Neil Patrick Harris vs Hugh Jackman Host Off (Video)

Neil Patrick Harris, Hugh Jackman Have a 'Host-Off' at Tony Awards

'How I Met Your Mother' star Neil Patrick Harris defended his right to host the Tony Awards against former Tony MC Hugh Jackman.

Dueling it out, Harris and Jackman referenced the past 60 years of Broadway and Hollywood musicals in a toe-tapping bid to outdo one another onstage at New York's Beacon Theatre.

So who won the oh-so-charming dance-off, and who proved to be a hacky pop culture icon disguised as a bonafide Broadway talent? It's hard to tell. Both Harris and Jackman never seemed to miss a step as they kicked off Tony night or, should we say, 'The Book of Mormon' night?

The critically acclaimed musical from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of 'South Park,' earned nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical.



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I'm Just Sayin: Chicks Can't Wield Two Handed Swords

Female Heroes in Movies Are Dumb

Man with Zweihander

Don't call me a woman hater or something stupid like that, but when I sit down to watch a period piece, i.e. movie set in a specific date in history, and the hero of the story is a woman, I know it is time to walk out of the movie.  Am I against women?  No!  I kinda prefer women; wink wink; nudge nudge.  But, having a woman jump thirty feet, kick ten guys, while punching five others and then body slamming two, is a bit much for my whole "reality-embedded" brain to handle.  Don't get me wrong.  I am all for equal pay for women.  I am all for sharing of household responsibilities.  But, I am not going to divest my brain of all sanity and reason for 90 minutes just for the off chance, some obscure lesbian somewhere will get a kick out of watching a brainless bimbo do super heroic feats of strength by taking down 20 men twice her size and weight, in a single punch.  That might be great for that chick, but don't expect me to buy into it.

What's worse is, what message does this send to idiot chicks who think this is reality.  And, if you think I am joking around, let me tell you a story.

A chick came to my apartment once, when I was living with two other guys, and she proceeded to manhandle my roommate.  My roommate, being Latino, felt it his duty to allow her to thrash, not only, him, but our entire living room.  She proceeded to body slam him into shelves, desks, books and the t.v.  Well, I being the Capricorn and believer in equality that I am, grabbed her with 2 fingers, by the scruff of her neck and literally tossed her out of our apartment.  I then grabbed the two 90 lb guys that came in with her and told all of them, that they would never set foot in the apartment, as long as I lived there, ever again.  I think closed and locked the front door; told my roommates to clean up the front room; and went to bed.  I forgot to mention, I was completely naked except for a blanket I was holding around me with one hand, so this all took place with me doing this one-handed.

So let's get back to these movies.  The person watching a movie is expected to identify with the hero of a story, somehow.  When it is a man, male viewers put themselves in the place of the hero, and women put themselves in the place of the damsel in distress.  When it is a female... noone identifies with her.  To this day, men still want to be heroes and women still want their knight in shining armor to come save them.

The reality is chicks cannot wield two handed swords.  Let's take a look at a two handed sword.  The epitome of two handed swords, at least in Europe was that Zweihänder.  It weighed up to 16lbs and was up to 6 feet in length.

Guards could be plain or ornate, while hilts usually ended with heart or pear shaped heavy pommels. Occasionally a blunted portion of the forte, the ricasso or Fehlschärfe (meaning “missing sharpness”) at the base of the blade allowed a hand to be placed below the lower guard to “shorten the grip” and make the handle like a polearm. This allowed the user to crudely repel a cavalry charge. The swords have hilt-mounted side-rings and enlarged cross-guards of up to 35 cm (14 in) across. Along the blade, some 10–20 cm (4–8 in) from the upper guard, Parierhaken (“parrying hooks”) shaped like lugs or flanges acted as a guard for the ricasso to prevent other weapons from sliding down the blade. - wikipedia

Let's see how a real man used the two handed sword:

Perhaps the best known user of a Zweihänder was Pier Gerlofs Donia who is reputed to have wielded it with such skill, strength and efficiency that he managed to behead multiple people with it in a single blow. The Zweihänder ascribed to him is, as of 2008, on display in the Frisian museum. It has a length of 213 cm (84 in) and a weight of about 6.6 kg (14½ lb). - wikipedia

So, a man used a 7 foot sword that weighed 14 1/2 pounds.  Excluding a few freaks of nature, for the most part, women cannot even hold that sword, even today's much larger woman.  Remember we are talking about humans that lived about 400 years ago, and they were not 5'8.  The women definitely weren't.

The Zweihander was Monstrous

So, what is hollywood trying to push when it makes women wield two handed swords, slide down banisters and kill 30 men?  Well, the answer is simple.  It's a male fantasy porno.  Mind, you, it's not mine.  I don't do porno.

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Stop Putting Sex Scenes in My Sci-Fi

Buzz Megachip, readied his phaser, peaked around the corner of the Martaplex employee lounge and found Sarah Bimbolucious.  For the next 5 minutes of the movie a sex scene ensues.  Now for the average non-sci-fi noob, this would seem like a normal scene.  Gotta have a sex scene in a "movie".  That might be true, except the "movie" is called "Buzz Megachip and the 3rd Quadrant", a pure nerd-fest sci-fi flick.  The people that would be attracted to this movie are disgusted at the complete unnecessary scene that is in them. 

Now, let us go over why it is a bad thing to have porn in a sci-fi.

1. it has been shown time and again, that sex scenes in certain film genres, are unnecessary
2. you have to pay extra for the "sex" scene
3. you then have to get people to write the "sex" scene
4. people who write "sex" scenes are not super nerd friendly sci-fi screen writers
5. there is little to no sci-fi story
6. the studio is concerned with putting butts into the seats and not nerd butts into audience seats
7. instead of pandering to the very crowd that made a particular series popular, they try to reach for a larger audience that has never even heard of Buzz Megachip, and usually alienates the very people that made the particular title popular

Yes that means that Buzz Megachip is completely short changed on the entire sci-fi story.  All these riveting "that was not cannon Buzz Megachip storyline" conversations and nerd arguments are not going to take place, after watching the movie.

Of course there is no Buzz Megachip, but this applies to all sci-fi.  In an effort to get everyone to see a movie, hollywood studios try to pander to everyone's interests.  This is the very same argument against being politically correct.  Instead of actually defining something, they make it so general that noone likes it, or worse, everyone hates it.

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There is No More Love in America

The Scam of Love

There is almost no romance on T.V. or in movies any more.  "Falling in Love", apparently now, is a 4 letter word.  The entire notion of the fantasy love story of a man and woman having a love so strong that it lasts, even beyond death is non-existent.  It has all been replaced with problems and problems, or gender images and graphic gender.  They portray love stories now as being problematic to get the point across that loving someone is ALWAYS problematic.  They seek to destroy whatever notion of happiness you find in another human.  Why?  So you can look to them for your happiness.

The national entertainment outlets always create love "stories" in the same lame format:

• boy meets girl
• boy and girl aren't perfect
• they obviously need changing
• problems
• problems
• problems
• story over

I want you to go sit through any 5 chick flicks in the past 5 years.  I want you to keep track of the outline I just set and see if I am wrong.  If you have been reading my blog for any time, you've seen my movie reviews.  I do not want to sound jaded or too cynical, but entertainment is now depressing and not fun.  Even kids' movies are not fun.

The entertainment now seeks to depress you to such a degree as to make you discontent with your own life.  You've been programmed that you must return to the movies to get your entertainment.  Having a dinner party and inviting friends and playing board games is ancient history.  [although I did just that last year, was great fun]  People are now programmed to think that going to dinner, club and the movies are the ONLY ways to have "fun".  The movies and t.v. for their part depress you to such a degree that it bleeds over into your real life.  Since they try to define what a "relationship" is for you, when you leave the movie depressed you will then seek out the problems in your own relationship.

"AHA, you did squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, this relationship is over."

As stupid as that sounds, it is oh so sadly true.  The movies present generalities about problems in relationships and people watching these movies take it to heart thinking it is a universal truth, and break up with their loved one.

"Why did she break up with you man?"
"I don't know, I guess we grew apart."

No man, she watched MTV or some stupid movie and thought that you checking your cell phone every 5 minutes was factual evidence that you were cheating on her.   She didn't stop to realize that your grandma was in the hospital with cancer, on her death bed.  So now you've lost your grandma and your girl friend all in one day.

I can guarantee you this scenario happens daily across the land.

Oh don't let me leave out the chick magazines.  When they aren't depressing women with evidence that they are somehow not beautiful for NOT having a heroin induced, malnurished body, they are telling them that:

1. something is wrong with their man
2. you can change your man
3. if your man doesn't listen to you, he's obvious broken
4. if the mail-room boy asks you out on a date that somehow he's a pervert and needs to be sued

The magazines defining women's lives is completely over the top and out of hand.  A dress-size zero woman is not good looking to a man.  End of story.  If the bones in her arms and legs are the largest section of that particular appendage, men will stay away from them.  Also malnourished women look like children, and only a man with a tendency towards pedophilia would like that look.  How many men have to come out and say they like big breasts, big hips, big legs, before females GET IT.  How many real life celebs with larger measurements become the idol of millions of men, before females GET IT.  Stop reading these stupid magazines that tell you that the anorexic look is OK.

Then the magazines set you up for disaster in your relationship, by telling you, you can change your man.  Yes, simply go out and grab the nearest man you can find, and change him.  Obviously, putting effort into finding a decent man FOR YOU, is far too much trouble.  Isn't that the message they are actually trying to say?  And, what human thinks that they can change an adult male?  "An old dogs does not learn new tricks."  It's not just a funny saying.  It is true.  If your ulterior motive in a relationship is to get some good looking guy and MOLD him into what you want him to be, then you are setting you and him up for a disastrous relationship.  Get off your lazy anorexic butt and go find a GOOD MAN.  And, if the one you find is not perfect, then you might need to change your notions of what perfect is.  Ask yourself, who taught you what a perfect man is?  I'm not saying go marry an axe murderer, but I am saying if he drinks beer and likes video games, that does not mean he is imperfect.  If you require 24/7 attention, the problem is with you, not him.  You be you, and let him be him.  If you're doing it right, you will "grow together."  If you go into a relationship with that open mindedness, then you will never break up / get divorced.

The magazines try to tell you what you want to hear.  Apparently, if your man does not listen to you 100% of the time, then something must be wrong with him.  Get rid of him.  That's the message right?  Let's see!   Movies and comics and magazines always say that females are "always right."  You and me both, know that is a lie.  If you do not know all the facts and details about something, there is no possible way you could always be right.  You need to wake up and smell the coffee.  They are trying to sell you something by flattering your ego.  Females are not always right.  Men are not always right.  Noone is always right.  If these magazines are saying females are always right and their men should always listen to them, they are setting you up for a complete break down in communication.  How?  Because as soon as you get it in your head that "I am always right," then that means you shut down when your man tries to say something.  You see how horrible that is?  And, you wonder why your relationships are rocky at best.

Finally, these womens' magazines try to get across that if some random guy invites you to dinner, that obviously there is something wrong with him and he needs to be sued, and the company he works for needs to be sued.  The gender harassment craze has gotten so far out of hand that it is destroying large segments of the populations.  Groups of  women are living completely single and wonder why, yet should any man approach them, they look for the gender harassment umbrella.  The UPS guy asks them out to dinner - law suit.  The pizza delivery guy asks them out on a movie - law suit.  The mail-room clerk asks them for their number - law suit.  They look up 20 years later, surrounded by cats and wonder why.  gender harassment was intended to protect men / women from some ongoing pervert inside the workplace that holds their career in the palm of their hand.  While your boss asking you out to dinner, one time, might be unethical, it is not gender harassment.  Sometimes people meet people they are attracted to and want to see if it is going to go somewhere.  You never know who might be the man of your dreams if you open yourself up to possibilities.  Sometimes the most unlikely sources are the best choices.  While everyone laughs at the mail-room clerk for hitting on the vice president, how chagrined are they when he gets a three million dollar inheritance from his dead uncle?  Or, the UPS truck driver that actually owns 20 routes and works one himself, making half a million a year?

These are just examples of how we take national media and let them define our reality, specifically relationship reality.  You should always hear stories from magazines, movies and t.v. as only applying to those particular people.  You should repeat to yourself, "that does not apply to me."  Even if your mother is trying to give you sage womanly advice and she went through problems, "that does not apply to me."  One person's heartaches and mishaps does not mean that everyone is going to have heartache and mishaps in their relationships.

I know of so many women that are man-haters.  When I hear their story, it dawns on me that they are man-haters because they were and are immature and did not understand that the trivial problem they had with one man, does not apply to all men.  Even that one man, normally, did not do something to them, to deserve full on hate.  More than likely, they were listening to another man-hater or saw a stupid movie or read a stupid magazine telling them that if a man does 'XYZ' that he deserves hatred.

I met a lovely Black girl, long ago, that I wanted to date.  She stopped me one day and told me that she does not like Black men.  When I asked why, she said because her uncle had molested her.  I was speechless.  I still am.  I can only guess that it was just an excuse to hate all Black men.  Noone gets something done to them by someone and then equates everyone with some aspect of that one person as evidence that they are all completely like that person.  It would be like saying, all men with mustaches are Hitler.  As I think about it, I bet my computer that that Black girl had some ridiculous mother or aunt tell her that all Black men are just like her perverted uncle and all deserve to be hated.  But, as sure as I sit here typing this, I know thousands upon thousands of women have similar messed up stories like that and are so messed up that they write off whole segments of the population due to something someone told them, i.e. movies, magazines and t.v.

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Movie Review: Flipped

Flipped Needs to be Flipped Off

Rob Reiner takes us through a very weird tale of "young love".  With an all star cast, how could you go wrong with this movie?  But, he does it in style and with aplomb, crashes like a Japanese Kamakazi going down in a blaze of glory.  It is 90 minutes of torture.  I don't think the Alquaeda could have done a better job.

Cast: Juli Baker by Madeline Carroll; Bryce Loski by Callan McAuliffe; Patsy Loski by Rebecca De Mornay; Steven Loski by Anthony Edwards; Chet Duncan by John Mahoney; Trina Baker by Penelope Ann Miller; Richard Baker by Aidan Quinn; Daniel Baker by Kevin Weisman.

Flipped is a period piece of two very young kids and their changing opinions of each other through the ages from age 4 - 12 years old, and their coming into a mutual affection.  It is an on again, off again affection, on both sides.  The young girl admires the young boy, while the boy dislikes the young girl.  We are made to watch this scenario play out for 8 years of their life.

What was right about the movie?: The movie did have the correct cars and costumes for the period.  There were some wide shots of landscape vistas that were pretty.  That is the only thing the movie did right.

What was wrong with the movie?:

• first and foremost the movie sexualized children.  It was 90 minutes of cringing.  It was sick, sick, sick.
• the movie was a period piece and so many things were wrong
1. none of the dialogue was from the 40s or 50s. The very essence of the period was the very proper and fantastic way Americans spoke at that time. The slang they used in those days was so colorful. All of this was completely gone in the movie and replaced with regular modern vocabulary and 2010 euphemisms. It's a travesty.
2. none of the manners that were widely observed in the 40s and 50s were apparent. If this movie is really targeted at baby boomers, as the movie suggests, they will be horrified by how the kids treat the adults.
3. everyone cursed in the movie. To my knowledge, and I am fairly old, people did not walk around cursing each other out, however in this movie, kids, teens and adults cursed like sailors.
4. other than people wearing funky clothes, there was nothing that took you back to the 40s and 50s.
• there was no point to the entire movie. The diaglogue was boring, and the entire screenplay was narrated. To add insult to injury, the narration "flipped" between both lead characters. The only relief of something actually happening was when the kids interacted with the adults in the movie. I don't hate kids, but come on, they are not fun to watch.
• Finally, kids acting like kids, but written by hairy old white men, with Harvard Business School vocabularies, removes all semblance of somehow being transported into a "kid's" world. Someone should have clued Rob Reiner into how kids actually talk, before he sat down to write an entire screenplay about them.

The movie does not fit into any demographic that I could tell. I have no idea who this movie would appeal to. I say that to say, don't go see it, but if you're ... I have no idea ... then go see it, but... I have no idea who would like this trash.  It was agonizing to watch this.

I kept expecting something to happen and ... then the movie ended.  It was a very Sopranos ending.  I am sure more than a few people will be angry at having sat through this movie only to have it end without any conclusion to the story whatsoever.

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Movie Review: The American "A Must Not Watch"

The American

This is a Gun and Two People in the Movie

So everyone hates Hollywood as much as I do right?  RIGHT?  I thought so.  And, apparently, so does  Director Anton Corbijn, but he's Dutch so...  Well, anyway, so he directed writer Rowan Joffe's The American.  He really really REALLY tried to make it minimalist, existensialist and super cool, right?  Yeah, so if I'm reviewing it, you know he failed.  I only review what I think are failed movies.  I'm kidding.  I'm sure I've given good reviews of something, somewhere.  I can't remember.  But this is not one of those, "oh my gosh, what a great movie" reviews.

So, Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in the title role of the American. He plays the role of Jack, a lone assassin. After a gruesom job in Sweden ends, he hidey holes in the a small medieval Italian countryside. Against his better judgement and wishes, he takes on an assignment to construct a weapon for a sexy yet cold contact, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). To add another layer of suspense to the already "suspenseful" plot ,in the mountains of Abruzzo, Jack becomes the object of friendship of a local priest Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli). To add even more layers to the already convoluted onion wrap, he gets embroiled in a torrid liaison with a "lady", Clara (Violante Placido). Jack and Clara's escapades turn into a somewhat nebulous romance, however it does offer an out from his current "profession".

Director: Anton Corbijn
Writer: Rowan Joffe
George Clooney - Jack
Paolo Bonacelli - Father Benedetto
Thekla Reuten - Mathilde
Violante Placido - Clara
Irina Bjorklund - Ingrid
Johan Leysen - Pavel

So where does it fail?  The entire movie you have NO idea what is going on, who's on the screen, and why do you care.  It's as if they cast George Clooney so the audience would just feel like, "oh this must be a great, I don't understand a damn thing, but it must be great".  Basic storytelling dictates that you at least tell your listener / viewer who you're talking about.  This movie never tells you who the characters are.

Father Benedetto who's Crucial to the Plot Somehow

While the settings are beautiful and the acting superb, there's just no movie here.  Who can watch a movie where they have no idea what the story is.  You don' t know who any single character is in the whole thing, nor what their motivation is.  Trust me, I don't like being spoon fed a story, but at least I'd like to know why the main character is going to be murdered.

Why so many inconsequential subplots?  The entire cast is all of just 5 people.  Outside of the main character, in the end, after remembering the movie, you suddenly realize that half the subplots were meaningless to the story and had absolutely no closure.

This is a: Must Not Watch.

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Movie Review: Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle (2004), winner of Best Animated Feature Film 2006, is another anime directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.  It is based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones.  I'll admit right away that I don't always understand Miyazaki's style of storytelling, but that's not to say his anime movies are not entertaining.  It is just that the animation is done in the Akira style of animation.  That mean's that instead of the very easy to do "move the lips only" style of animation, he animates everything on screen, i.e. fruit falling on the floor from a table, facial expressions, jars breaking, someone peeking their head our from behind a door.  Sometimes, however, I feel that in his zeal to animate everything on screen it gets in the way of the story itself.

A specific criticism of Howl's moving castle is that, although it is set in a fantasy steam-punk world, where you have coal powered trains, yet flapping airplanes and wizards and witches, the story has nothing to do with the setting at all.  This story could have been told in any setting, and probably would have been more understood.

Howl's Moving Castle is a story of a very unlikely girl named Sofi, who is of normal looks, getting involved in the world of a Casanova wizard, who normally steals the hearts of young beautiful women.  When Sofi, a quiet and reserved hat maker, is seen by the evil Wicked Witch of the Wastes, she is cursed to be aged to be about 70 years old, with the inability to every speak of the curse.  Sofi sets out to find Howl, who got her involved in the first place to remove this curse.

Movie Review: Dragonball: Evolution

Dragonball: Evolution

Goku

Dragonball: Evolution is a 2009 American live-action film extremely loosely based upon the Japanese Dragon Ball media franchise. It was directed by James Wong, produced by Stephen Chow and released by 20th Century Fox. The story centers around the adventures of the lead character, Goku, around his 18th birthday, as he is asked to gather seven Dragon Balls to save the world from evil alien forces. On his journey, he meets several different characters who all join the quest and help him in his task. The film stars Justin Chatwin as Son Goku, Randall Duk Kim  as Grandpa Gohan, Emmy Rossum as Bulma Briefs, James Marsters as Lord Piccolo, Jamie Chung as Chi-Chi, Chow Yun-fat as Master Roshi, Joon Park as Yamcha and Eriko Tamura as Mai.

Let's be honest, this film had nearly no resemblance to anything in the Dragonball franchise.  I've heard of artistic liberty, but this takes the cake.  This was a complete rewrite of the entire Dragonball world.  My only theory is that neither the director, nor producer nor even the security guard on set, saw any of the Dragonball anime episodes.

They literally should have renamed all the characters and slap the title "White Ninja" on it.  It would have been far more believable.  For any Dragonball fan, this was a complete slap in the face.  And, I don't understand why Hollywood continues to do this.  They take a franchise, with millions of core fans, and bastardize it for some unknown viewer and ruins the entire series.

Lord Piccolo

This movie, in a word, was terrible.  The acting was just, so bad, that it wasn't even laughable.  Chow Yun-Fat delivered a career ending performance.  If they say that the acting was done to mimic the anime, they are wrong.  There is a difference between an animaniacs style of acting and this travesty on film.  Randall Duk Kim  as Grandpa Gohan started off the entire movie with the most wooden delivery of lines I have ever seen.  Maybe he didn't have his prunes for the day, but he was rather stiff, if you know what I mean.  James Marsters as Lord Piccolo couldn't have pulled off a worse performance, in my opinion.  Maybe he should stick to vampires.  It seems like it's his forte.  Justin Chatwin as Son Goku, leads the show in "line please".  It was just aweful.

Sometimes you cannot blame the actors, well not completely.  You have to take into account what they're working with.  The script was just poor.  It was so poorly laid out that one has to piece together what it all meant.  That is the main reason I said it should have been simply named "White Ninja".  The Dragonball world was never laid out in prain engrish.  I don't mean treat me like a child and spoon feed me narration, but don't be so terrible at storytelling that I have to guess what you mean.

Master Roshi

Casting was terrible.  No actor fit any role, with the exception of James Marsters as Lord Piccolo.  For a heavy martial arts film, there was little to no martial arts in the movie and Chow Yun-Fat, whom we all know can deliver in martial arts, did little to no martial arts.  After about one scene of him throwing Goku around, we get little to no action.  I know he's getting long in the tooth, but if he going to be in a martial arts movie, he better damn well deliver me from karate chops and judo punches damnit.  The star of the show is a white boy with an adolescent body.  I'm sure many of you probably saying he was cute or some rubbish like that.  Dragonball has to be THE quintessential Japanese anime.  It is Japan.  Goku is supposed to have 30 inch pythons [arms] on his worst day, and be very japanese.  A majority of the characters in Dragonball are drawn with the extreme epicanthic fold, or Asian eye fold.  Clearly they wanted the characters identified as Asian.  And, lastly, again with the Black monks.  As I said in The Last Airbender, I am glad Black people are getting work, but this is just too weird.  Why Black monks?  Is that the new pimp for Hollywood?  "Oh, we need a Black guy, should we make him the monk?"  I just don't get it.  And they had to paint extremely white hair on his  mustache and beard, because Black people do not age.  It was pure comedy.

I knew going in this movie was going to ... in a word ... suck.  But, to not even be recognizable as Dragonball is just astonishing.

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Movie Review: The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender is a live-action film adaptation based on the first season of the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The film stars Noah Ringer as Aang, a reluctant hero who prefers adventure over his job as the Avatar.  The first of a planned trilogy, The Last Airbender was produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies.  It was adapted into a film by M. Night Shyamalan, who both directed and produced it. Other producers include Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Sam Mercer and Scott Aversano.  The series from which it was adapted was influenced by Asian art, mythology and various martial arts fighting styles and was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

Where to begin with this ... movie?  The very first line of the movie, delivered by an ... "actress", who looked 7 but was supposed to be 14 years old, had me wanting to walk out of the theater right then and there and demand my money back.  The performances of everyone in the movie was earth shatteringly bad.  I have seen elementary school plays that delivered more conviction and credibility than anyone in this entire cast.

The casting was jarring.  You have a completely and wholly Asian story about a mythical Asian world where magic is divided into the four basic elements- water, fire, air, earth - yet everyone in the movie was white, plus 1 Black guy.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that a Black guy is getting work in Hollywood, but a Black man cast as an Asian monk?  I think the affirmative action card was used in the exact wrong place here.  Also jarring was the fact that the emperor looked like his general, and I mean an exact duplicate, down to the haircut.  It was unnerving to hear white people talking about tapping into the spiritual nature of things.  To my mind, only indigenous people should ever be portrayed as having spiritual awareness.  Historically speaking, Europeans played upon this very nature of indigenous people to believe in the spiritual realms to overtake peaceful people and subjugate and rule over them.  You cannot then make a movie, wholly based on spiritual realms, elements and celestial guardians and cast a 99% white cast in the roles.  What hubris is this?

The costuming was appalling.  Where the cartoon had very vibrant clothing for everyone, and everyone is very identfiable by their clothing, i.e. earth nation wears bright greens and browns and fire nation wears bright oranges, red and black, in the movie everyone was sentenced to wear drab upon drab colors.  The worst costume of them all was Princess Yue, who is the pricess of the northern water tribe.  All of the water tribe is sentenced to wear drab clothing, but the princess has the shame to wear a full, long head of gray hair.  While my friend watching with me said it was white, I pointed out white colored materials in the shot and then pointed back to her very gray hair.  Apparently M. Night Shyamalan did not see Lord of the Rings, and see what white hair is supposed to look like onscreen.  I found Gandalf's white hair, quite appealing in the movie, once he returned with it.  This chick, the princess, however, had gray hair.  And, it looked a mess.

What can I say about the script?  It was terrible.  The entire movie was nearly narrated.  Even worse, at one point, when avatar and friends arrive at the northern water tribe, the narration drones on and actually says "and my brother and the princess Yue really liked each other."  I almost fell out of my chair.  I cant' believe we had to be told this, instead of .... people writing scenes in a script?  Nah, too complicated.  I felt like this was a book on tape.

What can I say about the on-screen chemistry of the actors?  It was non-existent.  At one point in the movie a dragon spirit says to our hero the avatar, Aang, "you're not allowing yourself to grieve for all of the air benders being slaughtered by the fire nation, you're just showing anger all the time."  I was like, when did he show anger, did I blink and miss it?

The final straw was one of the last scenes. The great general, who had formulated this entire invasion into the northern water tribe is walking by himself and four nameless water benders come up and put him in a bubble of water.  What was terrible about this scene was first: he's a general, in a war zone walking around by himself, JUST, for this one scene, up until this scene he had been surrounded by guards.  Secondly, that these four water benders are all nameless anonymous characters.  Thirdly, you don't even realize that he's dead until two scenes later when the report, I mean narrator, tells you he was killed.  Fourthly, this general is one of the most powerful fire benders in all of the nation of fire benders, but he is taken out by anonymous characters?  Seriously?  I can only imagine M. Night Shyamalan was like, "oh we need the general to be dead."

Avatar: The Last Airbender has a huge following.  It is no wonder they did not clear production and marketing costs with this movie.  But, the movie was so terrible that it doesn't surprise me they didn't make money on it.

Apparently M. Night Shyamalan has the go-ahead to complete the trilogy.  Someone please help us.

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Movie Review: How to Tame Your Dragon

How to Tame Your Dragon

Hiccup and Toothless

How to Train Your Dragon (also released by the name How to Train Your Dragon 3D) a computer-animated fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation is loosely based on the 2003 book of the same title. The film stars the voice talents of Jay Baruchel - Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Gerard Butler - Stoick the Vast , Craig Ferguson - Gobber the Belch, America Ferrera - Astrid Hofferson, Jonah Hill - Snotlout, T.J. Miller - Tuffnut Thorston, Kristen Wiig - Ruffnut Thorston fraternal boy and girl twins, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse - Fishlegs Ingerman.  David Tennant  plays Spitelout: a Viking who is not named in the film, he appears to be Stoick's Second-in-Command, and bears a striking resemblance to Snotlout

The plot is simple.  In a mythical Viking village, a scrawny kid, Hiccup, surrounded by barrel chested and overly muscled men, seeks to take his place alongside everyone as a dragon killer.  Instead his awkward antics leads him to capture, befriend and tame a dragon.  Through this friendship he uncovers the true secret of the nuisance dragons, which allows him to save the entire village.

A quick word on voice casting.  The entire village are all stupid Scottish sounding voice actors.  The leading man, Hiccup and the leading lady  Astrid, both have regular, American accents, or lack thereof.  When listening to the other cast you have full immersion into the story.  When listening to Hiccup, you are brought jarringly back to your seat sitting in sticky floor Cineplex 6.  His, is a voice, I would never dream of hearing as being allowed to voice act.  Also, Vikings and Scottish accents, do not mix.  It would have been 10 times funnier if the actual Scandinavian accents were used, for everyone, including Hiccup.  It would have added an entire dimension to the film, that was not present.  Also, are we Americans so dumb as to equate Scottish people with Vikings somehow?

As usual, I found Jay Baruchel's voice to be just as whiny as he is live.  He seriously makes me want to kill kittens.  I don't like whiny women, why on earth would I enjoy a whiny guy?  He whines throughout the entire movie.  And, once again he's type-cast into the awkward nerdy boy-can't-get-girl role.  Enough already!  The guy is not bad looking.  When he's in his civilian clothes, he's a real looker.  If they put 40 pounds of muscle on him and stop chopping off his hair, a la $10 supercuts look, he'd make a fine leading man.  Come on, Superbad was not that damned funny that we need 1 beellion and one spin offs, nor a whole new genre of pre-adult sexually titillated boy films.

How to Tame Your Dragon

If you think I'm off base, go read the books.  The books are intended for a very young audience.  Included in the series are titles like "How to Speak Dragonese", "How To Twist a Dragon's Tale", and "How to Break a Dragon's Heart". And characteristic to each book is a compilation of abbreviated chapters, slapstick humor, childlike drawings, and kid pleasing names like Snotface and Fishlegs. Much of this is purposely discarded, as directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois opt for an older demographic. Among the most significant alterations are the character ages from tween to teen, the Vikings' relationship with the dragons from training to hunting, and the size of Toothless, from a small green dragon in the book to a full-sized, fire breathing terror called the Night Fury. These changes give the film a more ominous and mature dynamic.*

So instead of them making an overly funny, tongue-in-cheek movie about a preposterous relationship between a boy and a mythical dragon, they instead give you Superbad in animated form, with a lovesick teen and a giant BLACK dragon, with nigh-shark rows of teeth.

Finally I'm really over the whole PITA bleeding hearts that want to read into this movie what they translate as a message to not harm animals.  Open your damn eyes!  The entire movie shows them killing dragons, all the way to the very end credit.  There is no message to get along with animals and not harm them.  The entire impetuous of the movie is to KILL DRAGONS.  I don't know how much more clear that message could be.  Gee, without giving away too much, the entire purpose of the chief of the village, Stoick the Vast, is to not just kill the dragons, but to find their lair ans slaughter them all, to finally be done with them, once and for all.  So the build up is for him to find it.

If you want pretty moving pictures, this has it.  Gutted is the actual story from the books.  Gutted is the humor from the books.  Gutted is the relationship of the characters from the book.  They shoulda just named it "Superbad, a Dragon's Tale".  It would have been just as close and way more obvious.  Please spare me any more whiny performances by this kid Jay Baruchel.

[credit: Mark Sells of the Oregan Herald]

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Movie Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Executive producer Nicholas Cage puts on this movie The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  If you loved the Goethe poem, this isn't it.  If you loved the Disney classic cartoon, this isn't it.  If you loved the moral of the original poem, this isn't it.  This was garbage wrapped up in cheap tin foil and packaged with one big name actor, who seems to star in his own films that he, himself, produces.  More power to him, but he bastardizes what little that passes for American culture, not to the extent and depravity of MTV, but it's damn close.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice stars Balthazar Blake played by Nicholas Cage, his arch nemesis Maxim Horvath played by Alfred Molina, and his apprentice Dave played by Jay Baruchel of She's Out of My League, and all those other nerds are cool movies Hollywood tries to hoist on young kids.  The plot of the story is a 3 way love triangle between Balthazar, Horvath and Veronica played by Monica Belluci.  Veronica doesn't seem to have a last name.  Who cares, she's in this over long movie for all of 5 minutes.  I'm sure she's thanking her agent for that.

The Evil Horvath with a Co-conspirator Morganian

Anyway, this love triangle is setup by none other than the grand sorcerer of sorcerers Merlin, yeah, King Arthur's Merlin.  What in hell King Arthur and Merlin have to do with a German poem, I have no clue.  But, apparently, Americans have no culture of their own, so lets setup the back story based on the only famous wizard we know.  God forbid someone should go out on a limb and actually create an American wizard.  Anyway, as it turns out the 3 are in fact Merlins apprentices.

It seems Merlin's original apprentice, not ever mentioned in the movie as a subplot, Morgana le Fay played by Alice Krige of the Borg from Star Trek, became overly powerful and killed Merlin, plotting to one day rule the world, with a new found spell that would raise the dead to do her bidding.  The two "good" apprentices, Veronica and Balthazar are charged with defeating her.  Veronica, for her part, sacrifices herself, and steals the soul of Morgana le Fay, putting it inside her body, then being sealed in a sort of canoptic jar by Balthazar.  Balthazar, at Merlin's last dying breath, is to take Merlin's ring and find the one apprentice who will be capable of wearing it, and destined to defeat Morgana le Fay.

Let's stop right here.  In this opening montage of him "searching", he comes across several ethnic children, very aptly cast in the role of pseudo-sorcerer looking types.  In fact the very first apprentice-type passed up by Balthazar is a wise looking, cherub faced, Black kid.  It would have been an entirely different movie had the story been about that child, but instead we land on some poor, random, nerd, socially inept, white boy.  The montage ends with the introduction of the kid to the fact that magic is real in the world and all his other 10 yr old classmates pointing and laughing at his wet pants, mistaken for him peeing on himself.

The Real Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Lovely Veronica

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.

The poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom  to do the work for him — using magic he is not yet fully trained in. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how to.

Not knowing how to control the enchanted broom, the apprentice splits it in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a new broom and takes up a pail and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns, quickly breaks the spell and saves the day. The poem finishes with the old sorcerer's statement that powerful spirits should only be called by the master himself.

Der Zauberlehrling is well-known in the German-speaking world. The lines in which the apprentice implores the returning sorcerer to help him with the mess he has created have turned into a cliché, especially the line Die Geister, die ich rief  ("The spirits that I called"), a garbled version of one of Goethe's lines, which is often used to describe a situation where somebody summons help or uses allies that he cannot control, especially in politics.

The Beautiful Alice Krige

Yes, the 2010 Sorcerer's Apprentice does have that sequence of the apprentice in the wizard lab, with the mops and brooms going and Balthazar coming to save the apprentice from the mess he made.  However, completely, and glaringly missing is the only dialogue the poem is famous for, i.e. the apprentice imploring the master to help him with "spirits that I called" and the jovial master admonishing the apprentice to be careful with those spirits, i.e. don't call the big dogs if you cannot tame their bite.  Yeah, this movie has absolutely no moral to the story.

Next, casting!  Yeah, Nicholas Cage made the movie, so we cannot say we wish her weren't in it.  But, I wish he wasn't in it.  Also, Jay Baruchel was completely miscast.  Reticent hero is not his forte.  Complete slap stick comedy and socially inept nerd, he has it down pat.  Did the role call for socially inept nerd?  Not in my opinion.  He acts the same in every movie.  Is he even an actor?  I've seen better performances out of  Leonardo De Crapio, and he can't even deliver lines convincingly.

The best actors in the movie all had 1 or 3 lines in the entire movie.  And those would be the Black roommate who delivers excitement, college nerd comradery, girl chasing, disappointment to a morose and 1 dimensional reaction from Jay Baruchel each time.   Alice Krige's 3 lines are serving up Morgana le Fay as she has never been seen before.  She smacked it, whipped it, rubbed it down and served with butter on the side.  Alice Krige playing opposite Jay Baruchel in the final showdown seen is like the sun versus an ant, he was useless in the scene.  Finally Monica Belluci, as Balthazar's love interest and the 3rd apprentice served up unrequited love without even speaking.  Cage looked like King Kong next to her acting skills.  It was painful to watch the two pretend to love each other.  Or, more aptly, it was painful to watch him in a scene trying to act with her still in the shot.  Elmer Fudd gives a more convincing performance when Bugs Bunny tricks him into marrying him in "That's Opera Doc".  I wonder what Alfred Molina muttered under his breath while in his trailer between scenes.  But, I'm sure he's just happy to be working at his age.

Anyway, this movie was a missed opportunity.  Make sure you miss it.

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Movie Review: "Vampires Suck"

Vampires Suck

Vampires Suck

Vampires Suck a spoof film based on the Twilight film series directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, starring Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Christopher N. Riggi, Ken Jeong, and Anneliese van der Pol.  The entire movie nearly mirrors the aforementioned Twilight movies and chronicles both 1 and 2 of it.  Since it is a spoof it is in fact a comedy.  I have no idea why so many critics felt it was beneath them to review the movie or take it far to serious, for its own sake, but I laughed all the way through it, to the very end line.

As mentioned, the spoof mirrors the Twilight movie, so the plot, of Vampires Suck, is nearly cut and paste of Twilight.  It starts with the opening scene of Edward, the hero vampire, turned love sick teenager full of teen angst for a human mortal high school girl, taking his life a la Romeo and Juliet plot twist.  Unlike Romeo and Juliet, noone ever dies... in Twilight... unfortunately.  Happily, however, neither the main character, Becca Crane (Jenn Proske), is NOWHERE near as whiney as the main character in Twilight.  She made me want to kill kittens listening to her whine in Twilight.  This iteration of the heroin of our story was actually quite light, funny and self deprecating in a cute way, not a oh my god cut up the river, not across the stream, sort of way.

Why are We Always Mistaken for the Black Eyed Peas

Normally in these spoof movies, however, they not only take shots at the main movie they are spoofing, but go through the entire genre.  While there were notable mentions in the movie, they did not take nearly as many shots at other movies.  Granted, the other spoof movies were playing catch up, so they had years of material to work with.  While the Edward character says "vampires are trendy" in the movie, we do not see actual spoofing of those other movies, or shows, or books.  They simply threw out one-liners and had cameos, sort of, of other material they were spoofing.  As in, they couldn't hire the actual actors from those movies to show up as a real cameo.  I'll not ruin it but, one of the spoof cameos is rather blasé.  Once you see it you'll go "oh yeah ... that's supposed to be funny."


One thing they stumbled on was the Jacob character, Jacob White (Christopher N. Riggi).  He was the werewolf in the movie.  While the Twilight movie actually developed the bond that grew between the Becca and Jacob character, this spoof movie let that entire sequence drop.  There was so much material there they could have worked with, but didn't.  Instead when Jacob presents his ultimatum "me or him" to Becca, it rings rather hollow with the audience.  He was a total joke, though, in Vampires Suck.  Especially taking pot shots at him being shirtless throughout the whole God damned movie.  It was particularly annoying in Twilight.

Lastly the father, Sheriff Frank (Diedrich Bader), was the clueless, bumbling character in the movie, through which we are supposed to learn the sub-plots of the movie.  However, we don't.  He's simply comedy relief and over the top "you done crossed the line" adult humor you never want to hear from a father to a daughter.  Yes, you know exactly what I'm talking about there.  But, it was so damned funny.


Finally Vampires Suck could have been great, it could have been epic, but it was... safe.  I guarantee the directors and producers did not want to tread too harshly on the Twilight franchise, for fear of "you'll never working in this town again."  It was hilarious though.

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For Blacks: The Blanket Truth (video)

Dustin Hoffman: I Heart Huckabees

The Blanket is Everything

I don't often post an article that is extremely high brow.  I think for my non-returning readers, i.e. the kids that happen to wander upon my blog, they don't "get me".  I write actually MAINLY for them.  Yes I dumb down my blog for the greatest idiots to understand me.  I am sure, quite a few of you will be laughing at that statement, because, I call dumbing down my blog dropping it to a masters degree level.  I'm trying.  Not only do readers not "get me", but advertisers don't get me either.  Imagine if you will, a nerd guy in a plaid shirt, with glasses, tape in the middle of the glasses, and a pocket protector full of pens and a scientific calculator, then maybe you'll "get me".  Of course, I look nothing like that, and stand 6'2 with muscles, but I have a full on nerd side to me.

Why the preamble?  Because, I am about to take the kid gloves off and hit you will full high brow thinking.  I want you to put on your best thinking, alter ego, super-consciousness thinking cap.  I want you to sit down, and read these few quick sentences and watch this video.  I want you to think, not of yourself, but the entire universe, God, existence and the entirety of time.

Why did i put this under the For Blacks title?

What, Blacks cant' be intellectual?  Of course we can.  So for this topic, we're going to go deep deep into that place we never admit:  That this entire United States experiment with humans has been a complete and utter failure and joke.  We have had unwashed, inbred, low brow white people sicked on us for about a good three centuries for us to feel inferior, for nothing.  This whole notion of racism, classicism, sexism, and the separation of all humanity is a lie.  Nowhere in the bible did it ever say "God said let black and white men not eat the same bread".  I do not care if you do not believe in God, but that is an excellent place to start.  If God placed us all on this planet together, who told us that we are all separate.  Not every leopard looks the same, yet they never fight each other or try to subjugate each other.  If humans are so superior to the rest of the planet, whey do we painstakingly indulge in hating each other for simply being alive?

There are people above people above people above people that have pitted all of us against each other.  I want you to imagine for 30 minutes, what the world would be like if all humans had joined together from the time of Adam and had never ever saw a difference between us.

I want you to imagine how much more advanced we would be if we had pooled ALL of our resources, as we got them, and worked towards the furthering of the HUMAN RACE.  I am not talking about communism.  I am talking about the complete acceptance of our differences and beliefs.

Why am i saying this?  I believe that we are missing a very LARGE and HUGE lesson that is all around us, and we are not seeing it.

Let me give you an example:

• there are plants that know animals will eat them, so they make sure their seeds are completely immune to the stomach juices of the animals, and then are deposited inside the dung of the animals and sprout up, a new plant
• there are plants that know that humans will eat their leaves, so the leaves nourish the humans the best, so that humans will plant more and more of that plant
• there are plants that know bees will pollinate them if they come to their flowers, so they change their flower colors into the color spectrum that bees can see, and thereby attract the bees
• there are trees that are hundreds of years old who's seeds are so tough that they can withstand fires that surely come every 100 years, and only sprout until after the fires are gone, in fact they are only allowed to sprout until a fire had baked the outer skin off of it

Do you notice a pattern here?  If you only thought about plants, you missed the point.  I gave those plant examples, because I don't think some of you would believe animals would give their life, so that humans could raise more animals, or that the sun falls on the dirt and turns the dirt into nourishing rich earth, which plants can flourish in, which then nourishes us when we eat the plant.

What am I trying to say?

The universe is connected.  We are connected to the planet.  We are a part of the dirt, plants, animals and sunlight.  All of us are connected.  Every human walking the face of the planet is related, if you go back far enough.  If you are Muslim, does not every Muslim trace his ancestry back to Mohamed?  Some of you might think that is fantasy, but the reality that everyone is related is far more technically right than every Muslim being related to Mohamed.

I present to you this brief clip of "The Blanket Theory".  I want you to watch the clip over and over and over and over until you apply it to every possible difference you think you can come up with.  I want you all to start by saying how you are completely different from ME.  How you and I have never met.  How you and I will never meet.  Then I want you to watch the clip and see how we have already met.



I normally hate anything Hollywood does.  They are in fact money grubbing sharks that are out just to keep you as stupid as possible.  SOMETIMES, an artist squeaks something by like this.   Ostensibly the Dustin Hoffman character is asking the other character to apply his theory JUST to his case he's working on.  However, any fool can see that this entire scene wasn't talking about this stupid case, but the entire universe.  What is bad about the movie itself, is that it doesn't take itself serious.  The writer didn't think it would make it past the censors, i.e. producers with money, nor the viewing public.  Why on earth would existentialism be hoisted on drunken peasants that worship American Idol.  I lament that the writer didn't think he could get this past the sharks, and the idiots who watch Fox News, or CNN for that matter.

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Movie Review: "The Tooth Fairy" Starring "The Rock"

The Tooth Fairy

If you're a fan of "The Rock" then this movie is for you, no matter your age.  I happen to be a casual fan of his.  I'm not passionate about any human, so this is high praise coming from me.  I recommend you buy the DVD.  This is one of the movies that should be in your "kid's" *cough* collection.  Now, I have perused all the other reviews about the movie.  And, while I agree with everything they said, I still recommend the movie, over all.

This is one movie where I could dispense with picking apart the ghastly storyline and just enjoy the movie as is.

Cast:

• Derek Thompson Tooth Fairy - Dwane "The Rock" Johnson
• Carly - Ashley Judd
• Tracy - Stephen Merchant
• Mick Donnelly - Ryan Sheckler
• Ziggy - Seth MacFarlane
• Lily - Julie Andrews
• Randy - Chase Ellison
• Tell - Destiny Grace Whitlock
• Duek - Brandon T. Jackson
• Jerry - Billy Crystal

With a very nice cast, the movie had all the possibilities going for it.  So what if the actual script was predictable and trite?  The movie did have a bit of magic to it.  No pun intended.  But, there were some touching moments and there was the predictable victory scene, but why not have a feel good movie?

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Movie Review: "Legion" is God Awful

Legion the Movie Review

Seriously, I don't want to review this movie, it was just that bad.  Ok, out on DVD is legion.  For us Christians, and I guess Jews [I'm not sure], this movie about angels and God would be interesting.  Yes, there's a guy with wings in it, and yes they mention "Him" about 50 times, in one sentence.  I counted.  But, it has nothing to do with Christian, nor Jewish, angels and nothing about God.  I mean, the Bible has to be the most widely read book in the history of man.  It is still a top seller.  So, why was nothing in this movie based on the Bible?

Don't get me wrong.  I love an original screenplay as much as the next guy, but this was just... bad AND blasphemous?  Who goes out on a limb to piss half the world off, on a budget of ... what $100 million? LOL

Movie Review: Kick #SS

Matthew Vaughn's Kick #SS

Sorry I don't curse, and consider that word a curse word. I think it is unconscionable that American society has degenerated so far down the totem pole that curse words are expected to be used as common parlance. There is a reason they were called curse words. They were considered evil and vile and those who spoke them were considered evil and vile. Ok, on to the movie review. This is a review of what was thought to be a superhero movie by Matthew Vaughn. The previews said it was a superhero movie. The media blitz said it was a superhero movie. Walks like a duck. Talks like a duck. So why isn't it a superhero movie?

Don't waste your money.

Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

What Did I Just Watch: The Hurt Locker

That's what you'll be saying after you watch this movie. Yes the acting was good. Yes the scenery had a lot of texture to it and seemed so real as if you could touch it. But, the script was not only not good, but it was amateurish, yes bad. The Hurt Locker is a hurt movie. And, to top it all off, it is so long that half way through you'll be surprised it isn't over. To add insult to injury, there is no ending. The fact that there is no ending, should indicate to the intelligent mind, there was no beginning.

Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson Movie Review

Have you ever heard of this movie called harry potter? Ok, this isn't it. LOL No seriously, in a 3 word review, this movie attempts to do the fantasy / modern movie style to utter failure. But, and hold your horses right here. I liked it. ZOMG. How could I, who hates everything, like a movie? When there is a pearl among so much trash, sometimes the pearl outshines everything. And, what was the pearl in this movie? Brandon T. Jackson. He showed up everyone in the movie, in every scene, even Uma Thurman was bland compared to him. Look at the pic of the lead character, doesn't that look like a Potter clone?



Let's get to the review.

So Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) starts out with 2 gods meeting, Zeus (played by Sean Bean from Lord of the Rings ) and Poseidon (played by Kevin McKidd of Trainspotting ), apparently someone has stolen Zeus lightning rod and he accuses Poseidon's son of stealing it. Zeus gives an ultimatum that should he not have his mojo in 14 days there will be a god war. That sounds 10 better than what it looked like in the movie. In the movie 2 human actors, dressed in regular clothes, are talking on the roof of a building. ... what? Did this movie not have a budget?

Anyway, cut to school and the main character Percy is apparently not great in school, the letters move around on the board when he looks at them. His best friend Grover Underwood (played by Brandon T. Jackson of Tropic Thunder), who has some sort of leg problem and uses crutches, walks him home. At home his mother is married to some smelly, guy (played by Joe Pantoliano of The Matrix) we all immediately dislike (hello type casting).

Cut! The entire opening is regular people walking around in regular clothing.

Next day in school they are on a field trip at a museum. The substitute teach calls Percy into a secret room in the museum. She then turns into a harpy-like creature, servant of Hades and demands he return the lightning rod.

The jig is up. Percy didn't know anything about who he is, and is rushed off to demi-god camp, where he is informed his dad is Poseidon and he is half human half god. The leader of the camp is Chiron (played by Pierce Brosnan) a centaur, and Grover turns out to be a satyr and does not have a leg problem, but simply used the crutches as a cover for his goat half from the waist down. At the camp they meet Annabeth Chase daughter of Athena (played by Alexandra Daddario d), Luke Castellan son of Hermes (played by Jake Abel). When Hades appears in the form of a fiery demon, for some reason, and shows that he has Percy's mom in Hades, and threatens him if he doesn't bring him the lightning rod, Percy decides to leave the kid demi-god camp and go to Hades. He gets nowhere and the Grover and Annabeth accompany him. However, they are both useless without Luke giving them several useful items to get the job done.

What Sucked

This movie tries to be what Harry Potter is for witchcraft, for Greek mythology. However, instead of painting an intricate world that intrinsically is intertwined with the mortal modern world, it simply just goes back and forth. Instead of it really delving into Greek mythology, which is RICH in story, background, feeling and psyche, it just shows you a hydra in the middle of Nashville. Instead of them exploring what has happened for the past 2,000 years, it puts Medusa (played by Uma Thurman) in the middle of a flower shop. [nice cameo by her, by the way, the make up was flawless, she looked good enough to eat, snake hair and all.]

It is so obvious that the movie was trying to create a new Harry Potter rip off franchise. It stayed in the modern way too much. I mean, I like my fantasy genre movies to have ... I don't know... fantastical creatures? ... fantastical settings? ... fantastical dialogue? Come on, Medusa in a flower shop? Chiron in a day camp? Really?

The acting was god, friggin, burning on a stick, awful, except for Brandon. The script was just shameful. For instance, they go to Vegas and they are almost done with their journey to get to Hades. A cocktail waitress walks up to them and offers them cookies. COOKIES? Really? We then are treated to a drug induced, psychedelic trip. Wait, but here is how it plays out:

Cocktail Waitress: here try a lotus cookie on the house
Percy: sure
Grover: OK
Annabeth: sure
[start trippy music and blur effect on lights]
*giggle*
Percy: woah we should stay here

Really?

What Worked in the Movie

Brandon T. Jackson! That's it. Everyone else were bad. Brandon brought his A. game. It is obvious this kid wants to be in real movies. He had energy and is naturally funny anyway. The entire movie is boring, hands down. Brandon steals every scene and livens up the mood. In the action scenes you feel like there is action, in funny scenes he's funny, in sad scenes he's sad.

I think there was some bad casting in the movie. The guy that played Luke was only in a couple of scenes in the movie. He was far superior than the lead. The lead played like he was in Twilight the movie, throughout the entire show. He moped around and was so full of "angst". Luke had angst as well, but you actually understood his angst and he acted it out perfectly. Percy was ... "oh my dad left when I was a kid". Regardless of the fact that the mother explained it and said she understood. They should have switched Luke as the lead, who looked much more similar to the actor that played Poseidon anyway, and have the lead play Luke, since he was quite good at sniveling.

It was great that Grover was a satyr the entire movie. He also was a lady's man and a skirt chaser. You were able to understand that half-way through the movie. The other character? 2 dimensional, you had no idea what they were about.

While Percy and Annabeth were deciding if they were going to kiss or run each other through, throughout the entire movie, Grover had gender with Hades' (Played by Steve Coogan) wife Persephone (played by Rosario Dawson). [Jesus Christ on a stick that woman is hot, come slap me, I can't get her out of my mind.]

Conclusion

Go see this in theaters? NO, but do rent it. I wouldn't even recommend buying the DVD, but I do recommend renting it.

If you love Greek mythology, it's a crap shoot either way. If you just love anything Greek mythology wise, see it. But, if you are a Greek mythology geek, then I don't recommend you see it, it is rather lacking in that area as a whole.

For pure entertainment, watching Brandon T. Jackson is very entertaining.

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Movie Review: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

So Tim Burton takes on Alice in Wonderland, the classic Lewis Caroll "children's" tale. This movie isn't just a simple remake of the Disney Cartoon, but an add on. In this one, Alice is not 10 she is now 20. Tim Burton fails to capture any of the magic of the book or the old cartoon. The audience is left hanging from lack of story or feeling about any character in the entire movie. While the acting is OK and the visuals are OK, lackluster special effects and line delivery, a movie doth not make. It seems this director is trapped in his own grandiosity and has completely forgotten that he is making a movie for other humans to see. Wait till you can rent it for a dollar if you simply must see it before you die. Other than that do not waste your time and your money.

By the way, I did check other reviews before I started my review and every single person agrees with me. This movie is rubbish.

The Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland "Story"

So in the prologue to Alice being in wonderland she is first a little girl. We find her having a dream of wonderland. She is disturbed by the dream and goes to get her father, who tucks her in and talks to her about it. She asks if she's "mad". A bit of obvious foreshadowing since the entire movie centers around the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp. Her father makes her laugh and she drifts off to sleep. In the next scene she is now 20, played by Mia Wasikowska, and is saddled with an engagement to a local Lord's son, this being set in the Elizabethan era. She whines about having to get married to a lord. When everyone gathers in the garden to witness the proposal, she runs away to chase the white rabbit, leaving 200 guests with mouths agape. She sees the rabbit go down a hole and this grown woman now tumbles down the rabbit hole.

So Alice is now in wonderland. She is greeted by the white rabbit, played by Michael Sheen ( from New Moon, never seen it, and probably won't ), Tweedledee and Tweedledum played by Matt Lucas, and Doormouse played by Barbara Windsor. They are debating whether she is the right Alice, apparently the white rabbit has retrieved more than one Alice before, only to be disappointed. They decide to take her to Blue Caterpillar, played by Alan Rickman ( from Harry Potter *yay* ) since he is the wisest in the land. He refers them to their visual calendar of events. In there it is shown that the next day Alice is to slay the Jabberwocky with the vorpal blade. When Alice balks at the idea, everyone decides that she is in fact the wrong Alice.

The entire movie then is set that she should come to her senses and slay the Jabberwocky. Boy, who could see that coming. Except, there was no montage of her training with the vorpal sword. Thank God Tim Burton left that cheeseball Hollywood playbook kitchen sink out of the movie. I don't know if Hollywood is stupid or Hollywood thinks audiences are that dense.

About Wonderland

The very idea of wonderland normally conjures up a world visualized through a smoke filled hazed one can only conceive of from a hookah pipe. Either Tim Burton is sorely lacking in psychedelic drugs or has no imagination whatsoever. I'm not one to condone drugs normally, but Tim, come on, next time take some shrooms for.... research purposes.

The entire movie was just so bland. While some of the visuals were nice, they were just that. "Oh that's nice." As bland as... this jelly is nice.

If Hollywood wants to produce eye-popping movies and crazed stories, perhaps they should throw their hat in to stand against the government's "war on drugs" and recognize that drugs, while harmful in a stupid person's hands, are quite the artistic boost in other hands.

Literally, a 4 year old with an exceptional talent for drawing could have come up with a far superior world than Tim Burton.

About the Story

Lord of the Rings was a box office smash. It seems any and everyone who can throw in a grand melee war scene, does so, hoping to ride the wave of battle scene mega bucks. So instead of the story being about Alice fighting the evil Red Queen and her army, played by Helena Bonham Carter ( from Harry Potter ), they throw in the White Queen, played by Anne Hathaway ( from The Devil Wears Prada ) and her army. Instead of Alice being this cheeky, witty and mischievous girl, she is instead a warrior princess, a la Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, in full plate mail, wielding a vorpal, long sword +5 vs Jabberwockys.

Tim Burton tried to throw in the failed reluctant hero, a la Matrix, but there was no montage of training. In fact there was no story at all. Once you found out they had the "wrong" Alice, since she refused to slay the Jabberwocky, the entire movie just moves toward her coming to an epiphany to slay the Jabberwocky. However, there is no epiphany. There is no sense of duty. There is no man vs anything in the whole movie.

Well what about the Red Queen? Isn't the Red Queen the enemy? No, in fact, due to mistaken identity, Alice is invited as a guest to the Red Queen's court. And the Red Queen, although the acting was fine, was nowhere near the terror of the book nor the cartoon. The script just was not there.

What about the mad hatter? Johnny Depp is falling into being typecast now. He has accepted too many roles of, weird English eccentric character number 3. While he sort of played the part OK, he was neither "mad" nor eccentric. The script for him was so dull, you would not have identified him as the mad hatter, were he not in costume and presented at the mad hatter table. I am sure everyone saw the movie preview where he walks on the table to shake Alice's hand. That is the summit of his madness in the entire movie.

What about the chesire cat? The chesire cat, played by Stephen Fry, was so boring it is laughable, and not in a haha way, but a derisive, "oh how droll" way. Whoever wrote the lines, needs to seriously just do some drugs and ponder their navel as it relates to world hunger for a few hours and then do a do over.

Save your money. This is a let down of let downs.

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