The Expendables 2, Get Carter (1971)

The Expendables 2

We wait decades to see these guys in a movie together, and this is the best they could do?

Sylvester Stallone’s original Expendables film was a complete misfire. Meant to be an homage to 80s action films, it was a pathetic attempt at recapturing the glory days of a bygone era. I couldn’t believe it when I heard there was going to be a sequel. Wasn’t one film enough? Apparently not, because Hollywood doesn’t have any original ideas anyway, so why not make a sequel to a one-off homage film?

The second movie adds a bunch of new characters, none of whom do anything important. The only new actor worth mentioning is Chuck Norris. He shows up, mid-film, like an indestructible god of war who obliterates everything in his path. He even has time to throw in one of those Chuch Norris Internet meme jokes. The most bizarre part wasn’t Norris himself, but the fact they used the theme song from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as his character’s musical theme. Umm, last time I checked Norris was never in that film. They probably wrote the part for Clint Eastwood, but Eastwood wouldn’t agree to be in such a shitty film. Since they had already paid licensing fees to get the theme song, they said “Fuck it” and used it with Norris instead.

Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger get upgraded from cameos and partake in the action this time around. Even Jean-Claude Van Damme comes out of his cave to deliver a totally one-note villain. There isn’t anything else worth mentioning about this movie. The whole thing is about stunt casting. Stallone wants to get as many old movie “stars” as he can into these films at the expense of a decent story. It’s really quite a shame.

Verdict: Shitty

Get Carter (1971)

An average day in England.

Get Carter is a weird movie. Really weird. I guess since it took place in the early 1970s, everyone involved was as high as fuck while making this movie. The movie begins with a bunch of dudes hanging out, watching a porn slide show. Next, Michael Caine, who plays the titular Carter, learns his brother has died and goes back home for the funeral. He finds his dead brother stuffed into the smallest coffin imaginable, in a bedroom of his house. Um, lolwut? Is that what they do in England, keep dead bodies in the house until the funeral?

Later, Caine spends some time with the corpse, shaving and chatting on the phone. Caine doesn’t believe his brother died in a drunk-driving accident, he suspects foul play, so he begins to investigate. His investigation leads him to chase down bad guys in the cleanest, most-brightly lit nightclub on Earth where he interrogates a dude hiding on a toilet. Caine eventually sleeps with a nasty old bed-and-breakfast owner to prevent her from calling the cops on him for his violent ways. Caine gets into some more trouble, drives around town in a sports car, sleeps with some more women, and ruthlessly murders some other people. Caine plays a complete sociopath, displaying virtually no emotion whatsoever as he leaves mayhem in his wake. The only hint of emotion he shows is satisfaction after clubbing someone to death with the stock of a shotgun.

To say this movie is weird is an understatement. The characters exist in a bizarre waking-dream world that looks like England, but doesn’t actually take place anywhere on planet Earth. It’s also incredibly slow with all the interesting bits comprising about 15 minutes of the 2 hour runtime. It isn’t as boring as The Italian Job but only because it’s so goddamn strange, you somehow can’t stop watching it. Weirder still is the total lack of music except in the beginning and ending of the film. Whatever these guys were smoking when they made this film, it must have been some powerful shit.

Verdict: Bad

Brik Hates the Academy Awards: 90s Edition

It’s no mystery that I hate the Academy Awards. Hollywood spends half the year binging on cocaine and hookers and the other half praising themselves for it. No other industry exerts so much energy and spends so much money on self-congratulatory masturbation than the film industry. These sick fucks have the cushiest, easiest jobs in the world, and they act like what they do is some kind of goddamn accomplishment. “LOL OH LOOK I JUST RECITED SOME LINES SOMEONE ELSE WROTE FOR ME AND SHED A TEAR AT THE SAME TIME! I’M A FUCKING ACTING GOD! QUICK SOMEBODY GIVE ME FIFTY AWARDS LOL!” In theory, I could get behind the awards if they actually awarded things that were deserving. You know, giving a Best Picture award to the best movie of the year. But the Academy rarely gives that award to the best movie of the year. Hell, they don’t even give it to the most popular movie of the year. Usually, they give it to whatever cool person produced the movie, or to the most obscure, independent, foreign piece of shit they can find. Typically, no one in the mainstream public will have even seen the winner. They’ve been pulling this shit for years. So, I decided to analyze the past years, offer my own nominees, and declare new winners. Best movie isn’t the one that makes you cry or makes you think. Best movie is the one that you want to revisit over and over again. A movie you watch once and never again isn’t good. It’s only good if you can’t help but watch it a million times. Rewatchability is the hallmark of something great.

This time around, I’ll be taking a look at the Best Picture winners from the 1990s.

Awesomest/Shittiest Things of 2013

It’s that time once again, people. Time to look back at the awesomest and shittiest things of 2013. As always, it remains a struggle to find things for the awesome category, and to keep the shitty category to a minimum. Check it out:

Awesome

1. Stephen Colbert Snubbed by Daft Punk – One of the biggest highlights from the world of music this year was the long-awaited release of a new Daft Punk album. I’ve always been a big fan, and I happily welcomed their new work. The most popular song from the album was titled Get Lucky It was one of the most popular songs this summer. Daft Punk is sort of notorious for being camera shy (which I whole-heartedly endorse for all celebrities), and rarely make public appearances. I was shocked (and excited) to hear that they were going to appear on The Colbert Report to play their “song of the summer.” And then they didn’t show up. No, they opted out and left Colbert high and dry. Fortunately, the episode we got was much funnier than what had been intended. Cobert danced to a recording of Get Lucky and had his famous friends join in. Hugh Laurie, Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Fallon, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, and more showed up to join in the fun. It was absolutely fucking hilarious. By a stroke of good luck, Robin Thicke was in New York promoting his new album and hot summer song Blurred Lines at the same time. Colbert managed to snag Thicke, and he performed the real “song of the summer” live on-stage. All in all, this was the music/comedy highlight of 2013.
2. Horse Meat Scandal – I wrote a post on this earlier in the year. I find it totally, outrageously crazy that this scandal ravaged Europe. In case you didn’t hear, the basics boil down to this: people thought they were getting the same old processed meat in their foods as always, but as it turned out, they were getting beef mixed with horse. And in some cases, 100% horse. My thoughts are still the same. If nobody can tell the difference, then what’s the big fucking deal? The only reason people care is because horses are cute and cows aren’t. I’m still a long way from finishing my quest to eat every cute animal in the world. Hey, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
3. Dennis Rodman Goes to North Korea – The world was stunned to learn that former NBA star Dennis Rodman visited North Korea in February. Apparently, that was the start of a beautiful friendship, as Rodman has gone on record several times talking about new BFF Kim Jong-Un. Rodman stated that Kim was a “friend for life”, a “great dad”, and that Obama should give him a call sometime. Rodman has gone again since then, and he plans to return in January 2014 to help coach a series of basketball games. This news story ends up in the Awesome category because it is so completely insane that it has no choice other than to be awesome. I can only imagine what it’s like, seeing a 6 ft. 7 in. tall, black, green-haired, face-pierced guy being best friends with a chubby Korean midget. They have to make a sitcom out of this. How can they not? Hilarity would ensue. On a more serious note, I hope that Rodman could potentially open Kim’s mind a bit about relaxing the human rights atrocities his country is notorious for. But I’m not going to hold my breath.
4. Manti Te’O’s Fake Girlfriend – Super-genius football player Manti Te’O played at the collegiate level for Notre Dame. He entered the national spotlight when he stated that his close girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died after battling Leukemia. Or was it in a car wreck? I’m not sure. Neither was Te’O. As it turns out, she wasn’t his girlfriend at all. She wasn’t even a girl. In fact, she wasn’t even a real person. Kekua turned out to be completely fictious, dreamed up by a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo (no doubt a true humanitarian), because he had fallen in love with Te’O and figured this was the only way they could be together. They had met through online dating and became very serious, despite never having met in person. While the story was pretty awesome and hilarious on its own, it does speak to the dangers of our online world. People can be duplicitous, and just imagine how much damage could have been created if Tuiasosopo actually had a vendetta against Te’O. Humanity is doomed.
5. Dog Butt Jesus – This summer everyone got a little hysterical when a picture surfaced of a dog’s butt (and hind legs) that looked like our lord and savior. If you search for the image online and check it out you’ll see that, yeah, it kind of looks like Jesus. It’s amazing that a dog’s butt could be such a holy thing, when usually all its good for is taking dumps and shitting out random objects like plastic and strings. If the Virgin Mary could show up in a grilled cheese sandwich and religious people would cheer, then I don’t understand why they’d be upset about Jesus showing up in a dog’s butt. Dog is man’s best friend, after all, and humans spend a lot of time around dog butt. It seems like the most logical place for Jesus to show up.

Shitty

1. NSA Scandal – While the horse meat scandal was hilarious, the recent United States NSA scandal was horrendous. There’s nothing like learning that the U.S. government spies on all of its citizens’ communications 24 hours a day. I suppose this should be expected, but I was hoping that the government still favored privacy and rights of people over HURR DURR WE HAVE TO DO THIS TO PROTECT US FROM TERRORISTS HURR DURR. President Obama promised to have one of the most transparent presidencies ever, but when this revelation came out, that was all blown to shit. And the guy who let us know about all this, Edward Snowden, is now forever on the run. Obama has actually lobbied hard to protect the rights of whistleblowers. Everyone is encouraged to speak out if we see that something is amiss (“If you see something, say something”). However, that’s a sham. If you see anything the government is doing illegally, you are supposed to keep your goddamn mouth shut. Things got even more ludicrously out of hand when we later found out the NSA was tapping the phones of high-ranking official of other governments, like the Chancellor of Germany. Great job there, NSA. Keep on monitoring those damn Nazis, never mind the fact that WWII ended in 1945. We are sliding down that slippery slope that will lead us into a total surveillance state. And with the godforsaken Xbox One monitoring us at all times through the Kinect, well, George Orwell’s predictions were proven right after all.
2. The Royal Baby – Ugh. For fuck’s sake, nobody gives a shit about the royal baby. Okay, sure, maybe the British do, but nobody else does. Why was the U.S. media insisting on making this a story? Prince Baldy and Princess So-Beautiful-She-Only-Married-Baldy-for-the-Status had sex and reproduced. They only did what everyone else on the planet is capable of doing. I’m sorry, but this is not a news worthy story. Now, if the baby had developed the theory for cold fusion, then, yes, I would be interested. But it didn’t do that. It did what all babies do: shit and cry. I have nothing against the baby, not at all. But the fact that the media insisted everyone should care about these do royals procreating was totally annoying. This was the year 2013, why do we care about royalty at all? They don’t do anything but collect taxes from people for no other reason than they used to be in charge a long time ago. And that makes them interesting? Didn’t we fight the Revolutionary War so we could ignore these assholes? Ugh. For fuck’s sake.
3. Action Stars’ Failed Comebacks – 2013 was the year that Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis all staged magnificent comebacks to the action movie genre. Of course, they all failed spectacularly. They unleashed some of the cheesiest, hammiest (now I’m getting hungry), most generic action movies in a long time. They wanted to recapture the magic of the 80s, but you know what? The 80s are over. I love those old movies, but they are a product of their time. The kind of stuff they did then just doesn’t work today. And I don’t think another 20 Expendables movies is going to change that.
4. U.S. Government Shutdown – The U.S. government is so completely fucked up that it managed to land not one but two spots on this year’s shitty list. The two party system is completely broken. The entire government, and the hundreds of thousands of federal employess, not to mention millions of citizens who depend on services, were held hostage over an ideological hissy-fit. Republicans got most of the blame and rightfully so. They kept trying to block the Affordable Care Act, despite their attempts at blocking it were denied countless times by the courts and the voters themselves. Democrats came out looking pretty good at the end, but they are not without blame. The fact that they play such a massive role in the perpetutation of the broken political system leaves them just as culpable. No government should have to shut down because the players are stuck in a pissing contest. They have proven definitively that they don’t give a shit about the American people. They only care about their personal legacies and catering to radical groups of voters who make up the minority of the public. Maybe the NSA should think about monitoring the politicians and arresting those assholes for crimes against the country. They would have no shortage of suspects, that’s for sure.
5. Miley Cyrus was Everywhere – I don’t have a problem with Miley Cyrus. She’s a kid, and she is acting like a kid: stupid. The only problem is that she’s a kid celebrity, and therefore her antics are plastered across our TVs and computers for all the world to see. I don’t need to see a vacuous bimbo shaking her ass with her tongue sticking out. I’ve been to college, I know what that’s like. We don’t need to keep recycling it over and over again. The shitty part about this was how the media kept trying to make her antics into a news story. No matter how expected her behavior was, the media kept trying to make it into something big, something it was not. Nobody cares about kids being stupid. That’s what they do best. Can we please stop paying attention to this nonsense?

Well, another year has come and gone. 2014 is just getting started. I’m sure there will be many more awesome and shitty things happening during the Earth’s long trek around the sun. Let’s hope, no matter what happens, we can ridicule them with reckless abandon.

A Good Day to Die Hard made its Last Stand but took a Bullet to the Head

The three biggest action stars of the 80s and 90s all tried to make a serious comeback in 2013 by starring in action extravaganzas. Unfortunately, their glory days are behind them. Instead of capturing the magic of the 80s and turning in entertaining spectacles of wanton violence, they gave us three smelly turds. As much as they want me to enjoy their shit, well, Planet Hollywood went out of business a long time ago.

Knowing these movies would be terrible, I decided to wait until they hit the second-run theater. Spending a grand total of $8 to see them (instead of $27) was a blessing.

“What am I supposed to be looking at? The car? This is just a goddamn Chevy commercial, isn’t it?”

First, I watched The Last Stand. This was supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s triumphant return to action. Sure, he had a small part in The Expendables 2, but he wasn’t headlining, and nobody saw that crapfest, anyway. This movie was directed by Kim Ji-woon, the same guy who directed the horrendous I Saw the Devil. Going into this, I had no idea he was the director. As soon as I saw his name, I knew I was in for a shitty time.

This movie goes out of its way to let us know Arnold is “too old for this shit.” He’s a weary, rundown sheriff of a small town in Arizona. He limps around with a hunched back and arthritis. Of course, once the bullets start flying, he performs acrobatics like a 20-year-old gymnast. How was this possible? Did he snort several lines of coke beforehand? Anyway, it turns out that this movie is just a 100-minute long commercial for the Chevy Corvette C6ZR1. The villain drives one of these for half the movie, and the camera does all these crazy close ups and zoom-ins, like a porn director on a girl’s vag.  I half expected the villain to start jacking off inside the car.

Moonrise Kingdom, Pierrot le Fou

Moonrise Kingdom

Oh wow, they are all such tremendous actors.

Director Wes Anderson is the king of quirky independent movies. Just for that you would think I’d automatically hate him. I don’t because I love the movie Rushmore, which is fucking brilliant. So, I was interested to see his new film, which reunited him with actors he uses often like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman. I was also excited to see Edward Norton and Bruce Willis.

Moonrise Kingdom is about two kids who run away from home. Unexpectedly, 90% of the screentime is devoted to their fledgling love affair. Of course, it’s all viewed through a quirky lens. It’s romanticized to an unneccessary degree, and is made annoyingly wholesome and cute. It’s unfortunate because that drains all of the interesting bits out like a vampire. The remaining 10% focuses on the attempts of the other characters to track them down. This is where Norton, Willis, and a troop of Scouts come in.

Parts of the movie are fun, such as the early attempts to track them down, and the later attempt at avoiding capture. These are the highlights of the movie. The rest of it features more camping scenes than a Harry Potter movie. The majority of the movie’s heavy lifting comes from the two leads who were both 12 years old at the time of filming. And, wouldn’t you know it, they fucking suck at acting.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “LOL BUT BRIK TEHY ARE JUST LITTLE KIDS SO TEHY CANT BE THAT GOOD AT ACTING YET GIVE EM A BREAK LOL!” I’m sorry, but no. You’re wrong. Some kids can be good at acting. Just take a look at Chloe Grace Moretz or that little bastard from The Sixth Sense and tell me their acting is not light years better than the twats in Moonrise Kingdom. The fact that these two can’t act, and that they dominate 90% of the screentime, nearly ruins the movie. Other problems include woefully underdeveloped characters like the parts played by Willis and Murray.

I’m conflicted about this movie. On one hand I want to like it since it’s so off-kilter. On the other hand, the two leads are such horrible actors that the movie should automatically lose points for that. They don’t get a pass for being kid actors. They were both absolutely terrible. It’s like Wes Anderson intentionally sought out shitty kid actors to put in his movie. Maybe he did. Maybe that’s the point? Who knows?

Verdict: Average

Pierrot le Fou

I’m sure this still from the movie has SUPER DEEP MEANING.

If you aren’t a hardcore filmfag, chances are you’ve never heard of this movie. Consider that a blessing. Pierrot le Fuck is a 1965 French movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard. He became a famous director in this era because he liked to film shit in the weirdest way possible, and people thought he was some kind of goddamn genius for it. Pierrot le Fuck is about a couple of egotistical assholes who abandon their families, steal shit, kill some people, and run around like turd burglars for the entire movie. Everybody dies at the end, too, so — spoilers — I guess. The problem really isn’t the story so much as the directing. I couldn’t fucking stand how it was directed. It was way too cool and hip for a troglodyte for me to understand. Everything about it from the way the actors read their lines, to people staring directly at the camera, to how trendy everybody was, to just about fucking everything irritated me to no end. Godard is more pretentious cock gobbler than innovative director. Obviously, this is only a movie for the hardcore amongst us. The only good thing about it was it had some nudity. That’s it. Pierrot le Fuck can go fuck itself. That would be the trendy thing to do.

Verdict: Shitty

Looper Pooper

Sup, bros? I saw this totally rad movie over the weekend called Pooper. And by totally rad I mean it gave me the same feeling I have when I chug too much Jager and have to puke.

All my bros in film reviewing land had the exact same things to say about Pooper: “mind-bending”, “smart”, “scintillating”, “smart”, “creative”, “exciting”, “smart”, “very smart”, “high-concept”, “intelligent”, and “smart.” While my bros out there really liked this movie, I’m still wondering if they thought it was a smart movie. It’s hard to tell. In fact, I just typed “smart” so many times, it doesn’t even look like a real word any more. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Awesome Christmas Movies

Bloggers like to post their top Christmas movies. The problem is their lists are always the same: A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone etc etc puke. Well, I thought it was time to give you a list of real Christmas movies. The kind that are festive, and really get you into the holiday spirit. These movies can be enjoyed by family and friends, and should be mandatory viewing annually. Let’s make a new Awesomely Shitty tradition. Watch and love these movies every year, or you can’t be my friend anymore.

12.) RED – Bruce Willis loves the holidays. You can really tell. With RED, as well as two Die Hard movies and The Last Boy Scout, he’s a guy that really embodies the Christmas spirit. This movie in particular tells us it’s never too late to get excited for the holidays. Although the main characters are all retired from their work as assassins, they get together for one last hurrah. Even though you may be an old grouchy Scrooge, you can get festive once again. It’s a positive message like that which makes this such a heartwarming film. A group of old friends reunite to kill people and blow shit up one more time. This movie gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

11.) Lethal Weapon – Kind of like Bruce Willis, screenwriter Shane Black must really love Christmas. So many of his movies take place during the holidays. This time around we get to see Mel Gibson playing a suicidal cop, as he battles with the villainous Gary Busey, who seems to be playing himself. There is plenty of mayhem as L.A. is ripped to shreds. It ends with a Christmas celebration. I suppose the entire movie (the murders and shootouts and near suicide attempts) is a metaphor for the insanity of the build up to Christmas. This movie is really deep like that.

4 Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse: Part 4 – M. Night Shyamalan

The Four Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse - their true forms revealed.

For a long time I’ve been carefully watching for the end of the world. According to the Bible (the world’s most accurate and consistent book), the world will end in a fiery shit storm, ushered in by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Well, that time is here, albeit not in a form that anyone expected. In fact, all the pestilence, war, famine, and death are not coming literally, but figuratively in the world of cinema.

Horseman numero quatro is none other than M. Night Shyamalan. Actually, his name is Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan. I guess Night sounded cooler than Nelliyattu. Personally, I think he should just go with Shyamy, but that’s just me. Anyway, this guy’s films have grossed over $1 billion worldwide. That would make you think, “Oh wow, he must make some really great movies to bring in that kind of revenue.” Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. In fact, I can’t imagine any scenario where this guy’s movies even get financial backing let alone sell tickets. Here’s a sampling of his work:

1. The Sixth Sense – OK, I actually liked this one, but so did everybody.
2. Unbreakable – was ripped off to become the now-canceled TV series Heroes.
3. Signs – It’s only natural for aliens who can be killed by water to invade a planet that is 70% H2O.
4. The Village – plagiarized from a 1995 young adult book titled Running Out of Time. Well, it was plagiarized and then made much, much worse.
5. Lady in the Water – Winner of Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Shyamalan), Worst Director, and Worst Picture by the Golden Raspberries in 2006.
6. The Crappening – … err, sorry, The Happening.
7. The Last Airbender – “THEY STOLE THE TITLE TO OUR AVATAR MOVIE!”

I don’t even know where to begin with ol’ Shyamy. Somehow this guy is able to get huge studio financial backing and land A-list actors time and time again. He’s able to do all this despite having horrible reviews every single time he makes a new movie. In fact, with each subsequent movie, his reviews get worse and worse. Rotten Tomatoes gives his films the following grades: The Sixth Sense 85%, Unbreakable 68%, Signs 74%, The Village 42%, Lady in the Water 24%, The Happening 18%, and The Last Airbender 6%. Let’s use a visual example to further illustrate (image from FilmDrunk).

4 Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse: Part 2 – Michael Bay

 

The Four Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse

 

For a long time I’ve been carefully watching for the end of the world. According to the Bible (the world’s most accurate and consistent book), the world will end in a fiery shit storm, ushered in by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Well, that time is here, albeit not in a form that anyone expected. In fact, all the pestilence, war, famine, and death are not coming literally, but figuratively in the world of cinema.

Horseman numero dos is none other than Michael Bay. Just like our friend Roland Emmerich, this guy’s “movies” have also grossed over $3 billion worldwide. It’s an impressive feat considering that his “movies” are little more than paper-thin stories used solely for the purpose of stringing together a series of explosions. Here is a list of some of this auteur’s “movies:”