Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar X-Men

Director Tim Burton’s latest film is a book adaptation, yet another in the deluge of young adult novels Hollywood has flooded us with as of late. They remain desperate in their attempts to find the next Harry Potter and shove it down our throats, but so far they continue to come up short.

The basic gist is that some children are born with special abilities. These gifted youngsters live in a special school where their headmistress teaches them to use their abilities for the greater good. A scrappy outsider named Logan Potter discovers the school, and is welcomed to their makeshift family. Professor X attempts to persuade Logan to join them. Logan doesn’t think he’s special, but over the course of the film realizes he has powers of his own.

Seeking Justice, The Hateful Eight

Seeking Justice

This is yet another New Orleans-based Nicolas Cage movie. I haven’t seen every movie in his oeuvre, but this makes at least four to be set there (The Runner, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Stolen were the other three for those playing along at home). Maybe the dude loves New Orleans, who knows? Anyway, this is a pretty pathetic excuse for a movie. Cage’s wife is raped, and he is approached by a mysterious stranger who promises to get revenge in exchange for a favor later. The bad guy, of course, wants Cage to kill someone, and he refuses. This turns into a boring back-and-forth between Cage and bad guys leading to a shootout in an abandoned mall. The problem with this movie is that it seems to not care about doing anything unique. They have a good setting and a decent premise, but just piss it away for generic plot points. Its ham-fisted plot and straight-forward directing style make it as generic as they come. Cage is perfect, though, he’s never been bad in anything.

Verdict: Shitty

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino’s newest film proves he doesn’t understand the definition of the word “brevity.” A sprawling three hours in length, his latest Western is a tale of loathsome people stuck in a cabin, riding out a snowstorm. It’s a story that could be taut and thrilling, easily told in a lean 90-minutes, but for some goddamn reason, it’s twice that long. Sally Menke had been Tarantino’s editor from Reservoir Dogs until Inglourious Basterds. After her untimely death, Tarantino has been off the reins. His new editor, Fred Raskin, either doesn’t have the balls or the wherewithal to tell Tarantino when enough is enough.

The movie contains all of Tarantino’s trademarks: rambling speeches, a growing sense of dread, anachronistic music, events out of synch, and ultra-violence. When this movie works, it absolutely works. From the point where Samuel L. Jackson’s character figures out who the bad guys are until the end, the movie is enthralling. But that comes over 90 minutes in. Almost everything up to that point is needless, and getting there is laborious.

The characters are great, the performance are great, and the music, by the legendary Ennio Morricone, is great. The problem is the fucking editing. I needed to take Adderall to stay awake during the first half of this movie, because nothing even remotely fucking interesting happens for the first 90 minutes. That’s an entire feature length! He really needed a better editor here. Even at two hours, this could have been a masterpiece. As it stands now, it’s needlessly bloated. Tarantino often indulges himself, frequently going in delightful tangents, but there is no delightful tangent here, The Hateful Eight just wastes time.

Verdict: Average

 

Django Should Have Left the Chains On

Django is off the chain. Get it? Anyone? Hello?

Middle-school drop-out Quentin Tarantino brings us his newest film, a Western-inspired adventure through the South complete with his trademark dialog, excessive violence, and bizarre sense of humor. The movie begins with the date, 1858, and a statement, “Two years before the Civil War.” That would be true if the Civil War began in 1860. But it began in 1861. Maybe if Tarantino hadn’t dropped out of Middle-school, he would realize that 61 – 58 does not equal 2.

Django Unchained tells the story of Django, a slave who becomes a free man. The majority of the film is his quest to free his wife Broomhilda from slavery, as well. In doing so, he teams up with a bounty hunter and goes under-cover, so to speak, in order to accomplish his goals. At its heart, this movie is a revenge tale, an outlet of anger against slavery at the hands of white oppressors.

Avengers Assemble for a Giant Circle Jerk

The forces of Photoshop are here to save the day!

Ever since the 2008 film Iron Man was a success, comic book studio Marvel has been trying to get people excited for a movie starring several of its most famous superheroes. Four years, and four movies, later Marvel has finally done it. Marvel has been cramming all their other movies with unnecessary Avengers bullshit, just for the sole reason of getting people interested in the upcoming Avengers movie. Did Thor need a huge Avengers sub-plot where agents of SHIELD took his hammer and he had to get it back? No. Did Iron Man 2 need a huge Avengers sub-plot with Samuel L. Jackson trying to recruit Tony Stark into SHIELD? No. In fact, that particular bullshit ruined the entire movie. And I won’t even get started on what a hokey piece of shit Captain America was. Every time Marvel shoe-horned in an Avengers sub-plot into one of their movies, all it did was serve as an annoying distraction from the rest of the film. It’s almost as if Marvel was telling the audience, “Don’t worry about all this origin story nonsense, we just want to get this out of the way so you can watch The Avengers later.”

I was certainly not excited for The Avengers. In my attempts to become a world-class blogger, I typically watch a film 6-12 months after theatrical release, just long enough for my review to be irrelevant. I figured I would try something new this time. And since I am such a big fan of Summer Shit Spectaculars, not to mention excruciatingly long lines, and headache-inducing 3D, I really had no choice but to see this movie opening weekend. And how did it turn out? Well, it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it was going to be. I didn’t feel like Marvel was taking a huge fart in my face. But that doesn’t mean the movie was particularly good either.

Justified Season 1, Captain America

Justified Season 1

If you see Raylan doing this to you, you’re probably dead.

This show is great. The main character is Raylan Givens, portrayed by Timothy Olyphant, and based on the same character who appeared in two Elmore Leonards novels and one short story. He is a U.S. Marshal, but fancies himself more of a modern-day cowboy. If given the chance, he’ll quick-draw on an enemy and shoot him down. Raylan also gives steely-eyed stare-downs, and plenty of badass lines to give Clint Eastwood a run for his money. The show has Raylan moving back to his home state of Kentucky after a debacle in Miami. There, he gets entagled with a group of Neo-Nazi drug dealers. It sounds bad, I know, but it is executed flawlessly. There is intricate layering to the story, and the character’s have dynamic interpersonal relationships and are fully realized. The acting is terrific. While the pacing of the series can be rather slow at times, only punctuated by short bursts of action, if you have the attention span to get through it, you will be rewarded with excellent characters and story.

Verdict: Good

Captain America

Moichandizing! Where the real money from the movie is made!

I refuse to write out this movie’s full title, since it is nothing more than a cog in the machine for Marvel’s stupid fucking Avengers movie/shitfest. Traditionally, superhero movies are terrible. Only in recent years have they become even remotely watchable. Captain America decides that the notion of a watchable superhero movie has become a cliche, and goes back to the days of really shitty superhero crap. This is one of the cheesiest, hokyiest, worst superhero movies I have ever seen. There isn’t anything good about this movie. For example, Nazis have ray guns, people are always mugging for the camera, Hugo Weaving chews so much scenery you eventually don’t have any props left, and of course Marvel’s favorite shtick: LOL LOOK THERE IS TONY STARKS DAD AND LOOK THERE IS SAMUEL L JACKSON THIS MOVIE TIES IN WITH ALL THE OTHER MARVEL MOVIES LOL! This movie is incompetently directed, horribly paced, terribly acted, and is all in all a cheesefest of monumental proportions. And not the good kind of cheese. Not tasty cheese. Moldy, rotten, nasty cheese that the rats won’t even touch. Fuck this movie.

Verdict: Shitty

Michael F. Assbender is in Everything

Hello, handsome.

Have you heard of this actor Michael F. Assbender? Well, you should have, because he was in every movie in 2011, and will be starring in every movie in 2012.

Michael F. Assbender is a mythological figure on par with Hercules or Vishnu or John McCain. In fact, Assbender didn’t even exist until the year 2009. He snapped into existence, seemingly at the will of Quentin Tarantino, in order to play a role in the film Inglourious Basterds. If you check out IMDB or Wikipedia, you’ll find an elaborate biography and many roles predating his 2009 debut. Don’t believe those. THEY ARE LIES! They are just an intricate backstory created by the Illuminati so people wouldn’t freak out about the implications of a famous actor being willed into existence.

I don't know what's going on here, either.

Tarantino’s cocaine-fueled revisionary history film was seen by throngs of people, and they were all exposed to their first glimpse of Assbender. People were so enthralled by his unfathomably good looks that they clamored for more. Immediately, Hollywood jumped aboard the Assbender train. After all, if a handsome white British actor can’t be popular, then who can?

Assbender quickly started to take roles in every movie known to man. Assbender didn’t discriminate. He took roles in indie-films and big budget Hollywood shit-spectaculars.

In 2010 he starred in Centurion, Jonah Hex, and videogame Fable III. In 2011 Assbender could be seen in Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, A Dangerous Method, Shame, and Pitch Black Heist. In 2012 he will be in Haywire, Prometheus, Twelve Years a Slave, and Your Mom’s Sexual Fantasies.

His acting style is best described as Assbending. He speaks both English AND German. He has smoldering good looks. He stares into the camera with steely eyes. His on-screen persona makes your girlfriend’s panties moist. His mere presence in a movie makes everything electrifying. That, my friends, is the essence of Assbending.

ACTING!

Of course, 2012 is only just getting underway so we should expect a lot more Assbending to come throughout the year. He seems to be experiencing exponential growth in terms of starring in movies. Take a look:

• 2009: one role
• 2010: three roles
• 2011: five roles
• 2012: nineteen roles
• 2013: one hundred thirty-seven roles
• 2014: nine hundred ninety-nine roles
• 2015: all movie roles portrayed by Assbender

We are well on our way to total movie domination by Assbender. And why shouldn’t we be? The guy is talented. He was able to play a spy, a psychiatrist, a rich dude, an angry mutant, and a sex fiend with a big Fasspenis. A multi-talented thespian such as him should really be in every movie.

Assbender makes psychiatry sexy.

The only people that can come close to rivaling him in being in everything are Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson. Considering Assbender’s exponential rise to fame, he will overcome his two competitors in a matter of time.

Michael F. Assbender is unstoppable, just like that train from the movie Unstoppable. All we need now is for some talented director (e.g. George Lucas) to digitally remove actors from past movies and replace them with Assbender. There shouldn’t be a film in existence that doesn’t include Assbender in at least one role. Could you imagine how cool it would be to watch Gone With the Wind and see Assbender in a dress say: “Rhett! If you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” only to see Assbender in a suit reply: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

That would be so awesome.

So here’s to Assbender and years of Assbending to come. Wait, what’s that? His name is Fassbender? Oh, goddammit.

Awesomest/Shittiest Things of 2011

Last year I wrote a list of the Awesomest and Shittiest Things of 2010. I thought I would do it again for 2011. Last time it was a struggle to find just 10 things for the Awesome category. It was an even greater struggle to limit the Shitty category to a mere 10 entries. So it goes. I’m writing less this year, mostly because I don’t give a fuck. I guess 2011 was extra crappy, huh? Check it out:

Awesome

1. Occupy Wall Street – I like the idea of protesting those goddamn fuckos on Wall Street. Those fucking pigs take all our fucking money and the masses get fucking shit upon. It’s been that way since the dawn of civilization. The have-nots are always going to be jealous of the haves. At least some people are letting it be known that they’re pissed off about it. The U.S. population is usually so goddamn complacent, that Wall Street’s behavior is considered OK because nobody says anything about it. I congratulate this group for protesting, and I hope they are successful. Fuck Wall Street.
2. Harry Potter Ended – And it ended well. They somehow managed to film all seven books, over a period of 10 years, and they kept the entire cast. Well, the original Dumbledore died after movie #2, but the guy they replaced him with was a million times better. I’m completely amazed that one of the kids didn’t die from a heroin overdose or leave after movie #6 to pursue “more artistic endeavors.” The Harry Potter films were cool, and they did a phenomenal job creating them. I’m glad they all turned out so great. One of Hollywood’s few non-fuckups.
3. Lego Man Appears from the Sea – In Florida, an 8-foot tall Lego man rose from the sea. He sported a green shirt that read, “NO REAL THAN YOU ARE.” The Lego corporation denied any involvement in this. But that’s not the end of the story. He washed up on a beach in England in 2008, and on a Dutch beach the year before that. Are these all the same guy, or perhaps a race of Lego Supermen with terrible grammar who are hellbent on conquering Earth? Whichever it may be, all I know is that if we are conquered, it’s going to be hard to not have a good time. Legos are super fun.
4. Arab Spring – A wave of revolutions, both peaceful and violent, across the Middle East has toppled dictatorial regimes. It’s excellent that after decades of suppression, the people can rise up and take control of their countries. Better to have a free country than one that is ruled by fear. Right, U.S. Republican Party? Hello? Anybody there?
5. Several End of the World Predictions Fail – American Christian radio-show host and lunatic Harold Camping predicted several times that the world would end in 2011. He prophesied that Judgment Day would occur on May 21 and The Rapture on October 21. Neither of which happened. He changed the dates to later in the year, and again they didn’t happen. He’s not exactly an expert on this kind of stuff because he predicted the exact same shit in 1994 and that didn’t happen either. I guess you could argue that the film debut of Chris Tucker in House Party 3 in 1994 was the apocalypse, but most people aren’t going to agree with you. (I would, though.) Anyway, now that it’s 2012, get ready for a boatload more failed End of the World predictions!
6. Cobra Goes Missing from the Bronx Zoo – In New York City, an Egyptian Cobra escaped from the Reptile House. Everyone promptly went apeshit, afraid of the imminent reptilian uprising. Snakes on a Plane no longer seemed like a far-fetched disaster movie. This was the real deal, man! Eventually, they found the snake, still in the zoo. All that worrying was for nothing. I hope that snake enjoyed his day off. Those zoo animals work really hard.
7. Charlie Sheen’s Meltdown – He’s got Tiger Blood in his veins. He’s not bipolar, he’s bi-winning. He’s an F-18. The only drug he’s high on is himself, which will melt your face off and your children will weep over your exploded body. Charlie’s my kind of guy. With quotes like that (and a million others just as good), how could he not be one of the awesomest things this year?
8. Colbert Super PAC – “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.” Once again, Stephen Colbert proved that the U.S. government is completely out of touch with reality. A PAC (Political Action Committee) is a private group organized to elect officials or to influence public policy. Super PACs can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, individuals, unions, etc. Members of the media are not allowed to participate, as their influence is too far reaching. Well, Colbert, who is a member of the media, successfully lobbied the FEC (Federal Election Commission) to allow him to form a Super PAC. He appealed to them in character, in the most smug, satirical manner possible. He stated he wanted to have a Super PAC so he could raise money for political ads and “normal administrative expenses, including but not limited to, luxury hotel stays, private jet travel, and PAC mementos from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.” And they gave it to him. Bravo, Mr. Colbert.

Shitty

1. Occupy Wall Street – Even though the concept of protesting Wall Street Fuckos is totally awesome, the ways these dumbass hippies are going about it are all wrong. For example, Occupy Denver elected Shelby, a three year old border collie, to be its leader. The Colbert Report interviewed members of OWS, and (of course) Colbert picked the two biggest weirdos from OWS to be on his show. If they are any representation of the rest of the group, then I’m about to side with the corporations. Come on guys, you need to come up with at least one concrete demand. Otherwise, you’re just a bunch of homeless people sleeping in a park.
2. Royal Wedding – Prince Baldhead and Princess Whatsherface got married this summer. Everyone around the world was super pumped about it. Who gives a fuck? I’ve been to plenty of weddings, and 99 times out of 100 they are trashy, and waste a perfectly good Saturday. Why would anyone want to waste a Saturday watching a fucking wedding on TV? You don’t even know them. Get a life, people.
3. Japanese Tsunami – Japan got pummeled early this year with a massive tsunami which led to a near-nuclear meltdown. Japan is like a magnet for nuclear disasters. I guess that’s why Godzilla keeps attacking it. At least people recognized this as a major issues, and did something about it. If Japan got obliterated, then who would create all the shitty moe anime? Korea?
4. Arab Spring – Kind of like OWS, the Arab Spring turned out to be not so great in the long run. A lot of the peaceful protests turned violent, there was a civil war (perhaps more on the way), and now there is all sorts of religious persecution in the fledgling governments. Violent revolutions have a greater tendency to lead to violent regimes as opposed to peaceful ones. Who can really say what the end result of all this will be? But I do know that the Middle East remains completely fucked.
5. Republican Presidential Race – “OBAMA IS DESTROYING AMERICA! ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA! GAY MARRIAGE IS DESTROYING AMERICA! PROSTESTORS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA! ONLY PRIVATE MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS CAN SAVE AMERICA! LET’S ELECT THE RICHEST CANDIDATE BECAUSE THEY’LL BE MOST IN TOUCH WITH THE AVERAGE AMERICAN! NO CANDIDATE WITH LESS THAN TWO MARITAL AFFAIRS WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR OFFICE! FLIP-FLOP ON THE ISSUES! LIE! THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY IS STIFLING BUSINESSES AND KILLING THE ECONOMY! DOWN WITH THE EPA! FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT! GRRRRR!”
6. Black Friday Now on Thanksgiving – Apparently, starting the sales at 4:00 AM isn’t early enough for some people. Over the years, as the sales inched earlier and earlier, I used to joke that eventually they’d start having Black Friday on Thanksgiving. Well, guess what? Black Friday now starts on Thursday. Now all the greed and blood-lust associated with the holiday season can get going one day sooner.
7. NASA Ends the Shuttle Program – How will I meet hot alien babes like on Star Trek if you guys shut down the shuttle program?
8. People Upset About Steve Jobs’ Death – Boo fucking hoo. This guy was a world-class asshole. He was a dick to his customers, and he treated his employees like shit. Yet people were crying in the streets over his death. I saw about a million fucking Facebook posts from my “friends” mourning him (they were all promptly removed from my friend-list). The dude was a complete dick. He made it onto the Shitty List from 2010. He ran his company like a fucker, and most of his employees hated him. Don’t go around acting like he’s the Jesus of computers, some martyr who should be worshipped now that he’s dead. Get over it. Go and be sad about the death of someone important, like Kim Jong-Il. *sniff* What will we do without our glorious leader? How can we go on? *cries*

Well, the year 2011 has given us plenty of awesome things, but way more shitty things. I suppose every year is like that. Let’s see what happens in 2012. I’m sure there will be no shortage of shit that will piss me off.

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.