Parents (Mainly My Mom).... They Confuse Me

So a while ago (I don't remember how long ago) my brother told my mom about how this kid in his school was wearing a shirt that had something to do with Grand Theft Auto V and she said something that I thought was kind of weird, and that was something along the lines of that because his mom lets him play games like that, he's a naughty kid. Now I have no idea whether or not that is true since I don't know the kid myself, but part of the problem is that playing games like that would make a kid misbehave, which I do not believe to be true unless there is something wrong with them mentally to begin with and that is another story but I kind of had to go "Really?" because this was the same person who got me San Andreas when I was my brother's age. I should also mention that it'll always be dependent on how well the kid can process things like that and some can handle it at earlier ages than others. She has also been hypocritical at times or thinking that one thing was bad while another thing that was objectively worse was fine; example being comparing the sangs Get Lucky to Blurred Lines, which I could get into why I think that argument in incredibly flawed, I'll let it slide this time. The sad thing is that most people acquire their taste in films and music from their parents, either directly or indirectly and I like to think that I got most of my film tastes from my mom while my musical tastes comes from my dad (a little from the others on both) and when it comes to having a difference of opinion when it comes to those things, I like to consider it that they did a good job parenting me, having exposed me to things that they thought were good as long as they were sure I could handle it (which I could for the most part) and I have them to thank for my taste in things, even if it leads me to dislike a lot of theirs in the process. It would be easy to say that, "Oh this has too much swearing or too much violence" and etc., without actually considering the context of things, which is another thing I learned from them. The context of why things happen is important to explain to kids about movies and video games, why one is more inappropriate than the other. This was also part of something the other day when I was watching an episode of Trigun when everybody had to come to the living room to eat and it was episode seven (it was difficult to listen with people being loud and no subtitles) and there was a scene where the kid in the episode who was with the people hijacking the sand crawler had a gun held to his mouth and my mom thought it was a bit much even though nothing happened to him. Now I think she didn't get the context which I could understand if she wasn't paying attention but I wish she would have just let it continue on since it's not like the kids haven't seen that kind of stuff before. But what is the point I'm making here? I'm just here to say that I do love my parents even though it may not seem like it most of the time since they made me the person I am today. I just find it weird that my mom who exposed me to a lot of things as a kid that most would have frowned upon (and I turned out okay for the most part) has turned into kind of a prude similar to that DVD-R Hell episode Brad Jones did on Deception of a Generation. Maybe it is my duty to be the purveyor of that kind of stuff now that my mom no longer wants to do that, to make sure that my brother turns out okay before it is too late.

Top Five - This Movie Is Actually Funny? Awesome.

It is rather hard to say whether or not Chris Rock has had a good career in film, yet there was always this assumption that Rock was a funny person, either from his days as a comedian, his stint on Saturday Night Live, or when he got his own show. I find him to be funny in things like that although aside from a few roles in movies, that humor never really translated. I can never say that I have seen all that much to judge him wholeheartedly, I have enjoyed some of his roles, such as Rufus in Dogma or as JB/Daddy Tang in Pootie Tang, but there are also things like the Grown Ups movies which I don't like at all for being such as black hole of talent or as mentioned from the Penguins of Madagascar review, that series is not something I really like to watch regularly. There was also the unnecessary remake of Death at a Funeral, the original being one of my favorite movies. So it can be said that lately his film career has not been that good, although maybe financially successful. So when trailers for this movie came out, I was kind of intrigued but also cautious due to said track record. Then one of the internet reviews I trust a lot gave it a good review and some others have said good things about it so I thought I'd give it a watch. And what I got could easily be one of the best things that Chris Rock has done in his career so far.

Top Five, which was also written and directed by Rock, follows a day in the life of Andre Allen, a former comedian turned comedy film star who has to juggle many things going on all the while being followed by a reporter almost the entire time, who he begins to open up to about his life. The two of them do start to develop a sort of a connection with one another over the course of the film yet it never devolves into a romantic comedy which I rather liked and I'm glad for. That said, the chemistry between Rock and Chelsea Brown, played by Rosario Dawson, is really good as they are able to switch from the comedic moments to the more serious beats of the story in a rather believable way. The rest of the cast comes in and out, mainly just appearing in a few scenes before fading away, such as Kevin Hart's character as Allen's agent whom I thought would have been more prominent in the film which did kind of make me worry. Not because I don't like him (I don't have enough of a gauge of that to really say) but more due to the prominence he has had in comedic films over the past few years I though it would be overexposure. His time in the movie was funny though, I'll give him that. The only character who does appear in the film a significant amount of time other than the leads would be Silk, Andre's assistant played by JB Smoove, who does get some laughs in the movie. 

A prominent source of jokes in the film comes from the movie that Andre is promoting called Uprize, his first attempt at more serious work where he plays a prominent member of the Haitian slave revolution. Part of it is poking fun at how miscast Allen appears to be in the movie, where the best way to describe it is to pretend that Chris Rock was cast in the lead of Django Unchained and you can get how miscast he would be in that. A sight gag I found funny was that at one of the promotions there was a pamphlet called the Uprize Fitness Kit but I might be one of the few who gets a laugh at that. I should also give some credit for the movie not giving away all of the good jokes in the trailer, at least the one that I saw being the case since there were a lot that were really good. My favorite though might be during Andre's bachelor party where there is a cameo by Jerry Seinfeld and saying too much might ruin it but if the prospect of seeing Seinfeld "makin' it rain" sounds funny to you, then this movie is for you. If you're hesitant about this movie, I'd say give it a chance since it is easily one of the best things Chris Rock has done in years and hopefully it'll be a better movie than you expect it to be. 

Epilogue: I did consider calling this a more conventional version of Birdman since there are some similar themes in it but I was unsure whether or not that is true. 

Penguins of Madagascar - And yes, I saw this movie by myself, by the way

From the title, I admit that was the situation going into the theater this week. I hadn't gone in a while since Nightcrawler and Birdman no longer being in the theater meant that there really wasn't anything I wanted to watch aside from Interstellar again (maybe Big Hero 6), which I had planned to see but missed a reasonable screening time so my mind came back to a recent midnight screening episode on thecinemasnob.com where Brad saw the movie by himself as well and enjoyed it. He also talked about how ridiculous the first two thirds was and how schizophrenic the story was in that period of time, which sometimes would not work but from what was going on I thought it would be nice to give it a shot. I mean he had me sold at animated Werner Herzog, so how was I not going to see this movie?

Another point I should bring up is that the movie series that Penguins of Madagascar comes from is one that I think is kind of okay, but not really worth watching multiple times. Then again, I have only seen the first and third one all of the way through. I'm not sure why I haven't seen the second one all the way yet but it just hasn't happened. It's not like there isn't anything good in those movies, since there really is some good things in them, mainly the penguins. I have also had no exposure to the show The Penguins of Madagascar but from what I've heard, the movie doesn't take place in the same continuity and is pretty much a direct sequel to the third film. That sequence when the penguins decide to leave the circus due to the constant listening of that fucking annoying as hell Circus Afro song (which I can relate to obviously) was a good sign that this movie was going to be a lot of fun. That came after the origin opening sequence, which is where the Werner Herzog thing comes into play. It has the first three penguins, Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico as young penguins going to rescue a lone egg, that ends up becoming their fourth member Private, that strayed from the pack, which has them planning their rescue at the edge of the cliff, where Herzog is watching them with a documentary crew, and Herzog has the guy with the boom mic push the penguins off the cliff for dramatic effect. That had me sold on the movie right then and there.

The plot is rather simple with the penguins having to stop the nefarious scheme of the octopus Dave, voiced by John Malkovich, who you can tell from the way he delivers most of his lines that he is having so much fun in the role. Dave is a really fun villain right from the introduction when he kidnaps the penguins with the help of a vending machine and his plan is to turn all of the penguins in the world into monsters after being outshined by them at the zoo for years. The plot itself is rather simple but it goes into a lot of tangents, which can come off as stupid and pointless in other movies but this one seems to at least keep some form of stability with the off the wall stuff as well, such as the penguins breaking into Fort Knox, the whole North Wind task force that they always run into with Skipper and Agent Classified always at odd with one another, and Private being the cutest one of them all plays into the ending. My favorite part though mainly just for one line being really hilarious is when the penguins end up in Shanghai and end up mistaking it for Dublin, which in itself is a rather amusing scene, and they realize that they have to go to Shanghai since that's where Dave is going, so they ship themselves there and I wish I could remember the line exactly after Skipper pops out and remarks but it has the phrase Shanghai's little Dublin district in it which for some reason made me laugh a lot.

It can be weird to be at a movie aimed at kids by yourself just because it was the only thing there that sounded fine, but to be honest I think this is a really fun movie that a lot of people can enjoy. Is every adult going to like it? No. I liked it though even though it was more amusing that laugh out loud funny. I had a laugh out loud time watching The Wolf of Wall Street yesterday and I knew that I was never going to get that with Penguins of Madagascar. It's a movie that is a spinoff with a group of secondary characters and usually, movies like that don't work all that well but the penguins are entertaining and this one is worth seeing at a matinee or with kids if you have them. It's worth a rental for sure when it comes to digital. I'll probably give this a second thought if I catch Big Hero 6 next Tuesday since I think if it's there, I'll see that or I'll go see The Hobbit film that's coming out.

The Friedkin Connection #3 - Crusing

Coming from a director known for having done a lot of films that were considered controversial for the time, the 1980 film Cruising might be one of those that could be the highest on that list for Friedkin. A thriller about a cop who goes undercover into the S&M scene of gay culture at the time in order to find a serial killer sounds like something that most people would be okay with filming. At the time of filming, protests from the gay community got so bad to the point where a good portion of the exterior shots had to be dubbed due to the amount of loud noises that would be playing and many places didn't allow any filming inside doe to the subject matter. From the sounds of things, it was a miracle that the movie was able to get made in the first place. But after all of that controversy, does that overshadow the film itself to the point where people might be turned off by it, especially due to the PC type of society we live in where any amount of controversy might turn people off? Well, I'm sure you all have had enough of that so let's just talk about the movie itself.

In the lead role of Steve Burns, the cop who goes undercover, is Al Pacino who does a rather good job at becoming this guy who is forced to explore a part of society that he would not, along with being able to convey how this job is affecting him which more or less is done with subtext, which might be a turn off with this film since it really doesn't explain all that much unless you're actively looking for it. The rest of the cast works too, especially cameos from pre-fame people like Powers Boothe as a cashier talking about what color hankies in which back pockets mean and a blink and you'll miss it appearance from Ed O'Neil as one of the detectives during the interrogation scene, which had to be one of the more out there scenes of the movie. I'll get onto that later but I also have to give credit to Joe Spinell who is fantastic in this as usual but I wish that he had been in the movie more and I didn't realize that James Remar was in this too since I recognized him but couldn't put a name to it.

I do have a major problem with this film though and it does detract from it all and what could have been a really good movie and that is the whole flow of the story. Often times, it feels like plot points are abandoned and brought up at the last possible moment to resolve them a bit. The earliest example of that is the Joe Spinell character , who is one of the first characters introduced in the movie where he and his partner pick up two transgender prostitutes and force them to give them sexual favors. One of the prostitutes tells this to the police chief in exchange for any information regarding the murder case and until the end, the plot point only comes up twice in passing. The first being one of the times the Steve Burns character is in one of the clubs and he spots Spinell among the crowd and the last being the prostitute asking whether or not they figured out which cop it was. The whole undercover plot goes nowhere as well since after the interrogation scene, it just goes into this plot where Burns follows this one suspect and it goes into some of the life of this guy and implies that he is the killer. It's not like I don't like that point, it's just it kind of feels like the story is thrown together which does make the implication in the end kind of not make sense. I get what Friedkin was trying to do but it just doesn't make any sense. Whether or not a longer cut would help the film is anyone's guess but I'm curious what the longer cut would be since one of the more entertaining stories from the Friedkin Connection book was involving the initial screening of the to the film board or studio execs, where he made a cut where he shows the worst things he can (mainly lots of hardcore sex) so that he could get the cut he wants since it'll look less shocking in comparison. The soundtrack is fun though and I wish I knew more about it although it was done by Jack Nitzsche, who also did the non Tubular Bells score for The Exorcist, I'd recommend the soundtrack a lot if you enjoy the late 70's, early 80's punk and hard rock scene. So if I have to say how I feel about this movie, I feel like there is a good movie in this but it just needed to be a little more concise in terms of the plotting to make it work. It probably is my least favorite of his films that I have seen but I kind of think that there might be worse that I'll see, but I'll give it another watch just for the score and the interrogation scene alone. 

Which One Is The Worst Halloween Twist? A Quick Descent Into Stupidity

To start off this post, I think the original Halloween is a classic film but has often been held higher in regard than it has any right to be. Sure the cinematography, the score, and the powerhouse performance by Donald Pleasence are wonderful and add to the movie so well, it's just without those things, it is a generic slasher. That and I prefer the Friday the 13th franchise. Also I wouldn't even put Halloween in the top half of John Carpenter films because most of the others are so much better, such as The Thing, Escape From New York, Assault on Precinct 13, Prince of Darkness, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, In The Mouth of Madness, and Escape From LA. I probably like The Fog slightly more than Halloween due to the atmosphere of that film being well done but I'm getting way off topic. The Halloween franchise, as we all know, was never really meant to continue with the story of the shape that we call Michael Myers but instead turn into a anthology series, as evidence shows with the existence of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (which I do like a lot) but that plan never came to be. Part of that might have been due to the fact that if that were the case, the studios should have not have made Halloween 2 a direct sequel to the first. But studios love their money and the first one made a lot of it, along with spawning the glutton of slasher films in the early 80's, so that one was made. As for that movie, I think it's fine. Not really noteworthy aside from it being the film debut of Dana Carvey and the stupid plot twist that is the reason I'm covering this: the fact that Michael and Laurie are brother and sister. The stupid plot elements/twists exist in future sequels and when I was thinking about it, a lot of them were really, really dumb and this is coming from the guy who just admitted he liked the Friday the 13th franchise a lot more, which had zombie Jason, telekinetic girl, slug creature and going to space. I thought I'd cover three of the things in the Halloween series that really made me go, "This is just fucking stupid." Those being the previously mentioned brother-sister thing, The Man in Black/Cult of Thorn from Halloween 6, and the beginning of Halloween: Resurrection AKA why that movie even happens after how the previous movie ended. I also thought about the ending of Halloween 4 which (SPOILERS but this whole post will have spoilers so I have warned thee!) ends with Jamie killing her foster mother in a way similar to how Michael killed his sister as a kid. Why that is not here is because for the most part, I think that it would have been a cool setup for sequels although there is that it is ripping off the ending of Friday the 13th part 5 (another movie that I shouldn't like but I do, mainly in the same way I like Troll 2 and Showgirls).

Halloween 2, oh how much of a betrayal you are in terms of continuity. One thing that I don't like about it too is how Doctor Loomis changes his personality almost immediately from the end of the first one, which had him with the look of "I knew this would happen" which does follow with how he saw Michael as being pure evil and thus something that probably could not be killed by normal means. That was changed to "Holy shit! This just happened." and Loomis becomes way too panicky and paranoid to the point where he accidentally kills a kid. But onto that twist. Throughout the film, Laurie has flashbacks which has her remembering how her mom told her that she was adopted but the last one that settles things is that she actually met Michael at Smiths Grove as a kid, which kind of throws the idea that she had no idea who Michael was aside from the story of that first murder out the window along with why was she there in the first place. The worst part was how the twist is revealed in the first place, when Loomis is being taken back to Smiths Grove due to Michael's escape and his investigation. He is with his colleague Marion Chambers, who was with him during Michael's escape, and she is the one who reveals the fact that Michael and Laurie are related. The worst thing about this was that how did Loomis not know this already? Loomis first met Michael fifteen years prior, around the time of Judith Myers' death, as was pointed out in the first film where Loomis explained that he had spent that time trying to communicate with him followed by trying to keep him locked away. Chambers explained that Michael's parents died two years AFTER he was committed to Smiths Grove, which left Laurie orphaned and to be adopted by the Strode family. Laurie was already born during the time of the first murder as well which leaves the question of where she was in the time frame but that will deal with the Cult of Thorn plot line so I'll cover that then. So as to why Loomis had no idea about that connection does make him seem really incompetent as a doctor due to how simple that information was. Sure, Chambers explained that the records of Laurie being Michael's sister were destroyed for reasons but that leaves the question still of who authorized that meeting between Laurie and Michael from the flashback. It could be assumed that it was 7-8 years before the events of the first movie which makes the whole Loomis didn't know thing all the more stupid. Unless it was authorized by Dr . Wynn which again would go into the Cult of Thorn plot. But seriously, this twist was really stupid. Also no matter if you hate the Rob Zombie remake and its sequel, they at least tried to make this twist work better and for the most part, it makes a little more sense but not enough.

Now we get to what most people consider to be one of the worst films in the series, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, infamous for the whole Thorn curse being the reason why Michael is such an invincible killing machine. And to be honest, it probably is one of the worst even with the producer's cut but I don't think that the Thorn curse is the main reason why it sucks. That doesn't mean it's not a stupid plot line but looking up some information regarding this film, I think that maybe this movie could have worked since from reading some of the original script, it actually isn't half bad, especially since it could be considered fan fiction due to writer Daniel Farrands having done a lot of work into putting the plot together, expanding on the Thorn symbols' brief appearance in the 5th entry. Yet the script was re written 11 times before the final version so I'll have to read some more of it to see what changes were made and for what reasons. So the whole Thorn curse thing is that its a Druid symbol that represents a demon who spreads destruction, and a child is chosen to bear the curse and is meant to sacrifice the next of kin in his tribe on Samhain. This is how the movie explains it from what I remember and it isn't that bad of an explanation for the supernatural elements of Michael Myers although sometimes it's better not to explain things. There is also the Man in Black, a mysterious figure that also first appears in the 5th film who in the end of that helps Michael escape police custody and as revealed in this film is part of the Cult of Thorn that kidnapped Jamie and impregnated her intending the child to become the next sacrifice. This is where the real problems come in with this plot line. In the movie, they bring back Tommy Doyle, one of the kids that Laurie babysat in the first film and he is staying with an odd lady named Mrs. Blankenship, who is revealed that she was babysitting Michael the night he killed his sister. I don't remember if it was mentioned if she was watching Laurie as well but I am not sure. Maybe some fan theory could explain that but it also mean that either Mrs. Blankenship is a terrible babysitter or that she was aware of the Thorn curse, since she tells the main characters that Danny hears the voice of the Man in Black just like Michael did all those years ago. The cult itself seems rather dumb too to think that they can control Michael which does end up backfiring on them in the end in the theatrical ending mainly (with the cult being killed off really brutally). I thought I had more nitpicks at this but I think there are many people who have done a good job at doing the subject justice and maybe I'll do a follow up on this one at another time.

Halloween Resurrection is the worst film in the franchise. No doubt about it. It is a rather pointless film especially considering how the previous film, Halloween H2O, ended with Laurie decapitating her brother. And they retconned that immediately in the sequel by saying that Michael disarmed a paramedic and had him take his place so Michael could leave the scene of the crime, meaning Laurie killed the wrong person. The reasoning behind his escape is ridiculous since why would Michael need to do that? And sure, the paramedic's windpipe was broken so he couldn't speak but in the end of that film, if that were the case, why didn't the paramedic just take the mask off? I don't think Michael thought that far ahead to think to make the mask stick to the guy's face. There is also the fact that how did no on notice Michael out in the open considering that he should be covered in severe burns from the events of Halloween 2. I don't know if I should forgive the fact that he should be blind as well due to his eyes being shot out which I think people would have taken notice to as well. The previous sequels also didn't take that into consideration (Halloween 5 had that moment with Jamie trying to communicate with him which has Michael taking off his mask to reveal his eyes) but H2O threw out that continuity so whatever. Another point that has to be made is that wouldn't this have given him the perfect opportunity to kill Laurie due to him being is disguise and not having to wait all the time that passes (which was apparently 3 years) and I can forgive Michael for not looking for Laurie for the 20 years prior to H2O but Resurrection just really seems all the more pointless because of it. And with Laurie being killed off right away in that one, the rest of the movie doesn't need to happen either since what is the real point now that he killed his sister?

So what is the verdict? Which Halloween plot twist/element is the worst of them all? That's easy, it's Halloween 2's brother-sister twist. Sure the thorn curse is dumb for a lot more reasons for many people but at least the writer thought that through and took some of the hinted elements to make something out of it, although it did fail (mostly due to Joe Chappelle rewriting the ending on set and changing a lot of the plot around) yet it had some things to cling onto unlike the twist in 2 which seemed like an afterthought. Resurrection is probably a worse betrayal but the movie itself is rather pointless and should be erased from the minds of everyone who has seen it. Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be a controversial post since this was just something I thought of that would be fun to write. So to sign off, wow was the Halloween franchise really stupid.

What The F&@#? or Is This Really That Bad? #2 - Showgirls

I haven't done one of these in a long while, mainly due to not really knowing what movies I should be covering and recently, I thought that maybe it shouldn't be limited to films on this series. This will be apparent with hopefully my next post, which will be a music album and a pretty notorious one at that. But we'll leave that for another day since we've got a really fun movie to talk about right now. That being the 1995 Paul Verhoeven directed, Joe Eszterhas penned Showgirls. I avoided this film for quite some time due to the amount of hate the film had garnered, yet I had grown a slight appreciation for the director recently, having fallen in love with Robocop and really enjoying Total Recall. So when I wrote my review for Interstellar a few weeks back, I decided that I'll put the movie on in the background which in hindsight ended up being a mistake since Showgirls is one of those movies where it is kind of a masterpiece in all of the wrong ways, the kind of movie where you expect everyone involve to never work in the film business, or at least not in any big budget system again. And I can see why when I look at it. It could almost draw a parallel to Troll 2 in it's incompetence (maybe not that bad but both movies are still enjoyable) with the acting just being so off in a way that is hard to explain. Elizabeth Berkley as Nomi Malone is the prime example of this, making her easily the best and worst thing about this movie. Part of that does come from how she is probably topless in 70% of the movie and she looks rather attractive minus the times where she just looks as if she's really trying way, way, way too hard. This being like the lap dance scene or the most ridiculous sex scene ever (with Agent Dale Cooper, of all people) that add to this aspect, where all of her movements are strange to look at, making them all the more captivating. Also have to give props to this movie for the phrase "Everybody got AIDS and shit."

But what about the plot of this movie? To put it simply, it follows Nomi Malone who hitchhikes to Las Vegas to make it big, going through many hardships all the while doing whatever she can to make it to the top. She gets abandoned at the start of the film, getting her feet back on track when she befriends Molly, who works with a show at the Stardust Casino called Goddess, which leads to Nomi being introduced to the lead of said show, Cristal Connors. Cristal does many things to humiliate Nomi due to her being a stripper and believing what she does is nothing more than prostitution, angering the latter every time it is brought up. The forms of humiliation include the earlier mentioned lap dance, the dance audition and an appearance at a boat trade show where Nomi is expected to offer herself up to whoever wants it. This leads Nomi to try and take the top spot from Cristal at any costs. That is kind of the most simple way I could put this without including a lot of other plot elements that come and go throughout. And again, the acting from everyone is so weird and off that I'm not sure whether it's intentionally bad or not. The dialogue doesn't help things at all as it reads like a gigantic melodrama which depending on who you hear it from, was Eszterhas' and Verhoeven's intention for the thing. I could see that maybe, due to how a lot of Verhoeven's American films are, including the two I mentioned in the beginning and from what I hear about Starship Troopers. I really don't know where else to go with this one other than if you haven't seen it and you like films that could be called "so bad they are good," watch this as soon as you can. I also heard about the commentary track of this is also worth a listen to and I'll catch it when I can but this movie was so much fun when I saw it that it might turn into a regular watch or at least I'll put it on when I'm doing something else so I can have it in the background.

I apologize for this being shorter than expected but I haven't done this series in a long while so I have to work on it a bit. Maybe my next one will be better and for those who are curious, I'll be covering the 2011 Lou Reed - Metallica collaboration Lulu.