My Super Ex-Girlfriend 6. Maybe it was because, for a change, I went into this with no preconceptions ...I don't know... but I was surprisingly entertained by My Super Ex-Girlfriend. And if it wasn't for the "psycho ex-girlfriend" theme intertwined into this light relationship-comedy, it all plays out pretty logically and satisfyingly in a traditional comic book sense. I'm not sure if the "psycho ex" theme added or detracted from the story, but it wasn't a deal breaker and added some funny moments to a movie that was intended to be, after all, a comedy. It also brought something original to both superhero movies and psycho ex-girlfriend movies: using a shark as an improvised weapon. Who knew I'd been missing that after all my years of comic book experience? I'm quite pleased that the producers chose not to sacrifice the comic book action and special effects value for the sake of just focusing on the relationship comedy.... It was all very nice to look at, and the super heroics were satisfying. In hindsight, Uma Thurman was the ideal actress for this role as she can be given extremely different "looks".... perfect for that super/civilian dual identity. She can look mousey one minute and absolutely smoking hot the next. Luke Wilson was ok as the hapless boyfriend, for which I'd really like to credit the writers rather than the actor. I'm predisposed to disliking actors like Luke who just exude "dopey" in their on screen personalities. I know it's currently popular, but it's not my bag. Eddie Izzard is subdued but fun in this, his second role as a supervillain (Mystery Men), and Anna Faris is awfully cute as the office buddy/love interest. The story is almost embarassingly simple, but the focus here is on the characters and the relatonships.

I can easily recommend MSE-G as a pleasant, sure-not-to-disappoint afternoon's entertainment.  ¶ 2:47 AM 0 comments

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 6. It's a pity Jerry Bruckheimer didn't learn something from Quentin Tarantino... Just because you have enough actual film to make two movies doesn't mean you should. A well-edited Dead Man's Chest would have made a very nice first hour of a 3 hour long Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (the third movie of the series). Instead we get a heavily stretched and padded, mostly action, movie with no real climax. DMC suffers from the classic "oh my god, the first movie was a hit; now we have to write a sequel!" dilemma. The story is almost non-existant, the dialog is ill-conceived and forced, and instead of giving real thought to how the characters in the first movie would progress to this one, we've decided to make little tweaks to their established personalities to suit our purposes here. That kind of lazy shit chaps my ass. About the only thing in this movie that I enjoyed unreservedly was Davey Jones who, along with his crew, was a miracle of modern special effects technology. I couldn't tell where the makeup prosthetics ended and the CGI began. That, combined with the actor's excellent skills in projecting emotion, even through half an inch of latex, really sold the character... even if I couldn't really tell if I was supposed to like him or hate him. No question, the special effects were top notch and lent a fair amount of believability to the movie, and the fight scenes were well done (though way, waaay, waaaaaay too long). Did I mention the fight scenes were too long? They were.

I looked forward to DMC, but it ended up being yet another of this summer's movies that didn't quite live up to expectations. I can recommend seeing it only because you're going to be lost going into the third movie (which, thankfully, we're only going to have to wait a year for), and because this visual feast should really be appreciated on the huge screen.  ¶ 3:05 AM 0 comments

  A Creepy Special Rant: Bryan Singer OK, look....

The comic-reading world has gone ga-ga over Bryan Singer for "everything he's done for the comic movie genre."Don't credit the director of a movie with the rise of an entire genre, it's not his doing. You're just thrilled that comics are doing so well in the theaters right now... and rightly so... but don't be laying credit for that at the feet of someone whose big achievement here was essentially being in the right place at the right time. The comic genre was already on its way up when Singer became director of the first X-movie. Look you clowns, someone was going to direct that thing. The ball was already rolling too fast to stop. The producers had committed themselves to doing it and putting an assload of cash behind it. Many many directors could have produced an equally half-assed movie. And X-Men 1 was indeed half-assed. Beginning here, and with every super-movie he did afterwards, Singer's message seemed to be "I can do this better than the people who made it popular, so I'm going to." Witness the vast liberties taken with the X-Men's history and characters. It can't be denied and it can't be excused. The original X-Men cast... something that's fairly important and not casually brushed aside... was Cyclops, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Beast, Angel, and Iceman. They were the first group Charles Xavier put together. And in the comic book world, they're all adults now with long, detailed histories of their own. But not in Bryan Singer's world. Bryan has decided that Iceman is now just a young student in Xavier's school, and we're not even going to get around to discovering Angel for 2 more movies. Singer obviously read a little about the characters themselves, and decide to weave his own tale using them.... basically because he had to use them. I'm sure somewhere in the back of his head he wished he didn't have to be saddled with these characters and could just create his own from whole cloth, perhaps stitching the recognizable names onto them (which was very close to what he did). He has no respect for the established mythos and no business writing/directing it. Bryan! It's ok to use the original story as written! We've waited for years to see what it would look like in movie form! You're not spoiling anything for anyone here by giving them something they're familiar with! Superman Returns is the best thing that could have happened to X-Men 3. After Bryan dumped X-3 to do SR, the replacement producers brought more respect to the table and it really showed in the results. I liked X-3 much more than its predecessors.

People's Exhibit B: Superman Returns. ...And I'm going to give away a little of the movie's story here (though not the big thing), so if you'd rather be surprised, skip down a paragraph. First, the smaller gripe which displays my issues perfectly. All of you go ahead and strap yourselves in for what is surely going to sound like an irate comic fanboy moment, or just close the page now. I don't give a shit. It's a serious, valid complain when you talk about making respectful comicbook movies. Let's talk about Kryptonite, shall we? Here's how it works... When exposed to kryptonite, Superman becomes weak and begins to die. Period. That's it. There's no "pushing past the pain" which was so flagrantly shown in SR. First we see Superman finding himself standing on a kryptonite-laced island and unexpectedly getting his ass kicked by Lex Luthor. Then we see him pushing the entire island into space while the spooky green kryptonite crystals are literally growing menacingly towards his face. Nope, sorry Bryan, no force of will is going to let him push past this vulnerability. The second he's exposed to that much of it, it's pancake time. That's the rule. And I was all prepared to buy it too, when it seemed like he'd dug far beneath the artificial island into the bedrock below to shield himself while he hauled it all into space. But then you had to go for the rule-breaking "wouldn't it be cool!" moment and have all the rocks fall away around him exposing the kryptonite, which shattered things. And then there's that big huge fucking spoiler I can't really talk about because it's such a bombshell in the movie. No writer with any respect for the Superman comic would ever throw something like that into something as important as the long awaited Superman movie no matter how high the self-proclaimed "wouldn't it be cool!" factor is. Some things you just don't do. This is one of them.

The other issue I have with Singer is how extremely superficial his writing and directing are. Everything is about look and feel and nothing is about substance. Bryan.... dude!.... Yes, comic books are a graphic genre, but it's not all about the visuals! There's significant substance to the stories which only someone who's faithfully read them for years can appreciate enough to want to respect in making a movie. You obviously haven't and don't. The visuals may grab us, but it's the stories that keep us reading these things for years and years. It's all facade and window dressing in Singer's super-movies... producing cool visuals and "moments" but with little depth. Even when you decided to drop [giant huge spoiler] into Superman Returns and committed yourself to using it for one grand (HA! Puns!) shocking moment, you still backed immediately away from it, fearing to use it again where it now would logically have to be used, and maintaining a "maybe yes, maybe no" feel even after the cat has been dumped uncerimoniously from the bag. Give us stories, Bryan, not "moments." We deserve complete movies not a series of spectacular and titilating visuals strung together on an afterthought plot thread.

Some writer/directors have the ability to make movies, and some have the ability to tell stories. Bryan is, sadly, the former thrust into a genre (that only real fans realize) demands the latter. I believe Bryan wants to make a good movie. He just doesn't want to make a good comic book movie. Please, Bryan... for the sake of the genre... go back to movies you can have more freedom with and leave the comic books to the real fans.  ¶ 4:50 PM 0 comments

  Superman Returns 8. I am the man who inspects the levees in pre-Katrina New Orleans. I am the enlightened dual comic book/movie expert who heard that Fucking Joel Schumacher was taking over the Batman franchise. I forsee a disaster coming for the comicbook movie genre. That disaster is named Bryan Singer. Like a giant meteor striking the Earth, it's simply a matter of time before this disaster brings the current popularity of comicbook movies to an end. You heard it here first. (Stay tuned, boys and girls, for a special full blown Bryan Singer rant!)

That proclamation of doom aside, I enjoyed Superman Returns. It, thankfully, fails to embarrass the Reeve legacy. It is, of course, almost impossible to live up to the expectations created by the original movie, but I think SR makes an admirable showing. However, like the fall of the Soviet Union, I think an opportunity was missed here... in this case, an opportunity to make a truly spectacular movie. When I saw Matrix: Revolution and watched Keanu flying through the stormy sky, trenchcoat billowing behind him, I thought to myself, "this is what Superman should look like! They've got to get this director." Well, they didn't, and I think it was part of the missed opportunity.

I had no problem with the producers searching for a relatively unknown actor to play Superman, and I would like to personally thank them for resisting the urge to cast Nicholas Cage (as was originally planned... really) or Will Smith (come on... you know it was proposed in a production office somewhere) in the role. I wish they had found someone with just a little more talent and screen presence though. I was originally concerned about Kevin Spacey playing Lex Luthor, but I think he does fine. (He can produce at will that slightly crazy eye-glaze.) I still haven't decided how I feel about them using the somewhat comical, doofus-henchmanned version of Luthor from the original movies rather than a more realistic, sinister version made popular in Smallville. With realism nipping at the rest of the film's edges, it feels almost anacronistic. Whoever it was they cast as Lois Lane (I'm not even going to bother to look it up) is completely forgetable. (I'll spare you my questionable homocentric theory on this movie's casting.)

The story involves Superman suddenly returning after being inexplicably missing for years. The rationale was shoe-horned into the story, and I think they took the right course in just moving quickly past it. For the most part, SR strongly resembles the Reeves original ...perhaps a little too closely, but I can't really bring myself to describe that as a fault. Again, we have a real estate-obcessed Lex Luthor taking a bizarre, destruction-wrought, circuitous route to gaining a vast real estate empire rather than just buying up 1/4 of the US with his vast bank account, this time using Kryptonian technology. Again, Superman must stop him. Along the way, Clark Kent mysteriously returns to the Daily Planet, unquestioned, and learns [gasp!] Lois has moved on with her life. Through the course of the movie we also learn [insert big huge fucking spoiler here... You really wanna know, go find it somewhere else.]. Man oh man, do I have issues with this. Without spilling the beans by proxy, I'll just say that they never ever should have went there with this character. Again, I blame Bryan Singer.

So, a superficial retread though it may be, go enjoy Superman Returns for what it's worth. Get a little choked up when the familiar theme plays, and feel the relief that Christopher Reeve won't have to turn over in his grave.  ¶ 4:09 PM 0 comments

  Rental: Munich 1. After reading the rave reviews that came up when Munich was released I'm left with the conclusion that Munich is either a very subjective film, or I'm just a shallow, unsympathetic freak. I just don't get it. To make matters worse, when I sat down to write this review, I had an epifany: Munich is a comedy that's only missing the comedic soundtrack and sound effects. Go ahead, blink in appalled consternation if you want. Go rent it and play it with the sound off and the soundtrack to something like Big Top Pee-Wee or Johnny English playing. It works, doesn't it. Munich is a comedy. Witness the bumbling toy maker who makes bombs for the assassin group admit that he really only takes bombs apart, not make them. (Wa-wa-wa-waaaa!) Witness one of his bombs, made with too much explosives, go off in a hotel room not only blowing the intended target to smithereens (leaving an arm spinning on the ceiling fan) but blowing out the walls of the adjoining hotel rooms as well, one occupied by a randy couple and the other by the leader of the assassin group himself. Witness the group's trusted informant house the group in a safehouse that he simultaniously houses the group's adversaries in where they fought over what radio station to listen to. It's non-stop hijinks!

Munich wants to be raw and sobering, and it was that rawness that initially prevented me from seeing this comedy goldmine in its proper light. The movie has almost no character development (a conscious choice on the part of the director), jumping from one assassination to the next. Typically, TV and movie fare are dumbed down (which infuriates me), assuming the audience are a bunch of half-wits who wouldn't understand what "bigotry" means without a dictionary handy. But Munich could have used a little dumbing down. Many things simply weren't explained. Why didn't the group just dump the nimrod bomb maker? Why wasn't the contact quetioned (if not outright killed) for putting them in the same crappy apartment as the people they were working against? I needed just a touch more exposition.

I really wanted to give Munich a higher rating, but looking over the Creepy Scale, I just couldn't. It's not worth renting. It's not worth setting your VCR for. It's not even better than Ishtar. I'm left with the (sadly) all-too-familiar feeling that those stuffy movie reviewers (many of whom probably never even watch a film before writing a review) were left with a serious amount of wool upon their eyeballs. They saw that jewish director Steven Spielberg, who brought them the acclaimed Schindler's List (yawn) was making a movie about the jewish retaliation for the '72 Olympic hostage killings and thought "this will be a historic, groundbreaking film. It will be fantastic!" It's not. Not even a little.  ¶ 11:12 AM 0 comments