Rest In Peace

Plot is a killer: Mr. Bean's Holiday

I'm a big Bean fan. I own the complete BBC series and even suffered through the horrible Americanized catastrophe of Bean: The Movie. And this film, while closer to the original shorts, is still troubled by one thing: plot. The thing I loved about Mr. Bean was watching him go through life, accomplish things that all of us need to do but do it in a completely Bean way. Like when he wanted to buy a new easy chair and instead of having it delivered or renting a truck, he strapped it to the top of his Mini Cooper and rigged it so he could drive the car from the roof while sitting in his new chair. In trying to constrain Mr. Bean to a running narrative, here the story of a boy who gets separated from his father due to Bean's antics, it loses some of the flavor and thus the humor. The second half of the film, where he gets caught up in the film industry at Cannes, are much better and make the film enjoyable and leave you with a good feeling. It's not quite the abomination that his first film foray was, but it's more a reflection of what you loved about Bean, nothing that will turn anyone into a fan. Now, a Black Adder movie on the other hand...

Be Ye Warned! A Comic Book Warning

Just a cautionary tale to those of you who buy trades rather than monthly comics. I did a bit of math and realized that this is not always the most economical choice. And the major culprit of this scam? Marvel Premiere Edition Hardcovers. I wondered what the point of these things were when they were first announced. The way the system worked was like this: once a miniseries was finished or 6 issues of a monthly comic had been released, the company would put out a trade paperback, floppy cover, collecting the issues. If there was a high demand and a lot of extras or a year's worth of very popular stories, they would put out a hardcover collection. And the chief advantage, besides the bookshelf effect, was that the collection would be cheaper than buying the issues. But if you are paying about 2 bucks an issue (and why would anyone still be paying full retail prices for comics?) then the collection comes out at about 12 bucks, and it works out fine.

But Marvel started putting out popular titles in Premiere Edition Hardcovers, collecting the same issues, but in small hardcover editions for about 20 bucks. Simple math tells you that you end up paying way more than even full cover price. Trust me, the hard cover is not worth the difference. Besides, about two months later, they'll put out the regular edition for the normal cost. I got burned on this with one ongoing series and I wanted to make sure no one else made the same mistake.

Absolutely Nothing: War

First of all, bad title. Nobody goes to war in this at all, not even a small scale gang war. In its dreams, this is following the story of Yojimbo, with Jet Li playing the Toshiro Mifune part setting two rival factions against each other, only way stupider and with 95% less personality. And I don't use 'stupider' lightly.

I can't help but think that 20 years ago, this exact movie would have been direct to video and starring Dolph Lungren and, I don't know, Al Leong? And yet here we are, with the same script and way more money for blowing stuff up and no better off. I give them props for actually putting in some twists, or more accurately ONE twist, but in the end it's just two guys who don't like to use facial expressions running, shooting and trying to be serious about everything. It's not awful, but I swear I saw it before, late night some past Friday on Cinemax.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Sorry all, but I'm spending the evening in Rapture. See you when I decompress.

Guess Who's Back, Baby!

I realize I posted about the return of Farscape, which at this point is unscheduled even to the year. But there's another show coming back from cancellation and not only do I have a year for it, I have a month, a week and even a year. Behold the return of Futurama! Here's the lay of the land. The team is putting out 4 (Count 'em 4!) DVDs, each of them running about 88 minutes (which translates to 4 episodes per DVD). They'll be released every two or three months and after all of them are out, the episodes will be separated and recut with extra footage to be aired as a new season on Comedy Central. Yeah, I don't get that part either. But it's the date you want, and I have it for you. The first Futurama movie will be released on November 27th, 2007 and you can preorder it from Amazon.com right NOW! And here's a little something else to help you remember:

Loogies of Doom! : The Invasion

It wasn't as bad as I thought it was be. The doctors did a pretty good job of covering the scars. But that's not to say it's any good. People keep remaking Invasion of the Body Snatchers and doing it badly. For my vote, I don't think any of the incarnations have been good movies. And this one is no different. There is some kind of irony in telling a story where you can only tell who the aliens are is by their lack of emotion and expression and they cast Nicole Kidman, who has seen more and more of her lifeforce sucked out in every movie she's in leaving her a very pretty automaton. Every movie I see her in makes her seem less human and more like a CGI effect. The movie has some good general creep. Once you find out that the virus is passed in liquids, you look carefully every time someone picks up a cup. But seeing the infected vomiting into carafes lessens the effect. It starts to deal with some interesting topics when they find out there is a cure. Does that mean you shouldn't kill the infected who are trying to get you? But then it all just drops when the movie has the big heroic rescue and the 'everything turned out fine so let's all have breakfast' ending. Lame, but at least not dull. This must be August.

Not super good: Superbad

Yeah, it was an obvious joke, but it's for a reason. Why? Because this movie would love it. Now I like a good curse in a movie, I won't lie. I feel like it expands the possibilities of communication by using all the possible words. But here's the thing: there's using words to get a point across and then there's just repeating words over and over again in place of an actual point. And thus we have Superbad. It's like they were so excited that they actually got to swear as much as they wanted that they never bothered to think if they should. Wow, kind of slipped into Ian Malcolm there for a second. It's not funny and ends up getting kind of annoying. Add to that the recurring factor in these types of movies, call it the Stifler Factor. You keep asking yourself: why would they hang out with this guy? It was that way in American Pie and Harold & Kumar. Sure, they're the go-to character for the wacky plot antics, but as a character they are people you should avoid. The movie's not awful. The subplot with the cops is comedy gold and hilarious every time they come back to it. But for the main characters, I felt myself pitying them and shaking my head at them rather than laughing along. It's not bad, but it's way too simple, amateurish, and obsessed with dirty talk. Hey, come to think of it, those are the same reasons I hate teenagers so maybe it's more accurate than I thought.

Then it went thud...

Wow, when a summer movie season ends, it doesn't go out with a bang. Bourne ended the season and abruptly we shift into the also-rans. I didn't see Rush Hour 3. Or, to paraphrase David Spade, I liked it the first time I saw it ... when it was called Rush Hour. Seriously, was anybody really looking forward to this besides Chris Tucker who's phone has distinctly not been ringing? Sure, you might see the listing and figure why not? But no one was setting a countdown clock for it.

August and well into September is a dead zone for the movie industry. It's where they put their less than stellar product. Sometimes you will get a good flick, a smaller film that uses the quiet time to get some buzz. But for the most part, this is the time you see movies that would be killed any other time of the year. It's weeks of pain and embarrassment. For this week we have Superbad, which might be really good but won't go huge and The Invasion. Alas, The Invasion, the poor Frankenstein Flick (i.e. their seams are showing). The Invasion (aka The Visting) was a movie shot by an indie talent to be a creepy psychological thriller with SF overtones. But the studio wanted an action flick. In come the Brothers Wachowski to save the day. They came, they rewrote, shot and reedited, they left without a credit to their names. This won't be the first time Nicole Kidman is in a vastly reworked movie from the one she shot. The Stepford Wives anyone? But it rarely goes well. But it's all part of moviegoing in August. Long may they clunk.

At last, a movie to look forward to this fall. Enjoy it before the lawyers get wise.

The mystery preceding Transformers: What is 1-18-08?

Due to overwhelming demand (thank you, both of you), I'm finally going to fulfill my promise to discuss the mysterious trailer that preceded Transformers. You know the one, where the young hipsters are having a going away party in NYC when things go wrong in the city and ends with a distinctive piece of New York architecture flying through the air. I don't have any particular inside information, I've just distilled what I've found around the net. I have to tell you, the geek world is in an uproar about this, and the biggest noise about the whole thing is: how the hell did we not know about this?

When J.J. Abrams signed with Paramount, it was assumed it was to reboot Star Trek. And while he is working on that, what with Sylar being cast as Spock, what we didn't know is that his Bad Robot production company was quietly working on something...else. It's a project code named CLOVERFIELD. Here's the rough idea: imagine the events of a Godzilla movie. Not the horrible Matthew Broderick outruns the monster in a cab movie, but the idea of a giant creature attacking New York. In the past, in movies like that or even the similar idea in something like Independence Day, we've followed the major people, the hero with information on stopping the beast or the soldier who figures out the weakness or the President who rallies the forces together to strike back. And it's all done with perfect camera angles, high sweeping shots and expensive slo-mo's of buildings being destroyed.

But what if the same story was told from ground level, by the people running in fear, by a group of regular people on the street with off the shelf video, a documentary put together after the fact like war footage. Yes, it'll be grainy. Yes, it'll be shaky cam. Yes, people will be mentioning Blair Witch more than anyone has in the last ten years. But think of the idea. It's using the DIY mentality of cel phone cameras and insta-journalism to tell an old story in a brand new way. Details on the movie are few and far between. This won't be the next Van Helsing or The Day After Tomorrow. It's designed to be lean and fast, down and dirty. Personally I can't wait. I'll leave you with the image released at Comic Con. Talk amongst yourselves.

"It's time to celebrate your birthday.
It happens every year.
We eat a lot of broccoli
And drink a lot of beer."

Yes, it's that time of year again, when once again I celebrate the fact that I survived another 365 days. In celebration, I have decided to do...nothing. No work of any sort. Does that apply to blogging? Not specifically, but I'm adding onto my b-day celebration with what's referred to as a Babymoon. It's my wife and I's (my's? me's?) last chance to get away before the arrival of our bundle of expense, er, joy. We're heading to the WizardWorld convention in Chicago this coming weekend. I'll have some coverage when we return, but for the next week updates to the site will be spotty. Don't worry baby, I still love ya, I just need a little ME time. Ya dig?

Bottom Of The Shelf: Hot Rod

I get what they were trying for, I really do. The movie starts out, and looks to be, an homage or parody of the late 70's early 80's low budget Guy With A Dream type films. In fact, early on, the movie does a very funny Footloose nod that goes terribly wrong for Rod. But they didn't commit to the premise, and it gets confusing. While the main characters are all 80's type people, wearing the clothes and using period slang, the secondary characters are all contemporary. It's two tastes that don't taste great together.

The plot is terrible and most of the setups are lame. The more elaborate the movie gets, the worse it is. But when the cast is allowed to just screw around, the movie is actually fun. Will Arnett plays the sleazy boyfriend of the one girl in the movie and when she finally wises up and leaves him, he calls after her "Babe! Wait!" But then he does it with every possible variation of those two words, infinite inflections and repetitions and then, jazz like, he adds in "NO!" to the mix and it is hilarious. Same thing later when two characters, after a falling out, to make sure things are fine between them repeat "Cool beans." back and forth. It eventually morphs into a 80's style sampling remix. It's bizarre but funny. Other than that, the movie is pretty sad. And so dies the Summer Movie Season of '07. I only hope Borne ends it with a bang.

Much is afoot here at NTYC HQ and leaves little time for posting. For all the loyal readers, everyone here and in contact is home and dry and safe. Our condolences go out to everyone affected by the collapse of 35W outside Minneapolis. We thank you for your concern and will be back with regular updates soon. Peace and love and a big white dove.