I Lose!!!

I have lost my bet with SoulKerfuffle. This is bound to make everyone associated with Watchmen in any financially-oriented way VERY upset:

Watchmen Current Results
Week	Weekly Take	Box Office Total
1	$55,214,334	$55,214,334
2	$30,537,659	$85,751,993
3	$12,388,893	$98,140,886
4	$5,132,576	$103,273,462
5	$2,073,104	$105,346,566
6	$1,071,434	$106,418,000

Predicted Watchmen Box Office
Week	Weekly Take	Box Office Total
7	$ 323,735.06	$106,741,735.06
8	$ 142,725.82	$ 106,884,460.88
9	$ 62,923.86	$ 106,947,384.75
10	$ 27,741.39	$ 106,975,126.13
11	$ 12,230.41	$ 106,987,356.54
12	$ 5,392.05	$ 106,992,748.59
13	$ 2,377.21	$ 106,995,125.80
14	$ 1,048.04	$ 106,996,173.84
15	$ 462.05	$ 106,996,635.89
16	$ 203.71	$ 106,996,839.60
17	$ 89.81	$ 106,996,929.41
18	$ 39.59	$ 106,996,969.00
19	$ 17.46	$ 106,996,986.46
20	$ 7.70	$ 106,996,994.16
21	$ 3.39	$ 106,996,997.55
22	$ 1.50	$ 106,996,999.04
23	$ 0.66	$ 106,996,999.70
24	$ 0.29	$ 106,996,999.99
25	$ 0.13	$ 106,997,000.12
26	$ 0.06	$ 106,997,000.18
27	$ 0.02	$ 106,997,000.20

Of course the math above is just to be funny, so don't hold me accountable. I have a feeling someone at Warner Bros. is definitely being held accountable, however. You know, for all of the millions lost.

(Edited to make graph more clear)

FOLLOW UP: Bad Movie Night: Watchmen

In it's second week in the box office, Watchmen was beat out by Race to Witch Mountain, it's sales falling by approximately 67% to about $18.1 million in it's second weekend (source).

This has prompted a small wager between me and my esteemed friend over at Soulkerfuffle. I believe that Watchmen will eventually cover it's production cost (~ $150 million) through ticket sales while SK claims it will lose money in the theaters. LastBestAngryMan will act as the fair and impartial judge.

My reasoning is that pretty much absolute garbage is slated for release over the next few weeks and Watchmen can potentially cling on in theaters. That said, it's still almost three hours long and dropping like a rock.

We'll see!!!

Bad Movie Night: Watchmen

Over the weekend I caught Watchmen with the wife and a few friends (including the gentlemen behind Soulkerfuffle and LastBestAngryMan). Ever since viewing the stunning trailer and reading the acclaimed source material I had been very excited to see what could be done in the film version. Upon leaving the theater, having a few beers and several rounds of discussions, seeing Watchmen felt more like I had been on a really terrible date with an extremely attractive person.


What do I mean? Well, true beauty is far more than skin deep. Watchman's gorgeous outter skin includes stunning visuals and several strong performances, but for a movie that really wants that brass ring (and not just a ride on the carousel), it's what's on the inside that counts. Unfortunately this film is plagued by a few aspects that are either truly awful or leave the audience (both those who read the graphic novel and those who haven't) utterly confused.

LastBestAngryMan wrote a great review in which he broke the movie down into good, bad, and confusing aspects. I will attempt to do the same, however I'm going to try to limit my comments to three of each: good, bad, and What the Hell? I'm also going to add an "Eh" catagory to list three things that riled a lot of people which I didn't mind and/or care about as much.

Let's start with three good things about Watchmen:

1. Like LBAM I was really impressed with the way many of the characters were portrayed by the actors. Three real standouts were Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg / Night Owl, Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs / Rorschach, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake / The Comedian. I felt that Wilson successfully captured the abject Schlubbery of the "dysfunctional" Dreiberg, Haley was a very gritty Rorschach, and Morgan was a deplorable human being (aka successfully illustrating to The Comedian to the audience). Casting Director scores points for these guys.

Don't worry, that same Casting Director will lose points in a few paragraphs, but I digress...

2. It sure was a pretty movie, and I felt for the most part Zack Snyder was successful in visually translating the graphic novel to the screen - Watchmen was simultaneously georgeous and gritty. 90% of the costumes were spot on and I was impressed how each decade had an authentic look and feel.

3. As someone who read the book, I really liked the easter egg exposition, especially the opening sequence, which I agree with LBAM could be one of the best in film history (save for the song choice, but more on that later). Throughout the movie you get a lot of pertinent information about the alternative history as well as the story's current events through little TV clips, newspaper headlines, pictures, signs, etc... Well played, Mr. Snyder.

I did like that he had the word "Squid" on one of Ozymandias' doomsday counters as well. Again, well played.

Now for the Bad:

1. I think about a week before the final cut of Watchmen, one of the computer animators found somewhere in his notes that they needed a large, genetically engineered Lynx. "Oh shit" he thought to himself, because he only had $5 left in his CGI budget. That day he went without a Big Mac extra value meal and Bubastis was born.


The outcome: Bad Saturday afternoon Sci-Fi Channel movie.

2. Super Ninja Anime Action Sequences!!! This disappointed me because half of the time the heroes fought like competantly trained martial artists and the other half they were doing Chinese opera troop wire tricks. Towards the end I was expecting Night Owl to run up a wall and flip kick three guys while yelling "you think you are the guy, but I'm the guy with training in dragon. You shall honor the floor with your presence."

Yes, I realize Adrian Veidt catches (more like blocks with his hand) a bullet mid-air in the comic book, but he's supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of human perfection - and the bullet still damages his hand.

Movie could have been an hour and a half long if the slow motion fight scenes were shot in real time.

3. The ending went off the rails. I'm sorry but by the credits I was literally wringing my hands at the screen. And I'm not even talking about the lack of calamari either - in my opinion that didn't matter as long as it was, well, done in some kind of character-believable manner. Instead we got a healthy dose of Croutching Bubastis, Hidden Manhattan chop-sockey fighting, Silk Spectre with a gun no explanation explanation why she has it, Adrian Veidt acting like Dr. Claw, and Night Owl going off like Luke Skywalker at the end of Empire (and shooting lazorzcanninz to boot).

What the Hell?

1. Ozymoyeras. No really, Ozymandias looked and was built like Jamie Moyer. Now, I realize that in his 40s Jamie Moyer is an incredible athelete, however he could not pick up over his head and toss a highly trained, formidible 250+ lb man out a plate glass window. The "now you see it, now you don't" accent was also very confusing. Isn't there something to be said for consistency? The above mentioned casting director lost all cred with this one.

"I am going to teleport a psychic squid into right field"

2. This book was written in the 80s and did not have to be made relevant in 2009. Sorry, but all references to an oil-dependant energy crisis and having "big corporate America" as a confrontational bad guy was kinda lacking. Yes, I realize that in the real world there was an energy crisis in the 80s, but in the book, one of the main concepts was that Dr. Manhattan had already solved the U.S. dependance on oil. And he did it without Adrian Veidt's help.

3. While the actual movie score was beautiful and well-written, the songs selected for the soundtrack were poor choices at best. I really don't think they fit the decades with which they were placed - seemed more appropriate for Full Metal Jacket than a comic book movie set in the 80s. As per LBAM, all they needed was Buffalo Springfield.

And things I didn't care about as much as some people:

1. Watchmen is a dark, gritty book and movie - I wasn't disturbed by the over-the-top violence. Trained martial artists and experienced fighters can break joints and limbs given the right opportunity and there is blood when people get shot and/or stabbed. The movie was rated "R" so I went in expecting it. That said, I don't really remember Laurie and Dan killing gang members outright in the alley and the Silk Specter did not carry a gun in the book (until the end when it is clearly explained why). Rorschach and The Comedian were the graphic novel's notable exceptions because these characters weren't vigilantes who "brought 'em in" - they preferred a pine box.

2. Sans Calamari. I know I said I didn't like how the ending went off the rails towards the end, however the fact that there wasn't a genetically-altered squid as opposed to some other "MacGuffin" didn't bother me. Hell, even the ending that was written could have worked if it wasn't just so clumsily "bull-in-a-China-shop" and paid more attention to details (as per conversations with LBAM and Soulkerfuffle, one second after Moscow got hit with a "Dr. Manhattan blast," 51,000 Russian nukes would have been caterwauling towards DC).

3. A lot of people were upset that Archemides, Night Owl's technologically advanced ship, had chain guns instead of fire supression systems and noise emitters, however I didn't mind. That is a matter of personal taste which I realize is in complete contradiction to most of what I've already said. It just think chain guns are cool. Of course they don't really work with the character, but they're awesome anyway. I want a chain gun so I can mount it on my wife's car. That would rock.

All in all, I can't say I despise Watchmen. In the same sense, however, it is still a little disappointing - I was expecting more, even though many people (including Alan Moore) have gone on record as saying it was unfilmable. I think everyone, from cast to crew, did the best they could to create something mass-marketably accessable from something that was designed not to translate that way.

So back to the original comparison, Watchmen was a bad date with an attractive person - fun to look at but impossible to truly enjoy on any kind of sustainable level. That is, of course, unless you're good at turning off your ears so you can just enjoy the eye candy.

Overall Score: five over Dragon Wars (ten over being the best, equal to Dragon Wars being horrendous beyond belief).

Most Anticipated Movies of 2009

Once again we stand at the threshold of contention! My friends over at SoulKerfuffle and LastBestAngryMan and I have decided to post our most anticipated movies of 2009.

Unlike Mr. Soulkerfuffle, I am an avid movie-goer. I love watching a film on the big screen and usually am accompanied by The Machete and the Jakiddy-Jake in these endeavors. Our standards are notoriously low at times (usually we only require violence and profanity and/or irreverent comedy), but hey, I firmly believe you can really enjoy sifting through the garbage (D-War) to find an unexpected gem (who thought Iron Man would be that amazingly, ridiculously good?). A lot of times "bad" movies are just as entertaining as "good" ones.

D-War and anything Ewe Boll-related being the notable exceptions.

5. New Moon

Ok, before everyone gets into a tizzy and starts questioning whether "those old rumors are true" just hear me out. Every once in a while (ok a lot of times) I drag the wife out to movies I enjoy (with guns and swords and monsters and all kinds of cool stuff). For some strange reason, she usually does not find these movies all that entertaining (with the most notable exception of Iron Man).

A few weeks back, I volunteered to see Twilight (occasionally she has the reading-equivalent of my movie taste) to make up for all of the crap I've made her sit through. Compared with something like Sex in the City or Marley and Me I'll take vampires, mild violence and comically bad lines any and every day of the week to make her happy (and to fulfill my husbandly date-movie requirements).

4. Star Trek

In the great Star Wars vs. Star Trek war, I am most certainly firmly standing beside Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, lightsaber at the ready. That may have slightly shifted a bit when I saw this:



Holy crap that looks cool.

The thing that has me interested, though, is the cast which includes Nicholas Angel as Scotty, Roldy as the much-The Machete-anticipated Dr. Sulu (oh myyyyyyyy, will he bring his en-tourage to see this film?), Eomer as Bones, Syler as Spock, and goddamned Darwin Tremor as Kirk!!!

I've also included a link to the theme song, which is also AWESOME.

3. Public Enemies

John Dillinger as portrayed by Johnny Depp. Do you really need any more reason than that? Ok, well he's being chased by Batman.

"Dames. They'll get you every time."

2. Watchmen

While this movie is a blatant ripoff of the first season of Heroes, it should be ok.

All joking and button-pushing aside, I agree with Mr. Soulkerfuffle that a lot can and has been going wrong with this film. I still hold out hope, however, that Alan Moore will burn down every theater and destroy every copy of this film personally if it sucks (after that last debacle). The script is based on one of (if not the) best graphic novels of all time, so it has a lot of good material to draw off of, if it isn't changed too much.

The trailer looks exceptional:



Hopefully that's an indication of unbridled awesomeness.

1. Fast & Furious

It seems like only yesterday when I saw the original Diesel-powered The Fast and the Furious in the theater. Eight times. No, literally, I saw it in the theater eight times when it was released in 2001.

I don't care what you say, the second and third sequels never happened.

Even beyond all of the unbelievable cars and stunts, the original 2001 movie was an entertainingly gritty cop/car drama reminiscent of Bullit. I loved every second of it.

Possibly the most badass action movie trailer of all time:



And no, contrary to popular belief, The Machete was neither consulted for nor performed any of the above driving stunts.

The $700 Billion College Beer Run

As we all know (unless you were living under a rock), the $700 Billion dollar financial bailout plan was nixed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 228 to 205 yesterday. I'm not here to debate the benefits or problems with this plan, so please dispense with any notion of finding any witty or intelligent financial banter in this blog - I am the LAST person anyone should look to for that.

What I do find interesting, however, is how the whole thing went down in the Hiz-ouse. It reminded me of one glorious aspect of higher education: the interrelation and group dynamics of late teenagers and early adults with regards to procuring necessary supplies in a hunter-gatherer dormitory situation.

In other words, from my read it kinda went down like a college beer run.

700 billion ounces of fun. Who
wants to do a bailout stand!?!?!?!

The Republicans are that friend with the car and the really good fake ID. They're kind of a dick most of the time but are tolerable and even necessary at times.

Nancy Pelosi is the friend with the uncontrollably big mouth who REALLY doesn't like the friend with the aforementioned car and good fake ID. They make a habit of saying the worst thing possible at the worst possible time.

Scenario: it's the Friday night before homecoming weekend (the time you absolutely NEED alcohol), and if you're going to party in your dorm room, you really need the dick friend (Republicans) with the fake ID and the car so you can get beer. You don't like it, but sometimes you have to pander to that dick in order to get what you want. You have to thank him profusely, give him like $20, and maybe even let him hang out with you for a few hours while he gives you insight into all of his opinions.

Unfortunately, as that dick friend arrives in your dorm room all ready to drive out and get you beer at 6:00 PM on this crucial Friday night, your loud mouth friend (Pelosi) says something really stupid about what kind of an asshole the other friend is for drinking all the beer left over from last week. You know for a fact that they BOTH drank all the beer last weekend, but hate each other so much that they'll go to the grave trying to shirk the blame off on the other one. The friend with the ID and the car gets really pissed off, and leaves. For the next few weeks all they do is both talk about how the other one ruined homecoming weekend.

The end result: no beer for anyone. Then you realize you just need a whole new group of friends.

Bad Movie Night: Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Trouble in the Middle East. Hair Metal bands like Poison and Bon Jovi. Nintendo craziness. G.I. Joe and Optimus Prime. Ninjas. Rayban sunglasses. Popped collars on pastel Izod shirts. Break dancing. Duran Duran. Salt-N-Pepa. Evangelical Christianity. Skate Boarding and Tony Hawk. Knight Rider. Miami Vice. Star Wars the films. Star Wars the battle for military supremacy. Billy Ray Cyrus. Cocaine. The Police. U2. Indiana Jones. John Stamos and the Olsen Twins. Howie Mandell. New Kids on the Block. Energy crisis. Superman. Sean Astin, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Josh Brolin. The Lost Boys. Batman. Robert Downey, Jr (no longer associated with the above mentioned "Cocaine"). Madonna. The Incredible Hulk. Hulk Hogan and Professional Wrestling. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest. Roger Clemens.

Ok, now answer the following question:

Which decade were all of these things popular in?

The overwhelming majority of people would quickly answer the 1980s, and obviously they would be correct, but that would be too easy...

Another correct answer would be the 2000s. It seems like all that was old and dated is now new again in an attempt to cash in on the nostalgia felt by people who grew up in the 80s. This is a common marketing scheme used about every 20 or so years when a generation "graduates" to the real world and gets actual access to money (remember how "cool" bell bottoms and pea coats from the 70s were in the 90s...).

Now this "80s nostalgia" can be really wicked awesome, dude; who doesn't like watching Optimus Prime lay the smackdown on Megatron (thank you Michael Bay for making things explode) or Bret Michaels and Flavor Flav getting the pick of the groupie litter? Neither the Transformers movie nor Rock/Flavor of Love take themselves overwhelmingly seriously, and the result is something very entertaining.

But that's the trick. The 80s was not a decade where anything was ever taken seriously except for oil prices and the constant threat of nuclear war and terrorists. When artists of all forms try to use that "80s palette" and notoriety to either do something serious or to cash in, it's obvious and usually not all that great. $400 for Police tickets - come on. The Olsen Twins as fashion icons - seriously? A New Kids on the Block reunion - shame on yourselves for trying to profit off of the lonely women who you enthralled as lonely teens.

Yes, this diatribe is going somewhere - right now in fact.

No single entity has poorly mishandled an 80s legacy worse than George Lucas. This started with the depressing let down of crappy dialog, smug directing, and epilepsy-inducing cgi in his Star Wars Episodes I-III. It most recently reared (as in he pretty much just mooned the audience) it's ugly head in the latest Indian Jones installment.

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with a decent cross-section of people: the Fiance, the Peanut, the Jakiddy-Jake, and The Machete (who, like me, likes to watch things blow up). As we sat discussing the movie over a few drinks, the consensus was clear: disappointment.

Don't get me wrong - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a decent enough movie. Harrison Ford was extremely entertaining in his reprized roll (you know, getting punched a lot and delivering the sharp, witty lines we all wish we could think of in the moment) and was supported well by the rest of the cast. Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, and even Shia LeBeouf were all impressive. And of course, as always, John Williams is an unmatched composer.

We all still left the theater feeling a little wanting, though, and it's for a few simple reasons. First and foremost, even though the Indiana Jones stories are typically almost comic-esque pulp serials with unbelievable crazy plots, this latest installment was even too campy for that. Aliens? Come on. I realize that the 40s and 50s were the height of UFO/Roswell hysteria, but the theme of the Indian Jones movies has always been the unbelievable nature of supernatural human history. It takes away from (more like strips clean from the bone) all of the old Indian Jones movies when we attribute all aspects of human culture, religion, sociology, etc... to an alien hive mind from another dimension. It is way too much of a ridiculous jump to expect the audience to make and is actually rather insulting.

I mean it would be like trying to explain the Force in the Star Wars universe movies in terms of micro-organisms in your blood... Oh right, that did happen. Thanks again, Mr. Lucas for beating your audience on the head with the plot stick, thereby taking away any tiny modicum of creativity they may have enjoyed. Hell, if I wanted to be Luke Skywalker, does that mean I could just get a transfusion. Nevermind, I digress...

This past weekend, the Fiance and I Netflix'd the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. What we saw let us down even further. From the "extras" we found out that movie was shot in a few months time in locations all over the world almost three decades ago. The result was a far more "real"-looking movie than its recent cgi-dependent sibling. Don't get me wrong, the ants were cool. What I don't understand, however, is how practically every shot had to be done in front of a green screen (hey, Star Wars epsiodes I-III, how the hell are you again?). While yes, the first three Indiana Jones movies purposely had semi-tacky sets adorned with human skulls, waterfalls, painted backdrops, and torches, the computer-generated rainforests and warehouses just looked plain-old fake and made what was supposed to be a bit outrageous into something stupid.

Finally, it must be stated that this movie seemed more like a Lucas/Spielberg pet vanity project highlighting the height of their creativity (before the clock struck 12:01 AM on 1 January 1990). Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opened with American Graffiti, played through Indiana Jones, The Goonies, and Star Wars, and ended with E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The entire time I sat in the theater I imagined both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on both sides of me, elbowing and whispering "hey, you remember when we did that in our other movie - it was sooooo coooooool back then. Remember? It was really cool!!!"

Several moments actually elicited a literal "face-in-palm" - like when Indian Solo (or saw it Han Jones?) stated "I have a baaaaaad feeling about this" reminiscent of the famous line from the Star Wars days. By then end of the film I was half-expecting (ok, three quarters) a light saber fight, One-eyed Willie to be at the end of the Amazonian ruins, and for the "alien hive mind" creature to reach out and touch Cate Blanchett with a glowing orange finger.

In a nutshell, even though it (kinda) looked like Indian Jones and it sounded like Indian Jones (at least they kept the original punch effect and John Williams), the narcissistic unoriginality of the project resulted in a less-than-so-so experience you just wouldn't expect from the Indian Jones franchise. That's why this movie is rated as 3.0 Dragon Wars (out of a possible 10; 1 being the worst, 10 the best).

We expected more.

Bad Movie Night: Iron Man

A while back, when I found out from the Jakiddy-Jake that Marvel Studios was making an Iron Man movie, I couldn't have been less interested.

Iron Man the character had never really appealed to me in my comic book-reading days. His alter-ego Tony Stark was some rich, alcoholic businessman who put on a fancy suit to fight crime. Batman pretty much did the same thing in a cooler, darker costume. I never got into Iron Man's back story and figured I would lump the movie in with other Marvel Comics movies like Ghost Rider. In other words, The Machete, the Jakiddy-Jake, and I would see it, discuss it briefly over a few beers, and promptly forget about it.

Then, during one "bad movie night" we happened to catch the preview:



After viewing the preview, I began to think maybe I had missed something and my initial "eh" reaction I had to the Iron Man character either needed to be revisited and/or updated, because, well, the movie looked damn cool and a lot of stuff blew up. From my basic understanding of the character, Robert Downey, Jr. seemed a perfect fit for Tony Stark as well.

So this past weekend, I drug the fiancé (it took a lot of convincing) and The Machete (no convincing necessary) to see Iron Man.

All three of us, as well as many critics, were absolutely amazed. The movie was extremely well-written, well-cast, and well-directed. It was an extremely tight movie and nothing went flying off the handle towards either the "too much" or "too little" extreme. Everything from the character development to the action and fighting to the modest and believable romance were patiently timed and executed in an exemplary fashion.

I can only say good things about this movie - Iron Man gets the maximum "Bad Movie Night" rating of 10 times Dragon Wars (click on that link).

I would like to throw this in as well: I guess on a certain level I relate to Tony Stark. No, I'm not saying I'm an engineer with ridiculously crazy ideas (and a computer named 'Jarvis' which I talk to) who likes to drink and whose body is kept properly functioning with metal medical pieces (I'm not saying that's not true, however).

Sometimes events occur that make people feel like everything that is wrong with the world has true control over their life. Not to give too much away about the movie (or my personal life), but there is a scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark destroys his workshop in a fit of rage while testing new enhancements to his Iron Man suit. It's that look Robert Downey, Jr. gives that combines frustration, anger, empathy, and loss. I've seen that look before.

Tony Stark, I know how you feel.