Life is Hot in Robberytown

These bastards, they want me to know what Catfish is about; the trailer came up as I waited for the feature to start and I've no idea what the film is about except that I shouldn't have any idea of what the film is about. I decided right then and there that I didn't want to know. Usually, I'll sit through trailers but if it's something I don't want to have spoiled, the best I can do is turn away and tune out the dialogue. A friend of mine takes more extreme measures; he covers his ears or if there's someone with him to save his seat, he'll get up and leave for a few minutes. Anyway, I decided to pull one of his moves; I had popcorn and soda saving my seat (I hoped) and got up and left. 2-and-a-half minutes later, I returned to see the green band for another trailer up on the screen, so I started walking up the aisle.

It was the Catfish trailer. Again.

Fuck, I said to myself, and I walked back out of the theater for another 2 and-a-half minutes. When I returned, I had a good news/bad news scenario to greet me. Good news? It wasn't the Catfish trailer for a third time. Bad news? It was a trailer for something with that piece-of-shit Katherine Heigl and that guy from the Transformers movies about two mismatched people who don't like each other but under circumstances are now under the care of a recently orphaned baby, I guess because the baby's now-dead parents watched way too many shitty rom-coms. Christ. Sweet Christ. How many future break-ups and eventual divorces are gonna sit through that goddamn thing? Thankfully, that ended and the movie I used my "Free Night at the Movies" (admission, soda and popcorn!) AMC ticket on, The Town began.

Ben Affleck not only co-wrote and directed, but also decided to star his fine ass in this picture, playing a recovering alcoholic/druggie but unrecovered criminal hardass, doing jobs with his 3 buddies. One of them is played by The Hurt Locker and Mr. Locker is the wild card of the bunch, in this group of professionals he's the one most likely to go "Let's kill these bitches" (to reference a bit from the greatest comedian in the world, one Sir Danish Cook, O.B.E.). At the start of the movie, Affleck and company just pulled a bank job and aside from a couple unexpected violent improvs from Mr. Locker, everything went well -- until they find out after the job that the bank assistant manager they had taken hostage during their getaway (and dropped off at a beach), well, she lives near these dudes. Affleck decides to do a little spywork by paying her a little visit as just some random dude, just to make sure that she's busy trying to move on with her life, rather than moving on to the nearest FBI office.

People love that show Mad Men, and maybe I'd love it as well but I'll never know because I won't watch the motherfucker. Too many movies out there and I'm already watching 2 programs (by which my count, is 2 too many). But anyway, the guy from that show, Jon Hamm is here playing an FBI agent and what I liked about his character was that he wasn't particularly likable. His job doesn't require him to be, in fact, it probably helps big time that he's a colossal prick because all his job requires him to do is put away the bad guy. Period. And he loves putting away the bad guy because he sure as fuck doesn't like the bad guy. There is no "my heart bleeds for him" Manhunter duality in this mofo, he will talk crazy shit to your face about how he's gonna fuck your future if he thinks you're the bad guy, and I swear he gets as much enjoyment trying to fuck people who are merely associated with the bad guy. 

Because Affleck is the main character, Jon Hamm is the antagonist here. Same people that are cheering Affleck to get away with it, would be cheering Hamm on if the film was re-edited so that *he* was the star. It's weird how that works with us audiences; tell us who the star is, devote your screen time to him or her and unless he or she is a complete animal, that's the side we're gonna be on. I mean, I want Affleck to get away with it but it's not like he's a criminal with a soft side in this movie. It seems that way in the beginning, when he doesn't call out the assistant bank manager on some shit she pulls during the robbery, but that's more because she's a pretty girl. I'm sure if that was a dude, he'd have tuned him up a bit.

It's like this interview I read with Jada Pinkett before she got Big Willie into her life; she talked about how when she was 18 or 19, she got robbed at gunpoint. It was some serious shit, harsh and violent and it got to the point that she pissed herself, she was so scared, she admitted this in print. Me, I'd do some revisionism on that story. Well, some time later, this dude got caught and it turns out he had a history of killing all the people he jacked. This got to Ms. Pinkett-Not-Smith-Yet, so she visited him in jail and asked him something to the effect of "Why did you let me live, when you killed so many others" and his response was that he thought she was cute. That was it; it wasn't a question of morality or this sudden change-of-heart about how he was doing these things, it was simply that if she was ugly or a guy, she'd be dead.

I was reminded of that story with Affleck's character here, and why he tries to protect the Chick from That One Woody Allen Movie I Haven't Seen. Because when it comes down to it, he doesn't have a heart of gold, he's a fuckin' gangster and will throw down into some gangster shit if need be. This guy is a Professional in the same way that Mr. White and Mr. Pink were professionals -- a choice between doing 10 years and taking out some stupid motherfucker, ain't no choice at all. There's a job in the film he doesn't want to take, and it's kinda left out there whether it's because of his official reason (it would involve dealing with hardcore gung-ho do-or-die young armed guards, rather than older dudes who just want to make it to retirement) or because he really wants out. Enough is put out there for you to take it either way. But just because he doesn't have a heart of gold, doesn't mean he doesn't have a heart at all, it's just that it only extends to the those he's close to, or wants to be close to, as in the case of Ms. Assistant Manager.

There are questionable actions Affleck's character pulls in this flick but since we're focusing on his life and his problems, and since all we see of Jon Hamm is that he's an asshole who works for a good cause, then that pretty much decides who you want to take the ride with, know what I mean? No, you don't -- I'm not that articulate. Hmm. Let me put it this way -- I guess it shows to go you how much of a master Michael The Fuckin' Mann is because he managed to put a dude like me in a real audience's quandary when I watched Heat. By the climax of the film, I was torn because I wanted both DeNiro and Pacino's character to succeed even though I knew that wasn't going to be possible, so I was left with this unsettling feeling wondering who was going to win/lose. But with The Town, I was totally on Team Affleck by default. And just to make sure you don't completely hate on Jon Hamm (he is trying to bust these guilty-as-sin robbers for you know, breaking the law, it's not like he's some corrupt murderer), the film gives us this scary Irish gangster dude who runs shit from a flower shop with this big white-haired dude who reminded me of King Cotton (aka Roscoe of Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles from Tapeheads) with shorter hair.

For a while, I thought they were gonna set up The Hurt Locker's character as some piece of shit who would be better off dead rather than fucking up my boy Affleck's game, but sometimes I'd listen to what this dude was saying and think, Shit he has a point, you know? Mr. Locker has a problem knowing when to say when as far as pulling the Ownage card goes, but as the movie goes on you kinda get the feeling this dude is even more of a stand-up guy than Affleck is, when the chips are down. He's a loyal motherfucker, I'll put it that way, especially when you start thinking more about how Affleck's treated/treating the other people in his life. And then there's this other scene where Affleck calls The Hurt Locker to help him do something that didn't really need to be done, and it involves doing some damage and the whole time I'm thinking, Wait a minute, wasn't Affleck getting all up in Hurt Locker's grill about hurting people 10 minutes ago? What the fuck, I guess as long as it serves *your* purpose, it's OK, right?

What you have here is a solid entry into the book of crime movies under the Heat chapter; the movie is far more interested in the characters but doesn't skimp out when it comes time to do some crime. In addition to bringing the goods in the acting department (the supporting cast is great, Affleck does fine with his slightly Parker-esque character), it brings the goods in the action department. There's a pretty tricky car chase through some narrow streets and there's also one of those automatic weapon shootouts I like so much, the ones with crazy thump and bass with every burst of rapid fire coming from multi-magazine clips. I can watch that kind of shit for hours. The movie gets better as it goes along, in thirds; it was a decent flick for the first third, a good flick during the second third, and a very good flick by the last third. Then it kills some of that goodwill with the ending, but I'm not gonna hate on Affleck for it because I think he was put in a really tough damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation as far as how to finish this fucker. His first film, Gone Baby Gone, had a better ending but despite that and a great Ed Harris performance, I think I'll give the edge to this one.

Oh yeah, forgot about this. The movie starts with some quotes and a title card telling you that the setting of the film, Charlestown, might as well be called Robberytown on account of all the bank robberies that occur there, then halfway through the end credits there's a disclaimer that tells you that it's still a great place because there's lots of hard-working law-abiding citizens who live a life of decency. It's great that they waited to put that bit up until when they were certain most of the audience would be halfway to the parking lot by then. It's kinda like the very end of the end credits of De Palma's Scarface, when at the last possible moment they put up a disclaimer that basically says "By the way, not ALL Cuban immigrants are drug-dealing criminals, FYI. Wink wink" or the very last 10 seconds of the 10 minute end credit scroll for Blood In, Blood Out: Bound by Honor that tells you "Oh, yeah. Those shankings and riots and rapes at San Quentin? Uh, they don't happen anymore" and might as well end with snickering and maybe a "Not!".

That's called responsibility, people. One day I'm gonna make a movie called All The Asian People In My City Know Martial Arts And Want To Kill You and it's going to be about sweet, innocent Amy Adams making a wrong turn on her way to a birthday party and having to escape from a city where all the Asian people know martial arts and are kung-fu'ing the fuck out of all the non-Asians for about 90 minutes, then they all go after her because she's, like, super White. It's going to have a 20-minute long end credit reel, and at the very end for about 0.5 seconds before the reel ends and the lights go up, I'll cover my ass with this:

Disclaimer: All Asian people do not know martial arts and will not look to kill you. The Asian community is filled with hard-working, non-violent, peaceful people who have love and respect for all others. Everything you just watched was a lie and I apologize. Thanks for watching.

For Tanya Livingston and Gwen Meighen

Airport is a movie about an evil old hag named Ada Quonsett who thinks she can get away with being a fuckin’ criminal because she’s old. Fuck this bitch. Everyone else falls for it, and even Burt Lancaster is won over by this piece of shit but you know who won’t play her fuckin’ game? Jean Seberg, that’s who. She plays the character of Tanya Livingston, and as far as I’m concerned, I owe this fictional broad a drink, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The titular airport is the fictional Lincoln International and we cut between different characters and their various going-ons during one particularly rough snowstorm. Burt Lancaster runs the show, because when you look like Burt Lancaster, you don’t need credentials, they just give you the fuckin’ airport manager position because you obviously know how to run shit. At the beginning of the movie, some hotshot pilot tried to pull some shit on the runway during landing and ends up getting his plane stuck in the snow, so Lancaster calls up George Kennedy (who was busy macking on his wife, proving that some people, you just don’t ever want to see getting remotely intimate) and tells him to get his ass over to the airport to find a way to move that fuckin’ plane so it’s not hogging up all that precious landing space.

Dean Martin plays a pilot who also happens to be Lancaster’s brother-in-law and is it me or will there never be bona-fide 100% cool motherfuckers like Dean Martin anymore? Like super cool. I don’t think it’s possible, you have all these perpetrators and wannabes who call themselves cool but they’re not. They made human beings different back then, we’re all pussies now, even the supposedly cool people of today are fuckin’ douchebags compared to the cool people of Yesterday. Anyway, Dino is married but this is 1969/70 we’re talking about so he’s got a hot little stewardess on the side played by Jacqueline Bisset. They have a nice little moment where he’s trying to get some from her at her apartment even though they have to be on a plane in 15 minutes; they’re using some of the most awesome/lame/obvious double entendres and I love them for it.

I don’t remember seeing a single male stewardess in this movie, probably because they didn’t invent the term “flight attendant" yet. Goddamn, the past was a beautiful thing at least in the fantasized romanticized version of the past I have playing in my head; pretty young ladies in their short skirts walking up and down the aisle asking you politely -- politely! -- if they can get you something to drink, or if you’d like a pillow and a blanket (which means they want to go to bed with you, of course).  Now I get nothing but the Steven Slater types on my flights. Here’s something sad -- every time it looks like I’m going to get some dude bank teller at the bank, I always pretend I forgot something in my wallet and let the person behind me pass through. Then guess what has two thumbs, suddenly found his bank card, and is now walking up to the anonymous pretty girl bank teller? This guy!

Jean Seberg plays Lancaster’s assistant, and I want to Purple Rose of Cairo/Last Action Hero my way into her life and ask for her hand in marriage for the way she dealt with that Quonsett bitch. OK, so this is where I started, right? The old lady was caught trying to stowaway on a flight, and they bring her down to talk to Seberg and get a well-deserved shaming and dressing down. Mrs. Quonsett then happily -- happily! -- admits to always pulling this kinda shit, not just on this airline, but others as well.

Quonsett thinks she has an excuse, talking about how she wants to see her daughter but can’t afford the ticket because she only has social security and her late husband’s small pension to live on, and for a second my heart was slightly bleeding for her. But then she goes on about how she pulls this breaking-the-law shit and will continue to do so because she knows she can get away with it. It wouldn’t look good for the public relations if they prosecuted a little old lady for trying to see her daughter. I swear, she even fuckin’ smiles and looks all proud-like about it. The balls on this fuckin’ lady. The BALLS.

I love when people use poverty as an excuse to pull some shit. I have a friend who I think the world of, but this fuckin’ guy has happily admitted to never tipping at bars or clubs because he can barely afford to get in the clubs/bars and drink. He figures, Hey, at least I’m paying for the drinks and cover charge and they should be happy that I’m bringing some kind of business to the establishment. I bet you he would be among the people cheering and laughing along with Ada Quonsett. Well, you know what bro? Go hang with your old broad friend. I’m going to be hanging here with the lovely Tanya Livingston, played by the chick from Breathless.

There is an annoyance/borderline-anger in Mrs. Livingston as she’s dealing with Quonsett, and I loved her for it, because it showed that I wasn’t the only one feeling that way, especially since the movie is obviously on the old lady’s side. They play goofy “She’s incorrigible!” music every time she’s around and even the movie trailer calls her “huggable” and I guess they’re right because I want to hug Mrs. Quonsett around the neck with my hands. Why are we supposed to cheer this bitch? Her sociopathic ability to not give a fuck about STEALING is shared by the kind of con artists who make their livings ripping off little old ladies who resemble Quonsett.

I also never got into the whole Ain’t-It-Cute-When-Old-People-Do-Crazy-Things? deal you see in movies; it’s seems like a lame way to get laughs when they show an old lady swearing or kicking ass or being super-horny. This, by the way, is why a show like The Golden Girls is a goddamn miracle, because that shit managed to always be funny even though it had all the old lady shit I hate in movies. Maybe it’s because it was a sitcom and not a relatively serious movie and in some hidden discriminatory way I hold movies to a higher standard? I hope not, that's an asshole stance. Speaking of The Golden Girls, I’m a Betty White fan and while I’m aware of her resurgence in pop-culture, I haven’t seen The Proposal or the SNL episode or that television show she’s on, so all I can say is Good For Her and if they’re giving her lame shit to do, fine, as long as she’s making some cash and people are digging on her. Meanwhile, the only thing I want to dig for Ada Quonsett is a fuckin’ grave.

Airport was based on a best-selling book, and this was back at a time when the majority of people still read, so we’re talking a shitload of books were sold the world over. I looked up a review that pointed out a big problem with the film adaptation was that there was no surprise since you knew what was going to happen. I don’t get that, because that’s the case with most adaptations and besides, I never read the book, so most of this movie came as a surprise to me anyway. The only thing I could see coming was part of the subplot about a dude trying to sneak an attache case bomb onto the plane (ah, remember when 9/11 was just 3 numbers used to dial for emergencies?), and that was because I saw Airplane II: The Sequel, where they were poking fun at that.

Of course, the guy trying to sneak a bomb onto a flight is named Guerrero; these assholes are always trying to give raza the short end of the stick. Even worse/weirder is that the guy who plays him, Van Heflin, looks about as much a Guerrero as Cameron looks about as much a Diaz. Wait. Ah, I see. I take it all back. In fact, there’s a scene where that evil Quonsett points out that this fat Irishman looks like a fat Irishman, not a Guerrero. He explains that it’s an ancestral thing from long ago, the same way Johnny Rico and Dizzy Flores from Starship Troopers look like clean-cut all-Americans. By the way, “all-American” is just a nice way of saying Absolutely White With No Traces Of Race Contamination. When people go on about how some dude grew up with an all-American upbringing or some shit like that, it means he’s clean and white and untainted by the savagery that has already infected the coasts. Word.

Maureen Stapleton plays Guerrero’s wife and gives my favorite performance in the movie. She has a scene where she’s watching a plane take off and you can see just about the entire world go out from under her, yet she does her best to keep a lid on it. She cries and tears roll down her face, but I got the sense that she absolutely wasn't going to lose her shit completely in public, even though she absolutely wanted to. It takes her all the strength she has left just to remain standing up, and maybe it would’ve been better for her to just let it the fuck out, then maybe all that pain and anguish wouldn’t have had the chance to eat her up from the inside. I felt bad for her character, really bad.

I also feel bad for Tanya Livingston because she was so alone in how she felt about that fuckin’ Quonsett. If only I was able to be there for her; I’d show up in my fuckin’ late 60’s business wear, smoking my 32nd cigarette of the evening. I know how you feel, baby, I know. I’d ask her if she wanted to talk about it at the Commander’s Club, over cocktails and steak dinners, because that’s how people rolled back then. Cocktails and steak every fuckin’ night, people! In my dreams, at least! In my dreams when I sleep!

I guess compared to today’s standards, one could call this movie slow, but I didn’t find that the case at all. I mean, yeah, nothing serious happens until an hour in or so, but I was always into it. The soap-opera melodrama between characters was fun to watch, and at the very least it was just a trip to watch how different shit was in ‘69/‘70; the fashions, the interior design of the airport and the airplane, people smoking wherever the fuck they wanted, every man is wearing a suit and tie, and every woman is wearing a skirt and stockings. Think about that -- people dressed up to go on a flight. If I could get away with it, I’d wear a fuckin’ suit everyday and the only reason I don’t is because I hardly leave the house, I’ve no reason to wear a suit alone at home, I’m not that sad. But I really enjoyed this movie, I was entertained for all 136 minutes and maybe it was a good idea to watch a movie that takes place during a snowstorm on such a warm night.

Some people consider this the first “disaster” movie because it was made in ‘69, came out in ‘70, it features an all-star cast, and George Kennedy is in it telling people what to do, so I can see why they’d lump it in with stuff like Earthquake and The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure (with Ernest Borgnine as George Kennedy) and all those other movies, but I can’t quite agree. It’s more like the proto-model for what would become the disaster movie of the 70’s, it’s more of a “crisis” movie, or better yet, a “headache” movie because it’s all about these different headaches being brought Lancaster’s way on just another night on the job.

Yup, Lancaster's got a lot of shit to deal with and if it’s not the plane stuck on the runway, it’s the protestors picketing for the closing of a runway that is too close to their homes, or it’s the constant phone calls from his socialite wife giving him shit for working a job with crazy hours and not having time for her or especially his children, or it’s dealing with this stowaway bitch, or (the biggest headache of all) it’s the possibility that there’s a guy on a plane with a bomb. It’s a good thing his assistant is easy on the eyes. Have I mentioned that I was a tad smitten with the Tanya Livingston character, partially because of her refusal to fall for some old lady’s shenanigans and partially because she’s played by Jean Seberg (who I like with either super-short hair or super big hair)? Well, I am. I’m also smitten with the Jacqueline Bisset stewardess character and I wish there was another Airport that focused on both ladies where they’d tell all the old lady grifters to go fuck themselves.  Case in point, this beautiful scene:

Not so much about a movie, but I did see one that day

My grandmother (on my father's side) is approaching 100, will probably live to 120, and no one really likes her. That is expected when you act like a cold bitch to the kids you raise; my father never heard "I love you" from her ever or got a hug or anything resembling warmth and it's no surprise that he (and most of his siblings) left home before the age of 17. On the opposite end of the Mutha scale, my aunt (on my mother's side) is an incredibly nice and loving person, probably never went without telling her kids how much she loved them or giving them a hug, and she's in her 60's, so it makes perfect sense in a God's-A-Mean-Asshole-With-A-Fucked-Up-Sense-Of-Humor sort of way that she now has terminal cancer.

I went to see her and came out admiring her fearlessness about dying; a religious woman, she believes in an afterlife, so I guess she has faith in being taken care of on the other side. Me, I'm not so sure what happens but I certainly hope there's somewhere we go to after we die. Watching her children at her side, taking care of her, it made me think of the difference between how quick and easy it was for my cousins to take care of their mother whereas my dad and his siblings are basically playing hot potato with their mother, trying to find a place for her to stay (she got kicked out of a nursing home for hitting someone there) and I wonder if this reflects on how they were raised. My cousins had a sitcom mom and my dad and his sibs had Livia Soprano.

Thoughts started flooding my head (for a change); thinking not just about my aunt's mortality, but my own parents' as well. It didn't faze me too much because it's always been something I've been -- for lack of a better word -- *prepared* for. I know that day will come, unless God decides to have another one of his pranks and decides to have me die before them (he's a vindictive fuck who hasn't gotten over the ownage his son received) but while I'm prepared for the day they shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm not prepared for the process of watching them die. But then again, who IS ready for that shit? Who is ready to watch someone they love slowly die? Aside from those who are preparing to kill them slowly, of course. But I'm pretty sure the rest of us want it to be quick for them, painless, but chances are when the time comes for our parents to hop the Death Train, they're gonna end up taking the scenic route.

Anyway, the day that happens is the day that happens and I guess the best you can do is always let them know how you feel. I don't regret always telling my parents (and my sister's family) whenever I see them that I love them, and I won't regret it. I am such a fag. You wanna hear something pathetic on top of the sadness pile I've just plopped down on you? I actually cried while writing this, somewhere around the second paragraph. Took a break and then continued. It's not the first time I've cried while writing these ramblings, usually I cry while writing these ramblings because I know how badly written they are and how they're ultimately a waste of everyone's time. These are the jokes, folks. OK, fine, here's an actual joke, then:

It's a guy's first day in prison and he's crying. His cellmate has had enough of it and turns to him and says "Buddy, relax. Enough of that. Prison's not so bad. For instance, do you like movies?" 

New fish is like "Yeah, I love movies." 

"Every Monday, they show us first-run movies on the big screen." says the Lifer.

"That's great!" responds the new fish.

Lifer continues. "Do you like baseball?"

"Yeah, I love baseball." says new fish.

"Every Tuesday, we arrange a baseball game" says the Lifer.

"That's terrific!" says the new fish.

Lifer continues. "Do you like Italian food?"

"Yeah, I love Italian food." says the new fish.

"Every Wednesday, in the cafeteria, it's all Italian food." says the Lifer.

"Wow" the new fish says with a smile.

Lifer continues. "Let me ask you one more thing, are you a homosexual?"

"No way!" the new fish responds.

Lifer shakes his head. "Oh, you're not gonna like Thursday."

I can't take credit for that one.

After I left, I didn't feel like going home, I knew my mind would continue to be occupied by these nonstop thoughts and I wanted at least a couple hours of sensory distraction. So I stopped by a dispensary and bought some medicated cookies and then I went to my neighborhood theater and I asked the girl behind the counter what was the next IMAX or 3D showing of whatever, and she said there was a RealD presentation of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole that started 5 minutes ago and I was like "Yeah sure, whatever". How's that for a goddamn segue? I should win a fuckin' award for that segue. Oh yeah, the guy who owns Segway is dead now. It happened fast, his death. Lucky son-of-a-bitch.

So in case you didn't know that Zack Snyder directed it, he lets you know by having the opening shot be one of those regular-motion-now-super-slow-motion-back-to-regular-motion deals while a feather comes off a flying owl. Some mouse is chilling out on a branch, then the owl swoops in and clutches the motherfucker. That owl is the mother to some English-accented motherfucker, who with his older asshole brother ends up falling off a tree and then they get swooped away by a couple other asshole birds and taken to Asshole Bird Island where the Helen Mirren bird runs shit by mind-wiping kidnapped birds (with the help of the moon) and turning them into either soldiers or slaves in the mission to rule the world or something.

The older brother ends up doing the soldier thing and our lead owl ends up escaping with some elf owl and they end up hooking up with the Good birds and train for battle while some laaaaaame-ass Disney Channel style song plays over them. I guess because the band/singer calls themselves/himself "Owl City" that got him the job. They didn't think to hear the music, the producers probably just said "Hey, with a name like Owl City, that's gonna blow like dynamite and sell like hotcakes!" or something. Somewhere along the way, the cookies took hold and I don't remember much else aside from creepy 3D owls looking at me and the use of that "Seraphim" song by Dead Can Dance that was used in The Mist, proving once again that Zack Snyder is like the Quentin Tarantino of taking songs/music tracks from other movies and using them in his own movies. He used Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" on his Dawn of the Dead remake a year after William Friedkin used it in The Hunted, he used a Philip Glass track from that Godfrey Reggio flick called Bunchoffastmotionslowmotionimagesqatsi for Watchmen, and he used one of those This Is Sparta songs that you see all over YouTube, took out the music, and had Gerard Butler lipsync over the vocal for 300.

I guess it was an OK movie, I was way past being able to make sense of it (or anything else for that matter), having purposely taken enough pot cookie to ensure that I might possibly be the first guy to die from it (to steal a line from a comedian whose name I can't remember), and even then I would occasionally have flashes of visiting my aunt earlier that afternoon. Also, I was listening to the little girl a couple rows back who kept talking out loud to her family, only taking breaks from disrupting the movie with her mouth so she could then disrupt the movie by walking around the other rows and hopping over seats. It was so awesome to be completely fucking insanely baked at the time, because otherwise I would've been livid and swinging Little Miss Girl by her ankles, playing xylophone with the handrails in the aisles by using her head. Instead, I was absolutely fine with it. I even went to sit at the very back of the theater during the movie, so I can observe this considerate kid (oxymoron) and the movie at the same time. It's like her mother (didn't see a male in the group, so I figure it was all sisters and cousins and aunts with her) was just so tired from raising her excess number of kids that were most likely never planned (but hey, no plans are needed when you use the never-fail method of pulling out, right?) to do anything about it. I guess I shouldn't talk because I don't have kids, therefore, I have no right.

I imagined what would happen if I complained to her. I'd go up to the mother, tell her "That's it, lady. Take your kid home, because it's over. It's over!" and she'd get all pissed and stand up and point at me and go "Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my fault! He asked me to get off the pill, I didn't ask him! And I did what I had to do to not have the kid! But somebody wouldn't let me abort! And I come back to my neighborhood and I see all those maggots at Planned Parenthood, protesting me, spitting. Calling me attempted baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!" and then I realized that I'm completely lost in this blog and I haven't even had a drink or a smoke. I'm completely sober now and it doesn't make a difference. 

The comic relief was bullshit in this movie. Fucking lame. Two of the bad guy birds are comparing intimidating looks and I guess we're supposed to find that funny but instead we found it a miserable failure, and by we, I mean the royal We. It was pretty cool to watch the birds go into battle because it was some straight-up cockfighting (rather than dogfighting); they either have blades attached to their talons or they're actually carrying the fuckin' blades and swinging them around. Of course, it's still got to be kid-friendly, so there's no actual blood. I think one bird gets impaled, though. That was pretty awesome.

I looked up this whole Guardians of Ga'Hoole deal on Witwickypedia and there's a bunch of books in this series. All I could think about was how long it would take to make them all. Harry Potter's what, like 7 books and it took 10 years to make movies out of those. Ga'Hoole's got 16. But since the shit's animated, they don't have to worry about aging actors like with Harry Potter; The Simpsons has been on the air long enough to have kids and drop out of school and the actors supplying the voices sound the same. I'm sure the filmmakers expect to make more, considering that there are more books out there, not to mention the open ending. That's kinda risky, though, because I'm sure the guys who made The Golden Compass expected to make follow-up flicks as well.

For the record, I pronounce "Ga'Hoole" in a manner similar to what this guy does at the 0:33 mark of this video. Shit, I don't know what else to say other than Hooray for 3D or something.

Bubbles like a mutha

Scroll scroll scroll. That's what the woman a couple rows down from me was doing on her iPhone during the movie. It looked like she was looking up her Facebook page, but she put it away before I could go down and tell her nicely to put that shit away, which was probably for the best because she had her boyfriend with her and basically if it went down THAT way he'd have kicked my ass, but I'd get a few shots in, that's for sure. It made me wonder if I should even bother going to the movies anymore, at least in neighborhood theaters. Maybe just narrow it down to revival houses like the New Beverly, but even then, that same kind of shit has happened there. Shit man, someone punched a dude at that place. There is no safe haven from the majority of the human race. I don't know, every few years I reach this movie-watching nadir (the last time was in '02), I get bummed out and consider pretty much giving up on movie theaters altogether and just going All In on waiting a few more months to catch it at home on my rather decent setup.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which I caught a few hours ago. So Oliver Stone's last couple flicks didn't get the attention or box office they were expected to receive, and Michael Douglas' career has seen better days, so I figure the existence of this sequel has absolutely nothing to do with what I just mentioned, forget I brought it up. But it is great timing, though, considering all the shit that's been going on with the economy for the past few years. Didn't the last movie come out around the time that the stock market crashed back in '87? I'm too lazy to look it up.

So Douglas' character, Gordon Gekko gets out of the slammer with his Zack Morris cell phone and is looking pretty assed out. It's kinda sad seeing him like that; back in the day, this dude owned everybody -- literally owned, in some cases -- and he was living the big pimpin' lifestyle until he made the mistake of hooking up with the fuckin' Ma-Sheen. Now he's out of jail, 9/11 just happened, the world's changed and he doesn't even have anyone waiting to pick him up from prison. Cut to 8 years after his release and he's doing OK for himself doing the lecture circuit and writing books and warning people that pretty soon there's gonna be a big financial shitstorm and we better be ready for it. Even then, shit's not the same as it used to be for him. The guy lives in a nice apartment, but this was a guy who used to own a seaside estate -- plus, the apartment's a rental. Here's a guy who had his own private jet, and now he takes the subway to get around. This is a man, a fucking MAN who once said something along the lines of "So I'll only make 10 million instead of 70" and today he's unable to afford the $10,000 donation fee to attend some big-deal charity dinner.

As in the last movie, Michael Douglas is the biggest name in the flick but is not the main character, that would be Shia "Ow My Hand" LeBeouf. The Beef plays a trader who's also trying to get some action going for an alternative energy plant, which to his credit, he totally believes in. I mean, he wants to make some money but the idea of solving some world energy problems sounds pretty fuckin' awesome to him. He's engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter and after someone close to him gets royally fucked over, he decides to pay Eventual Father-In-Law a visit for some lessons in the fine art of Payback.

Early in the film, there's an extreme close-up of Michael Douglas while his character lectures a bunch of college students, and all I could think about while looking at most of his mug taking up the Scope frame is that the motherfucker looks just like his father Kirk now. When I was a kid, Kirk Douglas was already old, and now Michael Douglas looks like that version of his father. If they remade The Fury and cast him in his father's role, you'd be like "Goddamn, that actor looks just like he did the last time they made this movie". Speaking of old people, Eli Wallach is in the movie. It's great to see the dude, he's been in a lot of cool shit and he's pretty good in the 3 scenes they give him. His character has a tendency to make noises with his mouth, combined with hand gestures and whistles, which left me wondering if that shit was scripted or if Wallach was ad-libbing or if that's just the kind of shit one does when he or she gets to an age where most of their idle time is spent trying not to die.

Back to Douglas. There's a scene where Gekko goes into detail about what happened to his son (who died of a drug overdose while he was in prison) and it's kinda painful to watch because it's hard not to think that the actor playing him wasn't thinking of his real-life son's drug troubles and where that shit lead him. Not only that, but his brother died from an overdose as well. They tell some actors to use their own life experiences and put them into a performance but in this case, I wonder if Douglas was trying not to do that, I mean, it's some painful shit to bring up, especially since it's happening Right Fucking Now. I don't know what I'm trying to say, all I'm saying is that I don't think you're watching Gordon Gekko get emotional during that particular scene, you're watching Michael Douglas get emotional.

To be honest, I like Shia LeBeouf. I understand he's kinda up there with pieces-of-shit like Ashton Kutcher, who could do the whole world a favor by shoving a nail gun up his nose and pulling the trigger until it goes Click and yet would manage to find a way to still annoy us, but The Beef, I ain't got no beef with. I didn't find him annoying in Eagle Eye and I didn't find him annoying here. His character comes off like someone who wants to be the best at his job -- making a ton of fuckin' money -- but he also wants to maintain some human fuckin' decency as well. There's a moment where he goes up to his mentor (played by Frank Langella) and gives him a kiss on top of the head and reading that you're probably all WTF but I'm telling you, it's a touching moment. I was totally with the dude from that moment on, because really, who the fuck is going to do something like that in the cutthroat dog-eat-dog-then-a-fuckin-shark-eats-you world of Wall Street and be completely sincere about it? The Beef, that's fuckin' who. I am on Team LeBeouf.

The chick from An Education is here, playing The Beef's fiancee/Gordon Gekko's daughter. As far as love interests in the Wall Street movies go, Daryl Hannah's hotter but this chick gives the better performance. Faint praise, I suppose, since the electronic stock ticker in Wall Street gave a better performance than Daryl Hannah, but to be fair, she was great in Kill Bill. Josh Brolin plays the villain (his character is more of a villain here than Gekko was in the first flick), and while he's worked previously with Oliver Stone in W., in this one you'd think he was up for the lead in the Ronald Reagan story because that's how he looks here. And you know how in the first film, there was a mini-Blade Runner reunion with Daryl Hannah and Sean Young, well in this one, you have a little Grindhouse get-together between Brolin representing Planet Terror and Vanessa Ferlito (playing one of Lebeouf's fellow traders) representing Death Proof.

Oliver Stone loves to cameo in his own shit, so I guess here he's reprising his role from the last Wall Street as some fuckin' random trader. That makes me wonder why Tarantino gets so much crap for appearing in his own movies, when guys like Stone, Scorsese and Spike Lee get away scot-free for fecalizing the frame with their fuckin' faces. The best I could come up with is that Tarantino was on the Accepted list until he started playing bigger parts than cameos -- I mean, I guess it's fine if you want to show up for 5 minutes doing "Don't fucking Jimmie me, Jules, don't fuckin' Jim-ma-me" but once you start trying to play lead roles with George Clooney, you're crossing a line.

The movie looks great, which is expected when you get a great cinematographer of raza like Rodrigo Prieto, who not only shot Brokeback Mountain, but played a male hustler in it as well. For reals, yo. What's up with that? I mean, the cinematographer for MacGruber had a role in the movie, uh, MacGruber where he made out with some muscle-bound dude. Are cinematographers a bunch of closet-cases or is that a way for the director to show everyone who the real boss is? Better yet, why do I take notice of whenever a D.P. plays a potential DP? I don't know, but I wonder about me sometimes. But yeah, the movie looks great visually, not so much composition-wise (which it had going on in spades, don't get me wrong) but color-wise, lighting-wise. There's also a lot of the usual Stone flashiness, mostly in the form of split-screens and Crimson Tide-style computer screen projections onto people's faces. There's also a pretty nifty shot where the camera cranes up from the street and then starts going up a high-rise building, and then starts to pan in circles while still going up up up, making a motherfucker go dizzy. It's obvious they did the CGI thing to pull that shot off, but I liked it.

In addition to Gordon Gekko, there are a few more things that pop up along the way to remind you of the first film, and I still haven't decided whether or not the movie would work better without them. They felt a little too cute for the most part, and there's one in particular that I appreciated but again, not sure if we really needed to see that. I'm being vague because everybody's so touchy about how much you know about a fuckin' movie before seeing it. There are a bunch of songs by David Byrne and Brian Eno throughout the movie, I'm not sure if they're old songs or original tunes made specifically for the movie -- yup, that one song from the last movie is here as well. They didn't bring back Stewart Copeland to do the score though, which is kind of a bummer but not too much of one because Craig Armstrong does a pretty good job here.

I dug this movie, and was surprised that I was more into the LeBeouf stuff than the Douglas stuff. I was more intrigued with the idea of a guy trying to remain at least a half-decent dude in a world where decency is a liability. It was also cool to then watch him put that part of him aside while putting on his Payback hat. Also, the chick from An Education was cute, so there's that. Of the movies he's made in the past 10 years, this is Oliver Stone's strongest work, which you can take the way you want to take it; Alexander is the only Stone film I didn't like (saw the theatrical cut, will not waste my time with the "director's cut" but I might give his "final cut" a day in court), World Trade Center was a solid flick but it felt like a film anyone else could've made, and W. was decent. I don't know if Stone is ever bringing back his A game but it's nice to see that he can still bring his B+ game for this one. The first Wall Street is the better of the two, but Money Never Sleeps ain't no slouch, it's a good follow-up for the most part. The biggest problem I had with it was....


SLIGHT SPOILER THAT KINDA RUINS THE ENDING SO STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW SO ITS THE END RIGHT HERE. THE END. TAKE OFF HOSER. SO LONG, FAREWELL, AUF WIEDERSEHEN, GOOD NIGHT


...the odd Wayne's World-style mega-happy-ending during the end credits. Don't take my advice, but if you watch the movie, take my advice and get the fuck out of the theater as soon as the end credits roll. Do not stick around for what happens during the credits because it feels and looks like some wacky dream sequence. Maybe that's what Stone was going for? I don't know. It's like the end credits bit at the end of Natural Born Killers, seeing Mickey and Mallory in an RV with kids. The ending before the credits is happy enough, it's realistic enough, I don't know why Stone felt he had to give us what he gave us during the credits. Maybe he's just getting soft in his old age, or maybe he just wanted to balance things out. I mean, the movie pretty much ends by telling the audience that shit will never change with the greedy motherfuckers in charge of everything and you're powerless to change it, so this is probably Stone's way of saying "The world is ugly and mean and awful and full of people who will eventually fuck you hard, but as long as you have love in your life, well, uh, at least the fucking won't feel so lonely".

I like how Lou Diamond Phillips slips into a cholo-esque accent when dealing with the main Hispanic rapist

So they got this EpixHD channel that I wouldn't know about because I have DirectTv and I got rid of HBO a long time ago and the Showtime channels I used to get for free are done with but it's ok, since it's not like I watch that much television to begin with (in the past 12 months I've only watched 3 television shows; Community, Modern Family and Louie). The only reason I know about EpixHD is because that's where you'd go if you wanted to see Louis CK's stand-up film, Hilarious. I went online, got the invite code, watched the film (which was very funny, by the way) and that was that.

I then looked up the on-demand list of movies available on the EpixHD site and it was pretty cool to see so many different flicks. In the end, I decided to watch one that I caught back in the summer of '93 on HBO. It was a movie that was supposed to go to the theaters (I remember catching the trailer earlier that year when I went to see National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1) but for whatever reason, it didn't. The movie, Extreme Justice, starred Silverado and La Bamba (aka Scott Glenn and Lou Diamond Phillips) and I remember digging the hell out of all the ownage. Now, at my bitter adult age, I decided to give it another look to see if I still felt that way.

The movie is about a real-life unit of the LAPD called the S.I.S., an elite group of badass motherfuckers who target the worst repeat offenders and take them down hard. Pretty awesome, if you ask me. But the problem is that according to the movie, the S.I.S. does this by following the criminals and allowing them to do the crime, that way the shit's air-tight and it's no question that the bad guys are going away for a long time -- that is, if they live through the apprehension because the S.I.S. guys love nothing more than to fill motherfuckers who are 100% Guilty with as many hollow-points as a human body is capable of taking.

Now, you might be thinking "What's the problem with wiping the scum off the earth?" and I'm in agreement with you, because while I'm not some fuckin' tea-partying Obama-hating J.O., I'm not some fuckin' pansy liberal either. Ultimately, my problem with the tactics of the S.I.S. is that allowing the criminals to do the crime usually ends up with traumatized, wounded and dead civilians, because, you know, that tends to happen when a criminal does his thing. The S.I.S guys accept it as a necessary loss if it means the bad guy in question is never going to commit crime ever again.

The first example of this is in the opening scene, when Scott Glenn's character and his fellow S.I.S'ers are waiting outside a liquor store while their target is inside robbing it. They're waiting, guns in hand (or submachine gun, in Glenn's case) and they do nothing, even when the robber pumps 3 bullets into the unfortunate store clerk. It's not stated, but I think it's pretty clear; in the off chance that this guy surrenders, they have him on straight-up fuckin' murder and whether it's life or the death penalty, he's as good as done in the real world. As for the dead liquor store guy? Well, hey, I guess his family will understand that it won't happen again, right? Either way, it doesn't matter much because the robber doesn't give up and is rewarded with hot blankets of nine-millimeter bullets to warm up his cold-blooded ass.

My imaginary friend and I had a bit of an argument about the S.I.S.; she didn't have a problem with the result if it meant putting away a bad guy forever and I gave her a scenario to think over. I asked her to imagine if someone close to her was raped, and right after the rape, a couple cops came to the rescue and put a bullet in that motherfuckin' rapist's head. You'd probably be all like "Good!", right? But what if you were to find out that the cops had been across the street the entire time, WATCHING this go down and just waiting for the rapist to finish so they can take his ass down with extreme prejudice, wouldn't that kinda sour you on these knights in shining armor?

On the one hand, the world is one less rapist now and the victim has been avenged, but on the other hand, the victim could've happily gone through her life without ever knowing what it feels like to be sexually violated. But on the third hand (this is a mutant I'm counting hands from), the girl is safe but the scumbag doesn't get taken down (or blown away) for rape, they only got his ass on Attempted. Who knows how much time he has to serve, if any? By the way, that scenario is in the movie and it's the toughest to watch. I'm pretty jaded and can take nearly everything in a movie except a chick getting raped. I had to fast-forward the rape scene in Irreversible, so if that makes me a pussy, then fuck it, I'm a pussy.

During the opening scene takedown, one of the S.I.S. guys is wounded, so a replacement is needed. Scott Glenn's character suggests a former partner of his, played by muthafuckin' La Bamba himself. When we're introduced to Lou Diamond Phillips, he's doing that Cop Who Plays By His Own Rules routine, chasing and beating the shit out of some child molester/killer, so by the looks of things he was made for this detail.

I mean, even Phillips is like Fuckin' A after Glenn tells him how awesome it is to work S.I.S.; you don't have to identify yourself when you pull out your gat and the kind of excessive force that would normally get a cop suspended and/or fired will "get you a round of beers with S.I.S.". Sure enough, he starts getting second thoughts after his first S.I.S. firefight; you find out he's Excessive, but not Extreme in his form of justice. He's not above beating the shit out of some fuckin' asshole, but that kinda action takes a backseat to making sure no civilians get hurt in the process.

In a weird way, the filmmakers managed to be both politically incorrect and politically correct with the criminals in this movie; rather than go the Rainbow Coalition route, each group they target is a particular race/ethnicity -- black bank robbers, Hispanic rapists, and white thieves. It does make a motherfucker wonder how they settled on which race for a particular crime. Did they go, "Ah, you know those blacks! Always knocking off banks! And those Mexicans obviously can't keep their chorizos in their pants, even the law-abiding ones!" The white thieves happen to be the least despicable and yet the most in need of having their chests introduced to the concept of gaping holes, it's weird how that works. Maybe the filmmakers still felt a little nervous about not enough bad white people, so they gave the black bank robbers a couple of white girl accomplices.

They cast some cool motherfuckers in this flick all around; I already mentioned Silverado and La Bamba, but the fellow S.I.S. guys are played by Yaphet Kotto (who sees himself as a lawman of the Old West, always dressed in country western attire and even carrying a six-gun on his hip), Andrew Divoff (aka the bad guy in Toy Soldiers and the Wishmaster in Wishmaster), a couple other dudes, and the captain is played by Ed Lauter (always playing cops or military, worked with Charles Motherfuckin' Bronson at least twice, has a cool interview here). There are a couple other recognizable faces like Chelsea Field (aka Mrs. Joe Hallenbeck in the movies and Mrs. Scott Bakula in real life), the "wop" from True Romance, and Stephen Root from a bunch of other cool shit.

The movie was written by a couple guys I don't know and directed by Mark L. Lester, who gave us Class of 1984, Firestarter, and goddamn motherfucking Commando, fuck yeah. But that's not all, he also made Class of 1999 and Showdown in Little Tokyo and I don't give a Good God Damn what you think of those movies, because they were all good times for me. And you're probably all "I'm not convinced" and I'm now like To Hell With Your Fuckin' Convincing because this fuckin' guy, he also directed Armed and Dangerous, starring John Fuckin' Candy and Eugene Muthafuckin' Levy. The only way that movie could've been more full of Win is if Candy and Levy's characters actually went by the names "Armed" and "Dangerous". Anyway, I would give the credit to him for the well-done, old-school action in Extreme Justice, not to mention the freight train pace and absolute lack of cinematic fat. This movie is trimmed down to the bone.

And yet oddly enough, that quality could also be a liability against this movie. What I mean is this; the S.I.S. is such an intriguing subject for a movie, I think another film, a better film could come out of it. This is Sidney Lumet territory, William Friedkin territory, muthafuckin' Michael Mann territory, this is some shit that should take 2 1/2 hours to breathe, know what I mean? I like Extreme Justice and all, it's a good action flick, and for what it is, it's fuckin' aces, but because of the subject matter, it feels like some 3 hour shit that was re-cut to 90 minutes to turn it into the bullets & blood fest that it is. It feels like there was more but it got chopped the fuck out. I know that most likely wasn't the case, I'll bet dollars to bearclaws this was more or less the movie they intended to make, I'm just saying that I think it's the kind of shit you could probably dig deeper with, if you wanted to, rather than the quick Roger Corman version of the story.

Which is not to say that it doesn't work in any other capacity other than as a movie with guys shooting the shit out of other guys or punching the fuck out of other guys' faces. I'm sure some dude probably rented Extreme Justice at the video store after looking at the cover (Glenn and Phillips running down an alley, guns in hand, ready to bring down some fuckin' pain on an unseen motherfucker), and he figured "Right on, I'm gonna see the Silverado and La Bamba shoot some bad guys". Then he takes it home, invites his bud, pops open a beer, takes a bite of pizza, and has good times watching motherfuckers fly through glass doors while bloody squibs explode all over their chests. And by the end of the movie (following Scott Glenn's awesome final angry/mocking/defiant/desperate spiel), he turns to his bud and says "That's fucked up", to which his bud responds "You know what? Cops are fucking assholes, man". So there you go.

Utah, get me two

I saw Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure back in '89 or '90, I believe. I caught it on VHS at my friend Michael's house. He was from a very religious family, not even letting the motherfucker celebrate certain holidays. But they were OK with Bill and Ted, I suppose. It's a good thing the sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (which I saw on VHS on my own in '91) did not go out under the original title, Bill and Ted Go To Hell (or something like that) or they would've probably locked him up in his room with all that hidden porno he had stashed away. To be honest, even in my young age, I thought both films were amusing but I never got into them as much as everyone else. Saw them once, I did, and never again until last night at the New Beverly. I wanted to give them another try, because so many years had gone by and I was a different person when I was a kid. Back then, my life was all about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and dreams about space travel (I wanted to be an astronaut, but had to settle for being a space cadet) and since then, the only thing that's remained the same is my penis size.

So yeah, let me talk about my visit to the New Beverly Cinema to see both films, back-to-back, in the 2nd of two Bill & Ted evenings hosted by Bill himself, Alex Winter -- or as I prefer to remember him, Hermosa from Death Wish 3. The night before, there was a Q&A with the man but for the 2nd night, co-screenwriter Ed Solomon joined, as well as Kimberley Kates, who played one of the princesses. I arrived and managed to find a seat; the night before was sold-out, and while it didn't sell out this time, there was still a healthy amount of people in the audience. Among them was a dude in what looked to be an Adidas jacket; "Teddy!" yelled out 2 girls, and they went over to him, gave him a good proper hug, and then took a seat on each side. Teddy is a pimp. I want to be Teddy. There was also a long-haired bearded man who I will just refer to as Greg Nicotero, because that's who he reminded me of. He had 2 children with him, who I assume were his kids -- one was a cute little blonde girl happily skipping down the aisles. Greg looked like a supercool dad, a hippie dad, and that's why his kids will probably grow up to become the straightest of the laced, Republicans even.

Julia Marchese came down, intro'd the movie with Alex, there was a brief to-do, and then the movie started. Sometimes you can just tell an '80's De Laurentiis production by looking at one; they're shot in anamorphic, and unless they take place in another time or place, the locations have a kind of generic quality to them, like they were all shot in the same neighborhood Spielberg shot Poltergeist in or something. This flick has a little of both, since it takes place in 80's San Dimas (played by Phoenix, Arizona) and a bunch of different time periods. The story of the film's release goes that this flick was made in '87, I believe, and De Laurentiis took too many chances in the business, so the payoff for that was his company going bankrupt and the movie sat on the shelf for over a year. Then Nelson picked it up for a song, and then I guess they went bankrupt, and then Orion took it, and then they went bankrupt after the sequel. Somewhere during this, the film got released. Despite the film's financial success, Winter would later say during the Q&A that any studio that handles Bill & Ted will eventually go bankrupt, based on past evidence.

I guess I have to give a synopsis here for whatever reason, but Bill & Ted are two high-school dudes who are about to flunk their history class, which in turn will change the turn of events that lead to them becoming a rock band that in turn leads to the salvation of the human race, the planet Earth, the goddamn universe, really. So the future dudes send George Carlin back to 1988 San Dimas to hook up with our heroes and give 'em a time-traveling phone booth that will allow them to kidnap famous historical figures to use for their history class presentation tomorrow afternoon. So yeah.

You know what really stood out for me this time around? The lead characters are pretty nice guys. I mean, they do have a moment where they mock each other's tender hug moment by calling out "Fag!" but that's kinda understandable, if not acceptable in today's pussied-out P.C. world. I mean, this just followed a brief bit where one thought the other was dead, and it's kinda touching how (relatively) serious it is when Bill (or Ted, I get them confused) tries to take out the guy he holds responsible. Earlier in the movie, he tries talking himself out of a fight, admitting to be "weak". But at this point, the emotions take over, it's revenge time, and he just doesn't give a fuck. Of course, he loses, but then Ted (or Bill, I get them confused) comes in and saves the day. Then they hug. After immediately realizing what they did, they gotta macho up and act like that was some bullshit, hence "Fag!".

But yeah, I don't recall anything resembling Mean or Malicious coming from them. Solomon would refer to them as "innocents" during the Q&A, and I agree. You remake this shit now, and 21st Century Bill & Ted would constantly make dickhead statements and mock the shit out of everyone. Here, even their cutdowns ("How's it going, royal ugly dudes!") seem to come from a playfulness rather than an evil better-than-you attitude that has infected our youth for a long time, probably around the time Saved by The Bell came on the air. I mean, I love that piece-of-shit show, but I don't think it's a coincidence that that's when that shit started.

Any goodwill towards Anyone Different was destroyed when that motherfucker Screech came along, allowing Zack and every other asshole to slap him on the head with their folders whenever he did something stupid. Fuckin' Screech, look what you did taking that shit. You shoulda turned around and said "STOP THAT SHIT OR I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU, YOU FAKE BLOND COCKSUCKER" and I bet you even Slater woulda backed off, because he doesn't wanna fuck with that kind of unknown-until-now rage. According to this program, there were no more levels to reside in, no gray areas. No, now you were either supercool Zack or nerd-ass Screech. There were even a couple Bill & Ted types -- more like surfer types, actually -- in that show, and guess what? Mocked like a motherfucker. They were lumped in with the Screeches of the world. Fuck being good-natured, only cruelty survives in this bitch. Watch that fuckin' show and tell me I'm wrong; Zack treats any outsider like a fuckin' douchebag, while Bill and Ted always try to be friendly. Zack would use you to try to score some bullshit concert tickets, he doesn't care about you. Bill and Ted would treat you to something from the Circle K, they wanna make a friend. It's only in self-defense that they would ever pull some shit and melvin you.

Another thing that stood out from this viewing is how depressing the ending is, if you think about it. I mean, we just got to see these historical figures act all wacky and goofy and have those fish-out-of-water shenanigans you expect to see when you drop motherfuckers like Beethoven in 1980's suburbia. And in the end, after Bill and Ted make their presentation, we cut to our heroes hanging out in their garage, ready to jam out. But we never saw them return the people from the past. I mean, we know they did, but I think it would've been a bummer to see that, especially when you know what's waiting for them on the other side: Death.

Lincoln would go on to take a fucking bullet in the back of the fucking head. Poor cute little Joan of Arc (as played by poor cute little Jane Wiedlin) would soon know the horrific feeling of being roasted alive, wondering if this is what God had intended for her. Socrates would get no love from The Man, then get forced to drink hemlock but at least he'd tell those motherfuckers it ain't no thang. Napoleon would face Massive Fail and end up dying on some fuckin' island, like those motherfuckers from Lost. Beethoven either drank himself to death or had a shit doctor giving shit treatment. Sigmund Freud would eventually find out the Yul Brynner way that maybe he shouldn't have smoked so many cigars. Genghis Khan would eventually get shot to shit by John McClane up at Nakatomi Plaza. Billy the Kid would have a movie made about him featuring an awesome song by Bob Dylan, only to have that shit balanced out by another movie with a song by Bon Jovi. They shoulda had one of those title card endings like American Graffiti, totally bringing you down from your movie high by telling you the fucked up shit that happened to the characters later in life.

In between flicks, there was a Q&A. Solomon and Winter had a good back-and-forth, and near the end Ms. Kates would join in with some stories about filming the castle scenes near Rome (part of the De Laurentiis package) and dealing with lunch breaks, Italian-style (2 hours long and wine was served, which lead to many cast/crew members hesitant to return to work). At one point, Kates brought up that being driven to the location by the wannabe Mario Andretti behind the wheel would cause her to throw up. Solomon cut in by saying something like "You were also bulimic" which brought a nice mix of laughs and groans from the audience.

The idea for Bill & Ted came from a bunch of performances Solomon and co-screenwriter Chris Matheson and some other dude would do in some theater, basically to amuse themselves. It used to be Bill, Ted and Bob, but the 3rd character soon fell by the wayside. It got to a point that Ed and Chris would do these characters all the time, so it was natural to create a screenplay about them. Originally, the idea was a darker one; what if Bill & Ted were responsible for all the horrible things that happened in history, like the Holocaust? For some reason, they didn't continue with this idea. In their earlier drafts, Rufus was a high-school sophomore in his late 20's and the time-travel device was a van. Solomon also had a funny story about how Dino De Laurentiis had a personal copy of the script that was translated into Italian, and somehow a line in the scene description describing our heroes returning to "the world of San Dimas" came out in the Italian script as "the war of San Dimas" and eventually Dino got all Italian mad about it and insisted there was no such war. Solomon also admitted that even he and Matheson couldn't really distinguish Bill from Ted, or Ted from Bill, and that most of the dialogue in the script wasn't designated to either character until late in the game.

Solomon also brought up that during casting, he and Matheson took a break at a McDonald's, stressed out over not being able to find the right actors to play the leads. They noticed 2 guys ahead of them in line, a few places down. Solomon said something like "Damn, THOSE guys are Bill and Ted! Why can't we use them?", referring to their unusual behavior. It turns out it was Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, doing some Method-y shit and taking their characters out into the public. Winter recalled what he felt were prank-style auditions; even after it was pretty clear he and Keanu Reeves were in, they had to read against every young actor in town. At one point, he noticed his co-star looking very down, and asked him what was wrong. "I'm playing Ted", he said, complaining that his heart was set on playing Bill. Winter did a pretty good imitation of a bummed-out Keanu.

Questions were asked, except for one. A cute girl in the front row, wearing pigtails, excitedly started to ask a question about the 2nd film when suddenly Julia cut in. She called her by her name, Shannon, and asked that she refrain from asking anything spoiler-ish for the uninitiated in the audience. I have to give props to Julia for somehow sensing where that shit was going and shutting it down like the most badass member of the Movie Police. An action like that is normally referred to in the common vernacular as Putting That Bitch In Check, but I didn't feel bad for Cute Pigtail Girl because obviously she and Julia knew each other, either that or Julia has the psychic ability to look at someone and Just Fucking Know what their name is. Come to think of it, I think this Shannon might be the same Shannon who I follow/follows me on Twitter. If that's the case, allow me to give you a pervy cyber-wink while raising my imaginary cocktail, little lady. I hope you got to ask your question.

Another guy asked Alex if there would ever be a sequel to the criminally underseen Freaked; the response was a masterpiece in sarcasm, basically going on about how Fox calls him 5 times a day begging him to make another one and that they would give him any amount needed to make it. So, I guess no. He and his Freaked co-director Tom Stern are looking into revisiting his old MTV show The Idiot Box, though.

After a ten-minute break, Winter and Solomon returned for an intro to the 2nd film, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Ms. Kates had since left, and I would guess her part being recast for this movie might have something to do with that. Anyway, the movie started shooting in January '91 and they had a locked-down release date to meet six months later (it ended coming out a month later anyway); you can detect the moviemaking types in the audience by listening for the gasps of disbelief after that was mentioned. The overuse of "Station" was brought up; for the record, Winter hates it, and it didn't sound like he was a fan of the alien scientists either. "Station" came out of a typo when Solomon had deleted an entire San Dimas Police Station scene while writing on his computer, save for one word: Station. From there on, it became a running joke between him and Matheson, constantly saying Station to each other. That spilled into the screenplay, and that's why we have some motherfucker saying "Station!" every 5 minutes or so.

So in this one, that fuckin' asshole from Lethal Weapon 2 (the bad guy who said "Diplomatic Immunity!", not Mel Gibson) decides that he's not happy with the utopia of the future, he wants to run shit, so he sends evil robot Bill and Ted to the '91 San Dimas to kill the real Bill and Ted and fuck up their televised audition which is somehow the 2nd turning point in their lives and what will ultimately lead to tranquility in the universe and all that other shit. I guess it's no spoiler that the robots do in fact kill our two heroes, but that's where all the fun begins, in the afterlife.

I liked the first film more the second time around, and I really liked the second one the second time around. It's even more whacked out in both story and style (different director, this time out). With the exception of recasting the princesses, they kept it pretty true to the first, with other cast members returning and one character who was mentioned in part one (Colonel Oats) shows up here, played by that fuckin' asshole from Major League. There's less George Carlin this time, but still nice to see him back -- Winter applauded when Carlin first appeared on-screen, much respect. I also dug the continuity of the side characters involving Missy the hot stepmom, Bill's dad, and Ted's dad. All this goodness and plus you have Pam Grier's fine ass show up.

Can't leave out muthafuckin' William Sadler, who plays Death in this one. According to Winter, Sadler's an awesome guy and they've since become friends (Sadler also appears in Freaked) but being a hardcore old-school New York theater actor meant that Sadler pretty much stayed in character as the dour, humorless Grim Reaper which didn't make him the most fun guy to be around between takes.

Winter prefers the second film, and I can see why. You get the sense that they were able to cut loose on this one, compared to the first film. Part of that, I think, was that Solomon and Matheson specifically wrote this with Winter and Reeves in mind, as opposed to the first one, when they had no idea who would play the two leads. This time they were able to cater to their strengths and weaknesses; certain lines and actions now seem funnier depending on who is saying/doing them. Plus, there's also the benefit of having done something before that worked, and probably being given more free rein by the Powers That Be as a result.

Solomon and Winter also mentioned that the 3rd act originally was written to have more of a balls-out crazy Terry Gilliam feel to it, before being pared down to something that felt a bit more like the original's climax, for whatever reason. Even then, things got taken up quite a few notches visually. It's interesting that while the 1st one was shot in Scope and the 2nd one is flat, it's the 2nd film that feels more epic as a result. In addition to some more gross-out style gags and grotesque characters and make-up (Bill's grandma, in particular), there's plenty of inventive camerawork to spare; One of the early scenes features a crane shot that starts from an elevated position outside an auditorium, moves down to meet up with Bill and Ted, then backs up into a van and ends with the leads closing the doors in our face. The sequence in Hell, where Bill and Ted are running around narrow corridors feel like some Jacob's Ladder meets Cube type of shit. I'm surprised director Peter Hewitt hasn't gone on to make a horror film, unless you count Thunderpants.

It was cool to watch the movie while trying to listen in on Winter and Solomon's mumblings to each other (they were sitting behind me) and you can tell they were digging the film (it had been a while since either one had seen it). They apparently found Chris Matheson's cameo hee-larious, which it was, but I don't know if it was for the same reason I found it funny. Anyway, I'm done here. I had a good time and dug both films more the 2nd time around, especially Bogus Journey. The idea of a 3rd was brought up, and Winter and Solomon are only down if they can come up with something that doesn't suck; the films were profitable and I'm sure they could get another made if they wanted to, but they don't want to make another one for the sake of making another one (I hope the Ghostbusters motherfuckers have their shit together on that issue).

Honestly, I'm fine with the 2 movies -- the end credits sequence pretty much work as a coda for Bill and Ted's adventures anyway -- and while part of me would like to see what's up with our guys as they approach middle-age, another part of me wants to take that other part of me, drag it outside, and beat it to death with a baseball bat for even entertaining the thought. I'm nothing if not conflicted.

Almost forgot -- during one of the intros, Julia suggested that Alex return to program a week of films at the New Beverly. Definitely looking forward to that, should he take on the offer. And that's it.

Time further wasted

Saturday night, I bought a ticket for Play Misty for Me at the New Beverly. The lady after me had trouble finding the rest of her money for a ticket. I offered to pay the rest of it, even though I didn't know her, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I don't know. Anyway, she declined the offer, thanking me anyway and she ended up finding her money. We ended up next to each other in the waiting line, where she then pulled out her iPhone and started blowing on it while tapping the screen and the fuckin' thing started playing like a flute. Me, I roll with a phone that is a half-notch away from a pay-as-you-go, so my reaction is Jesus Christ, We're Living In The Fucking Future and the lady turned to me and said that she plays the flute as well as the ocarina. I never knew what the fuck an ocarina was until I played that Zelda game on the Nintendo 64.

Anyway, we chatted for a bit and she was very nice and somewhere along the way I find out her late husband was Richard Sylbert. If you don't know who Richard Sylbert is, then you just don't fuckin' know. He was the production designer for Chinatown, Reds, The Manchurian Candidate, Dick Tracy, Carlito's Way, big films, huge films and he won Oscars for his work. So of course, my mind blanked out and the only Sylbert-designed movie I could think of was The Bonfire of the Vanities. She didn't seem to mind, though, she smiled and said that the preferred title between her and her husband was Bonfire of the Inanities and we talked about that for a while. She then went inside to speak to Michael about maybe programming a double-bill of flicks featuring Sylbert's work. Anyway, the movie was good and it was cool to see fuckin' Dirty Harry of all people get spooked out by a lady, which sounds kinda weird, but when you realize that the lady is none other than Lucille Bluth herself, it makes perfect sense.

The next day I returned and as I walked down one of the residential streets en route to the New Beverly Cinema, I passed a young girl holding a beach ball. She looked across the street at two similar-aged boys; "Would you PLEASE leave, fun-sucker? Me and my friend want to play ball!" She sounded genuinely annoyed, but most women are born actresses and the two boys were laughing, so it probably wasn't serious. Can it ever be serious when the term "fun-sucker" is being used?

I was there to watch two films based on a couple of Parker novels by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake's alter ego); Point Blank and The Outfit. Inside, I took one of the New Bev calenders and placed it on my seat so I could get my fat ass some snacks. I've seen people do this before and it seemed to work as a seat-claimer when they did it, but apparently not when I do it, because when I came back, some Steven Soderbergh-looking motherfucker took my place, the calender having been tossed aside to the next seat. Serves me right. I didn't hate on Steven Soderbergh for taking my seat, but when some dude came up to him and cheerily asked if he was ready to watch Lee Marvin, the guy shook his head, causing the guy to walk away defeated, or as defeated as a guy can be while still loudly making trumpet/whistling noises to the pre-show music. At that point, I really wanted to karate chop Soderbergh in his fuckin' neck and give him legitimate reason to be a dick, but I let it slide instead.

Point Blank has a pretty funny/cool way to intro; as our star suddenly takes a couple slugs -- BANG BANG -- Lee Marvin's name and the title pop up with each gunshot. Marvin plays a badass motherfucker by the name of Walker who gets double-crossed by his partner Mal after a job. He should've known better than to trust that dude, because that back-stabber (or is that back-shooter) is played by that bad John Vernon. Walker's left for dead, comes back from near death, hooks up with some shady underworld guy and goes out not for revenge, not to get his wife back (she shacked up with Mal), but just to get his cut of the loot from the robbery. Along the way Keenan Wynn, Archie Bunker, Doogie Howser's dad, and Angie Dickinson show up. You may have liked Point Blank more the first time you saw it, when it was called Payback, but that's because Payback came out in '99 and Point Blank came out in '67 so you probably watched the newer one first and god forbid you watch some old shit.

But as fun as the one with the Jew Hater was, this one's definitely got a lot more shit going on in the style and technique department. I don't know whose idea it was (I'm guessing it came from the director), but this rather straightforward story is told in a matter that is anything but. There's a lot of non-linear editing for the first third, and even after that, there's a lot of cool cutting during scenes that serve as both flashbacks and just plain awesome ways to get a point across. One example is when Walker is in the middle of giving some dude the business, and as they have this heated back-and-forth, the movie itself has a little heated back-and-forth as it cuts to a conversation had between the two long ago. The words of the past are haunting the actions of the present.

It takes a real genius to make a movie like this, and I'm not talking about Val Kilmer, I'm talking about the director of Point Blank. He's some English motherfucker who also used his crazy skills to make some classic flicks like Excalibur, Hope and Glory, and the one where Ned Beatty gets butt-raped. On the other hand, there's Zardoz and The Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo. I mean, say what you want about those movies (I dug 'em), but it's obvious the guy behind them put a lot of fuckin' thought and ideas into them, wrongheaded or otherwise. The movie's style gives the proceedings a very dreamy feel, I think. The cutting to certain shots and images also sometimes makes things appear like we're being given entrance into Walker's mindset, like we're seeing random memories pop up while he's doing his thing. In addition to the editing, there's also some really cool shot composition here; I understand the real Steven Soderbergh (not the asshole at the New Bev) does a commentary on the DVD and I'm not surprised. You could see a lot of shit here that may have influenced the guy, who I guess was taking copious notes on this flick in between jerking off to Richard Lester movies.

There's also this part where Walker storms into a house where he thinks Mal is staying at. He storms in, slams the bedroom door open and immediately fires six bullets into the empty bed. People laughed in the theater when he did that, and I'm not sure where they're coming from. Me, I thought it was pretty fuckin' awesome; I mean, you can say it looks ridiculous because Walker should've noticed after the first gunshot that no one is on that bed, and I think he did know. It's just that this guy had so much pent-up revenge in him, he had to get that nut off -- metaphorically speaking, of course. It's like he had to scratch that trigger-pulling itch BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM and then it's like, OK, I got that off my chest, now I can think more clearly about just getting my money. Besides, once you shoot one, you might as well shoot the remaining five -- any John Woo movie will teach you that.

The violence in this movie is mostly of the old-fashioned variety; no squibs, no blood, people get all stiff when they're shot before falling over -- and yet it manages to still feel pretty harsh. People get glass bottles smashed against their faces, Marvin gives one poor sap the nutshot to end all nutshots during a scrap, and even tough-guy Marvin takes a pool cue to the head that other fake movie tough-guys would shake off, but goddammit, Marvin keeps it real and stumbles around for a bit as he tries to regain his bearings. You have all these underworld shenanigans going on and sometimes it spills out into the world of regular, everyday people just trying to go about their lives. Some asshole falls off a building, and shortly after the cops and paramedics show up, the movie cuts to some of the onlookers; there's a trio of women and one has her face buried into her friend's shoulder refusing to look, the second is sobbing her eyes out at the sight of the dead asshole, and the third just stares at him like it ain't no thing. I felt bad for the old lady who just about ran over the body; she's just trying to get home to watch whatever the 60's equivalent to Matlock was and next thing she knows, some naked piece-of-shit lands in front of her automobile. Now she's in need of consoling from her fellow Golden Girl. Man, if she only knew what a scumbag this scumbag was, maybe she'd spare the tears.

At one point, Angie Dickinson goes off on Marvin by beating the shit out his chest with her fists in that cute way only girls could get away with. She goes on and on and Marvin just stands there taking every hit like a fuckin' champ. Finally, she gets completely spent, and drops to the floor. Watching that reminded me of past relationships and past arguments, or should I say, one-sided arguments because I had no idea what they were pissed about. In retrospect, I should've just told them to stop talking and beat their frustrations out on me. Just get all of it out. I'd take a minute of physical pain over the 2 or 3 days of that lovely, lovely guessing game known as You Know What You Did.

I know like 3 other dudes wrote the script for this and I understand the screenplay is the most important part of the movie and that the only thing that could make a screenplay even better is that if there wasn't a director or actors to fuck up it's beauty and that they shouldn't even call it Best Picture at the Oscars, they should call it Best Example of Morons Not Fucking Up The Written Greatness. I know all this. But god-DAMN if there was ever an example of a director elevating the material (which according to many a screenwriter is impossible, never has happened and never will) this fucking movie is Example Number One. 43 years later, everything still holds up -- except for that ridiculous shot of that guy falling to his death. That shit may have been impressive back in '67, but that shit just brings the hard laughs nowadays.

Sometimes the audience will battle for your attention, that is, if you are me. Some guy with a Joe Spinell vibe about him (despite being in a tennis shirt and the kind of shorts that scream Eventual Testicle Peekage) sat in front of me and I guess decided to spend the duration of the film trying to beat his previous record for Most Fidgety Man In The World. Lots of shifting, leaning forward, brushing hair, folding arms, etc. He never stopped moving, this guy; you'd think he was attending Catholic mass service with all the sitting down and leaning forward. I wondered to myself if this is what it would be like to have Michael J. Fox sit in front of you at a movie theater. There was also a guy to my left who had a very distinct laugh that sounded like EH! EH! EH! EH! and came off like the kind of laugh that would precede a power drill going into your skull while your muffled screams barely echo throughout the basement in which you are being kept. He also stomped his feet and clapped his hands when he particularly dug something. I also noticed a skinny guy with his bare feet up on the seat in front of him, until I realized he was actually a girl with very short hair, so I guess that makes it OK.

Between films, I had to get rid of all that Cherry Coke and on the way to the restroom I saw Phil Blankenship talking to Marc Heuck from the Nuart. Both do the midnight movie thing at their respective theaters, and being a patron of both, I've noticed differences in their way of asking the audience to shut off their cell phones/electronic devices for the duration of the film. Phil's tone is "Please don't be an asshole" while Marc's is more like "Stop being assholes for at least two hours, then when the movie is over you can go back to being assholes again because I know you're assholes".

I know there's a second film to talk about, but I'm just too tired now, so I'm just going to end it with a story about meeting the director. The Outfit, was directed by the late John Flynn, who also directed Rolling Thunder, Defiance, and Out for Justice. In other words, he fuckin' rules. I met the guy back in '02 at a screening of Rolling Thunder; and he was one of the few people I actively tried to get an autograph from. Off the top of my head, the only movie people I went out of my way to get an autograph were Flynn, Christopher Walken, Walter Hill and Christina Lindberg. I have a lot more book-writing motherfuckers that I asked to sign shit like Hubert Selby Jr. and Sarah Vowell, to name a couple.

Anyway, I was going to go to the screening with my old Vestron VHS of Rolling Thunder and try to get him to sign it and that's when I remembered that I let a friend borrow it. Because I'm an idiot. Sure enough, I called that motherfucker and that motherfucker was in Texas and wasn't due back for another month. God damn. So I ended up bringing my DVD of Lock Up because he directed that one too and I went over to him following the screening and did the douchey fanboy thing by running off at the mouth in the same manner that I write these things. He signed the Lock Up DVD for me and he (along with Thunder co-writer Heywood Gould) looked pleasantly surprised that I brought that movie, I suppose in the same manner that one would be pleasantly surprised that the mentally ill child in the room didn't eat the paste for once. I explained my situation about my Rolling Thunder VHS though and they did a good job pretending to give a shit.