One, definitely. Two, maybe.

I don't think I've mentioned the Vista Theatre in this here blog, probably because I haven't gone to it nearly enough times. It's in Los Feliz, technically closer to me than the other cool theaters in Los Angeles, and yet here I am counting on one hand the amount of times I've gone there.

But now I can use two hands because I went there back-to-back over the weekend and I think I'll go over there more now. What happened, dear reader, was that I was scared away by the parking situation; you're looking for parking on side streets in a residential neighborhood and Parking Enforcement is ever-roving so you can't even pull some slick shit or you'll get a piece of paper on your windshield wiper and there you'll be, approaching your car with dread while a part of you still hopes that what you've got there under the wiper is a flyer or menu -- anything!

Did I ever tell you one of my greatest accomplishments in fucking up was going to Beverly Hills to throw myself at the mercy of the court over a ticket only to come out and realize my street sign reading comprehension was not strong that day and now I had a parking ticket to contend with? People walking past me had no idea why the chubby Mexican-American was applauding himself in the middle of the sidewalk, but he sure did.

So yes, parking fright. But now I know what to do -- show up for the latest showing possible. Which come to think of it makes total fucking sense considering the only time I feel comfortable driving in that city -- or any city! or any town! anywhere! -- is late at night. Driving in Los Angeles during the day is a genuine waking nightmare for me while driving in L.A. late night style is one of my favorite things to do.

And thanks to these fuckin' Nerds, I was able to arrive at the Vista around 11pm and find parking and get in line for a 25th Anniversary screening of The Rocketeer, the latest monthly midnight show by Nerds Like Us. Yeah, this is the one about the guy Cliff Secord who finds the jet pack (created by Howard Hughes -- and I'm still upset that The Aviator skips over this whole chapter of his life) that enables him to take to the sky without burning his ass, dealing with mobsters and Nazis and a sorta/kinda Errol Flynn. Yup, 2016 is the 25th Anniversary of its release, and it's also the 25th Anniversary of Me Wondering When Is The Sequel Gonna Come Out.

Yeah, The Rocketeer was my shit then and it's my shit now but it ain't no shit movie and if you think that then you, my non-friend are shit. OK, that was too much. I don't get that upset about someone not sharing my love for a film, I just feel sorry for them. Because while they complain about there not being Rocketeer action, they're inadvertently forest/tree-ing themselves out of so much more to enjoy.

They're unable to take in, say, the 1938 Los Angeles settings and enjoy this sorta-idealized universe with the classic cars and where people listened to the radio instead of watching television and you dressed to the nines to take your lady over to the South Seas Club where Jan from The Office sang sadly from out of a giant clam shell and everything was Art Deco as fuck (the Art Deco movie poster for this film is among my favorite things evaaaaarrrr) and it's a world that one gentleman may kinda secretly want to transport yourself to, were it not for the fact that as an oily Latin he would have to change his name to Eric Franklin Carson and try to Anglo that shit up and hope they give a shit about the suspiciously brown-skinned gentleman so long as he can keep playing that bass while giving us that swing! Wait! Where was I? Oh yes, these poor unfortunates who cannot enjoy The Rocketeer for what it is, and instead only concentrate on what it isn't.

What it is is a throwback to serials of the 1930s and 40s without ever having to duplicate them -- in other words, this isn't some Grindhouse type deal (not that there's anything wrong with that), this is more of a Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars game being played here, where the filmmakers were clearly inspired by entertainment from the good ol' days, took that retro sensibility and made something modern out of it -- albeit a modern film that takes place in the past. Huh? Wha? I don't...OK.

I'm trying to be the one posting about The Rocketeer that doesn't use the term "gee-whiz" and would you look at that? I failed. But I'll throw in this instead and pretend the previous sentence doesn't exist: Sincerity. Fuckin' film is sincere as fuck. No snark and only small traces of irony in this smooth rolled cigarette of a film,  you can take a puff and not worry about any of those additives and instead enjoy the pure richness of the smoke.

I was originally going to use a marijuana simile up there but I want to keep in spirit of the time period, and back then there were many more who believed the cheeba would turn you into a piano-playing werewolf or at the very least, made you associate with Negroes. Speaking of which, I hate when this happens but I do sometimes wonder about Secord and his hot girlfriend Jenny Blake and Peevy his mechanic/best bud and his buddies at the awesome Bulldog Cafe (it's awesome!) and I wonder how many of them were not fans of my Black brothers and sisters. I mean, I don't think there's a single African-American in this film, or I wasn't looking hard enough.

Remember, this was back when America was great and you didn't need the Internet to hide behind, you were allowed to be open about hating on anything non-White or Christian or whatever with your fellow Joes, Jims, Janes, and Jennys (oh no, not you too, Jenny!) Whoever runs the Bulldog Cafe at least seems to be OK enough with mi gente because that place proudly proclaims tamales as one of its specialties (and besides, someone has to wash the dishes, am I right?) but I won't eat Tamale One in that motherfucker unless my colored friend over here can join in.

So I'm cool with this sequel I've heard talked about, where the new Rocketeer would be a Black woman. It would at the very least, piss off all the assholes out there -- but I like to imagine that my fellow Rocketeer fans carry ourselves a far more civilized about that kind of thing, rather than your average foam-mouthed rabid Ghostbusters fanatic who just couldn't stand vaginas rubbing against the crotches of those jumpsuits.

The special effects are not embarrassingly dated, more like impressively dated; the flying effects are nice and I'm particularly a fan of some of the model work here, like everything involving that Nazi zeppelin -- no, not for what it stands for, I'm just saying watching it blimp around over the L.A. skyline still looks impressive, and watching that Nazi aircraft go up in flames is pretty awesome too. Speaking of flaming Nazi blimps, I'm still trying to figure that one shot where Cliff and Jenny are standing on top of it and in the background the blimp is beginning to explode section by section, causing the giant walls of flame to get closer and closer to our hero and heroine; it doesn't look like two different shots blended together, it looks like they set up those blasts for real and even if they told me that those charges were only set up so far, I'd still be nervous about standing anywhere in the vicinity.

(Of course, the greatest special effect in the film is Jennifer Connelly as Jenny Blake, who has one of my favorite filmic introductions ever with that wolf-whistle-worthy shot of a stocking being pulled up one of her lovely gams before finally ending on a close-up of her face. And I can wolf-whistle here because this is 1938, back when women knew their place and weren't all about wanting to be treated equal -- HA! Equal? As in the same as Men! HA HA! The kitchen is *that* way, honey!)

Before the screening they had a costume contest; the winners were a couple dressed like Cliff and Jenny, and a dude dressed like Dick Tracy -- and that's a double feature for your ass right there! I sat a few seats down from a lady who had a Rocketeer helmet and she was cool with me taking a photo of her, as were Cliff and Jenny.

They either showed us a DCP or Blu-ray at this screening (I'm betting on the latter), and while I've would've loved to see a 35mm print of this again, I was just happy to see it on a big screen in a packed house of fellow Rocketeer fans. There was even more cheering and laughter here than when I saw it back in June '91; I hoped/expected the crowd to cheer when mobster Eddie Valentine says that "I may not make an honest dime..." line and sure enough they did -- as did I -- and it felt so good. It's such an awesome moment in a film full of them, this film with such an innocence and hope to it that watching it now in these dark and hopeless times it gave me a little jolt of Hey, Maybe We'll Be OK and I know that's bullshit but I love those little moments in life. 

That line, which I won't totally give out in case you haven't seen it, is a patriotic line and it's a fictional character in a movie about flying jet packs and giant Aryan assassins and yet I find more sincerity in it that all all the campaign rallies and speeches from the past year. I wonder how many people cheered so loudly in that theater when he says it for more than one reason; not just because we see a character make a turn not expected, but because it's said with a kind of unabashed justified pride and it doesn't come off like FUCK OFF YA'LL THIS IS MURICA but more like, shit, man, we ain't fuckin' Nazis, bro -- they're the bad guys! Shit, I don't even believe in Good Guys or Bad Guys anymore except in movies. It's all a matter of perspective and what side of the ocean you happen to have been born in, I'm afraid. What's that line in Zero Effect? "There are no good guys or bad guys. It's all just a bunch of guys"? I used to think that was a stupid line. 

I noticed a small poster at the box office for a midnight screening of the 1983 Scarface and I thought Hmm...and so I went back to the Vista the following night to catch Scarface on the big screen -- no, not the original Howard Hawks joint, this is the one with Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who comes to Miami, U.S.A. and rises up to the top of the cocaine mountain and proceeds to snort All The Cocaine.

This screening was being held by the 35mm Secret Movie Club, and I'm sorry that I just blew the secret but there you go. It's pretty cool; monthly midnight screenings of a classic film on 35mm. The ticket prices are higher than your average cineplex stub -- $20 general, with student discounts and you can also get a discounted price if you use the Venmo site -- but that all goes to help cover the cost of renting the print. This screening of Scarface left many an empty seat in comparison to their other screenings (which based on these videos, had far better attendance), so charging extra probably helped make that nut.

So you RSVP the Club via e-mail, and I figured it was similar to a midnight screening of The Room -- just so the people behind the screening know how many to expect. But you're actually put on a list, and since I didn't put my name on the list but rather the name of the blog, that's who I had to ask for upon seeing said list. The gentleman in the blue suit outside the theater manning the table and hosting the screening (I'm sure he's the dude in charge of this) asked for my name and I had to point it out on the paper, this "Exiled from Contentment" bullshit, and he said it was "an intense name".

When he said that, he was being friendly but I detected maybe a bit of worry in the voice? I wanted to assure him with an energetic upbeat response like: "Oh, it's not meant to be intense, it's the name of my blog. I came up with the name and the blog during a down period in my life, and even then, I was kinda poking fun at my situation. But out of context, yeah, I'm sure it does sound intense and yes I'm by myself on a Saturday night and yes I've been told I have an angry face which probably adds to it and being alone + angry face + intense e-mail name = Brooding Loner, but I'm actually OK, and I'm more of a solitary guy anyway and I'm happy to be here and I'm sure it's going to be a good time tonight thanks for having this!"

But what I heard myself saying in response was: "Uh-huh."

He asked me for my actual name and I gave it to him and he was very nice, as I'm sure you would be when faced with a Brooding Loner because most B.L.s own guns and you know how *those* assholes do. So I found myself overcompensating with smiles and cheer to convince him I wasn't one of them -- was I trying to convince myself DUN DUN DUN

So before the film, the gentleman in the blue suit comes out, welcomes us, tells us about some upcoming films, asks us to vote on which potential films should be the next ones screened, and then he tells us about knowing someone who worked on Scarface as an assistant editor. According to this guy, Brian De Palma shot everything with 5 cameras and ended up exposing over a million feet of film, and this guy knows because he had to sync all 1 million feet of film for the editors. The way this guy told it to him, he still sounded exhausted from the experience.

That's very interesting to me because in interviews De Palma always seemed like he was big on Hitchcock's approach to filmmaking, which is to say, have every shot in the film planned out and composed to get a certain effect. And I remember in Julie Salomon's book "The Devil's Candy", it was brought up that because De Palma shot that way, there was very little one could do with that footage other than change the pacing.

My best guess is that De Palma does shoot that way but he also doesn't find anything wrong with covering his ass, and I'm sure even if he is pretty sure he only wants a scene shot a certain way, who's to say he doesn't shoot it in various different paces or tempos -- and who's to say he doesn't shoot a bunch of takes either?

So the film begins, and I can tell by the soundtrack (and the Focus Features logo) that this is the 2003 re-release version, which is the same movie only the sound has been remixed and some of the sound effects have been replaced or edited differently. Personally, I prefer this mix; I'm usually a purist (see my Facebook complaint about the new sound mix on the Sorcerer Blu-ray) but I always felt the only thing not over-the-top about this over-the-top movie was the sound. I remember watching this for the first time on VHS; we had just purchased a surround sound system and I was getting spoiled on watching movies with thundering bass and crisp dialogue and sounds coming from behind. And here comes Scarface with Giorgio Moroder's awesome synth music setting me up for something awesome, and it was -- until that tension-filled sequence early on in the Sun Ray Motel, as Manny sneaks up to the door with that MAC-10 submachine gun while a few feet away in the bathroom Hector the Chainsaw Wielding Colombian is about to give Tony Montana the Angel Hernandez treatment and I'm on the edge of my seat ready for some fucking retaliatory ownage about to happen.

"AHORA TU!" shouts Hector the Chainsaw-Wielding Colombian.

And then we see the glass-shuttered door to the motel room split in half by Manny's MAC-10, only, uh, only I'm not hearing any serious rat-a-tat coming from that weapon. I'm hearing something akin to a sheet of paper being torn right beside my ear while someone drop dishes on the floor a few feet away. This is gunfire? I asked myself as this happened -- and I would ask myself again anytime someone fired a weapon during this film. OK, sure, I acknowledged. It was always kind of a secret bummer for me, even though I was a fan of the movie. Even my first time watching it on the big screen (December '02 at the Egyptian Theater with a Steven Bauer Q&A) in a 35mm print featuring an impressive four-track stereo mix, it would bring the enjoyment down a tad when they busted out that sub-1960s sound effect library for the gunshots.

But they fixed it with the new (well new in '03) mix, so now when Manny gives that door a 9mm knock-knock, it sounds like it should: Fucking Awesome. The first time I heard it, I was like "Wha...?" and I wasn't sure until a couple seconds later when Manny then ventilates Grace Zabriskie's Cracked-Out Colombian Cousin aka "Marta" and I was like Hell Yeah That's What I'm Talking About!

I'll be honest, they did fix some things I would've preferred unfixed -- like that weird moment during the final shootout when they cut to a close-up of a long-haired assassin who has just been shot up by Tony and he's clearly dead as he slides down the barrier, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed and yet he gives out this loud "AUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!" That's gone in the new mix, but hey, it's a fair trade for some awesome gunfire and an opened-up more detailed-sounding music score. That's the peace I've had to make after I tried and failed to make Fetch happen by having Dead Guy Goes AUUUUUUGGGHHHH become the new Han Shot First.

(They also took out the funny "AYYYY!" yelp Tony makes after he's hit in the shoulder by a bullet during the same shootout, replacing it with a more theatrical "AAAAH-AHHH")

You want to hear something fucked up? Well, you can't -- because this is a blog with written words, not a podcast with me saying shit. Anyway, I've never seen the original 1932 Scarface starring Paul Muni. I will fix that someday. No, really, I will. I have, like, 50 movies on my DVR, 200 DVDs, and 800 DVD-Rs, and dozens of movie files on various flash and hard drives -- but I'm sure I'll get to that movie soon.

But I've seen this on VHS twice; the first time in '95. It was one of the first films I bought on laserdisc and suddenly friends were coming out of the woodwork asking me to dub it on tape for them. I've seen it on the big screen about, let's see -- Egyptian, New Beverly, Magic Johnson, Arclight, Brea Plaza, Vista -- six times, at least six times if I'm missing any other screenings. It's good times, dude -- an over-the-top glorious three-hour spectacle of foulmouthed excess full of "chicas, champagne, flash", early 80s pre-Miami Vice style (the role of Miami played by Los Angeles), endlessly quotable dialogue by a recently sober Oliver Stone who still had plenty of residual coked-up vibes to spare, Brian De Palma's pitch-perfect operatic direction, and lots and lots of beautiful fine white COOOO-FUCKIN-CAINE! and it never got boring for me. I'm beyond/beneath being able to tell you if a movie is good or bad -- I can't tell you if Al Pacino's performance is genuinely good or not, for example -- just that I got entertainment value out of it, and holy shit am I always entertained by this film. The history of my Scarface viewing, by E.F.C., lady and gentleman!

Something that never fails to amuse me is whenever Tony goes to visit his mother. She's played by Puerto Rican actress Miriam Colon and she's definitely better at the accent than Pacino; everything she says is tinged with Cubano but her words are as clear as Crystal Geyser. On the other side of the accent spectrum, Tony Montana's all EY FAH KJOO MANG JOO FAHK WEETH MEE JOOR FAHKEENG WEE D BESS and I'm thinking maybe that garblespeak is a result of his mixed-up upbringing with his American dad taking him to Bogart movies? Or maybe it's because Colon's character Mama Montana has been alive longer so then she had more time to improve her English over the years? But that's assuming that when they're speaking English to each other, De Palma's not pulling a Red October for the audience so in reality they're speaking in their native tongues -- which would then mean that when she says "Five years. Cinco anos." she's really saying "Cinco anos. Five years." and now I'm even more tired now than when I started this shit.

Mama Montana tells Tony that it's Cubans like him who make their people look bad, those who work hard and obey the laws and speak English without sounding like half-a-stroke-victim. There's also another part in the film where a Cuban-American fed angrily tells Tony something like "You make a real Cuban throw up" and I guess stuff like that is the filmmakers trying to cover their asses so people don't walk away thinking this is a representation of your average Cuban in the United States. But my favorite example of Ass-Covering is the disclaimer that they wait until after nearly all the end credits have rolled up and you know the name of every one of those awesome songs they blasted at the Babylon Club and even then it's like ten seconds. It's cool because that means the many ushers around the world came away from that movie knowing #NotAllCubanAmericans when it comes to cocaine and chainsaws.

And that's because it was Colombians that were rocking the 'saws.

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?

Facebook ramblings - May 2016

In which our blogger posts his mini-ramblings from Facebook on some of the films he watched that particular month.

The Specialist (Rewatch. DVR.)

This was during that '94-'95 period of movies about bombs going off. When I finally caught it on VHS, I thought it was OK. Today, I liked it more. I think my problem back then was that there really wasn't much action in this Stallone flick, practically non-existent compared to Demolition Man and Cliffhanger before it. 

But I get it, Stallone was probably trying to wean us off the macho shoot-em-up/beat-em-ups with stuff like this and Assassins, but he overestimated his audience, who complained about the lack of action and so that's why there are two scenes in this film that were added way after the fact in order to beef up the beat up. 

The first is the scene on the bus where he kicks a motherfucker out the window, and the second is a hotel kitchen scrap where he kicks a motherfucker into a vat of boiling water that was just there, just standing there and boiling, waiting for some poor soul to fall into it -- and then, oh man, and then it was time to boil a motherfucker. Evil Boiling Water Vat. It is coming to get all of us. Turn your back on it long enough, and that's your ass. 

It's never boring, that's for sure, getting goofier as it goes on, and getting awesome whenever James Woods popped up. Oh man, that scene with him on the phone with Stallone while trying to get a trace on him while trying not to lose his shit is in and of itself Good Times. Even if you haven't seen the film and don't want to, I highly recommend finding his scenes on YouTube, because sure enough, there are clips of his performance there.

Man, that Sharon Stone, huh? Believe it or not, she did nothing for me back then, probably on account of that I was gay. But since then Jesus Christ has shown me the way and I now drink the gay away and try not to take it out on my wife and kids during our picnics on the way to see Joel Osteen live. 

(Just don't tell anyone that once I'm at the Osteen event, I excuse myself to the bathroom for a little foot-tapping action.)

Watching her now, though, wow. I still don't quite agree with her and Stallone banging on a hotel shower floor, I don't care how nice that hotel is, even nice hotels are dirty. I once lost my good judgment one late night in Ensenada during Spring Break, after I stumbled into the hotel room we were all staying at and crashed on the floor because I was hammered. When I woke up and realized I was cheek to cheek with the carpet with nothing between us, I reacted as if I were the girl in Creepshow 2 who was laying on the raft when that oil blob thing got her. 

Whatever, Stone looked great and so did the whole film. I really liked the look of the movie, particularly the night scenes with Miami done up with neon lights. The music is fucking great too; you got some good John Barry shit here (sounding like some 70s/80s Bond work) as well as a great soundtrack produced by/featuring the Estefans. I didn't care for the cover of "Turn the Beat Around" but that might have to do with me not liking that song in its original version either. Not an active dislike, it just didn't do much for me, like Sharon Stone back when I was gay -- OK, that's a joke that I'm about to run into the ground; what it really was was that Winona Ryder was more my speed back then. Hell, she's my speed now. 

Holy shit, David Fincher at one point was going to direct this but the studio couldn't stand the stench of Alien 3 on him. So they hired Luis Llosa instead, and I guess hiring him was as brown as it was going to get for this production because they got Eric Roberts and Rod Steiger to play Cubans, but it's cool because Eric Roberts is my dude and Steiger apparently thought he was in Pawnbroker 2: Still Brokin' which means he's fun to watch. I dug his Cuban accent, particularly when he tells Woods to "take the bitch" except it comes out "take de beeessssssssh". His final scene is Good Times x 2 too. 

Anyway, this would've played better as one of those made-for-cable movies starring Pierce Brosnan, during that time in his career when he was keeping himself limber for his eventual call to James Bond duty.

Thief (Rewatch. Blu-ray.)

Man, that Mann was sure something. Still is, but I'm just saying his last couple films weren't OMG SO GOOD quality but I dug 'em all the same. Anyway, this mofo came out fuckin' blazing with his first theatrical film. It holds up, man(n). Stylish as all get-out, and if you ever here anyone tell you that it's kinda cold and methodical, then Anyone clearly wasn't paying attention to that incredible scene in the diner between James Caan and Tuesday Weld. 

Hey, so that postcard Caan's character carries with him, that would qualify as a "vision board", wouldn't it? I never heard of a vision board until I heard the comedian Maria Bamford talk about them. I guess you create a collage from pasted pictures out of magazines and other stuff of what you want in your life and I guess that manifests itself eventually. Which sounds a little like that "The Secret" bullshit. 

I keep calling stuff like The Secret and vision boards "bullshit" but then I look at the last ten years of my life and I think, shit, maybe I'm the asshole here. At least Caan's character had the excuse of being in prison. What did *I* fuckin' do?! So excuse me while I go out and make myself a vision board. And if you haven't seen this film yet, go manifest yourself a copy of Thief with a vision board before I turn your whole family into Wimpy Burgers.

The Quick and the Dead (Rewatch. DVR.)

I saw this back during my "I Don't Get Sharon Stone" days, but I saw it because I sure as hell got the fuck out of Sam Goddamn Raimi. 

I think I know why I wasn't that big on Stone back then; I remember reading on some AOL movie message board about how she wasn't the easiest person to get along with on a movie set, and the guy who posted on the message board admitted to pissing into a bathtub on the set of Allan Quatermain and the City of Gold (along other members of the crew) before she got in it for her scene. Stuff like that and other shit in the news made her basically like the Anti-Triple A for me, so maybe that's why she wasn't jangling my chain, regardless of her looks. 

Of course, nowadays one wonders if in fact she was really that difficult or if it was a case of a woman being judged on some shit that a guy would be excused for. Or maybe not. I mean, the crew pissed into the scotch bottle of one of the male directors of His Kind of Woman and that was back in the 50s. I guess the lesson here is don't piss off the crew members or you'll get pissed back. (Or worse, if you act shitty to them.)

Anyway, Stone watched Army of Darkness and said "That's who I want to direct my Western" so that makes her cool enough in my book. She also paid Leonardo DiCaprio's salary to be in the movie because the studio didn't want him, so that's pretty stand up of her. Nowadays I bet you those same studio guys (if they even still have jobs) are kissing Leo's ass and I don't remember Leo thanking her -- or the female director of his real first film Critters 3 -- in his Oscar speech so I guess you can't take the posse out of the pussy, eh? 

I hadn't seen this movie in about 16 years and I liked it even more this time. It's got that awesome Raimi style to it but he also tones it down by keeping most of the Evil Dead-ing to the duel sequences. He held his own and proved that he could do Acting as well as Action, getting a top-notch Boo-Hiss performance from Gene Motherfucking Hackman, who reportedly didn't make easy on the Raimster. But then again, Hackman's never been known to make it easy on anyone. 

By the way, has anyone seen this supposed episode of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" where Gene Hackman pops up as a patron of one of the diners human-Smash Mouth-band Guy Fieri was douching up? I can't fucking find it, so clearly this means it doesn't exist. 

Whatever. I dig this flick. I'll admit that it's one of those movies where all the elements are A-level (acting, directing, cinematography, editing, production design, music, etc) but the script is more like B-level -- but it still makes for a fun watch. It's great gun-porn too, with all those beautiful revolvers. Goddamn, those were beauties -- particularly that Schofield. It's enough to make a motherfucker wanna jizz all over his NRA towel.

You know what, I was hard on Smash Mouth.

The Place Beyond the Pines (First time. DVR.)

I forgot to take a pic of the movie so here's an unrelated photo of a vampire cat rising from its slumber, ready to feed for the night. 

This was the follow-up for the director of Blue Valentine and in my opinion he didn't disappoint. It's a film that feels like a novel, and I'd explain more if I were not afraid of spoiling it. That's why I won't. I'll just say that like a novel it's long. But there ain't no chapter titles either, because this isn't a Tarantino joint. 

If you haven't seen this film and you're going to, know as little as possible going in. Don't even read the synopsis, not even the capsule one they have on cable/satellite because even that one gives away too much. 

What I will say is that I dug how most of the characters are presented as human in that they are neither entirely bad or entirely good. And those in the film who look at people in those black & white terms, well they tend to be the ones who really are All Good or All Bad. I guess it's that whole thing about how usually people who are the least trusting or assume the worst of others are also the ones who do others dirty. 

This is a movie about -- among other things -- the guilt that follows a motherfucker after the actions he or she takes and how that shit can affect said motherfuckers, even for years. 

I didn't know half of the actors in this movie were going to be in this movie. I just knew Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes were in it but many more familiar faces pop up and they're all excellent in their roles. I also dug the music by Mike Patton who proves that he can score more serious-minded films and not just Neveldine/Taylor joints. It's a shame he hasn't scored more films and I wonder if that's a result of his schedule or that most filmmakers don't know a good composer if it hit 'em in the throat with a timpani stick.

If I had any problems with the film they came in the last 40 minutes and they all came in the form of a character who I just wanted to get punched and punched and punched all the way until the end credits rolled, and then following the end credits I wanted a Marvel-style post-credits stinger of the character getting punched one more time followed by Nick Fury stepping in to tell the puncher about a new initiative devoted to punching this annoying douche-twat for time immemorial. 

I honestly considered stopping the movie because of this character. I knew guys like this. Guys like this were the reason why I almost got kicked out of school, on account of them getting the better of my temper -- followed by the worst of my punches. 

But I hit Pause, gave myself 30 seconds to breathe, and then I unpaused, followed by muting the movie and reading the closed-captioning as a sort of compromise. That way at least I didn't have to listen to his voice. 

By the last 15 minutes or so I put the sound back on and everything was OK. I made it out. And I'm glad I did, because I was rewarded with a satisfying ending to a well-told tale.

Rob Roy (First time. DVR.)

I missed this in theaters, then I missed it at home because this was around the time we got a laserdisc player and the only video store that stocked laserdiscs only had this movie on Pan & Scan. I never understood that. This place stocked laserdiscs, but if a movie came out in both letterboxed and pan & scan, they chose the latter. It was frustrating. And in my young youth, I had principles about that. So I never rented it, and I soon forgot it. 

All I remembered was that this was seen as the cooler, better alternative to Braveheart, which came out around the same time. I haven't seen that one in over a decade, so I couldn't tell you how they hold up against one another, in kilts, enjoying the warmth of each other. I couldn't. 

All I know is that this was Good Times. The first 20 minutes is pretty much Liam Neeson stabbing fools and then lecturing the fools he didn't stab. Then they introduce a walking cunt named Cunningham (played by Tim Roth) whose all about fucking and killing -- so naturally I hate him for living my life. But I'd like to think I'd treat people better than he did, and I certainly would use protection when it came time to bang a chamber maid or two. 

Neeson's Rob Roy MacGregor though, that there is a Man. A man of principles, which according to this film, was just as lacking in most men back then as it is today. So of course, this means that he is going to get royally fucked as a result of having principles because Human Beings are garbage people and guys like Rob Roy are the exception, not the rule. 

This was one of those movies that I could practically smell, and that's unfortunate because this takes place in the 1700s, so you know how people back then got down with bathing. I mean, this is a fucking dirty-ass smelly movie full of bodily fluids and functions and excretions and where you Just Fucking Know that even the cleanest people in this movie smell terrible. 

So when the movie was over, I took another shower, but it was a victorious shower. I was fucking walking on air in that shower because I watched Rob Roy take it to The Man and I got to watch the occasional moment of Ownage too. Even Jessica Lange (who's great here) was like "hey don't Bogart that Ownage, Liam, let mama dole some out!". It's really funny at times too, which I didn't expect. 

The director of the film is Michael Caton-Jones, and up until Rob Roy, homeboy was consistent with quality. Before that he made This Boy's Life and before that he made Doc Hollywood and before that he made Memphis Belle. Good flicks, all of them. Then he followed this one up with The Jackal and I guess that's when the consistency stopped. He eventually ended up directing Basic Instinct 2 starring, yup, you guessed it -- Sharon Stone.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (First time. DVR.)

All the Eastwood joints I've seen, and yet I never got around to this one. I gotta give him the Big Balls award for taking the story where the main character -- the good guy -- joins a guerilla army of Confererate-loving Bushwackers and the bad guys are Union soldiers. But never do you get the sense that the filmmakers are some South Will Rise Again assholes, nah, Eastwood was looking to make something more complicated. 

What you get is a man who loses everything -- his wife, his son, his shitty farm -- and wants something that sounds like revenge but really seems more like a reckoning he wants to give out to anyone unlucky enough to be wearing the same colors worn by the men responsible for his current state. 

So what you get throughout this film is Eastwood shooting, shooting, and shooting some more. He's either shooting bullets at his enemies or he's shooting chaw at the ground, insects, shirts, even a dog. Josey Wales is cooooold-blooooded!

What surprised me is that what starts as a pretty grim movie slowly loosens up as it goes along, and as the film does, so does Eastwood's character, and what starts out as a revenge tale ends as something kinda deeper and touching as Josey Wales finds a more meaningful endgame for his life -- while still giving us plenty of Eastwood owning motherfuckers as if he carried receipts on all of them in his back pocket. 

It's good stuff, man. This is the one where Eastwood says "Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy" and you bet your ass I was jumping on my couch like goddamn Tom Cruise when he said that shit.

The Outfit (Rewatch. DVR.)

Saw this back in '10 at the New Beverly along with Point Blank and that my friend was Good Times. Here's another adaptation of a "Richard Stark"/Donald E. Westlake book, and like all the other cine-adapts this one changes the name of the Parker character. Here, Robert Duvall plays "Macklin" and he's out of the joint and out for revenge in the form of $$$ because The Outfit killed his brudda. 

Here's some good 'ol old-school tough guy crime shit that feels just like the Parker books, even with the changes made between page and screen. This is a cold environment where even the warmer characters are quick to do wrong shit like knocking a woman out just because she's in the way. This is the kind of movie that devotes large chunks of time to the characters purchasing firearms and automobiles for their jobs (with the option to sell them back after the job is done) and I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

The old school feel is made older with the casting of classic genre actors like Robert Ryan and Jane Greer. There's also a bit of a The Killing reunion with Marie Windsor, Timothy Carey, and Elisha Cook Jr.; unfortunately none share any scenes together. 

Another sign of being made from Another Time is that the lead is Robert Duvall, who you completely buy as someone who could be from that world, Crime World. His crime partner is Joe Don Baker, who was almost ruined for me by MST3K on account of all those jokes about him in Mitchell and Final Justice. There's a part where Baker holds a rib-chopping cook at gunpoint, then tells him "Go on back and chop them ribs" which I found myself completing out loud with "...because I want some to go" -- damn you MST3K!

Karen Black is the main dame here and like the rest of the cast, she's a Great Face who probably wouldn't have much play had she came of actress age nowadays. Young Karen Black in the Year 2016 would probably play a lot of wacky best friend roles today.

Joanna Cassidy is the head crime honcho's moll in the film, and yet despite that role or her iconic role as Zhora in Blade Runner or any other role in her long career, all I want to do when I see her is yell "I'm right on top of that, Rose!" 

The late great John Flynn wrote and directed this, and man oh man, there are not enough articles written about this dude. He made this, followed by Rolling Thunder and Defiance. Right on. He also made my favorite Steven Seagal movie with Out for Justice. He's worked with Sly Stallone, James Woods, Tommy Lee Jones, Rod Steiger, William Devane, Brian Dennehy -- all of them real Guys. Then he made Brainscan starring pretty boy (at the time) Edward Furlong and I don't think he ever recovered from that. To make things worse, he met me at a screening and signed my Lock Up dvd. Then he died.

London Has Fallen (First time. Theater.)

Caught this yesterday at the discount theater, where there were stains splattered on the lower right side of the screen and a crazy witchy woman in the front row making comments. This plus popcorn plus M&Ms plus Cherry Coke only added to my enjoyment of this film -- and I'm sure my Diabetes-in-progress got a kick out of it too. 

Despite being distributed by Gramercy Films (remember them? yeah, they're back!) this is a Millennium Films production all the way and you know these MF'rs might as well be Cannon Reborn and this movie may well be their most Cannon-y joint yet. 

Shit, this might actually out-Cannon Cannon because at least Golan & Globus shelled out enough ducats on quality visual effects for big-budget fare like Lifeforce. Here, someone must've taken the money for convincing blood hits and explosions and had themselves the mother of all parties over in Dubai or somewhere.

Gerard Butler has to be -- I mean he just has to be! -- in on some kind of joke with his performance here, like I think he knows this is a silly movie. Some of his line deliveries feel like something you'd see in a spoof about overblown actioners such as this one, or like something you'd see in the spoof trailers at the beginning of Tropic Thunder. Whatever the case, I'm glad he's doing it that way because his is absolutely the only way one should act in this movie.

Every time a new character pops up, their name and job appears on-screen (example: "Lynne Jacobs - Secret Service Director") despite most of them being characters from the first film -- and that's when I realized that this movie was playing the Stand Alone Film game. The events of Olympus Has Fallen are never mentioned or even alluded to, I mean, it gets to the point that I left convinced this movie takes place in an alternate universe where Olympus always stood proud with nary a stumble. Every once in a while President Harvey Dent clutches his pearls whenever Secret Service Agent Spaaaaaartaaaaa! gets down with a little sado-murderiffic ownage on the baddies, which made me almost yell out loud "Dude, don't you remember what he did in the last one!?"

I sure remember -- and I loved it. Killing people with such an evil glee, that guy. And I'm happy to report that Agent Spaaaaartaaa! is still a sadistic fuck in the sequel. My favorite kill might be when he sloooooowly sticks his Rambo knife into a wounded terrorist, almost as slow as that German soldier did to the Semitic homie in Saving Private Ryan -- only in that film it was an evil Nazi trooper and here it's the hero of the film. I actually could've used some more of Butler killing bad guys with the psychotic glee and zeal usually exhibited by Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. 

And yeah, he does actually tell a bad guy over the walkie talkie to go "back to Fuckheadistan or wherever it is you come from", after which I almost stood up and did that dramatic slow clap in the audience with a tear rolling down my face, because I have to applaud a movie that gives us the winning combo of Culturally Tone Deaf and Painfully Enlarged Testicles. We've sure come a long way from John McClane saying "Yippee Ki Yay Mother Fucker" to Hans, that's for sure.

The first act introduces a whole bunch of other characters at various locations in a way that made me feel that I was watching a 70s-style disaster movie. Half of them are played by people I'm not familiar with, so I felt it was a lost opportunity to get whoever the 2016 version of George Kennedy or Richard Chamberlain or Stella Stevens to play those roles. But the other half consist of names like Morgan Freeman and Angela Bassett and my man, Mr. Robert Forster, who I'm always happy to see in any movie (even if he barely has any lines). 

At least Forster has lines. Academy Award-winning actress Melissa Leo hardly says a word, but she looks happy to be there, so they must've paid her very well to be silent. Oh, and Jackie Earle Haley is picking up a Shut Up and Cash The Check part here too, which reminds me -- he and Forster were in Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence, which would make a decent double bill with this movie. 

I say that because MC3 was a direct-to-cable genre film from the 90s, and London Has Fallen is in spirit a direct-to-cable genre film from the 90s working from a script left over from Cannon Films in the 80s. Chuck Norris would've jizzed all over his camo pants had he been given the script back then, because London isn't so much a pro-Murica film as it's pro-Western World & anti-Derka-Derka and you know the Chuckster's down with that. 

They throw in a chick MI6 badass and some SAS commandos into the mix so it doesn't seem all about America Saving The Muthafuckin' Day. Maybe that's why this one actually did a lot better overseas than the first one. 

In conclusion, some dude texts the name "Aamir Barkawi" on his phone and it wasn't corrected by spell-check, so that was nice. I wish my phone was that chill about spelling.

SPECIAL BONUS RAMBLING NOT FEATURED IN THE ORIGINAL THEATRICAL CUT OF MY FACEBOOK POSTINGS! (on account of simply forgetting to post it)

Listen to Me Marlon (First time. DVR.)

So what we have here is a failure to communicate between a genuine Game Changer in the art of playing pretend, but thankfully Mr. Brando was far more open with himself and his tape recorder -- and that's what this documentary is all about. Dude left hundreds of hours of confessionals and ramblings and selected bits play out over home movies and on-set footage and archival clips spanning most of his life. Sometimes you also see a weird monochromatic digi-Brando head reading along to the recordings, looking assed out because he wasn't invited to kick it with Hologram Tupac or Hologram Whitney Houston.

It's a bit of a cheat that at least a third -- if not half -- of this stuff is actually from interviews he did, so you're not listening to purely his audio bloggings, and this film was approved by his estate so you know you're not gonna get all of the goods. And you know it ain't gonna get darker if the estate is approving what gets used and what gets put aside in the Destroy pile. As weird as he might've been, the film has to ultimately paint him in a more positive shade. Shit man, who knows? Maybe that's closer to the truth than what a cynical fuck like moi assumes about him -- and everyone else on this planet, for that matter.

But as it is you get plenty, man. I felt I got a decent sense of him -- at least more than just the weirdo who loved giving film sets a hard time. I didn't leave thinking his behavior justified, I just saw his side of it and got an idea of why he would be the way he was.

Of course a success like Marlon Brando came from shitty parenting, and he claimed that that is what made him forever search for happiness in the arms of as many women as he could embrace and between the legs of as many fried chickens as he could wolf down. I can make the fat jokes because I'm kinda like Marlon Brando when it comes to food. (It's in the Women department that I'm trying to be more like him.)

Say what you will, but I felt that even when he was pulling that cue card bullshit that he was committed to his craft -- or specifically, he's the only one I would excuse/believe his idea that it added to the spontaneity of his performance. And even if it really didn't, the guy earned the right to pull that off. I think you have to be an actor of Brando's caliber to do that, especially when you've already had a long career preceding you. Some actors today -- and I've witnessed some of this myself -- want to immediately riff and You Just Fucking Know it's because they didn't really learn their lines.

This wasn't in the movie but I remember Sidney Lumet (in his book "Making Movies", I think) saying that Brando knew when he was working with a director who knew his shit. He would give the director two different line readings that were damn near indistinguishable from each other -- but there was a difference. And that difference could only be picked up by someone who truly not only understood the material they were working from, but who also had true knowledge on acting. If the director picked the "correct" reading, Brando felt he was in good hands and put in 110-percent. If not, he'd just sleepwalk through it because why bother pouring out your heart and soul into every line and movement? It's not like the director would even notice!

One last food thing: Brando claimed that as a kid he'd open the fridge at night and it would feel as if the food were talking to him like "Hi Marlon, it's me, Mr. Cheese!" or something like that. He felt food was his friend, but really, who does that to their friends? Who chews their friends up, swallows them, digests every good part, then shits out their remains? (Aside from show business, of course.)