The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Oh, right, I saw the new Pirates like last weekend. That was a thing.

The first Pirates of the Caribbean is an amazing film. It’s flashy, it’s fun, it’s everything a movie that’s trying to just be flat-out entertaining should be. The rest of the forced “trilogy” were not that great (though a recent re-examining of Dead Man’s Chest by Essner makes him think that maybe we were being a bit hard on the second one in hindsight) and felt like they were just kind of shit out to rake in more cash. They were disappointing, mostly because they added a ton of magic to a setting that worked best as being “low magic,” and just generally shit all over everything that was fun by flooding the entire movie with pointless back story and lore. Also, there were a million nonsensical deals. All that wasn’t what I wanted. I was hoping that this new movie, divorced from the characters and all that bullshit, would go back to the fun of the first.

It kind of did, and it kind of didn’t.

The good parts are when Jack Sparrow is on the screen, and allowed to do his thing. He’s still a very entertaining character, and when he’s released from the chains of bullshit back story, characters, and scene ideas, the film is very fun to watch. Overall I enjoyed the film because of this, but it still left a lot to be desired.

Let’s start by talking about Blackbeard. When he walked onto the screen, I was hopeful. He seemed to have some sort of magical sword that controlled ropes. “Wow, what a cool, restricted magical power that is really powerful on a pirate ship! That should be interesting!” But no, it just controls the ship completely, a ship that shoots fire for no reason. He also has a zombie crewman who can see the future, but for no real reason. He doesn’t need to be any of these things. He also captures ships and magically puts them in bottles. Why? Nobody knows. It’s never explained. It’s a pointless fact. Finally, he also makes really, really stupid decisions for no good reason. He’s a pretty terrible villain. Pretty completely terrible.

Still, at least it makes sense that they’d try to have a villain. A movie needs one of those, right? But there are characters that make no sense, such as the priest on the ship. Not only is his character completely unrelated to anything at all, but his character is also incredibly stupid and annoying. So much time is spent with this guy and the mermaid he is trying to rescue, and for absolutely no payoff. The payoff is that he rescues the mermaid, who brings Jack Sparrow some magical goblets for no reason explained in the movie which she wouldn’t have needed to bring to him if the movie hadn’t manufactured an extremely artificial reason for the mermaid to bring them to him. Essner suspected that he was there to be shirtless for the ladies in the audience. He was fine-looking, I guess, but I don’t know why anyone would care for a character so stupid.

There were plenty of other ridiculous parts of the film too, such as Ponce de Leon being some sort of powerful Spanish Necromancer who fashioned magical Agua de Vida goblets required for a magic ceremony one can only do at the fountain of youth. Those were all the sorts of things I normally don’t care about if the characters and movie are fun. However, the film doesn’t really completely deliver on that. If you are a huge fan of Captain Jack, there is still probably something in this movie for you, though you could probably get away with renting it when it comes out on DVD. I really wish they could get this franchise back to what made the first one a shocking, amazing success though.

Sometimes people go “Let’s go see a movie!” and then I go see a movie because being active socially is top of cool. Sometimes, though, the movie I go to see in these sorts of scenarios is not really the sort of film that I would see otherwise. Priest was that sort of film. When I told Essner that I went to see this movie, his first question was, “Well, it was at least better than Legion, right?” To which I responded, “Yeah, yeah, it was better than Legion.”

Let me just set the tone for this film. The movie starts, and you see a bunch of monk-looking dudes in a cave. One of them says: “This place feels like our grave.” That’s the first line. That’s what they open with. I knew immediately that I was not in for a great movie-viewing experience at that point.

The film is based on some sort of Manga, and the movie tries really hard to stay true to this manga nobody has ever heard of. (Well, okay, I never heard of it, and didn’t know anyone who had before the film came out.) Like, there’s constant back story, and constant desperate attempts to fill in who these characters are, instead of showing us who they are. In general, it’s not super important, because everyone is a pretty straightforward archetype with no real depth, but they really want you to know that this is, like, a world, you know? So they go for it anyway.

Basically, there are vampires, but these vampires are just like Hunters from Left 4 Dead only with no eyes and no hoodies. So they screech and leap about, and sunlight lights them on fire, I suppose. They’re also kind of sticky. There’s a main character, who is a Priest. Priest is future-world for Vampire Hunter. He’s bound by the church to not hunt vampires, but since he’s a vampire hunter, he’s going to anyway, and UH OH the church doesn’t like that! Also, someone has been turned into a Human Vampire. So that’s… a… thing…?

There’s a love side plot, and everyone is related for no reason, and there are action scenes. I will give the movie this: the action scenes were not bad. Some of them were super ridiculous (I must throw my throwing stars into the air and then kick them at the vampires, instead of just throwing them! This makes sense!) and the end battle against the villain was extremely unrewarding (they just kind of decided that, oh, shit, we’re out of ideas, everything explodes), but it was indeed and action movie with action scenes, which makes it way better than Legion, like I mentioned.

The main “theme” of the movie, which they repeat constantly, over and over, is that the power of the Priests don’t come from the church, but they come from God. Which is nice, I guess. It’s nice to have a “corrupt church” plot where the characters still keep their faith. The institution can be corrupt, but the deity can still exist and be nice. It’s a change of pace, at least. But seriously, it is crammed down your throat, and makes little sense since, honestly, the church plays such a little role in the film you could have cut it out completely and still had the whole movie make sense. It wasn’t really an important conflict.

Finally, I saw it in 3D. That was a waste. Movies, stop being in 3D. Stop it.

Anyway, there are some thoughts. I can’t really recommend the film, but the people I went to see it with really seemed to enjoy it, so I guess it’s doing something right. I just like my action to not take itself seriously, a la Shoot ‘Em Up, or have some genuine, actual impact and relevance to a plot. This really did neither, being ridiculous and taking itself way, way, way, way, way too seriously. So, yeah. Wouldn’t recommend it.

Let it be known: I love my mother.

Let it be known: I do not really like my mother’s tastes in romantic comedies.

After having watched The Backup Plan last night and loving it, my mom decided that we should all watch it on Mother’s day. I think she just thinks the guy in the movie is attractive? He’s okay. Anyway, she thought it very funny, and put it on, and we all then watched it.

This sort of stuff just really makes me wonder about how I view media. I mean, I want characters, you know? I want meaty characters who are motivated by motivations. I want what people do to actually be how people react when put in situations like they are. I want things to work in a way that actually has impact. I love romances when they’re done with these rules, because they tend to be genuine and interesting. Sex and romance is just cool like that.

Every major issue in the movie that the characters had to come up with was almost totally caused by the female lead doing something completely nonsensical and then attempting to rationalize it. It’s just frustrating to watch something when all the tension comes from contrivances that only exist so that the couple can have some problems before they inevitably get together. The movie attempts to rationalize these actions by explaining that she is someone who wants to be self-reliant and who believes that all men will leave you always, and thus leave them first. I could buy this if this was played for laughs, but that part of her character was the realistic part. That was what we were supposed to empathize with as viewers. Then again, this is also a character who admits the only reason she got herself pregnant is so she wouldn’t be alone in the world. She admits this to her best friend, one of a large number of friends she seems to have. So, you know. Totally alone without kids.

The male lead’s major problem in the film was dealing with these random changes of heart, which makes him also pretty one-sided, though sympathetic. We see that he’s worried about having these kids. Like anyone would be. Also, he’s a male in a romantic movie. That’s pretty well all he is. I guess the fact that he’s a goat farmer living in New York City is interesting, but it doesn’t really play into his personality or anything. I probably wouldn’t date him.

All this is interspersed with scenes of this crazy single mother support group that’s funny in a completely over the top ridiculous way. Again, that would be cool, but the world of this movie is fairly down to earth, and thus they really kind of stand out. It almost felt like they were going too far for the joke for most of the movie, which was proven the moment the movie got to this ridiculous scene of a birth party where they’re watching this woman have birth and she’s making crazy animal noises because that’s funny, right, and everything got stupider from there. Thank god for that.

To be fair, the movie did try some things that almost worked. Her dog begging for food was an attempted symbol at how she’s not willing to give anything to anyone and keeps it all for herself, which is kind of fair, I suppose. Except, you know, she shouldn’t feed her dog scraps, so it didn’t occur to me as a symbol until they went OH HAY THIS IS A SYMBOL at the end of the film. There was a parallel between the female lead and her grandmother that would have worked had it not been incredibly heavy-handed. As my mom liked pointing out, the dog was very cute.

But yeah, it was mostly pretty painful to view. I don’t really mind that my mother likes it, though I wish I knew of a good counter she would enjoy. They have to be out there. There have to be good romantic comedies made for women out there in the world. Okay, I guess, like, Stranger than Fiction is, at its core, a romantic comedy, and that’s fairly fantastic. There’s a counter, though I suppose it’s not really aimed at the stereotypical female demographic. Still, they have to exist. They have to.

Afterwards, my general response was that I went back upstairs and watched an episode of Paradise Kiss to remind myself how you write deep, interesting, and complex characters wrapped up in romances. May I never have to watch a movie like The Backup Plan again.

It’s a movie three-pack! A three pack of movies. Yeah. More movie blogs than you can shake a movie at! Or something!
Anyway.
After a fantastic dinner made by my sister-in-law, we all sat down to watch Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Or Lighting Thief, if you trust what I originally typed, which really seems like it would be a less exciting movie.

There was a time where I was a young-type person and this movie would have been really fantastic. As someone who is, in theory, an adult, it just doesn’t have that cross-age appeal that something like, say, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic does. Yeah, I just went there, but I will qualify it. Friendship is Magic really goes out of its way to make sure everything lines up, makes sense, and that there are no big, gaping holes in what’s going on, even as it manages to have multiple side-by-side plots. Percy Jackson really broke down in spots, plot-wise. It may have been the translation from book to film, but those problems were there.

Example: Early on in the film, Percy is given a quest. He decides to say “fuck this quest and it’s time limit” and instead goes on a completely different quest to save his mom. Later on in the film, though, there is reference to being almost out of time. The time limit really had nothing to do with saving Percy’s mom, which is all that was being attempted at that point. In fact, the whole plot, which is supposedly the main one, of the Lightning Thief was all but abandoned at this point. However, they kind of forgot that they had abandoned it. It’s that kind of stuff that keeps this from being a really great adventure movie for kids.

Still, there was plenty of really cool action. They were well-CGed and generally a lot of fun, though they had occasional moments of “Why is the enemy falling for this?” For example, in the final, climactic battle of the film, there’s this moment where the bad guy spends a lot of time not shooting and instead going “Oh no, you’re doing something!” If he had just continued to fire, even if he had been distracted, it would have went fine for him. But oh well, it’s hard to choreograph a fight scene like that and have people understand what’s going on.

I really liked the fact that Percy Jackson was a hero, but he was put forward as being a hero because he was completely shitty at doing “normal people” things. He can’t read English, because his brain tries to translate any text as if it was ancient Greek (which is kind of a hilarious superpower) and he is constantly twitching about looking for foes to slay, so he can’t actually succeed at school. The very things that make him a great Greek hero make him useless in the modern world. It’s an interesting sort of character building concept. I mean, Harry Potter can still function in Muggle society, you know? I kind of doubt the books and any future movies, if they make them, will go anywhere with that idea, but I liked it.

Anyway, it seems like it would be a movie that you’d enjoy if you enjoyed the books. I was pretty okay with it, though I certainly wouldn’t watch it again and probably wouldn’t go out of my way to see a sequel. Still, it was nice hanging out with people times, anyway.

Somewhere, someone had an idea. “Let’s make a fantasy movie, but make it able to be as crude and crass as a standard comedy in order to make it really super funny.” This was a fantastic idea, with a lot of legs, and a lot of potential.

Then they made Your Highness, which wasn’t very good. It’s probably going to make it hard for someone to make something actually good off of this fine premise. It sucks, but what are you going to do?

The movie had two main problems. One, probably the smaller of the two, was that it couldn’t decide if it was a parody or not. Sometimes the dialog is playing the world very straight. It’s a fantasy world, but people have a more normal sense of what’s vulgar and how to talk. Other times, it’s trying to be a fantasy parody, trying to mimic generic fantasy speech. Although I sure as hell don’t want to watch a parody, if they had stuck with that dialog, it would have made sense. However, it constantly jumps about. One scene will be in a fairly common type of speech, and then it’ll jump to the next, where language will be heightened for no reason in a kind of parody format. It’s unfortunate.

The second, and really the main issue, was that it suffered from a problem I call the South Park Problem. There are scenes, lines, and moments in this movie that are hilarious. Many of them are in the trailer. However, when those hilarious moments are not going on, the movie is really, really painful, insulting, and stupid. South Park is like this. Good episodes of South Park are amazing. Bad episodes of South Park injure you when trying to view them. The good thing about South Park, though, is that normally it is an all or nothing affair. Either the episode is terrible, or it is amazing. This movie, however, goes back and forth constantly, and unfortunately, there’s more bad than good. The funny parts were not really worth the cost.

Seriously, there is some groundwork for a great film here. There’s actually some real world-building going on, and some interesting stuff that they did to make their fantasy world seem unique, as Essner rightly pointed out as we drove home from the film. Everything else about it just isn’t worth it. Go watch a more different film! I bet there’s one out there that’s funnier. Or hell, just rewatch Anchorman. That’s this style of comedy at its finest.

I suppose since, in a few hours, I am going to watch a movie, I should probably get around to writing down my thoughts of the last movie I saw. That movie was Source Code.

Mr. Gyllenhaal is an army man but also a history teacher and he is on a magic computer train that explodes over and over. You get to watch him fail over and over in a series of wacky exploits. Okay, well, not really wacky. But exploits, certainly.
See, by recreating the last 8 minutes of time before a bomb on a train blew up from the memories of people who have exploded (work with me here) a secret government project can perfectly replay what happened, and even have it magically change completely and still function in a way they consider “true” to reality. Jake Gyllenhaal becomes the man on the train he has the best sync with, and relives these minutes over and over to attempt to gain information about the guy who blew the train up.
That’s the premise.

It’s one of those kind of movies that kind of falls apart if you try to actually think about the science handwaving the movie is doing. However, the characterization in the film is pretty nice. Gyllenhaal was reacting in very realistic ways to the really weird situation he was put in, and was certainly being a hero. The movie handwaves SUPER EXTRA HARD at the end to give him a happy ending, and though it breaks down the moment you leave the theater and think about how it ended, it feels like his character has earned it, so it doesn’t really bother during viewing.
Other than the ending, the only thing I really felt was a promise was the romance between Gyllenhaal’s character and his love interest. For one, love interest is reset every time the timeline restarts, so there’s already a bit of a problem there with building them up. However, a lot of the feelings for this woman seem to be built during a part of the movie where there’s a serious montage that indicated that a lot of shit is going down. This time frame is a very unspecified length of time, and I can totally see it being long enough for feelings to form. However, as an audience member, I don’t really get to see that. I’m kind of told that those feelings are appearing, not shown. It’s unfortunate, as what is there between the two of them is fairly solid.

Those are really the only potential problems. I talk about them because the rest is solid, though not in your face. Nothing jumps out as “OMG THE BEST PART” but all of it was fun. The movie starts strong, and runs right on through in a very enjoyable manner. Unless you are super annoyed by the magic in a setting not being explained sensibly, it’s a fine time at the theater. It just runs on by, and you sit there, mesmerized and enjoying it. This is by the guy who did Moon, which is apparently the Cat’s Pajamas, though I have not seen it, but he certainly seems like a solid piece of work to have made this. Source Code isn’t the perfect movie, but it is a really fun movie, and it is worth seeing.

In theory, there is such as a thing as a “popcorn flick.” To my knowledge, this is a movie that you put on because there’s nothing else to do, and you enjoy your popcorn and watch. You aren’t challenged, or even necessarily engaged in any way, but you watch it, and it doesn’t offend, and that’s fine.

That’s basically what Paul is.

I watched Paul, and that was fine. There were some laughs, and some chuckles. I didn’t want to claw my eyes out. It then ended, and it left no impression on me, nor any need to ever see it again.

If there’s one thing the movie was, the term “formulaic” would be completely accurate. Everyone in the story was simply there to fill a slot in the story. Two friends are there because you’re supposed to have buddies on an adventure, but one is designated to fall in love, and here comes female character to fall in love with and serve no other purpose, and so on and so forth.
Seriously, I can sit here and try to think of any actual character traits that the main characters had, and I would totally fail. They were not characters, but simply placeholders which existed to fill in slots in jokes. These jokes are the exact jokes you would expect from a movie about a wise-cracking alien. That doesn’t mean they aren’t funny sometimes, but they certainly aren’t unexpected.

I guess what I’m saying is, basically, look at the elevator pitch for the movie. Imagine the checklist such a movie must have. If you would like to see someone methodically checking off everything on that list without any twists, turns, or derivation, then you may enjoy Paul.

On the way back from the theater, Essner and I had a discussion about formula and how sick we were of it. I think I was less sick of it than him, but regardless, we both agreed that this kind of movie is not really worth our time anymore. He was being much harder on it than me. I feel it’s harmless, though nothing I will ever need to see again, whereas he seemed to find it very offensive, or at the very least bad. When I got back to Tweetdeck after the film I was greeted with this article which seemed to offer a potential interpretation on why we were reacting this way and echoed several of the points Essner was making about how the shows he watched as a child, which were re-purposing plots and pop culture he was not old enough for yet, made it so that when he reached the age where such things could be consumed, he already knew how they were going to turn out and there were no surprises. All this really seemed relevant as I really thought about the film and what it meant about film-making as a whole. There will always be people who enjoy formula and not being surprised. Hell, I really enjoy a formulaic children’s show about the power of friendship now and again.

But anyway, I guess I was talking about Paul. Paul is a movie. It has a joke or two. Seth Rogan is a wise-cracking alien who says the word “fuck.” You know what you’re getting into if you see it.

Tron: Legacy was a movie with three dimensional graphics and also had Jeff Bridges being a wizard.

That’s really all I can say about it. I’ll try to elaborate, but seriously, that is the selling points for the Tron.

Basically, CG Young Jeff Bridges disappears, and then his son goes to find him, and ends up in Tron-land, and son and Jeff Bridges and love interest must do battle with CG Young Jeff Bridges. While doing this, some discs are thrown, and Jeff Bridges casts some magic, all to the tunes of Daft Punk.

Seriously, speaking of Daft Punk, the soundtrack to this movie is fucking fantastic. Daft Punk even gets a completely appropriate cameo, and it’s really great. They set the tone perfectly, and do such a great job. Every scene fits perfectly with the music, it works.

The visuals, too, are fantastic. I’m not a 3D movie kind of person, but the 3D effects simply work with the Tron visual aesthetic. It wasn’t offensive and in my face, and it looked great. That’s about all I can hope for from a movie in 3D.

That’s sort of it. The movie is fun, sure. There are plenty of cool-looking fights, and some genuinely funny dialog, of course. The plot, however, is questionable and not all that deep. Sam Flynn, Mr. Main Character, is not really all that interesting, as his only real qualities are “has Jeff Bridges for a dad” and “can drive a motorcycle.” I suppose he’s probably also badass at Ultimate Frisbee. I dunno. In any case, I didn’t really care what happened to him, perse. He won! Yay! I suppose.

Basically, plot was never what this was about, and you knew that going in. If you want fun plots and characters, go see Red. That’s fantastic. This is an audio/visual experience, and at being that, it’s a good time. If you’re going to see it, definitely see it in theaters when you can enjoy it’s full majesty. If you want to see it, you will enjoy it. Still, it’s not something to go out of your way for if you weren’t already in the Tron camp.

Last week, I suggested I take Cara to a movie for her birthday. However, I made a tactical error, and assumed that Tron came out last week. It didn’t. It comes out today. We thus had to pick another film, and ended up going to see Red.

I’m really glad we did, as I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise, and it was fantastic.

When I go in for an action movie, I want something that’s fun. Explosions and firefights are all well and good, but I don’t really want that attached to something that’s trying to be too “serious.” It doesn’t have to be Shoot ‘Em Up levels of crazy, but it has to know what it’s doing and it needs to have fun.

Red is designed, from the very beginning, to be fun. There are a few little emotional moments that don’t fall flat, such as a certain standoff in a secret, soundproof room. For the most part, though, the movie is all fun. The characters, besides the audience stand-in and love interest of Bruce Willis, are all badass but also not serious. They do nothing but kill. It’s what they do. Even these horrible odds really aren’t anything they haven’t seen before. As such, they don’t worry about it. They’re back in action. They’re having fun. That fun translates and goes right to the audience.

Seriously, everyone is badass. Even Morgan Freeman, who doesn’t really get into combat, perse, and is mostly just an informant, is completely and utterly badass. I especially liked the silly romance between Helen Mirren and Brian Cox. It’s sappy and saccrine, but the movie sells it. It makes sense to me that these assassins would want romances that are more pure and different, and that’s what they sell. It’s awesome.

The movie was awesome! I may even pick it up on DVD if I see it cheap. I hear it’s nothing like the comic, and that’s fair enough, but it is a blast to watch. I highly recommend it if you need a movie to see soon. It’s not getting much play here, only being in one tiny theater, but don’t let that stop you. Go for it. Enjoy it. I know I did.

Since why not, the night before the wedding I saw A Warrior’s Way.
Man, what a mis-represented movie.
You see stuff for this film, and it’s like, “Ninjas! Cowboys! Fighting! Special Effects!”
And then you get in and watch the film and it’s like, “Surreal visuals! Strange voice-overs! Rarely any fighting!”

Seriously, you come to a movie like that for badass swordplay, don’t you? But there isn’t one person in the entire film that Mr. Main Character doesn’t kill with one strike. None. Even the most important characters are dead immediately. The longest fight scene is between love interest and bad guy 1, and that’s kind of… a desperate fight, as opposed to cool badassery. It’s a bunch of people flailing around as opposed to a badass, choreographed scene.

Most of the movie was Mr. Main Character getting used to being a laundry man. He doesn’t smile, and people in this town take to him, and teach him how to have fun, and he takes care of a baby. It was so weird. There’s this cast of carnival characters and I guess we’re supposed to get to like them. Nobody was really very well developed, though. They were all stereotypes, living together. They didn’t really feel well developed. Granted, the Cowboy Villian, Bad Guy #1, was wonderfully creepy, so they did that right at least. But still, not really a full character.

The visuals, too… well, Essner described them as “Like Amilie” which is kind of accurate? Nothing was real at all. Every shot was really constructed and had a lot of CG in it. It certainly gave the film an interesting look, but without the rest of the stuff to back it up, it doesn’t seem completely worth it.

I don’t know. It was such a weird film, I’m unsure what to think of it. It wasn’t an offensive movie, but it was really strange, and nothing like it seemed like it was going to be. I can’t really recommend seeing it in theaters, but it was an experience, to be sure.