September 8th, 2009 by Neal

Psst! Yeah, you.

Get online, right now, and pre-order some tickets to WHITEOUT.

Why? Here are a few good reasons.

1) Hot gal. Cold weather. You do the math.
2) If you’ve read the graphic novel, you don’t even need number two.
3) Check out the graphic novel. See 2.
4) The movie is the responsibility of Greg Rucka, my favorite working comics writer today. And I read way too many comics, kids. I’ve spent more time reading comics than you’ve slept. Or rather, I’ve slept more than you’ve lived. One of the two. Shit.
5) This.
6) If you don’t go, you won’t have the indie cred of having been there for the first movie, before they make the Queen and Country, Atticus Kodiak, and the Drama spin-off movies. Like, remember that guy who went to Dogma and was like, “What’s Clerks?” Yeah. Fuck that guy! Don’t be that guy!
7) Tom Skerrit’s moustache alone can solve any existential quandary. And he’s a TERTIARY CHARACTER IN THIS FILM.
8 ) There are no Transformers, no GI Joe characters, and no fucking blue Ferngully Avatar characters in here. Just woman vs. nature and a bunch of assholes who need to be stomped. Fuck yeah. And I don’t want to spoil anything… but ASSHOLES GET STOMPED!
9) Because lists suck, and I will write more lists if I get the impression everyone, and I mean every single person I know, did not go and see the flick twice.
10) If you go, everyone will get universal health care. Shit you not. I guarantee it in blood. I asked the magic 8-ball, and it’s never been wrong.*

*timeframe for this not guaranteed.

It opens this Friday, suckers, and I couldn’t be more excited. GO!

May 11th, 2009 by Neal

I’ve been asked in letters and by folks what I thought of the new Star Trek movie, but I’m too busy working to put my thoughts on paper right now. This is why:

But beyond that, I’ll probably put down words later. In brief? It can’t really be said in brief. Basically, there were many, many things that annoyed and perplexed me, and a few things I liked. So far the bad outweighs the good by about 2/1 My inclination is to enjoy new takes and new examinations. James Bond is a prime example. But Casino Royale worked because it was a practical new imagining. It still felt like a Bond movie. The new Star Trek movie is like the Casino Royale reboot, but in a bad way. Take cerebral, diplomatic wargames based around an ensemble cast, and turn it into an action flick with character work for two characters (some of which works, some of which is garbage), and you have Star Trek.

I have yet, two days later, to feel like I’ve seen a Star Trek film. I feel like I watched a summer movie, and an action movie, and an action movie with cool moving parts and a few moments of character, but it felt more like watching Transformers or Terminator than watching Nemesis or First Contact.

Nemesis is where I hoped the new movie would be, a movie where you can go, “Ah, flaws here, here, and here that suck, but a Trek film, for sure. Maybe they’ll get it as good as First Contact next time.”

And, as was pointed out to me, the movie blows so fast that you might miss little subtleties. But then, isn’t impression nine tenths of the law?

I sound negative, and that’s not what I want to come across as. But there are just a few things that make Star Trek Star Trek I felt were fundamentally missing in favor of things designed to (and that point of fact did) please most people.

I’ll go into more depth later.

But one thing I’ll say up front, putting a fucking Nokia ad product placement in the goddamned movie alone was almost enough to make me turn against Abrams. But there were a few good things. More on that later. Back to work.

February 18th, 2009 by admin

I just watched the movie Sunshine as my day’s recreation.

Shit movie. But it gave me a new theory. I cannot think of any movie with a timeclock OTHER than Back to the Future and its sequels that does not SUCK.

Any disagreement?