I’m actually excited about going to the movies again

Intro

On 3/5/2011, you would think a guy of my ilk would be pretty excited about the fact that the NFL owners have not locked out the NFL players. Excited? No. Optimistic for the first time? Yes. Strangely enough, I am excited about the movies this morning. I was not excited about movies throughout the majority of 2010.

Folks, they never should have held the 83^rd Academy Awards ceremony. They should have canceled the Chicky-Super Bowl this year. Hollywood did not deserve any gold statues for what happened during 2010. The fact that they held the ceremony was travesty and miscarriage of justice.

What we should have done is round-up all the heads of each major studio, and all the major Hollywood producers, taken them out behind the woodshed and kicked them in the nuts 20 or 30 times each. That is what they deserved for last year’s cinematic output. It was a fucking lousy year for the movies. The movies of 2010 stank, by and large.

Better still, let’s get Adam Vinattieri to kick them in the nuts 30 or 40 times each. I’m talking about a full soccer-style kick too. After that, we’ll get Deacon Jones to stuff them all into a burlap sack and beat the sack with a baseball bat. Or we could stuff them in a food processor and then an industrial microwave oven…

Now it’s 2011

As I surf to movies.Yahoo.com and look up my favorite local theater, I am absolutely astounded to find a fairly exciting list of choices here. Two movies just opened up yesterday that are on my must-see list: Rango and The Adjustment Bureau. There are several other reasonable choices also.

Rango looks like the first brilliant 3d movie since How to Train Your Dragon, and I think it’s going to be considerably better than that. The animation art looks truly awesome. I have high hopes. This is basically western with anthropomorphized animals, with a Looney Tunes style of humor. The preview looked good. I hope it does not disappoint.

The Adjustment Bureau looks like the bright star on the horizon. This movie has a chance to windup on my short list of all-time favorites, if everything works out as it should. I was intrigued by what I saw in the preview, but more so by the NPR interview I heard last night on the drive home.

The Adjustment Bureau is a heavy existentialist and mystical piece, wrapped up in the look and feel of a modern Sci-Fi movie. The question is deep: can a man control his own fate, or is your destiny controlled by something else? Is the leaver controlling your destiny in your own hands, or are their unseen--but keenly felt--beings or forces in an unseen realm, pulling strings and punching buttons, making things turn out the way they see fit? If there are such shadowy figures manipulating your outcomes, is it possible for you to resist them, and re-set your course as you prefer it to go? Is it is wise thing to resist them, just because you don’t like what they are doing?

At its core, this is actually a sweet romance about a man and woman who really love each other, and want to be together. She’s a ‘dancer’ and he’s a politician. It’s difficult to determine which profession is more slimy, but the politicos don’t want their bright star muddied-up with this greazie girl. Forces conspire to push them apart. They resist.

It’s a good thing that the casting directors chose a pretty Pisces girl (Emily Blunt) to play the love interest. That’s one way to catch my attention. Pisces is on my 7^th House.

Folks, this is the kind of movie I really go for. Neptune is in Scorpio in my natal chart. I am part of a 14 year group of people who are attracted to and fascinated by strange, weird, unusual, mystical, macabre and bizarre subjects. The weirder and more paranormal it is, the more entertaining it is also. This is reflected in the music, art and fashion of our age cohort. We’re the guys who love Chariots of the Gods, UFO stuff, 2012 documentaries, the X-Files, Lost, and Unsolved Mysteries.

Uncle Broonmee

In spirit of the last paragraph, I should include the 3^rd interesting release of the week. If it weren’t enough that they opened two must-see movies this week, there is a third option in very limited release. It’s called Uncle Broonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. That is quite a mouthful.

Evidently this is a Philippine movie about man who is dying. He has decided to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside, away from the public. He’s a good man, and better than Al Davis. Didn’t I mention this subject recently?

He has a number of very strange supernatural visitors. The closer he gets to death, the closer he gets to the other side. The more contact he makes with those on the other side, the more he learns about his past incarnations, and accumulates hints about his next incarnation.

Wow… sounds pretty damn weird, macabre, paranormal and entertaining. I want to see this one for sure. As Spock would say: “Facinating!”

But wait! There’s more!

As if it weren’t enough that there are three must-see movies opening this week, there is still more! I Am Number Four has been getting pretty good word of mouth inside my circle of friends and associates. Those who have seen it have praised it as a good adventure.

I’ve been building an interest in this movie all week long. It also helps that this movie features an absolutely ravishing (and I mean ravishing) Pisces female named Teresa Palma. You want to talk about a knock-out bombshell… Believe me, she puts about 850 foot-pounds of torque on my crankshaft. One of the interesting things about Teresa is that she was born on 2/26/1986; just 2 weeks, or 14 days, away from my theoretical max birthday of 3/12/1986. This is close enough to give Teresa a very impressive set of scores. Believe me, I’m feeling that synastry.

But wait! There’s more!

As you all know by now, Liam Neeson opened a new mystery/thriller a week or two ago called Unknown. We can describe it as a drama about identity theft on a whole different level. Of course, it helps that he has a stunning Cancer woman named Diane Kruger in that movie. I don’t mention it often, but Cancer and Virgo are very good together. We don’t have particularly good scores, but I admire her anyhow.

The general forecast for 2011

I spent a good part of last week hauling down some 63 movie previews from trailers.apple.com. If you own the pro copy of Quicktime, you can export these .Mov files as .Mp4 files. There is no transcoding, it’s just a different meta-wrapper. Once these files are in the .MP4 package, I like to drop them on a USB2 memory stick, formatted in Fat32, inside a directory called “VIDEO”. I can then plug that memory stick into my PS3, and watch all the previews I want on the big screen.

There are many other ways to do it, but this is how I like to do it. The speed of the flash memory means instant starts and instant stops. It’s very cool.

Looking at these 63 previews suggests that it is going to be a very interesting year indeed.

Surprisingly enough, it looks like they have done a re-origin and reboot on Marvel’s Thor, and it looks like it just might turn out to be entertaining after all. I sure hope so. The information about Captain America is currently too sketchy to determine whether this might be good or bad. It looks like they are playing it close to the comic book origin. No reboot here. That’s all I can tell you right now.

Kill the Irishman is actually based on a completely outrageous true-crime mobster story. I’ve seen several documentaries on this epoch of Cleveland history, and it’s truly a case where truth is stranger than fiction. If they do that story well, it could turn out to be one of the all-time mobster classics.

The Bleeding looks like the next hilarious grindhouse comedy. I am convinced that they didn’t have a serious bone in their bodies as they made this movie. This is camp stuff, and played for laughs. I loved Planet Terror, John Carpenter’s Vampires, and Black Dynamite. Machete disappointed me, but I hope this one won’t.

I am deeply worried that Green Lantern won’t turn out well, but still, I hold out some hope. It looks like they have spent quite a bit of money on special effects, and they won’t dumb down the Sci-Fi journey’s of the Green Lantern Corp. Still, I worry that this will be the next Fantastic Four. That one didn’t come together or work out well.

These are just a few of the movies that have caught my attention. There are many others.

That is not The Wolfman (2010)

Much to my surprise, a copy The Wolfman (2010) was circulating around the lunch tables of Calabasas Commons today. A certain vendor we have relations with was passing the movie around on a USB 2.0 memory stick.

I was stunned, not that somebody had a movie on a stick, but rather that a file was floating around so soon. The Blu-Ray is not scheduled for release until Tuesday.

"This must be one of those filmed films, right?"

"Nope it is a Blu-Ray rip!"

"But the Blu-Ray is not out yet."

"Somebody nailed it early."

"Really?"

I grabbed a copy from another associate who had his laptop with him. An hour or two ago, I plugged my USB 2 stick into the PS3 and began to watch. It didn't take too long for the howls to ensue... from me.

THIS IS NOT THE WOLFMAN I SAW IN THE THEATER!

No, this is the unrated director's cut. Gone is the lean, mean, fast-paced, sparce, simple tale I enjoyed very much. Welcome to a long, bloated, slow-moving, cut with contradictions and lots of bad creative ideas.

This cut is basically 2 hours. The theatrical is about 98 minutes on my clock. It looks to me like they cut the right 21 minutes. 7 of the first 9 got cut. It was a very wise decision to leave that rubbish on the cutting room floor. There is nothing to see there folks. Just move along. Not since Star Trek Voyager has cuting 7 from 9 looked soooo good to me.

What do you miss? Well... lets just say it this way... Benicio was the weak link in this movie. Even in the theatrical cut, his weak and somewhat off key performance comes through. The first 7 of 9 aggravate the situation to an ungodly level.

We actually hear Benicio recite the "Alas poor Yorick... I knew him, Horatio" speech from Hamlet. Believe me, I have seen 12th graders at Bullard High School in Fresno California do it better than that. This was downright obnoxious. It was a very good thing for Del Toro's career that the editor left that footage on the cutting room floor. You can't let that kind of crap get into the final cut. I think it is a very bad thing for his career that they put this footage back in for the Blu-Ray release. Most actors walk through life terrified that the world will unmask them as the frauds that they are. I am warning you, this Hamlet bit is going to unmask you...

And it's a terrible thing for the movie too.

Apparently, after performing Hamlet, some of the actresses are feeling a bit Randy backstage, and it looks like they would like to start up an orgy with their leading man. Just as everybody begins to start up a groove, Lawrence's would-be sister-in-law kills the buzz by knocking on the door and announcing she needs Lawrence's help in tracking down his missing brother, Ben.

This is a wretched stock scene, where the soon-to-be-hero is caught with his pants down, turns down his heroic calling rudely, and his soon-to-be-love finds him disgusting. Of course, all great love & hero stories start this way, right? Nope. All the bad ones do.

Until you see it, I cannot explain the level of damage these 7 minutes do to the whole movie. It derails the whole thing. The editor was a good surgeon. He surgically removed the tumor, and patched the (w)hole extremely well. If you leave this cancerous 7 minutes in body, the following hell ensues:

• Lawrence is no longer a sympathetic character. He's now just another debauched asshole actor with serious childhood issues. There's nothing for me to cheer for there folks. How about you?
• The fact that Emily seeks his aid makes no sense. What help will a debauched alcoholic bohemian with serious psychological issues be in tracking down her missing fiancée? Nope, he's no help at all.
• The fact that Lawrence immediately turns around and breaks his contract to look for his brother really makes no sense.

In the theatrical, we see Benico performing Hamlet, we do not hear him. Over the top of his performance, we hear Gwen narrating her letter to Lawrence. It's a simple letter to a man she does not know at all; a guy who should have been her brother-in-law, and a guy who... maybe... can help. Chicks think like this in desperate moments. Lawrence doesn't do anything overt to disgrace himself, or come off as a bastard, ergo a romance now seems plausible.

With the 7 minutes of cancer cells extracted, we get off to a nice & clean fast start. With the cancerous 7 minutes in, we are already in a train-wreck condition.

Those who read this blog know I was a big advocate of the theatrical release. I bitch-slapped the critics online, at work, in front of family, and friends. I spread good word of mouth for the theatrical release. I dragged brothers, coworkers, friends and former room-mates out to see the movie.

I'm going to tell you straight-up: I hate the director's cut. If this Blu-Ray is like the wretched Daredevil Blu-Ray, and does not contain the theatrical cut, I won't buy it. If you won't release the theatrical cut, I will never buy it. The directors cut is already a fuck-up.

Big question for Universal Studios: why did you release this shit? This never should have seen the light of day. You did a great job in burning the dead bodies and burying the ashes. Why issue this full-confession now? The Top-Kill succeed until you blew the concrete cap off the well. What the hell's the matter with you? What were you thinking?

In any case I now understand several things:

• I understand why Universal went into panic when they saw the first (Director's) cut of the movie. I would have also. In fact, I did.
• I can understand why the project got pushed 16 months while rescue-editors worked to save the patient's life on the table. I would have made the same command decision had I been in charge.
• I can understand why there was conflict. Apparently, the director fought Universal. He didn't want to give up on his little darling scenes. He somehow... The stupid bastard managed to get these turds back into the Blu-Ray.
• Joe Johnston is apparently a very, very stupid bastard. I can't believe he actually directed Hidalgo and the Rocketeer. Those were actually good movies. Hidalgo was very good; one of my favorites. Just call him Sloppy Joe the Hoe.
• I can see why Joe Johnston has not directed many movies in his long career. He looks like a stubborn fool, unwilling to receive good, constructive criticism when it is offered.

Anyway, steer clear of the download copy. Wait for the real thing. The Director's cut is a raw-red bloody abortion. You don't want to see this. It's downright ugly. See the theatrical cut. Universal got it right. Joe Johnston got it wrong.

The Wolfman rocks! See it at the best possible theater!

So yesterday I played hookie from work and went to see The Wolfman. I saw it at 2:00pm at the AMC16 theaters in Woodland Hills. In short, I loved it. I dragged a friend of mine named Colin out to see it at 7:00pm. I am glad I saw it a second time, immediately, under different circumstances. This will soften the scortched earth polemic I was going to write against the movie critics. Don't worry, those jokers are going to catch some bullets, but I was planning to nuke them.

The first time I saw the movie, it was at a state-of-the-art movie theater. I am talking about Sony 4K DLP projectors, and maximum quality THX sound. It had stadium seating with reclinable chairs. In short, it is a circa-2000 theater, and everything we would expect from a quality theater. The second time I saw the movie, it was in a circa 1971 movie theater with old-fashioned film projection and no THX sound. We had old fashioned seats. This theater provided a different and inferior experiance.

The first time around, I could see no reason at all for many of the criticisms leveled against this movie. Even now, I no evidence for most of the criticism. However, some shots stuck in the old-fashioned theater. Several critics have accused Benicio Del Toro of giving one of his most mumbling performances in recent memory. The first time around, I felt that was a straight-out lie. Every word out of his mouth was perfectly inteligible. The second time around it seemed like three different actors were all mumbling indestinctly. The first time around I though Emily Blunts performance was just fine to outstanding. The second time around she was a bit flatter. I still didn't agree with those who said she gave a lifeless and off-key performance. Rubbish!

The moral of this story is simple: This is a fully modern movie, designed from square one for the fully modern digital cinema. Do not see it in an older theater. See it in the most recently constructed, most state of the art facility you have. In my neck of the woods, this means Arclight, Muvico, or Mann Chinese. Analog does bad things to this movie. I am fairly sure that there is going to be a sensational Blu-Ray effect when it is released.

Now for the critics. Heyhehehehehehahaha... {evil laugh} You guys are loosing your street cred right now as we speak. A flat-cold disagreement between the people and the critics is taking place on Websites like Metacritic.com and imdb.com. The people love this movie. The critics do not. Ergo, the critics lose. I love it!

You guys need to get off your faggotty high horses and ditch the art-school bullshit you were taught. It has warped your minds, and your judgment. Enjoy movies as natural men and women uninfected by crappy doctrines of art. See it from our point of view. Get rid of this monumental bias that Gay romance constitutes an A film, and werewolf movies constitute C or D material.

False reports about this movie:

• The pace is poor: Bullshit! Bull fucking shit! This movie is very fast paced. It takes just 22 minutes to get to the point where Lawrence is bitten. It takes just 45 to get to his first transformation. It takes just 1 hour to get the point where he is werewolf running around London. It only takes 80 minutes to enter the climax sequence. At 98 minutes the movie is over. This is a fast-pace movie. I love the fact that it doesn't waste any time or even frames. Every 1/24 of a second counts for something. I love the efficiency.
• Benicio Del Toro Mumbles: Not in a good theater he doesn't. Sorry you saw it with piece of shit film projection there boys.
• Emily Blunt is flat as a pancake: False. Not in a good theater she isn't. Her performance is just fine.
• Anthony Hopkins only gets a little devilry: Rubbish! This is his best badguy role since Hannible Lecter. He gets a chance to really cut loose, and he is a tremendous bad guy in this movie.
• The other performances are flat: Excuse me, did you see this movie? What movie did you see on that drunken night? Hugo Weaving gave one of the best performances of his career here! That was a stand up and shout performance. He was great.
  
• It's super gory: What? What movie did you see? Have you seen Saw or Hostile? That is gore. There is some monster gore in this movie, but it is brief, and not celebrated.
• The guys in Werewolf suits look dated: They did that to keep the spirit of the original alive. Believe me, these are good suits. It is the dated approach, but if you saw the originals, you know why they did this. This critique is off-point.
• They don't understand Goth: Say wha...? This was arguably the most gothic movie ever! This is a gothic masterpiece!
• Rex Reed says that "Sometimes the monsters hunt you!" is a howler of a bad laugh: Rubbish! There is nothing funny about that line. Rex, you are getting pretty old. I think 4th stage dimentia due to advancing Azheimers disease is getting to you. Some false connection went off in your mind as the result of an organic malfunction. But then again, you always were off point.
  

In short, you can see that I totally and vehimentally disagree with critics on just about all major points. I think we have a classic monster movie here. It is at least twice as good as Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. Maybe three times as good. If you liked that movie, you will love The Wolfman.

Ignore the critics. Go see this movie. See it in a state of the art digital cinema.