Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

Just when it seems like superhero movies can’t get any worse, the studios manage to shit out a fouler turd than ever before. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (you can’t believe how much I hate typing that long-winded, dumbass title) is definitely in the top 3 worst big-budget superhero movies I’ve ever seen. Fantastic Four and Green Lantern are the only ones that somehow managed to be worse, but only by a slim margin, because BVS is really fucking terrible.

The movie begins with yet another recap of Batman’s origins. Seriously, every goddamn person on the planet knows Batman’s origins, we don’t need to see it rehashed again, especially since we had an entire movie, Batman Begins, dedicated to his origins, and it isn’t even that old. Except this time, it’s overwrought, and inter-spliced with Bruce Wayne’s flashbacks/nightmares. For some reason, Bruce Wayne has zombie/desert nightmares which make no sense and add nothing of value to the movie. This comes along with Lois Lane’s incomprehensible-to-the-plot voyage into the Middle East to do a journalistic expose on . . . something. What the fuck was the point of these scenes?

Pain and Gain is Painful but Not Gainful

Michael Bay has been saying for years that he wanted to make a “small picture” that wasn’t just a bunch of explosions, and was actually about something. Apparently, this is what he had in mind. Generally, this movie has been received as most of Bay’s work: a giant piece of shit. But I’m going to be kind to Bay. I didn’t think it was that bad. It wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination, but it honestly wasn’t a bad film. That’s about the highest praise I can give to Bay.

Pain and Gain tells the story of three meat-head bodybuilders in Miami. They kidnap a wealthy (and shady) businessman, and torture him into signing over all of his assets to them. They then leave him for dead in a ditch somewhere.

The first half of the movie is decent. It mostly talks about Mark Wahlberg’s character’s life, how he wants more, he wants the American dream, but he isn’t going to get it, he’s gotten as far as he’s going to get in life with his particular skillset. When he winds up as the businessman’s personal trainer, he decides that he is going to take what he wants by any means necessary.

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.

It’s Pilot Season – 2013

The Fall 2013 television season is upon us. And that means we’re inundated with the worst the networks have to offer. Each year brings us new series; a few will be great, but most will be unwatchable trash. There’s far too many horrible series out there for me to review them all. So, I’ve decided to watch the three biggest pilots of this season and review them. Please note, my reviews are not necessarily what I think of the entire series, but simply my thoughts on the pilot episode.

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD

Yawn.

Holy fuck, we start right out the gate with a major shitfest. Even on paper, Agents of SHIELD sounds like a horrible idea. An Avenger’s show without the Avengers in it? What could go wrong? Recently, Fox picked up a show for the 2014 season that would feature Gotham city without Batman. People started making fun of it immediately and/or bemoaning how terrible an idea it is to do a Batman show without Batman. And you know what? Those people are absolutely right. Nobody gives a fuck about Gotham City without Batman. So, why would we give a fuck about SHIELD without the Avengers? The reason The Avengers was a massive hit was everybody wanted to see Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk together on the big screen. I guaran-fucking-tee you that nobody said, “Ooohhh I can’t wait to see Agent Coulson and some other nondescript guys in black suits!” And that is exactly what Agents of SHIELD is. It’s a generic spy/sci-fi series about a bunch of nondescript guys in black suits. Watching it is painful. You just keep thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if Iron Man just blasted through a wall and started kicking some ass? But it’s not going to happen. Instead, we see a bunch of non-superheroes acting like a bunch of idiots. Thanks guys, if I wanted to see that, I could watch any other genre of film or television. From a conceptual standpoint alone, this series failed miserably.

I Finally Finished Blood+

Blood+ is an anime series that aired from October 8, 2005 until September 23, 2006. It aired weekly and broadcast a total of 50 episodes. I started watching it weekly, through torrents, in October 2005. And I finished watching it on… um, September 23, 2012. Holy shit! It took me forever to finish this goddamn show, and, completely unintentionally, I finished it the same day it finished airing, albeit 6 years later.

What took so long? It’s not that the show was particularly bad. It wasn’t. It was good enough. It was about vampires, and had plenty of action in almost every episode. But I found I just couldn’t get into it. I was always putting it on the back burner to watch something else. I would watch a handful of episodes at a time, and then put it on hold again for several months. By the time I finished it, I could hardly remember any of the plot points or characters that populated the show. It was like watching this weird, detached monstrosity that was entertaining, but I had no idea what was going on. That must be what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s Disease.

So, anyway, here’s a list of things that happened between the show beginning to air and my finishing it.

The Town, Red Sun

The Town

Da fackin’ cast of Da fackin’ Town.

“Hey Tawmmy, guess what? That cawksuckah Ben Affuck made a movie called The Town. This queah made a lawt of shitty movies in the past like Reindeah Games and Ahmahgedon. Now awll of a sudden he thinks he’s a fackin’ directah. Anyway, this heah movie is about some bank rawbbahs from Chahrlestown. They rawb a bunch’a banks in Bawston and try to get away from da Feds. Dougie, Jem, Gloansy, and Dez ah the robbahs and they do pretty good for awhile, until Dougie gets a hahd-on for a hawstage they took earliah named Claire. Dougie ain’t no queah like some guys I know from Southie, and he dates Claire for awhile and tries to keep his double lives separate. Meantime this big faggy retahd Fed dude named Frawley is goin’ after ’em, tryin’ to put Dougie and his crew behind bahs. There’s a lot of shoot-outs and beatin’s and we get to see our fayah city of Bawston a lawt. It’s gawt some good writin’ and actin’ and Affuck does a fackin’ good job’a directin’. For a queah, anyway. Tawmmy, you should really check out this movie, it’s worth watchin’. Go Sawx!”

Verdict: Good

Red Sun

The cast of Red Sun

At first I thought this was going to be a comedy. It’s a 1971 film starring Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune that is about a cowboy and a samurai teaming up in the Wild West. How could it not be a comedy? Well, it’s not, it’s serious. Fortunately, they did infuse several funny moments and a few funny one-liners along the way. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, but on the whole, yes, it is a regular Western. Where it lacks in the story department, it makes up for it with charm.

Bronson plays a charismatic outlaw who is forced to team up with Mifune who plays a stoic samurai (does he play anything else?). Their mission is to retrieve a stolen Japanese Imperial sword from Bronson’s former gang who betrayed him and left him for dead. Mifune and Bronson play surprisingly well off one another. They each get their moments to shine, with each besting the other in various scuffles, and each getting to kill plenty of bad guys with their special skills. Ursula Andress is the girl who provides little more than a nice body to look at. The villain is the bland Alain Delon, who apparently is famous, but from this role you’d never guess that.

If not for Mifune, this would be a generic and forgettable Western. However, his character lends a lot of originality to the movie which I’ve never seen anywhere else in the genre. Fortunately, the samurai acts like a samurai should, and doesn’t do a lot of horseshit you’d expect in a Hollywood movie. The movie loses a couple of points for having white guys play Indians, and a sort of derp-tastic finale. Otherwise, though, it’s solid. At least solid enough for an obscure, cult Western. Plus, it’s kind of cool to see Mifune speaking English.

The best part of all, was that I got this movie from Netflix, and the disc they sent me was a Chinese bootleg. It was obvious with all the Chinese characters on the menu, and to start the movie you click the Paly button. I hope Netflix continues to rent bootlegs. They rule.

Verdict: Average

Mission Impossible 4 IV Four Ghost Protocol

Cruise: “Make sure my name is above the title, OK?”

The problem with reading movie reviews before watching the movie is that it taints your expectations. This may come as a shock to you all (because I hate everything), but I actually like the Mission: Impossible film series. Despite Tom Cruise bouncing on Oprah’s couch, I’ve always enjoyed him in movies. And no, I’m not a Scientologist. Or am I? Anyway, back to my point. I had been following the reviews when this movie was released, it was getting great scores from the critics, and came in at a whopping 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Well, if that’s the case, then the movie has to be good, right?

Wrong.

Happy (Shitty) Four Year Anniversary

Four years already, huh? That’s a long time filled with a lot of insults. If this blog was a four year old human, it would be able to do a lot of stuff by now, including:

• Cooperates with other children –> there is a blog roll on the side of the page
• Talks about interests and disinterests –> that much is obvious
• Can’t tell the difference between real and make-believe –> that would explain my unadulterated rage
• Knows basic rules of grammar such as “he” or “she” –> in light of the “irregardless” post, I’d say this is a yes
• Can sing a song or poem such as “Wheels on the bus” –> at least this involves singing
• Tells stories –> such as the Tale of the iPhone
• Can say first and last name –> you mean “Awesomely” and “Shitty”, right?
• Knows the names of some colors and numbers –> as long as they are black, white, red, orange, and blue – and let’s just forget the whole numbers thing
• Understands the idea of counting –> Transformers 1, Transformers 2, Transformers 3, etc.
• Uses scissors –> but only to cut out pictures of Michael F. Assbender and put them on my wall
• Plays board or card games –> do drinking games count?
• Hops and stands on one foot for two seconds –> too lazy to try
• Catches a bounced ball –> too lazy to try
• Can pour own drinks –> for the aforementioned drinking games

Wow, it’s just like this blog is a real person! So, happy (shitty) four year anniversary to me! Until next time, amigos (fuckos).

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:”