Facebook ramblings - April 2016

I've been posting mini-ramblings on my Facebook page along with an accompanying snapshot of the films I'm mini-reviewing (not pro screenshots, I'm just snapping them off the wall they're being projected on with my cheap phone). For those who don't have me as a Facebook friend, no sweat, I get it -- Facebook is the Devil. So I'll gather them up at the end of the month and post 'em here. If you thought my regular ramblings were incoherent, try ramblings with little to no explanation of what the movies about! 

Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (Rewatch. Blu-ray.) 

Filmed in 1991, hence the mom jeans and high-waisted pants. 

Not as good as the first one, and sometimes it's outright terrible. For some reason, director Charles Band films nearly all the close-ups damn-near Jonathan Demme style, with the actor thisclose to looking directly at the camera. But at least it feels like a Trancers movie and they got most of the original cast back, so it's fun enough to almost make you forget about the wack-ass script -- I'll give points to the wack-ass script for making the villains environmentalists and having a really old-school insenstive attitude towards homeless people and the mentally ill.

The audio commentary with stars Tim Thomerson and Megan Ward is fun too. Too bad the director is taking part as well. He's never as funny as he thinks he is, or anywhere approaching funny (he continues the tradition from the first Trancers commentary of pointing out random actors and situations as "gay" -- my sense of humor isn't politically correct, I'm just saying put some thought into your gay jokes, my fellow bros) and he's fond of interrupting Ward & Thomerson's genuinely entertaining interactions usually to have them be quiet for a line he finds funny. Except he hasn't seen the film since completing post, which means that they have to be quiet for about a minute or so before the line finally happens -- or in one case, before realizing that the line isn't even in this particular scene.

One day I'll get married to Megan Ellison or someone like that and after the divorce I'm gonna use my half of the money to create my own boutique label. I'll buy the rights to some of these movies with the intention of having do-over commentaries recorded for them. For Trancers II, I'll only invite Thomerson & Ward and I'll sit in to pester Thomerson about everything he's worked on and most likely I'll creep out the lovely Ms. Ward. And if you don't like it, then you can find your own money and create your boutique label.

Artists and Models (First time. DVR.)

The first film Martin & Lewis made with director Frank Tashlin and the second-to-last they made together (they were pretty much done with each other by the follow-up, Hollywood or Bust). I'm gonna be honest with you, I never really got into Jerry Lewis except for the films he directed himself and his work with Tashlin. It's like Tashlin was the only one who operated on the same level with him and I guess it's because his experience animating/directing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck helped him understand a human cartoon like Lewis.

It's top notch Martin & Lewis; the songs are catchy (Martin crooning the bejesus out of "Innamorata", Lewis hey-ladying the fuck out of whatever the fuck he was singing) and the gags are a-plenty, only this time with Tashlin it mostly feels like a live-action cartoon.

It looks beautiful too! It's photographed in VistaVision with candy Technicolor and the production design is old-school studio work that I am always a sucker for. You can tell they put some serious money into this. There's also plenty of eye candy with attractive women all about the proceedings (Dorothy Malone! Anita Ekberg!) and hey, Dean Martin ain't a bad looker either. See, this was back when guys looked like men, none of this skinny tight pants wearing six-pack abs-having motherfuckers who can't fight worth a shit, says the guy with a big gut and a violent temper.

Tashlin might be the earliest example I can think of a director putting up what gets him off on-screen. Shameless leg shots and sexy costumes everywhere! Even one shot of a bound and gagged 21-year-old Shirley MacLaine wearing a tight fitting costume and hosiery made me feel funny/weird, in a Quentin Tarantino foot fetish kinda way. Shit, I think I had a similar kinky spider sense tingling when a similarly-clad Scarlett Johansson was tied up in Marvel's The Avengers. Jesus Christ. I thought I knew myself already. Thanks a lot, Tashlin, for giving me yet another feather to stick in my Sick Fuck cap.

This was my first time watching it, so maybe it's too early to tell, but in comparison to Hollywood or Bust, this one doesn't quite match up, maybe because Hollywood had a giant Great Dane in it and this one doesn't. You give me hot chicks and an awesome dog and I'll give you a happy man.

By the way, to my fellow heteros and lesbians and animal lovers (but not in that way); do you ever find yourself walking or driving and suddenly you see an attractive woman walking a dog? And because you only have about two seconds to enjoy this, you have to make the Sophie's Choice of ogling the sexy lady girl or going AWWWW over the doggy dog dog bow-wow? Or is it just me?

Anyway, Artists and Models is good times if you can stand Jerry Lewis' style of comedy and plus he calls himself "retarded" at one point, so there's that too.

House of Games (Rewatch. DVD.)

The plays and films of David Mamet are like tuna fish sandwiches: you either like them or you don't. Me, I love tuna fish sandwiches. I'd eat one right now except I'm under the weather (thanks to the constantly changing weather! one day it's 90 degrees, the next it's cold and rainy!) and therefore I wouldn't completely enjoy it.

But I enjoy David Mamet's work, sick or no sick. So I revisited this one and had a good time with it, even though the surprises are no longer surprises. To be honest with you, the surprises weren't really that surprising even when I first saw this in the late 90s, because by then I'd seen enough rug-pullers inspired by this one to be kind of savvy to them.

It's a trip to watch the different styles of reciting Mamet's dialogue. There's a spectrum at work in his films; in this one, you have Lindsay Crouse on one end of the Mamet spectrum, giving herself over completely to the Mametspeak, its rhythms, and all that that entails (the character is defined by words and actions at the moment PERIOD; no character history or anything like that). This has been confused for bad acting but if you see her in other joints she does all right. (This goes for Rebecca Pidgeon as well.)

On the other end of the spectrum, you have Joe Mantegna who is able to do justice to the Mamet style while still being Joe Mantegna. He's able to bring his own personality to the proceedings while doing the rhythm thing. Plus it makes sense that his con artist character is a bit more loose while Crouse's psychiatrist is more uptight in comparison.

Or maybe I'm just making excuses because I dig this motherfucker Mamet.

This movie was made in 1987 and it definitely has a late 80s feel, but not in the usual pop flashy way. I mean, this movie feels like it takes place in a world occupied by, well, think of what your average middle-to-upper-middle class person who enjoys PBS and NPR would look like, dress like, circa 1987 and there you go, if that makes any goddamn sense.

In conclusion, there's an actress who says "A Waldorf salad" and it's one of the best line readings, like, ever.

Riding with Death
Agent for H.A.R.M.
Prince of Space
Horror at Party Beach

(MST3K versions. Rewatch.)

And so, what I hoped on Friday were mere allergies having their way with me has since turned into a full-blown badass Cold of All Colds. I missed out on seeing my sister and having a little Siblings Day hugfest with her as a result. But that's OK, because I texted her and we're on for next weekend and I can ride this cold thing out with my usual chicken soup for the soul, MST3K episodes. See, I have this thing about not watching new films when I'm sick, because I feel I have to be 100-percent, says the guy who went to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Half-Naked Amy stoned to the gills.

Anyway, because of that weird sorta principle I created somewhere along the way, MST3k reruns are my go-to sick viewings. So I had a little marathon that will probably continue tomorrow because I'm calling in sick to work.

You might have noticed the old Sci-Fi Channel logo on the lower left corner. That is because I have damn near all the episodes collected from the Digital Archive Project and burned onto DVD. This was back in the late 90s/early 00s when very few episodes were available. Since then, I've bought the new stuff from Shout! and some of the old stuff too -- because it's better quality than my old DAP discs, not because I'm trying to Make Things Right. That would mean I have some kind of a conscience. HA!

I might have to change my No New Movies When Sick rule, though. I mean, one of my favorite movie-views was catching a late-night R-rated pan-and-scan showing of Dario Argento's Trauma on Cinemax when I was 14 years old and getting my ass kicked by the flu. I had just woken up from a fever dream only to end up watching another one on television. Or at least it felt that way; I've never seen the film since because I'm sure it won't match up to that sweaty, doped-up-on-Theraflu experience and I probably never will. But it got me to look up what this Dario Argento dude was up to. So I don't know where the hell I got this idea of not watching new shit when I feel like shit.

Maybe I should just downgrade it to movies I wasn't particularly looking to watch, but hey, it's on Lifetime and that chick from that show is on it, know what I mean?

In conclusion, achoo.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Rewatch. DVD.)

I think it was Quentin Tarantino who said that Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter was a "character study shot like an epic" or something like that, and that's kinda what Cimino did here as well with his first film.

You spend something like an hour watching these two driving from small scenic town to small scenic town before the plot actually kicks in, but it's time well spent because you get to watch Clint's character pretty much fall in Like with his new friend without ever saying it. It's all small gestures and actions and it's some of Clint's best understated work. People don't give my man Clint enough props for this kind of acting, which is its own kind of difficult to pull off. Jeff Bridges is great here but it's kinda like how Hoffman got all the attention for Rain Man while The Cruiser was knocking it the fuck out as the, uh, straight man.

Funny thing is, Bridges would do something like that again in John Carpenter's Starman, which I would consider a good double-feature with this one. That one is also a road movie with a great showy Jeff Bridges performance that overshadows an even greater subtle performance by his co-star, Karen Allen

Man, that's a movie right there for you, isn't it? A movie about Clint's awesome glare and Karen Allen's heartwarming smile.

This is definitely a Cimino film, filled with big skies and beautiful widescreen landscapes and dashes of macho cine-energy thrown in here and there. It also has many visual/character/location elements that you'll see pop up in his later works, like speeding cars leaving trails of dust, attractive women with legs that go all the way up, shitkicker bars, pool tables, diners, John Holmes-sized firearms, war veterans, and various other things I'm in too much of a hurry to write out.

There's also something else that pops out at me, given recent stories about M-Cim; so I guess he's spent the last 20 years or so going under the knife and losing weight, and it's gotten to the point that he's been looking rather femme nowadays and there are rumors of him getting or going for a little bit of the Caitlyn Jenner action.

Well, I couldn't help but think of that when later in the film one character has to dress in drag, so maybe that was always something Cimino was into or at least considering, I don't know.

The story goes that Clint kept Cimino in check, limiting him mostly to three takes max and speeding him up if he was taking too long setting a shot up. The climax of the film was supposed to take like a week or something to shoot but Clint last-minute gave Cimino only two days and they pulled it off.

Anyway, I like the movie and come back to it every couple years or so. It's very much a Sunday afternoon kind of joint, so of course I watched it Saturday morning.

South Central (Rewatch. DVR.)

This one came out back in '92, between Boyz N The Hood and Menace II Society. Some of the acting is really good (particularly the star, Glenn Plummer aka Tuneman from Speed) and some of it reminded me a bit of that English chap in the beginning of Black Dynamite going on about how he has to go "back to the streets, where I come from suckas", and maybe that's not too much of a coincidence since the co-writer of that movie is the co-star of this one. 

I liked it back in '93 on VHS and I liked it now in HD, but nowadays it does feel a bit more artificial and theatrical in comparison to the more natural Boyz and Menace, but if you can get past that then you'll probably be OK with this film. What this movie has in, uh, spades over the other ones is a stronger humane message -- and yeah, I know, it was this kind of stuff that the parody DON'T BE A MENACE... poked fun of, but that's to be expected from a bunch of genuine assholes like the Wayans Bros. 

I mean, I think DBAM is funny but when you really get down to it, the idea of making fun of movies about real violence going down in South Central L.A. is up there with, I don't know, making a parody of Holocaust films. Call it Holocaust Movie and get Friedberg/Seltzer on it and have them make fun of scenes like the Nazi gun jamming in Schindler's List only this time the gun shoots out that Bang! flag or something. 

Anyway, at times South Central can feel like a Christian film with the porn cut out, so to speak. Or actually it's more like a Muslim equivalent to those kind of films, but like I've said before, even the most obvious and well-meaning preached-out messages don't make them any less true. 

So in a way it makes sense that Oliver Stone, a man who shotgunned Subtlety in the dick a long time ago, helped get this film made. 

Plus, they shoot fools using guns with potato suppressors on the barrels, so you gotta give 'em points for that. 

In conclusion, to quote home-Muslim in the film: Bless yourself by helping someone else.

Owning Mahowny (First time. DVR.)

The last time I gambled, I mean, with money, like, in a casino was back in 2012 at an Indian casino on my way home from a road trip. I played a few hands of Blackjack, playing with only $20 and making small bets, and got up to $120 before finally losing $20. It only made sense to walk away at that point while I was still ahead, and I thank the Maker that I'm wired that way, as opposed to people like Dan Mahowny (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who unfortunately did not quit while he was ahead on sobriety). 

Mahowny is unfortunately one of those people who, to paraphrase what one character says about him, wants to win in order to have more money to lose. This poor schmuck is a degenerate whose bookie will even cut him off from time to time because he feels bad taking bets from someone who is clearly not well. 

Hoffman is great here as a guy who can be quietly charming and likable so long as he's not gambling. But when he's in bettin' mode, he gets cold and shuts the world around him off, and the only other emotions that might come out of him are muted annoyance or douchey petulance if you're in the way of his robotic card-playing. 

This is based on a true story and the way the movie plays this out is as if the film itself were a stranger at the casino lightly nudging your shoulder then whispering to you "Hey, check out the guy over there at the craps table. Can you believe that guy?", as opposed to some bro shoving you and going "FUCKIN' A, DUDE! LOOKIT DAT GUY! HE'S GONNA FUCK HIS SHIT UP, MAN!" the way I would if I saw some shit like that going down. This is probably because this is a Canadian film directed by a Brit, rather than some all-American razzmatazz-ery

Everyone else in this movie is just as good as The Hoff-Man, like John Hurt as the casino boss who is amused by Mahowny but is still angling to take this motherfucker for all he's worth, and Minnie Driver as Mahowny's long-suffering girlfriend. You'll also see a few familiar poutine-eating faces, like Bianca O'Blivion from Videodrome and the late great Maury Chaykin as the bookie.

Part of the ending kinda annoyed me, but what can you do? Aside from that, it's a good flick, you should check it out. Oh, and at one point Mahowny asks for a plate of ribs (no sauce) and a Coke, so guess who's now in the mood for both? Fat fuck.

The Deer Hunter (Rewatch. Blu-ray.)

It says a lot about the power of cinema to focus on a bunch of loud-mouthed, beer-drinking, reckless driving assholes who are basically the 60s/70s version of Extreme Bros Who Go WOOOO! At Everything for three hours and leave you caring for them (or most of them, anyway).

Or maybe it's because you only get that Bro shit for the first hour or so, and then you watch the Bros get PWNED by Vietnam, to which a harder man would say "Serves them right. They went in there wanting the whole blood & guts experience, and that, by God, is what they got" but I'm not gonna be that guy at this moment and instead I'll defend them by saying that this was back when people still believed in the idea of Going To War For God And Country because most people hadn't realized yet that we had been sold a bill of goods by The Powers That Be and that Eisenhower was right about warning us about the Military Industrial Complex, but like most warnings given to us precious humans, we just chose to ignore that shit and now the Big MIC happily feeds on the poor and naive and BOY OH BOY is this a tall soapbox! I better get off of it carefully before I fall off and land on my giant ignorant ass.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, watching these guys get fleshed out while their souls are flayed alive by Real Life In The Shit followed by Real Life In What Used To Be Our Playground is what makes this movie the masterpiece that it is. As mentioned in my ramblings about Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, this film is a character study dressed in Epic Cinema clothing, and despite spending some time over in The Nam, this is not at all a war movie.

It's been said that this could've easily have been about the characters going through some other major violent ordeal but Vietnam was the most recent, so it made sense to make it *that*. This unfortunately has led to criticisms about the portrayal of Non-Muricans as bloodthirsty Russian Roulette-betting assholes, which I understand but, hey, what are you gonna do? I mean, maybe if this was about the fictional Mexican Border War and it was Javier doing this shit then maybe I'd be like FUCK THIS MOVIE, but it isn't, so I'm not. 

But if I can be George Lopez for a second: Latinos, we wouldn't do that to others -- Russian Roulette was something we played at home with our friends when we were drunk and bored AYYYY CHOOOOOOOWWWWW *cue Jarabe Tapatio*

But you also have some of the Whites back home talking shit like "Kill some for me!" and stuff like that when talking about these dudes going to war, and I doubt statements like that are meant to be taken lightly, right? 

All movies are flawed in one way or another, and The Deer Hunter certainly carries its fair share of Huge Gaping Maw flaws, but if you're lucky enough to be like me and see the forest for the tree, then whaddya know, you're a poet and didn't know it OHHHHHHHH

This was Michael Cimino's second film and because he didn't have Clint Muthafuckin' Eastwood pulling on his leash, homeboy was already doing the overbudget/overschedule thing here -- only it worked out for him because the movie was a hit and Oscars were passed out to the production like candy. 

It wouldn't be until his next movie that his extravagant filmmaking style would finally reach Cimino's buttcheeks, open its jaws big and wide, and chomp down hard on the motherfucker.

Purple Rain (Rewatch. Theater.)

Because I wasn't going to use my phone's camera smack-dab in the middle of the theater (or the movie), that's why. 

I hadn't seen this one since the early 90s and so I was seeing it again for the first time, to use the tagline of the Molested Trilogy. You bet your sweet seat-warmer that I blasted my Prince mix CD (circa 2003) on the way to the theater, and blasted it on the way back -- but don't get me wrong, I had my windows rolled up, I'm not a complete savage who needs to share his tunes with the world. 

My feelings on the film are the same, only stronger; what Purple Rain really has going for it is the music and the presence of His Purple Majesty at his most Publicly Majestic. And Apollonia Kotero's outfit during "Sex Shooter". And Morris Day, my spirit animal. And intense-ass Clarence Williams III. And poor ignored Jill Jones. And Olga "Chick Who Got The Wood Splinter In Her Eye In Zombie" Karlatos' dubbed performance. And Bobby Z.'s sad attempt at looking like a Prince impersonator. And Wendy and Lisa giving off a Sapphic vibe the whole time. And Billy Sparks with those sunglasses. And that vaguely European sedated club announcer.

Prince could've tried to make his "character" in the film Mr. Misunderstood and have the story be about how everyone else needs to operate on his wavelength and put up with his shitty behavior. But no, for the most part he and the filmmakers avoid that trap; this dude has issues and it's an everyday battle for him not to become like his father -- or worse, some new crossbreed of Douchebag that has new Dickhead elements added to the original Father model. And I like that the movie basically ends with him beginning to improve, rather than completely turning into a new man. Or at least that's how I prefer to interpret it, because there are signs here that maybe I'm supposed to be A-OK with him at the very end and I'm not. 

I'd call this a Style Over Substance film if the Substance we're referring to is the screenplay. But if the Substance in question is made of Prince's songs and Michel Colombier's score, then no, it is a Substance Over Style deal. 

But I gotta give points to director Albert Magnoli for putting in 110-percent on the visual side of this joint (with the help of d.p. Donald Thorin) and he did a great job editing this flick too. I remember reading somewhere that Magnoli was brought in to complete Tango & Cash after the original director was Creative Difference'd off the project, and after watching this again, I can totally watch that movie now and point out which scenes are his with total-fucking-confidence. 

Anyway, I'm happy to have had the opportunity to watch this movie again and be taken back to a time when the worst thing he did was take a guitar and jerk it off until it jizzed all over a worshipping audience, rather than today, when the worst thing he did was die. 

In conclusion, Prince in Purple Rain is to pacing back & forth in a room as Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls is to putting ketchup on french fries.

Trancers III (Rewatch. Blu-ray.)

That dude in the picture just watched a violent bar brawl that ended with a man impaling another man with a pool cue stick then flinging the impaled man across the room. At least the woman next to him registers *some* kind of concern on her face. Man, had I been there to witness that, I'd have run halfway to Buenos Aires by the time the impaled man hit the floor.

Anyway, it was a wise move on Charles Band's part to let writer/director C. Courtney Joyner step in and new blood this third (and final, in my opinion) chapter in the series. 

Joyner took a page from the Halloween/Highlander series playbook in making a sequel that more-or-less pretends the previous one didn't happen (but could still work in series continuity if you want to be that way) and he flashes his Not Fucking Around credentials damn near immediately, right after he flashes his I Don't Give A Fuck credentials upon introducing us to a Latino "scumbag" holding up a Chinese store owner -- and when it returns later to that scene, throwing an unsympathetic asshole White police officer into the mix. 

This is a better shot film than the last one too; more moving camera and less Jonathan Demme-style close-ups. This feels more like a comic book come to life than the other films; some of the compositions could pass for splash pages (albeit low-budget splash pages) and some of the dialogue could've/maybe should've been posted as thought bubbles above characters' heads. 

Since the last Trancers, Helen Hunt's star had begun to rise, appearing in critically acclaimed films like The Waterdance, Bob Roberts, and Mr. Saturday Night and at the time was co-starring in the NBC show "Mad About You". Some actors would've pretended Trancers never happened as soon as they got the seventh lead in some low-rent sitcom on a wannabe network, thinking themselves too big for that bullshit. Hunt, on the other hand not only said yes, she gave up her free time while working on the latter to go work on this film AND she did her own hair. And, if star Tim Thomerson is to be believed on the last film's commentary, she doesn't mind that he calls her "Dolphina" because of her forehead. Ladies and gentlemen, Helen Hunt is a motherfucking soldier. 

Speaking of soldiers, Andrew Robinson is lots of fun as the Colonel/Creator of All Things Trancer. I'd say he's the best villain in the series and I would've liked to have seen more of him -- I would've liked to have seen more of everything in this film, to be real with you. 

I dug this film and my only real issue is that this story needed a little more breathing room both in scope and budget to really work the way it should, but you know that shit wasn't gonna happen in a Full Moon production. Whatever, I should just be happy they got that much to spend at all, compared to what passes for a Full Moon budget nowadays.

Oh yeah -- some of the shootouts are The Naked Gun/Police Squad! ridiculous, with the sedated bad guys about five feet away from Jack Deth as they fire and miss. But that's its own kind of fun. 

Thankfully, Joyner also replaces Band on the audio commentary with Thomerson. While it's not as goofy/jokey as the last two commentaries, its still fun to listen to because clearly these two are more in sync with each other than Thomerson was with Band. 

In conclusion, there are no mom jeans here, no sirree bob -- Lieutenant Helen Hunt is rocking stirrup pants instead.

Suddenly you need Oil of Olay

I was going to see this but then I wasn't going to see this. Then I was. Or I wasn't.

As I was going to tell the gentleman on Facebook in my comment when asked if I was serious about not seeing this film, before I realized this was better off posted on my blog: I'm afraid, Kris. So very afraid. Afraid to sit there after paying for the ticket, the popcorn, the soda, the candy -- all that to make the experience easier to sit through -- all that time and money and end up with the feeling that I've been had.

Because of the reviews, oh man, those reviews. I wasn't surprised, because in the comic book movie family, compared to goody-two-shoes Marvel Films, DC Comics is more like the fuck-up brother with moments of potential but mostly he needs a boot in the ass to help get his shit straight. But wow, these are particularly toxic, these reviews. If there were ever road signs telling me that there's rocky terrain and an unfinished bridge up ahead, the reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were it.

I kinda liked the last one, Man of Steel, even though I had some serious issues with it -- namely, for a "fun" superhero movie it was pretty goddamn gloomy. But then maybe I'm the asshole here and it was never supposed to be fun, maybe Snyder & Nolan felt like the kids today, they've had enough fun in their lives and it's time to smack 'em with harshness. Times have changed, bitches, and it's time to toughen up, knuckle up, and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps: You want Reading Rainbow to help you enjoy books? Kickstart it with your dollars, kid. You wanna go to Sesame Street? Subscribe to HBO, you little lazy bastard. And you want a nice Superman who stands for Truth, Justice, and the American way? Watch the old shit, you young fuck.

Where was I? Oh yes, this film and why I was torn between seeing it and not seeing it. If you are a regular reader than you see this coming much like I saw most of this film coming, even though I never watched a single trailer. You know what I'm talking about -- you know who I'm talking about.

Oh, Amy. Why do you have to be such a talented -- but more importantly, sincere and likable! -- actress who seems genuinely appreciative of her success and carries no airs of fakery? And if you're just that good at hiding the fakery, then you are in fact the greatest actor ever because even the best thespians of either gender fail miserably at doing that.

Meryl Streep is my jam, but man oh man is she suspect whenever she doesn't win something. And remember Anne Hathaway's shameless attempts when she was racking them up for Les Miserables? Or remember your co-star Melissa Leo winning Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter? Oh man, she was the worst at that. Her high/low point was singing along at the end of the Oscar ceremony to Over the Rainbow, holy shit, she thought we would buy that OMG DREAMS DO COME TRUE look on her face.

What I'm trying to say is that I'll follow you anywhere, but wow, it would've been so much easier for me to wait for the R-rated Blu-ray of this movie, rather than deal with the rest of the country going to see this at the same time when I already knew who was going win and lose between Batman and Superman: The studio over the audience. But you're in this movie, Amy! Anyway, sorry for using my one straight-up question as an excuse to mostly put down others. Sorry about that, Amy. That was very un-Amy of me and I need to fix that.

Take care and be well.

Signed, Me.

The Adorable Amy Adams returns as Lois Lane, but I wasn't that hot on seeing the sequel in the theaters and the reviews only made me colder to it. So then I'm in the position of only being interested in seeing this film because The Triple A is in it and even then, what if she isn't in it that much? What am I left with? Something so cynically put together then thrown at the great unwashed masses with such overflowing contempt towards us that it might as well have been directed by Transformers-era Michael Bay and titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on the Fallen Dark Moon of Extinction Fuck You Dummy Dumb Dumbs Stupidheads We Love You As Much As Politicians Do So Go Get Fucked You Morons And Shove It Down Your Entrance And Shove It Up Your Exit And Thanks For The New Cars And Houses You Bought Us We'll See You Next Time With The Next Bucket Of Cine-Slop You Cuntfaced Pig Headed Sheep People?

I remembered feeling burned by the second Transformers garbage bin that was Revenge of the Fallen and I swore I was done with that series, but then people kept going on about how the third one was actually the one to watch. What to do, I wondered. Am I actually going to have to see this one? So I hedged my bet by taking some of that fine green herb with me and toking up like a muthafuckin' soldier in the parking lot. And you know what? The movie wasn't that bad. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't that bad either.

Since then, I've cut down -- way down -- on the ganja. Once upon a time I approached Wake & Bake levels and then I surpassed it, then I realized I was becoming one of those weirdo stoners that I can't stand and I started to exhibit behavior I loathed in my fellow pot-smoker. So now it's relegated to the occasional Saturday night/early Sunday morning nightcap, or the occasional legit bout of insomnia.

Or a movie I'm not too sure about.

And so, I got up Saturday morning and drove to the 9:00am IMAX showing of BvS: DoJ, playing "The Love Movement" album by A Tribe Called Quest, which turned out to be their final album. (RIP Phife Dawg!!!) I arrived at the theater by the time "Find a Way" was ending (it wasn't a long drive) and in the parking lot I busted out the vaporizer and got to work inhaling as much as possible in the short time window available, turning the greenery inside into a nice toasty shade of Fall leaves.

Then I ambled my way inside and you bet your ass I bought some nachos and a two-bladder sized Camelbak of Cherry Coke. I found a good seat and in a couple minutes I was surrounded by children -- kids to the left of me, kids to the right, and here I am stuck in the middle of a good-fucking high. I felt irresponsible but fuck it, these kids need to learn about this shit. I figured I was OK so long as they don't have some weird law I'm not aware of, like, I don't know, like if being stoned near children qualifies as a Sex Offense or something and next thing I know I'm locked up with Popeye from Blood In Blood Out except he has higher standards than my ass, so instead he just beats the shit out of me.

I actually watched the trailers, except for the Captain America: Civil War one, because audio can't really spoil shit for me, except for when the kid next to me screamed out the name of someone who pops up at the very last second; Suicide Squad looked interesting; Ghostbusters looked funny and as far as that movie is concerned, I'm good to go despite Melissa McCarthy being in it. The kids around me were pretty hyped up about it, and they were all boys, so take that you adult jagoffs who can't take females bustin' ghosts.

Anyway, for these ramblings on Beavis Dodge below, keep in mind that I was as high as Terence Herman Edward Dickens when I watched all of this.

SHIT IS GONNA GET SO FUCKING SPOILED NOW. COME BACK LATER IF THAT MATTERS TO YOU.

The film begins for me with The Adorable Amy Adams and we're following her as she interviews an African warlord over there in the African Outback or whatever they call it, and it's a pretty awesome entrance or maybe it was a decent one but because it's Our Amy that ups it like 50 percent. So anyway, during all this it's revealed that her photographer's camera has a tracking device in it, so naturally the warlord does his thing (it's noon and he hasn't killed anyone yet) and puts a .45 slug into this photographer-about-to-become-a-corpse's head.

Now get this -- that guy who just got killed? I find out later that was Jimmy Olsen. No shit. Jimmy Fuckin' Olsen. I guess that was supposed to be a Holy Shit moment except, uh, I don't remember this dude in the last film and they didn't give you any establishment of his character here -- not even a hint or clue. So it's not really a Holy Shit moment, at least not until you look it up online because you saw Jimmy Olsen in the end credits but didn't remember seeing him in the movie. I honestly don't know if that was a Fuck You from the filmmakers or a We Just Don't Give A Shit from them, whatever the fuck ever; Lois ends up getting saved by Supes, so it's all good.

You know who also doesn't give a shit? Superman. Later on, Lois has an awkward conversation sitting in a bathtub while Clark Kent (played by The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) stands over her, and she talks about how Senator Holly Hunter is having press conferences featuring Stock African Townspeople saying Fuck A Superman, He Didn't Save Shit and Clark's like I Don't Care.

You sure don't, Clarky. I wish you did, I wish we saw more of you actually doing heroic stuff and not just the aftermath where Mexicans touch you like you're The Jesus, and I wish you were portrayed with the same vim and vigor that Henry Cavill brought to the U.N.C.L.E. joint, and I swear sometimes it felt like somewhere off-camera there was a gun being pointed in Cavill's direction, with some sweaty guy whispering "That's right, limey, you keep not enjoying yourself. If I see even a speck of light in your performance, it's curtains for you! Now jump into that bathtub even though you're wearing clothes, because that's as lighthearted as it's gonna get!"

Hey I don't mind seeing Amy Adams in a bathtub, but it's not you get to see much anyway, but if you're into hot dudes then you get Clark standing in his underwear and cooking eggs which didn't seem very smart given all that hot oil that could potentially burn him but then again, he's Kal-El, what does he care? He might as well crack eggs on those fuckin' washboard abs and fry 'em with his Evil Devil Eyes Heat-Vision and forget about ever washing dishes.

Meanwhile in Gotham City -- just located across the water a few miles away! -- Batman (played by Argo) is doing his thing saving people and branding a fucking Bat logo on the criminals before sending them to prison (where the identification will get them killed). I guess tattooing a number on them before sending them off to a place full of similar folk to be murdered would be too much work. Even Alfred (played by Dead Ringers) is put off by this branding shit; he tells him that he wasn't like that before and Bruce pretty much gives him some bullshit about how things are worse now so I guess he has to be, uh, worser. It's also kinda hinted that Bruce Wayne is a drinker, like Affleck in real life.

Ah, I kid the rich and handsome actor and director of Academy Award-winning films who wins at life while I just blog about it. Sorry for hurting your feelings, Ben. I remember when the news came out that he was going to portray Batman, and I never had a problem with it. If anything, my only complaint was that he should be directing the movie because he's a damn good director. As it is, in his actor-solo mode I thought he was really good and it kinda bums me out there isn't a solo Batman movie featuring Affleck doing some more stabbing and shooting and bone-breaking and setting people on fire.

It's a trip, man, it's like Snyder and company thought the already controversial Burton/Keaton Batman was a pussy. But love it or hate it, you gotta give points to this Batman for using an electronic voice modulator so he doesn't have to do that lame growl voice that Christian Bale had to do. One day, when I'm ready to die, I'll find Bale at a bar and walk up to him and give him sooooo much shit about that voice.

Or maybe I won't give him shit, because according to those e-mails that were leaked out of Sony, my man C.B. stepped in and gave a little of that Light Trashing magic to that niece-molesting actor-bullying fuckhead David O. Russell for making The Adorable Amy Adams cry. HE MADE HER CRY. This shitmouth has a history of this, and it takes a Bale or a George Clooney to ring this asshole's bell every once in a while which is not nearly enough. So I'm happy his ode to poor Stockholm Syndrome-suffering Jennifer Lawrence, Joy, underperformed at the box office, because the more of those he makes, the less The Powers That Be will throw dollars at him, and the sooner he becomes Yesterday's News -- at least until a decade or two later when when his old movies become popular again and he tours the revival cinema circuit to blah blah the packed enraptured crowds, the way we do with Former Hot Shit/Terrible Human Beings like William Friedkin. And I say this as a major, major, major fan of William Friedkin -- the filmmaker.

And I think you see a bit of where my crush on The Adorable Amy Adams comes from: the possibility that maybe she's a genuinely decent human being and yet she managed to find success in a business where nice people finish last and walking twats win awards and get away with terrible behavior. I can't help but cheer on those kinds of people. This blog entry will be hilarious to read after it comes out that Amy Adams is like a secret Nazi or something, or she does something stupid and open up a Twitter account and have an opinion. Then that will be the end of The Triple A.

Anyway, fuck those guys. As much as I think the movie really begins with Our Amy, it actually begins with this cool sequence that goes back and forth between Young Bruce Wayne at his parents' funeral and the night they were shot dead by Joe Chill (after Thomas Wayne makes the incredibly smart move of taking a swing at the handgun-toting Chill). Then it goes into him falling into that bat pit and getting all batted on and I guess he's the King of the Bats or something now because they encircle him and levitate him up towards the light.

It worked for me, and it made me think for a second that I was actually watching a straight-up new Batman reboot (which I guess it is, but it's also a Superman film, a Justice League film, etc.), but then it goes into the events of Man of Steel, when the World Engine is fucking up Metropolis and I guess it wasn't doing a fast enough job, so here comes Superman and Zod to speed up the destruction process.

While this is happening, Middle-Aged Bruce Wayne is driving his SUV trying to get his people out of one of his buildings, but hey, he's the star and they're just bit players. Doesn't take Neil Degrasse Tyson to figure out how that's gonna work out -- and that's because he's too busy making a cameo in this film. I gotta say, I thought all of that worked but that could be because 9/11-style imagery mixed with a soon-to-be-smooshed dude praying to God to save his soul is gonna automatically give me a case of the Strong Emotions. (I don't think this film is gonna play very well in Pakistan at the moment either. Sigh.) Call it cheating, call it good filmmaking, but mostly I prefer to call it bad-taste ballsiness. This film? This Batman v Superman film? It's actually kinda fascinating.

For example, check out Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, and then go nominate that dude for Best Supporting Actor or give him two in the back of the fucking head so he never does it again -- either way I'm fine with it. Because never have I felt like jumping at the screen and tearing it to shreds the way I felt while watching him, ruining my goddamn high, this fuck. His Luthor is an absolute shit of a human being in every goddamn way: the way he walks, the way he talks, the way his face will twitch. It got to where it was starting to hurt me watching him breathe.

His Lex Luthor is this super-rich kid with eccentricities upon eccentricities multiplied by many social anxieties and everybody puts up with it because he's a Master of the Universe. I guess that's why he has this hard-on for Superman, 'cause he's going on and on about how people see Supes as a God and this bothers him. Maybe the idea that someone could be on a higher plane than him really rubs Lex raw. So he disguises this player-hating as looking out for the world, because you can't have this being roaming around with the potential to burn it all down to the ground whenever/if ever he felt like it. That's why he has his people locate Kryptonite and that's why he tries to get Senator Holly Hunter to get with the idea of keeping Supes in check with the green shit. But in the end, he's setting up Supes and Bats to fight it out because Man Must Fight God, and if God Is Dead then ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz I really didn't care and plus I was too high to really pay attention to any scene that wasn't focused on the star of Enchanted.

Oh by the way, for those who've seen this film: didn't you think those Polaroids that Lex had of Martha Kent being held captive were a touch much? Poor Diane Lane, but I guess you take what they give ya. I mean, they were really freaky and looked like something out of some serial killer/rapist's collection. Again with the bad taste and insanity of the film -- and the filmmakers.

This may not be the most popular opinion, but I never felt so much hate towards any of the Marvel film villains, or any hate at all, compared with how I felt about Lex-Dog. So I'm giving DC the award for having the better bad guy in a comic book film. He was so cartoonishly evil and petty, he almost seemed like a real human being. In other words, Eisenberg's Luthor was absolutely Shkrelian.

There's a nightmare sequence where Batman is living in post-apocalyptic Wherever and he's searching for the last piece of Kryptonite or something, but it turns out to be a setup and suddenly he's surrounded by black-clad soldiers with Superman arm patches and they start beating the shit out of him -- and then! Then these winged devils or whatever the hell they were swoop in and start pulling bodies away and it's all so very insane.

It felt like something out of the most expensive Christian-exploitation movie never made (or if some billionaire asshole funded a film adaptation of a Jack Chick cartoon tract) where it's the near-future and the poor Christians are being hunted down for being down with G.O.D. (Happy Easter, btw) and they have to take the Mark of the Beast and they just got caught trying to smuggle The Last Bible In Existence, because all the bibles are being burned and crosses are being destroyed and then on television Dictator-For-Life Obama is talking about bringing our former enemies together and now abortions are mandatory (for men and women!) and our national flag is now the Islamic crescent moon & star and Oh My God The Poors Have Health Care! And the Homos Are Getting Married! And if only they let me keep my guns and my Jesus, this would've never happened!

By the way, The Poors Have Health Care! And the Homos Are Getting Married! sounds like the most fucked-up Andy Milligan film ever.

Speaking of fucked-up, there's also some disturbing undercurrents? and metaphors? or hidden messages? in this film. What I'm saying is that Lex's plan involves blowing up the Capitol Building in order to drum up more hate against Superman, and it got me thinking of the conspiracy theories about various False Flag operations like, well, like 9/11 and how it was done in order to justify going over to Fuckheadistan (thanks London Has Fallen!) and get that sweet sweet guzzleline, and I wondered if that was the purpose of Snyder and company or maybe I'm just falling into the stoner trap again, forgive me.

Oh, another thing about the Capitol Building scene; I saw a name plate for someone named "Sen. Purrington" and I decided that if I ever decide to get a cat, that's what I'm going to name it.

So what of the ultimate showdown? It was OK. Pretty much what I expected, with a couple cool gadget traps being used by Bats and Supes using his powers to punch him back about a couple miles. It's all technically awesome but I didn't really give that much of a care about who would win. All I could think about was the tagline to Alien vs. Predator: "Whoever wins...we lose."

You have the two comic book titans facing off against each other -- thankfully this time they're in an abandoned part of town, the better to lessen collateral damage -- and yet I was more into the scenes of Lois Lane walking around holding this Kryptonite-tipped spear and she looked awesome/adorable doing so. Where's that movie? Shit, I'll direct that spin-off, if they'll let me.

It's like Snyder read my ramblings about the last film and kept in mind that I really dug seeing The Triple A walking around with a space blaster thingamajig and thought "Hmm, how can I please ol' EFC with this one?" and he certainly did. So thanks, bro. See you at the gym tomorrow, where we'll bench press some heavy weight and laugh at the skinny flabby weaklings -- where's my high-five, broseph?

There are no stingers in this film, which I found out with my trusty RunPee app, which not only told me not to bother sticking around after the end credits, but also let me know that Kevin Costner's Pa Kent showed up to pep talk Clark while I was busying emptying the ol' bladder. So yeah, no stingers, but that's because there's a sequence late in the film that feels like all the stingers put together; this is where you see the rest of the Justice League like Aquaman, The Flash, some Black dude all chopped up and with wires sticking out of his body cavities looking like Murphy in Robocop 2, and Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman.

Almost forgot about her: Wonder Woman shows up to join in on the CGI-fighting shenanigans and it all looks good in a visual sense, and while the soundtrack was telling me DUDES! DUUUUUUDES! WONDER WOMAN IS HERE! SHE'S KICKING ASS WITH BATMAN AND SUPERMAN! AND SHE'S SMOOOOOOOKIN'! ISN'T THIS AWESOME! I nodded and said to no one "Hell yeah, this is awesome -- dipping the jalapenos that came with my nachos into the melted cheese was an excellent idea!" Don't laugh, lady and gentleman, these jalapenos went above and beyond the call of duty and I applaud whoever grew them and whoever was in charge of picking them for this movie theater establishment.

Say what you will, and I'm gonna say what I will: Zach Snyder is now an honest-to-goodness genuine auteur. Triple-feature this film, 300, and Sucker Punch and you'll know more about this guy than he probably even knows about himself. Among many things I learned from his two Superman movies is that Snyder's favorite Superman is the drunk & angry people-hating one that split from Clark Kent in Superman III, the one who will punch a hole into an oil tanker because Fuck The World.

Like I said earlier, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a fascinating film to experience. If you're too much of a comic book fan or love the older incarnations of Supes and/or Batman too much, maybe you should stay away. No, you should definitely stay away. But on its own, the movie does a good job taking a long time telling a simple story, but it's redeemed by the whacked-out style and perverse decisions that I can only describe as...well, I don't know how to put it succinctly (he says after spending numerous paragraphs going on and on and on). Is it a train wreck? Um, maybe -- but it's more like a train derailed by gigantic testicles. People are dead and the train is destroyed but wow, look at the big balls on that guy, I didn't know they made them that big! Not for nothing, but Snyder's production company is called "Cruel and Unusual Films" -- which is right on the goddamn money, Zachy.

So I liked the movie, but not for the reasons that your average Batman and/or Superman fan would want to like it, let's put it that way. As it is, my commitment to this particular galaxy in the DC universe is probably going to last as long as Amy Adams is involved. But what do I know? The kids seemed to bounce around like crazy during the BvS stuff, and fidgeted like mad during everything else.

In conclusion, I hope Soledad O'Brien made it out OK.

I should've known about this motherfucker the second he began reminding everyone around him that his birthday was coming up about a month-and-a-half in advance, on some Hint-Hint type shit.

My coworker loves to talk about his life and I don't think he minds that I'm wearing earbuds and listening to podcasts while he's venting because that's all he's really doing -- venting. Long ago, I used to talk with him and try to cheer him up by reminding him that it's a big blue ball we live on, and we, brother? We are legion. So you're never really alone, I tell him, because millions out there have had their worlds rocked in various magnitudes -- many higher than yours -- but they got through it and if they got through it, so can you! Then I usually cock my head to the side and give a big ol' smile and wave at him, with that gay shit.

OK, that's unfair and offensive, but you are reading the words of a man who last month watched his coworker tear up and fight back sobs before going up to him and giving him a hug because it seemed like the right thing to do. You are reading the words of a man who would occasionally bring his coworker a donut or a pastry or a fucking breakfast burrito in the morning in an attempt to brighten his day with a little kindness. You are reading the words of a man who used his personal time to fill up a flash drive with various movies that he felt the coworker would like and would help him get through this bad time, and instead gets to hear his coworker constantly bemoan being "bored as shit at home" as if there was nothing for him to WATCH.

In other words, you are reading the words of a schmuck.

And what exactly is the coworker's latest tragedy that even a daily dab of hash oil in the morning -- as is his daily custom -- will not cure? The coworker became friendly with a neighbor in his apartment -- a neighbor with kids -- and this friendship involved dinners at her place, rides to work, and nights out at the local craft brewery. Soon, this lady began to "catch feelings" for him and his response was that he wasn't interested in a relationship because he had just come from a bad one.

A few months later, he began to catch feelings for her, and when he told her this, she then informed him that she had a boyfriend/baby papa in prison who will be released in a few months, hence that's a No Go on replacing "friend" with "relation" on this ship. And that, dear reader, is when the tears began to roll.

I am going to open up a bit more and talk about something I don't really like to talk about -- yup, I'm bringing up Daddy again.

You see, I never brought up my father's death on Twitter or Facebook, not because I didn't want to talk about it, but because I didn't want to fuck with anybody's day. I only mentioned it here on the blog, because if you clicked on the link, then you are entering of your own free will knowing that whatever you are exposed to was a result of you being interested and may God have mercy on your soul. (I've since come to the conclusion that this was a terrible mistake. In addition to the blog, I should've shouted out the dearly departed old man on every fucking social media network that I was a member of, the same way I know all of you would do the same thing.)

And I never brought it up at work except to let my boss know why I was taking time off, and I never walked around all morose & moaning & wailing among my coworkers because we have to be fucking professionals and do our best as members of an ensemble cast in this fucking movie we call Life, motherfucker! This guy, on the other hand, not only thinks he's the star, he must've been busy smoking weed with his asshole friends in school when R.E.M. came out with "Everybody Hurts".

You know, he kinda reminds me of me, maybe that's what it is. Because I remember a couple years ago I responded to a friend's e-mail with this real fucking epic pity party because the movie I directed turned out to be such a piece of shit. I went on and on in such a Woe Is Me type way, and I was so far up into my own fat ass that I conveniently forgot that the person I was writing to had spent a long portion of her life UNABLE TO FUCKING WALK. She has since gotten better but it's still tough with obstacles like Cuntface in her way whining about a fucking movie. By the way, I actually had to take a break right now to literally smack myself in the face about three times in some weird kinda Catholic punishment for that bullshit. Anyway, where was I?

So I think maybe you understand why I might be feeling a growing resentment towards this coworker who is letting what is ultimately minor in the grand scheme of things affect him to the point that he'll literally moan/groan out of nowhere because he is soooo much in pain, this guy who shows little empathy to others but expects every bit of sympathy to be given. This is a man who in his current condition can be sullen towards everybody else at work, whereas I was still putting on a happy face and joking around with everybody while waiting to go home so I can cry alone about my recently deceased father. My coworkers are human beings who just want to make a living and go home and deal with their own problems -- why would I punish them for something they didn't do?

Whatever. I have my earbuds. And I have the knowledge that this is a man too hip to be happy. A man who subconsciously (at least) enjoys feeling terrible. While some of us had been exiled from contentment, he apparently sent himself away and is now possibly institutionalized from the experience. No man is an island -- except this one, and he evidently believes that his is the only island where pain can occur. This morning we spoke about the tragic events in Brussels for about 5 minutes, and then he changed the subject to the Same Ol' Shit for another two hours. So I now feel confident in rubber stamping Fuck This Guy on his file folder. I gave him a hug, I gave him my time -- now I'll just give him the impression that I pretend to give a shit.

On the bright side, I got two raises in the last year because my boss confided in me that I knew how to "handle" this asshole.



It's too bad my coworker is not at all like Christian Bale's character in Knight of Cups, the latest film from my man, Terrence Malick. I say that because Bale's character -- whose name I can't remember, nor does it matter, so then I'll call him "Fool" -- has had various relationships go south and there never was a moment in the film where he pulls any of that coworker shit with the other people in his life. No, he just mostly wanders around, the way people do in a Malick joint. And why is he wandering? Why is he here? Why are we here? Why is life so difficult? Why do people still give Malick shit for the kind of films he makes when it's pretty clear he is operating on his own level and doesn't give a shit about things like Story and Plot when he's got more metaphysical fish to fry?

These are all questions we have and Malick too has those questions (except the last one) because he is human like the rest of us. His career has been leading to these types of questions more and more since The Thin Red Line and it's been a real trip for those of us who signed up for the journey. His films used to be more classically composed in the visual department, but like most directors, Terrence Malick has slowly changed his style over the years; it started with The New World, because that's when things got more, I don't know, flow-y? Like, the camera started moving and roving about, following the subject like a curious angel observing this fascinating creation known as Man and Wo-Man. (Whoa, man!)

Then he kicked it up a notch with The Tree of Life, and while we were barely getting our bearings this motherfucker went even farther and further with To the Wonder and I guess he was going way too fast because he lost quite a few of us with that one. I managed to hold on and ultimately I liked it but I felt he'd done better work. But after watching Knight, I wonder if I'd like To the Wonder even more now. Why? Because I liked Knight of Cups very much, even though it's even more, uh, opaque and deals with something I'm getting kinda tired of seeing in movies (which I'll get to soon). Maybe To the Wonder goes down easier now?

FYI, the original title for that film was To the Wonder To the Wall Till the Sweat Drip Down My Balls Till All These Bitches Crawl (Skeet Skeet Motherfuckers, Skeet Skeet Goddamn).

But yeah, I wasn't sure at first about this one because when I read the synopsis -- knowing that it would probably tell me more than the film would, because Terrence Malick makes films that you don't have to worry knowing too much about before seeing it -- I kinda rolled my eyes when I read that Bale's character Fool was playing a screenwriter in Hollywood. But I also felt, hey, maybe now Malick will actually get a chance at winning Best Picture or Best Director, because you how the Academy loves movies that involve The Business They Have Chosen, right?

Well, you wouldn't really know that Fool writes movies, except for a line said by one of his agents, something like "All you wanna do is write big movies in Hollywood" and even then that line you could barely hear because Malick isn't really that interested in what these people have to say to each other, and is more into what they're thinking. Yup, just like his other films the characters have their own inner monologues on the soundtrack and some of it is on the nose and some of it only makes sense to the person saying it. No really, I don't even think Malick knows what some of this means and I think that's the idea.

What do I mean? I mean I think he came up with this idea for the film because the premise is more or less (I'm sure, or at least I think I'm sure) an autobiographical one, but used it as a springboard to delve into more personal shit for himself AND personal shit for we the viewers (but more on that much later); Fool the screenwriter goes to Hollywood to write movies and ends up doing that but also ends up doing a lot of partying and drinking and whoring and fucking around with Asian chicks in his classic Lincoln Continental on his way to the usual rooftop bacchanalia, and then spends the early morning after staring out to the horizon thinking about what it all means. What an asshole. If I were in that position -- and I'm sadly not, but not for lack of trying -- I'd spend that morning looking for somewhere to have breakfast, preferably with one of my fellow partiers, preferably a couple of them, and preferably of the female persuasion.

What are you saying, you ask: I'm saying that even though this takes place in the Here and Now, this is pretty much what Malick probably did back in the 60s and 70s when he was writing movies, before he stepped up to the bat and knocked it out the fucking park with Badlands. But he wasn't just banging and passing out on couches, he also had time to grow up a little and get himself into the occasional relationship with a lady. He even got married for a while, and then moved on to hooking up with a married woman which I guess was his way of compromising, like "I won't get married but I'll find a wife". I'm talking about Fool mostly, I can't say if Malick was fucking around with married women but I do know he's been married three times so he must like 'em hitched one way or the other, dig?

I don't know what kind of quality wool Malick was pulling, but Bale gets some pretty choice chicks in this film: Natalie Portman, the chick from Slumdog Millionaire, the chick from the Point Break remake that I actually paid to watch, a chick I don't remember from one of the Transformers movies because who actually remembers that garbage, Imogen Poots from the Society of People With Unfortunate Last Names, and Cate Blanchett -- but as regular readers of this blog probably already know, her full name is Cate Blanchett Who Held Open The Door For Me At The Arclight Hollywood At A Screening of Notes on a Scandal.

The biggest tip-off that this is based on his life back in the day is that it's kinda dated; for all of his Hollywood lifestyle, you never see the dude use a smartphone or a computer and as mentioned earlier, his car is vintage too. Plus, if this guy were an actual working screenwriter in the late '10s, there would've been scenes of this motherfucker holding court at the New Beverly Cinema or the Cinefamily, introducing movies he likes to packed crowds, all of them held in rapt attention to every word he says like he's Paddy Chayefsky or some-fucking-body, even though he probably wrote one well-received genre movie that wasn't even the director's best work and I guess that's why he has fans -- because he's a working screenwriter and that's closer to The Dream Achieved than most of his 50,000+ Twitter followers will ever get, and that's why he gets hundreds of retweets every fucking day for every passing thought he posts, and no, I am not the least bit jealous or envious.

I am every bit jealous and envious.

Anyway, the movie is like my writing here: all over the fucking place. But unlike my ramblings, I feel there is something substantial in all of this. The movie starts out with a narrator (Ben Kingsley, I believe) telling the Gnostic Gospel tale from "The Hymn of the Pearl" which is about a young prince who goes on a journey to find a pearl, which I guess is the Pearl of All Pearls considering all the shit he goes through to get it. Problem is, along the way the prince takes a drink and unfortunately this drink must've come from the Cosby Vineyard Selection because the prince then passes out and when he wakes up he's forgotten everything. He forgot who he was, why he was there, and his purpose. His butthole hurts, he doesn't know why.

So right there, the movie tells you what it's about. The movie basically spoils it all for you right there if you pay attention rather than question why the fuck we're looking at a satellite hovering over Earth, making you wonder if Malick is gonna get all 2 Tree 2 Life on us and take us back to Dinosaur Land immediately after.

But he's not, he takes us back down to Earth with some Go-Pro footage of a desert highway and then we see Bale looking all assed-out near the highway. He's on his way somewhere but he's taken a detour to wander around the desert and think of what brought him to this point. And that's when we go all over the place as his tale is told in various chapters, each with tarot card names like The Hermit, The Hanged Man, Judgment, Death, The Moon, etc. So it's kinda like The Tree of Life's Sean Penn sequences, except instead of some douchebag wandering around Dallas, we have Bale wandering around the desert. Ah, what am I saying -- Bale's probably a douchebag in real life too.

I'm bringing up The Tree of Life a lot because I love that film but also because, yeah man, there's elements of that brought up here too. I already brought up a couple but another one would have to be how Bale's character had a brother who killed himself a while ago, just like Penn's character in the aforementioned movie-joint. As mentioned in my ramblings about that film, Malick had a brother who killed himself, so yeah, I can't talk shit about that, that's some tragic stuff right there and of course it's gonna stick with you and you'll always try to work that shit out in your soul. And you see, man, that's the beauty of Terrence Malick's films, this guy isn't preaching, teaching, or reaching (take that, Cimino!) -- he's wondering. He's as lost as the rest of us snowflakes, he's getting older and he still hasn't figured it out but there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, he's inviting us to see his attempt to work this shit out but he's also giving us something to work our own shit out on too.

This film, more than his others, comes closest to a kind of Rorschach cinema (with a slight tinge of Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke); it gives us imagery, it gives us moments, and while they can be taken at face value (and enjoyed as such), it can also be something we can interpret in our own way based on our own baggage. The relationship stuff I'm not going to get into because I've already exposed enough about myself, so I'll just say there were a couple lines in there that gave me serious douchechills because of what kind of memories it brought up; basically all my past relationships I look back on with embarrassment (not against them, this is all self-hatred, son). And like, there's quite a bit of stuff involving Bale's family; his father is played by Brian Dennehy and at one point Dennehy's inner monologue is talking about how he thought things would make more sense as he got older but here he is as an old man and he's just as confused about this world as ever, and then there's stuff about Bale realizing that there's stuff his father was trying to teach him but he wasn't trying to hear it, and he realizes his father was right way after the fact and GODDAMN there I go thinking of my dad again.

Bale's bro is played by Creepo the Shopping Bag Filming Creep from American Beauty and Creepo is really good here, playing some dude who lives in the real L.A.; I'm talking about the downtown areas where the poor and downtrodden try to get by on a day-by-day basis, and it's also one of the few times you see people from the darker echelon and I'm grateful for it. I'm getting fucking tired of people putting down Los Angeles as being this super fake plastic town, when what they're really doing is generalizing the fuck out of the tiny portion they were exposed to. I want to tell these out-of-town fucks that just because you work in the film business and you only deal with film people, it doesn't mean that is of what the entire city is comprised.

The real majority will soon be made of minorities, and when you talk about how an earthquake should sink the whole fucking town you're giving me images of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, South Asians, Middle Easterners, everybody else I'm leaving out because this paragraph would be too long, the working class, the struggling, the poor, the hungry, the ones who take the fucking bus not because it's good for the environment but because they have no choice, the ones who used to shop at Grand Central Market before it started getting gentrified and expensive, the ones who are constantly late for work because of yet another fucking road closure (so they can film a fucking movie), everybody else who doesn't use valet parking, the ones just trying to get by, I see all of them drowning like another movie from that disaster porn filmmaking asshole Roland Emmerich and that's why I'm going to put this baseball bat across your fucking face until it looks like Garry's face when The Thing '82 got him.

I will say this about the downtown L.A. stuff; Bale is wandering around the streets and not once does a disheveled-looking gentleman approach him all polite-like, greeting him, asking him how he's doing and Man, how about this heat? and maybe compliments his outfit -- and then hits him up for a dollar or two. Because at least for me, I can't stand in one spot for more than 30 seconds in certain parts of the downtown area without least 2 instances of that occurring. To be fair, it used to be more like 4 instances of that, but the past few years they've been Giuliani-ing the fuck out of downtown so there's that too, I guess.

It's cool to see Malick and three-time-in-a-muthafuckin-row Academy Award-winning raza cinematographer (¡raza, güey!) Emmanuel "El Chivo" Lubezki work their visual magic in and around the Los Angeles area; they shoot in downtown, the Hollywood Hills, Koreatown, Venice, Santa Monica, Burbank with the fuckin' studios. Also lots of footage shot in freeways, looking at the road ahead, behind, or the sights beside it; man, it reminded me of when I was younger and didn't have a license. One of my simplest pleasures was looking out the window from the car, looking at the buildings, or the land, all that shit. I miss it, and whenever I get the opportunity to be a passenger, I take advantage. Because it sucks driving and not being able to glance over and enjoy the sight of Los Angeles at night. Not unless I want to then follow it up with me going "OH SHIT!" as I almost crash into someone's Prius.

They even journey out to the desert in Death Valley, making a stop in Palm Springs, and there's time left to make a stop over in Las Vegas, Nevada where it appears they managed to find the real Elvis Presley because this Elvis was old, fat, and looked nothing like him. They even shoot over at one of those massive concerts, the kind of laptop spinning affair where the DJs show their appreciation to the throng of sweaty molly-popping peeps by throwing cake at them and somehow he or she doesn't get a shotgun blast to the face for that rude shit.

Once again we are treated to the winning combo of Malick's penchant for roving handheld cameras and Lubezki doing the wide-angle lens thing and it looks wonderfully dreamy as always, but on this film they pull a couple new tricks from their bag; in addition to 35mm and 70mm, they shot this sucker on digital -- but not just your usual Arris and Reds, they also toss in some GoPro and even what looked to me like lower-end cell phone video. And it never felt gimmicky, it all felt...right. If for nothing else, Knight of Cups is good cinematography porn. I noticed I've said "porn" like three or four times already, and it's probably because I'm horny.

Speaking of horny, all you Quentin Tarantino types are gonna have your Hattori Hanzo swords standing at Full Attention with all the foot shots in this film. No joke, it got to where I thought that clearly Malick must have a thing for tootsies. I mean, he shoots a lot of footage for his films and you could probably edit three or four films out of them. So he easily could've put together a cut that had zero foot shots but I think he was looking out for his fellow foot fetishists, rather than keep that footage for himself in a hard drive reserved for spanking, labeled "Tax Returns".

But yeah, it got to a point where I thought to myself, "all that's left is for someone to stick her foot in some dude's mouth" and lo and fuckin' behold, here comes Natalie Portman sticking hers into Bale's mouth. Even though it's a foot, it didn't gross me out because I'm sure Ms. Portman is a clean woman. But what got me kinda skeeved out was watching a scene in a strip joint, where Bale talks up this stripper who then takes out this giant lollipop and sticks it into his mouth. I'm thinking "Jesus Christ, Bale, you know she does this for a living, right? You think you're the only one she's offered that same exact lollipop?" Man, imagine all the various Heps and Herpes and Desperation all over that candy, in addition to all those unnecessary empty calories. Eww.

Hey man, you like dogs? I love dogs and I love seeing a dog in this movie stumbling around after an earthquake among all the shaken & confused Los Angelenos like he's thisclose to saying "Is everybody all right? Why didn't any of you listen to me? Didn't you see me freak out a few seconds before the shaking started?" There's also this mini-montage filmed underwater in a swimming pool, where we're treated to awesome slow-mo shots of dogs in Hawaiian shirts and leis jumping in as they attempt to grab tennis balls; they all open their mouths all wide like AAAAAAARRRRRRR I'M GONNA GET YOU BALL but they all fail at being dogs, and the tennis balls go free. As true a metaphor for life and as true a beauty in cinema as only Terrence Malick can bring you. That's both a joke and a sincere statement. I'm as confused about it as you are.

Those dogs were part of a big Hollywood party thrown by Antonio Banderas, playing a version of himself named "Tonio". I almost kinda want the real Banderas to be like the one in Knight of Cups; he's an unapologetic pussy-hound ("They are like flavors. Sometimes you want raspberry and then after a while you want strawberry.") and I'd like to see a spinoff buddy film with him and Neil Patrick Harris from the Harold & Kumar films. There are lots of familiar faces at the party, and one of them is Thomas Lennon, formerly of "The State" and "Reno 911!" and currently mostly of writing many a shitty high-concept studio screenplay. Anyway, he has a pretty cool interview where he talks about working on this film and it's a great look into how Malick makes his movies.

Damn, man. I went on and on here, and the sad truth is I can keep going on but I think I've kept you for way too long -- and I ain't no Ariel Castro, you're free to leave whenever. But I guess that shows to go you that I really liked this movie, and the more I think about it, the more I like it. I don't do Top 10 lists but goddamn if this doesn't end up on the year-end Best Of that I won't make. As of now, it's up there with The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life as the Malick films that hit me hardest while watching them for the first time.

I've said this before when rambling about his other films, but it bears repeating: The overall message in this film is a very simple one and it's often told and often heard, and maybe some of us are tired of hearing it. But it doesn't make it any less true, and sometimes we need to be reminded. But I totally get it if you see this film and don't like it at all. I mean, that's art for you: some will see beauty, some will see garbage, and some will just go "eh". And I'm not one to throw that word out so easily either, "art" -- especially in an industry filled with artisans who mistake themselves for artists. They see themselves as The Real Thing and then they try to convince others by constantly talking about how great they are. And that right there, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is Exhibit A through Z as to why they are not. But Terrence Malick? He ain't saying shit. He just does it.

In conclusion, my coworker needs to shut his bitch ass up.