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.

TONIGHT: Strokeface & the Highlighted Fairy vs. The Flaming Globe of Sigmund

It's the end of the year and I'm nowhere near the winter of my discontent, as I hoped I'd be. This feels more like the motherfucking spring of my discontent. About a year ago in this blog that nobody reads, I asked/begged/pleaded 2009 to be good to me. Well, a lot of good that did, because now I would like nothing more than to see 2009 get fucking got. I want to see Liam Neeson show up at 2009's pad, drink its tea, kill its homies, knock the motherfucker out, tie it to a chair, wake its ass up, impale its legs with electrified spikes (unrated version), pull the fuckin' switch and just walk away to leave that motherfucker frying forever. I guess what I'm trying to say is Suck A Fat Fuckin' Dick, 2009. Sure, you gave me The Hurt Locker but you also put me in one, so yeah, suck a fat fuckin' dick and choke on it, but not before finding out in your last moments before plunging into eternal darkness that the dick was covered in AIDS slime.

Speaking of sucking fat fuckin' AIDS-ridden dick, last Friday was Christmas Day, and I decided to spend it the way I usually do -- avoiding most of the family by going to see movies at the theater. I'm no fuckin' animal, though; I intended to see the family eventually, after the cousins and aunts and creepy insurance-selling uncles have gone and it's just Mom and maybe my sister and her kids there, that way I can grub on some homemade tamales. But yeah, I had myself a little marathon that day. I'm gonna talk about two out of the four movies I watched, I don't know if I'll get to the other two because I'm lazy and terrible and yeah.

Through the use of my reloaded gift card and Cheap Bastard magic, I was able to watch 2 movies for the price of one. If you don't know how I did that, then you have confirmed my worst suspicions that you, in fact, do not read my shit. The first movie was Sherlock Holmes, starring The (Hopefully) Former Druggie, The Star Who Never Was, Rachel McAdams and directed by the rich Brit who played at being from the street until he married Madonna and got his shit fucked with Kaballah-style so badly that he wound up with his head all the way up his ass and when he finally pulled it out, he wiped all the shit off his face and made Revolver with it.

Some people are bitching about how the source material was betrayed in favor of blockbustering it up, and these people are half right and half way-fucking-wrong. They're right about the filmmakers trying to make this more audience-friendly by adding doses of Boom and Pow and Zip and Zang, but they don't know what they're talking about when they go on about how the real Sherlock Holmes was some asshole with some stupid-ass double-brimmed shit on his head and that Watson was some ineffectual fatass who was always being schooled by Holmes and being told that everything was fuckin' "elementary". I've read some of the short stories, so unless you've read at least a couple of those or one of the books, take your complaining ass out of my fucking face, take it over to a fucking mosque, and have yourself outfitted with a special vest designed to help you gain entrance to a private club that is so exclusive, the guest list consists of only your name and +72 next to it, then take yourself to the nearest vacant lot and put that shit to use.

So here you have Holmes getting all butt-hurt about his hetero life mate Watson getting closer to taking off with his fiancee, but in the meantime there's a problem regarding some evil motherfucker who thinks he's all slick with his black magic and human sacrifices. It takes some getting used to when it comes to watching Holmes disabling a baddie with the use of well-planned asskickery and while I don't remember him owning motherfuckers in bare-knuckle fights in the stories, but there were always mentions of the dude knowing some shit in the fight game, so it's the filmmakers aren't cheating. They're taking the spirit of the thing and adding a heaping dose of Testosterone to it.

With the exception of the Snatch-style fight scenes, this doesn't really look like a Guy Ritchie flick, but it certainly still has the feel of one; you get loads and loads of entertaining dialogue punctuated with some snazzy visual shit. I guess you can say the same about Quentin the Foot Fuckin' Master's works, but the dialogue in Ritchie's movies is spoken in English accents, so that makes it different. Hans Zimmer composed the music, and when it comes to his scores, Zimmer-boy's got two speeds: Fuckin' A and Lagging It. Thankfully, Zimmer brought his Fuckin' A game to the table and comes up with some crazy off-key piano shit that is just as pulse-pounding as his Dark Knight joints.

The villain is scary/awesome, he was also in Revolver pretty much playing the Vinnie Jones role, he never feels fake or MWAHAHA at all, he always creeped me the fuck out. As for the rest of the cast, Jude Law proves that he's best when supporting the man rather than trying to fuckin' be the man and Rachel McAdams' wears a bunch of period costumes that don't do her any favors so it's a good thing they cast a chick with a cute face so we at least have that going for us. As for Downey Jr., holy shit this motherfucker is top-notch like always. Even when he's terrible in something like Hugo Pool (which I liked, don't get me wrong) he's still putting his all into it, this guy doesn't fuckin' slack it for any fuckin' part. I'm glad to see him come up from all the bullshit and showing everyone he's more than just a fuckin' media punchline.

I remember back in the late 90's he hosted SNL, and this was right after he did some jail time for having a good time, and his monologue consisted of mostly visual jokes about him being somebody's bitch in prison. The worst part of it was despite having a sense of humor about his freshly fucked-up situation, the shit still bombed and the audience didn't give much of a reaction. Now people are lining up around the block to see him do his fuckin' thing -- provided it doesn't involve doing it with Jamie Foxx, evidently -- but I really wish these motherfuckers were lining up a little earlier, like October '05 earlier. But what can you do?

The second movie I watched was Nine, not to be confused with that Elijah Wood cartoon or the scene where Hitler loses his shit in Inglourious Basterds. This Nine is basically the Weinstein Brothers calling in the director of Chicago and demanding that he shits out another fuckin' Best Picture Oscar for them, like old times. So, here they go, with another flashy musical based on a Broadway hit. They probably told their whipping boy/director that this better another fuckin' Chicago, right down to the standout bad girl number sung by a current pop diva, only this time it's Fergalicious playing a whore singing about how you should be Italian, which is funny considering the cast they went with.

This one is based on some shit that was based on that Italian movie about how it sucks to be a Great Fucking Filmmaker and to have bitches all over your fuckin' jock while you try to think up your next masterpiece. Boo-hoo. Don't mean to be an asshole about it, but much like I dug Sorcerer over The Wages of Fear, I'm gonna straight out admit I preferred All That Jazz over 8 1/2, sorry everyone. The musical had muthafuckin' Raul Julia in it, but then that guy went Game Over after proclaiming "Game Over!" in Street Fighter, so for the revival they got Antonio Motherfuckin' Banderas, baby. Well, they assed Zorro out of it for the movie and ended up getting Daniel Day-Lewis to play the part of Guido for the movie.

Holy shit. If you're going to replace heavily-accented, over-acting greatness like Banderas, you might as well only go for Daniel Day-Lewis, otherwise I'd be pissed. Daniel Plainview the Butcher does an excellent job here as he always does, managing to not sound like a douche with his Italian accent, he actually comes off like the real deal here. He's not a bad singer, either, he can belt out those pipes when needed. The burning question, though, is Why? I mean, I looked it up and this guy went all out Method like he always does, speaking in Italian and staying in character always. But why? This is a decent movie, entertaining and all, but it's not as good as Chicago, which wasn't even that fuckin' great of a movie to begin with. It's like when my friend told me about seeing Christian Bale lose 60 pounds and get into Holocaust shape for a movie called The Machinist; he thought it was hard work for a bullshit movie. I wouldn't call Nine a bullshit movie, but its ambitions are far greater than the achievements.

Whatever, it's a fast breezy way to spend a matinee. And if you're like me, you'll dig the eye candy. Penelope Cruz's intro number should be called A Rush of Blood to the Head, and I'm not referring to the Coldplay album. That French chick from the Edith Piaf movie and Public Enemies looks very cute and fetching here as well. Then you got Nicole Kidman reminding a motherfucker how she used to be such a babe in the 90's before she got crazy with the plastics and the blades. I'd still hit it, though, do not be mistaken. I'm just saying she had better days, when she didn't look like a porcelain China doll, which I'd still fuck. Kate Hudson is in here too, and it wasn't until now that I realized that I can't stand her. I wondered why it took me so long to notice this, and I finally realized it during her insipid Cinema Italiano number -- every other movie she's been in, I stayed away from. This is a chick who made a career starring in movies only women go to see, and the only men who see her movies are the unfortunate husbands and boyfriends that were dragged in by said women. I'm sure not even gay men chick her shit out, only whipped straights.

Every other song in this movie appears to consist of the following lyrics: GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIDO GUIIIIIII-DOOOOOOOO!!!!! But half of them are pretty catchy and the rest are for you to go take a piss or get a refill on your Diet Coke. I loved the look of the movie, that shit was right-on Oscar-worthy. Give that motherfuckin' cinematographer and production designer some goddamn nods, that's for sure. But then again, this is Italy we're talking about here, you can fuckin' Tenebrae that shit and shoot everything in blinding white light and it's still gonna look awesome because it's fuckin' ITALY. You know what is curiously missing in Italy, though, at least in this movie? Italians. Yeah, man, it's like the director and producers were like "I want you to get me every well-regarded top notch Italian actor for these Italian roles -- and then I want you to lock 'em out of the fuckin' auditions". Whatever, man, it's not a complaint, just an observation.

And that's it. I have nothing else to say other than looking over what I've just written, and putting into consideration what I've been writing over the past 12 months, I'm reminded about something a fat ugly Iranian chick asked me at a Christmas party two weeks ago. She asked me if my brain ever registers what I'm about to say before it comes out of my mouth. My first reaction was to say "Of course it does, you fat fuckin' terrorist cunt", but my brain stopped that thought from becoming vocalized, so instead I told her No, no it never does. Anyway, 2010 is gonna fuck me in the ass just as hard as 2009 and 2008 did. I know this, and so does 2010. Tall, lanky 2010 will strut in, look at me with that pervy look in its eyes and yell to me, "You got a date Wednesday, baby!", which is true. At least this time, the least I can do for myself is have my cheeks spread and be totally lubed up for it.

Now that's a knife

My fresh-out-of-prison friend invited me to his daughter's birthday on Sunday. Fuck, that means I have to buy a gift. I didn't ask to go to this fuckin' thing, and he has like six kids from three different mothers, so if I go, that will open up a whole new expensive can of worms I have no interest in purchasing. I think what I'm going to do is show up, which would make me look like a good guy, but not bring anything, which would make me look like a bad guy. Faced with this confusing duality, his wife -- and it WILL be his wife -- will then tell him afterwards never to invite me again because I didn't bring anything. Even if I could afford it, his kids are assholes and not in the way that all kids are assholes (i.e. aloof douches), I mean these children are fucking jerk-offs.

I'm basing this off my one visit to see them, where I was greeted with ugly strange dagger-shooting looks, like I'm Stanley Tucci from The Lovely Bones over here. The only one who was cool to me was his stepson, but the fact that he was wearing a shirt that had an outline of a farting dog with the words "Blame the Dog" under it and was going to wear that for his dinner at Hometown Buffet gives me pause in praising him. My neighbors have these two adorable kids, and I would love to get them something if I had the cash. They always say Hi, even if I don't see them. I see hope when I look at those kids. My friend's daughter, on the other hand, I don't see anything resembling hope. She will most likely grow up to become a drug addict like her aunt and grandmother or she will end up doing time in juvy, like her half-brother. Sometimes it's best not to buy Barbies for the doomed.

But I will buy two tickets to see the new flick from my boy James Cameron, the fuckin' crew-killer himself. I know he did like 2 or 3 IMAX movies about the deep blue sea, but who gives a fuck about that shit, he's back with a real movie called Avatar. Most of his downtime was spent creating the technology necessary to make the movie with. Whatever, I just want to see a new Cameron movie. I found out that he shot the movie in 3-D, and apparently he has a real hard-on for the format, calling it the future of cinema or something, and this is how all his movies from now on will be shot. But the dude also understands that not every theater around has 3D capability (and even if it did, not every moviegoer wants to pony up the extra 3.50 for it), so he also has a flat 2D version going around. What I found interesting is that the 3D version is in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio while the 2D version is composed at 2.35:1. Cameron said that 3D is more pleasing when presented in a taller frame while a flat picture still looks best in a wider one. OK fine, but when it comes down to it, the movie should be awesome regardless of what format it's shot on.

I want to judge a James Cameron movie without a fuckin' asterisk next to it denoting that the shit has to be seen in 3D. When all is said and done, if I'm going to be re-watching this shit like I do with his other flicks, it's most likely going to be in the flat format. When all is said and done, this movie better be entertaining as fuck, that is more important than whether things are coming at you out of the frame. So for the opening midnight show, I went to see the 2D version. Besides, the 3D version was sold out.

So the movie takes place in the very distant future on a far off planet called Pandora, where a tribe of giant blue aliens called the Na'vi reside. Currently, the Na'vi are not happy with the visiting humans (working for a big corporation that might as well be Weyland-Yutani). The humans are interested in a very valuable substance within the planet that they refer to as Unobtainium. Holy shit, I thought that was lame shit Cameron made up, but it turns out it's a real word and I'm an idiot. The problem is that the most Unobtainium is directly located under the Na'vi's stomping grounds, and they're not looking to move. So now you've got Marines showing up a la Blackwater and trying to muscle the natives out of there with machine guns, bulldozers and some fuckin' Robotech shit. But the natives give as good as they get, fighting them off with poison-dipped arrows among other things, and now everything is at a standstill because of this standoff.

Some PhD was gonna join the scientists there to help smooth things out with the Na'vi, but he ended up catching a terminal case of lead poisoning (by way of mugger) so his twin Marine brother takes his place. He's played by the guy from Terminator Salvation who isn't Christian Bale and his character caught a bomb or something in combat because he's now in a wheelchair. They need him to control his brother's "avatar", a genetically-engineered creature that a motherfucker can control by entering one of those Michael Jackson pods and mind-melding with the motherfucker or something. Avatars are needed because Pandora is like some Battlefield Earth shit which means if you're a man-animal, you won't be able to breathe here, plus avatars look like Na'vi and I guess that helps when you're trying to do business with these savages.

I avoided watching any commercials or trailers for this one, just because, and all I ever saw about it was the Internet banners. So I had an idea what the Na'vi looked like and that was about it. For the first half-hour or so, I wasn't too impressed with them, and they didn't seem too "photo-realistic" to me. Maybe they made this movie in sequence and got better as they went along, because somewhere along the way it seemed like the Na'vi started looking better and better. It was real trip watching the expressions on their faces; I eventually forgot I was looking at CGI shit and thought I was looking at the real thing for the most part. What I'm wondering is if the alien faces had something to do with that, I mean, if they did the same shit in another movie and instead of aliens the CGI characters were human, would it have been as WOW-ish or would we get that dead-eyed Uncanny Valley shit we've seen before, aka The Zemeckis Special? I don't know, but it looked good here.

This is a pretty cool story, nothing incredibly original, but it does what it sets out to do. You cheer for the good guys and jeer the bad guys, but unfortunately because this has kind of a Love The Environment/Fuck The Evil Corporation thing going for it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fox News types start calling for Commie Pinko Lefty Cameron's movie-making license to get pulled. They're gonna forget that they were busy creaming their slacks back in '94 when he was giving them 140 minutes of Arabs getting blown up, they're gonna look at him the same way those soldiers looked at Costner in Dances with Wolves when they had him in custody; "Turned Injun, didn't ya?"

When you think about it, all of Cameron's films (except maybe The Abyss, his best work IMHO) suffered from the same shit people complain about with Titanic and will complain about with Avatar. They go on about the horrible dialogue, and I'm like, really? Motherfucker, I was cringing as far back as "If you want to shine them on, it's 'Hasta la vista, baby'" and "Ditch the bitch!". It was never his strong suit, and while he was capable of writing some clever shit sometimes, well then yeah, what did I just say? Sometimes. I'll straight out say he's one of the best storytellers in the motherfuckin' business, but was always 50/50 when it came to character and dialogue. When he got it right, he got it so fucking right, and when he got it wrong, then most likely it was a bad guy he got it wrong with. The villains in his best films were single-minded killing machines and they never really got any better, so I wasn't bitching about how Mr. Slam Evil in Titanic wasn't a fully-fleshed out character, I was just enjoying what a piece-of-shit he was when he did things like snatch little girls to ensure himself a seat on a lifeboat. So even when Cameron never got into what makes the assholes tick, he still did a bang-up job making you hate the motherfuckers and in the end, that's all you need.

What I'm trying to say is to expect the same kind of shit here; the two villains in Avatar are played by Stephen Muthafuckin' Lang and Giovanni Ribisi. To me, Lang will be Awesome For Life because not only was he Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, but because he was the fuckin' Party Crasher in The Hard Way. He got owned by Tom Noonan in Manhunter, but looking at him now with his two tickets to the gun show, I think in real life he would be the one doing the owning. His character here is such a fucking badass, it almost makes you sad that he turns out to be such an asshole. Ribisi, on the other hand, plays the role he's been working towards his entire career -- an annoying douchebag you want to throw out a window. I liked to think that his character was somehow related to Paul Reiser's character from Aliens.

They say that Cameron is a real asshole to people on his sets, and for a long while I always thought that maybe Sigourney Weaver felt that way about him. Don't ask me why, I just did. Well, either she never had a problem with the guy or they paid her a shitload of money to forgive and forget, because here she is playing a botanist who is an expert on Na'vi and Pandora. I don't know what else to write about her, except that I would still hit that. The main Na'vi chick is played by the new Uhura and her CGI Na'vi has the best facial expressions out of all of them, she's always scrunching up her face or hissing or doing that weird wrinkle thing chicks do before they cry. I guess guys make that face too, but I don't spend my time trying to make guys cry. But yeah, I'd say New Uhura and Stephen Muthafuckin' Lang give the best performances of the entire film. I'll give Michelle Rodriguez an honorable mention; it seems like people love to hate her, which I never understood. She's always been OK with me and her character was kinda cool too.

I didn't have to see James Horner's name on the credits to know he composed the music, I just had to listen for that fuckin' Wrath of Khan horn he loves using in every fucking movie he's ever worked on to know it. I guess it's appropriate that for such an environmentally-themed movie, Cameron would pick someone notorious for recycling.

For the midnight show, I watched the 2D version. After, I got home at about 3:30, went to bed until 7:00, cleaned up, got coffee at the 7-11, made it to the IMAX at 8:00, and waited in line (it got pretty packed for a morning show). They eventually let us in and the show started at 9:00 A.M. Fuckin' A, baby -- time to catch Avatar not only in the intended format, but blown up to IMAX proportions. And here is where I give what might be the minority opinion (given by a minority): I preferred the 2D version. I know Cameron shot the fuckin' thing in 3D and it's supposed to be watched in 3D and the 2D print is more of a compromise because while he might be King of the World, he isn't King of the fuckin' Movie Theaters. Yet, I enjoyed Avatar more when it was presented flat in 2.35 scope. See, I figured the first viewing was to get into the story and the second viewing would be just to kick back and enjoy the three-dimensional visuals, but I ended up being distracted by them. Maybe I was never the biggest 3D fan; I don't have anything against it, and Captain EO still remains one of my all-time favorite childhood memories, but I didn't feel like I had missed on much when comparing both versions. The flat version looked and felt more like a James Cameron movie, while the 3D version simply didn't. That's how I felt, anyway.

Also, I don't know if this happened at other IMAX joints (and I'm talking about the real IMAX joints), but the way they presented the 1.78 version was a little odd. Now when a movie isn't shot in IMAX but blown up for IMAX presentation, there are black bars on top and bottom of the screen. For Avatar, there were not only black bars on the top, but on the left and right sides of the screen as well, leaving the bottom of the frame filled with movie. Compared with the 2D version, we were definitely getting more image, and I have no problem with the bars on the side, but having the movie off-center took a bit to get used to. This is a case where watching it in fake IMAX might be the better way to go, since I suspect that while fake IMAX isn't as big, they probably don't have the black bar shit going on and it takes up the entire frame. Shit, you might as well just see it in the biggest Digital 3D screen you can find and save yourself the extra bucks.

It was interesting to note how the two different audiences reacted to things. Both the midnight and morning crowd applauded at the end, which I don't get. Who are you applauding, the projectionist? I understand if someone involved with the movie is in attendance, otherwise, I don't know. I'm just being a wet blanket. There is a little bit of prelude to Na'vi ugly-bumping, which brought quite a bit of titters and chatter in the midnight crowd, but not the morning bunch. There's a touching bit near the end where the size difference between Na'vi and humans is made noticeable and that had the 12 A.M.'ers busting up like they were at Def Comedy Jam, even though I don't think that was the emotion Cameron had in mind.

I wanted to see a cool, fun, kick-ass James Cameron movie, and I wasn't disappointed. There are some awesome visuals throughout, always something to grab your attention (my favorite would be the incandescent neon glow the entire jungle would have at night, like some underwater algae shit) and the action is top-notch Cameron. Visually, it's fascinating and story/character-wise it's a little derrrrr, but I don't care, I felt I got my money's worth both times. Honestly, I wouldn't feel bad about missing out on the 3D version, and unlike The Polar Express, if I watch it flat on DVD/Blu-ray I won't feel like I'm only seeing half the movie and getting only half the experience. But that's just me, I also prefer the mono versions of The Beatles box set.

As I left the IMAX showing, a guy who looked a little slow came up to me. He was wearing black socks with white sneakers and was wearing a bus pass around his neck. He took a sip from his large soda and asked me if I thought there would be a sequel. After I answered him, THEN he asked me if I liked it. I told him yes. He told me he was going to catch the next showing. Because I have the habit of telling people more than they care to know, I started telling him about the midnight showing I had gone to a few hours earlier, and how that one was in 2D. I then told him about the different aspect ratios. As I went on and on, I could see it in his face that not only was I boring him, but that a line had been crossed. The paradigm had shifted. Now I was the fuckin' retard. He began to shuffle uncomfortably and told me he had to go. Then he walked away in his black socks and white sneaker ensemble.

Stop doing this. Nobody cares.

Indeed, there was a second visit to the house my buddy was housesitting for a buddy of his, and with it, more Oscar screeners to watch.

After a takeout meal of Peruvian food from a place called Mario's in L.A., we welcomed my pal's special lady friend and popped in Clint Muthafuckin' Eastwood's new film, Invictus, or as I like to call it, Box Office Poison. Why? Well, it doesn't matter if you have Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in your flick, when the shit involves South Africa post-Apartheid bullshit and soccer, people will find themselves hard-pressed to buy a ticket to the motherfucker. Yeah, I know the sport in the film is actually rugby, but as far as the average American is concerned, that shit is soccer. Never mind that your average rugby player is a Super Chief Master Dick Swinger compared to the padded pussy that is your average football player, rugby might as well be soccer to Joe Sixpack and as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, soccer might as well be Synchronized Cock-Chugging. Face it, unless there's some dude turning into an alien in this South African setting, it's gonna be an uphill battle for this one.

In this movie, Freeman plays a free man -- Nelson Mandela, to be exact. In the opening, we go through a whole visual Cliff Notes on the dude and when the events of the story begin, he's just started his new job as President. One day, during a rugby match, he gets this wild hair up his ass about the national rugby team somehow helping South Africa get over all the bullshit, put aside their differences and become one and share a Coke of something. What's so fucking boss about this plan is that Mandela never straight out says this, all this shit is implied. He meets up with the captain of the Springboks and never says "Hey bro, if you guys take it to the World Cup and win, it's no longer about black versus white, it's about South Africa as a whole kicking ass."

Freeman is good as always, bringing to Mandela the usual dignity and grace that he always brings, and then you got Matt Damon not embarrassing himself as the team captain. In fact, he goes further than not embarrassing himself, he does a pretty good fucking job at playing South African. If it wasn't for his great work co-writing and directing Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck would be looking goddamn useless by now, compared to Matty boy.

They did something pretty ballsy here, at least ballsy for me; the movie goes on about how the most important step in creating a new united South Africa is to move the fuck on from the past, but it doesn't make it a one-way street either. What I mean is that both black and white people are guilty of being assholes here, and they have their own personal reasons. There are scenes of black South Africans having trouble accepting the whites into their daily lives and routine (like the guys working security detail for Mandela) because all they see is the same color of asshole that used to come in to their homes, drag them out and beat the shit out of them. It's tough to get over some shit like that, but Mandela makes them try, makes them channel their inner Ganhdi and live-and-let-live that shit.

The rugby scenes are very well-done and they get you cheering for the Springbok team to triumph, and it was during one of these sequences that I realized this flick is neither a straight-up sports movie or an study on the rebuilding South Africa -- it's both and it's neither at the same time, if that makes sense and it probably doesn't so shut up. They also do a good job of avoiding cliches (most of them, anyway) that come with both sports movies and racial strife movies; the most predictable thing that feels like something you've seen before is the final game, and even that avoids a lot of cliches save the outcome. Besides, this shit is a true story, of course you know how it's going to end. I thought this was a solid flick, maybe not in the league of Million Dollar Baby or Changeling, but it's certainly not in the WTF? league of Gran Torino either. Invictus is just a solid fucking movie from a solid fucking director. Now that I think of it, "solid fucking" is faint praise for an awesome motherfucker like Clint, but, uh, yeah. I know I'm all up on his jock, I know. I'm sure if I met him in real life, I'd get all giddy schoolgirl and he'd shove his .44 Magnum into my chest and growl "Beat it, beaner!" That would be so fucking cool.

We followed that movie up with the new Peter Jackson joint, The Lovely Bones, which I guess you can call a sorta spiritual follow-up to Heavenly Creatures. Even though both flicks have nothing to do with each other, I just got the sense that thematically they park their cars in the same garage, to use the Tarantino parlance of the time. This is based on a best-selling book that I never read and I don't know why I thought Jackson would get all epic on us and 3-hour this motherfucker. But he didn't, and I thank him for that.

If you've seen Atonement, then you've probably wanted to see the little lying bitch from that movie get throttled. Well, I guess you're in luck because she really gets hers in this movie. Unfortunately, she's an innocent and likable girl this time and it's a scumbag creepo fuck who does her in. Don't you feel like an asshole for cheering. It's not a spoiler, because like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard or Kevin Spacey in I Wanna Fuck Teenage Girls and Smoke Pot, you find out pretty early that the lead character narrating the movie is as dead as the dreams of your average 28-year-old. This dead girl winds up in a kind of afterlife limbo which apparently is comprised of every allergy medication commercial you've seen along with the beach where Jodie Foster talked to her ghost dad in Contact. Meanwhile, Marky Mark and the hot wife of the director of The Wrestler are doing the whole grieving parent thing. Tim Robbins' mother, Susan Sarandon also shows up as the wacky lush grandma who brings comic relief to the proceedings by acting like someone who would bring pity and embarrassment to the family in real life.

Speaking of real life, I wish the movie spent more time in the real world rather than the afterlife. I mean, I'm sure in actuality the movie DOES spend more time with Marky Mark and company, it's just that after the first couple of scenes with Fibby McLie from Atonement wandering around cheesy CGI landscapes with her nail technician companion, you pretty much get the point. But I guess ol' Jackson fell in love with his computer generated oceans and gazebos and cheesy giant portraits of Indian teen dreams to trim down on that shit. Again -- very glad he kept this to just a tad over 2 hours rather than 3 or 4. Jackson gives himself a cameo, showing up at a camera store looking through a Super 8 camera. Get it? Because he's a filmmaker! That same shopping center has a bookstore as well, featuring a big ad in the window for a little trilogy of books called The Lord of the Rings. Get it? Because he directed the film adaptations! I don't care how good you are, that kinda thing annoys me for some reason, and it's even more annoying when you know Jackson figured he could get away with it by saying he was paying tribute to Tolkien and not himself.

Stanley Tucci was so awesome as Julia Child's husband in Julie & Julia, and it's a trip to see him look so different and act so fuckin' skeevy as the scumbag here. I hated this motherfucker and during the movie I wanted Horatio Caine to show up and take him down. YEEEEAAAHHH! Instead, we have Christopher from The Sopranos as a well-meaning detective trying to figure shit out, failing every step of the way and making me wish he would just call up Tony and a couple of the fellas to teach the child-killer a lesson. It seems like the movie has a message when it comes to home craft hobbies: regular guys like Marky Mark spend their time making ships in a bottle, while pervs like Tucci build dollhouses that are so detailed they come with basements which I assume are for little girl dolls to get trapped in and raped/killed. So if you're building dollhouses, you might as well get yourself a van, too.

I didn't read this book because reading is for queers, but my gay friend did and he told me that he was into it for the first half, and then something happened that made him hate the fucking thing. He told me that this flick is the rare exception though, a film that is better than the book it's based on (and he said it improved on what pissed him off in the book). Me, I thought it was OK and I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again. It was decent, but decent shouldn't be the outcome when it's fuckin' Peter Jackson in charge, it should be fucking great. Sorry Peter, but that's what you get for setting high standards. The biggest problem is that I got kinda tired of the afterlife shit, I was more into watching how the family was dealing with all this, and the stuff with Tucci was really creepy and suspenseful. But then here comes more hippy-dippy bullshit with Briony Tallis and icicles and giant beach balls or whatever that shit was. Maybe if I was tripping balls or if I was a member of the CGI department, I'd get more out of it.

Jason Reitman is a dude who had it made; he had this big-time director/producer for a father and he could've just fuckin' coasted off Daddy if he wanted to. Instead, he had to be a fuckin' douchebag about it and try to make movies on his own. To make things worse, he ended up making good movies like Thank You for Smoking and Juno. What a fuckin' asshole. Jason Reitman is such a fucking piece-of-shit, he's gone on to make ANOTHER good movie. This one is called Up in the Air, starring that good-looking smug bastard George Clooney.

These are trying times we're living in, the economy is shit and every person who needs their job the most is getting let go. So, of course let's make a movie about
a man whose job is to travel all over the country and fire people. And let's get a guy who is better-looking than you and makes tons more money than you to play him. That's what the filmmakers thought up, and crazily enough, it ended up becoming a pretty good movie. You actually end up kind of caring for the main character and you find yourself remotely giving a fuck about his situation.

His situation is that he loves his job, loves being up in the air and living the single-serving lifestyle. He's mentions that he spent a total of only 43 days at home last year, and those were miserable days for him. Well, he's about to get more miserable because thanks to some new young chick's idea of firing people over the Internet, it looks like his flying days are over. I guess Reitman couldn't get Ellen Page again, so he got a prettier chick from Twilight to play the new gal on the job, and Clooney is forced to take her on the road to show her the ropes and that's pretty much the movie, I guess. Vera Farmiga shows up as basically the female version of Clooney, and the interactions between them are pretty funny. The movie does a great job of balancing comedy and drama; in the end, this is all about people either losing their jobs or realizing that maybe their life isn't as awesome as they thought. This movie is downright hilarious at times and yet there's an undercurrent of sadness to the whole thing.

There's kind of a perverse move done by the filmmakers here in casting guys like Zach Galifianakis and Danny McBride in relatively serious roles. I wonder if their roles would come off as humorous as they did if non-comic actors were cast instead, because most of my laughter came from just seeing their faces in the movie. They don't really have anything that funny to say, but because it's them, you're laughing anyway. That must really suck for them whenever they want to be serious; I remember watching David Hyde Pierce doing an interview on some morning show, and he brought up something about a retarded woman and they guffawed, because it's fucking Niles from Frasier displaying those comedic chops in his response. He then had to tell them that he wasn't joking about this girl, she really was retarded. Beautiful awkwardness followed.

Like I said, I thought this was a pretty good flick and everyone involved does a fine job, but it just doesn't feel like something Oscar-worthy. Of the 3 movies that bastard Reitman has made, I'd put this between Smoking and Juno in terms of quality. Anyway, fuck you and your good movies, Jason Reitman -- you're the kind of motherfucker who would still work after winning the lottery. It's funny how I liked this way more than The Lovely Bones, yet I had less to write about. I guess I'm just starting to get a case of the half-assed lazies.

After that movie, my buddy's special lady friend took her leave and we went over to Jack in the Box. After that long break, my buddy went to bed and it was just me and An Education, starring Peter Sarsgaard and some Brit chick who kinda reminded me of Emily Mortimer a little bit. Also, Dr. Octopus plays her father.

So the Brit chick plays a 16-year-old swept off her feet by an high-living older dude, and we watch just how easy it is for this guy to go about getting some underage trim. I mean, we're introduced to her father being this hard-ass who doesn't suffer fools gladly and seems pretty quick himself, yet fuckin' Sarsgaard smooth talks both him and the wife. Next thing you know, he's taking her to operas and dances, traveling to other parts of the country, and eventually out of the fuckin' country. I think what was going on was that when it came down to it, Mum and Dad decided to act dumb and look the other way if it meant that their little girl was gonna end up living a great life. This could be the Celine Dion story, except Sarsgaard isn't THAT old.

Boy, does this girl think she's hot shit after hooking up with this guy! She starts talking back to her teachers, giving out Chanel No. 5 and wearing diamond rings. What's funny is that her situation isn't a secret to anyone, both her instructor and headmistress (Emma Thompson, how about that?) know about this shit. They get on her case about it, but homegirl has a pretty interesting philosophy on it, saying that before she "ends" her life by going the college route, she wants to live live live until she dies. I guess it's safe to say that the other shoe is inevitably going to drop, and when it does, it's pretty fuckin' funny what her man's really all about.

So fuck this guy, this asshole, but I still have to give it up to him for waiting so long to get with her in the biblical sense. Half the time, they end up sleeping in the bed together but he agrees not to do anything. Holy shit. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep with those kind of blue balls without taking an extra-long shower beforehand. Now you have THAT in your mental movie screen, sorry.

Yeah, this was a pretty tight flick too. It had a really fast pace compared to the other movies and the story is entertainingly fucked up. It ends a little too pat, but since this was based on some shit that happened for real, I guess you can't fault life. Everyone's good, but I think the best performances were from Alfred Molina (a motherfuckin' chameleon, this guy!) and Olivia Williams, playing the dowdier version of Miss Cross from Rushmore. There's a bit where Brit chick says something really fucked up without thinking about it, and you can see in dowdier Miss Cross' face the tiniest bit of heartbreak. If she had back-handed Brit chick, I wouldn't have complained. Speaking of Olivia Williams, you wanna see something kind of awesome? Check out this interview she did with former lov-uh Craig Ferguson for a little taste of awkwardness.

As much as this flick was involving and all that, I didn't sleep well the night before and it was catching up with me. The coffee from Jack in the Box might as well have been warm milk, and I started getting tired. The plan was to watch two more screeners, but I had to dump the last one if I wanted to drive home without waking up off the embankment. So the last movie of the night (early morning, actually) was called A Single Man, which is nice because what this world needs is a title damn near the same as a fuckin' Coen Brothers movie that came out two months earlier.

Turns out this movie has a touch of the Gay in it, so if that kind of thing bothers you, then take it over to something more manly like Deliverance or American Me. But yeah, this movie stars Colin Firth as a gay college professor (he's gay, not the college he teaches at) who wakes up to the terrible news that his lover of 16 years has gone to the big Kylie Minogue concert in the sky. The worst part of this is that he can't even go to the fuckin' funeral because it's for family only. See, the movie takes place in the 60's, when homosexuals didn't live so much in the closet as in a goddamn underground bunker. Now this guy's long-time love is fuckin' dead but because as far as everyone else is concerned they were just friends, he can't even say goodbye to the guy. Because we as a people have to get over this shit.

Sorry for getting all soapbox here, but really, man -- what the fuck. I'm talking about the whole gay marriage thing, which along with resulting in some goddamn human rights, would help them the fuck out when it comes to visiting rights and insurance issues. Yeah, well it doesn't matter because the Book says it's wrong and -- ARRRGH! Listen, I love Jim Caviezel too, but if it comes down to treating my fellow man with love and compassion or denying him or her basic human rights just because an old archaic book that could've been rewritten and revised by anyone tells me to, then I pick the former. Because, straight or gay, a human being is a human being. We have to get beyond all the hatred and name-calling if we ever want to evolve as a species.

Anyway, this pillow-biting fudgepacker is all emo about losing his butt-buddy and decides that now is as good a time as any to walk out of the movie that is his life. Yup, it's Budd Dwyer time, folks. He packs a revolver in his valise and heads off to complete one more day of life before doing his Richard Jeni routine.

Like Up in the Air, A Single Man was directed by a real jerk-off of a human being. Tom Ford's his name, and he's already super-famous and rich as a fashion designer, and I guess that wasn't good enough for him, because somewhere along the way he decided to become a filmmaker. So now he's got this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel and here we are. And just like that asshole Reitman, Ford ended up with an awesome flick. Fuck that, he's even worse than Reitman because this movie is even better. What a fuckin' asshole.

I didn't know a fucking thing about this movie except that Julianne Moore was in it, so I guess that's why so much of it felt like a surprise to me. I mean, nothing too crazy happens, it's not a plot-twist type of deal. This is more of a character study and I found it fascinating, but I think what makes this whole piece stronger is the style of it. There's a great dreamy look and feel to the whole thing, and the 60's setting combined with the Bernard Herrmann-esque music makes you feel like you're watching a super-pristine print of a European film of the times that was shot in Los Angeles. Fuck it, that statement makes sense to me, at least. The shots are artfully composed and the motherfuckers behind the camera know the best times to shoot something really fucking close or in slow-mo for full effect. There's this trick involving bringing color to a desaturated shot that's done every once in a while. I got a real kick out of that, because when it happens, you know why the fuck it happens. You're totally in the lead character's mindset. Either that, or that was the DVD copy-protection going wonky for no reason and I'm an idiot.

Colin Firth is fucking great at this, and he doesn't even have to go balls-out Pacino to do it. It's one of those understated deals where you know he just wants to let that shit out and go nuts, but nope, he keeps it together pretty much. He only lets a little steam out every once in a while, almost as a precaution to avoid completely losing his shit. But it's really something to see, watching this man decide to put on a brave face and just try to have a regular day, while periodically taking breaks to take get his affairs in order; buying bullets, leaving an envelope of money for his maid, checking his deed and insurance out of his safety deposit box.

I don't know what it is about Julianne Moore, but she's always more attractive when she's playing from a different time period. Boogie Nights, End of the Affair, this fuckin' movie. She plays Firth's close friend, and she's getting up there in age and she likes the booze -- so that means she likes to party. Fuckin' asshole Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias is in this too, playing the dead lover in flashbacks. I'm sorry Matthew Goode, I'm never gonna trust your ass, especially in that Amy Adams movie you're gonna be in next month.

Anyway, this was an awesome fucking example of Style Over Substance, and even the substance was pretty good. Sad as fuck, but good nonetheless. The ending was awesome in a really fucked-up way too. This would make a good double-bill with Apartment Zero, if for no other reason than Colin Firth is sorta gay in that one.

By now, it was morning and the sun was up. I was tired, so unfortunately, foxy-ass Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria was gonna have to go unwatched. It was time to go home. I'm gonna do what Cathie did in her BNAT blog and put the flicks I watched in order of preference:

1) A Single Man
2) Invictus
3) An Education
4) Up in the Air
5) The Lovely Bones

So yeah, I took off and headed home. I stopped and realized that Philippe's might be open, and since I've never been, why the hell not? So I went to try one of their sandwiches for the first time. There were three people in front of me, and it took 15 minutes to get to me. I'd hate hate hate to imagine the lines during lunch hour. I asked for a double-dipped beef sandwich. Then, in a last-second panic, I asked for blue cheese on it.

I fucked up.