The Transition from Sports to Movies: A Summer Movie Preview (part one)

it may come as a surprise to many of you, but i hate baseball. thus, the end of april pretty much signifies the end of my sports watching, with the exception of the NFL draft. i'll probably casually watch the NBA finals, and maybe parts of the NBA draft (can pretty much thank Nate for that), and maybe a bit of the NHL playoffs, but really, unless something mind-blowing happens, i couldn't care less. i feel like there's a void in my soul where MSU sports used to be, and it's with a bittersweet pain that i say goodbye to a glorious 8 months of MSU football and basketball (more glorious on the basketball side).

Hey, I guess they're right. Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose. Don't you go dying on me!

thankfully, the end of april also signifies something else: the beginning of summer movies. this is the time i switch from obsessively reading about and watching sports on the weekend, to obsessively reading about and watching movies on the weekend. truly, it is a magical time in this nerd's life.

ZANG!

so, here is part one of the upcoming movies of summer (and yes, summer starts in april according to hollywood). i've included links to the IMDB pages for all of the movies, so if you have questions on who's in it or a full plot synopsis, go there. i'll give you basically what i think about each movie. also, these are only the movies i plan on seeing, so if you're looking for a tidbit on the new Sex and the City movie (or as i like to call it, The Journey Into Obscurity: Kicking and Screaming), Shrek 15, or the new twilight abortion (i refuse to capitalize this) look elsewhere.

and here... we... go.

April:

• we start off with Clash of the Titans. i should probably actually write a full review of this movie, as i've already seen it. frankly, the movie isn't worth the review. it sucked. i'd liken it to One Missed Call, in that it's just bad enough to be terrible, but not so bad that it's funny. i went into this one with extremely lowered expectations after reading reviews, and it still didn't live up to them. if you go see it, see it in 2D, and just ignore the lack of plot, coherence, and acting. the CGI stuff wasn't even that good, and that's what the movie was built around. sigh.
• and now on to movies i have hopes for. on april 16 we get Kick-Ass. this movie is based on a stand-alone graphic novel, which i own, and which is, well, kick ass. the thing seriously rocks. if they do this movie even remotely like the comic book, i can tell you 3 things: 1) it will be extremely violent; 2) you're going to be shocked/entertained by the little girl, and 3) if you're reading this blog, you'll probably like it. i have extremely high hopes for this movie, and if hollywood fucks it up, well, you'll hear about it.
• april 23 brings us The Losers. this is also based on a stand-alone graphic novel. clearly, hollywood cannot do anything original that's any good anymore, but as long as they use good source material, i'm ok with it. this movie has chris evans in it, and he's sweet. really, the guy is funny as hell. it also has Stringer Bell from The Wire, so that should be enough to ensure that Jerry, Brett, Nate, Aaron, and Powers go see it.
• rounding out april (the 30th) is A Nightmare on Elm Street. hollywood loves remakes right now, anyone who's seen a movie in the last 10 years can tell you. now, i've seen the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and i actually liked both of those. they were a pretty good homage to the slasher films of the 70s and 80s, and they featured two qualities that make slasher films great: 1) excessive and intricate deaths; and 2) gratuitous female nudity. let's hope that Elm Street continues the trend. oh, also a bit of fun trivia for you. the guy who is playing freddy is jackie earle haley (one ugly sonofabitch, i can tell you). back when the first movie was made, he needed someone to go with him to the audition, so he took his roommate. his roommate got the part, and it was his first ever movie role. you may have heard of this guy. the roommate was johnny depp. personally, i hope they reenact his death in the new movie (he gets sucked into his bed and spewed onto the ceiling in a fountain of gore. awesome).

May:

• on may 7th, the big daddy of them all, possibly the most anticipated movie of the summer: Iron Man 2. people are really excited about this movie, myself included. there are actually predictions that it'll break The Dark Knight's opening weekend record. i honestly wouldn't doubt it, since there are two driving forces in the movie-going audience that one should never underestimate: nerds, and the horniness of teenage girls (see, e.g., Twilight and Titanic). it goes without saying that i'm excited about this one. the second movie in a superhero series tends to be the best one (The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2, etc). it's not until the 3rd one that they really start fucking up. after that we get the 4th one, which is a total shitfest, and then the inevitable 5th movie, which is a remake. so this could be the last hurrah for iron man. hopefully they do it properly.
• may 14th gives us Robin Hood. this is ridley scott and russell crowe together again in a period piece. did you see gladiator? did you like it? of course you did. you'll probably like this one too. my only reservation is that cate blanchett is maid marian. that woman is not attractive. can they not get a hot older woman to be maid marian, just once? there are a billion actresses over 35 out there looking for work; give 'em a chance.
  
• if you'll notice, there's a good movie out every weekend from this friday till may 14th. that's a lot of movies for me to see, and it's gonna cost me. thank god may 21st gives me a break in MacGruber. will i see this one? only if someone else is paying. i'm including it on the list because SNL has actually been funny lately, and because any movie with the description "Rated R for strong crude and sexual content, violence, language and some nudity" tends to entertain me. if not, i'll play golf this weekend or something.
• may 28th brings us what could possibly be a milestone in hollywood history: the first time a movie based on a video game is actually worth watching. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is the whole disney/bruckheimer team, and while they don't make "good" movies, they do make entertaining ones. i actually like jake gyllenhall, and gemma arterton is hot, so at least this movie has those two perks going for it. it'll also feature some good special effects, and we can all continue to enjoy the decline in ben kinglsey's dignity. ghandi was a long fuckin' time ago, buddy; you'd better hold onto that oscar like grim death.
• also on may 28th, Survival of the Dead. ZOMBIES! if you need more of an explanation, you obviously have never met me.

June:

• on the 4th, we have Get Him to the Greek. this is a spinoff from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, featuring the two funniest people from that movie, russell brand and jonah hill. jason segel has his moments, but i kinda hate him a bit after I Love You, Man and How I Met Your Mother (that show sucks, other than NPH, who is the man). at the very least, you can expect this movie to have some sweet dick jokes, and really, that's enough for the majority of this blog's readers.
  
• also on the 4th, Splice comes out. i mentioned this one in my last post. please, please let it be good. really, i want a good sci-fi horror movie, and i think that the devoted masses who grew up on this stuff in the 80s and 90s deserve to be rewarded for putting up with the recent slew of crap.
• june 11th, The A-Team. oh yes. i mean come on, this movie has jessica biel (one of the hottest women ever), liam neeson (have you seen Taken? go, watch it now), bradley cooper (second funniest guy in the Hangover), sharlto copley (who? oh Wikus from District 9, who got FUCKING ROBBED at the oscars), and quentin "rampage" jackson filling in for Mr. T. how can this movie NOT kick ass?
• also on june 11, The Karate Kid. no. just no. i love remakes, but this is going too far. you don't fuck with mr. miagi. you do not put jackie chan in his shoes. you do not put the spawn of will smith in china and tell him to be this generation's ralph macchio. this is just fucking wrong! i'm putting this one on here just so that you DON'T go see it. unless it's badass, in which case i'll eat my hat.
• june 18th, Jonah Hex. yet another graphic novel movie. i haven't really read too much about this one, but it looks like it's got some decent actors in it. and megan fox. god i hate that girl. is she hot? yes. is she a terrible actress? watch Jennifer's Body and try not to cringe. if there's any kind of a god, she'll go the lindsey lohan route, put out some nude pics, hit the fast track to the downward spiral, and all her subsequent movies will be straight to dvd. one can hope.
• june 25th, Grown Ups. i'm not quite ready to completely write off adam sandler. he's like an abusive spouse. everything was great when you were dating (SNL years), and then the first few years of marriage were amazing (Airheads, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Bulletproof). then, things started to change (The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy). you were ok with that change, and you thought you could live with it, but things got worse (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds). then there was a tiny bright spot, and the bruises had almost healed (Spanglish, The Longest Yard). just when you weren't expecting it, he came home drunk, hit you again, and this time he put some stank on it (Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess with the Zohan). ouch. this is your last chance, sandler, and it's only because you've got chris rock, steve buscemi, norm macdonald, david spade, and tim meadows helping you out. oh, and salma hayek. i've had a crush on her ever since Desperado.
• also on june 25th, Knight and Day. the previews for this actually look promising. also, i'm not a tom cruise hater like so many others. the man is nuttier than squirrel poo, and scientology barely edges out mormonism for craziest religion (a distant third: snake handlers), but he makes pretty decent movies. cameron diaz, well, yeah. she's no longer the funny goofy hot girl that she was in There's Something About Mary, or the sultry hot mistress that she was in The Mask, or the aggressive hot team owner in Any Given Sunday. sadly, the word "hot" and cameron diaz no longer go together. time has not been kind to this woman. it's a shame, as she was the shit in the early 90s.

that's it for the first half of the summer. july and august offer some gems as well, and i'll write about those tomorrow. and you damn well know i'm gonna go see Kick-Ass on friday.

oh, and if you're reading this, feel free to comment. i would actually like to know if people are reading this thing or not.

whatever happened to good sci-fi horror movies?

been awhile since i've posted, and i really have no excuse for it. with my unemployment soon to be at an end, it seems like a good idea to take this up again as a way to procrastinate.

so. i watched The Fly a few nights ago. not the old 1950's one, which i kindof want to see now, but 1986's david cronenberg remake starring jeff goldblum and geena davis. first off, a few notes on the movie itself:

1. great makeup effects. maybe i'm just nostalgic for the great makeup of the 80s, but man, it feels like they don't do makeup anymore. CGI is great and all, but for some things, moviemakers should stick with tangible effects. a perfect example of this is the recent trend to use CGI for blood and miscellaneous wounds (they did this in ninja assassin a lot). stick to blood packets and squibs guys; we can tell when that shit is computer generated.
2. geena davis is a freak of nature, and also quite the butterface. 6 foot tall chick in good shape? sounds great. then you look at that 80s frizzy hair and those weirdass cheekbones, and man, just kills the mood.
   
3. jeff goldblum is the man. i could listen to him talk about anything. a perfect example of this is found here (ignore the stupid burger king thing at the beginning).
4. david cronenberg loves to gross you out. i remember watching this movie when i was about 12. my mom was still at work, and my dad made my brothers and i spaghetti. as we're chowing down on glorious italian delights, the scene comes on where jeff goldblum bites off a fingernail and then loses other various body parts. lotta pus in those scenes. thank god we weren't eating vanilla pudding.
5. great music. music can so often make a good movie great. try to imagine star wars, jaws, indiana jones, or saturday night fever (didn't see that one coming, didja) without the music. it just doesn't work. also, sometimes the music is infinitely better than the movie. i felt this way about last of the mohicans (terrible boring movie, possibly some of the best music ever). and yes i know a lot of people love that movie, but they're nuts. anyway, the music in The Fly fits so perfectly with the tension and overall despair of Brundlefly's journey into hell. well done Howard Shore.
   

ok, so that's all i want to say about the movie specifically. the real point of this post is to bitch about current horror movies, specifically the genre of sci-fi horror/thriller. i think back on movies i love in this genre, and all of them came from before 2000. examples: Alien, Event Horizon, The Fly, Species (first saw it when i was 12; take one damn guess why i loved it), The Thing, Mimic, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Terminator, Predator (kinda thriller/horror, since they were being hunted) and probably about a million more that i'm forgetting.

now, post 2000, what do we get? 4, count them, 4 goddamned Resident Evil movies, and every single one is just unfathomably terrible. as long as we're talking about Resident Evil movies, let's just do the whole uwe boll countdown: Alone in the Dark (1 and 2), Far Cry, House of the Dead, etc. also, we got Aliens vs. Predator (garbage) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (highly entertaining garbage). i had high hopes for Pandorum, and even that one eventually fell through. let us also not forget The Chronicles of Riddick. it seems like pretty much all of the sci-fi horror/thriller movies that came out in the 2000s were pretty terrible.

now granted, there are a few exceptions. Sunshine was awesome, and it had some Event Horizon-esque moments. there are probably more, but i'm blanking on them right now. suffice to say, it feels like the vast majority of these movies now are garbage. so what's the problem with them? aside from the terrible writing, acting, and directing, they just all feel so cliche. there's always darkly lit corridors (stolen from Alien), way too many quick cuts and flashing lights (who the fuck installs strobe lights in a spaceship?), some kind of sabotage (yes, let's man the ship holding the fate of mankind with 3 goddamn people, one of whom is clearly crazy), and usually too neat of a wrapup in the end.

also, there just doesn't seem to be any love for the project. if a studio spends 50 million on a movie, current ticket prices, combined with wide releases, pretty much guarantee that the thing is gonna make its costs back. if you dropped 150 million on a movie back when ticket prices were $3, you really had to be sure it was going to kick ass. otherwise, you end up with Waterworld. also, now they can just tack 3D onto the movie post-production, do a truly shitty job of it (see, e.g., the new clash of the titans), and the movie will rake in an extra $3-5 per ticket. it's a veritable gold mine. so instead of making a movie that actually has to depend on a story, acting, and good direction to pack the seats, we get visual orgies with about as much plot and character development as Debbie Does Dallas (without the bonus of, you know, an actual orgy).

as an example of this point, look up there at the shitty movies i listed, and try to name a GOOD actor or director in any one of those movies. hell, i actually challenge you to name even one actor in any of those movies that isn't milla jovovich or vin diesel. alone in the dark starred christian slater and tara reid, for fuck's sake (and she played an archaeologist!!). the directors are just as bad. by contrast, the good movies of back in the day had actual talent behind them. james cameron did great writing/directing for Terminator, john carpenter did the same for The Thing, ridley scott made a story about space truckers amazing in Alien, natasha henstridge's amazing breasts made Species an instant classic, and even Event Horizon had A-list talent (morpheus AND dr. alan grant from Jurassic Park).

so are those movies from a bygone era, and we're now forced to watch absolutely shitty sci-fi horror/thriller from now on? actually, no. there appears to be hope for the future. ridley scott is doing an Alien prequel (so excited, as the Alien franchise is one of my all-time favorites). another Predator movie (aptly named ... Predators) is coming out this summer. written by Robert Rodriguez and starring topher grace, adrien brody, morpheus, and shane from The Shield. clearly that's an all-star action team right there; you don't fuck with eric foreman. there's also an indie darling called Splice that's supposed to be pretty decent. i'm sure there are many more, but i'm not going to look them up just yet. i don't want to jinx it.

maybe this is a sign of better times to come. maybe i can finally hold my nerd head up high and say that yes, i like science fiction, and i specifically like it when it scares the shit out of me. i think that'll be a good day for america.