Tag Archive | pop-culture

Bidula’s Last Word – Inglourious Basterds

I’m honestly not sure how much education is being perpetuated around the school systems currently regarding World War II.

I’m sure that the kids are being taught about D-Day and Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust, but I don’t really remember how far my class got into the war. We were, of course, taught that Hitler was an evil man who had to be brought down. I don’t quite recall how much we dove into his background in class. I don’t remember getting into any actual battle scenarios (except the two mentioned above). I’m sure something was there, but I was in High School and I didn’t pay attention. I looked it up later, after class, but that was for me. I was a slacker in class and a researcher after.
I think I agree with the guy sitting in front of me in the theater who, when we had reached what was essentially the short epilogue of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, shouted “Fuck History Teachers!”

You have to see it to believe it. And, I’m here to make you want to see it.

Inglourious Basterds is almost definitely the best movie I’ve seen so far this summer. There are a lot of ambiguous terms in there, but I have to qualify.
Quite a few people thought Tarantino had hit the wall (no pun intended) after seeing the B-side of Grindhouse, his 70s car chase homage Death Proof. I agree, this was not my favorite Tarantino flick, but it had to be taken for what it was: another part of a two-part tribute to schlock cinema by respectable directors. This was a way for them to cut loose and have fun with a picture instead of pushing the envelope.
If you don’t think Tarantino is back in full-force after seeing this movie, check your pulse. You may be a zombie and I don’t count the opinions of the living dead. Call me prejudiced.

Let me first tell you that this is a dialogue heavy movie. If you’re going into this expecting an absolutely action packed thrill ride, you’re not going to get it. There is plenty of action, don’t get me wrong. Explosions and blood and the absolutely brutal slaying of Nazis are main themes throughout the entire flick, however, it’s almost not even about the action involved. It’s more about the dialogue.
Tarantino shines as a writer in this movie. From the opening sequence, you are left to hang on every word, every uncomfortable moment of silence, and every look in the eyes of the characters. The dialogue is so good, in fact, that you won’t even notice how much of the movie is subtitled for the characters speaking German, French, and even a spot of Italian.

Though you are lead to believe that the story revolves solely around the exploits of one Lt. Aldo “the Apache” Raine (Brad Pitt) and The Basterds – a group of eight Jewish-American soldiers out for blood, retribution, and the 100 Nazi Scalps demanded of each of them by Lt. Raine – it is actually about so much more.
As Tarantino has done in the past, he takes common elements throughout three separate storylines and ties them all together by the end of the movie. One of those common elements is Nazi SS Colonel Hans Landa played to marvelously evil perfection by Christoph Waltz, an Austrian-born actor who is making what some might consider his American debut in this movie, as he’s got some pretty extensive cred within the German film community.
Col. Landa’s cool, cruel, and slightly insane character provides for some of the films most tense and also most hysterical moments. I’m calling a Best Supporting Actor nod right now, actually. This guy was nothing short of fucking fantastic in this movie and almost completely stole the show.
Almost, that is, if it wasn’t for Pitt’s portrayal of Aldo Raine, a hard man with an intense job and gruesome sensibilities who, while taking things seriously, has a light-hearted, care-free, and funny demeanor about him that instantly makes Lt. Raine one of those unforgettable movie badasses.

Other reviewers and critics have said that it’s too violent. I don’t agree. I believe that it is just violent enough. It doesn’t go over the line with the amount of violence, but it does toe it quite a bit. There is blood and gore and moments that make you cringe, but certainly no more than your average war movie a la Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart. Sure, there are some (a few rather comedic) differences in circumstance, but nothing which could truly be complained about.
Every piece of blood and skull and brains and Nazi scalp fit into the movie like a glove. There is not one graphic moment where the more squeamish among us would say “That was uncalled for,” or “Why did they have to put that in the movie?” It was perfectly executed and just enough to make you squirm before they cut away.
Even though Eli Roth was involved (much to the dismay of at least one of my friends), this movie doesn’t reach his level of gore. After all, he was just an actor in the flick (playing Sgt. Donkowitz, “The Bear Jew”, another awesome character). He, thankfully, wasn’t supervising the bloodbath.

Also giving dynamite performances are Melanie Laurent, a 26 year-old veteran of the French film scene, as Shoshanna Dreyfus, a Parisian theater-owner with a deep seeded hatred for Nazis, Col. Landa in particular, and Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark, a German film starlet with an interesting agenda.
There are the classic Tarantino plot twists which you’re not even really suspecting when they actually happen. You will be legitimately surprised as to who lives and who dies by the end of the film.
To be honest, the main reason I wasn’t anticipating the deaths was because this, except for a very few extremely notable moments, was so unlike anything Tarantino has done that the whole preconception of “Tarantino Movie” was lost to me until the start of the credits flashed his name.
He pulled out all of the stops, actually using native language speakers for the proper characters. The tempo of the speech, the authenticity of the expression, and even the shortened slangy dialects of those foreign languages lead to such authenticity with the roles. Personally, I’m proud of Quentin doing this. When I looked on imDb trivia after the movie and saw that DiCaprio had been approached to play Col. Landa, I was amazed at how horrible of a mistake that would have been. Not only because the role was not really fitted to Leo, but because Leo would not have been able to speak German, French, or Italian with the same timbre as Christoph Waltz.
Also, I heard that he had approached Adam Sandler to play “The Bear Jew”, but Sandler couldn’t hang because he was filming Funny People.
I’m actually very pleased with the casting as, with too many big stars, the focus of the story would have been lost on minor characters as all of the names jockeyed for screen time. The movie wouldn’t have been nearly as strong without that character development and cavalcades of stars usually drag it down.

That all said, my verdict is that this movie kicks ass. Go see it right now. Everyone.

Bidula’s Last Word: 9.5/10

It only loses the .5 because I almost wish we could have spent a bit more time with the Basterds than we had. But, with an already lengthy run-time of 153 Minutes, I can excuse it in the grand scope of the story.

Remember: Christoph Waltz, Best Supporting Actor. You heard it here.

Oh, and yes, my wife liked it, too. I might be out of the movie dog house now.

Reuse, Reboot, Recycle

Aug24

I was listening to terrestrial radio this morning on the way in to work, as Howard Stern and Co. have gone on another one of their rather numerous weeks off again this week, thus negating my use of satellite radio for the week.
Frank Calliendo (that guy who does Madden) was sitting in for the duration of the radio station’s morning show (Jim and Randy on DVE, if you’re wondering).
Somehow, they wound up talking about 80s movies that they loved and grew up watching and which of those movies they let their kids watch today.
It started with The Goonies, which everyone knows is one of the all-time greatest movies of the 80s ever, ever. They mentioned that, in parts, the language was a bit too strong and the plot a bit too scary for their still very young children.
They move on to begin discussing Ghostbusters and the awesomeness that is the Ghostbusters franchise, with Calliendo citing his favorite line of the movie (also one of mine) as the ballroom scene in the hotel when Venkman tries to do the old tablecloth trick and fails miserably, proudly exclaiming “And the flowers are still standing!”
They go on to discuss the possibility of Ghostbusters III. Of course, most of us geeks know that the new(ish) Ghostbusters video game for all of the next-gen systems is, in fact, a vicarious extension of the movie and to be counted in continuity with the films. So sayeth Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and so it is done.
However, Calliendo mentioned that a new Ghostbusters movie was, from what he heard, in the works and was signed on to by all of the original cast (minus Rick Moranis and Sigorney Weaver). Checking Wiki (for what its worth), it seems that this is true.
What is also true is that the plot would involve the “old” Ghostbusters training new Ghostbusters and, thereby, handing off further possible franchise sequels to younger actors so that the Ghostbusters legacy can continue to grow.
As an aside, one of the names Calliendo mentioned as a possible “New Ghostbuster” was (don’t hurt me for repeating it) Seth Rogen. God help us all.

Anyway, this and a discussion on another station (the X) regarding the Rob Zombie sellout, er, sequel to his masterfully ruined Halloween, brought me to thinking very heavily about one of the latest movie industry buzzwords: Franchise Reboot.

A Franchise Reboot is, of course, something that the film industry believes is necessary to continue to make money. Rather than people coming up with original ideas, studios are paying people to “re-imagine” and “put a new spin on” old movies that, even though they are dated, are still awesome for what they are.
There is a difference, however, between rebooting and remaking. A remake is a movie which stood alone and whose “modernized” version also stands alone. Take Last House on the Left for a horrific example; a movie whose original was actually more graphic and gruesome and hard-hitting and controversial than it’s current-day counterpart. I’m digressing. Stay on target.

This rebooting typically happens with horror franchises. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Friday the 13th are all prime examples of reboots taking some of the most suspenseful and fantastic horror movies of all time and turning them into gore porn a la Eli Roth. I don’t care if Rob Zombie wrote and directed it, I’m not going to see the new Halloween or any of its subsequent movies.
With all the Saw and Hostel movies that have been released (and are, unfortunately, yet to be released), I think they’re going to run out of creative and stupefyingly gruesome ways to kill people.
Did these reboots need to happen? From my perspective, no. Granted, the plot lines of the Jason and Michael Myers movies got a bit… well… stupid as time progressed, but they were encapsulated. They were what they were. The first ones were outstanding, the sequels continued to plummet; the grosses were down and the franchises should have passed into the creepy night quietly.
The execs didn’t see it that way, however. They saw dollar signs fading away. How, then, to remedy this problem? Another sequel would just build on the fact that the plot is in shambles and could not be salvaged by anything or anyone.

Enter the reboot.

I guess my only big problem with rebooting and remaking is the fashion in which it is done. Horror movies, with the ultra-realistic ultra-violent trend of modern “horror” flicks are usually destroyed. What was once in the dark or off-screen and, when panned to, obviously Karo syrup and red food coloring (maybe a bit of ground chuck) is now front and center CGI bleeding to fucking death all over the place. Does this make the movie better? Honestly, no. No writers in Hollywood, especially horror writers, know how to write the older-style suspense flicks that were scarier because of what you didn’t see than what you actually did see. Now, if I see someone get flayed alive on the screen, I laugh my fool ass off due to the over-the-top and graphic nature with which it happens. The same scene would have been much scarier if we had just seen vague movement, heard the sound effects, and then seen the results. That, to me, is more frightening than actually watching it happen. Watching it happen just makes you squirm. It doesn’t give you that dark foreboding, it’s just designed for shock-and-awe, nothing more. These movies should make you shiver with antici… … … Nah, I’m not going there.

Hitting the reset button on something isn’t always a morally wrong thing to do, though. It can work to clean up a mess made by poor direction and lack of vision. I mean, it worked incredibly for Batman, clearing up all the camp left in the wake of the 90s movies and bringing the Dark Knight back to the forefront, even grabbing one of the big-ticket Oscars. Posthumous or not, you have to agree that Ledger’s Joker was awesome.
Batman did it right. Casino Royale technically rebooted the Bond Franchise and it was pretty damn awesome. Star Trek kicked ass, though, rather than truly wiping the slate clean, it revolved around current continuity to create that change and hand off the torch to the new cast via Leonard Nimoy’s interactions with Zach Quinto.

Some reboots don’t quite make sense right away, like the 2008 reboot of The Incredible Hulk after the 2003 release of Ang Lee’s travesty. Seems too soon, right? Well, the cameo by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark at the end of the flick allowed the reboot to make sense. There had to be realignment so that it could all tie in to the big Avengers movie in 2012. It’s the same reason they’re releasing a new Captain America movie in 2011 (to counteract the crappy mojo from the 1990 travesty). I guess this is a different kind of reboot in that it’s lining everything up in an awesome fashion for what will probably be an incredible movie franchise going forward, that being the Avengers. Time will tell there, I suppose, but I will say that the Hulk reboot was better by leaps and bounds than the original Ang Lee flick.

The skinny on the in-the-works Ghostbusters flick is going to be a warm reboot (retain continuity, have old actors pass the torch). It might not be entirely cataclysmic if it actually ends up happening. As long as Aykroyd and Ramis are behind any future generated sequels, it’ll continue to be a great franchise. The minute they hand off the writing chores to some “up and comer”, it’s going to flop completely.

The reboot concept, while wonderful in some instances, must be handled properly. I’m not against reboots unless the new version is shite. At that point, shut ‘er down and call the garbage men. Don’t make a crappy sequel to an already crappy movie. Better yet, don’t make a crappy movie. There’s too much of that floating around.
I know we live in a green era, but really, there should be no recycling of shit movies. Shit begets shit.
Give a new coat of polish to something that already shines without buffing out too much of the original finish, but don’t feel the need to try something new with that turd just because it’s been 20 years since it first floated by. Dressing it up and throwing a new coat of paint on it and calling it New Turd or Turd: The Next Generation or Shit Like You’ve Never Seen It Before does not make it any less of a turd than it was when it originally floated by. I’m for selective recycling.

Oh, and PS, writers, if your first screenplay is a reboot of something old or a film-version of an existent property, then you, sir, are nothing better than a fan-fic writer. Go write Harry Potter slash and Boba Fett/Han Solo team-up stories with the rest of the creeps and clear some salary cap space for a good rookie. Leave those for the experienced writers so that your fanboy ass doesn’t fuck it up too badly. Or make it your second screenplay. Then it’s almost excusable.

Vampires Don’t Sparkle

Aug10

For a long time, the undead have been sort of a hobby of mine.

Vampires, when I was a teenager, were the shit. They were super bad-ass and cool and I wanted to be one in the worst way. I even went so far as to buy a pair of those plastic molded-to-your-teeth vampire fangs. They weren’t nearly as cheesy as the white plastic vending machine chompers I’m sure we all had at some point. These, when properly done, were fairly convincing.
These things were state-of-the-art (sort of) and billed as movie quality (not quite). They cost me $50 at a time when $50 actually meant it was really expensive. Of course, for some, $50 for vampire fangs is way too much even now. I saw the value. I even bought them out of season. Those and make-up which would make my skin pale and nigh-translucent thanks to a trick taught to me by a guy down at Costume Spotlight on the South Side (still a kick ass costume shop which I fully endorse). Come fall, I worked a haunted house, and it was awesome.
I used to wear these fangs all the time. I took them to school on occasion. I would wear them just sitting around the house to wear them. When I LARPed a Vampire: the Masquerade game (for which I had almost all of the source material), I sometimes wore them. They were key components in many Halloween costumes I’d devised after that point. When the plastic molding wore down, I found out from a friend that you could use simple dental adhesive to stick them on to your canines. I bought a tube of PolyGrip and kept on trucking. They looked even cooler when applied this way.

Yes. I was a huge dork. Huger than huge, even. Shit, who am I kidding, I’m still a huge dork.

I haven’t worn the fangs in years. I think I may have even lost one. I would still see them in costume shops around Halloween in their little coffin-shaped box and I sorta pined for them even though I’d given up on vampires ever being truly cool again.
I started my vampire career reading the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles, jumping on the bandwagon around the time Interview With the Vampire was released in theaters. Those books made vampires truly awesome (for the early 90s, that is). That first run, up through book five, Memnoch the Devil, shaped vampires as something kick ass in my mind. Flying around, kicking people’s asses, reading thoughts, setting people on fire with your mind… Lestat even wound up being immune to the sun. Tell me that wasn’t a bad-ass vampire.
The only problem I had with the books were that they were slightly homo-erotic, which was excusable in the amount presented in The Vampire Lestat but was glaringly opaque and abundant in by Tale of the Body Thief (at which point, I just said “ew” and squirmed a bit, but still couldn’t put the book down).
That whole thing isn’t my bag, and her books slowly became more and more populated with those particular overtones, which is why I quit right after Merrick (I had actually resigned myself to quitting halfway through that particular train wreck). Things stopped being cool and started to sound a lot more like Anne Rice’s self-serving character erotica. Like, she’d always wanted to see Marius poke Armand, so she wrote it down and sold it. Kind of a shitty way to suddenly shift gears on the fans. I asked for vampires kicking ass not licking ass, Anne, kthx.

Beyond just the literature, when I was a teenager, I was collecting White Wolf gaming books by the ton. I had just about every Vampire: the Masquerade book and most of the other World of Darkness series. I was fascinated by a secret world of vampires and, as I mentioned briefly, got to the point where I joined a local Live-Action Role Playing group where I would run around in the middle of the night on a Saturday and pretend to be a vampire. Yes, it’s as nerdy as it sounds.
At least I didn’t dress up. I wore street clothes, because my character was a normal dude who just happened to be a vampire. I couldn’t get into the whole “dark servant of the night” get up. If I wanted to walk away from the game and go to get a cup of coffee or something to eat, I wouldn’t have to look like I just stumbled out of a Goth club. I never got into wearing the clothing, but loved it (still do) when the chicks dress up like that. So hot. I digress…
Of course, I found this game (this particular LARP, I should say) late into my love affair with vampires, so it was kinda ancillary. Something to do when you’re too young to even think about drinking at a bar and don’t feel like sitting around in a Denny’s chugging coffee and playing cards all night.
By my senior year in High School, I was done with vampires. I had moved on to other things. I’d started getting into comics (again) and writing my own stuff. By the time I was in art school, I was done with the whole thing.
Of course, I would gobble up the occasional Anne Rice novel as something fun to read (I still liked the characters) in between everything. That was about where it ended, though.

Years went by. I figured I was over it.

Then came Twilight. And, oh, was I pissed. My passion for vampires was initially reinvigorated by my disgust with and hatred for this very series.
What kind of garbage is this, I thought. Vampires who can walk in the day and not burst immediately into flames in an overly-descriptive manner? They do what? They fucking SPARKLE?!? What kind of crap is this?
Oh, and they’re so depressed and emo about being vampires that they could just cut themselves. Blah blah I love this chick blah blah not gonna do anything about it because I’m a vampire blah blah unrequited love blah blah obsession blah blah love blah blah.

I thought I was going to vomit.

A friend of mine told me about the existence of these books. I told her that they sounded lame as all hell. She tried to convince me that they weren’t. I still refrained from picking them up. I’m proud to say that the closest I’ve come to reading one of Stephanie Meyer’s glorified rolls of toilet paper is reading the synopsis of them on Wiki, just to see how dumb and emo the story really was.
I find myself appalled that and entire generation thinks that this is what vampires are; whiny little bitches who complain about being immortal and cry because they can’t find true love. Then again, I suppose the shoe fits. That seems to be the mantra of these pathetic children anymore. Whine about things and maybe something good will happen. Make sure to do it in a high-pitched, snotty sounding voice and it may just come to pass. Then, when something good does happen, you can complain about how it wasn’t what you really wanted anyway and whine some more.
Stephanie Meyer and the cast of the horrid movies based on her wretched excuse for a series of novels should be burned alive for their crimes against society. They’ve taken something awesome and have turned it into something completely, totally, and unforgiveably retarded.
But, there is hope, vampire fans. Charlaine Harris has brought us hope riding on the back of HBO and carried by Anna Paquin.

True Blood looks to possibly wash away the sins of Stephanie Meyer. I know that it cannot stop the juggernaut that is Twilight fandom, but in the heart of this old vampire-lover, it has rekindled the fact that vampires can still be completely bad-ass.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries (or the Sookie Stackhouse novels), a series of almost a dozen books and short stories by Charlaine Harris, is the inspiration for True Blood in case you didn’t know. I will say that, if you’re following the TV show, and if the TV show is following as close to the book series as I’m assuming it is, you will not want to read the books for fear of massively gigantic spoilers. I just read one while checking Wiki to make sure I had the author’s name spelled right and peeking at a character bio of Sookie herself. Trust me, stay away if you want to preserve the surprises in the series.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t read the books. I’m planning on picking them up and possibly making them a winter project. Reading is fundamental and I’ve never been one to really care too much about spoilers, unless they’re disappointing. But, then I’m just mad at myself in hindsight.
I admit, I did not give True Blood a chance when I first read the synopsis. A new show about vampires suddenly popping up in the post-apocalyptic Twilight era didn’t exactly sound promising. Sounded more like a ratings grab to get ahold of that teeny-bopper emo fuckhead lonely soccer mom audience that Stephanie “the mother fucking anti-christ” Meyer seems to attract. I ended up only really catching the last few episodes of the first season and missing what were probably some important details. I’ve since gotten the skinny from friends regarding what I missed, so it’s all good.
Now, well into season two, I can say that I’m addicted and I can say that vampires are officially out of the emo kid dungeon and are now back where they are meant to be: at the top of the supernatural creature food chain.
If you are or ever considered yourself a vampire fan and you’re not watching True Blood, fucking start. They have successfully “de-gayed” vampirisim and made it what it’s supposed to be again: super bad-ass immortals beating the shit out of each other and engaging in centuries-long chess games to try and be the last one standing.
Oh, and there’s also Daybreakers coming soon. Vampire apocalypse movie. Check out the trailer. They have it at IMDB. Looks pretty rough and totally not Twilight.

It’s just nice to see that the evolution of a trend can come full circle, especially after going so far off the map. It gives me hope that the entertainment industry might actually be able to pull itself out of the shit hole of crap shows they’ve been throwing at us for the last five years. So few are actually worth watching and True Blood is one of them. I suppose I should know better than to doubt HBO original programming.

Keep fighting the good fight.

—end transmission—

Yo, Joe…

Aug6

About a month and a half ago, I went to the theater to see Transformers 2.

At least I went when it was $5 and not $12. The theater near me has recession-busting weeknight pricing which affords a man and his wife a nice night out every once in a while. Our choices that night, as walk-ins without a clue as to what was playing when, were Transformers 2 or The Hangover. For some reason, I convinced my wife that it would be a better idea if we hit Transformers 2. I was still under the impression that I had to see it to satisfy my childhood urges. I had mostly enjoyed the first one and was hopeful that the second movie wouldn’t ruin the franchise.

Of course, as you may already know, my hopes were dashed upon sharp pointy rocks in a CGI tide and I should have gone to see The Hangover.

Some bullet points.

* Plot? Sure, there is one. It’s overly complicated for the time allotted and not communicated well by anyone (human or cybertronian) on the screen whatsoever. When it is communicated, it’s rushed like an old man trying to make it to the bathroom. By the time you actually get there, it’s too late. Everything is lost.
* Characters? Bunches of new Autobots and Decepticons which people shouted out by name in the audience (myself included) leapt gleefully around the frame, fully rendered in CGI, and beating the living shit out of each other.
* Speaking of giant robots beating the living shit out of each other, when they fought, I often had a difficult time deciding which part of their bodies I was looking at and who what part belonged to. You would think with the myriad of brightly colored vehicles used at least by the Autobots that you would be able to tell who is who in a big fight scene. Not so. Robot parts blend in to other robot parts in a giant, metallic orgy of death.
* With the ever-present and always-irritating “super shaky high-shutter-speed action-cam”. Invented by some action director to make the action feel “more authentic” as if the viewer were actually there and also to easily conceal missed hits and blur details of stunt doubles. Simple distraction at its finest. Dude, buy a tripod so we can see clearly. Or, if you’re making giant CGI robots fight, tell the dudes to make the camera in their program steady. This garbage may lend to lower production costs, but destroys a good finished product.

All that said, we wound up not liking it. I didn’t entirely hate it until I had a few weeks to soak in how ultimately bad it was overall. Was it cool? Yes. Was it good? No.
As much as I bitch about this movie, I didn’t come here to write a review of something that was released more than a month ago. I came here to discuss what’s going on in Hollywood at large.
Since the teaser for G.I. Joe hit during the Super Bowl, I’ve been interested. I used to watch and play with G.I. Joes all the time back in the day, same as I’d done with Transformers.

Even though Transformers involved what would take outrageous amount of CGI to achieve, I always thought that Transformers would be the easier movie to make in live action. Mainly because the human characters in the original Transformers cartoon were pretty generic and could be replaced with just about any other human without difficulty. It’s not really the humans you’re going to see, anyway, it’s all about the fucking robots. Sure, they didn’t really stick to that formula with the films. Largely, it was just injecting Megan Fox’s ass into the movie to keep the male 18-35 demographic watching once they realized that this movie wasn’t the same shit they remembered growing up.

G.I. Joe would definitely be the more difficult movie to film.

An ensemble cast of both good guys and bad guys, each with their own unique personality, plus the lost explanation as to how G.I. Joe could stay so super-secret when Cobra was always trying to do something extremely public. Add in the limitless government budget, technology beyond modern comparison, and fucking Joes on the moon and in space. If a screenwriter would try to stay as true to the cartoon or comic book as possible, his head would probably fucking explode with the sheer volume of Joes and Cobra commandos.
I know, the comic book didn’t feature quite so many characters, but there were more kids who watched the cartoon who would get a kick out of all of the stupid ass characters they introduced just so they could sell more toys.
I am worried. I have to admit, the buzz I’ve heard about this flick is not good. I can’t say I’m inclined to disbelieve the negative hype. I mean, the fans have wanted to see a live-action Joe movie since the late 80s. They’ve had all this time to perfect a product and they’re probably going to throw another piece of shit out there in the world with the Joe stamp on it just to make big box office.

Most of fandom gets a chill up their spine when shit like this goes down. The main question is always “Are they going to burn to the ground something which myself and many others consider incredibly sacred?”

Hollywood has been doing this for approximately the last decade and it doesn’t look to stop. Some are hits, some are not. Look how decent the first X-Men flick was when everyone (myself included) criticized the casting and the prospective plotline before it was released.. Some random Aussie as Wolverine? Who the hell does this guy think he is, playing my childhood hero? And he’s 6’2”? Aw, hell naw. Wolvie’s supposed to be no more than 5’6”. This movie is going to suck.
And yet, it did not. Sure, some think it did. I’m inclined to agree that PARTS of it did suck (Storm’s one-liners, Tyler Mane, Ray Park…). But, my childhood dreams were not burned alive as they were when they released the Dolph Lundgren He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie. That’s for damn sure.
Even if this movie burns the Joe franchise alive, it’ll still make tons of bank opening weekend. And, isn’t that what Hollywood is all about, anyway?

I’m not putting down the people who will probably be lining up for this joint on opening night. Were I inclined to pay weekend theater prices, I would totally be there with them. As I’m slightly on the broke-ish side right now, I’ll probably wait until the crowds die down and check it out on Monday or Tuesday (when it’s cheap as hell to catch a flick). Expect a full review. I just have to convince the wife that it’s a good idea to see another movie I know she’s going to hate.

Part of our deal was, since she had to suffer through two Transformers movies (neither of which she enjoyed, especially not when I would lean over and giddily whisper to her names of different Transformers before they were actually named on screen), I have to go with her to see the My Little Pony and Jem live action flicks if they ever come out, which should be some time right around the apocalypse. Hopefully I won’t be in the theater watching some pretty pink pony get its hair brushed while the asteroid is coming through the atmosphere or the seas are rising or the zombies are on the march. Movie theaters are dark and I would prefer not to be a sitting duck.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Yo, Joe!

—end transmission—

J.P. Bidula

Author of Unlucky Seven – Blogger – Mega Geek – Nerd King

Tag Archive | pop-culture

Bidula’s Last Word – Inglourious Basterds

Reuse, Reboot, Recycle