The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

There are very few movies that I wait for with incredible excitement. I’m pretty completely in the video game camp now. I only ever see movies when Essner invites me. That’s always enjoyable, but, you know, I rarely have a movie that I desperately need to see.

Fantastic Mr. Fox was that movie.

I’ve had plans to see it forever. I wanted to see it while I was in Arkansas, but it wasn’t out yet. I wanted to see it opening night, but I got sick. Last week, I finally got to see it.

It met all my expectations.

I admit those expectations were high. I mean, it had anthropomorphic, talking foxes, so you know I was interested. But even without that, it was a Wes Anderson movie, and he is, by far, one of my favorite directors. It had all the great actors involved for voices that he uses time and again because they’re totally awesome. It seemed like a winner. I wanted it bad.
And it was every bit as wonderful as I had hyped it up in my head to be.

This movie is not for kids. Sure, it’s rated PG, and is a stop-motion animation film with talking animals, but it is completely for adults. Characters say proxy f-bombs using the word “cuss,” which is kind of humorous in is own right. There’s fairly extreme violence. The plot is completely based off of a mid-life crisis plot that children will likely not resonate with, and has consequences that do not magically disappear at the end of the film, though it does come to a sort of happy ending. It’s a very adult movie, and a very excellent one.

This is completely a Wes Anderson movie all the way through. The stop-motion may be considered by some to be a gimmick, but I think it works incredibly well. Wes Anderson has always had a sort of weird retro kitsch style about his films. It makes them look very distinct. Therefore, it makes sense that, when making an animated movie, he would use a sort of outdated method that gives it a weird, but unique outdated look. It works just great.
The dialog, too, is completely Anderson fare. It is both hilarious and subtle, bringing out some fairly deep characters, certainly deeper than you might expect from a family of stop-motion foxes. Mr. Fox is a full-featured person, who’s dealing with a lot of issues having to deal with settling down and having a family when he feels himself a wild animal, not to mention dealing with the fact that his “fun” may have brought down an entire community later in the movie. Ash, his son, is dealing with issues of “being different,” something everyone tells him even though he thinks he’s just another member of the group, even while his cousin, who has moved in with the family and is better than him at every activity he tries, is seemingly proving otherwise. These A and B character arcs give the main plot, which, honestly, can get incredibly silly at times as Boggis, Bunce, and Bean spend insane amounts of money to take down Mr. Fox, some really strong depth.

The film is just incredibly fun. It was very enjoyable to watch, and it wasn’t mindless in its construction. What more could someone want from a movie? If you like Life Aquatic, Rushmore, or any of Anderson’s movies, don’t overlook this one just because it’s animated. You’ll enjoy it just as much, I promise.

Also, it is supposedly about penises. So, you know, that’s exciting too, right?

While I was sick, I moved the PS3 into my room in order to actually have something to do. I played inFamous for awhile (which I’ll talk about later, I’m sure) but then wanted something a bit more hands-off to do. That’s when I remembered that CJ, who sold me the PS3, had left a copy of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters on the machine for some reason. I had always meant to watch it, and this seemed like a great excuse, so I started it up.

This is a pretty amazing documentary, and deserves all the praise it got. There are a lot of weird people in the documentary, sure, and there are definitely some things that you will probably laugh, or at least grin at for being so absurd. At the same time, it tells a really great story. It’s all about Steve Wiebe attempting to attain the international top score in, what else, Donkey Kong. There’s this almost hilarious sequence when people are talking about how Donkey Kong is “the hardest game ever” which just seemed so surreal, even if I didn’t doubt that, in the context of these kind of competitions, it very well might be. Wiebe’s quest is fraught with problems, though, as it paints the man who held the top score since the 80’s, and who is famous for being the first person to “beat” Pac-Man, Billy Mitchell, as being a huge douche and a complete villain. I know it’s possible that he wasn’t QUITE as much of an ass as the movie paints him. Editing can do some amazing things. But man, it makes for a compelling story, seeing him snub, refuse to face, and embarrass Wiebe from a distance the entire time. It is one of the best put-together documentaries I’ve ever seen. It does a really good job of establishing what’s important, and why it’s important. It also does a great job of drawing these weird-ass “professional old-school gamer politics” lines, where some people are Billy’s henchmen, almost, and some just want to take him down. Lines are drawn. It’s just… really way more dramatic than a movie about playing Donkey Kong has any right to be, and does it without being forced the majority of the time.

The only downside to the movie is that the ending is a bit anti-climatic. I mean, I’m sure they couldn’t do anything about it. It seemed like the circumstances of the ending came about after they had basically finished, and they felt it important to tack on this extra bit of information, but it’s certainly less powerful than the rest of the film, and leaves you with a weird feeling.
Still, the overall experience is excellent. I feel like I’ve done an awful job of explaining it, though. But oh well. You should watch it anyway. It would be a great rental, and a great time. Go for it.
And thanks, CJ, for putting that somewhere where I could enjoy it.

While I was off in the beautiful land of Arkansas, I had to have something to do! So I went to see a movie, that being Where the Wild Things Are, mostly because Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn’t showing yet and, on retrospect, I had heard lame things about Men Who Stare at Goats, and good things about this one, so I went for it. (Okay, that’s kind of a run-on sentence. Whee.)

Originally, I was kind of down on the film, based on the previews. It just looked like more CG crap to ruin a classic children’s story. But at some point, Essner pointed out that the movie was directed by Spike Jonze, which quickly made me interested. He’s the director of some of my favorite films, such as Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation. (And, apparently, writer on the Jackass movies, or so his IMDB page says, which kind of blows my mind.) Him being involved made it have potential. So I went to see it.

It was pretty good, but I left feeling like I missed something. The various monsters on the island that Max goes to obviously have connections to his real life that we get a glimpse of. Seeing as some of them share voice actors, it’s pretty completely clear that a connection is being made. However, perhaps because I was at an English conference, I was trying to put on my English Major hat and figure out the connections, and I didn’t quite pull it off during the first viewing. Some are clear. Carol is obviously a near-copy of Max’s social frustration and anger, for example, and the little goat dude is how Max feels ignored. I just didn’t get everything. I’m sure I would on another viewing. Still, it was nice to see a movie that had that kind of plan in place. It was obvious that the movie was written for adults who grew up with the book as kids. That was the focus. There were children in the audience enjoying it too, but that was really what as being pushed, it seemed.

I feel like I have to mention the child actor for Max. He does a good job, but damn, he’s creepy. There’s something about the expressions he has that is unsettling. It’s like he’s acting younger than he really is. I think that’s a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers, though. He’s supposed to be holding on to this playful, childish childhood while his life gets more serious, and he runs away into his imagination. It’s not hard to figure out why Max would feel out of place, and why other people would have a hard time interacting with him. It’s just kind of odd that you feel very little sympathy for him, or at least I didn’t. I bet children would, but I was often going, “You stupid kid, you’re going to get yourself killed!” Maybe I’ve got too much parental instinct wanting to get out.

In any case, the visuals did come together in a significant way, and the story is something worthy of looking at and attempting to break down. This is completely a movie for adults, and I did really like it. I’ll have to watch it again when it hits DVD sometime to fully grok it, though.

In watching Zombieland, I learned something. I apparently subconsciously think that dark humor is not “genuine” or “real” humor.

I mean, that’s not true. Dark Humor can be totally and completely awesome. I enjoy dabbling in it from time to time. It also seems like a decent fit for a movie called Zombieland, as well. I mean, you’re obviously going to have some gore (And Zombieland doesn’t pull too many punches in that department) and death and whatnot. Dark Humor seems likely. Zombieland didn’t really go that way, though. What you find is a strong, character-based comedy set to the background of a Zombie Apocalypse for no reason other than Zombies are hot right now, I guess. (Also, why did I just capitalize Zombie Apocalypse?)

Seriously, the cast is very small. Just the four survivors. But they all do a really great job in being entertaining, but real people, which is just the perfect sort of combination. Tallahassee, Woody Harrelson’s character, is really the most “cartoonish” of the bunch, and is indeed the source of many of the strongest laughs in the film. At the same time, the movie makes sure to make him a real human being, and does so in a way that doesn’t seem all that forced or tacked on. It’s actually kind of nice, really.

So yeah, instead of humorous, over-the-top zombie kills, you have entertainment based on strong characters interacting. And it works well. And it involves a great cameo by a fucking awesome guy. So I totally, totally dug it.

A final note: They’re pushing a line as quotable in the ads, it seems, that of the mantra of “Nut up or Shut up.” This is not a memorable line. Seriously, one of the best lines of dialog in the entire movie is “Let me start the first part of my three-part apology by saying that you are a wonderful human being,” and I can totally see THAT being a quotable line. Conversations of Balls works alright in the movies, but man, who would actually say that?
Okay, so, people would. But nobody I know. Thankfully. Besides Spaeth. But he would probably say something completely different about balls.

I’m done now.

So, on a complete whim, Essner gets invited by Mason, one of his awesome Film class friends, to go see Inglorious Basterds. I was in the middle of purchasing a Birthday present for my mother months early and then renting a film with Spants, so we decided just to switch over and join them and watch that. And, of course, Essner sat in the stupid front row of the theater grr. But so it goes.

In any case, I thought I knew exactly what to expect from this film. I figured that I would see lots of pointless gore and that there would be many Nazis killed, and that there would be some humor, but it would mostly just be a sort of crazy mindless action thingy.

I was completely wrong.

Inglorious Basterds is all about dialog. Long, long bits of dialog, drawn out longer and longer for dramatic tension until you can’t even stand it anymore… and then there’s a gunfight that’s over in about 2 seconds. That’s basically what you SHOULD be expecting. I mean, there’s plenty of points of humor in these long, long bits of dialog, but it’s mostly a dramatic device.
Another thing you may not realize about this movie: Brad Pitt’s character is not really the main character. Even though he’s the one in all the previews, on the movie poster, and so on, it’s really a story much more about The Jew Hunter. (I forget his character’s actual name. I am so awful with names.) The movie is significantly more about his exploits in trying to further his own agenda than it is about Brad Pitt’s band of Americans kills Nazis. And those exploits are pretty awesome. They have an almost Death-Note-like quality, where it’s all kind of ridiculous mind games, but presented in a way that you’re constantly riveted, even though you know it’s a bit ridiculous.
Granted, there is still plenty of over-the-top violence. Nazis are scalped right in front of you, knives are stabbed into people… I had to look away from the screen many, many times throughout the course of the film. But that wasn’t the focus.

I’m really unsure what to say about this movie. On the one hand, the fact that the movie surprised me, and turned out to be more about things that I like than over the top gore and violence pleased me. On the other hand, I don’t understand why there wasn’t more with the Basterds, more humorous introductions of their characters, and more focus on them. I loved the crap out of Mr. Jew Hunter’s character, and I rooted for him. But at the same time, there are going to be plenty of people walking into that theater who aren’t going to want to accept him as the protagonist, and are just going to be left confused as to why the “main characters” have such a small role in the film. The people that the trailer would have brought in to see the film are more than likely going to hate the long, drawn out bits of dialog. The movie seems to fail at what it’s trying to be.

Still, I was very pleased with my decision to go see it. It’s one of those movies I never would have even considered viewing if my friends hadn’t dragged me along, and I left the theater surprised and entertained. I probably never need to see it again, but it was a good experience. If it interested you at all, and the fact that there is gallons upon gallons of dialog in the film doesn’t immediately turn you off, it should be at least worth a rent.

I saw G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra!

It was shocking.

I mean, seriously, the trailers looked horrible. Like some bad son of Transformers that was going to be painful to sit through the whole time. And yet, my friends decided they were going, so I decided to come along.

Maybe it’s just the power of lowered expectations, but goodness, I really enjoyed this film. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It is dumb. Completely stupid. But man, unlike so many things that are stupid, it KNOWS its stupid. It knows it is based off of a cartoon that was created just to sell action figures. The Joes have no less than 4 million vehicles, some of which have parts that do nothing. (At one point, they get on these snowmobiles that have wings, which, after jumping like three feet out of the transport they were on, detatch. What’s the point of that?) There are crazy lasers and weapons, there are always random armies of guys about whenever someone needs a fight scene… it’s just so dumb, but it knows it. It embraces it. Why not have a weapon make an entire floor explode one minute, and then bounce off of the hero the next for no reason? Why not have a nonsensical “nanomite” weapon that is sometimes dangerous and sometimes not, whenever it’s appropriate?

This movie gave me much of the same rush as Shoot ‘Em Up did when I saw it in the theater. Constantly I was going “That makes no sense!” and “What the fuck!” but at the same time it was so thrilling and just unashamedly fun that I didn’t care. I was thinking I wasn’t going to like the movie going in, and apparently that was a bad plan. When I got there, my expectations were surpassed.
The only letdown was that there wasn’t a PSA after the credits. What a complete waste of a perfect opportunity.

But yeah, no. This won’t win any awards. I will probably never watch it again. But it was just a fun, stupid evening of action and explosions, and I had a shockingly good time. Watch it to MST3K it, or just watch it to watch things explode, and you won’t be disappointed.

So I just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I guess I’m in the minority, but as much as I loved Harry Potter originally, J.K. Rowling’s writing quickly showed how weak it was as they let her write longer and longer novel and she attempted to build up a world she obviously hadn’t put all the much thought into. It’s a fun world, but it’s a world riddled with retcons and fairly ridiculous plots and dialog.
Book 5 was the beginning of the end for the series being any good, and that’s why, when I saw the movie version, I was shocked at how entertaining and just plain fun it was. Even having to deal with the “Harry is an angst-monster” plot, it was just a good time.

The movie of the fairly awful book 6 thankfully follows along with this tradition. It is obvious that the writer of this film was given plenty of leeway with the retarded events of the novel, and has turned the majority of the movie into a really great romance story between friends that is as hilarious as it is entertaining. The chemistry between Harry, Hermione, and Ron is just completely wonderful. They’re like actors or something. They give each other these wonderful looks and glances, and they have dialog that wouldn’t look out of place between a trio of friends. You would never expect Harry to respond to Hermione’s accusations that girls are only interested in him because he was “The Chosen One” with “I am the Chosen One.” It’s charming, and funny, and Hermione’s response is perfect as well. This kind of shit is all through the movie, and it’s why it is so far above what the book is.

In fact, the parts that pretty well follow the book exactly, to the best of my remembrance, are pretty well the worst parts of the film. The last bit of the film with them running after the horcrux is okay, with some nice effects, but it just isn’t as interesting as the chemistry of everyone living out their fun times at Hogwarts.

But yeah, the movie? Totally great. Totally. Worth your time. I only hope they give whoever free reign to write whatever they want. Maybe the 2 book 7 movies won’t be as god-awful as the book was, if that’s the case.

Star Trek is a movie that could have sucked so badly. It was taking a series that is not known for action and making an action blockbuster out of it. It was applying some crazy stupid time travel plot in order to bring back the original Kirk-era Enterprise and characters. It had someone nobody had ever heard of playing the key role of Kirk himself. There was so much stacked up against this film. So much that could easily go wrong.

And none of it did.

Star Trek blew me away. (IGN.com) It was, by far, the best remake/re-imagining/reboot of a series that I can remember.

Most of the time, when bringing a series to the screen or rebooting it, you are making a devil’s bargain. If you play too close to the original canon and concepts, you’re tying yourself up creatively, meaning you can do less that is interesting and effective with the film. Newcomers won’t be interested, because so much of it will exclude them. And no matter how good a job you do, you’re always going to get SOMETHING wrong, which will piss off the fans, who will always recognize every little mistake. On the other side, if you cast off everything the original had besides the premise, you gain some appeal to the mainstream, but you’re still going to turn people off, because they’ll assume they need prior knowledge. Additionally, your fans, who are your main source of income and who are the reason you picked up the IP, will hate it, and not support you. There seems to be nothing you can do.

Still, Star Trek found a way. If you were to read its time travel, alternate reality plot on paper, it would, seriously, sound like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard of. However, they treated it not only with respect, but intelligence, and the result was amazing to behold. By establishing clear connections to the canon as well as establishing very clearly WHY what’s happening on the screen is not canon as the fans know it in very Star Trek terms, it freed up the movie to take any liberties it wanted. It let them make the movie their own. It let them set up a Star Trek movie that was full of balls-to-the-wall action that didn’t upset fans, and could even surprise them.
All the characters you love are here. The cast is amazingly well done. They are new takes by new actors, certainly, but they’re also very clearly the roles they are cast in. Each person is different, but completely fitting. They are who they are playing. Somehow, they even managed to fit in almost all of the characters’ well-known catch-phrases in places where it didn’t seem joke-y or like a wink to the audience. Hearing Scotty tell us that “She can’t take much more, Captain!” is awesome in a fan service way, but when he says it in a completely action-filled situation where it’s extremely visually clear that she really CAN’T take much more, you get to have your cake and eat it too. The only downside, really, is that you’ve got this great ensemble cast, but the movie is Kirk and Spock’s show. Everyone gets a little time in the spotlight, but it’s not nearly enough, especially for Bones.
The action, too, was really good action. I watched Wolverine: Origins, which was supposed to be an action-blockbuster, but it was downright tame compared to most of the action sequences in Star Trek. The fistfights were brutal, the firefights were intense, and the ship to ship combat was, somehow, exciting while not betraying the almost time-honored tradition of the ships seemingly staying in one place and just firing at once another.

Will fans as a whole bash the film? I don’t know. As a lover of Next Gen and general appreciator of Star Trek, I loved the crap out of this movie. I know Spaeth, who is a huge Trekkie, enough of one to watch all of Voyager and Enterprise, loved it as well. If an action-y Star Trek seems like something you will enjoy, I will tell you: This won’t disappoint. It is good stuff.

Watchmen has penis.

Standing outside the movie theater, I announced that I would be very, very disappointed if I did not get to see some blue Doc Manhattan dick. I was far from disappointed with the movie based on that criteria.
It’s a damn good thing that movies are growing up to the point where I can go to a theater and see full male nudity, even if it’s CGI male nudity. Not that the movie was particularly sexy or anything, but I dunno. We have such stupid taboos on things sometimes. I’m glad people can push the envelope and show me some dick if it’s appropriate. And I think it was appropriate.

Still, what did I think of the movie overall? It was pretty good in general. I think it looked visually stunning, but you should have been expecting that if you saw the trailers. The acting wasn’t TOO horrible, although it wasn’t perfect. I think that’s just what you get for getting people nobody recognizes in there in order to make them look perfectly like the characters. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

The soundtrack was… odd. It was desperately trying to invoke the time period in which the movie is set as opposed to matching the movie in parts? It was kind of weird in that respect, though I can accept that kind of attempt, you know?
It was especially bad during the long, drawn out sex scene where it was playing Alleluia while two people fucked very graphically. It was horrible. And that whole scene was horrible. It seemed pasted in there JUST to be an apology for showing so much penis “so hey, here’s a naked woman. That makes it better, right?” It was so lame. I mean, there were earlier sex scenes, but they served a purpose. The sex scene with Doc Manhattan sets up his character. The earlier, fumbling sex scene with Nite Owl shows how different he was from the Doc, but that he was still appealing because he was human. The last one was just… ugh.

There was a lot of very graphic violence, too. I had to look away from the screen at several points. This I have less problem with. It mostly looked cool, and it served a point: to show how, you know, dirty and imperfect this superhero world was. I can dig it.

I do have to wonder why the fuck the ending was changed, though. There didn’t seem to be much reason for it. It seemed to be there just to create controversy and make people angry instead of making a good film. Apparently, though, I’ve been told I forgot how the comic actually ends, and that some things I thought were added were not actually added. So maybe I’m just missing something. But the comic ended so perfectly, I really have no idea why you’d touch ANYTHING, and things were touched. Oh yes.

It doesn’t really ruin the movie, though? It’s still worth seeing, just to see all of these characters on screen so pretty and competent. But it does keep it from being, I dunno, perfect? Totally awesome? The movie is long as just kind of there, for the most part. I didn’t leave energized, or excited. It was just a decent movie.
That’s about all I have to say about it.

So, I watched the last Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, and all I can really say is “meh.”

At least it wasn’t as god-awful as Bender’s Game. That had a BRILLIANT premise that they proceeded to shit all over and completely waste. Fantasy Futurama would be great. Bunch of horrible fantasy parodies? Not great.
Still, this one isn’t really all that wonderful. None of the movies are. Bender’s Big Score kind of gets a pass because it’s got so much fan service, and Beast With a Billion Backs has its fans who aren’t me. But man, I mean… I dunno. I’d be very unhappy if I’d, you know, bought the thing with my own money. And I buy really stupid shit all the time and don’t regret it. Too much.

But yeah, I dunno. I’m unsure, I guess, why these “movies” had to try to be all epic. I don’t know why they couldn’t just be funny. I mean, I liked some of the plot stuff, but dammit, it’s about the humor, right? But all of them tried to be fucking wide-reaching. Was that just an effect of having more time? I dunno.

Ugh, I’m just ranting uselessly. The point is, there were very few moments that made me laugh in the movie, and there were moments of it being painful. At least Bender’s Game had the QVC parody that had me laughing. There was nothing really like that here. There was a bunch of painfully horrible puns that were funny the first 10 times and then went on for the entire movie, and there was a Penn and Teller cameo… and… I dunno. I really don’t know.

Basically, you aren’t missing much if you don’t see Into the Wild Green Yonder. At least Essner would be happy there was no musical number in it.