Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

Because it was approximately 700 degrees here to day we decided that a trip to the drive-in might be a pleasant way to spend the evening.

Drive-in requires movie that is sure to be bad but might be fun bad (we don't want to subject a good movie to the much degraded viewing experience that is the drive-in). Only candidate was Transformers 2 so that's what we saw.

Not even a hint of good bad. Yes, I hated the first one. This one makes that one look like the pinnacle of summer blockbuster fare.

Borderline racist black stereotype transformers. Leg humping transformers. Transformer testicles. Robot mysticism. Transformer fights between machines even more indistinguishable than last time.

Remember last time how we went on and on last time about how stupid it was that the group left Hoover Dam and 10 minutes later were in downtoan LA? Well, this time they start out at (sorry, some might view this as a spoiler)

Spoiler:

the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, and exit that building into what I assume was one of the plane graveyards around Mojave. Not a Mojave graveyard made to look like it might be in DC but actual desert with mountains in the background.

Then there's this fine piece of badass calculus (this really is a spoiler)

Spoiler:

Way back in the day The Fallen was too strong for six Primes to defeat. In this sequel, Optimus Prime will be killed by The Fallen's second hand man. And yet Optimus Prime is so bad ass he can kill The Fallen.

Megan Fox truly serves no purpose in this movie other than having boobs (aka tits, since I know some here prefer that word) and looking good in Daisy Dukes.

Truly, painfully bad. It is as bad an action movie as Godzilla was. Battlefield Earth was actually better than this movie.

[Not Afraid]

I found a film I want to see! And, it's Summer!

Steven Frears has a new film that was just released - "Cheri". Now to find a place where it is playing, limited engagement and all.

[innerSpaceman]

East of Eden was a bizarrity. I thought I'd seen bits and pieces, but it turns out I was thinking of "Giant," James Dean's third film. I'm not impressed with his brief ouvre of work, though he is a brooding bit of sex, isn't he?

Claptrap 50's quasi-Freudian pop psychology permeates. Oddly, this is only the 2nd film I've ever seen featuring Julie Harris ... and the other one, The Haunting, is also a claptrap 50's quasi-Freudian pop psychfest (underpinning a damn good ghost story).


Here, though, the underpinning was front and center. Gak. Well, it wasn't horrible ... but yeah, an over-the-top Caine and Abel melodrama. James' yumminess is the only thing to recommend the film, imo ... so it will be "interesting" to see what they come up with for the remake to be released next year.






BTW, was Abra Kadabra a standard magician's phrase in Steinbeck's day? If so, I am puzzled why he named a main character "Abra." It was very distracting.

[Alex]

Yes, "abracadabra" is an old phrase of supposedly magical power. But Abra is also a very old girl's name, being the female form of Abraham.

[flippyshark]

I'm glad someone else rolls their eyes at mid-century quasi-Freudian pop psychology. It's rampant in films of that era, to be sure.

[Alex]

Just to show that I can go along with stupid summer "that ****'s all blowed up" fare, I did enjoy early Michael Bay movies.

I liked Bad Boys a fair amount. I enjoyed The Rock. Armageddon pushed the limits but I was still able to let its stupidity carry me along.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Yeah, East of Eden was just weird, and somewhat bad. What is the deal with the weird twisting fighing/crying/wailing? Nearly all the characters were creepy, from the fawning girlfriend to the perfect do-gooder brother turned hating everything brother, and Dean's character as well was just, well, unlikeably strange. I found it even overwhelmed his good looks (though he's really not my type).

And the writing...if I were in that ferris wheel with the girl I would have climbed out much earlier.

Fun night at the cemetery regardless though.

[Alex]

Used a free movie coupon to see again escape the heat. Unfortunately the options across the street aren't great (either had already seen or didn't particularly want to see) so settled for Year One over My Sister's Keeper since it started 10 minutes sooner (and if that isn't quite a divergent set of options to leave to a toin coss).

I wouldn't quite say Year One sucked. It is, however, nearly spectucular in its mediocrity. And Michael Cera grows increasingly wearying. I really wish he'd stayed out of the Arrested Development movie since that is going to just be yet another performance from him that could have been done entirely by digitally inserting into the movie his identical roles from previous movies.

He doesn't need to go all Shia The Beef with action work but doing something different would be appreciated. I no longer hope for that from Jack Black.

Distracting was the fact that June Diane Raphael looked really familiar (looking at her credits suggests this was a phantom familiarity) and halfway through I'd halfway convinced myself it was Sarah Chalke with different hair and losing a bit of weight. But not so convinced I could stop chewing over who she was.

[Gn2Dlnd]

But, but, what about that guy in the Year One promo video, the Rock, Paper, Spears thing? He's funny, right? Right?

[Alex]

I'm going to say yes, very funny, because I'm guessing there's a personal connection to you or the board. But I have no idea what you're talking about.