May the... oh, you get it already.

 There was a long piece here about why I wasn't obsessing about Star Wars anymore, but when I went back to look at it, the whole thing seemed silly. I was taking a lot of time to tell you that I wasn't going to worry about Episode VII and would just let it happen, but four or five times as long as the first half of this sentence. But now you know, and accordingly that answers potential questions about Star Wars on the Blogorium between now and December of next year, when I'll presumably review a new Star Wars movie.

 Wow, I just said the words "Star" and "Wars" three times in one paragraph. Maybe it is better I do some "conscious uncoupling" from all of the casting rumors and script details. In truth, I haven't been reading anything about it. I did watch The Shining last night. Not sure if you'll get a write up for that one, though. Or Band of Outsiders - there's plenty I'd like to say about both, but it could take a little while to get them in a coherent place.

 Anyway, stay tuned for tomorrow, when I'll be taking a look back to twenty years ago - it's a Retro Review of Reality Bites.

May the 4th... Be with Marvel!

 Again, take that George Lucas. That will keep me satisfied considering that I forgot that in trading up from a dead phone to a newer one that I inadvertently chose the one that gives Lucasfilm kickbacks. Anyway, so as you may or may not be aware, The Avengers opens on Friday (or Thursday at midnight, if you aren't one of those "technicalists" who keep late hours and prefer to think of the next day some time around dawn when you're heading to bed). It is a movie where comic book characters we've been getting to know cinematically for the last four years get together to save the Earth, and if not that, presumably avenge it.

 I can't imagine anyone who is predisposed to seeing Marvel's The Avengers based on the comic book Marvel's The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes does not know who Joss Whedon is, but for the rest of you he's the semi-classic definition of a "cult" hero. The reason that most of you wouldn't know who he was is because if you've heard anything he's created, it's usually in a derisive way, like "oh, the guy that Fox hires and then cancels his shows" (Firefly, Dollhouse), or "the guy who made a TV show out of that Kristy Swanson movie" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), or "oh, guy who had the spinoff of that Kristy Swanson thing with the guy from Bones" (Angel). Maybe it was "the guy that made that movie all those nerdy 'browncoats' wanted me to see but nobody got around to it" (Serenity). Actually, it's probably that "guy who did the musical thing with Neil Patrick Harris that's on Netflix that I didn't see because my annoying nerd friends told me 'OMG it's like the best EVAR!" (Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog).

 By the way, I'm not actually bagging on Joss Whedon for any of this, so there's no need to point out that he created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and wrote the movie which was taken away from him and Donald Sutherland refused to use Whedon's dialogue or that you tried your best to get your friends to see Serenity and wrote letters to save Dollhouse and Firefly and that you saw every episode of Buffy and Angel and you've read Whedon's run on The Astonishing X-Men. It's cool. I get it. There's a copy of Serenity behind me and Firefly is upstairs. I'm not trying to get your goad, folks*. This is for people who read this entire paragraph and said "what now?" There is very little "public perception" of Joss Whedon, but even as a fan of the Whedon-verse, I can understand why some people feel we're insufferable in our geekdom.

 So where was I? Ah yes, okay Joss Whedon is a writer / director / creative force known to a devoted audience and then not so much by the rest of the world. The Avengers is in almost all certainty going to change that. Then people might finally stop mentioning his period as screenwriter-for-hire / script doctor (Speed, Toy Story, Waterworld, X-Men**, Alien: Resurrection to name a few) and he'll have some leeway to do whatever he wants and also get to make blockbuster comic book movies if he feels like it. This is a good thing, by the way, as he is a tremendously talented fellow that has mostly been just under the radar for the last decade.

 I thought it might be fun to revisit the path to The Avengers by looking at reviews for Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger before we get to the main event. And even though I've already seen The Avengers, for reasons I can't get into or discuss at the moment, I'm going to see it again before giving it a proper review. To prove to you that I'm not pulling your chain, here's something that nobody else has mentioned about the film: Harry Dean Stanton has a cameo that's all the funnier because there's no good reason why Harry Dean Stanton should be playing a security guard having a conversation with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) after the Hulk falls from the sky.

 The other fun thing about this recap is that I never actually reviewed Iron Man 2, so you'll get a fresh look at it two years later as I'll be watching it again in the next day or two. Tomorrow, I'll put up a vintage double feature review of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and then on Wednesday I'll get you a new Iron Man 2 review, followed by Thor on Thursday (how appropriate) and Captain America on Friday. Then we'll close out the week with The Avengers on Saturday. In the mean time, go see The Avengers this weekend. I think you'll really like it. Except for Professor Murder. I can almost guarantee he's not going to like it at all.




 * If I were going to do that, I'd mention that I am not a huge fan of Whedon musicals, which means I don't like Dr. Horrible and I really didn't like "Once More with Feeling". Flame on.
** He is singularly responsible for the notorious "do you know what happens when a toad is struck by lightning" line, which in his defense would sound a lot funnier delivered by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

In Progress (a euphemism for Slacking)

 Hey gang! How about I tell you about things I'm currently in progress as a way to divert attention from the fact that I don't have anything done yet*? Sound good**?

 The Cap'n has begun reading Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg, which is to this point very entertaining. When I finish the sort-of memoirs interspersed with passages from a fictionalized (?) version of Pegg's life away from the silver screen, I'll give you cats and kittens a review. Since I only have time to read it at night (before bed), this might take a little while, but it worked for Shock Value, so I think it'll be sooner rather than later.

 Last night I was doing some laundry and was finally able to put on More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead, which is a "warts and all" documentary about the making of Dan O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead. I only watched forty or so minutes, but the film doesn't sugarcoat anything so far. It's both informative and funny, which doesn't always work but in this instance is exactly the tone to strike when covering Return of the Living Dead. I'm hoping to finish that up sometime this weekend for a proper review, but so far it's pretty engrossing. Stupid needing to sleep.

 Let's see, what other plates am I trying to keep spinning? Well, spine numbers are 50% off again at Barnes and Noble, so I'm really going to have to mull over those copies of The Battle of Algiers, The Complete Jean Vigo, 3 Women, Orpheus, Cul-De-Sac, High and Low, If..., Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and, um, Salo. Because I'm in such a hurry to watch Salo on Blu Ray. And you're so ready for that review, I know.

 Professor Murder will also be in town this weekend. That's almost always a call for some strange movie in theatres, so against the prevailing wisdom of reviews, I might end up seeing The Thing. Or something much worse. He did miss out on Horror Fest, and we have to rectify this, you see.

 As a small addendum to that, would people please stop referring to John Carpenter's The Thing as "the original"? You do know that John Carpenter's The Thing is a remake of The Thing from Another World, right? Oh no? You do now.



* In my defense, my work schedule makes it very difficult to do much of anything when it comes to watching movies, and it's only been getting busier because of two words: Annual Enrollment. Last weekend was by far the most movie watching I've done since the beginning of September.
** There are actually no other options, so I hope so.

A Theory About Star Wars

 ...or really a theory about George Lucas, I suppose. Star Wars is, as usual, the method by which Lucas has chosen to again antagonize geeks everywhere. By now, most of you have heard about the change to Return of the Jedi where Darth Vader screams "Noooooo!" before throwing the Emperor deep into the Death Star, as well as a few other "adjustments" to the Original Trilogy* (and the Prequel Trilogy, but really, who cares about that?). Attentive internet geeks have been pitting George Lucas from 1988 against the George Lucas of today, once again desperately trying to appeal to the director / producer. That, or to once again make the argument that the guy is a money-grubbing hack. Or that other thing - the totally overboard reference to what Lucas is allegedly doing to your "childhood" that I cannot abide by repeating.

 At this point, it gets really old hearing about how angry people are at George Lucas and about documentaries like The People vs. George Lucas, etc. Every time the inevitable re-release of the film comes out, people swear they're being cheated and that "this is the last time you'll get MY money, George!" and then news comes out about changes and then the hyperbole kicks into high gear. Star Wars came out on DVD - but it was the Special Editions. Then Lucas released the Original Versions on DVD, but not anamorphically enhanced and with 2.0 stereo mixes (direct ports from the Laserdiscs) and that was ripping people off so of course they aren't going to buy it. Now the Blu-Rays are coming out and another series of alterations are in place and fans are shocked to discover that a man who has digitally altered every single film he's directed for DVD and Blu-Ray release once again took the opportunity for more tinkering.

 Here's the catch - I think he knows that you're going to complain. He also knows (as I do) that the calls for boycotts are no reflection of actual sales. They haven't been in the past - and I've worked in places that sold those movies and toys and I know for a fact that people continue to buy the versions of Star Wars they claim to loathe - and I strongly believe that other than grousing the internet community, Lucas knows exactly what he's doing. He doesn't even mind ruffling those feathers, because it helps his cause.

 Lucas has, once again, shrewdly concocted a way to keep everyone talking about Star Wars as the Blu-Ray release approaches. It's not enough to sell ad space and to make deals with Best Buy about exclusive this or yadda yadda that; despite what's said about the man, George Lucas knows how to get his audience passionate about Star Wars when it's time to have their wallets out. Whether the passion is positive or negative, I suspect he doesn't care, because here's what's going to happen: outraged fans are going to scream all the way up and down the internet about the classics being "butchered" again, swear that THIS TIME they won't be buying them, and then quietly ordering that nine disc boxed set off of Amazon so that the next time they see their friends, they can authoritatively rant with indignation.

 The changes we DO know about aren't the only changes, which may or may not be true - we know that puppet Yoda from The Phantom Menace is now digital, and that Obi-Wan's "dragon" noise is, *ahem* more suggestive, and that Ewoks blink now - but the earliest promise from Lucasfilm was of more "surprises" in the films. In order to be a properly incensed geek, that means purchasing the set (on the down-low, of course) in order to catalog the changes before someone else gets to it and then poring over every minute detail on chat boards.The people who yell the loudest online are almost always the first people to say to you "can you believe that Lucas did THIS and THIS???" at the first opportunity, usually before the average fan even noticed.

 So is this outrage surprising? No, not really. Is it fun to sit back and listen to? Yeah, it kind of is. If people really stuck to their guns and didn't buy this Blu-Ray set after rating it with one star on Amazon sight unseen, I'd be more impressed with the sturm and drang, but I don't see that happening. I've yet to decide if I'm going to pick it up or wait another year (*ahem*, thirty-fifth anniversary of A New Hope) for some other, cheaper, repackaging once this version is pulled from shelves (20th Century Fox, like Disney, will do that to drive up demand). I'd like to see those extra three discs of footage, and wouldn't mind watching the films in high definition, but it really depends on if I have a hundred dollars to spare in two weeks. I waited on The Lord of the Rings and that worked out well enough. Lucas has my passing attention, and he may well have my money, but I can't give him the outrage; just a passing glance and "Huh, this again?"




 * Actually, it's not even the Original Trilogy at this point. For a detailed examination of how the original films became the Special Editions and then the DVD editions, go here.

Geek Tuesday... for some reason.

 New release Tuesdays are usually a grab bag of fun new titles, back catalog releases / upgrades, and every now and then a out-of-left-field cult curveball. For a film geek, it's fun to scour "new release" lists to see what's coming out, so I can only imagine heads were exploding (Scanners style) this past Tuesday. Three extremely "geek friendly" DVDs / Blu-Rays dropped, each of which had a mixed reaction and not amazing box office numbers along for the ride. I've seen two of them, but not the other one (yet): Paul, Your Highness, and Super.


 If you haven't been following the Blogorium for long (and the Cap'n welcomes new arrivals), each film comes from a particular pedigree of nerd fandom: Paul is the "two geeks pick up an alien in the desert" film written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), is directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), and also features Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express), Jo Lo Truglio (The State), Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader (both SNL). The film begins at the San Diego Comic Con and is packed with references to other geeky alien movies. I generally enjoyed Paul, but the film doesn't really pick up until Wiig's arrival in the film, mostly because Paul isn't so much of a character as he is Seth Rogen before she enters the narrative.


 Your Highness is David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, George Washington)'s much anticipated follow-up to Pineapple Express, the film that moved Green from "indie filmmaker" to "mainstream sellout" in some eyes, but to many of us was a logical preamble to Eastbound and Down. Your Highness re-teamed Green with Danny McBride and James Franco along with Natalie Portman (Leon: The Professional), Justin Theroux (Mulholland Dr), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), and was an ode to the sword and sorcery fantasy genre that was omnipresent in the 1980s. I must admit that other than Conan the Barbarian, I was never that into the whole movement, and only one website really seemed very excited about Your Highness when the film actually came out, so I skipped out on it. It's not highly regarded by critics or audiences, and when I couldn't make a $1.50 Theatre showing, it seemed best to let the film slide. I will give it a shot some time soon, because I do trust the creative team.



 Super splits critics right down the middle: James Gunn (who wrote Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake and directed the amazing Slither) took a very Troma-esque approach to the "super hero in the real world" subgenre (see: Kick-Ass, Defendor, Special, Paper Man, and a few others I'm forgetting), starring Rainn Wilson (The Office), Ellen Page (Juno), Kevin Bacon (Hollow Man), Michael Rooker (Slither), Nathan Fillion (Serenity) and very briefly, Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks). It's a twisted, at times extremely violent and crude film, and as many people hate it as love it. I have the feeling that some of that comes from the influence of Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Films, where Gunn cut his teeth - there are parts of Super that feel like they've been directly lifted from The Toxic Avenger, and if Troma team releases aren't your thing, Super might not be either. However, if you even liked Slither, you should check out Super.

 It was odd to see all of them coming out on the same day, draining the wallets of geeks who can't be bothered to sit in a movie theatre anymore, because they share roughly the same history: lots of buzz preceding their release, mixed reviews, and moderate to tepid audience attendance. I don't know about Your Highness, but Super and Paul will probably have a long life on video because they appeal to the shut-in's and cast-out's that do, well, what I'm doing right now. Gee, I wonder if I have Paul and Super sitting on the table across the room? Maybe, but what are they sitting under? Bet you won't guess that one!

 (Hint: It's not Your Highness.)

  It is fair to point out that despite their lack of box office busting prowess, none of the discs appear to be bare-bones. This may be a sign that studios are aware that the geek demographic is willing to pay a little bit more for a high quality, high definition experience as long as the movie is packed to the gills with bonus content (Universal is very good at this, and while Paul isn't as loaded as, say, Scott Pilgrim with extra features, it's a better lineup than say, Paramount's True Grit Blu-Ray).

 Why all three on the same day? I don't really know, but maybe we ought not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it's an opportunity to kick back with some friends, some brewskis, and enjoy a laid back August weekend.




Hollow Man is what you guys think of when you hear "Kevin Bacon", right? Or maybe Death Sentence? Oh, and Michael Rooker has been in a lot more than just Slither, but Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ate up too much space and I'm sure as hell not going to use Mallrats.

Retro Review: Dungeons & Dragons (an imagined conversation)

 Cap'n Howdy: Hey, do you guys remember when we went to see Dungeons & Dragons?

 Professor Murder: Yeah, of course I do.

 Cranpire: Nope.

Professor Murder: What do you mean "Nope"? How do you not remember an evening from eleven years ago?

Cranpire: All I remember is that I didn't like the movie.

 Cap'n Howdy: None of us liked the movie; in fact, I bet I remember only a little more about the movie than you do.

 Cranpire: Probably.

 Cap'n Howdy: Well, there was Jeremy Irons as a... wizard? Mage? That's what they're called, right, Mages?

Professor Murder: Don't look at me. I have no idea.

 Cap'n Howdy: Well, anyway, then there's his sidekick -

Professor Murder: The dude with blue lip gloss.

 Cap'n Howdy: Exactly. The bald guy that was in Highlander: Endgame: Bruce Payne.

 Cranpire: Oh, he was on Keen Eddie.

 Professor Murder: Keen Eddie? Did you watch that show?

 Cranpire: Yeah, I like to watch shows that were canceled early.

 Cap'n Howdy: You remember that, but not Dungeons & Dragons?

 Cranpire: Well, I make a point of following obscure supporting actors.

 Cap'n Howdy: Anyway, so the movie also had that guy who looks like Wil Wheaton, but isn't -

 Cranpire: Justin Whalin, from Child's Play 3 and Serial Mom.

 Professor Murder: Wait, Andy from Child's Play 3? Impressive, Cranpire.

 Cranpire: Thanks.

 Cap'n Howdy: As I was saying, he goes on some quest with his friend (?), Marlon Wayans. They're thieves and Jeremy Irons is trying to raise a dragon or something and Thora Birch is in the film, and so is Richard O'Brien.

 Professor Murder: Who, if I remember correctly, was one of your selling points.

 Cap'n Howdy: Yes, he was. If I was more of a Doctor Who fan in 2000, I might have pointed out that Tom Baker was in the movie.

 Cranpire: Huh.

 Professor Murder: Yeah, that's really more than I remembered about that movie. What was more fun was how we got Cranpire to see it with us.

 Cap'n Howdy: That's why I wanted to have a review of the film in the first place. The story behind the movie is more interesting to me.

 Cranpire: I have no idea what you're talking about. Seriously.

 Cap'n Howdy: Do you not remember that you were working at the Rathskeller*, and we came by to talk you into seeing Dungeons & Dragons with us?

 Cranpire: Nope

 Professor Murder: You were cleaning up and we talked your manager into letting you off an hour early to come along. We paid for your missed hour, your ticket, and snacks - we bought you!

 Cranpire: Drawing a blank.

 Cap'n Howdy: I think that Professor Murder even drove us from your work to the theatre and then brought you back to the Rathskeller to pick up your car, and even though we laughed through the whole movie, you complained about how we "ripped you off" by dragging you to Dungeons & Dragons.

 Cranpire: That makes sense, but I don't remember that at all. I remember not liking the movie, and I saw the sequel at the video store.

 Professor Murder: Wait... you hated the first one but watched the sequel? Did you?

 Cap'n Howdy: No, I've never seen it. I don't even know what it's called.

 Cranpire: Yeah you do, I called in to the radio show you did to tell you it was Wrath of the Dragon God. It wasn't any better.

 Cap'n Howdy: It amazes me what you can and can't remember.

 Cranpire: I don't really remember seeing Dude, Where's My Car? with you. And I didn't fall asleep for all of The Man Who Wasn't There, for the record.

 Professor Murder: But you did sleep through part of it.

 Cap'n Howdy: Anyway, whether that jogged your memory or not, that happened. It was funny to me, and it's also kinda funny you don't remember that at all.

 Professor Murder: Good times.

 Cranpire: Well, if you guys are all done, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette and finish watching River of Darkness. It has Kurt Angle vs. zombie Kevin Nash.



* I feel no concern about mentioning this because the Rathskeller no longer exists and it's very unlikely anyone would figure out what employee is being mentioned here.

News and Notes (and a Little Spillover from Saturday's Rambling Rant)

 - Well, if somebody was going to remake Oldboy - and that's an inevitability given the quality of the film and the hesitancy of Americans to watch films with subtitles - I, for one, am glad to hear that Spike Lee is the man behind the camera. Not to speak ill of Steven Spielberg, but the only movie he's been involved with in the last twenty years even close to the grittiness of Oldboy was Munich, and I have no idea how he would have handled the, ahem, twists and turns of the film.

 Spike Lee, on the other hand, is going to bring something to an American version of Oldboy that is going to be fresh and unexpected. That's one of the things I love about Spike Lee films, which are criminally under-represented here in the Blogorium. I'll have to fix that. In the hands of anyone else, a movie like Inside Man could be just another generic heist / cops and robbers film, but Lee infuses it with personality, keeps the stakes up, makes the film interesting. And that's arguably as "mainstream" or "slick" as a Spike Lee Joint ever got. I'm actually very excited to see what he does with the material, and in the meanwhile Park Chan-Wook's first English language film is also on its way. Next year could be very intriguing indeed.

- Speaking of remakes, I really don't understand this next one. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a genuinely compelling documentary about a subject you'd never think would be worth spending 90 minutes with - the high score of Donkey Kong. Watch it on Netflix right now - it's available for instant viewing. I'll wait right here.

 See? I was surprised too, and I went into it with more than a passing interest in arcade games. The director of the film, Seth Gordon, who is out promoting his new film Horrible Bosses, mentioned to Playlist that New Line is planning on remaking The King of Kong, but as a mockumentary, ala The Office or Christopher Guest's films.

 This doesn't make sense at all; if you're going into The King of Kong looking to laugh at the awkwardness of two guys jockeying for the position of "all time high score in Donkey Kong," it's not like you won't find that in the movie itself. There's no need to remake the film in order to further mock Donkey Kong enthusiasts, and it overlooks what The King of Kong does so well in the first place: it takes Billy Mitchell (the champion) and Steve Wiebe (the challenger) and over the course of the film creates a "David vs. Goliath" struggle over something as trivial as an arcade game. And you're swept up in it, because it's important to them and Gordon conveys that clearly.

 If you make it a mockumentary, then Billy Mitchell might as well be played like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. And that's probably how they're going to approach it. But why? Is New Line convinced that if they put out a movie that people can easily find, but sell the same premise as a "look at these losers" comedy instead of a documentary, that this is somehow preferable? That it's somehow going to bring out people who didn't see The King of Kong in the first place?

- This is probably the most trivial thing I've never understood about geekdom, but I left it off of Saturday's piece because it isn't just geeks that do this. When the time comes for the newest sequel or entry into a franchise (Harry Potter, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Bourne films), people come flooding into used stores looking for the other films. Now, I understand this - it makes sense to want to re-watch the last chapter before jumping in. If that were strictly the case, I could totally overlook how silly it is to wait until the week before the movie comes out to come rushing in (when we are invariably sold out because people who have the foresight to plan ahead have beaten them to the punch). But that's actually less of the case than one would think.

 I worked at a used book store from 2006-2009, and when, let's say, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out, people came rushing in not only for copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but for ALL five movies that preceded Half Blood Prince. Because they wanted to start the series (for themselves or with their kids) three days before the next film opened. The books, I totally understood, because you have plenty of time to sit down with them, so when The Deathly Hallows arrived (the only book our store ever ordered new), it made sense we'd run out of previous chapters. Trying to cram the first five Potter movies into three days in order to not feel "left out" of the pop culture phenomenon of this weekend is asinine. Getting angry because you lack the sense to consider finding these movies when they were readily available and not waiting until everyone else on Earth is also looking for them is not my fault. People would freak out at us because we were sold out, as was every big box retail store, all because they waited and waited and waited and now it's too late.

 The same thing happened with The Bourne Ultimatum, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Spider-Man 3, Ocean's Thirteen, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and perhaps the greatest exercise in futility with a week to go - The X-Files: I Want to Believe. No, really; someone tried to find every season of The X-Files in order to "catch up" in time for the movie.

 I haven't ever understood this mentality and I can't imagine I ever will. It's true that the Cap'n has been known to wait to close to the last minute to finish projects, but when it comes to getting "caught up," especially in pop culture, if I don't have the time to do it or haven't planned ahead to do so, I'm not going to try to cram it in at the last second to be a part of the herd in theatres. I can wait, which is admittedly a rarity in this instance, but it beats the aggravation of knowing I waited too long.


 - I'm not sure when the world became so sick of pre-movie trailers on DVD and Blu-Ray. That includes me, by the way; when I see anything other than the menu for the movie I want to watch come up, the Cap'n instinctively hits the "skip" button, and grouses when the disc is encoded to prevent skipping. I can't remember the last time I watched the previews before a DVD or BD. I attribute this to two main causes: 1) most of the time people watching a disc at home are watching a movie they've seen before, or are at least keen on getting to before the distractions kick in, and 2) many of the trailers are for movies we've already seen advertised dozens of time, or are for movies that have been out almost as long as the disc we're watching.

 Universal tried to do something novel and prompts online streaming of new trailers before your film (and the dozens of legal mumbo jumbo) begins, but I usually skip that too. I want to watch the movie, and even the novelty of Anchor Bay's trailer programming - which focuses on catalog titles that someone might enjoy if they like this movie - is seen as an impediment.

 I bring this up because it's something very different (at least for me) when it comes to VHS. While fast-forwarding through the trailers is something I'll sometimes consider doing, the trailers in front of movies I've looked at recently on video have been more like an archeological expedition, full of fun discoveries, than a nuisance. A tape I was looking at for a film called Drive-In Massacre begins with a trailer for Another State of Mind, a punk documentary along the lines of The Decline of Western Civilization. I didn't know Another State of Mind existed, so it was a pleasant discovery and now I have another movie to look into. That a punk doc appeared before a schlock-o-rama horror movie is one of the charms of VHS that didn't seem to carry over into the digital realm. However, it's not the "retro" quality that drives this cognitive dissonance; after all, I own several DVDs that are nothing BUT trailers. I just can't quite decide why so many of us are impatient with the oldest form of exposing ourselves to other movies.

Two Reasons I Don't Always Understand Geek Culture

 The Cap'n is, unavoidably, a geek. While I don't always identify as such, it's hard to write on a blog where you adopt the moniker of a demon from The Exorcist and plaster artwork of Dr. Re-Animator and The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman on the page. I try to mix up the content, but let's be honest here: after devoting a weekend to a "virtual" version of a horror film festival I usually host in person, I bounced back with a documentary about what Conan O'Brien did after NBC dropped him for Jay Leno. While I haven't read many comic books in the last year, I still watch movies about them, and am looking forward to Joss Whedon's The Avengers.

 However, I don't always understand my geek brethren; there are things about the internet in particular - the nesting place of the "geek" - that seem counter-intuitive to what people claim they want. Today I'll take a look at two things that don't really make sense to me, especially in a time when "geek" culture seems to be getting everything they want from major studios and television networks. I'd normally do four, but the first two were so long that I thought I'd cut it in half.

 1. "We want to see it, but we're not going to go see it!" - I call this the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World effect, although you could just as easily replace that with Kick-Ass, Serenity, Your Highness, or a dozen or so other movies designed specifically for a geeky demographic. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone complaining about how Hollywood is constantly recycling, remaking, or re-imagining something from the 1980s. Now, it is true that this happens with increasing regularity, in part because people go see these remakes. I mean, why not? They already know the title, vaguely remember the story, and it beats going to see something else.

 The chatter is loud and not necessarily without cause, but then when a project that comes out that ISN'T a remake, re-adaptation, retooling of something we've already seen, or even just not another "reboot" of a series we're invested in, the same geeks crying out suddenly get very quiet about putting their money where their mouths are. I was very, VERY hard on Scott Pilgrim fans in particular because instead of going to see the movie they constantly hyped as "finally, something that isn't like everything else," they instead stayed home and complained about how stupid it was that people went to see The Expendables instead. It's not Sylvester Stallone's fault that you didn't go see you new favorite movie, nor is it Julia Robert's fault with Eat, Pray, Love. I have tried to move away from using Box Office figures as a barometer for anything, but if you read "geek" coverage of Scott Pilgrim vs the World after the first two weeks, you'd think that it was hovering right below the aforementioned films. Nope. Scott Pilgrim vs the World came in behind The Expendables, Eat, Pray, Love, The Other Guys, and Inception. Inception is, by the way, an exception to the rule, although the "it was overrated" chants are getting louder every week.

 Mind you, it's not just Scott Pilgrim: Sucker Punch, a film that caters to geek fetishes, was also widely ignored by its target audience. Serenity, a film based on Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly, apparently had a legion of fans called "Browncoats" who went to the free screenings the summer before the film came out, and then were so enthusiastic that they didn't go see it again. Or tell their friends to see it. Or tell anyone to see it, even though you'll be hard pressed to find a Firefly fan who won't talk about Serenity until they're blue in the face. So if you're this enthusiastic about a film, this excited for an alternative to the "same old thing," something directed to the very vocal internet, why is it you're happy to let the film die a lonely death in theatres, complain about the films people went to see while you stayed home, and then wait for the Blu-Ray? Eventually they'll stop listening to your pleas, stop catering to your whims, and then you're left with the same old thing.

 Don't believe me? Look at Universal: they're smarting from the Scott Pilgrim debacle, coupled with big losses for Your Highness and modest returns for Paul. Now that Comcast bought the company, they've already put Guillermo Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness on indefinite hold, and have delayed further development of Ron Howard's adaptation of The Dark Tower series. These are two highly sought-after geek adaptations, and considering how much muscle they have behind them, the reason they've been put into development hell has a lot to do with the "We want to see it, but we're not going to see it" precedent.

Normally, when Guillermo Del Toro wants to adapt H.P. Lovecraft in a big budget, R rated horror film in 3D with the backing of James Cameron and star Tom Cruise, a studio isn't going to say "no" to that. Del Toro is the only "x" factor there, with his critically popular but financially modest films, including Universal's disappointing Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The argument was that Universal was concerned about the "R" rating, but it's not as though high profile projects with an "R" rating haven't performed well for them. The concern seems to be that the geeks clamoring for this film might not bother showing up (again), so why invest that kind of money when the precedent says there's no good reason to?

 The Dark Tower series is even more ambitious: Howard wants to adapt the entire series, split up between films and a running TV series that would bridge the movies. Javier Bardem is virtually a lock for Roland, and yet Universal is hedging about "the budget." Why? Again, because even with someone as reliable as Ron Howard and his long time producer Brian Glazer, there's concern that the people who claim to want to see this (the geeks) might be so fickle that they just won't show up. It's killed potential series before: just look at The Golden Compass, or Push, or Jumper, or I Am Number Four. Relative quality aside, those were designed to be "first chapters" in longer narratives, and they probably will never be. Even the geekiest of all geek properties, Tron Legacy, was met with derision by geeks and Disney is debating how much of a budget cut a third Tron will get, if they make it at all.

 It turns out that "if they build it," geeks won't come. Even if they love it. That boggles my mind. The negativity surrounding "bad" films is understandable to a point, but if you're just going to blow off genuine olive branches from people who speak your language, what exactly do you expect to be on the big screen next time?

2. TV Wasteland...? - We live in a time where television is littered with "geek" friendly shows: zombies, alien invasions, dinosaurs, time travel, super heroes, galactic battlestars, and even a "monster of the week show" that's really just about monsters. Oh yeah, and Doctor Who is back. So is Futurama. And yet, week after week, I come away enthusiastic from another episode of a show I enjoyed only to find the internet is littered with nit-pickers complaining about how that great episode was actually "underwhelming" or "lame." I was just looking to see if I missed some small detail, but instead have to wallow through criticism of the "revelation" that ended season six of Doctor Who (okay, the first half). How The Walking Dead is "boring" or "not what we wanted," etc.There was a television show about THE TERMINATOR, and all people did was complain about it.

 I'll freely admit that the ending of The X-Files and Lost disappointed me, and I've made it clear why, but one of the reasons I try really hard not to critique individual episodes before the show is over is because I like to give the creators the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are making it up as they go along, maybe not. Thanks to the internet, I now know that by the time I get to the end of Battlestar Galactica, more likely than not I'll feel cheated. I didn't want to know that, but shy of never visiting any "geek" site and totally avoiding my friends, it's almost impossible not to be inundated with negativity during a period where networks are actually catering to the audience that shouts the loudest. It's no surprise that shows don't last long when the feedback they see is negative. I'm already worried about Torchwood: Miracle Day, the return of a series I thought was really finding its footing, because the buzz around the first few episodes is not good. Ugh.

 This is hard for me, because I realize that I am essentially complaining about complaining. I'm throwing my two cents into a bottomless pit of negativity, but I just don't understand what's going on here. This is as good of a time to be a geek as humanly possible, and instead of celebrating it, there's a ceaseless echo chamber of backhanded compliments and outright hostility directed at people like us, who grew up watching the same movies we did, and are now trying to represent that point of view for the rest of the world. Now we're at a point where Patton Oswalt (perhaps with tongue in cheek) is suggesting that geek culture "needs" to die so that we can learn to appreciate our roots. The relative quality of films and shows are no longer important, because they all "suck" to people who can shout the loudest. When asked for an alternative, they ask for something and then blithely ignore the result.

 I don't understand you, geeks. I am trying. I thought I was one of you, and I tried to make my own rules clear: there are movies I am interested in and ones I'm not. I'll try to branch out every now and then, and whenever possible not look at gift horse in the mouth. I know that movies like Machete and Black Dynamite and Hobo with a Shotgun were catered to my demographic, and while I maybe didn't love everything about all of them, I try to be clearer than "it just sucks and you suck if you like it." I genuinely wanted to understand what it was about the Saw films that people gravitated towards - it didn't work for me, but obviously they have a strong following. I will ceaselessly sound the horn for films that I think people would really like; films you might not see or know about otherwise. I didn't ask for Scott Pilgrim, so I didn't see it, but I sure as hell was enthusiastic about Tron Legacy and I sure as hell saw it in 3D on an IMAX screen. I backed that geekdom up, and I need to do the same for The Tree of Life soon.

 To close, I don't want to criticize the internet critics, the home of geekdom in its many forms. I just want to understand what's going on here: it's an almost unprecedented time to enjoy having geeky interests, so why is the target audience ignoring it in droves, flooding message boards, and unleashing on people for not doing it for them? 

Summer Fest Supplemental: Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

 I thought I'd start our virtual version of Summer Fest with a love letter of sorts to horror film. Many of you may not know this, but 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the VHS release of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, a sixty minute documentary about the first ever Fangoria convention. Held in 1985, the first Weekend of Horrors was a gathering point in Los Angeles for horror enthusiasts, short film makers, and aspiring make up effects artists. Unlike UnConventional, a film I reviewed last year, the Weekend of Horrors doesn't feel sleazy or exploitative, despite promoting Fangoria throughout (it's co-director, Kerry O'Quinn, is actually the creator of Fangoria, along with Starlog).

 Compared to 2004's Unconventional, Weekend of Horrors feels relatively quaint: the enthusiasm of the fans is infectious, with many effusively gushing about their favorite monsters and why they're attracted to horror films. While there are merchandise tables - the site of a surprise appearance by Star Trek's Walter Koenig, wandering around the convention with his son - most of the tables that appear in the film are designed to showcase amateur makeup, monster, and effects work by fans of the genre.


 Like UnConventional, there is also an auction and a costume contest, but the costumes are all homemade and shall we say, less slutty. Instead of auctioning off Tiffany Shepis' underwear, the Fangoria fans bid on a shooting script for John Carpenter's Halloween, and judging by how little other items were going for, I'd be willing to bet someone went home with it on less than twenty dollars.

The main attraction of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors is the guests of the convention, who range from Wes Craven and Robert Englund (there to support A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Craven-less Part 2: Freddy's Revenge) to a beardless Rick Baker, who brought along some ape effects from Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. Tom Savini appears briefly during a montage; Elvira answers questions from the audience (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was apparently the worst Movie Macabre film she ever aired); John Carl Buechler does a Q&A for Troll; Steve Miner and William Katt talk about House; Dan O'Bannon talks about Return of the Living Dead; Tobe Hooper appears to talk a bit about his films but also to preside over the Cinemagic Short Film Search Festival, where fans are awarded for their 8 and 16mm films.

With a magazine like Fangoria behind the event, it's no surprise that the emphasis is on special effects makeup, and many of the montages are devoted to masks from films like Friday the 13th and Creepshow (as well as a certain monster Tales from the Darkside fans will recognize immediately). Makeup effects artist Craig Reardon (Altered States, Poltergeist) gives People Magazine reporter Tony Lawrence a quick monster makeover in time for the costume contest. Special attention should also be given to Nora Salisbury, a fan who made her own Freddy Kreuger costume (with full head piece and glove) that's pretty impressive.

 For a sixty minute film, Weekend of Horrors does at time lean too heavily on scenes from films mentioned by guests (I still don't understand why the entire trailer for The Toxic Avenger needs to be there) and it takes a curious detour into promotional territory when Tobe Hooper finishes with the short film competition and begins talking about his remake of Invaders from Mars. There's a lengthy section devoted to behind the scenes footage, which does admittedly find a way to include Stan Winston in the film, but it's a jarring shift in the movie that sticks out when O'Quinn and Mike Hadley cut back to Dick Miller. Why this breaks up the previous montage, which includes interviews with Clu Gulager (Return of the Living Dead, Feast), producer Alex Gordon (Voodoo Woman, The Atomic Submarine), and composer Albert Glasser (The Cyclops, The Amazing Colossal Man), who talk, in part, about Roger Corman, is unclear.

 There's a bit of a "home movie" feel to Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, but in a good way; it feels like a tape made to share the good time had by people there instead of a document of the lurid side of horror conventions (okay, I'll stop beating up on UnConventional), and I have to say it sure seemed like a great place to be in the summer(?) of 1985. People came from all around the country to share their enthusiasm for horror films, to show off what they could do, and to meet their heroes. I give O'Quinn and Hadley a lot of credit for conveying that sense of joy in such a concise package, and this is a great kick-off to Summer Fest!

 I'll be back a little bit later with a review of Quarantine 2: Terminal. Until then, stay scared!

What the Hell Week: Sucker Punch

 One of the most overused terms to deride a movie is to call it "masturbatory" - it's a quick and easy way to dismiss the filmmaker for dwelling in their obsessions while ignoring anything else in the movie. I've probably used it before (I can't remember off the top of my head where) and the Cap'n sees it all the time on the internet, where reviews are as numerous as websites devoted to fetishes. Why that comparison? Because as much as I'd like to find anything else to say about Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, invariably I'm left with a list of fetishes on display; PG-13 porn for geeks.

Baby Doll (Emily Browning) and her sister (Frederique De Raucourt) are left alone with their abusive Stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) when their mother dies. While trying to save her sister from the loathsome guardian, Baby Doll accidentally kills her sister and is sent to an asylum. Her Stepfather bribes Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) in order to ensure Baby Doll receives a lobotomy when the Doctor (Jon Hamm) arrives in five days. Under the care of Doctor Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), Baby Doll imagines the asylum is instead the "Club," where she dances for male clients, as well as other seductive techniques. Baby Doll discovers her dance transfixes men, and she hatches a scheme to escape. In order to find five items needed to be free, Baby Doll enlists the help of fellow dancers / inmates Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung), who assist her in separate fantasy world under the tutelage of the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). Can Baby Doll and the others find the five items and escape before the Doctor / High Roller comes to claim her?

 The Russian doll approach to Snyder's story serves little purpose, because the further removed from the reality of the asylum we get, the less invested we become in the peril for Baby Doll and the other girls. Fights with Giant Samurai wielding Gatling guns or Steampunk German Zombies are devoid of the peril we need to feel because the audience knows this is just the fantasy world Baby Doll escapes to while she's dancing in another fantasy world to avoid dealing with reality. There's no sense of tension, no concern for her well being because WE KNOW SHE'S NOT REALLY THERE. Imagine if every action set-piece in... let's say, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, took place while Sarah Connor was dreaming in her cell. After the first one, the dream where Kyle Reese comes back and she escapes and is nuked, we'd lose any and all interest in the jeopardy she faced. The first one only works because we don't realize it's a dream, but Snyder shows his audience up front this is all make-believe. None of it is happening and has minimal bearing on reality.

 I have some inkling why Snyder decides not to show Baby Doll's dance in the "Club" reality: the descriptions of what she does would certainly rob him of a PG-13 rating, but that's not what I suspect is going on. The real problem with Sucker Punch is that these fantasy breaks happen to fulfill a particular kind of geek fetish, one that Snyder must have as much as the audience the film was designed for: hot chicks kung-fu fighting monsters. Sucker Punch is one excuse after another to put swords and guns in the hands of scantily clad women and turn them loose against geeky enemies, like robots and samurai and dragons. If you get your kicks watching Catholic school girls with thigh high boots bloodlessly chopping up bad guys, good news; Sucker Punch has it in spades.

 And when they aren't doing flips that conveniently provide upskirt shots, Snyder finds other ways to engage your libido in a theatrically friendly way: like girls in their PJ's in the rain? How about ballerina strippers? Sexy nurses? Fishnet stockings and lace armbands? Pigtails? Leather bustiers?Yup. Please don't buy into the argument that this film is in any way "female empowerment." Just because all of the men in the film (save for Scott Glenn's "mentor" character) are lecherous pigs doesn't mean that the girls are suddenly "empowered" while wearing clothes designed to get fanboys all hot. It's a hollow sentiment, one designed by Snyder and others to dodge the "objectification of women" argument. The men are pigs, the women are objects, and the only thing important is that the ladies look "cool" while they look good for the predominantly adolescent male audience.

 So, does it look "cool"? I guess, but what's the point to all of it? The action sequences don't serve the narrative in any way - they're just there to look "cool" and enable Snyder to get all of his fetishes in one place. I haven't mentioned the music yet, in part because I was trying to forget the awful covers of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)," "White Rabbit," and "Where is My Mind." They exist to underscore otherwise arbitrary decisions (like the white rabbit painted on a robot) and only reminded me of Moulin Rouge, which Tuesday's Retro Review makes clear is a bad thing.

 I'll go this far: Zack Snyder, who has to this point adapted or remade his way into geek cinephiles' hearts (Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, Legend of the Guardians), at least tried to make a film not based on something else. While I don't love Watchmen or 300, I do like Dawn of the Dead, and I have to give Snyder credit for wanting to make a film wholly of his own. Think of Sucker Punch as Snyder's Inception; it's a big risk in a culture that likes recycled everything, and as much as Christopher Nolan succeeded, Snyder did not. Yet. I suspect Sucker Punch will be very popular on DVD and Blu-Ray, where it has an extra 18 minutes in an "extended cut."

 Now, I won't be watching that cut, but if you're inclined to watch vapid, monotone acting coming from dead eyed Emily Browning, as long as you can see her panties once every six minutes, then a longer cut that jumps from PG-13 to R will be right up your alley. Me? I was bored at the one hour mark, and Sucker Punch never won me back. While I give Snyder credit for not adapting something else, it doesn't mean that being original and failing is any better than recycling successfully.

Blogorium Review: The Dungeon Masters

  
The Dungeon Masters is a confusing film: in many ways, it feels like Trekkies, if less invested in the subject, or Ringers: The Lord of the Fans, if less championing. I get the impression that the film is trying to help audiences understand the world of gamers, particularly Dungeons and Dragons, but I'm not sure what the end result is supposed to be: inspiring or humiliating.

I really don't want to approach this in a mean-spirited way, but as the social awkwardness compounds on each of the film's subjects, one must wonder what Keven McAlester was hoping to accomplish in spotlighting the game masters. The film was initially supposed to be a history of D&D, and the opening of the film certainly reflects that, covering a convention of fans with short interviews, but quickly hones in on three subjects (who I'm not going to identify by name; the film does, and it isn't hard to find them, so I don't see much point in adding to that).

 Each is a Dungeon Master (or, as they prefer, "Game Master"), who manage a campaign (or game) for multiple players. The GM sets the rules, creates the story, and guides their players through a campaign (which can last from a few hours to several years). After the convention the cameras follow them home to focus on their lives when they aren't leading campaigns.

What struck me isn't so much that they reinforce particular stereotypes about "fantasy" fans / gamers / D&D players, but the construction of the film almost seems to revel in slowly unfolding how much like the outside world's assumptions about what "D&D Nerds" must be like. The editing deliberately withholds information in order to increase the discomfort for viewers trying to sympathize with the film's subjects.


 The first GM left a religious puppet show over "differences of opinion" and works as an apartment manager, although he hopes to jump-start his writing career and has met with a literary agent. At least, that's what we see at first. During a moment in his disheveled apartment, the door opens and his wife and son walk in, initially dispelling the implication he lives alone. Through conversation, it eventually becomes clear that he doesn't manage the apartment complex - his wife does - and that instead of "working full time," she argues that he "maybe works part-time" although he protests that he helps when she's not around. During a montage He explains how to "punish" your dice if they misbehave (complete with demonstration), delivers his epic sci-fi / fantasy novel (which he seems to be unable to cut down, per request), and shows disdain while doing sit ups. What exactly am I supposed to take away from this?

 The second GM is in the Army Reserves, a nudist, and likes to kill off every group he plays with. He openly admits that he doesn't always have an ending for his campaigns and prefers to punish his players for doing foolish things like deciding to (and this is a direct quote) "run through a door." During back and forth interviews with one of the campaign members and the DM, it's clear his expectations are really unreasonable. The player explains that he spent time trying to discover which door was the exit, only to realize none of them were, but the GM scolds the players (to the camera) for not "testing" the doors to his liking, so the door they choose leads to a "Sphere of Annihilation." Earlier in the film, he tries to kill off another party and fails to after being unable to defeat them by rolling the dice.

 The third GM is introduced in full make-up, explaining that she feels more comfortable as a dark elf. Living in Gulf Coast, Mississippi, the youngest of the dungeon masters alternates between Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft, and Live Action Role Playing (LARPing) while searching for work. Her desire to avoid large corporations was thwarted after a small business owner behaved inappropriately with her, and before the film she left her boyfriend because he played WoW "too much." She finally takes her makeup off halfway into the film, and moves in with a guy who seems cagey about their relationship status. Her ex-husband was violently abusive, leaving her emotionally distant and unwilling to "rely on anybody" moving forward.

The unifying link between the three is a desire to escape from their respective realities - one is running from his childhood, another lives in an underwhelming adulthood, and the last is trying to escape the omnipresent decay of post-Katrina Gulf Coast. It's easier to kill off your members and leave than say goodbye, or to deal with separation, and when he comes back after years of silence, the sense of discomfort - not only with his players, but also the family he abandoned - is palpable onscreen. The first GM is constantly shirking his real-world responsibilities - instead of finding work to support his  family, he decides to start a public access show about a villain who realizes he's bad at his job and decides to host a public access show.

 Their interview audio is often juxtaposed with drab, unappealing shots of parking lots, strip malls, and images of urban decay, which helps underline the desire to escape, but also lends a dispassionate, detached tone to the film. This American Life is sometimes criticized for being too "distant" from its subjects, but the construction of The Dungeon Masters often feels bored and condescending to its subjects. I felt like I should be laughing at their misfortunes (particularly the first and second GM's) but instead felt uncomfortable.

 Maybe the film hits too close to home: my father played D&D in college, and remains a big fan of science fiction and fantasy. I know a number of well adjusted adults who play D&D, LARP, and also engage in related activities that don't at all embody the stereotypes reinforced in The Dungeon Masters. I don't play D&D - I did once when I was 8 or 9 at a friend's house - but I don't look down on people who do. I know people who LARP and do CosPlay; do I think it's kind of silly? Maybe, but I've also seen the work they put into the costumes, and the sense of community they feel.

In the interest of fairness, I hated the Dungeons and Dragons movie, but mostly because it was a really bad movie.

 It's fair to say that horror fans are engaging in a more socially acceptable version of "geek" fandom, one that doesn't meet the kind of derision that Trekkies, D&D players, Star Wars or Comic Book fanatics do. The film community turns its nose up to horror and its fans, but the "heroes" emblazoned on horror t-shirts are covered in blood - they kill people in evil ways. People don't sneer at a Freddy Krueger the same way they do an Elf, but the fans aren't any less passionate or devoted to their geeky  subculture. It doesn't escape me that I write a blog about movies under the moniker Cap'n Howdy, and that I too embody a number of characteristics and ideals lampooned in the film.

 I don't mean to push people away from The Dungeon Masters - it's a compelling documentary, to be sure. It's entertaining, and does shine a light on a somewhat unrepresented branch of gamers, albeit in a less than favorable way. Rather than empathize with its subjects, instead we're left with an emotionally distant young woman, a unrepentant jackass, and a man with delusions of grandeur, caught on camera by a director that dwells on their inability to function as members of the real world. Entertaining? In an uncomfortable way - crueler audiences will howl with laughter - but yes, watchable by all means.

Blogorium Review: Paul

I must admit I felt a twinge of sadistic glee reading online reviews of Greg Mottola's Paul when the film finally made its way to theatres two weeks ago (it opened in the United Kingdom last month): "geek" friendly sites were falling all over themselves trying to find nice ways to pad the disappointment of what seemed to be a great idea: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost write a movie about two geeks that run into an alien while touring famous "UFO" landmarks, and then star in the film with Seth Rogen as the alien, directed by the man who made Superbad. The phrases "feel good geek movie" and "hard to pin down tonally" didn't help trailers that already made Paul look less than appealing, so in a cruel way, I felt vindicated in not wanting to see the film.

But clearly I did see Paul, or this review would be happening on Friday (check the date) and probably masking another review, like last year*. Standing on the other side of the film, I understand the reviews attempts to soften high expectations from its target audience, but I think that many critics didn't quite set their disclaimers up in the right way. Paul is actually a pretty good movie, but you have to wait a little while before that's clear.

Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg), a comic book artist, and his best friend Clive Gollings (Nick Frost), a science fiction writer, have made the pilgrimage from the UK to the San Diego Comic Con, the geek mecca. They've also rented an RV in order to travel the Southwest in search of major alien landmarks (Area 51, Roswell, The Black Mailbox), but when a car whips around them and crashes on the road, they unwittingly become accomplices in the escape plan of Paul (Seth Rogen), an alien trying to get home after a long stint as prisoner of the United States government. On the lam, they inadvertently pick up Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a fundamentalist Christian that believes Earth is only 4,000 years old. Pursued by Agent Zoyle (Jason Bateman) and two junior agents, Haggard (Bill Hader) and O'Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio), who work for the mysterious "Big Guy," as well as Ruth's father Moses Buggs (John Carroll Lynch), our unwitting heroes race to return Paul to a rendezvous point before it's too late...

The film's biggest problem is that the introduction of Paul doesn't really work. That Seth Rogen plays Paul isn't the issue: it's that Paul IS Seth Rogen for the first fifteen minutes or so that we see him. Rather, Paul is the same kind of character type that Rogen gravitates towards, and his introduction in the film is more distracting than effective. It doesn't help that many of the jokes involving Paul rely heavily on vulgarity (anal probing, alien nudity) or obvious nods to other "first contact" films - to this I have to disperse the blame evenly between Pegg and Frost's script and Rogen's delivery, neither of which help Paul find its way early on.

Frost and Pegg do a fine job of setting up the world of the film (as do Bateman, Hader, and Lo Truglio) but Paul seems "off" in the character dynamic. Part of it is the wildly uneven comic tone, including a running joke about whether Graeme and Clive are gay that doesn't go anywhere. It's not something I can really pinpoint in one scene, but the film doesn't regain its footing until Kristen Wiig's character is introduced; suddenly the interpersonal relationships make a little more sense, Paul moves into the background (somewhat) or at least isn't the load bearer for comedy in the film. Wiig's understated delivery actually helps settle down Rogen's over-the-top delivery as Paul, and the way the says "because of his blasphemous theories" was the first big laugh I had in the film (the second really big one was the discovery of Agent Zoyle's first name).

Paul throws so many "geek" references at the wall that I can't possibly mention all of them, but not only can you expect several nods to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Star Trek, Predator, Mac and Me, The X-Files, E.T., and Aliens (the last two prominently featuring people involved in the films), but there's also Clive and Graeme's conversing in Klingon, a Wilhelm scream, two separate Indiana Jones references, a Back to the Future joke, a redneck bar version of the Cantina from A New Hope, and a clever way for Pegg and Frost to address a question raised in Shaun of the Dead (hint: it involves dogs).

Early in the film, the references seem more forced, which doesn't help the struggling first act to find its footing. That's also coupled with the bulk of the cameos in the film, including Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Jeffrey Tambor, and (KINDA SPOILER) the voice of Steven Spielberg - part of a scene that's so obvious I wish it hadn't made the final cut. Reviews seemed to think it was a big deal not to reveal that Sigourney Weaver was the mysterious voice that Agent Zoyle is talking to, but if that's the case then why can you clearly hear her in the trailer? I didn't think that was supposed to be such a surprise, to be honest, unless you've never heard her speak before.

Because I feel you're probably thinking that I didn't like Paul, it's important to mention that despite the bumpy first half, I found myself really engaged by the midpoint and actually rather enjoyed the film by the end. If the first section of the film is trying too hard, once the film finds its footing, Paul is actually quite good and something I wouldn't hesitate recommending. I would warn you that it isn't that the film is uneven or that the "geekery" comes hard and fast (to be fair, half of the characters in the film really don't get the whole "Comic-Con thing" and that there's a running joke involving no one knowing any of the books Tambour's character wrote), but that the film is so front loaded that you might be tempted to tune out.

Don't. Stick around until Kristen Wiig shows up, and Paul improves tremendously. The chemistry within the cast finally "clicks," the jokes shift in direction (including a push towards ridiculous bursts of vulgarity, many coming from Ruth's inexperience with cursing), and the evolution of Bill Hader's Haggard from loser to obsessed psychopath is worth the price of admission. Jason Bateman is pretty fantastic playing the "straight man" role; Pegg, Frost, Lo Truglio and Wiig are all great, and when Rogen settles down it's easier to tolerate Paul as a character. By the time that Blythe Danner appears as the adult version of a child we meet early in the film, I was completely on board with the film.

Paul is a better movie at the end than the beginning, which I suppose is a shame, because if it had the consistency in the first half that it does in the second, then it could be something really special. As it is, it's pretty good, a three-and-a-half star out of five kind of movie; you'll have a good time, and will probably rent it and watch it on TV, but won't run out to buy it in a few months. Then again, it is nice to see a movie that tries to entertain and mostly succeeds when far worse movies can't be bothered to do either week in and week out.



* You didn't really think I watched New Moon, did you?

A Question Even the Cap'n Can't Answer (?)

Here's a question for the casual reader, the fan of movies who doesn't consider themselves to be a "cinephile" or a "film geek": have you ever asked one of your friends (one that does fall into the two categories listed above) what their favorite movie was, only to regret asking what you thought was a simple question after they took far too long to name one movie, or worse, went off on a rambling tangent about the impossibility to "ranking" favorite movies?

It's happened; I know it has. I've been the guilty party who sat there too long in silence, mulling over the options - do I name something that I'm sure everyone has seen, something that is both a consensus "great movie" and actually is a joy to watch? Do I go left field and name something I know you haven't seen, in a combination of "impressing you with my obscure film knowledge" and "turning you on to something you wouldn't hear of otherwise"? Do I go with a movie that has a bum rap, that most people assume is bad because they heard it from someone who heard it from someone who read a bad review? Do I go with a sentimental choice, something I can appeal to on a basic emotional level, one that doesn't need a pointless, intellectualized persuasive argument?

Let's take a look at the combination "obscure film knowledge" and "turning you on to new movies" for a second, because there's a reason that temptation exists beyond ego stroking: by the point in time someone is willing to commit to a life of film theory / history / studies, it's clear to the people around them that this goes beyond a leisurely pastime. It's a passion, a need to learn more than most audiences will ever want to know, and it changes the way that the average film-goer behaves around you. More often than not, people ask me what movies I've seen that "are really good" or "are your favorites" because they want the Cap'n to go beyond the surface level, to exercise that fanaticism in a useful manner.

At the same time, I realize how frustrating it is to walk into that potential landmine, that most irritating of conversation killers. On one hand, you want to engage your "film geek" friend in conversation in a way that stimulates their interests, but on the other, you run the risk of letting them hijack the social atmosphere by hemming and hawing, letting someone else talk, and then abruptly jump in and begin dragging everyone into their world, their way of thinking, until the inevitable lapse into relativism of "well, they're all great to me."

The film "geek" and the "cinephile" belong to an insular lot, a group used to conversing in their own shorthand, where half a film quote is enough to get the point across about an entire genre or a director's entire body of work can be summed up by turning their last name into an adjective (for example, Lynchian*). It's not that deciding on a "favorite movie" is difficult, per se, but rather that inside of our little pockets of obsession, no one ever asks that question. There is an understood (albeit shifting) canon of cinema that need not be discussed regularly, that can remain unspoken until someone raises an innocent question.

At that moment, we're forced outside of a self-perpetuated comfort zone, one that allows us the freedom of criticizing other "Best Of" lists without being held accountable to our own personal lists (and we have them, even if we don't tell each other). It's a nasty trapping of fostering and becoming reliant on our cabal of film geekery - one that I as much as anyone else is guilty of. When I put together "Five Movies" lists, I spend an agonizingly extended period of time trying to find a balance of the factors from earlier, further compounded by the fact that the Blogorium attracts both kinds of film fans.

To close this out on a constructive, positive note, and to avoid the typical relativistic quibbling that would otherwise occur, here are some of my favorite movies, in no particular order: The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Blues Brothers, Sunset Boulevard, Down by Law, The Last Detail, Night and the City, The Americanization of Emily, Blood Car, Apocalypse Now, Mary Poppins, Eraserhead, Touch of Evil, Pinocchio, The Third Man, Psycho, Moon, The Wizard of Oz, Shaun of the Dead, Dazed and Confused, Day for Night, Throne of Blood, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, A History of Violence, Ghostbusters, The Virgin Spring, Murder By Death, Le Samourai, Mona Lisa, Back to the Future, Redbelt, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Taxi Driver, Miller's Crossing, and Brazil.

Am I leaving things out? Oh yeah, but so it goes. Maybe you know every movie on that list; maybe you don't. It's always nice to turn people on to new films, just as it is to be turned on to something I never knew existed, so much so that I devoted whole chunks of programming in Summer and Horror Fests solely for that purpose. But that list is a good start, if you're just curious about film, it might turn you on and tune you in to new possibilities. That's a good start.

I hope I didn't take up too much of your time. For now.



* What would Lynchian be? Oblique, disturbing, vaguely esoteric assemblages of themes and imagery designed to confound the audience and prompt them to engage in heavy discussion after the film ends.

How Little Does It Take to Expose an MST3k Nerd?

Just ask him "do you have any first season episodes on VHS?" and let him go. From an actual correspondence with regular reader the Cranpire earlier today:

I do have a lot of early MST3k episodes on video, but the box marked "VHS" is literally the cornerstone on which my furniture is built on in the storage facility. It's actually the hardest box to get to, as it's covered by shelves, plastic bins, other boxes, and dvd racks.

If the "first season" is the one I'm guessing you looked at on IMDB, then that's the KTMA Public Access episodes they did before going to the Comedy Channel. If you're lucky, you can find one or two on YouTube, but there's almost no chance they're coming out because a) half of them are Gamera films, or b) they're licensed by Sandy Frank, who hates Joel Hodgson for making fun of his movies.

Season two, which includes Robot Monster, The Crawling Hand, The Crawling Eye, Mad Monster, and The Corpse Vanishes, are kinda / sorta on various MST3k collections. I have 18 of the 19 boxed sets (waiting on that new one for Christmas) and all of the individual releases, but as it's the only thing I've ever collected in its entirety (to date), I'm reticent to loan them out (they're often VERY expensive to replace and unless I absolutely have to I'll never sell them).

To your Crow question, it's explained in the MST3k Amazing Colossal Episode Guide that he's actually facing forward, but that the basket creates an optical illusion that makes it look like he could be facing forward. If I had the book here, I'd happily scan the picture in (because try as I might, I can't find it online), but here's a link to back me up:

http://www.mst3kinfo.com/mstfaq/bots.html

You can check YouTube; I've seen KTMA clips on there (and the occasional episode), but when a compilation of "Host Segments" from KTMA was on the Twentieth Anniversary boxed set, that pretty much spelled out that they'd never hit DVD. As you can guess from the season two stuff, the show is very much in its formative stages, and they don't really riff much. The show didn't really hit its stride until seasons three, four, and five.

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So yeah, you can see why I had to share that; clearly, I know way too much about a long-canceled series off of the top of my head than any person ought to. But now I have some small satisfaction in knowing that you too have that knowledge.

Your reward? part two of "Last of the Wild Horses," where a mirror-universe puts Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank in the experiment: