The Avengers – 2012

Well, it’s been 4 years in the making, but here we are: The Avengers. Or, rather, Marvel’s The Avengers, because the Marvel brand name has seen such a phoenix-like resuscitation in quality over the last few years it seems as if they’re rubbing it in our face. “See this? Downey, Ruffalo, Jackson? They belong to us.” After 3 great films, a not-so-great film, and a mediocre/shitty film, the knots are ready to be tied, and comic lovers around the world (overseas first) will see their lifelong dream finally come true. But is it everything it’s cracked up to be?

The answer here is a yes and a no. I went into this movie with some trepidation. After the phenomenal Iron Man and the much better than expected Incredible Hulk, the idea of these guys and more superheroes all coming together in one movie seemed amazing. It had a lot of promise, and it was still incredibly far off so as to not feel overwhelmed. But as Iron Man 2, Captain America, and Thor became more along the lines of trailers for the upcoming tie-in than standalone movies, I became a little more wary. But trailers had a lot to promise (not to mention Joss Whedon was behind the wheel), so what could go wrong? It was just a weird feeling: as excited as I had been for (most) every Marvel movie before this, I wasn’t too giddy about it.

The plot is pretty straightforward: a cube of unlimited power gets in the wrong hands, and it’s up to a team of superheroes – under the watchful eye of a secret government agency – to stop the universe from getting blowed up real good. All the major players are here: Robert Downey, Jr. is definitely my favorite of the bunch, and this is easily his best performance as Iron Man in the franchise. It’s a great combination of playful improvised banter from the second movie and character heart/development from the first movie. Chris Evans is relatively straight-faced throughout the proceedings as Captain America, although it seems as though a lot of the “man out of time” elements to his story are glossed over in favor of other characters’ exposition. Scarlett Johansson plays Black Widow pretty well, considering her almost negative-presence in Iron Man 2, and Jeremy Renner plays “Hawkeye.” I kind of feel bad for Renner here, since most of his time in the movie is spent under the control of the film’s villain; once he gets back to normal, it’s time for the final confrontation. Rounding out the cast are Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth as Bruce Banner and Thor, respectively.

Thor’s presence in this movie is enough, to me, to more than make up for his self-titled concept movie. Thor‘s Thor had few redeemable qualities, and a very small story arc. Once he shows up in this movie, though, it’s almost-instantly better than anything he had to do in the first film. This time, Thor has a great driving motivation – his brother, Loki, is at the helm of all the madness – and he has some absolutely great scenes, especially a fight with the Hulk on the airship.

Oh, and Hulk. Hulk. Sweet baby Jesus, what’s to say about Hulk that hasn’t been said in every other review of this movie? Hulk pretty much steals the show. In fact, the one gripe I have about Hulk is that it seems as though the filmmakers knew he was going to steal the show, so gave him all sorts of cool shit to do in the last act (which is okay, I suppose, since he doesn’t really get to show up at all until that act). Where Robert Downey, Jr. holds most of the movie’s comedic elements, Mark Ruffalo comes damn close to stealing the movie right from under his feet. Ruffalo adds so much nuance to his performance – a twitch of an eye, wringing his hands – that he’s the one to watch throughout most of the movie.

This is the face I make when I see how much drinks cost at the movie theater.

Once Hulk does show up on the airship, it’s genuinely scary. It’s on the same level of scary to me as running down a hallway and imagining there’s someone right behind you. It’s a lot like that shot in Jurassic Park where Lex almost gets her leg ripped off by a velociraptor as she’s climbing into the ceiling: every time the Hulk takes a swipe at Black Widow as she’s running through the lower levels of the ship, I cringed. Of course, all I could hear about before I saw the movie was how Hulk dominated the last act, which he indeed does. I’m going to have to do some thinking about this, but I’m pretty sure Ruffalo saying, “That’s my secret…I’m always angry,” as he instantly morphs into the Hulk may be my favorite moment in any of these movies.

Tom Hiddleston plays Loki pretty damn well in this movie, another element of Avengers soundly trumping Thor. He has this sneer on his face, this snarl in his delivery, that makes him look like a seething cauldron of pure hate, which suits the character well. His scene with Black Widow in the interrogation chamber/Hulk tank was great to watch; I sincerely thought he was going to start foaming at the mouth. He also gets some great moments of levity here and there (“I’m listening…?”). One of the most notable aspects of the Avengers series has been the absence of a truly great villain – Stane was underwhelming in Iron Man, especially the final confrontation, though I will say that Red Skull was pretty good (except for the makeup). Loki still lacks that certain something a great, strong, formidable foe needs, and that makes the last act of the movie just a bit underwhelming.

The final thirty minutes of Avengers have been talked about in the same vain as Transformers:Dark of the Moon, in that they are both balls-out battles in the streets of a major city. This is true, though I’ll go ahead and say that the last fight in Avengers most certainly has more re-watchability than DotM. I understand that the Avengers need a huge threat to stop, and an army is a great place to start, and you can’t have human armies fighting Avengers, because it’s a PG-13 movie. Fine. This is why I can accept the fantastical aspect of the movie, an aspect I had a hard time accepting in Thor. The Chitauri, though, are still so lifeless. It’s like playing a game on the easiest difficulty setting, and having swaths of enemies get cut down with one hit. They seemed almost too easy to take out. That’s not to say there weren’t a lot of enjoyable moments throughout the scene: Hulk and Thor fighting together (also, the sucker punch), Hawkeye making Loki look like a dumbass (something every Avenger gets to do – most notably Hulk, in a scene that caused the highest crowd reaction but probably won’t hold over so well when watching it at home), and Captain America doing some crazy-ass repulsor blast/shield deflection thing you’d see in an Ultimate Alliance game. It’s definitely what makes this the most comic book-ey superhero movie yet: bright colors, loud noises, and the giddy glee of getting to hear Captain America tell Hulk to smash.

Overall, I liked this one. I just don’t think it’s the “game changer” I’ve been reading about on every film-related site over the last 3 months. Elements of the writing seem drop and rise in quality – I loved hearing banter between any 2 heroes, most notably Tony Stark and anyone else, but other parts of dialogue seemed like I was watching a fanfic (“You better be damn sure we’ll avenge it?” What the hell?). Whedon’s direction is great, and he knows how to effectively frame action sequences – one shot that sticks out in my mind is Loki’s reflection in the tank’s glass as he yells at Black Widow. I loved that Stark and Banner become buddies. I liked the stinger at the very end of the credits a lot, though the stinger in the middle of the credits introducing Thanos as a potential villain was a little off-putting.* I guess what I’m getting at here is, there’s a lot of stuff to love in this movie. I just suppose I was worried about a John Carter/Avatar/Dark of the Moon thing happening, where every gushing early review I read would lead me down the wrong path. Thankfully, it didn’t. Avengers isn’t perfect – but it does have huge ambition, and manages to not get weighed down by it. I guess it says a lot that one of my chief complaints can be seen as one of the movie’s (and the franchise’s) strongest points: I want more.

*I kind of want someone to edit the Thanos scene so “Back In Time” by Huey Lewis and the News starts playing when it cuts to black at the end.

My Favorites/Least Favorites of 2011

I don’t care much for top tens and bottom tens, because quality is subjective. Instead, I’ve pieced together my favorite and least favorite movies of 2011.

Least Liked

10: Tower Heist.

I hate Brett Ratner as much as anyone, so I hated this movie before I even saw it. It may not be fair, but in the end, it was justified. The movie was filled with terrible performances, including Matthew Broderick, who looks like he doesn’t know where he is for parts of the movie, and Gabourey Sidibe, who took any undeserved praise from “Precious” and squandered it by mumbling all of her lines in a half-assed Jamaican accent. Also, it made Bateman fall asleep halfway through, which I’ve never seen happen before, ever.

9: Thor.

I know it’s unfair to put this under Tower Heist, but the two were really tied for the same spot. I thought Thor was kind of boring, and an epic, sprawling superhero tale like it doesn’t need to be on such a small scale. The movie only had a handful of main characters, not including Thor’s ridiculous sidekicks, and the giant robot villain at the end was just kind of “meh.”

8: The Sitter.

Any movie about a babysitter telling one of the kids, “Slater, you’re fucking gay, man,” in a totally dramatic and depressing scene that tonally doesn’t match any of the rest of the movie. That was enough to make me place it on this list.

7: Transformers – Dark of the Moon.

I’ll admit, I had a huge nerd boner for this when I first saw it – I even tweeted it! – and I thought it to be the best in the series. That may be true, but after watching it a second time, the movie felt about three times longer than it did when I first saw it. Everything up to the final fight scene was ridiculously boring, and the fight scene itself takes up about thirty long, long minutes, only to be saved by a couple of interesting moments. The movie literally ends minutes after the villain is defeated, as if the writers were crunched for time.

6: Your Highness.

There’s not much to say, except forced humor and groan-worthy jokes and language just made this hard to watch, with only a few instances that actually made me laugh.

5: Real Steel.

Dumb, long, and sappy. How a movie about robot boxing could be any of these things is absolute insanity to me.

4: Green Lantern.

I was okay with this after seeing it opening night, but something didn’t quite click. I saw it one more time a few months later and figured out that it just was missing something. Between the overly cartoonish look of the movie, the shitty looking CG costume Ryan Reynolds wore, the boring action setpieces, including a Hot Wheels-inspired rescue, this movie had little to offer, except for Parallax, who was genuinely scary in some moments.

3: Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides.

God, this movie. There’s this thing about 3D movies being watched in 2D that bothers me: when an obvious 3d gimmick shows up in 2D – like a sword popping out at the audience – it looks ridiculous. Pirates does this so many times, the gimmicky look of the movie wears off after about 20 minutes. The movie is insanely long, has not a single storyline to give a shit about, has piss-poor acting, and setpieces that are uninspired at best. At least the second movie, in it’s absolutely boring nature, had some swordfights to write home about. This? Nothing.

2: Cowboys & Aliens.

Like “Real Steel,” I wonder how a movie with a title like “Cowboys & Aliens” could be so boring. I fell asleep halfway through, and the part I managed to see was too boring to give a shit about. The movie further confirms my idea that Paul Dano is a terrible actor, who at some point in every film he’s in is reduced to a screaming pool of ham. Poor Harrison Ford is useless in it, and the plot in general makes little sense. What are the aliens pissed about? Why the time setting? Who cares.

1: Bucky Larson – Born to Be a Star.

I regret even admitting I saw this piece of shit. I was expecting to see a so-dumb-it’s-funny movie, but the movie I saw wasn’t funny at all. I saw it at midnight with Bateman, in a nearly-empty theater, and after about ten minutes I was ready to leave. I’ve only done this once before (with “The Last Airbender”) but that was me leaving the movie to get my money back. This time, after an hour, I had to get up and leave because this movie made me feel so depressed and terrible about myself as a human being I couldn’t tolerate sitting still. I stood in the lobby and stared at the wall, and contemplated my life, and went back in for another 30 minutes of this joyless asshole of a movie. I hate it. Pure, white hate.

Most Liked

10: Drive.

I heard a lot about this movie before I saw it; they were mostly ecstatic reviews, so I was excited to see what the fuss was about. Yes, the soundtrack was great, and yes, the cinematography was great too – the movie looks like it’s a panel-for-panel Zack Snyder adaptation of a graphic novel. It’s filled with great performances, and it moves at a brisk pace. Everything is great, except Ryan Gosling’s constant half-smirk, but I’ll let that slide.

9: X-Men – First Class.

I wasn’t really looking forward to this one, since I didn’t see how it was really necessary to have this story told, but once the movie started, and they had the exact concentration-camp scene from the original movie, I was hooked. Magneto’s story is far superior to Professor X’s, but every character is so well-written and well-acted, it’s hard to pick favorites in the long run.

8: Winnie the Pooh.

With any other movie, I’d be upset at a 60-minute runtime, but it fit this movie perfectly. Short, sweet, and simple, with gorgeous hand-drawn animation, this is a movie that’s perfect for families.

7: Super 8.

This movie sparked a furious debate between friends on the ride home – a debate I’d rather not have to listen to again – but I stood by it, saying “I loved it.” There wasn’t any other movie this summer that made me sum up my feelings in that succinct a manner. I loved the score, the atmosphere, and the performances. There were a few consistency errors, and some writing problems, but whatever, fuck it. It’s great.

6: Rango.

This is not a kid’s movie. I would love to meet any kid that fully appreciates and understands “Rango,” but I don’t know if any exist. It’s beautifully animated, stylized, and it reinvigorated my interested in spaghetti westerns. Also, it has one of the best villains in any movie this year - Rattlesnake fucking Jake.

5. Diary of A Wimpy Kid – Roderick Rules.

Yeah, I liked it. I loved it! It’s a sweet, underrated movie about brothers, youth, friendship, being awkward, first parties, and bonding. Steve Zahn is hilarious in it with the little screen time he gets, and the kid actors are hilarious as well.

4: The Muppets.

I’ve always been into the Muppets, so this was kind of a no-brainer. There were some elements that didn’t work (like Amy Adams for the most part, and one or two songs, and a few questionable cameos), but the good far outweighed the “eh.” This is worth it just to see Jack Black’s hosting gig in the third act (“It’s not a bit!”).

3: 50/50.

This is a really special movie, with a powerhouse performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I didn’t know how well a movie with this subject matter would do in the balancing act between comedy and drama, but it pulled it off effortlessly.

2: Tree of Life.

The theatre I saw this in had some horrible sound problems, so every footstep or cough in the movie was deafeningly loud. That small bad factor could ruin the experience for me, but I was so in love with every moment from this film, I was mesmerized. What others saw as disjointed and confusing, I saw a cohesive, harmonious whole. I’m afraid to rewatch this on Blu-Ray for fear that it’s one of those movies that can only be experienced on the big screen, which may ruin it a little for me; for now, I’ll just stick with the fantastic first impression I was left with.

1: The Descendants.

I liked this movie a lot the first time I saw it; I loved it the second time I watched it. There’s no happy ending, or major character arc. It’s a simple story of a confused pushover father who has to deal not only with his dying present, but taking care of his future and responsibly handling a piece of his past. The movie isn’t rooted in fantasy; it bathes in it’s realism, in the bittersweet contrast of a loved one’s memorial service and a family meeting to decide a buyer for valuable real estate. The juxtaposition between the aforementioned bittersweet, grey tone of the movie and the bright island setting helps emotions and character traits stand out even more. Elements of the movie that don’t work kind of help the movie in my eyes. For example, not all of the acting is great – George Clooney and Shailene Woodley give great performances – but a lot of the random islander characters (the actor playing Sid especially) seem like friends of the cast and crew who aren’t professional actors: lines are awkwardly, robotically spoken, and not a lot of nuance is included. But this, in my eyes, helps give the movie a genuine feeling, which helps considering the subject matter. A striking moment towards the end – where George Clooney, on a boat in the ocean with his daughters, looks into a pail of his wife’s ashes before pouring them into the water – has so many meanings to me: acceptance and letting go, sadness of losing a partner, and the overwhelming emotion that comes with seeing that partner reduced to a simplified shape in a mere pail about to be spread out across miles of water. This one shot holds so much emotion and so much power, it’s hard to fathom it not having any emotional resonance with someone. Also, Dean wrote it. Dean Dong!

Speed Racer – 2008

Everyone has a movie that, when it comes out, they have an opinion of that drastically changes over time and multiple viewings. It happens all the time; the first time I saw Zodiac, I wasn’t a huge fan, but it grew on me over time after I was able to think about it more and more. The most polarizing switch between hate and love for me, however, has to be Speed Racer. The first time I saw Speed Racer, I was in a theater full of talking children and I was exhausted and stressed and I took it all out on the movie. I hated, hated, hated it. I hated the direction, the visuals, the childish breaks in action, the dialogue, the themes, everything. I stormed out of the theater furiously texting everyone I know, telling them this movie is an absolute failure on every level and it must be avoided. Then, a month went by. And another. And I found myself thinking about one scene, one moment in the movie, and wanting to watch it again.

Speed Racer opens with the character of Speed as a small boy who can’t seem to take his mind off of racing for a single second. He’s always talking about racing, or drawing race cars crashing into each other (a bit macabre), or making race car sounds while he imagines himself behind the wheel of a car. He even imagines racing when he’s taking tests.

It’s no surprise that Speed comes from a racing family; his dad, “Pops,” builds and fixes race cars for Speed’s brother, Rex. Rex is the driver of the family, and since he’s good enough to be on a professional circuit level, Speed absolutely idolizes him. He adores him, and begs him constantly to let him ride along at the test track. Not everything is perfect in the family, though; Rex disappears one night after a fight with Pops, and is killed in a race not long after. Speed is devastated, and devotes his life to keeping his brother’s racing legacy alive while maintaining his own.

With a bit more marketability.

And boy, does he do the hell out of it. We’re led to believe Speed is an up-and-comer to be feared. He’s to the futuristic-racing world what Tiger Woods was to golf, or Michael Jordan was to basketball. He’s got charisma, charm, and talent in spades. He and his family are approached by Arnold Royalton, a seemingly wonderful industrialist who wants to represent Speed and add him to his roster of brutally competitive racers. He lavishes him with gifts and promises, and his family is given the royal treatment, as well. Speed’s reluctant, however, to leave his family and go corporate. He was raised to believe the sponsors are the devil, that they “control the media,” etc. This kind of thinking could be chalked up as typical brainwash to keep Speed around, but when Speed goes to Royalton to turn down his offer, it becomes quite clear that the racing world really isn’t as beautiful as the races themselves.

Royalton tells Speed that his childish love of racing is naive; that he is clueless to the business side of things. It’s revealed that the sponsors do, in fact, control the media. Every race, including the World Grand Prix, is fixed to help companies gain stock. “It isn’t about cars or drivers,” yells Royalton. “It’s about power, and the unassailable might of money.” Speed decides that his integrity is more important than the almighty dollar, and remains steadfast in his rejection of Royalton’s offer, making him an enemy to nearly every racer in the automobile world. Royalton has his racers destroy Speed’s car, thus ruining the family business. Just as things started to look grim, a Corporate Crimes detective and a mysterious racer ask Speed and his family for help in taking down Royalton. So Speed, the mysterious racer (appropriately named “Racer X”) and a third racer, who claims to have evidence that could result in Royalton’s indictment, set out to take down a corporate giant and restore glory to a profiteered sport.

And to see Rain shirtless.

The summer of 2008 was interesting for me, from a movie-watching perspective and from a “life” perspective. 2008 had, in my opinion, one of the best summers for movies in years, and it still has yet to be usurped. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, I Love You Man, and – of course – I’m Too Damn Lazy To Remember the Rest of These Movies. From the “life” perspective, I was in this weird, turbulent time between jobs and trying to figure out school plans – I had a potentially life-changing decision I had to make and had no idea how I was going to make it, and being at that threshold scared the shit out me. There’s a moment in Speed Racer where Speed is competing in the World Grand Prix, the  World Series of auto racing, and he’s just recovered from a nasty bit of trickery from his rival that left him momentarily stalled. He’s managed to “feel” out his car – what it needs to get started, and revs the engine. Then, without second’s hesitation, he begins drifting through the race track, effortlessly gliding past his opponents, as if he were performing in some flashy, colorful, automotive ballet. As he makes his way to the finish line, he visualizes – his mother comparing his racing to art, watching an old race with his father as a kid, talking with Racer X about why it even matters anymore - all of the things that have motivated him up to this point. He keeps pushing himself further and further until he manages to take out two racers at once in a cataclysmic demolition derby that leaves behind a gleaming white trail of fenders and steering wheels amidst a flurry of tire marks. This one moment – all 3 or so minutes of it – had such a feeling of profoundness to me then, and it still does now. The score (by Michael Giacchino, my new favorite film composer) has a soaring, triumphant sound that superbly encompasses the feeling of finding purpose and joy in something you loved but lost faith in. It quickly evolves into a hurried, panicking series of horns and strings that increase the nail-biting tension of the last few seconds of the race. Revisiting this scene 2 months later gave me a weird feeling that washed over me, a feeling that in some abstract way, I related to this guy. I related to this movie. I loved doing things that I had lost faith in or was worried about losing faith in. Even when it felt like the world was moving past me and my goals seemed unattainable, it didn’t matter because I loved doing what I wanted to do and nothing could change that. No matter what the naysayers said, or what doubts I may have instilled in myself, it was all as simple as just….gliding through it. It’s a beautiful scene.

The rest of the movie is equally as beautiful, though it does have some less-than-stellar elements. First off, I know this doesn’t really need to be said, since it’s the number one thing the movie has going for itself in anyone’s eyes – even people that hated it – but the visuals are absolutely mind-blowing. I don’t have too many “jaw-drop” moments in movies anymore, but this one does it quite a bit, even after being out for 3 years. It’s eye candy in every sense of the term, with beautiful colors that all blend into one giant technicolor orgasm. The way the film is shot leaves any other film that strived to be a live-action cartoon behind in the dust. The Wachowskis can take something as simple as a shot of a young Trixie watching Speed drive past and fill it with surreal detail, like rose petals and lights becoming hearts.

The performances are, for the most part, great. Emile Hirsch plays the character on different levels – he’s seemingly cool and cocky in earlier scenes, but his frustration grows as he gets deeper and deeper into the seedy side of racing. Speed matures a great deal as a character throughout the movie, and Hirsch plays that well. Susan Sarandon and John Goodman don’t do a whole lot here, not that I care all too much. They aren’t terrible, they’re just…there. The standout performance in my eyes, though, has to be Roger Allam as Royalton. The way in which Allam speaks in this movie is a perfect example of one’s words slithering out of their mouth. Every syllable this man speaks is a poisonous barb, and he plays the character in an almost serpentine fashion, goading Speed into taking an apple in what could be a horribly forced Biblical reference. His verbal attack on Speed later is almost frightening, as he taunts and screams at Speed about what really matters. This is a villain that doesn’t necessarily carry a lot of physical threat, but a great deal of threat nonetheless.

He's almost-rat like....in how threatening he is.

Now onto the bad: I really don’t like Speed’s little brother, Spritle, at all. He’s ridiculously obnoxious, annoying, and doesn’t do much to advance things. There is a cool moment in the first act where Spritle and his pet monkey Chim-Chim are having some insane imaginary fight surrounded by anime characters and surroundings, and I suppose that’s okay. It’s a kid and his pet monkey having what I imagine is an acid-fueled rough-housing session. But other scenes with Spritle are kind of pointless. He makes a wreck of Royalton Industry’s labs (to the tune of “Freebird,” of course), he hides in Speed’s trunk while Speed and Trixie are talking, and screams about how the “Harbinger of Boom” is at his doorstep when Racer X shows up unexpectedly. To his credit, I’d imagine this is how an 8 or 9-year old kid would react in situations like these; Spritle looks up to Speed more than anything, and considers him a hero over just a big brother. However, there is one moment at the end that I hate to this very fucking day: Speed has just won the Grand Prix, and he grabs Trixie, about to kiss her, when Spritle (along with Chim-Chim, dressed in lab outfits? I don’t know) stops the movie, and pops up on screen. “Warning: The following image may be unsuitable for the un-inoculated – or, cootie-sensitive – viewers.” Why put this in the movie? It’s not even funny. It’s an unfunny boy barely making through his lines while a monkey screeches next to him in a completely unnecessary and confusing break in the action.

There are so many other, little things about this movie that I love. I love the “car-fu,” especially one mind-boggling desert shot of 3 cars bouncing off each other – fighting – in mid-air. I love random shots of Speed – especially one in a scene where he’s racing to beat his brother’s best time, but he can’t do it - he eases off the gas at the last second, taking second place to his brother, with a single tear in his eye.

This is so much kore than a kid’s movie to me. It was critically panned, and I can understand why. When taken for surface value, it can be misconstrued as merely a colorful, cartoony, zany racing movie with little or no plot, stiff acting and no real meaning. But when further inspected, it’s so much more. It’s a story about family ties (blood is thicker than water, and all that jazz), doing what you love to do, fighting a system of greed and gain, keeping the memories of loved ones alive, and protecting what you love by any means necessary. It’s a story about the bond between man and machine, and the integral connection – the symbiosis – that binds the two. It’s a story about brothers; the bond between siblings that defies life and death and past and present. It’s all punctuated with dazzling visuals and beautiful music. It’s something I revisit frequently, because it appeals to me, in all of the bright, loud, sentimental glory it encompasses. I can only hope I don’t make the same mistake I made in the future when hating a movie; I hope I can learn to see them for more than they might offer on the surface. I think there’s an old saying that fits the situation: “Never judge a film by it’s trailer, but by it’s insanely badass action sequences.”

Good lord, that's sweet.

Spider-Man – 2002

When Spider-Man came out, it was an exciting, magical time. Marvel movies had been around for awhile, but they were starting to get good. Real good. We had movies like X-Men, which was mind-blowing, and I think I watched it nonstop when it came on HBO. But there was something so much more exciting about Spider-Man. I distinctly remember watching a premiere special on E! and getting so fucking excited about the smallest things. “There’s a high school fight scene? GREAT!” I even bought the soundtrack! Say what you will about Nickelback (I will: Fuck them) but the song “Hero” was pure ROCK. No matter what I was doing – eating Hot Pockets, doing fractions homework, etc. – I felt like a god when I had that playing. I saw it on the Friday it opened, and I will always remember that as the first major Friday opening for a movie I’d ever been to. It was insanely packed, and I distinctly recall the bathroom being full afterward (I also remember one guy who had to pee so bad, and when he finally started he did an impression of Austin Powers peeing, back when it was still funny to make those jokes). Of course, when Spider-Man 2 came out, it pretty much backhanded the hell out of the first one, but I’m not here to compare. I’m going to judge this movie on it’s own merits, and at no point will I make a long soapbox speech about how the second one did a much better job of making the villain more human and realistic, and how the first one seems like a Tim Burton movie compared to the much more Sam Raimi-esque direction of the second, and what the hell was up with the Julia Roberts joke in the first one anyway? Nope, nothing like that at all.

The movie opens with a pretty sweet credits sequence that does almost nothing to set up the story, but gets us excited about all the webs this movie is going to have!

"Whoo! Standerson!"

When the movie opens, we get some narration from Peter Parker as he chases down a school bus driven by a sociopathic bus driver, and we’re immediately clued into the fact that he’s a loser. If anything, this movie does too much to show us how shitty Peter’s social status is. Not only does the ugly nerd girl not want him sitting with her, but the fat kid that doesn’t know how to eat a jelly donut is guffawing at him, too. Now that I think about it, Peter looks like a cool kid. He’s not ugly, he has a decent sense of style, and the glasses just add character. If he were in present-day New York, he’d be fitting in with almost every other guy his age. He looks like such a hipster! What did he do to make everyone hate him so much?

Possibly because he's a shape-shifter.

Anyway, Peter’s class is going on a high school field trip to the Sciencetorium where he and his friend Harry are shunned by the other kids for being a nerd, and being rich. If anyone should get more shit for being down on himself for no reason, it’s Harry. First off, the attractive jocks hate him because he’s rich? Also, Harry is a cool-looking guy too! It just makes no sense, but whatever. Peter meets his best friend’s dad for the first time, who creepily reveals he’s a scientist, and was also Jesus Christ.

"You know, I'm something of a hero myself."

Peter balances his time between taking pictures and creepily staring at the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane, who he’s apparently been in love with since he was a toddler, which I’m going to have to call bullshit on. While walking this fine tightrope, Peter is bitten by a spider that looks suspiciously like Shannon Doherty and then goes home, where he promptly starts acting as if he’s quitting heroin cold-turkey.

Harry’s dad, Norman, also has some troubles, in that his military funding is about to get cut. He desperately wants to finish his experimental super-soldier armor project (or whatever the hell it is), so he tests it on himself, which works out well. The only side effects turn out to be insanity, super-strength, and some AMAZING washboard abs.

"Shut up and KISS ME!"

Peter realizes he’s gotten some amazing – excuse me, Amazing powers, and decides to use them as best he can. He enters a wrestling match, of course! And it’s a cage match, which is ridiculously convenient for Peter, even though he protests about the whole thing. How would he have fared if it wasn’t a cage match? He enters not necessarily for fame, but for money, to buy a nice car to impress the girl he’s in love with and hopefully steal her from the boy she’s dating. D’aw. He gets his uncle to drive him, but lies and says he’s going to the library(?). He promptly wins, but is stiffed by a promoter on the payment, and lets a guy who’s robbing the promoter get away because FUCK HIM. It’s not all peaches and gravy, though, because the robber shoots Peter’s uncle, and gets away. Peter, in a fit of rage, chases the robber down and is about to kill him, until the bumbling idiot trips on a pipe and dies.

Accident. Right.

Peter continues to fight crime under the name “Spider-Man” (a name given by the wrestling announcer, played by Bruce Campbell in the best cameo in the trilogy) and gets a job taking pictures of his crime-fighting alter ego for the newspaper, Mary Jane starts dating Harry, Harry’s dad becomes a super-villain who wants to kill the Spider-Man and eventually finds out his real identity, and Peter’s Aunt May never forgets the cranberries. The final showdown happens when Norman (aka the Green Goblin) kidnaps Mary Jane to lure the Spider into his web (hah!) and Spider-Man has to beat his ass. Gobby accidentally kills himself, Harry thinks Spider-Man killed his father, and the film ends at Norman’s funeral, with Peter realizing that great power comes with great responsibility. Also, no one tells Harry.

"Here lies Gobby, a free something of a scientist."

Okay, so: I like Peter being in high school. It’s awesome. But I have some issues. First off, none of those kids look like kids. The extras do, sure, but Peter Parker looks like he’s in his late 20′s. Also, they’re only in high school for what seems like 30 minutes. Another thing about the high school: the social pecking order makes no sense. This bully named “Flash Thompson” hates Peter and Harry with a venomous passion, and we have no idea why. He’s jealous of Harry, I guess, because he makes snide comments like, “What’s daddy gonna do? SUE ME?” So he doesn’t like that Harry is wealthy? Flash wears a leather jacket and has gelled hair, and drives a really nice car. There’s no way he’s poor. Also, why does he date Mary Jane? Isn’t she supposed to be like trash in this movie? Whatever.

Speaking of MJ, she is such a slut! She moves from guy to guy throughout not only this series, but this movie. She’s hot and heavy with Flash, then Harry, then suddenly is in love with Peter. She was always in love with Peter! Right, she’s total trash. And speaking of unlikeable characters, Harry is such a douche. He’s living in (what I assume) a rent-free apartment, dating the girl that he knows his best friend has been in love with since they even met each other, and yet his only way of explaining is, “You just never made a move.” Harry hanging out with Peter makes no sense except for the fact that they share the same trait of being kind of a dick. That’s right, I said it! Peter comes off as selfish so often in this movie, which you could argue is intentional since he needs some sort of character arc, but honestly, come on. He acts like a total ass to his Uncle, he uses his powers to make money initially, and he really only acts out of self-preservation. When he’s catching criminals, he makes sure to photograph himself do it, otherwise he won’t make money at the Daily Bugle. It’s not until the end of the movie when he finally realizes that he needs to focus on helping others instead of himself, but up until then the only time he has to think of someone other than himself, it’s when Aunt May has her bedroom exploded or when Mary Jane is dangling over something.

Now's not the time, Spider-Man!

The idea that Mary Jane is put in peril so many times in this movie is a bit ridiculous. The “damsel in distress” idea is really spread thin, and the plausibility that a superhero (who also knows her name somehow) would go at great lengths to save her specifically while people in wheelchairs are being skeleton-ized puts Spider-Man’s anonymity to extreme tests. We understand, she’s the girl of your dreams, but on more than enough occasions we see her dangling from something or being attacked by something or being mugged by something. Why the hell is she so prone to being attacked? It’s as if death itself is out to get her, and Spider-Man is conveniently there every time to save her. Oh, and the whole bit with the Spider-kiss? I hate it. I don’t know why I hate it, but I just do. Maybe it’s because it pushes Mary Jane’s whore level to a new high (or low?) or maybe because it’s not really Peter Parker-like, but none of it makes sense. The entire scene was built around this gimmick of an upside-down MTV Movie Awards Best Kiss and it just doesn’t work.

Because it gave us shit like this.

Let me take a second to talk about the Green Goblin/Meanie/Menace/Octopus. I like the idea of Harry’s dad being a bad guy, and I guess I like the relationship he has with Peter, but the costume that he wears is just fucking ridiculous. To this day, I don’t have any clue whatsoever what Osborne was working on that he so desperately needed to finish before the army cut his funding. It was a super-suit, right? We see a gentleman floating on a glider prototype early on, and later, a rival company is selling a rival supersuit to the same army general (by the way, it’s never revealed why the general wants “nothing more than to put Norman Osborne out of business,” or why he hates him, but I assume it’s just because he’s creepy). But here’s the deal: Norman gives himself a super-soldier serum in addition to stealing the suit and glider. At no point is it suggested that this was necessary. It didn’t look like either men earlier were on any performance-enhancing serums. And the second tester guy was only hyped as being an amazingly gifted pilot.

So this is what they went with instead of the Goblin suit?

So why the serum? I don’t know. So back to the costume – it looks insanely stupid. Granted, this movie came out before comic-book movies started trying to be grounded in realism or grittiness, but this movie and X-Men both shared similar traits in that it felt like, despite these people having extraordinary powers, they were living in our world. So the fact that the army was funding a super-suit that had the face of a Jew in a Nazi Propaganda poster makes no sense. It’s just cartoonish. The Green Goblin, in the comics, was just a super-villain in a Goblin costume, not a military suit. It would be ridiculous and not realistic in any way to have the movie’s villain just be a dude in a goblin suit! So, he should be…in armor….that looks like a goblin? If they wanted to have any semblance of realism, why pick the Green Goblin as the bad guy? The idea that our country would have been okay with American soldiers flying around battlefields in Goblin suits is hilarious, which may have been intentional. Maybe Norman Osborne was the biggest idiot in New York City, and his ideas just sucked, and that’s why the General hated him so much, and why his son is treated like a leper.

Also, this is a bit more petty, but necessary to point out: the suit “acting” sucks hard. This is the fault of whoever was in the suit and the director, but there are moments when the Goblin is done talking and the head is stil jerking around as if words are still being said. There are also moments where the movements are just cartoonish, like when the Goblin is about to be crushed under a brick wall. I know Willem Dafoe was in the suit quite a bit, so this may or may not be his fault, but there are times when the Green Goblin’s movements, coupled with his appearance, make him look like a Power Rangers villain.

An old, Russian Power Rangers villain.

The Green Goblin isn’t the only thing in the movie that’s cartoonish. The Thanksgiving scene has two moments, one good, one bad. I like the hammy acting Dafoe does throughout this scene (and the movie in general, really). But the look he gives Aunt May when he’s about to eat a piece of pie or whatever the hell that was and she slaps his hand away is absolutely priceless. He looks like he could fucking stab her on the spot. Seconds later, he sharpens knives like he’s going to do just that. The fact that he got so furious over a piece of pie is hilarious.

Now, for the bad: the whole blood drop thing? I don’t like it. I know Norman has super-senses after becoming the Goblin, but hearing a tiny baby drop of blood slowly fall *plehp* onto the floor and immediately acting as though it was as loud as a car accident is a bit much. And on the subject of “cartoonish” and “a bit much,” the entire “World Unity Day” setpiece is just dumb. It’s dumb that Mary Jane is wearing such a hideous outfit.

It’s dumb that the Goblin has a weapon that he only uses once that literally evaporates people. It’s dumb that a stupid kid stands there for minutes on end while a giant sign is fallin towards him, and Spider-Man has to sigh and swing from what’s probably miles away just to save him in the nick of time. The fight scene with the cops is dumb. The presence of Macy Gray is SO dumb. If I showed this movie to a kid around the age of, say, 13, and asked him who the lady on stage is, he’d probably have no clue. Maybe he’d be one of those cool kids that listens to Macy Gray and Lenny Kravitz, but that’s a one in a million, come on. Also, there’s a giant billboard for Cingular Wireless and it seems as though no one really knows what it is.

Finally, it’s dumb that World Unity Day is a day that doesn’t exist and was probably put in the movie as a post-9/11 sentiment thing. Speaking of post-9/11 sentiment, one of my least favorite things in this movie is the entire “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” moment in the final battle. As I understand it, this was put in right after the World Trade Center attacks in order to establish a newfound sense of unity and brotherhood in New York, and America in general. I get that, and it was a nice gesture, I guess, but it’s so hokey and corny and cheesy that it just takes me right the hell out of everything. The Goblin is about to kill Spider-Man and all of a sudden, a construction worker and a street saxophonist have teamed up to throw all the garbage in New York at him! Fuck yeah, America! The line “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” is so depressingly sappy that it feels disingenuous and opportunistic.

I do like most of the entire final scene. While I was watching the movie with Drew, he pointed out that he’s always liked that the Goblin points out the fact that he’s a “lunatic with a sadistic choice,” which is a pretty good line. Even though the choice is kind of stupid (a cable car full of children or the girl next door? Hm..) it works out well, except for one thing: Peter is hanging onto the cable car, using a web attached to the underside of the bridge with one hand, and the cable attached to the car with the other hand. Does a cable car have the cable attached to the top of the car? How did the car not just drop? I also love the scene in the abandoned hospital where Peter gets his ass beat. The way Goblin is effortlessly destroying Peter is powerful to watch, and the fact that there’s no music in the scene at all makes it even better. Also, I had forgotten how brutal Goblin’s death is, but after watching the movie as many times as I have, it’s still pretty damn vicious. Norman’s “Oh!” right before the glider impales him is still one of my favorite moments in this movie.

Guess that armor wasn't very effective.

Something Marvel movies have been doing lately which has gotten obnoxious is the constant use of references to other properties or things within that property that are usually just done for fan service. Pretty much every Marvel movie now features references to one another, since The Avengers is tying all of them together. Iron Man appears in some, there are references to Captain America in Hulk, etc. The nice thing about the fan service in Spider-Man is that it was before there had to be a minimum of 90 references to other comic book characters in a Marvel movie. You don’t see a “Stark Industries” connection to Oscorp, and you don’t see a picture of Daredevil in the Daily Bugle. However, there are a few small references that were put in the movie that don’t really make much sense considering later films, and were only put in the movie so comic fans could clap and say “OH BABY!” For example, Robbie mentions that “Eddie” been trying to get pictures for weeks, which is a clear reference to Eddie Brock, who shows up two movies later as a rookie photographer. Later, Peter mentions that he’s working with “Dr. Connors,” who’s also known as The Lizard in the comic books, and shows up as one of Peter’s professors in the sequel. Neither of these references advance the plot, and are simply there to be there, which is a bit annoying, but not that big of a deal considering the reference-whoring of more recent movies.

I remember after seeing this movie, going home and watching “Ebert and Roeper at the Movies” and listening to Ebert talk about how he liked the details of the origin story, but was unconvinced by the way the character looked and moved. I remember saying, as innocent ten-year-old, “Fuck that guy.” But it’s been nearly ten years since the movie’s come out, and I have to admit: I kind of agree. I like the acting (except for Tobey McGuire’s crying face) and the way the movie looks, and there are certain scenes and moments that still stand out as among the best in the comic-book movie genre. However, there’s so much that either doesn’t hold up anymore or never really held up in the first place, and it’s really changed the way I look at the movie. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Spider-Man a lot. But there are so many little things that keep me from really loving it. I still don’t want to compare, so I’ll think of it this way. If the second movie had never come out (let’s forget the third movie, as it should be forgotten), and we only had this one Spider-Man film, would people think of it as the definitive “Spider-Man” movie? I, for one, and excited about the prospect of the upcoming reboot, because as much as I like the way Sam Raimi painted the picture of Peter Parker’s transformation into Spider-Man, I want an origin story that makes me identify with the main character, gives me a strong connection between the hero and the villain, and – above all else – gives me more Peter Parker in high school.

Radio – 2003

When I first saw Radio, something about it pulled on my childish heartstrings in a strange way. There was something about it that seemed so…endearing. Like a puppy with a broken leg, but a heart of gold, who goes on to win the World Cup! However, when I went to school the next day, the damnedest thing happened. I found myself making fun of it, going so far as to do an imitation of the main character for what I add up to be 7 straight years. I forgot about the movie itself soon after, but there was something about the main character – cadence, face, catchphrases – that stuck with me. A few months ago, I was thinking about the whole thing, and realized that this movie absolutely HAD to be some kind of joke. At best, I made up half of the things I remembered, like I had seen too many Radio spoofs and just incorporated them into the original movie. But upon re-watching last night for the first time in ages, it’s clear that this movie, while not necessarily bad from a technical standpoint, is absolutely terrible.

Our story begins with some totally random narration by a woman who turns out to be a secondary character (I love it when movies do that!). We see a young black man pushing around a shopping cart, and showing nothing but absolute wonder and amazement in the world surrounding him.

He then climbs in a shopping cart and re-creates a scene from City of Angels, before leaving Endor and entering the real world, where he’s treated like an absolute leper. His only solace is watching the occasional football practice, where he’s also treated like some sort of shit-demon by everyone, with the exception of Coach Jones, played by Ed Harris.

He's like Tom Landry, but with awesome pants!

Coach Jones notices the players one day throwing footballs at an equipment shed one day, which you’d think is totally normal, except when he opens the shed and finds the young man bound by his hands and feet on the ground. He frees him (ahem), and sets him loose (aHEM), and gets mad at all the kids. “Tell your folks practice is running late tomorrow!” he says. Naturally, this leads to him being a bit unpopular, because I guess in the ’70s it was totally cool to bound a mentally-challenged black man and throw him inside a dark toolshed and bombard him with footballs. It was a different time, man!

A different, strange time.

Coach Jones and his assistant try to make peace with this foreign creature by feeding it Reese’s Pieces – I mean, Burger King – and wondering if it would be okay to refer to him as “Radio,” since he enjoyed listening to the radio. Totally normal! Everyone in the town is obsessed with football, but surely no one has ever had a huge argument over who gets to take the name “Football.” It’s not like the radio was a recent invention that only 3 people in the town owned.

So Coach Jones starts letting Radio watch/participate in practice, which is a sweet idea, but also an incredibly stupid one. It’s understandable that you feel like shit because your team was bombarding this kid/man with footballs, but having him disrupt their practice isn’t going to help things at all for him. The town is naturally opposed to the idea of a monster like him standing on the sidelines during games, and the players blame him for a record number of lost games. Jones remains stubborn, and insists Radio has nothing to do with the losses, it’s their distraction. To prove this point, he lets Radio do what he wants and manages to keep everyone else — oh.

"He's like their good luck charm, except no one likes him."

Things build to a head after the football season ends (and the basketball season begins, of course) when Radio’s mom dies and Coach Jones finally reveals why he feels like he needs to help Radio. He decides to quit his job as athletic director and keep his job as a teacher, helping Radio get a proper education. Naturally, our narrator (who was his wife all along!) tells the audience that Radio and Coach Jones are still best friends, and that they’re still at every game.

So there’s an entire genre of film that a lot of people don’t know about called the “white guilt” genre. It’s mainly composed of movies about white people feeling bad for (and consequently helping) people of other ethnicities, though it’s typically a black person. Examples include movies like “Crash,” “Radio,” and – recently – “The Blind Side.” They’re called “white guilt” movies because they’re traditionally made for and marketed towards people who are likely to find some form of pathos in a white character helping a black character, because white people feel so goddamn guilty about that whole slavery thing. This genre, as if you haven’t figured it out already, makes absolutely zero sense. The fact that white people feel that there’s going to be some form of catharsis in seeing a minority get help from a white person is insane, idiotic, and somehow incredibly true. Tons of white people saw “The Blind Side,” and loved it like a firstborn son. These movies rely on sappy, melodramatic dramatizations of one person helping another that people rarely stop to think that these movies in themselves can actually be ridiculously offensive. It’s one thing to have two people help each other and be on the same level intellectually and sociologically, but it’s entirely different to portray a well-to-do WASP help a minstrel show character learn to read and disguise it as a mutually beneficial relationship. My ass, it’s mutually beneficial. Something both “Radio” and “The Blind Side” have in common is that both movies have lines in which the white character says, “We’re not the ones teaching ____, ____ is the one teaching us.” Right! Absolutely. Hey, Coach Jones – did Radio teach you anything about how this movie is one giant pile of ass?

The way that Cuba Gooding, Jr. has devolved from genuinely watchable actor to embarrassing C-list hack has been as amazing to watch as his performance in this movie. The way he looks is akin to Austin Powers; he has ridiculously yellow, crooked teeth that protrude from his upper lip. He wears tattered clothes and walks like a wounded puppy, limping around, pensively wringing his hands. He’s constantly muttering and moaning under his breath, squeaking sounds of discontent like a mouse being prodded with a lit cigarette. Then he has lines like this:

That last quote reminds me: let me talk about one of the most insulting parts of the movie, in which Radio is getting ready for some Christmas party event thing whatever in the middle of town, and he’s trying to figure out what pants would look best. He’s on the phone with Coach Jones and holds up a pair of pants to the phone, asking how they look. “Uh, yeah, those are good, Radio,” says Coach Jones. What fucking disability does Radio even have? I’m pretty sure if he were mentally challenged, he would know how phones work. I mean, he’s using one right there! But the movie features this scene among others that portray the character as the biggest idiot on the planet.

There’s also an entirely unnecessary subplot about an evil social worker that wants Radio out of the high school, and somewhere where he may be accepted and happy. What’s wrong with this? Why is rejecting what’s best for Radio seen as such a ridiculously responsible action? Radio was being tortured in high school! The basketball team tricked him into going into the girls-only locker room after practice, which basically sent him into post-traumatic stress.

Classic Radio hijinks!

The single most insanely ridiculous thing about this already ridiculous movie is a scene where Coach Jones is talking to his daughter, and she asks him why he’s taken such an interest in Radio. Jones responds by telling her a long, bloated story about this one time when he was a kid when he was riding his bike past a house, and noticed a kid making some noise behind a chicken/barbed wire fence, and he noticed the kid was retarded, NBD. So, the reason he’s helping Radio now is because he feels guilty about seeing a mentally challenged boy trapped in some sort of Predator cage and didn’t do anything? Wouldn’t a better way to resolve that issue have been going to the police (granted, they wouldn’t do much, since they arrest Radio in this movie for giving all his Christmas presents to townspeople, twirling their mustaches all the while)? I can see that these were different times, and people were ignorant about different people back then, and still are, and Jones wanted to finally make a change, and that’s fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine. But this is such a disturbing story treated with such nonchalance that it not only takes away the impact of the theme of the movie, but also calls into question the sanity of this man.

Radio has nothing but good intentions, I guess. But the way it handles everything is so wrong. From the offensively cartoonish looks and mannerisms of the lead character to the cartoonishly offensive actions of pretty much everyone else but the man trying to help, the movie handles things with about as much subtlety and care as that hilarious retard Radio would handle a Ming vase. Oops! See what this movie taught me?

"Yeah, baby! Yeah!"

Hustle & Flow – 2005

When I was a freshman/sophomore in high school, I couldn’t get enough rap. I loved it, like many teenage white suburban boys did. I sat in study hall, or Spanish, or any other class really, with my headphones on, listening – almost angrily – to Da Backwudz and UGK and genuinely enjoyed it. I thought it made me look like a fucking badass, sitting there. “Surely everyone will think I’m cool,” I thought to myself, “since I know the words to almost every song that plays on rotation on The Beat.” For a time, I even read The Source cover-to-cover, nodding and looking pensive. I thought of myself as a rap connoisseur, as my Xanga page would suggest. So when “Hustle & Flow” came out, I basically sobbed like a child* with excitement. This movie was made for people like me – people who felt that rap was incredibly underrated and under-appreciated. It’s the story of a pimp who becomes a rapper! It’s the American dream! It’s also, as it turns out, an incredibly misogynist, poorly-written/acted view of the life of a down-on-his-luck asshole.

The story cold-opens with a man, DJay, (Terrance Howard) sitting in his car, monologuing in barely-intelligible phrases about men and dogs. “Man,” he says, “he got himself a sense of history…religion. Dog, he don’t know shit about birthdays or Christmas or Easter Bunny, none of that shit.” What the fuck are you talking about? Is this how pimps talk? Are they all this philosophical to the point of being completely nonsensical? Anyway, it turns out he’s been talking to one of his hoes, Nola, the whole time (it makes complete sense now!) and a john (ugh) conveniently pulls up beside them as he wraps up his lecture on interspecies relations. That’s the life of a pimp!

The best part of the movie for me.

We get a feel of DJay’s work day, as he moves from place to place selling (or buying? I don’t even know sometimes) weed and bitches and his views on humankind to various Memphis citizens, like Isaac Hayes.

"You're A-Number-1!"

Mr. Hayes asks DJay if he happens to remember a one “Skinny Black” and DJay, after a moment of wondering if he should be selling drugs to this man, remembers that Skinny was a gentleman who “used to hustle his underground tapes at the drive-in out of his old Cutlass.” Good God, that’s one hell of a memory! DJay finds out that Skinny’s last album went platinum (“That’s more special than gold, right?”) and he plans on having a big party at some random, older guy’s shitty bar on Independence Day like he does every Fourth of July. Rather than question the logic behind all of this, DJay decides maybe he could sell some of his fine herbs to these men. The plot thickens!

DJay then visits a strip club where one of his other hoes works and gets really, really pissed at her for some reason. I’m not sure if the movie explains this, but I think it may have to do with the fact that he wants her to be prostituting instead of stripping? “Goddammit, why are you still stripping! Do something more empowering, like sex for money!”

DJay is then visited by a man who may or may not be the Ghost of Pimps Past (though at first he appears to be a carrier of the Black Oil Virus), who encourages him to “fuck with him,” which is slang for “trade him some weed for a baby keyboard.”

GAH!

"I can finally play 'Private Eyes!'"

DJay soon gets a taste for music, and begins thinking that maybe music is a good way of getting out of the pimp life (because God knows the only two things a man can do these days is pimp or make music). Once again, he’s reminded of the success of Skinny Black while in a convenience store.

What the hell is this?

If that weren’t enough to push his wanting for musical success further, DJay is approached by a guy he knew in school named “Key” who used to play-rap with DJay and deejay school dances. He finds out he’s still messing with music, and the two decide to partner up, Wonder-Twins style, to record the next big rap record. And where else to do it than inside his shitty pimp-cave?

Studio magic!

Assisted by his hoes and some random white guy that knows Key, DJay begins to write and record songs like “Whoop That Trick,” “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp,” and “Didn’t You Know I Was A Pimp?” He even uses his bottom bitch to sing the chorus! While they all are climbing the ladder to rap stardom, DJay realizes that Nola hates being a ho as much as he doesn’t want to pimp. He also realizes he’s in love with one of his pregant hoes, “Shug,” and he totally makes out with her. And before you could say “Holy shit, this movie is long,” DJay is off to meet Skinny Black, who turns out to be Skinny MEAN because he throws DJay’s mixtape in the toilet.

"Man, I gotta stop eating cassette tapes!"

DJay naturally beats the living shit out of Skinny, shoots one of his friends, and is arrested back at his house, and taken to pimp jail. We flash forward a bit to Key visiting him, telling him that everything is pretty much back to normal, except for the fact that Nola is still having sex with men. Except instead of doing it for money, she’s doing it to get DJay’s song on the radio, which works like a charm. This pleases DJay, and, as he states that “Everybody’s got to have a dream,” he walks back to his prison cell.

Ok. Where to start?

I’ll go ahead and knock the good stuff out. The direction and cinematography are not half-bad. There are shots earlier in the movie that are framed in such a way that they’re almost claustrophobic, and I like that. Also, Craig Brewer did a pretty good job just establishing shots in general. The editing isn’t bad either, but that’s just because I didn’t notice anything terrible about it to begin with. Also, there are two actors that do a fine job in this movie: Taryn Manning does a really great job as Nola, the “white ho with braids,” because she actually has a totally believable approach to the character. She’s always acting in the background, and even her way of speaking isn’t too over-the-top (ahem — Terrance Howard). Also, the actress who plays Key’s wife, Yevette – played by Elise Neale – only has a few scenes in the movie but steals all of them. The confidence she has around Key to the absolute intimidation she shows around DJay and his hoes (UGH) is so seamlessly switched, it’s amazing. An all around good job, there. But it’s not all nuts & gum.

I know I’ve already mentioned this, but the fact that the movie opens with a pimp monologuing about God-knows-what is so stupid and shitty to me that it takes me out of the movie almost immediately. According to the director’s commentary, Craig Brewer knew lots of pimps in the Memphis area who’d do shit like this – ramble on about something beyond comprehension. OK! That’s understandable. What doesn’t make sense is that you basically tie your entire movie around this character’s monologue about dogs and men. This isn’t supposed to be just a pimp rambling, even if that’s how it turned out in the movie! Brewer was obviously trying to go for something deep here, and failed. I know you’re trying to prove a point about the savageness of the human race and the complexities of man vs animal, but you should probably do a better job of writing it if you want it to be the hook for your whole movie. But it’s not too jarring, since the writing as a whole sucks ass. The general plot progression as a whole is decent, but the fine details – dialogue especially – get lost in the fray. Remember the line “more special than gold?” That’s an actual line. The main character here is a pimp who waxes philosophical in his car about mankind, and does business illegally all over Memphis, and yet he still doesn’t know if platinum falls above gold or not? Bullshit. Exchanges that characters have are so painfully forced, it’s hard to tell what the writer was going for at all. Was it supposed to be a Tarantino-esque movie, driven by the dialogue? If the answer is “yes,” then look at the scene where DJay is telling Nola about how to take charge. He tells her to put her hands on the steering wheel, right above his, and says, “Know what this means? It means we in charge. We got our hands on the wheel. We in charge.” Right. Okay. This is how pimps talk, every day. Later on, when DJay convinces Skinny Black that his earlier music was better than his newer albums, Skinny Black randomly says “Like the samurai say: the sword is only as powerful as his master.” The writing is so unrealistic it’s cringe-worthy.

There are even entire setpieces in the movie that make no sense. When DJay is re-introduced to Key and wants to know what he’s doing for a living now, the next shot is Key in a church recording some gospel singers, while DJay and his hoes sit in the pew behind him. Why are we here? Why not just tell him “Oh, I’m fucking with music right now, but nothing big.” What’s the significance of DJay becoming so emotionally moved by this seemingly random encounter that he comically sheds a single tear while he listens? It didn’t have to be in the movie. He didn’t become a gospel singer, he became a rapper.

Acting!

Since I’ve already been nice to the only two decent actors in the movie, let me take this time to finally complain about something. Terrance Howard is not right for this role. He’s not right for a lot of roles. He didn’t really show a huge arc in this (I’ll come to that in a moment), and his accent was almost unbearable. He didn’t play the part in any way that allowed me to connect with him as a character, and by the end of the movie he hadn’t changed at all. Also, I hate DJ Qualls with the fire of 1,000 hells. He’s obnoxious, smiley, and his mere presence in this movie made me want to stab myself. Even when playing his character as being high, he was just louder. If you look at him in the background, he’s just staring. Is he playing himself? Finally, the abominably-named “Shug,” played by Taraji P. Henson, seemed to only make doe eyes and look like she’s absolutely horrified of everything around her. There’s a difference between occasional wide-eyed curiosity and absolutely mind-numbingly monotonous performing. Here, all I noticed was Henson sit/stand in one spot, one hand usually on her pregnant belly, sweating, with eyes the size of dinner plates.

Please. Make. Another. Face. Dammit.

Also, I didn’t really notice a woman playing a part in this movie that wasn’t a ho or a housewife. Any woman with a line either was one of DJay’s hoes, Key’s overbearing, stress-inducing housewife, or a stripper that boasts about how good she is at making her asscheeks clap. What the fuck? It’s bad enough to have your movie be borderline racist, but to have every single female character be, in some form or another, either a total bitch or a sleazy hooker (or some combination thereof) is just another nail in the coffin.

Finally, I want to talk about the character arc of DJay himself. It’s rare to watch a movie where you feel like the main character has not experienced a major psychological change on his quest. Even if he realizes something small, like the fact that maybe the world is bigger than just himself, then that’s fine. But the only thing DJay realizes is that he’s in love with the woman he affectionately refers to as his “bottom bitch.” That’s it! Big progression there. DJay goes through the entire movie complaining about how he hates the people around him and how he wants out of his current situation, but he never stops to think about things. Sure, his life sucks, but throughout the entire movie he has people living with him and working for him that are nothing but loyal (for whatever reason), and would do anything for him. Does he give a flying fuck about any of them? Certainly not. As I mentioned before, Nola confides in him that she hates doing what she does. It was a totally heartfelt confession to her pimp that she hates working for him. Does he try to help her get out of the same slump he’s in? Nope! When he finds out she’s still a prostitute to help his career, he’s totally happy with it. There isn’t even a glimmer of regret in his eye (this is partially Terrance Howard’s fault – there weren’t too many dimensions to his performance!), he just moves right along to the next subject. He basically uses everyone he knows just to help him reach his goal of being a shitty rapper, and never looks back. It’s hard to empathize with a main character who’s as selfish as DJay.

Am I supposed to like this guy?

Long story short, this movie is nowhere near what I remember it being 6 years ago. I had remembered it being cool, well-written, well-acted, and an all-around solid picture. But I guess that was just a phase I was in. There’s an exchange in the movie about how, in centuries, the world will crumble. And from that rotting decay, new civilizations will discover what we held dear – pyramids, Eiffel Tower, Skinny Black’s original mixtape – and I hope to all that’s good “Hustle & Flow” isn’t one of the things they find. Because it really isn’t worth remembering.

*All the cool kids sobbed like children!

Jurassic Park III – 2001

Let me get this straight right now – I don’t hate “Jurassic Park III.” I don’t mind it, really. As most “thirds” go, it’s not terrible. It delivers dinosaurs eating people, which is why most people go to see “Jurassic Park” movies. However, “Jurassic Park” is my favorite film of all time. All time. Like anyone who claims to have a favorite movie of “all time” – and italicizes that fact – I have a few* qualms about this entry into the “JP” canon. Like the opening scene.

We see a shot of Isla Sorna, the “Lost World” from the second film (“Jurassic Park 2: Jurassic Boogaloo”) and an ever-so-slightly-subtle sign that maybe no one should be there.

Naturally, lack of common sense (and/or the never-ending lack of security on these islands) has us finding a small, upstart business towing a man and his child** across the water. The leader of the crew tells them they won’t get too close because, like many people, they “don’t want to get eaten.” Instead of a grown man wondering aloud why, exactly, he’s taking his son on a parasailing adventure around Dinosaur Island, he gets his camera ready and OFF THEY GO!

Of course, the crew is murdered, Chas from “Genius” and his father are both stranded, and we hope to never ever see either of them again. “Stupid is as stupid does,” we say, not knowing what that actually means. We’re then re-introduced to Alan Grant, who’s playing with his girlfriend from the first movie and their son. They—what the fuck, she was remarried?

She married him for his Peter Falk impression.

Alan tells Ellie – and, in the next scene, a room full of skeptical college students – that raptors had the vocal ability to communicate. Why everyone thinks he’s insane, I don’t know. He’s then approached by a couple claiming to want to see the island, and they tell him they’ll pay anything – ANYTHING – to see the island that claimed the life of that one black guy from the second movie.

Rest In Peace, Black-Dude Shannon Doherty.

And off they go, accompanied by what turns out to be a small group of mercenaries and Grant’s protege, Billy. I won’t go into another huge rant here about action-horror films with grown men named “Billy,” but I will point out it certainly makes the more dramatic scenes fun. Eventually, it’s revealed that the rich couple aren’t a rich couple, they’re just a newly divorced couple who pretended to be rich to con Grant into helping them save their son and the woman’s husband**. They become trapped on the island, with an all-star cast of dinosaurs, for ninety minutes of what every major film critic in 2001 referred to as, “no walk in the park.”

I’ll go ahead and reiterate: I don’t mind this movie. There are some parts that I actually enjoy. There are also some pretty imaginative and fun set pieces. But as I said earlier, when your movie’s opening is so contrived and stupid and shitty and doesn’t even bother to take the time to make sense, it’s not going to compare to the original. Why in the hell would Isla Sorna even exist after the events of the second movie? If a T. Rex actually went bananas on San Diego and killed several people (and a damn DOG), would the government let the place of the creature’s origin just go untouched? Sure, you can chalk this up to a fail on the second movie’s part – the ending showed John Hammond claiming the island would go untouched by human hands – but even if any government were okay with this island existing, would they be okay with small business running that were dedicated to showing it to tourists? The business even had a catchy name, for Christ’s sake!

Wait, I don't...oh! I get it! Clever!

Also, the first twenty or so minutes of this movie are so insanely depressing it’s a miracle it wasn’t called “Requiem for a Dinosaur.” It’s normal to see a character’s love interest from a previous film reappear later as an ex, but here, Laura Dern is relegated to what feels like a cameo. She doesn’t do anything, except for call in the Navy, which she does offscreen. Scenes in her home are dimly lit, and Alan trying to coax a parrot that “used to know (him)” into saying his name to no avail is the stuff of suicides. Similarly, Grant’s paleontology student is introduced as an apparent rapist who molests women while dusting fossils.

"Boning."....Sorry.

Another thing: why is Alan Grant portrayed as criminally insane for thinking raptors had a method of communicating with one another? I don’t mean “portrayed” as in “we feel sympathy for him because other people think he’s bonkers.” I mean “portrayed” as in the movie actually portrays him as being ever-so-slightly batshit insane. He has a dream about a talking raptor on an airplane, for crying out loud. Everyone who he tells his story to looks at him as if he has poop coming out of his eyes, except for one university student who appears to be stalking Grant.

"Dr. Grant, your face is looking rather tasty tonight."

Let me now get to what’s my biggest gripe with the movie, which is the Spinosaurus. When the movie came out, I was quite confused as to why it was necessary to replace the iconic logo with something new and strange-looking. I had no idea what the fuck that creature was, or why it looked like an alligator with Godzilla hands. As the movie drew closer and I read more about it, I slowly became more and more excited for the inclusion of a new, big dinosaur. I thought to myself, “It’s going to fight a T-Rex! No matter who loses, I win! For watching!”

And then the movie happened.

What resulted was a fight scene so weak and neutered, so fast and pointless, that it felt like the filmmakers tossed it in out of obligation instead of commitment. The T-Rex — who, in some weird shade of forest green, doesn’t even look the same — is onscreen for roughly ten minutes before getting his neck broken by the Spinosaurus. Before I continue: Why does the act of a dinosaur breaking a neck occur on two separate occasions in the movie? I can kind of understand with the raptors, since they’re smarter than monkeys, or whatever, but it’s still hard to swallow. However, when you have a monster that’s not known for it’s intelligence, but instead for it’s predatory skills, bite down on the neck of another large creature and break it like it’s a twig, it’s not cool. Instead of making it look like a vicious beast, it just looks like a dinosaur mercenary. How did it know how anatomy works? The level of intelligence displayed by these things is ridiculous.

Also, the Spinosaurus just sort of…disappears in the last act. After having it appear on quite a few occasions, stomping around like an angry toddler, William H. Macy shoots a flare gun at it and it just…leaves. It’s almost as if it said “Fucking FINE, I’ll go somewhere else.”

Also, a minor qualm, since I’ve already acknowledged that raptors are as smart as dolphins, or whatever – but why did that one raptor know that hiding behind a test tube, still as a statue, would trick someone into coming closer to it? Why not just pop up from the floorboards and throw a smoke bomb after kidnapping a hostage? Why are the dinosaurs so damn theatrical here? And speaking of dinosaurs improving their acting abilities, I feel like this movie may go unrivaled for all eternity as featuring the highest number of shots where dinosaurs play the camera.

Jesus, it's like watching an episode of "Dexter."

Throughout the history of the “Jurassic Park” series, there have always been one or two children present throughout the danger, to add a bit more tension to the situation. The kids themselves have ranged between genuinely likable children to annoyingly obnoxious kids that murder velociraptors with gymnastics. The kid in “Jurassic Park 3,” however, solidly ranks in the middle for me. On one hand, he does shit that’s sensible (if not a bit unrealistic) – like living in a shelter filled with supplies and learning how to use tear gas against velociraptors. On the other hand, he runs around screaming like a banshee when he hears his parents’ cell phone ring, and also manages to mistake a fully-grown Pterasaur for his mother.

It does look a *bit* like Tea Leoni.

I feel like some elements of this movie lampoon parts of the series; for example, every character except Alan Grant yells something at the top of their lungs at some point, not expecting to draw the attention of one of the many dozens of dinosaurs inhabiting the twenty-foot radius. No one could do something this stupid, right? Surely it’s some form of satire; most characters went through the first two films yelling, and this one does the same.

A part of me hopes this will be the last film in the “Jurassic Park” franchise. At this point, the movie can only be beaten beyond recognition further, and I don’t think they can get close to touching upon the greatness that was the first film. Maybe after the events of this movie, every major character will have gotten a large payout to prevent defamation against InGen and they’ll all retire on a beach somewhere. On the other hand, however, this movie seems rather incomplete; the whole thing just sort of ends — Billy turns out alive and well (“well” meaning “well, he’s almost wrapped in a full fucking body cast”) and Alan gets his hat back.

Also, the movie definitely has an ending that qualifies as a cliffhanger. The last shot is a family of Pterosaurs gliding toward civilization, only to prey and feast on the bones of Christians. I need a bit more closure than that, folks.

*A lot.

**Edit – The man who mysteriously turned into a skeleton – or was secretly a skeleton all along – was not married to Tea Leoni; it’s assumed she’s in a relationship with him, though.