THE LOSERS (Vague Spoilers)

Dir. Sylvian White US 2010

"If you want your life back, you're gonna have to steal it."

In some ways, this movie was a Bizarro antithesis to my experience with Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass was a movie I really dug, based on a comic I didn't like. The Losers was a movie I thought mostly failed, based on a comic I fucking love. I apologize in advance for most of this review consisting of "The comic did this way better because...". I promise I'll get to talking about the film on its own terms by the end of the review. Also, the quote at the top is kind of shitty, I apologize for that too. I couldn't think of one that thematically summed up the movie, so I just pulled a line from the trailer. ::lowers head in shame::

I first came across The Losers in 2003, in the form of an 8-page preview in the back of an issue of 100 Bullets. The art was killer and it was pretty damn violent, which was pretty much all 18-year old Steve needed to know before buying a comic. Over the course of its 32 issues, The Losers proved to be one of the most kinetic, compelling action comics I'd ever read. This is pretty high praise from a guy who reads a lot of comics that feature people kicking the shit out of each other with superpowers. The characters were archetypal, yet complex; the plot unpredictable, yet tightly plotted. Shortly after the series finished in 2006, DC announced that it had been optioned for film, an unsurprising turn of events given the explosion of cinematic comic book adaptations over the last decade. 'Perfect', I thought; 'If the action in the movie is half as badass as it is in the book, I'll be a winner.' Poor naive young Steve. How wrong you were...

I'll run through the plot quickly since the commercials for the movie don't really impart much other than, "Check out this flick we cranked out as fast as we could before the A-Team comes out!" The Losers are a five-man CIA wet works team on a routine mission in Bolivia. The job goes south (in a very tragic way) and a Keyser Söze-esque CIA handler known only by the codename Max orders their assassination. The Losers survive the attempt, although Max and the world at large believe them to be dead. Using their training, the element of surprise and the assistance of a mysterious woman named Aisha, The Losers set out to get revenge on Max and end up uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens to destabilize the world's governments. Sounds pretty badass right? It totally is, at least in the comic.

The first major problem the film runs into, as is often the case with adaptations, is compression. The movie is 97 minutes long. The comic was 32 issues. The script crams the backstory of their first mission (which occurs over 5 issues midway through the comic) into the first 10 minutes of the film. The rest of the movie draws heavily from the first 6 issues of the comic. The movie ends with plenty of room for a sequel, but this abbreviated apprroach doesn't work in the film's favor (I maintain that the entire 32 issues could have been adapted into a single 2+ hour film, given an almost unrealistically high standard of scripting, pacing and budgetary allowances; not something a studio is going to invest in when adapting an under-the-radar comic). While revealing the backstory upfront made sense in terms of screenwriting, it seemed completely hollow compared to the way it was done in the comic. When the origin of The Losers is revealed in the book, the reader is already deeply invested in the characters and sees the brutal lengths to which they've gone to exact their revenge. This gives their reasons weight and pathos that was lacking in the film, where were are presented with a situation involving characters we don't know and a horrifying, bleak event which seems out of sync with the rest of the film. Compounding this, The Losers confrontation with Max, while not fully resolved in the film, is accelerated to provide a satisfying climax for the film and cuts short on the tension that is built in the book, where Max is not even seen for almost two dozen issues. Additionally, the globe-trotting pace of the comic (nearly every arc takes place in a different location around the world) is replicated here, but only serves to demonstrate how rushed the plotting is, rather than giving the story a global scope. I counted five short scenes in a row that jumped from location to location, complete with title cards (which I find irritating in most instances anyway; if the establishing shot shows a skyline with the Empire State Building, a title card reading 'New York City' is kind of insulting). This movie suffers just about every basic adaptation flaw you can think of.

With the plot so truncated, I was naturally worried that the characters I love so well would suffer similarly. The acting/character work managed to be the best part of the movie (with some glaring, Jason Patric-shaped exceptions), which I was expecting given fairly geek-eclectic cast that was assembled for this film.

Chris Evans (who will have 4 comic book characters under his belt by the time he plays Captain America next summer) steals the show as Jensen, the teams tech and comms expert. Jensen provides effective comic relief in the book, but despite the film having a much brighter tone overall, Evans still manages to garner laughs every time he opens his mouth. From his succession of increasingly hilarious t-shirts to the "shooting the guards with telekinetic fingers" scene they showed in all the trailers (the one stand-out sequence recreated faithfully and effectively from the comic), Jensen is the only character who I felt was improved in the film, a feat I mostly credit to Evans' boundless energy and consistently hilarious line deliveries.

Pooch (the driver) and Cougar (the sniper) were respectively played by Colombus Short and Oscar Jaenada, two actors I weren't familiar with going into the film. Cougar is a tough role to crack when translating from comic to film; in the book he barely speaks and his face is almost always hidden beneath the shadow of his hat brim. The writers wisely brightened the character up in the film while still retaining his intrinsic badassery, and Jaenada is more than serviceable in the part. My only major complaint was the loss of meaning behind his self-imposed vow of silence, revealed very powerfully during the origin story in the comic, but essentially glossed over in the film. Although Columbus Short is at least 10 years younger than Pooch is in the comic, he's able to convey the family-man nature of the character, despite one of his major character traits (his relationship with Clay) being transfered over to Roque.

Which brings me to the two actors I was most excited about going into the film: Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay (the team leader) and Idris Elba as Roque (his second-in-command). Although this is the closest I've ever seen him to playing a lead in anything, Morgan has built an impressive resume as a charming ass-kicker over the last few years, both as the sociopathic Comedian in the Watchmen film and as John Winchester, the demon-hunting father of the protagonists on CW's Supernatural (yes, there is a show about two brothers who hunt demons on the CW, and yes, it is awesome). If Spielberg ever decides to reboot Indiana Jones with another actor (he won't), JDM would be my top pick. Unfortunately for him, the script turns Clay from the uncompromising, no-nonsense hardass he was in the book to a fairly cliched, remorseful brooder with a penchant for fucking the wrong women. Morgan doesn't seem capable of turning in a bad performance, but he's essentially playing a PG-13 version of a character that needs to be R (a problem that kind of plagues the entire film). Even more watered down is Idris Elba, who I became a massive fan of after seeing him as Stringer Bell, the cool, calculating drug kingpin on The Wire. In the comic, Roque is just a mean motherfucker, straight up. No remorse, no compassion, no real kinship with his teammates beyond doing what's necessary to get the job done. The screenwriters made the rather obvious move of building up a close friendship between Clay and Roque, for the admittedly fair reason that friction between a leader and his No. 2 always makes for decent drama, as well as adding a bit of a punch to one of the third act twists. The screenwriters taking the easy way out aside, Elba doesn't seem nearly as invested in his role as many of the other actors do and it shows, especially during the numerous scenes where Roque pulls out the over-confident tough guy act. It's a shame that he never is able to pull that off convincingly, especially when he conveyed so much menace through so little action on The Wire.

The two biggest character casualties end up being Aisha (the mysterious wild card) and Max. Aisha is played by Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek and like 900 other movies that came out in the last twelve months), who brings a genuine spark to everything she does, which is appreciated considering she could easily coast on her (absurdly good) looks. Unfortunately, the movie version of Aisha belongs on Sesame Street when compared to the comic incarnation of the character. In the comic, Aisha is a vicious, unrepentant killer who can barely bring herself to display normal human empathy. She sports a necklace of human ears, spent her childhood slitting the throats of wounded enemy soldiers in the Soviet/Afghan wars and is generally terrifying. In the movie she's the typical badass chick with a heart of gold. Her relationship with Clay (barely present in the comic beyond some random rough sex) is inflated into the obligatory, but unnecessary love story in the film and her cutesy interaction with the other members of the team flies in the face of everything the character was in the comic. The fact that she is never explicitly stated to be an Afghan in the film (a major plot point in the book, as were the post-9/11 politics of the Middle East) speaks to the wider dumbing-down of the film as a whole from what it was. Keeping the characters eyebrow piercing isn't enough to make her a hardass. Sorry.

Unforgivably shitty is both the treatment and portrayal of Max by Jason Patric. Patric blew me away in Narc (a brutal 2002 undercover cop film by Joe Carnahan; check it out) so I was excited to see what he'd do with the character. Sadly, in terms of the narrative and his portrayal of the character, Patric seems to be inhabiting a completely different movie, possibly a Roger Moore-era James Bond film. He minces about, making hammy jokes to his henchmen and killing them at random when they displease him. At no point is he ever threatening or believable as a villain. And the less said about his ridiculous "snuke" plan, the better. It's clear that Jason Patric was having fun with the role, and his comedic timing is admirable, it just feels completely out of place given the character.

I said I would discuss the film on its own merits at some point right? Ok, that can be now. When given a lackluster script and pretty decent overall cast, it would generally fall to the director to bring everything together into worthy final product. I cringed a bit when Sylvian White was announced as director, given that his first and only other director credit was for Stomp The Yard. While White displays a clear enthusiasm for the action genre with this film, it suffers from a few major rookie mistakes. The action itself is a hodge-podge of techniques cribbed from the last decade of action films. You've got your slow motion, your tightly shot Jason Bourne fights, a bit of shaky-cam and art from the comic super-imposed over a few scenes. The tone of the action generally sets the tone of the action movie and although I'd ultimately end up placing this one in the flashy, over the top category, White never really commits to one style and ends up leaving everything feeling trite and uninspired. Although the story is a bit larger than life, I think the action would have felt a bit more grounded and vital if they had gone the way of the Bourne films rather than trying to make everything so cartoony (This movie really needed an R rating).

One final point I wanted to make was regarding the music. Usually the soundtrack remains in the background for me when I watch a movie, unless it's really great or really terrible. In this film it was just strange. The super-villain 'DUN DUN DUNNNN' cues used in Max's scenes made that character seem all the more ridiculous, but the strangest choice was the song they used for scene when Clay and Aisha first meet and fight. Not only was the song out of place and annoying, the used the EXACT SAME SONG for their sex scene later. I will, however give credit where credit is due and say that the movie makes excellent use of Jensen singing 'Don't Stop Believin' in what's probably the funniest scene in the movie.

I probably don't need to warn anyone away from this movie. Given that it made less than $10 million on its opening weekend, I'm sure that Warner Bros. already considers it a flop and it'll probably be pulled from theatres as soon as the summer movie season begins next week. I mostly find it sad that most people will remember this movie as 'that lame looking A-Team rip-off', if they remember it at all. If you were thinking about seeing this movie, I'd recommend going the extra dollar or two and picking up the newly released graphic novel instead. This book contains the first 12 issues of the comic, which is about twice the plot you get in the movie. If you're even remotely into comics, I can basically guarantee it will be worth your while.

THE ICE HARVEST (Vague Spoilers)

Dir. Harold Ramis US 2005

"You're dead, man. Don't just stand there pretending you're not."

I'm guessing most people haven't heard of this one. I hadn't either until it popped up on my Netflix suggestions under quirky crime movies. I liked the cast, so I figured it was worth a shot. Thankfully, my instincts are pretty sharp when it comes to things like this.

Charlie Arglist (John Cusack in puffy drunk mode) is a sleazy lawyer working for the mob in Witchita (boy, the mob will set up anywhere, huh?). Fed up with his shitty life and harboring vague dreams of something better, Charlie and his lowlife partner Vic (Billy Bob Thorton playing his usual) conspire to steal two million dollars from Charlie's boss on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, complications arise in the form of a icy winter storm, a vicious mob enforcer (Mike Starr, who apparently only plays vicious mob enforcers) and Charlie's desperate infatuation with a sexy strip club owner (Connie Nielsen, homina homina homina). Everything works out for everyone in the end. Except not at all.

A lot of crime gems seem to fly under the radar nowadays (The Lookout with Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the last one I discovered). The Ice Harvest clocks in at just under an hour and a half, but it's breezy pace doesn't keep it from developing a chilly atmosphere, compelling characters and a twisty little plot that manages to balance suspense and dark humor. Harold Ramis (best known for playing Egon in The Ghostbusters movies and directing Caddyshack) has directed a lot of pretty lame crap over the past decade, including the Analyze This movies, Bedazzled and Year One. Seeing as how he seems to work almost exclusively within the realm of comedy, I was very pleasantly surprised, both by the number of sequences in this film that kept me on the edge of my seat, and by its dreary, almost nihilistic tone.

Ramis does an excellent job of portraying Witchita as the epitome of Middle-American banality; cookie-cutter and bland at best, sleazy and desperate at worst. All the main characters in the film have had the life and soul ground out of them long ago and are now trying in vain to escape their lives by any means necessary. And yet, one gets the sense that all the money and freedom in the world wouldn't make them happier or better people. The icy storm that keeps the characters trapped in Witchita is one of the most tactile uses of weather I've seen in a film recently. Everything is soggy; cold, but not quite frozen. Everyone is slipping through slush, pulling their jackets tight against the wind and sleet. It's wet and disgusting, but that seems a bit more truthful than the stark, perfect whiteness of the winters usually seen on film.

I imagine that this would have been a very different film if they had decided to play it straight with the casting. Despite a slight Coen Brothers-esque quirk to some of the plot points (I'm thinking of the trunk sequence, which best exemplifies that morbid/funny dicotomy), most of the humor in the film, dark or otherwise, comes from the actors. I suppose one could argue that Cusack is playing against type in this movie, but in a way, I don't think he's really capable of that. Even when playing Charlie Arglist, a cowardly, incompetent dipshit, Cusack manages to bring an empathy and warmth to the character that probably would not have been present in the hands of many other actors. One could draw a pretty clear line from this performance back to his work in The Grifters, and I would like to see him in more roles like this. I feel like for every good movie I see him in, I see him in trailers for five movies like Must Love Dogs.

If you think Cusack is playing against type in this, you'd probably say that Billy Bob Thorton is typecast as Vic Cavanaugh, Charlie's brash, scummy partner. Thorton plays his usual hard-drinking, sour-faced douchebag character in this, but he does it well and its a lot of fun to watch him bounce off Cusack. The film plays with nicely with convention by starting immediately after the heist has been pulled off and diving right into the aftermath. You quickly get the impression that Charlie and Vic weren't particularly close friends prior to the events of the film, more like guys who just saw each other around the local bars and cooked up the plan one night over drinks. When their schemes start to unravel, the speed with which their trust for each other degenerates is both amusing and unnerving to watch.

The MVP performance of the film is Oliver Platt as Charlie's drunken loser of a best friend who is married to Charlie's ex-wife, who hates them both. It's a weird dynamic and although Platt doesn't really contribute much to the plot, the chunk of the night Charlie attempts to pass drinking with him is some of the funniest stuff in the film. Also solid are Connie Nielsen (the gorgeous Danish actress best known in the US as the female lead in Gladiator) as Renata, a very effective femme fatale, and Randy Quaid in a small but interesting turn as the mob boss who's been ripped off by Charlie and Vic. I never thought I'd find Randy Quaid threatening, but damn if he doesn't pull it off here.

If you like Fargo or any of the Coen Brothers other crime flicks, you'll probably like The Ice Harvest, although it doesn't push as hard for its weirdness as those films do. Low-key, small-scale crime films have rapidly become one of my favorite subgenres, and I'd encourage you to support them whenever possible.

Quick Update

Hey guys,

Just a few bits of business:

- Thanks to everyone who's been commenting and following. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work.

- I know in my first post that I said I'd review comics along with movies. This has yet to happen. I really want to do it, but I honestly picked the worst possible time in recent memory to start this blog. I'm about to move into a new place and my life in general has just been pretty busy. If I had started this in January, I'd've been knocking out about three or four movie reviews a week at the rate I was going on Netflix, plus comics. But I know you're all dying for my comics reviews, and I promise they'll start in early May at the latest. TV reviews too.

- My dear friend Stephanie asked my in the comments recently if I'd take requests for reviews. I had planned to get to this eventually, but since she brought it up, I'll just throw it out there now and say that I'm open to suggestions. As long as it's not Ghost of Girlfriends Past or something else that's obviously a complete waste of time, I'm open to checking it out in a timely fashion, whether I've seen it already or not. Leave your suggestions in the comments or facebook me or email me or whatever.

- My friend Sophie and my girlfriend Jenn have a webcomic called Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell. It's hilarious. And kind of blowing up in the webcomic world. If you don't already know about it, I suggest you check it out. It has a manticore named Skittles in it. 'Nuff said.

Anyway, thanks again for reading. I've currently got the Ice Harvest from Netflix, which I'll get to by the end of the week, and I'll be checking out The Losers in theatres on Friday. Catch ya then.

KICK-ASS

Dir. Matthew Vaughn US 2010

"Okay you cunts...let's see what you can do."

A lot of people asked me about my thoughts on this movie during the months leading up to its release (yes, months; the advertising campaign for it seemed interminable). And while I appreciated the obvious reverence being displayed for my knowledge of comics, I unfortunately couldn't offer people much in the way of educated opinions since I hadn't actually read the comic.

I know, shocking. Kick-Ass made a fairly big splash (if you're a nerd) when the first issue dropped back in 2008. It seemed interesting and I like John Romita's art, but my one major qualm was Mark Millar, the writer. Despite being one of the more popular comic book writers working today, I generally find him to be an insufferable, self-promoting douchebag who's time would be better spent writing something halfway decent rather than pimping his most recent piece of shit to Hollywood. Millar is essentially a watery distillation of Garth Ennis (all the horrific violence with none of the heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness) and Warren Ellis (all the nihilistic cynicism with none of the insightful wit). Ultimates and Superman: Red Son (barely) notwithstanding, Millar's books tend to possess a pervasive disgust for both his characters and comic book fans in general that's supposed to be edgy and meta, but is mostly cheap and irritating. I can laugh at comic books and fanboys as much as anyone else, but Wanted was essentially like paying money to get punched in the dick. And the movie sucked. So when Kick-Ass came out and took two years to finish an eight issue mini-series (another Millar trademark) I wasn't particularly excited about it or the inevitable movie adaptation.

Nerd rant over. Sorry. On to the actual movie. I liked it. That may come as a surprise after everything I've said about the source material, but I think one of the films strengths was removing itself from the comic and creating its own atmosphere and tone. And while I don't think that the movie ever really came to a coherent thematic conclusion (more on that later) it had a hell of a lot going for it and was ultimately very enjoyable.

Obligatory plot recap: Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a typical high school loser living in Queens who loves comics and can't talk to girls. He's basically Peter Parker, except you get lots of details about his masturbation habits. Fed up with his boring life, Dave decides to buy a scuba suit online and go on nightly crime-fighting patrols as Kick-Ass. After suffering several near-fatal beatdowns, Dave finds himself an overnight media sensation, as well as the target of a vicious mobster (Mark Strong) who blames costumed vigilantes for a systematically wiping out his men. Dave is eventually assisted/repeatedly saved by the actual perpetrators, a father/daughter vigilante team known as Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage). It all comes to a head in an orgy of blood and generally hilarious violence.

So lets start with the violence. This movie has plenty of it, the majority of which is committed by an 11-year old. The fight sequences pull no punches on either side and are shot with an appreciable slickness that's becoming more and more rare in modern action movies. You'll find no Bourne-style quick cutting or tightly framed shots here. Early on, this is mostly done in order to show how inept and sloppy Kick-Ass is. If you've ever seen real people fight (non-professionals, of course), you'll know that it's anything but neat or graceful. When Hit Girl and Big Daddy show up, the fights take a turn for the choreographed, but Vaughn keeps it interesting, throwing guns, swords, baseball bats and fistacuffs into the mix and it only gets crazier from there. Hit Girl's fights, while naturally kind of silly, are well-staged enough to keep you grounded in a reality where an 11-year old can wipe-out rooms of armed men. My only complaint was the prevalant use of CG bullet hits. I'm guessing they're probably easier and safer than squibs (especially for headshots) and they do play into the comic book nature of the violence, but I tend to prefer practical effects when it comes to these sorts of things.

If you go into this movie with your bloodlust up, it will definitely be sated. But of course, violence is only interesting when it's being caused or happening to characters you care about. As you can probably guess from other reviews and the commercials, Hit Girl steals the movie. Played with obvious relish by Chloe Grace Moretz, the character is alternately hilarious, adorable and genuinely threatening. And while there has already been a small bit of controversy over her unrelenting use of bad language and violence (not to mention the Natalie-Portman-in-The-Professional, Lolita-with-a-gun vibe she exudes), Moretz keeps the character grounded as a little girl who's all too happy to do as her daddy asks. Despite the deeply disturbing idea of a father turning his daughter into a killing machine of Terminator-like proportions, Nicholas Cage (bizarrely understated here, or as much as one can be while playing the Punisher by way of Adam West's Batman) keeps Big Daddy sympathetic and ensures that the relationship with his daughter always remains sweet and genuine. Their introductory scene is both tender and terrifying and I get the impression that Nicholas Cage, a well-known comic fan (the dude named his kid Kal-El for chrissakes), did his best to turn in a heartfelt performance, as opposed to something like this.

As for the rest of the cast, Christopher Mintz-Plasse does well in what might be his most dramatic role to date. The big reveal in the comic regarding his character, The Red Mist, is repurposed as upfront information in the film, most likely to give the charactor a bit more of an arc, which the actor carries off believably. If he can continue to move beyond his McLovin' persona, I think Mintz-Plasse has a bright future as funny, weird-looking character actor.

The villains, let by the always reliable Mark Strong seem to be mostly imported from Guy Ritchie movies (Ritchie is director Matt Vaughn's old producing partner) and while their collective transfer from British to New York accents is a bit spotty, their scenes develop their own rhythm and humor and keep them from just being evil plot devices.

Unfortunately, the weakest link in the cast is Aaron Johnson as the titular character. Also a British import, Johnson does fine with the accent, but the character is shackled by his own self-admitted lameness and becomes a completely passive force in the film by the end of the second act. I was not surprised to learn that Millar had originally considered basing the comic around Hit Girl and Big Daddy and I'm left wondering what that movie would have been like. Johnson fills the shoes of this pathetically average character well, but its as though the film decides halfway through that he's not particularly interesting to watch and leads you off in some other direction. His scenes with his friends (one of whom is Clark Duke, who you may remember from my Hot Tub Time Machine review) will ring amusingly true to any geek and wisely abandon the mockery that seemed inherent in the source material. Note to self: find out if that coffee bar/comic book store they hang out in is real.

The obligatory love story for the hero wasn't particuarly interesting either, despite a semi-amusing subplot where Dave pretends to be gay to get close to her, on top of the classic 'hero keeps his identity from the girl of his dreams' story trope. Katie, as played by Lyndsy Fonseca (also from Hot Tub Time Machine) is cute, but ultimately forgetable and their scenes together don't exactly set the screen on fire.

There's also some pacing issues, most notable in the slow-poke second act as the film shifts from being a weird meta-comedy about superheroes starring Kick-Ass to a more straightforward, hyper-violent comic book movie starring Big Daddy and Hit Girl. And that, I think, ends up being the film's biggest problem. Although I'm glad they moved away from the douchey tone of the comic itself, I feel as though the script could have used a few more rewrites to help the filmmakers figure out exactly what they were trying to do or say with this movie. The film doesn't really succeed at being the realistic depiction of superheroes that it advertises (the ending is way too fucking out there; you'll know exactly what I'm talking about when it happens), but as a straight superhero/action movie, it's not really anything you haven't seen before, Hit Girl notwithstanding. And yet, I had a lot of fun watching it. Take that as you will.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE

Dir. Steve Pink USA 2010

"Do I really have to be the asshole that says this thing is some kind of time machine?"

Call it my being an elitist douchebag (you wouldn't be the first) but comedies tend to be one of the genres that I gravitate toward the least. I know, I know, you're saying "Who doesn't like to laugh?", and that's not it. Lots of things in movies and television make me laugh tend to not be things in straight comedies, but funny moments in non-comedic films or shows. Moments that spring to mind include Vincent accidentally shooting Marvin in the face in Pulp Fiction and Farnum screaming "How have I given offense?" as Bullock beats the ever-loving shit out of him on Deadwood. Humor, for me, comes from character (violent characters, apparently) more than situation, so when I go to see a straight comedy, I'm often more interested in the people involved than I am in the premise. Hot Tub Time Machine promised both a hilarious cast and premise. The former succeeds more than the latter, but we'll get to that.

One of the more upfront jokes in this movie is it's title, which conveys it's ludicrous plot with amusing simplicity. Three middle-aged best friends (John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson) who have drifted apart into separate shitty lives, return to a ski resort where they spent the best weekend of their life in 1986. Tagging along is Cusacks loser nephew, played by Clark Duke. They arrive to find that the place has fallen to ruin in their abscence. Then they go back in time. Because of the hot tub. Wacky time-travel hi jinks and much finding of oneself occurs as our heroes try to return to/not destroy the present.

I'll cover the bad first, since I did ultimately like this movie (meta-spoiler alert) and would like to leave you thinking well of it. It strikes me that comedies allow for looser plotting than most other types of film, typically because the stakes are relatively low and there's lots of humor to be found in characters screwing around in situations that ultimately aren't that important. One could successfully argue that many romantic comedies follow strict formulas and are required to hit certain plot beats like clockwork, and I really wouldn't argue with that. However, the recent reign of successful Judd Apatow films seems to indicate that as long as you have a decent premise and funny actors/characters, it is acceptable to make loosely plotted comedies in which the characters sit around and bullshit with each other or engage in wacky hijinks that serve no narrative purpose other than providing humor. Hot Tub Time Machine seeks to fuse these two styles and ends up being pretty sloppily plotted, even by the standards I just mentioned.

Again, I can hear you thinking, "Who gives a shit about the rules of narrative in a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine?". And normally I'd be with you. But when structural problems prevent a comedy from being as funny as it could be, then you kind of need to give a shit. The problem which struck me as I was watching the movie (which in my book makes it one of the biggest problems) was Chevy Chase's character. In the film he plays the handyman at the resort who may also be some kind of time lord. He is clearly aware of the situation the main characters find themselves in and is there to act as an amusingly unhelpful guide on their journey to the past and their efforts to get back to the present. As far as perfunctory plot points go, its not really a problem. The problem comes in the fact that its really not that funny. Chase doesn't seem particularly invested in the role and the majority of his characters dialogue is so vague and nonsensical that it's never really able to make the leap from annoying to funny.

As if wasting Chevy Chase wasn't bad enough, the writers tied most of Clark Duke's storyline to him, effectively wasting him too. See, since Clark Duke didn't exist in 1986, he has no past to revisit and since he finds out that he may have been conceived that weekend (a subplot/mystery that's almost stupidly obvious), he is the most worried about observing the rules of time travel and getting back to the present, lest his own existence be undone. So while the other three main characters are off having character arcs and doing funny things, Clark Duke is basically running around trying to find Chevy Chase and then having repetitive conversations that involve Chase telling him nothing and Duke being pissed off about it. This strikes me as a giant waste of potential for not only Chevy Chase, but Clark Duke, who I've really liked in the few things I've seen him in. He was pretty much the only reason I don't regret seeing Sex Drive and he was a funny balance to Michael Cera in those Clark and Michael internet shorts they did a few years back. His effective blend of subdued Michael Ceraesque nerdiness and Jonah Hill's smart-ass overconfidence has made me hopeful that he'll carve out a little comedy niche for himself the way the others have. Alas, not in this movie. The trailer even lured me in with a false subplot for him. There's a joke in the trailer where he's dancing with a girl and asks how to get in touch with her later, which leads to a gag about the girl not knowing what Twitter or the internet is. That scene as you saw it in the trailer is the entirety of what appears in the movie. I'd have much rather watched Duke's fumbling attempts to connect with a girl a generation removed from him rather than watch him be fed up with Chevy Chase.

I was also hoping the movie would do a bit more with the deconstruction of time travel as its often presented in fiction. Aside from one (admittedly funny) coke-fueled analysis of the Terminator series by Craig Robinson, the movie seemed more content to make fun of the 80's rather than the more sci-fi aspects of time travel. This is probably a personal quibble given that I'm a giant time travel geek, but I felt there was room for it amid all the "The 80's were retarded and brightly colored" jokes.

Alright, let's jump back to what I liked about the movie. The main cast, which is kind of random when you think about it, works really well together. Despite being wasted overall, Clark Duke does work really well in his scenes with the older actors, his kind of bemused mocking of their idiocy standing in well for the audience. Craig Robinson is just great in everything I see him in whether he's playing a more manic character or, as in the case of this movie, a passive sad sack. There's just something about the way he delivers his lines that always strikes me as funny. Rob Corddry essentially steals the show as the sort of mean-spirited, fun-loving douchebag character that Jack Black probably would have played were this movie made ten years ago. It's an easy part to run with and he's given the best lines ("If I tried to commit suicide I'd be awesome at it! Shotgun to the dick!"), but he's also charismatic enough to make you sympathize with a character that is essentially a complete piece of shit.

Jon Cusack ends up being the wildcard of the bunch, weirdly enough. Despite having an overall background in comedies, I feel like the genre has changed significantly since his hey-day and I was pleased to see that he managed to keep up with everyone else. As the protagonist, we are supposed to be the most invested in his character, and he ends up being a wise bit of meta-casting for the role of a guy looking back on the 80's as a time when his life was better. Obviously John Cusack has done well for himself since the peak of his popularity, but the dramatic aspects of his character make it easy to imagine how his career could have easily taken a turn for the worse and left him washed-up and burnt out like he is in the film.

The supporting cast is as effective as they need to be. Crispin Glover as the hapless bellboy has a fairly ridiculous subplot with a decent enough payoff and the extremely charming Lizzy Caplan (although she's barely in it) is welcome in pretty much anything as far as I'm concerned.

I find myself at the end of this review thinking that I've talked more about the movies flaws than its merits, but it did keep me laughing consistantly and, despite some of the sloppy plotting, never felt prolonged or padded for the hour and a half that it lasted. If you laughed at the trailer you'll probably enjoy the movie. I just felt that with a little more effort it could have been on par with The Hangover, which it definitely isn't.

COOL HAND LUKE (Vague Spoilers)

Dir. Stuart Rosenberg USA 1967

"Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand."

Cool Hand Luke was, for me, one of those extremely famous, indispensable movies that I had just never gotten around to (A Clockwork Orange is another that springs to mind). Netflix has proved to be a wonderful tool for rectifying this and so, last week I was able to check Cool Hand Luke off the list.

Cool Hand Luke was released in November of 1967, during the death throes of the Hayes Production Code, which had been ensuring since 1934 that sex, graphic violence and bad language of any kind would never be enjoyed by American audiences. Although it wasn't completely done away with until 1968, 1967 was the year when flagrant disregard for the Code began to bleed into cinemas, most famously (and literally) in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. Although Cool Hand Luke is nowhere near as graphic as that film, some sequences (and more noticeably some of its themes) are still strikingly edgy for a movie that is now over 40 years old.

In case you, like I until recently, have not seen the film, here's a brief synopsis of the plot, which, in true late 1960's/early 1970's style, is fairly minimalist. Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) is a decorated war veteran (I assume Korea; its never specified) who becomes a drunken shitkicker and is arrested for cutting the heads of parking meters in a Georgia backwater while on an epic bender. Given the apprently Draconian legal system that existed in the South during the 60's, Luke ends up sentenced to two years on a chaingang, overseen a gentlemanly sadist (Strother Martin) and his chief enforcer, a nearly mute guard in mirror Aviators known as the Man With No Eyes (Morgan Woodward). Despite his initial indifference to his situation, Luke eventually becomes a sort of savior to his fellow inmates when personal issues cause him to rebel against their oppressive guardians, first in small ways, which eventually graduate to multiple escape attempts and end in the sort of uplifting tragedy that seemed to often define 60's counter-culture.

So. Does this movie deserve its status as a classic of both its era and cinema in general? Fuck yes. And for several reasons. First and foremost is Paul Newman's towering performance as the title character. I'd always enjoyed Paul Newman's work (Butch and Sundance is endlessly fun, and The Hustler, made six years before Cool Hand Luke, was also decades ahead of its time), but his performance in Cool Hand Luke is clearly one for the ages. Although he spends most of the movie coasting on his easy charm and wise-ass good looks, Newman creates a pressure cooker of a character who's explosive finale actually ends up being less interesting than the simmering build-up. Newman's ice blue eyes are his greatest assest; masking what he's thinking while still allowing him to exude a range of emotions with the subtlest of looks. If it sounds like I'm in love with him...it's a distinct possiblity. The guy is just awesome. I could point to a half a dozen best scenes, most of them famous, but the greatest (in my opinion) comes when Luke, after receiving some devastating personal news, sits on his bunk and sings 'Plastic Jesus' while playing his little banjo. It's not flashy, but holy shit is it affecting.

The rest of the cast is excellent as well, creating an exciting and entertaining world confined to the small barracks and stretch of highway to which these men have been condemned. Stands out include the previously mentioned Strother Martin as the evil Captain (who utters the infamous line regarding communication and Luke's failure to do so) and George Kennedy as Dragline, the de facto leader of the inmates who goes from being Luke's worst enemy to his most stridant supporter. Kennedy's broad, old-fashion theatricality makes for a nice balance to Newman's reserved method acting, and their relationship is certainly the most heartfelt one in the film. Keep an eye out for Dennis Hopper as an inmate in the background of many scenes.

As you may have assumed when reading the plot description, Cool Hand Luke doesn't exactly have the most original narrative in the history cinema but, as I mentioned earlier, it is able to put a bleak, almost existential twist on a well-worn story. One of the things that personally struck me regarding the movie was Luke's apparent atheism at the start of the film. Luke never comes out and says he doesn't believe in God, but his dismissal of other peoples religious leanings and his general cynicism toward the world must have seemed off-beat at the very least to audiences in 1967, given that casual atheism is still a fairly taboo subject in America today. And although the movie cops out a bit at the end, with Luke apparently revealing that, while he blames God for all the misery he has unjustly suffered, he nonetheless believes in him. I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, but I'm willing to give the film credit for portraying a sympathetic hero who harbors such justified disbelief and anger toward God.

There's a lot to take away from Cool Hand Luke, from its place as a stepping stone toward modern American cinema, to its humane and insightful ideas on justice and redemption. If anything, it's left me with a strong desire to delve further into Paul Newman's filmography. Apparently I've been short changing myself all these years.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM (Mild Spoilers)

Dir. Rian Johnson USA 2009

Brick, Rian Johnson's 2005 directorial debut was my favorite movie of that year and has gone on to become one of my favorite movies of all time. It was love at first sight, evidenced by the fact that I bought the DVD before I'd even seen it, something I almost never do. With its gerne-bending combination of 1940's noir and 21st century high school politics, Brick was exactly the type of movie I would have liked to have made. Needless to say, I was extremely excited to see what Johnson's next effort would be.

The Brothers Bloom differs greatly from Brick in both tone and intent, but the marks of what made the latter great are easy to see in the former. A twisty, complex plot, subtlely clever visual cues and a small, but memorable cast of characters. I was delighted to find that Johnson was able to maintain much of what had made Brick so incredible without showing any signs of repetition or one-hit-wonder syndrome.

The film tells the story of Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrian Brody), the titular brothers who, thanks to a lifetime of practice and training, have become the world's greatest con artists. Their confidence games, planned with loving and elaborate detail by Stephen, are not so much schemes as they are sweeping stories of adventure and intrigue in which everyone, even their marks, ends up with what they want. Despite a life of international travel (the movies locations include Berlin, Prague and Mexico), beautiful women (specifically a cameo by Brick's femme fatale Nora Zehetner) and dashing attire (I wish I could rock the rumpled suit/skinny tie/fedora combo as well as Brody or Ruffalo), Bloom eventually finds himself longing for a life where he doesn't have to lie to people about who he is. Stephen takes it upon himself to concoct a final con that will give both brothers what they want, although the true nature of their desires does not become apparent until the final minutes of the film. Stephen's plan involves swindling an eccentric, hobby collecting heiress (the devastatingly charming Rachel Weisz), whom Bloom promptly falls in love with. Crazy plot twists ensue and the questions of who is playing who escalate to dizzying heights as the movie goes on.

It's common, when dealing with stories about con men, for the stories to become predictable in their unpredictableness. There's always going to be that last minute turn, that extremely trustworthy character who turns out to be deceptive, that red herring that's not actually a red herring, etc. While Rian Johnson employes some of these tropes in the telling of his story, his witty sensibilities and the almost fairy tale nature of the narration serve to keep even the most jaded viewer invested in the story.

The opening sequence presents the best example of this. Acting almost as a short film within a film, the first ten minutes of the movie show the brothers as young boys being deposited in one of a string of suburban foster homes where they proceed to scam the local children out of their pocket money before being caught and shipped off to the next town. With its rhyming, Seuessian narration (provided by Ricky Jay, the magician/actor who memorably played gay card sharp Eddie Sawyer on HBO's Deadwood), the prologue is both its own satisfying narrative and a perfect set-up for the film to come. Bloom is seen falling for a local girl, only to loose her to Stephen's scheming (setting up a beautiful graphic match at the end of the film) and Stephen is show remaining one step ahead of every party involved, even after they've been caught. It's a perfect example of straight-forward, yet effective character building. Also, the fact that their outfits have not changed since childhood is hilarious.

Other reviews I've read have compared the tone and mood of the film to a Wes Anderson movie. While there is some validity in this (its basically impossible at this point to have quirky characters or any kind of retro-hipster style in a movie without it being compared to Wes Anderson), I think Johnson overtakes Anderson in both his direction and characterization. Anderson's movies are essentially colorful storyboards, charming images painted in wide shots and fussily arranged compositions. Johnson has a fluidity to his direction that allows for both artfully composed shots (the shot early on of Bloom in front of the graffiti is brilliant, you'll know it when you see it) and a textured, tactile world that feels real despite its fanciful nature. Also, while Wes Anderson's characters range from hiply aloof to hiply aloof with the occasional emotional outburst, every character in The Brothers Bloom feels capable of supporting their own movie, with nuance and emotional range that complements the stellar cast.

So let's talk about the cast (I rule at transitions). Adrien Brody does a great job as Bloom and easily carries the weight of the narrative with his performance, but I think the more challenging role was that of Stephen. Where Bloom wears his heart on his sleeve, Stephen remains a mystery for much of the film, walking a fine line between unknowably mysterious and outwardly friendly. Mark Ruffalo plays him with his usual warmth, blending the joking protectiveness of an older brother and the sinister charm of a con man into a believable and ultimately captivating character.

Rinko Kicuchi (following her similarly mute role in Babel) plays Bang Bang, the brothers assistant, a sexy Japanese explosives expert who only knows three words of English. Those three words are used to varied and hilarious effect during the film and Kicuchi's otherwise silent performance makes for some of the more amusing visual gags in the film.

One could argue that I'm biased toward Rachel Weisz (she possesses a perfection I have dubbed the Kate Winslet Effect: beautiful, curvy, English accent and a hell of an actress), but I found her Penelope to be the most engaging character in the film. The role strays a little too close to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for the most undiluted example of that character) but Weisz is able to bring a multi-dimensional pathos to the character of an extremely lonely, extremely strange woman with a desire for adventure and romance. Her performance ranges from hilarious (the decidedly un-ninja like grace with which she battles the Prague police) to tragic (her realization that she's being used by the brothers) to sexy (her dance sequence with Brody on the cruise ship) to all three (her drunken, rambling assessment of Bloom's emotional problems on the train). The fact that this movie made me love her more than I already did would alone warrant it a glowing review.

In case you haven't guessed, The Brothers Bloom was one of the best movies I'd seen in a long time. It utilizes its wonderful cast to great effect, creates a interesting and complex narrative and gives me great assurances that Rian Johnson is on his way to a long and illustrious career.

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Dir. Louis Leterrier US 2010

So I didn't intend to start this blog off on a negative note, but this was the first movie I saw in theatres in over a month and it managed to sneak right under my already middling expectations and completely suck ass.

Before going any further, I will come out and say that I have never seen the 1981 version of Clash Of The Titans. I had planned on it before seeing the new one and it was on Netflix Instant Watch and everything, but I just didn't get to it. So I was going into this with no means or intention to compare it to the original version. At most, I was hoping to see a kick-ass, live action version of God of War. That would be cool, right? Those games look fun.

It was exactly like that. Except without the violence or nudity or whatever makes those games interesting on any level. I almost fell asleep twice during this movie. That alone should be damning enough. But there's so much more.

Let's start with Sam Worthington, the star of this movie and one of its biggest problems. Now, I don't hate Sam Worthington. He fulfills most of the requirements necessary to make an effective action star (there aren't that many). Handsome, glowers effectively, looks believeable holding a sword or gun on a poster, plus, he's got the foreign accent* However, this is the third movie I've seen him star in (following Terminator: Salvation and Avatar) in which he is a giant black hole of mediocrity, collapsing any interest or sympathy that may exist in his characters into a tiny, indistinguishable singularity. He's like a butch, Austrailian clone of Orlando Bloom. In fact, the most interesting role I've seen him in was as a supporting character (the cynical asshole) in this suprisingly decent Austrailian crocodile flick called Rogue. But I digress.

Now, I get that Perseus isn't the most original of protagonists. He's a minimally developed underdog on a generic revenge quest, not too far removed from Maximus in Gladiator. But where Russell Crowe was able to give Maximus depth and pathos, Worthington pretty much sleep walks through the role, acting angry when you'd expect him to be angry, resolved when you'd expect him to be resolved and angst-ridden whenever possible. Oh and he was kind of sarcastically funny once. Possibly twice. And again, the character is pretty poorly written, coming off as a whiny bitch who refuses to use his fairly nebulous but presumably kick ass demigod powers because it will make him just like the gods he so despises (original I know). But I've seen actors do more with less and considering this is the third megabudget movie this guy has headlined in less than a year, I'd have expected him to display some kind of personality by now. Even Keanu Reeves is kind of fascinating in his wooden-ness.

As I mentioned, the script doesn't exactly pull its weight here, cramming in nearly two dozen supporting characters and spending about 95% of its time focused on the boring protagonist. The actors range from criminially wasted (Danny Huston has exactly one fucking line as Poseidon and Polly Walker appears in one scene playing a paper thin version of her brilliant Atia character from HBO's Rome) to desperately trying to find something worthwhile in the script. Standouts include Pete Postlethwaite (he should totally play Aeron Damphair in Game of Thrones) as Perseus' adopted father, who dies in the first ten minutes, and Mads Mikkelsen (the bad guy from Casino Royale) the hardass leader of the soldiers who has at least three laughably repetitive conversations with Perseus about how they're all totally fucked unless he uses his powers to make their quest a little easier. Which he doesn't. Dick.

Female characters are expected to suffer in action movies, but this movie does it twice in the form of Io (Gemma Arterton from Quantum of Solace) and Andromeda (the chick with electric powers from Angel). Io shows up out of nowhere with a creepy sob story about being cursed with immortality and spying on Perseus his entire life, and follows them on their quest in order to provide exposition whenever necessary and be a sexless PG-13 love interest. Andromeda is ostensibly a plot device (they need to finish their quest or else she'll be sacrified), but one the audience has no investment in at all. And since Perseus is A) doing this all for revenge and B) already has a love interest, he really has no stake in saving her except, I guess, it's the right thing to do or something.

Also, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are Zeus and Hades respectively, but the former spends the entire movie lording over an irritatingly overlit throne room and the latter appears mostly in the form of a cloudy of blurry, poorly rendered CG harpies. Bullshit.

The Kraken, apparently the money shot of the movie, appears for about 15 seconds more than it does in the trailer, where everything cool about it was given away anyway. Double bullshit.

As much as the script is a paint-by-numbers piece of shit (four screenwriters are credited, so you know that there were actually about ten), the blame for this, as always, mostly rests on the director. Louis Leterrier showed some serious promise with The Incredible Hulk, which captured the essence of an easily misrepresented character with clever action scenes, a clear narrative and well-utilized CGI. Clash Of The Titans fails on all of those levels and more. This causes me to cast serious doubts on Leterrier as one of the possible directors of the Avengers movie.

As a final note, I saw the movie in 2-D after reading both Quint's review on Aint It Cool News and the New York Times review, both of which describle the 3-D version as, and I'm parapharsing, a total clusterfuck. For more info on why 3-D doesn't work on everything, check out their reviews.

*All major action stars have foreign accents (Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Chan) or bizarre American inflections (Stallone, Reeves). The only exception is Bruce Willis.

This is a blog!

Hello Internet (or, realistically, my friends who I ask to read this). In an effort to keep myself writing regularly and kill time at my job, I've decided to start this blog. Rather than bore you with the details of my occasionally interesting life, I'm going to use this to review movies and comics, my two great/deeply nerdy passions in life. Movie-wise, I'll just be reviewing everything I watch, whether it's stuff I'm catching up with on Netflix, stuff I see in the theatres or old favorites I'm rewatching for the billionth time. The 3 reviews I've got backlogged since I decided to start this should give you a pretty good idea of the variety of stuff I'll be reading.

As far as comics go, since I read the same books every month and I'm trying to cut back on picking up new books (goddamn price hikes), I'll probably just talk about the few standouts every week and comics in general. Thrilling, right? Expect an entry on the comics I bought Wednesday sometime before next Wednesday.

I briefly considered reviewing TV shows as well, but it would be too much to keep up with on a weekly basis, and I doubt I could do better than the AV Club (check 'em out), so I'll probably just talk broadly about differnet shows as the mood strikes me. Expect a big ol' rant about Lost once it ends in May and my thoughts on Treme, the new HBO show from David Simon once it starts airing this Sunday. And a retroactive post at somepoint about how badass Justified is.

Like I said, this blog is mostly for my own enjoyment, but I hope whoever ends up reading it gets something out of it. Anyone who knows me knows my interest in all things computer related is minimal to say the least, so expect this blog to be as no frills as possible until some uncertain, possibly non-existant point in the future where I start to give a shit about that.

Anyway, thanks for reading.