They Weren't Tears of Joy : A DC Comics Story (And a Green Lantern Review! )

   For those of you wondering what that picture is, it's two parts leading to the beginning of the end of DC, not just the comics but the whole damn company will fall becuase of what this logo represents: Green Lantern, and their falling comic book sales. And now a little history :
*Ahem*
   The name DC Comics comes from one of the companies earliest and most successful comics Detective Comics. The series that introduced Batman to the world , in its 27th issue Batman swung in from the rooftops and became the worlds greatest detective. And from then on the company went from National Allied Publications to DC Comics. Beautiful huh?

   Actually no. Not at all. I spit on such history. Fast forward to today and the company has hundreds of well known characters and hundreds more you've probably never heard of. And to this day the most successful is still Batman. He sells the most  comics and in recent years has had the some of the best superhero movies we may ever see. The Dark Knight is one of the highest grossing films of all time and The Dark Knight Rises look likes it could be just as good and almost as successful.


   Sadly it looks like Batman is the only thing this company can sell anymore, Marvel makes far more money off of their movies (Marvel has five times as many good movies as DC does) and currently Marvel Comics are outselling DC's even after the big universal reboot. DC tried to push for TV with their new Wonder Women show and.... well no ones picked up the pilot yet. I wonder why.

   Luckily for DC they had another chance. They had a big chance. HUGE EVEN! They took one of their oldest most popular characters of all time and tried to turn him into a movie too. Maybe it's undeniable success would usher in a new era for the whole company. They were so confident in this they took a 200 million dollar chance (And for the record they went way over that budget) on

Green Lantern (2011) 

   And holy shit, it's the worst movie iv'e ever seen in my entire life. Miscast actors plus an untalented director plus a terrible script plus awful effects PLUS bad acting from the miscast but still potentially good actors. This movie could not be a bigger disaster. From the beginning of the movie when they have Geoffrey Rush explain what a Green Lantern is to the end when a bunch of nonsensical nothing bullshit flies across the screen in what someone on set expected to be an ending I literally couldn't blink at what was happening in front of me. My favorite comic book character (Green Lantern was my favorite comic book character just so we're all clear) being ripped to shreds all becuase DC had a few of their grand ideas, all of which contributed to the failure.


   The first problem is the cast, and the characters they play. Ryan Reynolds clearly had no idea how Hal Jordan was supposed to act, so i guess he thought Maverick from Top Gun was "good enough" and just ripped off that. But not even in a good way, in a terrible way! Hal seems more like a a parody characters than an actual one. Along with his dopey sidekick who i guess they fabricated for comic relief (Even though the comics have some of the funniest characters of any comic series around) and a lame interpretation of Carol Ferris who seems like a completely different character than she should you wonder if this bad romantic comedy could get any worse. Then you remember that its supposed to be a super movie.


   Skip forward to Hal finally getting into space and i thought the movie could get better right here and now. And then they paint the ugly vainy green CGI suit on to his ugly lifeless body and I got the pleasure of seeing Ryan Reynolds smug live action head floating around an ugly CGI planet with other ugly CGI representations of cool characters from the comics that get absolutely no recognition, becuase the only time we get to see the home world of these epic heroes is in these brief moments and even briefer moment in the intro.
Keep in mind we're now some half an hour into the movie so what do they decide to do? Well they don't show anything remotely close to action becuase that would get in the way of the stellar plot. And they don't go back to space  becuase that would be too expensive. Instead they go to earth, and try to introduce a villain.


   While the villain is probably the best part of the movie, he isn't perfect. His connection to the other characters isn't strong or well explained, his motivations are also pretty weak, and he just isn't that intimidating.  So we have a bad villain, bad actors, bad effects over bad design of those effects, with badly written characters with bad costumes worn by bad actors on sets made by horrible people and AAAAAAAAGH it's never ending. This movie is a piece of shit and a gigantic waste of time. This was DC's big chance to make a movie bigger and better then Batman and they blew it.


   SO fuck em. Its like an F-- with Satan on top.

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

     When i saw the first Underworld movie so many years ago my immediate response was "Huh, that was pretty cool" and after spending oh so much time thinking about Kate Beckinsale in all that leather (And not thinking about anything else at all) i actually had a chance to reflect on the movie i think it was actually quiet good. A modern day war between Vampires and Werewolves (Lycans as this series dubs them) with big gun fights and incredibly gory deaths made a pretty damn enjoyable movie. It wasn't perfect but it was definitely fun. 


     Then we had the sequel, which was equally good; Better effects, better writing, and on many levels it had bigger bad-assier action. It looked like this series could go up and up indefinitely. Then they made Rise of the Lycans, a prequel story that took a flashback from the first film and expanded it to a whole movie, explaining the begging of the war. A cool concept that was let down with lesser action and lesser Kate Beckinsale in leather who honestly made the first movies a whole hell of a lot better.


     And now after a brief hiatus we return with the fourth movie, entitled Awakening. The begging fills in the plot very well ; over the last several years humans have discovered vampires and werewolves, and have mounted their own offensive against both races wiping them out almost completely. During a second attempt to wipe out the remainder of the two races , our protagonist Selene (Kate Beckinsale in leather) is captured by an organisation whose goal is to find a cure for vampirism and lycanthropey. After years of being frozen she breaks out with the help of a mysterious young girl who seems to be her daughter made in the labs of the company and has to figure out what  happened to the world around her,


     and is it good? 


     Ya it's pretty good. The start is a tad slower than previous movies in the series but once it gets going at a good clip it definitely has some epic gory fights with guns and knives and claws and whips and car chases and blood and guts... and then it  suddenly ends around what feels like half an hour too soon. Which is what feels weirdest, i guess there's so much set up for the plot that there ends up being much less time for all the super action fight scenes and then when you get to what is clearly the final fight of the plot the movie feels kinda short and undercut. Which is a shame, becuase its as long as the first film running at about two hours i expected them to get a lot more done. However they did do there best to set up few new characters and some new plot points so that the next couple movies in the series will have more to work with. So i guess its good for what it is, but i still wish there was more to be seen. 


Its like a B-

Most Anticipated Film of 2012

    When people ask me about my favorite foreign films one of the movies at the top ( Probably number one after recently re watching) is called Suzuki: Western Django. Directed by Takashi Miike , starring Hideaki Itô, Kôichi Satô and Quentin Tarantino. If you don't know who they are watch more movies. 

    I won't go into detail about it, but its a stylized western about a lone wanderer who settles a timeless dispute between two warring gangs: The Whites who favor traditional martial arts and the Reds who focus more on combat from the old west. It's one of those movies that's full of buckets and buckets of all that traditional Japanese symbolism we all love about the passage of time and modernization, mixed with all your favorite kung-fu  and gun fights. It's a great movie.

Thus my most anticipated film of 2012 is ...

DJANGO UNCHAINED


And if you wanna know why...

    Starring Jamie Foxx in the title role as Django, Django Unchained follows this freed slave as he seeks to reunite with his slave wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) on a journey that will see him team up with Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter, to take down Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), an evil plantation owner.

    Along with the names I've already mentioned, the cast also includes Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, M.C. Gainey, Don Johnson, Anthony LaPaglia, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, RZA, James Remar and Sacha Baron Cohen. 

Becuase that's why!

My Numbah #1 Movie of the Year!

1. Drive: ... ya its really good go check it out! :)

Oh wait wait wait... this is supposed to be an in depth and comprehensive review of why Drive is my number one movie of 2011.. isn't it? Crap. Well where to begin.... um... well... Oh! I got it. Ahem. Drive is an amazing film with amazing acting, amazing directing, an amazingly well written story, and some amazing old school car chases. Amazing indeed. Drive (as the tacky the hot pink title font labels the movie) is a story of a very talented but probably disturbed professional driver. During the day he drives for film stunts in  L.A., but he and his boss at the body shop where they work wanna move up to racecar driving. The 'kid' as they call him has a massive amount of talent for driving, but not for much of anything else. He seems like he could either be a high functioning autistic, or a quiet sociopath.  Ryan Gosling plays the hell out of it, being the main character but saying the fewest lines in the whole movie from what i saw he brings this quiet genius to life with gratifying ease.  When his boss goes to a local criminal organization for money, the driver gets tangled up in paying back his and his love's (By love i mean the only person he shows any remote interest in or compassion for) debts to keep her family safe. 


Stylistically this movie is genius, it seems to take place in modern day L.A. but it could take place pretty much anytime between the 1970's and the 2020's. The driver himself even wears an old white leather racing jacket with a golden scorpion on the back. And a lot of the criminal activity seems to be like a more 80's style cocaine trade. He's pretty much the last good getaway driver and the movie really brings that across. I also like how it seems to dip in an out of being an intense driving action film and a fancy art house character drama. And it says a lot when the lead character communicates best with a little kid who as almost as few lines as he does. 


I would go on but i'd rather you go see the movie for yourselves. It's one hour and forty minutes long, but grips you the whole damn way; it's dark and gritty and enjoyable while sometimes making you wanna curl up in a corner and avert your eyes. It's easily the best film of 2011. 

..and here are the Best Movies of 2011 :

10. Rise of the Planet of the Apes : Being my age it's always been hard to take Planet of the Apes seriously, the originals are classic and the remake isn't completely terrible but the fact that I'm some young punk and the movies came out so long ago I've seen them and i love them but never quiet grasped just how mind blowing they were. 


Now i do. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Also taking award for this years worst movie title) is a fantastic movie. It manages to serve up quality on so many levels.  Andy Serkis as the leading Ape Caesar steals the show with only his expression and body language. Modern day effects make the apes do things that seem both realistic and frightening.  On top of that members of the supporting cast deliver, the only one i wouldn't call perfect is Franco if only becuase hes hard to take seriously. The effects are dodgy in shots with both real human actors and C.G.I. Apes but its never bad enough to tear you away from the experience that serves as a perfect prequel to an age old the franchise that i hope returns with more movies.

 9. Attack the Block : Alright first things first, if you live outside of the U.K. this movie probably wasn't on your radar. It barely had any run in any theaters and a part from a few festivals no one really got a chance to see it until it came out on DVD a few months back. After almost a year of waiting I actually bought a copy of it the day it came out, rushed home, popped some popcorn, sat back and enjoyed. 


I padded that first part with an arbitrary story becuase there isn't much to say about this movie. It's a fantastic, creative, and damn thrilling Sci-Fi movie. It has some of the most interesting looking aliens in a movie since the xenomorphs from Alien, and it has characters that you can identify with but aren't sick of seeing in every other movie with reckless teenagers that have each other's backs. But that's all i really wanna say, it will having you laughing at very British humor and it might even have you tearing up as the characters develop. If you have the opportunity watch it go for it. Its a great movie for everyone. 

8. X-Men : First Class : Well it took ya long enough universe. After Five movies that ranged from great translations to felony acts of defamation and swapping between more than a couple of director's the latest X-Men movie turns into not only one of the greatest super hero movies of all time, but also a bar by which all future X-Men material should be handled. 


This movie is genius, it tempers real history with that alternate history fiction of the X-Men franchise that we all love without leaning too heavily on either one. I was worried that its basis in reality would make both a too serious superhero movie and a too silly piece of historical fiction but as it would seem I was dead wrong. It's one of the few ensemble casts where everyone goes above and beyond what they're asked to  do, bringing new life and realism to the origins of these well known comic book icons, with special mention of Michael Fassbender as Magneto and Kevin Bacon (The true american hero)  as the villain Sebastian Shaw. You could make an argument against the dodgy effects which looked like no one had put any love or care into them at all but it never ruined the movie. It does show how rushed parts of the production were though.. Of all the super hero movies this summer, this was 2nd only to one other. But we'll get to that later..

7. The Tree of Life : Based on its cast, directing style, being labeled as a drama, and oddly cut trailers no ones going to knock you for not giving this film a chance. Hell i didn't at first. I thought it was going to a strange period piece about children growing up in the sixties, then skipping ahead to follow them as modern day adults. And while that is an aspect, this movie is so much more than that and you'd be doing yourself a favor if you went to see it. 


The Tree of Life is deceptive. It switches perspective constantly, its typically grounded fragments of memories belonging to children growing up in the 1960's, but it also deals with those people's lives as they are today and frankly (If i was looking at what i think i was looking at) the best depiction of both the beginning and  the end of world. I'm not kidding, Tree of Life might have the most to say about the universe than Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. But it also has so much more to say about all life on earth  since the dinosaurs, and up to whatever will inhabit the earth at the end. I won't spoil anymore but it gets a spot here for its visual ascetic and some superb editing that really makes the movie what it is. Though i don't have much to say for the acting. It's great, but ultimately doesn't affect the overall product which is damn good. 

6. Melancholia : I guess it's fitting that this ended up so close to but ultimately better than Tree of Life becuase they're similar. Not in their plot or writing or characters, but in the idea of deceiving us with a simple plot we think we know then turning it on it's ass. Here's a basic description of the plot provided by IMDB.com (Power to the player) "Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with the Earth." Like me you were probably thought "Okay i get this" but by the end you were thinking "What the hell did i just read?". 


Melancholia stars a whole gaggle of talented-but-not-exactly-popular-at-the-moment actors. Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Stellan Skarsgård, and Alexander Skarsgård. And to their credit they are what bumps the movie from a weird idea with a good ascetic to a great movie with an interesting set of thoughts in its head. And the plot is what it sounds like, there's a wedding going on and two sisters who've been on and off as far as good terms go. And as they start considering being closer, a new planet turns up and scientists think it's headed to destroy the earth. And that's it. It's not a perfect film, its very stylized and some of the effects don't even seem like they're supposed to look realistic but when you get right down to it, Melancholia is a unique character drama and i highly recommend it. 

5. Captain America : The First Avenger : Ah yes. The other great superhero movie of the summer sits at this spot. And deservedly so. Cap didn't disappoint this year, in fact he hit a massive, very american home run. I think it's safe to say that this is the best superhero movie of all time. Oddly enough, that's probably becuase it's so unique as far as these movies go.


The thing that sets Captain America apart might turn some people away, even though its actually quietly genius. It actually plays out more like a world war two epic that just happens to have a super heroic lead. This is most evident in the two gorgeous montages. The first showing Captain America traveling around the states promoting war bonds, doing what they let him to help out, but the second is him traveling around with his personal elite squad, tearing through enemy ranks. Theses aren't too long, and allow the movie to take place over many more years. Making it feel bigger, grander, and more impactful. Beyond that the acting is great and by the time the story ends it gives you a perfect desire to see the future of the Avengers. And that's what the film is all about. Considering that's all it had to do, it more than delivered. All three of my thumbs up. 

4. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo : Well here we are. Number four on the list and one of the few movies I've recently reviewed (and one of the only individual films I've reviewed so far, i haven't been doing this for very long) Dragon Tattoo easily deserves a top spot on every top ten list ever. This year and both years the sequels get released. What makes it so great? Well a lot of stuff...


To list them in order of importance you've got a grand master director who's skills seem to know no bounds, he made the story about the origins of FACEBOOK interesting. FACEBOOK. I wouldn't say this is David Fincher's best piece (Zodiac and Fight Club are still tied for first there)  in fact one could argue it's a little bland, like a master returning to something relatively basic but it still delivers. Every shot is dense with meaning, an empty room in which three people try to enjoy a meal can speak volumes about all three characters the way Fincher sets up a shot. Next i would have to say the casting plays a significant role. Not the acting itself as much as how each member of the cast really brings to light the little nuances in each character almost exactly as they were portrayed in the books. Daniel Craig's character who's supposed to be smart and passionate but kind of a wimp, while Mara Rooney as the lead is supposed to be kind of strange and off putting so that when she turns out to be so tough we can find ourselves relating to both of them as one balanced entity. Finally the score. I'm not a musical expert, but its hours and hours long and it's incredibly atmospheric. Don't miss this movie. Read the book, watch the original film, and watch this one. It's not the best story in the world but the films tell it well. 

3. Hanna: Ah, Hanna. It took me a few minutes to recall this one, and a few more minutes still to remember how much i did or didn't like it. And what did i remember? I remembered that Hanna had some of the best hand to hand fight scenes I've ever seen. I remembered how much Hanna reminded me of the Bourne books and movies, the way it realistically blended actual on-the-run-from-who-knows-what- espionage  and actual human drama with deep characters that speak actual dialogue. It was only then that i remembered how much i loved it. 


I already made the Bourne Comparison (Conspiracy joke) but the style this film bleeds really drives that point home. Similar camera work, similar bleak but real settings, similarly badass leads characters. That's where the comparison ends though; As opposed to Jason Bourne's mysterious pseudo spy-sassin character who sometimes seem less like an actual person and more like a deadly robot, Hanna never has that problem. I won't spoil it, but her character just seems like a very VERY sheltered young girl that gets hit by the real world all at once as shes already on a quest to find out who she is. She's also on the run from a large organization that wants her dead, and trying to make sure her only living family is safe. Lots of pressure for one little girl. Oh ya, did i mention shes a little girl? Cuase she is. I think this movie works for a lot of the same reasons Kick-Ass did, just on a more realistic level. Young kids being put into situations way above their own head coming into their own and learning about responsibility. In Hanna you get mystery, brutal action, a lot of heavy accents, superb acting from a small cast of experts and a story. A good story. Not many movies have that ya know.

2. The Adjustment Bureau :When people look back on 2011 a few things are probably going to be said besides "We still believed in that 2012 crap back then ya know." But one of the  important things i hope people remember is this film. A film marketed so well, cast with immense talent, and written to be both exciting and engaging i hope no one soon forgets this little gem. A damn good masterpiece where a weird idea came together with the right director and the right actors, things like this often flop for being too silly but Adjustment Bureau shines. 


I'm sure if you care, you've probably already seen it but i must throw up a little spoiler warning to talk about something in the movie that makes it such a crazy gamble. Ready? Eyes properly averted? Okay good. When the trailers first started coming out no one really knew the main plot secret, only that a mysterious shadow organization secretly controlled everything and manipulated events to work out a certain way. Matt Damon played a conservative politician, and being so young was pulling far ahead in a historical presidential campaign. Until he met a women played by Emily Blunt, a free spirited but incredibly talented young dancer who began freeing him from his constraints the moment they met. But that wasn't supposed to happen and the mysterious organization tries to stop them.. but through a weird series of small errors fails to stop things from happening. And the whole movie from there basically follows them as their fates begin to unwind at he behest of the mystery G-Men.  The secret twist? *Spoiler Warning*
The men aren't aliens or an evil branch of the government, the movie quickly establishes that they're fracking angels descended from on high, and get all their orders though tiny black notebooks created by god. Ya. I know. 


This movie by all rights should've had most people leaving the theater laughing half way through. But it didn't. And I'm glad. Becuase the two leads deliver one of the strongest performances I've ever seen, displayed real characters we rarely see together in a movie, and playing the hell out of their forbidden love. Using the story to emphasize just how forbidden it all is. It's not perfect, the movie seems to think its plot is very twisty, but by half way through you can pretty much see whats going on very  clearly, and some scenes in the middle where they justify the angel's power get s a little long. But still, by the end of this movie you'll feel different. You might even question your entire belief system. You might not. Who knows? Just watch it, of all the films  iv'e ever seen this is one of the few that managed to be deep and emotionally affecting (without being preacher or taking cheap shots i might add) while still being exciting. Its one of the best of 2011 for sure. And i only saw one movie i thought was better...

Here are the worst movies of 2011 :

30 Minutes or Less – Idiots swear a lot and it's supposed to be funny, it's not. 

Bad Teacher –  A couple of funny jokes isn't enough for a feature length comedy.

The Dilemma – Channing Tatum shines. 'Nuff said. 

In Time – Time is a metaphor, get it? DO YOU HEAR ME YET?!

New Year's Eve – Raise your glass! Seriously it's the only way to get through this movie..

Red Riding Hood – Catherine Hardwicke made a Twilight spoof and didn't know it. Ironic eh?  

The Ward – I counted three scares the whole movie... and it's supposed to be a horror movie. 

Zookeeper – The animals upstage Kevin James. 

Alvin and the Chip- Ya you get the picture it sucks. 

Green Lantern - Don't even get me started. Fuck all of you.

Jack and Jill - Remember how little you enjoyed Click? Well... here we go again.... 

Nothing was really worse than any of these. Special Mention goes to Green Lantern for ruining my summer. I don't read the comics anymore... i just cry...

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

David Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo might be one of the strangest , darkest, and grittiest movies I've ever seen. It's probably also one of the best. EVER. Of all time. Sadly it's not for everyone. It's violent and graphic in a way that most other main stream films would never dare to be, and some of the imagery revolving around the story is down right disgusting. The plot of this movie is probably the best part (it stacked on top of good directing, good cinematography, and phenomenal acting) , it starts on Christmas morning in Stockholm, Sweden as the the path for the main characters first crosses. The two characters being Lisbeth Salander, a genius computer hacker who lives as a "Ward of the state" due to some violent outbursts and rampant drug use. At 23 years old she does private investigations for a large corporation. She typically side steps the law in order to get every last drop of information she can, but it's always well worth it.  The other, Mikael Blomkvist, is a more old school investigative journalist who recently lost his life savings in a legal battle over an article he wrote for said magazine, attempting to take down a young, but ruthless, business man. I don't want to spoil the exact details of how they cross or what they're tasked to research, but its basically a murder mystery. And it's damn good one. Both Mara Rooney and Daniel Craig sell the living hell out of their characters, all the supporting cast pulls more than their own weight, the film never shies away from the ludicrously dark book from which its made and its a rare film where the most interesting and exciting scenes can be people talking. Or people reading. Or people looking pictures. Or eating sandwiches (Which if your looking for it you'll see it. A lot.) I don't think everyone could handle this movie but if you think you can (Even though i can't tell you why some of it's so dark) you should definitely see it. 


Its a solid A

Mission Impossible 4 : Ghost Protocol (2011)

Let's just say it, Mission Impossible 4 isn't a bad movie, but its definitely not as good as one through three. Nor is it as good as Sherlock Holmes 2. The movie starts out great all through the first two acts it displays a super solid action premise with above average writing. Some ridiculous but intense stunts literally keep you at the edge of your seat. Sadly when the third act rolls around and the characters have to actually try and "resolve" the conflict. Animation demi-god and first time live action director Brad Bird's (He made The Incredibles NEED i go on?) lack of skill in this field begins to show. The ending is fine, but it seems like not a single person on the set had seen a previous Mission Impossible movie, the last action sequence might be the shortest and smallest scale in the whole series. The main villain barely stacks up against previous ones like Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Damien and after everything is resolved your left with a cheesy ending so full of cliche' you wonder if it didn't just ruin the whole thing. OH and on top of all that the only people who look like the enjoy being on camera in this film are Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, and Jeremy Renner (Im still excited to watch as he takes over every action franchise. Hes talented) No one else seems to care they're in a big budget motion picture. Not that there's anyone to care, while previous movies show him on a bigger team with larger but much deeper supporting casts this team seems to flop a little. I guess they really were all the I.M.F. could scrounge up :/

Some of the incredibly tense stunt sequences stand out as the best in the series, but the overall plot takes some getting over. The third act will leave you wondering why the film kept going at all.


 Not bad, but not great either. C+

Sherlock Holmes 2 : A Game of Shadows (2011)

Sherlock Holmes 2 : A Game of Shadows draws a surprising amount of it's materiel from the original novels, and with that it scores a big thumbs up from me. The story surpasses the original, with a trickier mystery for the dynamic duo to solve; Holmes' arch rival Professor James Moriarty, who was the secret mastermind behind the crime in the first movie, crops up during a time of unrest between major European superpowers and begins a sinister plot that seems to threaten tehe very balance of power in Europe. The movie shows off better writing all around with a mystery that still isn't too deep, but is a grand improvement upon the original's and will throw some for a loop. Acting from the supporting cast has vastly improved, and not only becuase they drummed out Amy Adams in the first ten minutes, but also characters like the gypsy women Madam Sizma Heron played by Noomi Rapace and Holmes' brother played by Stephen Fry . The two leads remain perfect examples for any actor's trying to portray Holmes and Watson and Jarred Harris' Moriarty is definitely the smart sleek intellectual that the original film was crying out for.  Actual critics will tell you it's average, but everyone will enjoy it as more than that. Its twisting, suspenseful, and truly hard to follow as any Holmes story should be.


 No real complaints here. B+