The Rabbit Hole

The jig, she is up. Remember how G.I.Joe: Sequel now Starring The Rock got delayed for nine months, which was announced all of a month ahead of its intending release date, supposedly for post-conversion to 3D?

Turns out that may not have been the reason. Allow me to indulge my inner Starship Trooper and ask: Do you want to know more? (Warning: there is a spoiler for the movie that, if you've followed the adverts for it at all, you probably could have guessed.)

If this is true, and I actually have so little faith in the studio that made the decision to pull this bullshit that I believe it could be, easily, I AM GOING TO SCREAM.

I caught this article on Tor.com about the renaissance of the comic book movie. Despite the $$$ made by The Avengers, I have a suspicion that comic book movies, specifically superhero comic book movies, are actually on the wane. Not necessarily in terms of quality, but I think the fad it going to start petering out.

Anyway, it will surprise no one that I disagree with a lot of points in that article. I have a long post as to why I disagree, but I summarize it up in an image for those not interested in the rant.

Because she never mentions this guy:

( I am Iron Man. )

Best new blog I just discovered today: Literally Unbelievable, a blog dedicated to making fun of people who think The Onion reports serious news. It's one thing to have a random incident where Poe's Law gets a person who might otherwise be pretty savvy about sarcasm, even on the internets. But to be fooled by The Onion takes a whole other level of ineptitude quite worthy of cataloging.

Best new thing I saw today: EXPANDED AVENGERS TRAILERASFK@(!^$!#*!&#!!!!! I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment, I know it. Shut the fuck up and let me have this, okay?

At last! I come to the list of movies that were so bad they were AWESOME. Included in this list is one that was slightly less shitmazing (TM glvalentine) but that was no less a fun outing with awesome people who took the mickey out of it SO HARD to make up for it. That's what you get when you try to rewrite Greek history around a bunch of people who were force-fed that shit in their freshman year!


( Brilliant movies don't have to be GOOD. )

Having been on an emotional rollercoaster today, I remain now kind of wrung-out and vaguely indifferent to my own existence. It seems a perfect time to continue on with my roster of movies seen in the theaters in 2011, especially this particular genre.

Disappointing, Unaffecting, and Other Movies That Were (and Weren't Anything Else)

( This may be the category with the most entries, come to think of it. )

I shouldn't be surprised that most movies are just sort of indifferent. Most works in any field tend to be mediocre, in my estimation. There's just too much put out--too many books, too many shows, too many movies--for even half of them to decidedly bad, much less good. There's always going to be dross that, while not offensive, certainly isn't worth remembering. (Clearly, as it took me quite a while to remember something worth writing for fully half this list.)

Next time, I'm going to elevate to the So-Bad-They're-Fantastic, or the I-Enjoyed-This-For-The-Jokes-We-Have-Made-Since genre. That'll be more fun.

New Year's Resolutions are kind of the bane of my existence. Looking back at what I've previously resolved, I see so much that I've not done. I resolved three years ago to finish the cross-stitch for my sister's wedding. (It is now going on seven years late!) I have resolved, every year since I went, to make a scrapbook of my time in Australia. I feel moderately better that I've gotten some more supplies for it--and I sent the majority of my photos to be digitized, so I have those things safe and digital and not just in hard copy. That's got to go on a list for this year, if only to not still be cluttering shit up when I (HOPEFULLY) have to move this year. I also have vague plans to volunteer more and maybe see a few more plays this year. But that's about it. Making resolutions seems to be as far as I go to accomplishing them.

One thing that I resolved and totally succeeded in? SEEING 52 MOVIES IN THE THEATERS LAST YEAR. I did it before December was over, and by 2011's end, I had seen 56 movies in the theaters. I saw fewer seasons of TV than ever before this year. I watched a paltry 176 movies for the first time, and I didn't even clear 20 books this year. (In my defense, five of the books I did read were George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, which should could for at least three books each.) But I got this one thing done. All in all, it was a really fun resolution, and one that, despite occasionally driving me crazy and making me panic about falling behind on it, I generally enjoyed accomplishing. Going to the movies is, relatively speaking, a cheap outing and a great time. There were more than a couple of trips where I had so much fun with the company that the content was irrelevant.

I'm going to have to break this down by genres. Not genres of movies, but the genres of how I felt about those movies. This may take a few days. Let's start with the worst movies. That way, it's all uphill from here. Without further ado...

So Bad, It's Shameful to Admit I Saw Them
Season of the Witch - Nicholas Cage made a great bad movie this year, and it was Drive Angry. I can't believe I saw this instead. And that I dragged my family to it, no less.

I Am Number Four - Timothy Olyphant aside, there's nothing to this Twilight-with-aliens-knock-off to make it worth anyone's time. It makes sense that it's so trite and cliched given that it was based off an assembly-line writing process.

Sucker Punch - The ultimate proof that style does not trump, much less make up for, substance. Such a waste. And sexist to boot.

Hobo With A Shotgun - Ugh. I may have been mad at other movies I saw that both sucked and blew, but this was the only one that made me feel literally unclean for having been a part of. I was ashamed, really and truly, for being in the audience, and the whole time I wanted to just leave. I desperately wanted to leave. I sat through the entirety of Ang Lee's Hulk without leaving, but I wanted out of this movie within the first five minutes. I feel gross just thinking about this movie. It disgusted me and it made me hate everyone around me who found it at all amusing.

The Hangover Part II - Beyond it's blatant homophobic "laughs," this move blew just because it was an exact retread of the first movie. When I say exact, I mean, cut-and-paste-the-"plot"-points duplication. Fuck this movie.

Cars II - Bizarrely, Larry the Cable Guy was the best part of the original Cars. His character was genuinely sweet, whatever his voice actor's typically obnoxious schtick. Making a sequel entirely about how much of a loser he is and then having him come from behind to save the day or whatever was a mistake. Making a sequel at all may have been a mistake. This is Pixar's only real failure of a movie, but, er, wow, when they miss, they miss by a lot.

Green Lantern - Dear. God. I haven't seen a comic book movie that was this much of a mess since the aforementioned stab at telling Bruce Banner's story. It literally made no sense. I wasn't even drunk enough to hand-wave away how bad it was. And it was bad at everything. I give it zero marks in every category. No one acted at all, if they could help it. No one had any chemistry with anyone else--the leads all reacted to one another with as much warmth (love or hate) as they would a subway pole. Things happened that had no connection to anything else, and the progression from loser to hero followed a trajectory that can best be described with the following dingbats: ...?...!?...!?!?!!?!?!?!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - I have to give props to Michael Bay for concocting a plot line whereby we went to the Moon to discover Transformers. That was pretty fucking batshit out there crazy. Otherwise, this movie is even less relevant than anything that's come before it. All the problems of the franchise already abundant in the earlier movies were there and then some since several Oscar-worthy actors decided to debase themselves by signing onto this shit show and needed their own scenes to be humiliated. At least the racist twins were gone?


Stay tuned for the next installment, wherein I discuss the movies that were colossal disappointments! And maybe some that were even just mediocre! You can't wait! I know it!

It would be understating the case to say G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is one of the worst movies I've seen. It compares unfavorably, even with an adjustment for so-bad-it's-good enthusiasm, to your average SyFy Channel Original movie. (Except possibly anything with C. Thomas Howell. I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN, HOWELL!!!!!!) When you have a cast that includes Jonathan Pryce, Dennis Quaid, Arnold Vosloo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Ray Park being a fucking ninja and you make the stars of your movie Channing Tatum and a Wayans brother You Are Doing It Wrong.

If you can't be expected to have a plot--which nobody did expect--and you can't be expected to having great acting (Channing Tatum. Wayans brother. QED.), the least you can do is have awesome fights. You Are Doing It Wrong when a fight between Snake Eyes (Raaaaay Paaaaark) and the white-costume Ninja (Stormshadow?) is less cool than the fight between the two twelve-year-olds playing them in flashbacks. This movie had nothing. For no one. It was not even gleefully bad.

It looks like they've fixed all that in the sequel, starring the Rock. Fuck spoilers: it looks like Channing Tatum is barely in this and THANK FUCKING GOD. Make it all the Rock and Ray Park and surprise guest from the end of the trailer, and I will be there with my ticket money already gone. I'll buy so much popcorn and I'll eat it like Eddie Izzard taught me to do.

I made a specific point about getting through my Netflix DVDs by Monday so I could have a couple of movies to watch over Thanksgiving. I did manage to do that and to even remember to put them in the mailbox, and I'm getting my next movies Wednesday. I forgot, however, to rearrange my queue following Halloween because I've been holding onto movies longer and hadn't really noticed the selections being decidedly horror-focused.

Until, naturally, this week. I really doubt that, over the big family weekend, I'm going to find time to watch Hell's Ground and Book of Blood. I also have no memory of a) adding these movies to my queue or b) moving them up to the top of the queue. Awesome.

But how the hell does anyone think a Doctor Who movie would ever be a good idea? I don't even mind that aborted thing that was the Eighth Doctor's one and only screen outing, but still. Not. A. Good. Idea.

This part worried me especially:
"Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch," he said.

Translation: If they can make shit up and get viewers, so can we! Also, you should be worried when people say they're going to put aside that which they admit is fantastic. (Just saying.)
( Do not want Doctor Who movie! )
What surprises me most is that, given the track record of Who movies, anyone thought this might be a good idea, no matter who's involved...

( In Time, slight spoilers, nothing you wouldn't know from ads. )
In other news, I got up early to go to the dentist. It must be a reaction to going to the doctor, but I booked an appointment at 8 am, fully anticipating that it would still find some way to threaten making me late for work. (Seriously, I've booked doctor's appointments at the same time and not been seen for 45 minutes which, on top of the appointment itself, has made me late for work.) Dentists, apparently, work much more efficiently than doctors. (Are their issues with insurance forcing them to see more patients not as onerous?) I was done with an hour and change left to go before I had to be at work. I hope I make it through the day. I've already proved I'm not paying as much attention as I should with a completely stupid LJ comment I made. I'm probably going to have to ruin the nice hurty-but-clean feeling in my mouth to get some caffeine, aren't I?

Speaking of hurt, that was The. Most. Gory. visit to the dentist EVER. I swear to God, I rinsed and spit and it looked like I had been eating bits of grapefruit or something because there was a ton of fleshy bits in the sink after. I was told, however, that I have been excellently maintaining my teeth (very little plaque, all of it in the front where my overlapping teeth make it hard to get them brushed well enough--must floss more!), so I hope that that crime scene isn't indicative of massive gum failure or something. I did, however, get a warning about issues I may have when I'm 50. I think this is a lopsided priority scale--mouth falling apart in chunks now versus bone receding when I'm another two decades older--but hey, at least I've got that plaque situation licked.