Who Shat First?

God knows why, but somebody roused Harrison Ford long enough to ask him "who shot first". As though he alone held the secret truth. That somehow all conclusive evidence has been washed from the earth and our last hope is for testimony from the man who held the prop blaster almost four decades ago. His answer, equal parts appropriate and unhelpful, was "I don't care".

Lucas has so thoroughly soiled the franchise for me that I don't care either these days. Cleansing Solo's record of one premeditated murder isn't even a drop in the oceans of blood fans have wept over the past fifteen years. But one thing I still care about is the notion that matters of indisputable fact are treated as "opinions" to be "debated". Climate change is a fact. Evolution is a fact. Dan Aykroyd should have been the first dead Ghostbuster: fact.

Allow me to push my glasses up and suck the excess spit from my retainer.

*AHEM*

Han shot first. In fact, he was the only one who fired at all.

Many years later, a pussy son of a bitch who unironically called himself "George Lucas" forced a CG artist -- at knifepoint -- to add a blast from Greedo to "justify" Han's use of lethal force. "George" then masturbated to the revised footage until he reached a massive, body-rocking climax. His muscles contracted so hard that he sprayed shit all over the floor. The shit was collected into wet, runny piles, then distributed in theaters as "prequels".

And that's the story, motherfucker.

Sex, Lies and Cloud-Based File Sharing of MP4's

Sex Tape
Directed by Jake Kasdan
Starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel and a bunch of actors who've come to terms with where their careers are at these days.

Remember that time when you and your spouse, the two of you struggling to rekindle the fire of your early years, recorded yourselves having sex? And remember how your iPad sent that video to the Cloud, seeding that lusty video to the bundle of iPads you got from Costco to give to all your friends and family? What a hilarious time you both had as you scrambled to retrieve those tablets and remove all evidence of your suburban debauchery from the internet!

Yeah, that old chestnut.

Thankfully, writer Kate Angelo has breathed fresh new life into this age-old premise, in this year's best film inspired by an awards show swag-bag. Not since the Palm Pilot-based Brittany Murphy vehicle Little Black Book has a film so daringly embraced a short-lived fad as its core foundation. (I'm speaking of the Palm Pilot, not Brittany Murphy.)

All sarcasm aside, this movie looks to be another artless, heartless, soulless space-filler. The trailer alone is dripping with contempt for the viewing public. The only good thing I can say from what I've seen is that Jason Segel's been eating less, and Cameron Diaz has been eating more, and they're both better off for it.

But that's no reason to sit through this shit. The best moments of the film are in the trailer, and they're not much. Better to watch some legitimate porn. The writing and acting, admittedly, will be (marginally) inferior to Sex Tape, but at least porn is honest. Everyone knows the score. But this, this thing... it's a calculated, cynical dodge to pad studio pockets. A formulaic, paint-by-numbers smirk-fest built from a screenplay seminar algorithm.

This movie doesn't deserve to make money, but chances are it will. Just don't let it take yours. Don't encourage these people. After two decades of Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, have we not learned by now that nothing good can come of a sex tape?

"Crisis" Averted

"Crisis"
Sundays 10pm, NBC, starting (and hopefully ending) March 16, 2014
Gillian Anderson, Dermot Mulroney, Rachael Taylor, Lance Gross

So. Crisis. It's crap.

This particular show has been done over and over and over now. The giant conspiracy, where everyone's a suspect, the stakes are the the world itself, and somebody has an impossibly elaborate scheme to do something stupid that doesn't need to be done at all.

This time it's a professional kidnapping of the teenage kids of a dozen different high-power families. Tycoons, diplomats, the US president... you know, the kind that are always going on field trips together. On a fucking bus. But it's not gonna be for ransom, that's for sure. No, this is all in service of a much larger design, some plot to take over something, control something, destroy something, whatever who cares. Tune in each week for another reveal that goes nowhere!

Hack writing. Canned direction. No characters, just actors hitting their marks and reciting their lines. Which is sad, because there's a handful of actors in Crisis who are better than the material they've been given.

I've seen this show before. The Event. Flash Forward. The Nine. Revolution. Vanished. So many times, over and over. And I've never stuck with any of them. This is paint-by-numbers TV, and I just don't have the time.

Well, maybe I'll watch one more episode. Just to be sure.

Dammit.

The Wire: VERY Late to the Party

Well what the hell, why not.
Sure, the show ended six years ago, sure it started twelve years ago, but I'm finally gonna watch The Wire this week. Everyone in America's already seen it, which I know because all 300 million of them have recommended it to me at one time or another. Yet somehow I have remained spoiler-free (since '93!), so this should go smoothly.
Wish me luck, see you on the other side!

Would Everyone PLEASE Stop Dying!

This is getting ridiculous.
Fuck the rule of threes. People are dropping like fucking flies now. Every week there's a new batch of dead entertainers who really contributed something.I'm not sure why Harold Ramis is the one that put me over the edge, but he did. Maybe because he was so instrumental to many of the films that I loved growing up.

THE DEAD (Just in fucking February, which ain't over yet btw):
Maximilian Schell
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Shirley Temple Black
Sid Caesar
Ralph Waite
John Henson
Malcolm Tierney
Harold Ramis

No small number of them died younger than they should have, from overdose or rare illness. And for the record, just to  put into sharp relief the injustice of it all...

THE LIVING (and still working)
Lindsay Lohan
Kirk Cameron
Stephen Baldwin
Charlie Sheen
Chelsea Handler
Corey Feldman
Dane Cook
Rob Schneider

Seriously, fuck this shit. I quit.

I've Sinew Naked Too Much Already!

Ahhh, puns.
Seriously though, is there really that big a market for Willem Dafoe nude scenes? They're everywhere! Google "Willem Dafoe naked", if you dare.
Now I'm not saying the man has anything to be ashamed of. He doesn't. He keeps himself fit and healthy. I have shame, because I've really let myself go over the last fifteen years. But fitness levels notwithstanding, this is one weird-ass body to keep putting onto film.
Picture Dafoe's face: not exactly hideous, but definitely odd; every feature fighting for dominance, bony protrusions in all the wrong places, skin pulled tightly over tendons like wet rubber bands. Now imagine that face has legs and a penis. Because that shit goes all the way down. The guy looks like a novice art student's hastily-drawn figure study crawled off the page and started fucking anything that moved.
I think my first Willem sex scene was a couple decades ago, with Madonna and some dripping candle wax. Not a pleasant memory. But I don't really follow his films, so I didn't realize how common this was. I wouldn't see that pale, vacu-sealed skin again until the first Spider-Man movie. (Thanks a lot, Raimi.)
More recently he was a demon, or the devil, or something (I've said before that I don't do research). The poster showed off his grisly torso from behind with some wood sprite or something wrapping her legs around him, because who wouldn't pay to see more of that in the theater? I'll take two tickets, one for me and one for the nurse who puts moisturizing drops in my pried-open eyeballs!
Now there's Nymphomaniac. It's an ensemble piece, so everyone gets a chance to strip and show their O face. And that's just for the posters. Of course, the producers say, let's get Willem Dafoe! That guy fucking LOVES doing nude scenes! Really, he's done so damn many this must be some kinda thing for him. And once again a crew of honest, hard-working, possibly unsuspecting union professionals shows up on the set to powder, light, and film his puckered, clenching buttocks.
I know I should be focused on Shia "Mutt" LeBeouf being in this film because of all the shit about plagiarism, but...
Sorry, wait. I have to take a moment here. Yes, I said I don't do research, but I did go as far as to look up the proper spelling of LeBeouf just now on imdb, and it turns out there's a Nymphomaniac VOLUME TWO???
Fuck it. Forget Willem Dafoe's freaky alien autopsy physique. I'm done with this one. And no more researching; it only leads to more disappointing knowledge.

Lego Movie: I LOVE That I Love Movies!

The Lego Movie

Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Starring Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, and a shit-ton of other people

I know, I've kinda painted myself into a corner with the title and attitude of this blog so far. I've pigeon-holed myself (snicker) as a curmudgeonly malcontent who hates all films while claiming to love the art form. I should especially hate crass commercialism in the form of a movie all about a toy line. But -- and I courageously say this now to the whopping three people reading -- fuck that noise. I can't be pissed off about every one of them, because dammit, I love movies!

The Lego Movie is fantastic. It's fast, funny, and just fun to watch. Go see it. Now. In the theater with other people. It's worth your time and money, and you'll enjoy it so much more as part of a live audience.

I'd love to say more about it, but given how many of my "friends" have yet to see it (I'll drop the quotes when I see ticket stubs), apparently I still have to avoid spoilers. And half the fun of this film is letting its lunacy unfold in front of you.

I mean, I suppose I can say something without giving away details. Most of the jokes in the movie, and jokes account for about 95% of it, are beautifully timed gems. There's a few running gags in the film, and the directors hit them exactly right. The gags didn't get stale, and they always knew the perfect moment to call one back for a surprise extra laugh. Don't chat with your neighbor, don't chew loud foods, don't fucking blink, or you'll miss something good.

Also, this movie, the one made of Legos, called The Lego Movie? The one where all the water, explosions and fucking everything are made of CG Legos? I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure nobody in the whole film ever spoke the word "Lego". It didn't occur to me while I was watching, only days afterward. If I'm right, though, great call on the part of the filmmakers. Another production team might have used it everywhere, shoving "Lego" in places it didn't even make sense. The way they do with words like "Smurf", or "Wahlberg". Keeping "Lego" out of the dialog allowed the world to feel like its own place, where the characters didn't define themselves by the toy brand, and that helped them feel more real, more like characters unto themselves. Well played. Class act, those director guys.

So, seriously. Go see it NOW. Everything really is awesome.

There, that wasn't so bad! I can be positive now and then. Well done, everyone! Bang-up job!

Yep.

...Okay, if I have to give one negative, I'll go exactly this far: in the opening scene of the film (not a spoiler!), Morgan Freeman sounds like he just woke up. After being drugged. As if the only reason he was in the film at all is because the producers abducted him off the street and kept him doped up in the sound booth. But it's all good after that. Really. He has a scene later on, the nature of which I can't mention because of goddamn spoilers that you don't deserve to avoid because why haven't you stopped reading to go watch this movie yet... and in that scene he's hilarious.

And to be fair to Mr. Freeman, the guy's old. Like, really, really, fucking old. He'll die some day, and probably fairly soon.

Jesus...Morgan Freeman is going to die.

I gotta go think for a bit...

Damn.