Transformers: Dark of the Moon…IN THREE DIMENSIONS!!!

Well, what can I say?  I could go into this as the ultimate cynic and talk about everything that went wrong….or I could try to point out all the improvements our erstwhile director has made to the franchise.  Either of those would be wrong, wrong, dirty dirty lies.  In truth, for everything Michael Bay fixed, he found something else to screw up.  I’m beginning to think that it’s all on purpose.

First off, the movie I was least looking forward to seeing was, of course, the winner of the ‘what movie should I subject myself to TWICE’ poll.  Hence, I decided to see it the way Mr. Bay demands it first, and then in lowly 2D sometime tomorrow or Sunday.  Since I ponied up the bling to get my 3D specs and watch the action as ‘it was intended,’ I will simply fill this space up with what I think worked and didn’t work as far as action and camera goes.  I will save all of my fiery anger towards the acting and plot after I watch it a second time.

Damn you.

So, was this worth paying up to 50% more on your movie ticket to see in 3D?  Probably not.  Yes, it was much better looking than such filthy, disgusting 3D-rendered movies like Alice and Clash of the Titans, but there were very few scenes that seemed like they really relied on the technology.  For the most part the extra dimension was used in conjunction with slow-to-fast-to-slow motion action sequences so that the sword/gun/bullet was COMING RIGHT FOR YOU OH SHIT YOU’D BETTER DUCK OH MAN YOU ALMOST DIED! 

The action sequences are exactly what you would expect, no more and no less.  There are giant robots and things exploding and a really stupid 20-headed worm thing that serves no purpose other than to extend one stand-alone scene beyond the 20 minute mark.  You get very little action in the first hour, and then the rest of the movie turns into one extended fight/flight scene for the next 100 minutes.  It’s exhausting, yet unfulfilling.  It also seemed like Bay was just mocking me.

At one point I actually stopped and gaped, realizing that the action scene I was witnessing was a stable camera shot for over a full minute!  Of course, the moment I realized that, the camera went back into what I like to call ‘fuck your detail’ mode, and everything went back to whizzing around so much that I had a hard time telling what was going on.  If the Autobots didn’t have such distinctive coloring as compared to the Decepticons, I swear that I would have never known who the hell was fighting who.  The Decepticons especially were incredibly cookie-cutter to the point that I'm not sure which ones lived and died. Seriously, I don’t really know what movies started this trend, but this shit has got to stop.  If I’m going to pay money to watch the good guys punch out the bad guys, the least you could do is make sure I can tell who the hell is who.

Bay did learn something about giant robot design while completely ignoring the bigger picture.  Yes, there are no racist Transformers.  Still, all the 'new' ones are pointless, irritating, or absolutely stupid.  There are how many damn Autobots from the original series?  Several new good guys pop up for this film, and every single one of them is unique to this movie.  What the hell, Bay?  Also, the winner of the dumbest Autobot ever created goes to Que, who is incredibly idiotic-looking.  Supposedly he is designed to look like Albert Einstein, but if that is true then it's by way of Pablo Picasso.  His only purpose for existing is to offer the Deus Ex Machina required to save Shia Lebouff's life later in the film.  So not only is Que just a lazy plot device, he also saves the most annoying character in the series.  Bummer.

I’ll save the bitching about the terrible acting and worse plot for this weekend.  Enjoy the tang of pointless violence, people!

Note:  I don’t want to go too deep into spoiler territory, but yet again the writers decided it would be awesome to make one of my favorite Autobots go out like a little bitch.  It seems killing Jazz like a punk just wasn’t enough for them.

Bad Teacher

Bad: adjective - not good in any manner or degree.

While that definition is appropriate for the film, it’s not in the way the creators wanted.

In short, Bad Teacher was boring, not funny, poorly written, badly acted, miscast and incredibly predictable.

So yeah, it was bad.  Let’s shine some light on the details, shall we?

Bad Teacher is ostensibly a movie about a selfish, money-grubbing, uncaring woman who is looking to live the cozy life at someone else’s expense.

Sound kind of familiar?  Yes, this movie does stylize itself as a cousin to Bad Santa.  Sure, there are differences.  No incredibly foul-mouthed kids or crazy lackeys are anywhere to be found.  However, the similarities are there.  Both of them want you to root for the anti-hero.  Both of them have a running theme of selfish, self-destructive main characters that have a general lack of goodwill towards anything decent.  But only one of them has the decency to make sure the main character doesn’t magically learn their lesson due to a cheesy, hackneyed conversation.

            Bad Teacher stars Cameron Diaz as a woman who was just about to get everything she wanted by marrying a rich man when, of course, the wedding is called off at the last minute.  This forces her to go back to teaching at the school she had just quit.  However, since she is just a gold-digger, she cannot stand trying to get by on a teacher’s salary and never stops trying to find another sugar-daddy. 

            The sugar-daddy for the rest of the film is played by Justin Timberlake, who, to his credit, is game for all the stupid shit his character is asked to do.  Somehow we are supposed to believe that his character is a naïve, creepy, nerdy sycophant who happens just so happens to be super rich and a substitute teacher.

            The ‘antagonist’ is Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), a walking parody of every cheesy ‘nice but crazy’ cliché the writers were able to dig up.  In fact, the only person who has any half decent lines in this film is Jason Segel, as the gym teacher who never stops pursuing Diaz’s bitch of a character.  Jason seems in on the fact that the movie is pretty crappy and delivers his lines in a very confident, breezy manner.  This somehow improves his dialog and yes, both times I laughed were due to him. 

            That’s the plot in a nutshell.  Elizabeth (Diaz) wants a rich man, Scott (Timberlake) happens to be rich but is falling for Amy, and Russel (Segel) wants Elizabeth.  However, Elizabeth thinks she needs a boob job in order to reel Scott in, but has no money.  That’s it.  It takes fifteen minutes to set up this premise and then the movie spends the next hour and change showing Cameron Diaz’s increasingly desperate efforts at making money.  Then, magically, something she says to one student strikes a chord and she suddenly decides to become a better person.  While she does not pull a complete 180, it’s certainly 150 degrees or more from her original personality.

            The biggest problem is that I just don’t see Cameron Diaz as the right person for the role.  Bad Santa worked because Billy Bob Thornton was already known as kind of an asshole.  I’m not sure if Diaz chose this role just to shake up her image, but she is never really convincing as a selfish jerk.  Plus, for whatever reason, she is starting to show her near-forty age, and that just makes her pursuit of Timberlake seem more ‘creepy-cougar’ than the ‘hilarious gold-digger’ that they were aiming for.

            Add all of that to the fact that there were any jokes and the pacing was absolutely terrible.  The other decent comedians sprinkled into the movie were also wasted on terrible roles.  This goes especially for Thomas Lennon, whose comedic talents are squandered as the dumb, horny, gullible guy that Cameron’s character needs to seduce in order to get her hands on the answers to the state test.

            In case I didn’t make myself clear, Bad Teacher is an all-around bad movie.  While I do appreciate Hollywood’s recent attempt at making more R rated comedies to cater to adults, they don’t need to greenlight a film JUST BECAUSE it is R rated.  Do yourself a favor and go watch your favorite comedy.  Hell, go watch your favorite horror movie and you’ll probably laugh more than you would at this film.  I think the only comedy I hated more than this was The Animal.  (In my defense, the only reason I even started watching that was because I was 20 years old in a casino town with absolutely nothing to do….and even then I had the brains to walk out of the theater thirty minutes in.)

The Month of July

It's almost here.  The big month of action.

Just one week from now, the peaceful slide into summer will be abruptly filled with wailing, explosions, firefights and a great gnashing of teeth.  Most of those sounds will come from the movie screen, but a few of them may be from me.
In order to add another layer on to this project, I have decided to watch one July release twice.  That's right!  At one point next month, I will walk into a theater and purchase back-to-back showings for the same film.  This way I can really GET what the director is trying to say to me, y'know?  The first sit-through will be used to get all the fear, loathing and disgust out of my system.  That way I can really feel the nuance of the explosions or fart jokes during my second screening.
But it's not enough for me to make this decision!  I want YOUR vote!
Which movie should I watch twice?

Transformers 3
Horrible Bosses
Harry Potter (Book 7 Part II)
Captain America
Attack The Block
Zookeeper  (This comes out the same week as Horrible Bosses, a film I actually want to see.  I thought it was grossly unfair that Horrible Bosses won the 'Google test,' so I will see both, just to keep punishing myself.)

Vote in the comments section, and whichever movie that has the most votes by Thursday, June 30 wins!  No matter what, I probably lose!

Green Lantern

Green Lantern was a man....no, wait...he was a Lantern man....no maybe he was just a Lantern....(yes, that was totally and poorly stolen from Homestarrunner.)
It's difficult to say anything bad about Green Lantern because it just tried so dang hard to be awesome.  That and the fact that every other critic has already used up all the negative words. 
So here's something surprising......
It isn't THAT bad.  It isn't good, it isn't great, it isn't terrible-awesome.  It just IS.  It is literally an hour and 45 minutes of popcorn cinema.
The only fair accusation I think you can levy on this film is that the special effects were not up to snuff.  To make a movie that involves hundreds of different species and epic outer space sets, not to mention all the 'powers' that a Green Lantern ring can conjure up, you need a LOT of awesome effects.  Where the sets and the powers are concerned, you have them.  Where the alien species are concerned...well, they are hit-and-miss.  Then the moment you get a human with CG directly affecting their person....yeah, that is where the movie looks really, really terrible.  The special effects around Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong (Sinestro) when they are in their Lantern outfits is atrocious.  Half the time when they're flying it looks like someone Photoshopped their faces onto a piece of CGI footage.  Then during fight scenes, it is painfully obvious when they switch from full CGI to partial.  This makes what is supposed to be the film's most epic moments incredibly distracting and downright mediocre.
As for the plot, well, it's not that great.  I don't know how hard it is to make an origin story interesting, but whoever wrote this script didn't know either.  Every major plot device is painfully choreographed, and there are no surprises whatsoever.  In fact, if you don't figure out how the final bad guy is destroyed roughly 50 minutes into the film, then I am jealous of your childlike sense of wonder.
I liked Peter Sarsgaard as the nominal earthly bad guy, but they took so long to develop him that it felt like two origin movies in one, and he went out with such a whimper that the whole endeavor just seemed like a complete waste of time.
The acting was okay, but in no way impressive from anyone.  The best thing I can say about it is that nobody stunk up the joint.
The most interesting thing about my experience with Green Lantern was that the audience loved it.  The cinema-goers gave it their all.  They were laughing at all the right points, even ooohing and ahhhing when appropriate.  It was obvious that I was one of the few cynics in the audience.  This is what I had been hoping for since I started this project.  Unfortunately, I think it is too late for this grumpy bastard to be swayed by everyone else.

Ultimately, Green Lantern brings nothing new to the table.  Every point of this origin story has been done better by Marvel or Batman, and the points that were supposed to be unique -- the ring's powers and the epic special effects -- were undone by technology's failure.  Yes, the movie is set up for a sequel, and yes it will probably get it.  Hopefully they will work out the kinks and make it far less muddled.
So go check this one out if you love DC properties.  It's still better than Catwoman.  Personally, I would rather watch the fan-made trailer starring Nathan Fillion on loop for 105 minutes, or better yet, just go check out the Green Lantern: Emerald Knights cartoon movie that came out last week...oddly enough also starring Nathan Fillion.

Super 8

It's official.  J.J. Abrams is the (slightly) more mainstream version of Guillermo del Toro.  They both love the shit out of some monsters, but del Toro puts MORE creepy, macabre beasts in his films.

Now, do yourself a favor and check out Super 8.  It may be the only good film that comes out all summer that is not a sequel or based on a comic book.  Yes, I said good.  Is my icy heart melting?  Am I seeing the good in mainstream events?  Have I begun my dark slide into the abyss of goofy smiles and happily watching whatever movie is pimped this week?
Hells no.  This is a very unique summer movie that hearkens back to the more innocent days of the 80's, when films did not always require a budget in the hundreds of millions to get summer movie consideration.
My wife and our friends called this Goonies meets Cloverfield meets E.T.  Since I never cared much for the Goonies (shut up), I compared the other two, but all of those are apt.
This movie is not original, in the sense that all the characters and the plot have all been done before.  This movie IS original in the sense that none of these elements have been put together so well before.  Plus, it feels like it really has been decades since young heroes were so well crafted in an action/drama.
In fact, I would say my only major complaint is that, because the kids roles were so well done-- between the acting, the characters and their lines-- the adults ended up being mostly one-dimensional and boring.
As for minor complaints:  The more movies I watch this summer, the more annoyed I find myself getting at the amount of 'suspension of belief' that seems to be required in even the best films I have seen lately.  Would it kill a writer to figure out a realistic way to get something done rather than make me pretend that the most ridiculous, brain-dead plan being acted out on screen is the one a normal person would choose to execute?  Also, please, please, PLEASE stop making high ranking military officials the heartless monsters.  Seriously, we have so many damn layers of PR and shit that there is no way in hell that half the movies I have seen this year or in years past would work out the way they pretend.
In this one, the local law enforcement keeps getting the run-around by the military.  Thing is, he's getting the run-around from a few low level Airmen and then a Colonel.  In reality, if a disaster like Super 8 were to really happen, the local sheriff would never get to talk directly to the Commander without at least six public relations and government officials present.
Anywho, that's it for the nit-picking.  The flick was entertaining, and J.J. Abrams showed an excellent bit of self-awareness at one point early in the film.  Without spoiling too much, one of his characters comments about what a story need to be truly good.  This comes back later, when the film itself develops that same plot point, from here on out called the B story. 
You see, the B story is really kind of boring.  Good from an acting and drama standpoint, but it drags the whole movie down and slows all forward moment for about 30 minutes.  Personally, I don't think any B story needs to distract so much from the main film, but at least Mr. Abrams had the good grace to apologize to anyone who didn't like it within the context of his own movie.

From a theater standpoint, I would recommend you go see it before it comes out on video.  There is a lot of suspense in the film and a few scares for people who always jump whenever something on screen does the whole 'BOO!' thing.  As an added bonus for me, there were two kids directly behind me (one with a mullet, the poor guy.)  Just over halfway through the movie I hear the kid squeak in terror again and then turn to his mother and exclaim "this movie is terrible! It's so scary!"

Do yourself a favor and check out Super 8.  The only movie I have enjoyed more than this all summer was last week's X-Men: First Class, and that's completely because of my own bias.  If you liked Cloverfield but hated the shaky-cam, love E.T. but thought it could use more violence, or really enjoyed the Goonies but think pirates are sissies, then you should enjoy the crud out of Super 8.

X-Men: First Class

WARNING!  The following contains minor spoilers and large amounts of personal bias.

HOLY SHIT KEVIN BACON IS THE BAD GUY!!!!!!!

X-Men: First Class (heretofore referred to as XM:FC because I am incredibly lazy) is a fantastic comic reboot.  I personally hope it does as much for the X-Men universe as Batman Begins did for Batman.  I mean, seriously, after Christopher Nolan got ahold of it, people were finally able to believe again, knowing that Batman's glory did not die at the hands of Joel Shumacher. 
That is what I hope for XM:FC.  I hope that people look at this as a serious sign of things to come.  All it will take now is $100+ million at the box office, because even a million positive reviews from critics will not convince the greedy bastards in Hollywood to green-light a sequel.  Not when there's Shrek The Seventeenth to be made!
Just like any other origins story, this one spends more time catching everyone up with the characters than it does setting up an incredibly cohesive good vs. evil narrative.  What impressed me was how well it did this.  X-Men's biggest problem has always been developing both the heroes and villains into more than just two dimensional products.  With other superhero movies such as Iron Man and Batman, you only have to worry about ONE superhero.  With X-Men, you have half a dozen at minimum, and that's if you don't want to bother fleshing out the bad guys.
That is where XM:FC shines.  The ONLY actor/actress who failed to deliver a convincing, 3 dimensional character was January Jones, playing Emma Frost.  I understand that Emma Frost is supposed to be a frosty bitch, hence the name.  Unfortunately, she came across as Emma Woodenly-Reads-Lines-Off-A-Cue-Card-From-Just-Off-Screen-While-Not-Displaying-Any-Emotion-At-All.
Even the X-Men and villains that I knew nothing or next-to-nothing about did a fine job.  It made me want to go find out who the hell Darwin, Angel, Riptide and Havok are. 
Plus, there are easter eggs and fan nods aplenty in this film.  The opening sequence is shot-for-shot the Magneto origin sequence from the first X-Men film, and there is a scene during the recruiting montage where everyone in the theater got a great laugh.
The main bad guy?  Kevin freaking Bacon.  I gotta admit, I rarely see him in films where he gets to be the bad guy, but I think he relishes it.  He really does a fantastic job as Sebastian Shaw, the founder of The Children of the Atom.
Go see this film.  If you like Marvel, comics in general, excellent ensemble movies, good action flicks with a brain, or hot chicks in stupid outfits.  You'll get your fix in any and all of these categories.  This film is better than any X-Men movie that has come before it, and only slightly worse than my favorite origins story, Batman Begins.  (Yes, that beats out Iron Man, but screw you.)