Leonard Maltin said about the awesome Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai; it's like watching a serial, except it's missing the first few chapters, so you're on your own as to what the fuck is going on.

Oh, by the way, Ralph can't stand the sight of blood and it appears he and moms get by with donations from the local blood bank, brought to them every morning like dairy from the milkman. So he's not your average asshole vampire, attacking people for their blood, he's a pretty decent dude. He also loves to cook with garlic and it appears he can eat regular food too, so he's not THAT kind of asshole either, you know, like the kind of person who tells you they don't eat dairy, meat, vegetable, bread or mineral and you're like GODDAMMIT WHERE THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO TAKE YOU THEN? and that's why you're no longer going out with her. Please call me, Stacy.

Because life likes to fuck with a motherfucker, he ends up running into the reincarnated chick he was trying to avoid. She's a singer named Mona and she's one of those chicks who is hot but not exactly pretty, like Gina Gershon. Not a butterface, I'm talking about something else and I don't know what I'm fucking talking about. Forget it. I was actually kinda crushing on Mona's friend with the glasses (I'm a sucker for cute chicks in glasses). She's played by the wife of the dude from Devo who now composes music for Wes Anderson flicks except for the last two, so he probably feels all assed out now. She was also in this criminally unfinished project.

Anyway, sure enough he's smitten with her, she's intrigued by him, and somewhere along the way he bullshits her into believing that he's a musician in a band. This bullshit is made true when he gets his bar buddies to join and next thing you know, they're doing rock songs and Fresh Prince-style rap. Which might be why this flick is called Rockula. Along the way, Thomas Dolby shows up; he's not so much an evil villain as he's just a fucking douchebag. I still haven't figured out whether Dolby meant to play his character the way he did because of the movie's tone, or if he blinded me with bad acting? I'll go for the former; my favorite bit of his is when he starts swinging a weapon around during a fight while doing a "whoosh whoosh whoosh" sound. I was fuckin' rolling when he did that shit.

Speaking of which, while I laughed a few times, I didn't laugh nearly as much as I expected. Which made me feel like a bit of an asshole, considering how fondly remembered this flick is by the relatively few people that saw it. And yet, I enjoyed Rockula very much. It's just such a weird, oddball movie and it has a very good-natured, so eager-to-please attitude, that it still won me over. It has a very slick look to it too, which I'm guessing might have more than a little to do with having the cinematography being done by the same guy who went on to shoot The Rock, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor for Michael Bay. At times, the lighting reminded me of something you'd see in a Bay flick, only the camera is standing still for a change and it isn't cutting to a new angle every seven frames. I dug the soundtrack too, and Castro dude gave away a few copies, even though that shit isn't officially available, so Buzz from Home Alone who kept yelling shit at Cameron is a lucky motherfucker. My fave songs would have to be the title track, the hilarious rap song, some emo shit from Thomas Dolby and the end song.

But yeah, Rockula. As a comedy it gets a C for results, but an A for effort and me being the schoolteacher in this motherfucker, I averaged that shit out to a B. And that's way fuckin' better than how I did at school. Stupid-ass motherfucker. I used to be smart, but now I'm just stupid. This movie, though? Pretty decent.

One last thing, during the end credits I recognized the name of Adam Shankman, which I hope you don't. He played the airport shuttle driver who jacks Mona's underwear. He's since gone on to direct The Wedding Planner, Bringing Down the House and The Pacifier. Those movies were huge hits.

The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne (and Santa Monica Blvd.)

I needed something to do and rambling about movies seemed like a good time-killer, something else to do while I was broke and unemployed. But since last month, I've been working, and while it's supercool to have some money in my pocket again, the downside is that I have far less free time than before. There's just about enough time to watch movies and drink, but little to no time for writing this shit down. So I think the way I'm going to do it from now on I'm going to group together a bunch of movies I watched every couple of weeks or so, devote a couple paragraphs each to them or something and post 'em up like some Reader's Digest or The Week type of bullshit. I don't know, I'm just saying. Who knows, maybe I'll fuck up and be back on the unemployment line and then things will be like before, but until then, there'll be fewer posts. That's okay, because no one's holding their breath over these things to begin with.

Here's just a few things that have been going on with me movie-wise:

I worked on a Top 100 list a couple of weeks back, which was pretty easy to write since I just wrote down every movie I really dug, and I'd be finished with it by now except I stopped at about 97 movies and haven't gone back to it since. But I'm sure I'll return and put 3 more flicks on it and post it up.

While I would've loved to have caught the Corey Haim tribute screening of Lucas at the New Beverly, I had plans to catch The Big Lebowski at the Nuart, and that was an interesting evening right there, let me tell you. I met with my friend and his lady friend, and while my friend and I have seen Lebowski multiple times (this was 5th time watching it on the big screen -- 1st in '98 at an Edwards, 2nd in '07 at the Pasadena Rialto, 3rd in '07 at the Nuart, 4th in '08 at the Egyptian), this was his lady friend's first viewing. My buddy was worried that the screening would get too crazy with people quoting lines and stuff, worried that it would ruin it for his lady friend. I told him he shouldn't be worried, because the last time I saw this at the Nuart in '07, Marc Heuck, the guy who runs this shit, he seemed to be more annoyed than usual, introducing the screening by pretty much telling people not to be jackasses during it.

Later at that '07 screening, I went and bought a diet Coke and he seemed really flustered while working behind the counter. Having made an ass of myself at the Aero Theatre by buying snacks and trying to pay with a credit card (turns out they were Cash Only), I asked him if they accepted Visa here. Dude looked at me like he wanted to Highlander my ass if he had the proper surgically-sharp implement to do it with, for asking the dumbest of the dumb questions. I felt bad, because I know how it is to  have a bad day at work. Doesn't everyone?

Some time later, I read a post from him on some message board where he talked about a movie that was recently screened at the Nuart that apparently played to the audience from hell. Homeboy had such a bad night dealing with drunk motherfuckers, high motherfuckers, vomiting motherfuckers, and various other motherfuckers and their motherfuckery, that he went home that night and took his DVD of the movie in question and threw that shit away, like some guilty by association kinda shit. He wouldn't even identify what flick it was, because to call the movie by its name would be to give it power or something. Anyway, there's a good chance it may have been this movie -- or Suspiria, or Fight Club or Office Space, cause I think those were the other midnight movies that played in April, and he said all this shit went down in April.

So flash forward to last night; I had a couple pint cans of Bud before the movie and went to buy my ticket. The girl at the ticket booth had a stuffed crocodile or something to keep her company. She was cute. She also was annoyed by the "frat boys" who were fratting it up a few feet away. If I had the powers of Bruce Lee or Charles Bronson, I might have had a chance with her. So I meet my pals in line and later I noticed fuckin' Troy from Community chatting up a group of people in front. Apparently, he had just come out of a Q&A for a movie he made called Mystery Team, which I'm sure will be funny when I rent it on DVD a few months from now. We go inside and the theater's packed, the crowd down to have a good time. The movie begins and people laugh, as people do when a comedy succeeds at its goal. But a couple of rows down, on the left side, there was this girl who was giving out the most annoying, call-attention-to-itself laugh imaginable. This would be all well and good, because we all have different laughs. But this chick was obviously on something and not even laughing in sync with the audience. She wasn't even paying attention to the movie, she was texting on her phone in between her HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!'s. You know who she was? She was fuckin' De Niro in Cape Fear. She was laughing and acting EXACTLY like that motherfucker, minus the cigar:


I have to stress how not part of the experience this chick was. You can see the people around her looking annoyed, shuffling uncomfortably. It was the kind of laugh that overpowers yours and sucks out whatever enjoyment you were getting. It was the fakest sounding, loudest laugh. The people in front of her got up and left. Other people would stare at her or look at each other in disbelief. And like I mentioned earlier, the worst part was that it wasn't even genuine. There were other people in the audience with very loud distinct laughs, and yet they didn't bother me, because you can tell they were with the movie, and they didn't laugh like that at Every Single Moment, even the ones that weren't funny -- in between her incessant texting, of course.

I started thinking of my buddy's lady friend, and how with her luck, she was in fact having her first time ruined. I can sense my buddy was growing more and more annoyed. And hell, even I was getting annoyed. This bitch had managed to fuck up my buzz, she laughed me into fuckin' sobriety, so even I couldn't ignore this shit no longer. Something had to be done. But what? What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to go to the manager and complain that someone is laughing too hard at a goddamn comedy? It's a weird position to be in and a weird situation to try to explain to someone. Even now, I feel like a real asshole writing this down, but ladies and gentlemen, You Had To Be There. Then what else? Politely ask her to calm down? We live in a world where people get shanked with meat thermometers for merely asking for some common goddamn courtesy. The animals have won, and the rest of us can only pray to whatever god we believe in/don't believe in that we can pay our money and maybe, just maybe get a decent theatrical experience.

The only thing I could think of was this: if this girl (who I would guess to be somewhere in the 18-25 range) was going to make things uncomfortable for us, I was going to make things uncomfortable for her. Perhaps I should stand up above her and just stare? Or counter her laughs with my own Max Cady-style guffaws? No, I decided upon something else -- something that I feel ashamed about and yet, I feel it had to be done. It had to be done. I had some peanut M&M's on me (thanks to my friend) and after one of her HAWHAWHAWHAWWOOOOOHAWHAWHAWHAWWOOOOO's, I grabbed one of those delicious chocolate & peanut ovals...and fuckin' launched that motherfucker directly to her motherfucking head. Immediately I got back into innocent position, watching the movie and didn't pay attention to her reaction. I didn't even think I hit her. But evidently, I did, because a minute later she and her friend got up and left...and returned with the goddamn manager. Yup. I'm the bad guy. I'm the asshole. And for the record, I don't normally do this sort of thing.

She pointed in our general direction and told the manager (at least I think he was the manager) that "it came from within 10 feet, I'm sure" and he nodded and looked around. I understand that he was doing his job, these chicks probably went and complained and most likely asked for their money back, and he went down to at least look like he could do something about it. But I'm sure even he knew there wasn't much he could do, save for shutting down the movie and turning the house lights on. Dude would've had to have seen me holding the smoking M&M bag in my hand to even consider kicking a motherfucker out, and even then, it's pretty hard to accuse a dude who happens to be eating candy. They then left, and the theater was left to the genuinely mirthful, the people who laughed because it was funny, not because it was funny to laugh. I'm not proud of this, even though my buddy and his lady friend thanked me for it, but I felt I had to pull the dick move for the good of the audience -- not to mention my goddamned sanity.

As we walked out, I saw the manager/employee dude whose name was Witney, standing near the concession counter. I felt compelled to confess and hopefully get him to see it my way after explaining the situation. Also, I hated the idea that this dude would think that two girls had their night ruined by some asshole out to get them -- which is exactly what happened, but still they had it coming. We all have it coming, kid. But I knew that shit wouldn't go down that way. I like the Nuart and would like to continue to go there and to tell him would be to get my ass reprimanded and kicked the fuck out forever -- at least that's my worst case scenario fear. So instead, I kept walking and lit up an American Spirit. Instead, I decide to post it all down on a blog that I'm sure wouldn't take a genius to figure out who I am and fuck my shit up. Because I'm a stupid, stupid asshole. Have a good weekend, everybody!

UPDATE: I realize that this is unfortunately not the first time I did something like this. There was also a brief altercation when things couldn't get civil between me and a dude at the Regency Fairfax. But that was in '07. I'm getting better about this sort of thing, plus I was sober that time and far more irritable.

Don't look into the Death Star, or you will die.

(This was supposed to go up on Saturday, but my hard drive crashed and I had to deal with THAT for a while, anyway, here you go)

Don't know why I've been sleeping early for the past couple nights; I pass out around 10 and wake up around 6. What the fuck. It's not like I have a job to go to, so why the sudden change in my body clock? On the plus side, the early bird gets the sugar & dough concocted worm; shortly after rising up with the sun, I had a sudden craving for donuts and actually exclaimed to the empty room surrounding me, "Let's go get some donuts!" like some fuckin' asshole. I even drove to the donut joint with a smile on my face thinking about that shit, about how awesome it feels to be on route for some fuckin' donuts. Again, what an asshole. If I had a wife and she was with me, she'd notice my goofy grin and say "Wipe that fuckin' smile off your face. It's not like I said I'd blow you, we're just getting donuts" and I'd say "Why do you talk to me like that, Scarlett Johansson?" and she'll say "Because you've been holding me hostage for two days now and you keep referring to me as your wife". Scarlett is in serious denial. 

Anyway, I went Friday afternoon to catch the Jew Hatin' Drunk's new flick Edge of Darkness. I'm a firm believer in separating the art from the artist, and so far, it's been pretty fuckin' easy to go that way. Most of them are dead anyway but in the case of guys like Roman Polanski, all I ask is that they don't flaunt that shit in their work (Of the Polanski movies I've seen post-underage-girl-banging, I don't remember any scenes of motherfuckers looking at pre-teens the way a stray dog looks at a steak), like the fat creep who directed those Jeepers Creepers movies. Besides, the way I see it, most Hollywood people are probably evil secret scumbags anyway, so for me it seems like the only real crime they can be guilty of is not keeping that shit on the down low. And if I decide to ever get all moral about the people in front or behind the camera, I might as well just stop watching any kind of moving image.

Whatever. When you get down to it, I'm all about forgiving people -- unless I'm the one who has to do the forgiving, of course. But then I saw a couple of Mel's recent appearances/interviews and it's clear this motherfucker is permanently off his goddamn hinges, and he's gonna die with those fucked-up beliefs. But goddammit, when it comes to his movies, if he's on, he's fuckin' ON and I don't want to deny myself some possible awesome ownage the way that asshole denies the Holocaust. My solution? I bought a ticket for Leap Year, once again happily supporting The Adorable Amy Adams and walked into the Gibson joint. From now on, I'll give the motherfucker my time (I've got plenty of that to spare), but not my money. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "What if Amy Adams is in a Mel Gibson movie?" In that case, I'd surely pay for the ticket, for the same reason I'd buy a ticket to a Gibson classic like Mad Max 2 at a revival house like the New Beverly -- because Goodness cancels out Douchebaggery. Always, motherfucker.

The movie. Yeah. Mel plays a Boston detective and I think it's not the best move for him to try a pahk-the-cah accent for this role. I mean, it's been like 8 years or so since he's starred in a movie and he already has the age thing working against him (motherfucker's looking old and his hair is thinning -- and not in the cool Ed Harris sort-of-way either), so it doesn't help that he sounds fuckin' weird too. He welcomes his visiting daughter home and damn near immediately she's getting nosebleeds and puking her guts out. To make things worse, two masked men show up at Mel's house and give his little girl a double shotgun blast to the stomach. So she's not getting better any time soon. Gibson does the whole howling-while-cradling-the-dead-body-in-his-arms thing and the movie fades to black and gives us a moment to all look at each other and go "Holy shit, it's fuckin' on".

And, uh, that's where you'd be wrong. The poster for Edge of Darkness seems to be going for a Taken kind of vibe, and even the trailers are kinda selling it like Taken meets Payback (Tayback?). But the truth is that this movie is more of a detective story; Mel goes from place to place, asking questions, dealing with shady people who obviously know more than they're letting out, putting shit together. The movie is based on an acclaimed BBC miniseries, and something tells me they may have changed some shit for the American version, I don't know, call it a hunch. Supposedly they did some reshoots on this flick, adding some ass-kicking to satisfy the audience, and even then, it's not that much. Kind of a shame, really, because the few moments of Mel being Mel are genuinely awesome Grade-A moments of ownage.

Now, all this wouldn't be a problem if the story was involving, but it isn't. It has a frustrating pace/flow to it, where Mel will talk to someone and something intriguing comes out of it, and then it'll cool its heels a little too long with some bullshit, and once I found out the big mystery as to why Gibson's daughter was murdered, (like 20 minutes into the fuckin' thing) I honestly didn't give a fuck. I think I was supposed to be all OMG about it, but I just wanted to see Mel kill the motherfuckers responsible. The plot itself became a McGuffin, just a way to get Mel to shoot some asshole in the throat, but if that's the case, then why is the bullshit-to-awesome ratio reversed?

It was oddly amusing that the movie straight out identifies the evildoers behind this madness as Republicans, they don't even try to allude to it, they might as well have had Mel say some cold-blooded shit like "This is for Hope and Change, motherfucker!" before shooting some fool's face off. They even have a scene where we see framed photos of the guy you just-fucking-know is the villain shaking hands with Reagan and Dubya. Isn't Mel Gibson a Republican? Maybe this was his way to win people's hearts and minds over again, like "Hey guys, I don't hate the Jews and I'm not a right-wing nut either. Please, take me back in as the lovable asshole who can't stop pulling pranks on the set! Lethal Weapon 5, everybody!" But then he's fucking over his Republican fans, not to mention fans of the idea of not ruining the Lethal Weapon franchise. See this mess you're in, Mel? You should've just hired a driver that night.

Every once in a while, the movie cuts to home video footage of Gibson's daughter when she was a kid, which was a nice touch. The filmmakers were probably like "Since you didn't get much time to know the girl, and watching half her midsection explode wasn't enough to feel bad for both her and Give Me Back My Son, here you go with some footage of her doing the Hi Daddy! thing while frolicking on the beach like a fuckin' cute puppy that doesn't know it's about to get fuckin' shotgunned". The loss of this young woman is both tragic to her loving father and to the stork that dropped her off on the porch because apparently Moms doesn't figure into this story. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember a single mention. I don't know.

I guess they're trying to visually show you how up against the odds Mel's character is, or they're trying to make him look more vulnerable, or maybe they just didn't give a fuck, but Mel looks awfully short compared to the other actors in this movie. It seems like every other character with a penis has a good few inches on him (by height, I mean), or in the case of Ray Winstone, an extra hundred pounds. Winstone is some fat British dude who I'm always confusing with Brendan Gleeson, and he plays this shadowy secret-y guy who was hired by the Man to keep an eye on Gibson and have shady conversations with the motherfucker. Robert DeNiro was supposed to play this part but then he walked out after the first day, probably after listening to Mad Mel go off on the Jews once again (Oh, that prankster Mel!), but I'm cool with that for two reasons.

One, the last time having Robert DeNiro in your movie meant something, it was 1998 (Ronin, muthafucka). Two, the character Winstone is playing was played by Joe Don Baker in the BBC version. That's right, Joe Don Motherfuckin' Baker -- Buford Pusser AND Mitchell himself. It left me wanting to see a movie where Winstone and Baker just go around owning people in some small town, they could call it Fat Vengeance or something and you just fuckin' know that shit would be a hundred different varieties of awesome and fifty different varieties of sweaty.

Danny Huston is also in this movie playing someone who may or may not be up to no good, a question that will leave many a viewer wondering, unless they've seen at least one other movie in their lifetime. Otherwise, you know what his fuckin' deal is. I'll give props to Huston because he's good in this, he was great in ivansxtc, and if it wasn't for his father, we wouldn't have Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen or Daniel Day-Lewis' voice for There Will Be Blood. No one else stands out except maybe the chick who played Gibson's daughter, and that might be because they killed the shit out of her and she died with her eyes rolled back into her head which creeped me out. On a related note, most blind people creep me out.

Going back to the Taken comparison; nope, there ain't no comparison, they shouldn't have even tried pulling that shit with the poster and the trailer because they're not similar at all. One's an action movie and the other is a mystery. One is about a man's single-minded trek through the streets of Paris to save his daughter, and the other is about a dude wanting to know why his daughter got a buckshot belly piercing. Mel Gibson in Edge of Darkness is a relatively mild-mannered dude who was probably a fair cop (by Boston standards, anyway) who I'm guessing never had to fire a single shot on the job, and it's not until he has to identify his little girl in the morgue that he starts looking into kidney punching a motherfucker or two to get some answers. Liam Neeson in Taken, on the other hand, is a bad motherfucker masquerading as a mild-mannered dad, and once his Ownage switch was turned on, this guy went around punching Frenchies in the throat and shooting innocent people in the leg just to make a point -- and he was doing all this assuming she was still alive. Shit, that's what they should do in the sequel; kill the daughter off and then give us 90 minutes of Neeson just killing and torturing everyone, only it's more hardcore. It would be like The Passion of the Christ, except Liam Neeson is the Romans and everyone else he meets becomes Jesus Christ.

Both the flick and the BBC miniseries it was based on were directed by the same dude; Martin Campbell's his name and his output falls into two categories: Fuck, This Movie's Awesome (Casino Royale, No Escape, The Mask of Zorro) and Eh, Who Gives A Flying Fuck (Vertical Limit, Beyond Borders, The Legend of Zorro). Unfortunately, Edge of Darkness falls under the latter category. It sucks when a movie leaves you feeling kind of ehhh about it, because it leaves you with very little to write about it. Evidently it also causes  you to write in the 2nd person as well. So you decide to wrap it up here and go back to sleep.

Shop smart, shop...K-mart?

"This ticket says Child on it."

Usually I'll get the Senior ticket, but I was like those guys scamming up the Tangiers' blackjack table in Casino, getting away with it for years and possibly getting away with it for even longer if it wasn't for getting greedy in the end. Thankfully, there is no Cheater's Justice at the cinema so all I had to do was pay the difference at Guest Services. I gave the manager my Child's ticket and I swear to you, nonexistent ladies & gentlemen, he gave me a look that said "So what?". But alas, he could not tell the twenty-something blonde girl who pinched me to look the other way, he had to lead by example. After that, Blondie happily accepted my now-revised-by-$3.50 ticket and I was finally off to Theater 18 to watch The Book of Eli.

This flick was directed by the Hughes Brothers, a couple of bastards who made a critically-acclaimed feature film a year shy of legal drinking age. The world was their oyster, motherfuckers were comparing their debut Menace II Society to some Scorsese throwing-down-the-gauntlet shit. I remember seeing that flick with my cousins in Inglewood and it remains today one of my all-time favorite moviegoing experiences for reasons I will leave up to you to figure out.

They followed it up with the just-as-awesome Dead Presidents but because that movie didn't do as well with critics or the box office, they got all butt-hurt and didn't do shit for a while until 2001 when they made yet another awesome flick, From Hell, but because THAT one also wasn't welcomed with open arms, they felt the ass-pain again and now here they are with their 4th feature film, all the way in 2010. (Yeah, I know they made a documentary called American Pimp, but I'm talking about real movies. You bet your fuckin' ass I said that shit.)

Denzel Washington plays the titular owner of the titular book, walking his way West through all the post-apocalyptic rubble. Because they came out relatively close to each other, you'll probably hear a lot of comparisons to The Road, but aside from a few scenes and the setting, they're pretty different. As it is, I'd put it down like this: The Road book > The Book of Eli > The Road movie. That's just my opinion, sorry.

Anyway, Denzel walks through with some belongings, some weapons, a fuckin' iPod, and a big fat leather-bound book. He walks into a small town run by Gary Oldman (looking a little like Tom Waits), intending to get some water and recharge the old batteries (both literally and figuratively), but it just happens to be that Oldman has been sending his men out to scavenge the wastelands for a certain book. How much you wanna bet it happens to be the book Denzel is carrying? And would you like to double your action by guessing the content of the book? Well, I'm not gonna take your goddamn bet because even one of the Gumbys from Monty Python could guess where this is going.

Along for the ride is Mila Kunis, playing one of the few post-apocalyptic survivors to have found stylish form-fitting jeans to wear; Jennifer Beals plays her mother and is still lookin' good; Punisher: War Zone shows up bald, playing Oldman's right-hand man (who plays into one of my fave movie cliches of being a villain who kills his own men!); and playing a store owner/fix-it man is none other than muthafuckin' Tom Waits (looking a little like Gary Oldman).

There are no laggers in this cast, they all give good performances without falling into their usual bag of tricks; Washington doesn't Denzel his shit up at all, he's totally committed as this character and Gary Oldman manages to be really creepy & scary without going too over-the-top. I mean, I *like* over-the-top Gary Oldman, but it's nice to see that he doesn't always have to pull that card to get the job done. A couple more older respected actors show up, but I'm gonna keep quiet on that, not because it's some Zombieland cameo shit, but because I just think it's more fun that way.

There are some cool action scenes in this movie, with the added bonus of Denzel doling out some choice ownage to particularly unlucky recipients. Pretty much everything Denzel does to a motherfucker both looks and (especially) sounds painful and you can definitely feel it. The action is a mixture of Yojimbo-style swordplay and Way of the Gun-style shootouts, served up with a dash of Waterworld-style absurdity. As you can see, this isn't the most original movie in the world; there's even one scene early on that feels straight-up jacked from Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior. But I think the Hughes Bros know that, I mean, there's a poster for A Boy and His Dog in the background in one scene, which I think tells you how aware they are of the kind of movie they're making.

Eli's got a very interesting look; Bleak is the name of the game, so all the colors are washed-out and the sky above is practically gray-scale. It's also nice to see that the Hughes' manage to make a cool-looking movie both in style and execution while still keeping the overall mise-en-scene old-fucking-school; they don't fuckin' Tony Scott the motherfucker in an attempt to make shit exciting. It's not shot in Confuse-O-Vision. There are no choppy chopped-up editeditedits. No Nu-Metal or Top 20 hits are worked in for no reason other than to sell soundtrack albums (there are a couple 70's hits, though, but it works). It's a goddamn Christmas miracle in January to see guys like these, guys with mucho style to burn and yet displaying both the confidence and discipline to use that style in a manner that doesn't overwhelm the goddamn movie you're watching.

Put this in the Good But Not Great category. It's a well-done and watchable example of the genre, but it never completely rocked my world. It certainly won't replace Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior (aka The Jew Hater's Gonna Get Dat Gas!) as my go-to post-apocalyptic action movie any time soon, but I felt I just about got my two hours worth (if not exactly my -- OUCH -- $10 worth). My only serious problem with Eli is the climax -- or more specifically, the lack of one.

You see, Eli is one of those movies with what I call a Stealth Climax, which is different than an anticlimax. One builds up to something that never happens and the other actually delivers, just not in the way you thought it would. In other words, I didn't know I was watching the climax while I was watching it. I thought I was watching the pre-climax action scene, the next-to-last action beat. But then, the movie goes on for another 15-20 minutes and somewhere along the way I realized nope, that's it, no more action. What follows makes up for it (the final revelation involving Eli reminded me of another old cult favorite), but still, that was some walking-down-the-stairs-expecting-one-more-step-and-getting-the-ground-instead shit for me.

The Book of Eli is the least of the Hughes Brothers' criminally short oeuvre, it did not continue the Awesome tradition but it was still kinda cool, and I hope this one does well enough so that they don't get fuckin' butt-hurt again and decide to sit out another fuckin' decade. I'll give John Patrick Shanley and Terrence Malick a 10+ year pass, but all the Hughes' will get is my props for sneakily putting in some Morricone in this movie.

One last thing, all I could think about while watching this, or post-apocalyptic movies in general (or any period piece that takes place before running water), is how fucking bad these people must smell. I mean, even fine-ass Mila Kunis can't be *that* clean in this kind of environment. I'd still hit it, though. Two times. Are you kidding me, like I have a choice in the matter to begin with. I'd be lucky to get Mila's uglier incontinent twin.

Quit giving me shit or I will beat the living fuck out of you, old man. Mind your goddamn business, I'll kiss her when I fucking feel like it.

One of the first things my ex-con friend did after getting out of the joint was pick up a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, because staying buff and getting buffer is his life now. Problem is, they gave him a free 7-day pass to foist onto someone else and it looks like I am someone else. Fuck. Simply put, I don't do the exercise thing. I have a perfectly good routine where I remain sedentary and hatefully stuff my fat fuckin' face with Triple Combos from Wendy's, washed down with a large container of caffeinated sugar water. I did once have a brief dalliance with weightlifting, which appears to have resulted in the right side of my gut now being slightly larger than the left. That's either the Big C, a pre-Discovery Channel tumor ("It's not a too-mah!") or a fuckin' hernia, and since I don't have health insurance, your guess is as good as mine and what's life without a little mystery?

Enough about that, let's talk about The Adorable Amy Adams' new film, Leap Year. Some people have been commenting online that Amy Adams is gonna fuck it up for herself by doing crap movies like this one, but personally I think her Quality-to-Shit ratio is still pretty good. To me, only Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian and this one were the only flicks flaunting red flags; I'd never consider watching these goddamn things if it weren't for the lovely Ms. Adams being in them. She was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the other night, looking as adorable as usual, which was a surprise to me because nothing fucks up a cute girl like pregnancy. Yet such is the power of The Amy that I found her just as Awww-inducing as she was pre-mistake. Maybe it's because as I looked at her with that burden in her belly, I couldn't help but flash back to her role in Junebug, the flick that made me fall in love with her for the second time (Catch Me If You Can was the first).

Okay, so Amy Adams plays this chick who furnishes empty apartments to look so fucking good people will want to rent them. If that's a real job, then holy shit, because it fuckin' sounds like one of those painfully cute fake occupations that screenwriters like coming up with for these kinds of fuckin' movies. She's been going out with some douche for 4 years and after her friend who resembles a cracked-out version of Reese Witherspoon tells her that she saw him leaving an expensive jewelry store, it looks like she's finally getting hitched. Except she's not, he only bought her earrings. Beautiful and expensive earrings, but what does that matter to a woman with a predetermined destiny in mind? Ain't that a bitch. For all the good it did, he might as well have fuckin' bought this chick some shower curtain rings from Del Griffith.

Anyway, the boyfriend jets off to Dublin for whatever-the-fuck reason and then John Lithgow shows up, and rather than dress up in women's clothes or kidnap her baby or strangle her with a watch garrote, he instead tells her about how it's some kind of tradition in Ireland that women are allowed to propose marriage on Leap Day. Because we wouldn't have a movie otherwise, she hops on a plane and heads over to the land of leprechauns and potatoes and gets mixed up with one of these slightly rugged country types who she pays to drive her to Dublin and wackiness ensues.

You know, I just wasted your time and mine with that last paragraph because it's all in the trailer, I should've just posted that instead. This is a front-runner for the 2010 Award for Best Example of Trailer as Cliff Notes; last year's winner was the trailer for Brothers. Nearly all the beats the characters go through and the major plot points are given to you in the trailer. That's another reason I wouldn't want to see this if it was starring say, Kate Hudson, but because The Adorable Amy Adams is in it, here I go marching to the ticket kiosk like a dumbass sliding my gift card in and pressing the button marked "Child". Having said that, it could've been a hell of a lot fucking worse for a cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers romantic comedy -- a lot fucking worse, like the trailers for the romantic comedies they were showing before this one; Valentine's Day (aka Ka-Ching, Money in the Bank!) and When In Rome starring Kristen Bell, who I dig but not nearly as much as Ms. Adams so it's DVD for that shit.

But yeah, it wasn't that bad, believe it or not. It started a bit tough, but somewhere near the end of the first act it began to win me over a tad. Or maybe the first act wasn't that bad to begin with and I was still suffering from the noxious trailers that preceded it. Whatever the case, I started digging it more once Adams and that fuckin' murdering asshole Adrian Veidt hit the road to Dublin. Part of the fun is that both characters are slightly douchebaggy people trying to pass themselves off as hot shit, just like the rest of us. Yup, that's right, I'm speaking for you too. Unlike most movies of its ilk, Leap Year recognizes this and doesn't have any problem taking these motherfuckers down a few pegs every once in a while. At least that's how I see it, and if I'm wrong, then this movie is all the more worse for it.

It was actually kind of fun to watch The Adorable Amy Adams spar off with Adrian Veidt, they had a nice chemistry going on that didn't induce feelings in me to make loud retching noises in the theater -- not that I would, I'm not that kind of asshole. You know where this movie is going, but the leads are so charming in spite of their characters, that it makes this bullshit so much easier to sit through. Dare I say it, Amy Adams and that sneaky fuckin' Veidt manage to elevate this to the level of Watchable. For a while it plays like Planes, Trains and Automobiles except it's NOOOOOO-WHERE near as good and it wouldn't be nearly as fucked up if Adrian Veidt woke up with his other hand between Ms. Adams' two pillows. There is little-to-no cringe factor which is pretty fucking good for this kind of movie, at least until the ending which you don't even have to see to already know not just what will happen but how it'll be shot, edited, and scored.

I really don't have much to say about this movie because that's the kind of movie it is. It's completely innocuous froth, nothing really special here aside from the beautiful scenery and the Adorable Amy Adams, the latter of which is the only reason I'm even bothering to write about this. There were other more deserving flicks I didn't write about in the past 12 months. Shit, I didn't even blog about The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans and that shit had me geeking out to THE BREAK OF DAWN! And that movie had iguanas! Iguanas are awesome! Motherfuckin' Iguana-Cam! Yet I didn't blog about that fuckin' movie but here I am rambling about *this* fuckin' movie because I guess I have to be consistent with the Amy Adams love here on this terrible excuse for a blog. It's all good though, because I dig this chick, she's a swell gal.

Anyway, Leap Year hits the right notes for its type while never taking a chance to surprise you at all. You've seen this movie before and if you have a girlfriend or wife, you'll probably see this type of movie a hundred times more. Overall, I thought it was a pleasant time-killer, more of a testament to the ability of the leads elevating the material than anything else. Of course, I was probably watching this through Amy Adams-colored glasses, so fuck what I just said and just plunk down the ducats for Avatar instead.

All right, I'm off to bed to prepare for the first of my seven days of pain and embarrassment, or at least more pain and embarrassment than usual. Yup, I finally gave in and in a matter of hours I will be making an ass of myself at the gym because I don't want to be a dick to my friend. So if you're working out at a 24 Hour Fitness and notice a fat ugly loser cry and shit himself after two reps of lifting 20 lb. weights, that's probably me and there will most likely be paramedics and oxygen masks involved and all that I ask is that you do not camera-phone that shit and send it to YouTube. Please, have a heart for once.

For what, I have no idea.

It's a new year and new disappointments await. But new movies also await, so I'm going to give this blog another round of attempts for a while. One thing I'll be doing is collecting ticket stubs again; I used to put them away in a photo album from '93 to '99 until I suddenly developed a sense of douchebag self-consciousness and stopped. God forgive me, I actually was kinda embarrassed by something so geeky. I've gotten over that bullshit a long, long time ago, so I'm doing it again. I'm also going to take a log of every movie I see this year (just for S&G's) and I'll post them in separate blog entries. I got the idea from people better than me, and I think it's an interesting idea and it might be fun (for me) to look at by the end of the year, should I make it that far without giving head to a double-barrel.

Anyway, here's the latest movie I watched at the theater. I think I'm going to start to refer to movie theaters as "the cinema" from now on, just because I like the sound of it and because I need to pretentious it up a tad more on this here blog. Daybreakers is the new movie by a couple of Fosters drinking motherfuckers called the Spierig Brothers. Their last movie was the zombie flick Undead and I'm sorry to admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of that one, I'd have to put it under the category of Appreciated More Than Liked. Daybreakers, on the other hand, I'd have to put under the category of Pretty Fucking Sweet. The introduction titles are in muted red lettering over black screen, and if you're watching a genre movie with those kind of credits, you know what that means: this is gonna be a bloody fuckin' movie.

The movie takes place in the not-so-distant future, where some kind of virus or something has turned most people on Earth into vampires. I'm guessing it was some Patient Zero type of shit and he or she bit someone, and that person bit someone, and so on and so on. I'm not too sure because I noticed the movie was slightly out-of-focus and after the pre-credits sequence it was still blurry, so while everyone sits back and does nothing, I'm the motherfucker who has to jump out and run out of the auditorium to tell someone/anyone/everyone that the goddamn projectionist has to wake the fuck up. By the time I got back, the credits were long over and if there was a montage or Star Wars-style crawl explaining the situation in detail, I missed it. But I got the general idea.

So it's been like ten years since everyone started rolling like Nosferatu, and those who didn't turn were hunted down and farmed out into worst-case-scenario blood banks. They're put to sleep and hooked into machines that slowly drain precious precious plasma from their bodies. It's some Matrix-looking shit, and it must really suck to be in that situation. But then again, who knows, it might even suck more to be a fuckin' vampire. Sure, fuckin' Sam Neill's character would never admit it, he's busy going on about how awesome it is to be able to live forever now and stay the same age. He's the main dude of the company in charge of milking the comatose humans of blood (or maybe "blooding" is more appropriate?) and the idea is that eventually they won't have to use humans anymore because he's got his people working on a blood substitute. Well, eventually better fucking happen right now because they have only enough human blood to last another month, and after that's gone all the vamps are gonna start mutating into some nasty winged creatures. So, like I said, it might suck more to be a vampire. Holy shit -- I just realized I used the word "suck" three times in this paragraph and I wasn't being punny about it either. Give me a fuckin' cookie, people.

Sam Neill is on the motherfucker, he's got his best blood doctors on the job and the best of the best is played by Ethan Hawke, who is basically playing Ethan Hawke if he was a vampire. That is to say, he's a complete bleeding-heart liberal about the whole Vampire > Human equation. He refuses to drink human blood (I must have missed the part where it's explained what he drinks instead) and feels bad about all these poor rampant humans being rounded up and given the Capri-Sun treatment. So he's doubly desperate to find a blood substitute, because he wants humans to be left alone and because he doesn't want to turn into an ugly From Dusk Till Dawn vampire.

Of course, this isn't the entire plot because if it was, that would make this shit some kind of vampire version of And The Band Played On or something while weepy-ass Hawke furtively stares into microscopes and beakers. Nah man, this story soon gets into action territory and some really good shit as the blood starts to flow and flesh begins to fry. If you're like me, it's at this point that you ask yourself Can This Movie Get Any Cooler and it's right after that moment that Willem Dafoe shows up to answer that shit with a resounding Fuckin' A. I don't know how much is given away in the trailers or commercials because I haven't seen them. Come to think of it, I have no idea how I found out about this movie in the first place, all I know is that I looked up the listings for upcoming flicks and recognized the name Daybreakers, so I must have seen that shit somewhere.

Is David Goyer okay with this movie, by the way? I'm asking because the entire premise of Daybreakers is pretty much based on a deleted scene from Blade. It was supposed to explain how the vampires were going to get by if the villain's plan to turn everyone into vampires succeeded. Goyer then tried to writing it into Blade II but it didn't make the final cut, and finally he triumphed in having the blood farm idea placed in Blade Trinity, but since nobody but me and David Goyer liked that one, I guess it doesn't count and the idea is public domain, so the Spierigs were like "Crikey, we oughta make a film 'bout that, mate! Oy, put that didgeridoo down and pass me another Fosters and toss another shrimp on the barbie and put on Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles and don't forget to feed Dingo before he attacks the kangaroo again" because that's how Australians roll. Visually, the movie sometimes reminded me of Blade too, with the night scenes shot in a soft fluorescent lighting style that gives everyone a pale blue skintone, backed up with a production design that contrasts the pale blue with deep crimson. Okay, so it might be a tad derivative in the setup, but the execution is lots of fun and full of enough of its own cool original ideas that it balances out nicely.

This is mainly an action flick, but there are quite a few genuinely good scares and nasty shocks peppered throughout. I honestly didn't see a few of them coming and actually jumped -- and I hardly ever jump at these things. There are a couple that are lame and that's because they're those stupid fucking Boo! fake jump moments, where something jumps out and it's a fuckin' cat or something. It's weird, I can always sense a lame fake scare moment coming and I guess that's why I'm not a big jumper in the first place. The whole setting was pretty fascinating to watch, I would've loved to have watched a movie about this vampire world even without all the exploding bodies. I read a random tweet on Twitter from someone saying that the Underworld movies own this fuckin' flick, and all I can say to this unknown dude is I feel sorry for your mother. Underworld was a decent movie but way too fuckin' stretched out and long. Not this movie, this moves at a good pace and when it was over I kinda wished there was more to see, whereas with Underworld, I was a little glad it was finally over.

I liked the details -- both big and little -- of the vampire society. People still eat and drink, but blood is the main additive; for example, people line up at their local coffee joint for a nice hot cup of java mixed with O-Positive. I also liked how the vampires get around the whole daylight thing by using underground walkways that hook up to every house and building in the city, and automobiles are equipped with special windows that block out all that harmful UV. It was an interesting touch that some of the vampires in this movie are heavy smokers; since the only thing that can kill a vampire is sunlight or a stake in the heart, a nicotine-jonesing motherfucker is now able to tell Cancer to go fuck itself and get his or her smoke on. I understand the show True Blood kinda touches on this kind of shit, but I wouldn't know because I'd never watch the motherfucker and besides, I had to cancel HBO a while ago. On the plus side, they gave me a year of free Showtime and The Movie Channel so now I can rock the Splatterday double features like a mutha.

There used to be a time when there were low-to-medium budget genre pics like Daybreakers filling the cineplex, movies that may not have had the best special effects or biggest stars, but became hits simply by being Good Times. You don't see that shit so often anymore, now these kinds of flicks are either mega-budget studio tentpoles or ultra-low-rent SyFy Channel filler. So it's cool that Lionsgate is kinda making such movies their bread & butter, and hopefully Daybreakers will do well enough to let them produce more of these types of flicks. I'm sure they'll eventually pull a New Line and try playing with the big boys, and I'm fine with that as long as they don't lose their balls when it comes to making R-rated movies with a Capital Fucking RRRRRR. No shit, these guys produced Rambo, Punisher War Zone, Crank: High Voltage, and yes, even those fucking Saw movies. All those movies did not shy away from the red stuff, they never had a hint of trying to possibly go for a PG-13 like most genre movies do nowadays. Yes, I'm aware that they fucked over Midnight Meat Train and to a lesser extent, Blood Creek, but nobody's perfect.

The cast is good; with the exception of Hawke, Neill and Dafoe, these were all new faces to me. The guy who played Hawke's brother did a great job being an asshole; I think you're supposed to feel sorry for him toward the end but not me, man. Fuck that guy. Supposedly Mungo from Undead is here, and if that movie had made a bigger impression on me maybe I'd have recognized him. It's funny, I think I like Ethan Hawke more when he's doing genre stuff and not in the roles that scream I'm More Than A Pretty Face, I'm An AC-TOR. Whatever, I'm sure he finds this kind of shit beneath him. I wouldn't be surprised if he looks down on Explorers, so fuck that asshole.

I remember reading this book by Peter Biskind that was either titled Harvey Weinstein Is A Fat Fucking Bully Who Ruins Movies And Won't Stop Eating, or Down and Dirty Pictures, I'm not sure. Hawke was among the many actors and filmmakers interviewed and there was a bit where he was bitching about how his name is good enough for a studio to shell out $40 million if you want to make a cop movie, but they won't give a 1/4 of that to him and Richard Linklater to make A Scanner Darkly. I don't remember what my point is or if I had one to begin with, other than I think it's pretty funny that the movie did eventually get made, but they cast Keanu Reeves instead and Hawke got assed out.

Anyway, I dug this movie. It was fun, there was plenty of blood and action and suspense and all that shit. The filmmakers should've gone out of their way to throw a few titties in there for homeboy, but whatever, it's still good times. But there are no half-naked queer triplets that turn into werewolves, so unless your chick is awesome, she'll probably want to go see the other vampire movie. Sorry bro, it's the way of the world.