What Big Eyes You Have

Has anyone seen that Red Riding Hood movie yet? Yeah.... it's pretty bad, but it's got some sex in the form of Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez:

So you should probably check it out.

As teen movies about girls and werewolves go, its way better than Twilight (i.e. it's not unwatchable), but it's overacted and atrociously written with the exception of keeping a mystery who the Big Bad Wolf is (though if I knew the theme of the film was going to be "yucko teen girl sex fantasy" it would've been much more obvious). Luckily, Amanda Seyfried can still carry a film; she's definitely one of my favorite newcomer leading ladies. Ever since that pile Mamma Mia was dumped into theaters, I've trusted her to make bad movies tolerable again... though I still won't approach Dear John armed with anything less than a mute button and a fiery Channing Tatum fetish.

To conclude, people like Amanda and I look really good in blood red cloaks, and Easter's coming up so... consider getting me a gift and go see this movie for inspiration and so she keeps getting work.

Up next, I tell you all about my favorite Pokémon from the ones I've collected so far. Also, don't miss my special feature, "What in Your Bathroom Might Kill You?: The Truth About My Boyfriend's Netty Pot".

Famous Last Words

Y'all thought I wasn't writing anymore I bet, right? But don't worry, I would never sign off for keeps without some final words.

And I'm not going anywhere yet. In fact, it was someone else's final words that brought me back. I've found my muse again, and this time, my muse really is a hot chick in a white dress who lives in my brain and maintains a stranglehold on my creative center. Her name is Jennifer Check. See, here she is:

If you haven't seen Jennifer's Body then I officially don't know what you are waiting for. This movie's got everything: Beav from Veronica Mars, Chloe's hot one-episode boyfriend from Smallville, and uhhh... Amanda Seyfried of Mean Girls fame (we pretend Mamma Mia never happened.) Also there's Megan Fox as Jennifer Check. See, here she is again:

If you're wondering why she's always covered in blood and burning her tongue while talking on her pink phone, it's because she is possessed by a demon and eats boys. Only boys... though she does experiment, but the bicurious anthropophagy doesn't really go over well.

Anyway she's all slang and sass and a 10" waist so that's why this movie is awesome unless you take it seriously.

Right. So it sounds totally stupid, but for years I've always had a fictional, excessively-skinny woman in my brain as sort of a... well, as I said, muse -- someone who's fierceness I keep as a reference source. (People don't say fierce anymore, do they? I'm super glad about that, but it's the only word I can think of right now.) Anyway, now Jennifer Check is that woman so now you know my idiotic secret. Anyone got a tampon?

So anyway.... I haven't left you forever, I am here, see? My last words are a ways off, but now I know what they are. I've always believed that one day I will die of a heart attack after eating a million cheeseburgers, so you will know I am not coming back when I wince in pain, grab my chest and echo Jennifer Check's immortal parting exclamation: "unnh... my tit..."

Also, I want that written on my tombstone, thx.

Get Over It

Eat your heart out, guys, I got another Connexion message from Melvin! He is 49 and enjoys reading "LOTR and religious books."

Connexion is this gay facebook-type site that I found in grad school because it shares a name with the cooperative cataloging client that I use 8 hours a day every day. When I tried to go to the client's website for the first time, it was this gay networking site, and I was like OMG WEIRD! Nobody uses it, but I have a librarian pen pal in NH who I correspond with through there, so I sign on now and then. I wonder if he found the site the same way.

Anyway that's all I have to say about Melvin except that this is like the third message I've gotten from him that says "write back if interested" and nothing else. I don't feel bad ignoring them because I'm just following instructions.

Speaking of shitty teen romantic comedies, I watched Get Over It last night because I am stupid. It's like 10 Things I Hate About You without the cleverness or charm or Heath Ledger but with Kirsten Dunst and her teeth like a mouth full of broken glass.

The plot is this cute guy loves this hot redhead until she dumps him for a boy band singer and he joins the school play to get her back but falls in love with Kirsten Dunst instead for some reason. I'm kinda surprised I made it through, but I did. Here's how I felt after:

Don't see it. I know you're all disappointed. In case you decide to disobey me and see it anyway, just remember that Sisqo is in it and you'll change your mind.

Anyway since this entry is filled with unpleasant topics like Melvin and Kirsten Dunst, I'll cheer you up by letting you look at that picture of Scott Porter again.

Ben and Arthur: Convo Movie Review

me: I'm watching the most shit movie right now.

Kevin: what movie?

me: Ben and Arthur.

Kevin: I've never heard of it

me: I got it on Netflix. It's the number one worst movie of all time according to imdb user ratings.

Kevin: awesome i love bad movies

me: Yeah. It's about a gay couple. The guy who made it is playing one of them. He's fat and bald, and he paired himself with this dreamboat to be his partner. It's SO fake.

Kevin: omg omg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxKByXGC890
is that the trailer?

me: It was made with amateur equipment.

Kevin: that's not a movie, that's a home video

me: YEAH!
That's it.
Isn't it horrible?

Kevin: that's awesome!!
everyone has gay face
LMAO
I love it

me: Right?
It's amazing.

Kevin: i'm watching the trailer again
hehe
for ben and arthur
its like a porno with no sex

me: And a fat guy.
Ooh, they're dishwashers at a cafe together.
OMG Fatty's auditioning to be an exotic dancer.

Kevin: hahaha
are they consciously being bad?

me: No, I believe 100% that they're taking themselves seriously.

(hottie looks less like a crack fiend in the movie)

me: Ooh, a sexy!

Kevin: a what?

me: A sexy.
He's a PI apparently.
But he's hot.
He's a gaywad too.
But I don't think his character is supposed to be gay.

Kevin: is he the blonde dude in the trailer?

me: No, that's Victor, the brother who hates gays for religious reasons.
He hired the PI.

Kevin: nice

me: Now they're meeting at night and I hope they do it.

Kevin: oh you know they will

(there aren't any screen caps on the net so I'm stretching for graphic dividers here, ok?)

me: "I don't make sense? You don't make sense! I make sense, that's who makes sense!"

Kevin: lol wut?

me: Dialogue sample.

Kevin: It sounds like they're doing it as a joke!

me: But it's not

me: Eew, fatty shower scene. I can't believe I'm so engrossed in this.

Kevin: HAHA
you STILL watching that?
gosh!

me: Yeah, the minutes are inching by.

Kevin: did fatty get it on with someone?

me: No, he was just showering.
He's in it to win it with the hottie.
Who just got shot AGAIN.

Kevin: why does he keep getting shot

me: Blondie does it.
Or arranges it. I'm not really sure.
This one he did.
I want the PI back.

Kevin: what does he look like?

me: He's like 19 with a twinky face, brown hair, and thick eyebrows.
Eew, more naked for fatty.

Kevin: why is he getting naked so much?

me: EEW BUTT SHOT!
I DON'T EVEN KNOW!
God.
Again!

Kevin: hahaha

me: Man, the last 10 minutes of this movie are like Fattie'sbuttapalooza.

Kevin: that's so disturbing
maybe he wants to advertise his ass

me: Oh, it'sover.

Kevin: how did it end?

me: Bloodbath.
Oh, he made it with Adobe Premiere.

The Golden CompASS (hee hee, did you see what I did with the caps?)

So I saw The Golden Compass last night finally, and I'm going to tell you about it.

Everyone was cast well, especially the little girl who isn't nearly as creepy as I thought she might be. She was actually fabulous and I wish I could be 11 again so we could be friends. Nicole Kidman was fine, in her breathy sotto voce kinda way. Kathy Bates, however, managed to claim the Fierce Diva Award with her portrayal of Hester, this jackrabbit thing. She had one scene and about 5 lines, but she pretty much stole the show. Horribly miscast was that ass ugly child they got to play Roger. I don't know what side of the swamp he came from, but the toads must be happy to see him go.

Moving on, don't expect a recreation of the book. The concepts in the novel are too complex and numerous, so a lot of the film ended up being really talky, but it was pretty ok anyway. The ending fizzled out into this schlocky "movie" ending with no sense of wonder or inquisition like in the book. Without reading the series, I have no idea why anyone would want to see the second movie. The last 5 minutes of this one were utter crap.

"Lyra, ask the alethiometer
what happened to my breasts."

My number one gripe, however, was the level of violence. There wasn't enough. This movie would have been 1,000% better with a) blood and b) kids getting shot with arrows. Let's examine these two concepts.

First of all, there was no blood in the entire movie despite countless images of people getting mauled and stabbed and one scene where a bear gets his entire freaking face ripped off. Apparently the citizenry of this alternate universe survives on pure willpower because not a drop of anything was spilt the entire film. This is war on snow! The land should awash in the blood of the innocent!

Speaking of the blood of the innocent, there's one scene with a bunch of men in furry hats trying to 'get' a bunch of children, and this whole battle breaks out with witches flying about (as witches do) and shooting everyone with arrows. You're gonna tell me that not a single child dies in this bloodbath? I mean willpowerbath. So that was disappointing, along with the removal of one really important death of a child from the book, which is a proper plot point that I was sad to see go rather than disappointment due to my twisted, violent desires.

It's just a name, Kate.

One thing that really stood out about The Golden Compass was the score by Alexandre Desplat. It was totally effective and exciting and blah blah all that. Imagine my surprise, then, when the movie fizzled out to the credits and instead of some rollicking overture, I was treated with some hippie Enya new age crap. "Oh Lyraaaaaaa..." It was pretty much the most shit song ever written. Thanks, Kate Bush. In case you don't know who she is, the picture on the right embodies everything that is right and wrong with her.

In conclusion, The Golden Compass is worth seeing only if you are already going to see it no matter what I say.

Crossing the Universe Without a Rest Stop

So I walked into work today and wished my coworker Liz a Happy Halloween only to have her tell me that it's still only Tuesday and this week will NEVER END, much like Julie Taymor's Across the Universe.

Across the Universe

Ok, maybe that's a little h a arsh because parts of it were really good, but in all it had no coherence and was just one musical sequence after another, some of which were good and some of which were "crazy stuff for the sake of crazy stuff and why the hell are there 5 women standing on the ocean right now, I thought this was about the 60's not a pirate ghost story."

I also found it really unnecessary to give the characters cutsey names like Jude and Lucy and Prudence just so other people could sing those songs.

It was very Julie Taymor, who my (new) friend Sam commented "has a good eye, but no taste," which I found a succinct and elegant way of saying it. She's really hit or miss. I did like Frida and heard good things about Grendel, the opera. Anyway, but the acting was ok, the music was great (I've discovered I like the Beatles as long as it's not them singing), and some things worked really well, so I'll give it 2 stars, and to be nice, I won't tell you how many that's out of.

I had something else really important to tell you, and I was planning this great entry on the subway all about it, but now I can't remember. Instead, read this: Jesse Owens: Great American Zero. My friend wrote it.

Look At You

Nancy Drew is a forgettable movie. So forgettable that I forgot to tell you I saw it on Sunday. It kinda sucks in a lot of ways, and if it weren't for that corny 12-year-old fat kid and my total emotional control allowing me to accept that it sucked and making it fun, I wouldn't have survived. Also, I'm a perv and thought the guy playing Ned was totally cute. Though it would seem he's 19, so I'm at least not breaking any laws.

Oh my God, I just noticed he's in Jumper, which is based on this super-good sci-fi book about a kid who teleports. Hm, so is AnnaSophia Robb... I guess I'm seeing that despite Hayden Christensen who ruined himself by being in Star Wars.

Anyway, back to Nancy Drew. The best part was Nancy's little outfits. She looked like this perfect little Park Avenue librarian, and it was kinda neat how she was practically perfect in every way. During the suckier parts of the movie, I would sit there and pretend to be her, except I was way more creative with how I used my powers. First of all, I used my giant brains and seamstress abilities to start my own fashion empire. I also used my skinny-like-the-Friends-ness and cute hair to be a supermodel. Then I used those two assets again to stop Ned from being such a prat so he'd teenage seduce me already. Sadly, none of my scenarios involved solving crimes or helping people. But who has time for that when you're a hot billionaire? I'll get my maid to do it.

I'm pretty sure Nancy Drew wasn't created to inspire shallowness in people, but I manage to find a way with anything. Anyway, don't bother seeing the movie unless you really need to.

Ok, so as it happens, I'm in a better frame of mind than I was. It's because I got a lot done yesterday regarding job hunting, resume-making, and the like. Also, today was Clean Towels Day. I found some jobs, made a not-for-libraries resume, and got a general good feeling about the whole process. I've got this brand new "I Can" attitude to replace my previous "It's So Big And I'm So Small" attitude. We'll see how long it lasts. I am going to send out 6 applications this evening, but I might end up just sitting there and watching Xanadu, thereby allowing the dread to return.

Oooh, what if Carol played Alice???

Ok I have a surprise for you all but I can't give it to you until I find the cord that connects my camera to my computer. I remember coming across it a million times in recent months, but now that I need it there's no way to find it.

Anyway yesterday I watched Alice in Wonderland on DVD despite Netflix insisting it would be a "Long wait". It stars Natalie Gregory, the worst child actress ever, and Carol Channing at her best.

This was a two-part TV special in the 80's, the first part based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the second on Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, both were an hour and a half long. We taped them, and I was obsessed with them. I watched them over and over and over until my dad taped over them and I swore I'd never be happy again. But now some freak decided to release them on DVD even though they're terrible and have no value beyond nostalgia, but I don't care I'm so excited! I Netflixed them in case they sucked all these years later, but they don't so I'm buying them.

They completely massacre the books even though lots of dialogue is directly imported, but if you're going to get all upset about that, spare us all your complaining and don't watch this. It's terribly written (though the teleplay is by Pigman author Paul Zindel), Alice is awful, and it has these revolting little songs that have nothing to do with anything. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, played by husband and wife duo Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence, sing about shaking hands, the Mad Hatter sings about the virtues of laughter, and more perplexing of all, the red and white queen, in the middle of a conversation about how cool it is to be a queen, bust out in a little song about math. The math song rocks, by the way: "Do you know addition, what is one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and two?" That's Carol Channing. (I know the line comes from the book, but the song itself still has no context.)

Speaking of Carol Channing, even when I was 10 she was my favorite part of this production. It's the only thing I've ever seen her in, and its influence was enough to make her my personal hero. I've dreamt of her, I smile at her name... she represents to many wonderful things to me, and it's only her role as the White Queen that I have to go by. Anyway, she's fab and has crazy hair and flaps her arms around singing "Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today" and I just have to get up and dance. She's perfect. Every word, every gesture. I would rewind and watch her scenes over and over to the point where little white lines would appear because the tape was getting damaged. From the website I linked above:

When Carol Channing asked whether Allen thought she should develop an English accent for her role as the White Queen, the producer wailed, "I don't want any accent. I brought Carol Channing to do Carol Channing..."

Yes. She did Carol Channing.

Oh and wait until you see the special effects, they're fantastic, especially the part where she cuts the cake and PING it's back in one piece again.

The most amazing result of my obsession with this film was that when I finally read Lewis Carroll's books for the first time and every time since, I cannot read the poems "Old Father William" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter" without singing them like they do. It's awesome. Sammy Davis Jr. does the best "Old Father William", his most brilliant performance ever. I know I said the songs sucked but also, they're awesome.

Anyway, none of you will like this unless you've seen it as a kid, in which case I don't have to tell you how amazing it is. But now you all know it's available so go buy it immediately ok bye.

Tideland

Oh, I forgot to tell you I watched a movie last night called Tideland that was pretty messed up. I don't know if I liked it. I kept finding myself doing other things like checking my e-mail and chatting online and playing Kick the Cat but then I'd get really interested again and engross myself in the movie. So I dunno. It got horrible reviews, most everyone on Rotten Tomatoes hated it, but I know I didn't hate it because I'm not mad and if I did, this review would be a lot funnier. Lots of it was gorgeous and charming and fun and unsettling (in the good way.) Other parts were boring, overdone, and didn't brush their teeth.

Basically it's about a little girl whose parents are junkies, and she's all disconnected and oh-so-innocent and lives in a fantasy world that she shares with some creepy Barbie heads she puts on her fingers and makes talk. The Barbie heads are all decrepit, it reminded me of Barbie Beauty Shop. Then her mom dies and she doesn't really seem to get it, but her crazy dad takes her to grandma's old farmhouse in the wheat field (Tideland). Grandma's long gone, but they set up and he shoots up again and dies and the girl can't understand why he won't come back from his vacation. She thinks he smells because he farts. Hyperactive imagination or not, this girl is supremely stupid.

Anyway, she meets these people, first Crazy Taxidermist Lady who has been preserving her mother for years (super-gross) and preserves the girl's dad too so they can be a family forever. It's not a terribly original plot element, but it freaks me out every time so I like it. She also meets a Retarded (differently-abled, whatever) Boy, who's super fun, and they pretend to fall in love. It's cute. My favorite part was when she dressed him in fabulous grandma clothes and a wig.

It's all in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland, which the director insisted on reminding us of every two seconds, which wasn't necessary. The heavy-handed rabbit hole stuff and CTL quoting the Mad Hatter was over the top, the more subtle stuff would have come through without it.

Ok I guess I like this movie even though two hours was not necessary. You should all go rent it if you like crazy weird stuff and watching a kid use her imagination for a long time (lots of those parts work real well, but they made me feel like I had no childhood because I never did stuff like that, I just played video games.)

Make sure you're not eating anything crunchy during the scene where the girl and CTL are fighting in the bedroom because you'll want to yak.

Vampire Hunter Dieter

I got a new barcode scanner today, it's super neat. My boss told me to plug it in where the other one was plugged in, but when I opened it I was all "Yeah, as if, I can't plug a USB cable into a 9-pin port" but I was total tech-savvy young person and installed mine and the one for the other music cataloger with no problem.

Part of the stand to the thing looked like a cross between the head of one of those Star Wars droids (right) and a Lego antelope skull (not pictured) so I bent it funny, made mondo paper clip antlers, gave it eyeballs, and named it Dieter after the sound it makes when you turn the scanner on. Everyone in the office loved Dieter, but I had to dismantle him to assemble my fancy new scanner stand. I still don't use the scanner because I like to type on the keypad, but don't tell anyone. It's probably my favorite part of my job.

Also, I watched Vampire Hunter D. I did it to add some spice to my Vampire Moviefest, but it turns out I hate anime. While it was fun to learn the Japanese word for vampire (banpaia), this movie sucked. Everyone was one-dimensional and the fight scenes were so dumb. I didn't realize Pokemon was just doing genre shit because it turns out all anime battles are just like Pokemon. These guys would leap high into the air, which turns into psycho color time. Then they say something lame ("Let's see if you can handle this!") and then they vogue and glide towards each other and one of them ends up hurt, but you don't know who until they say "Ah! You hurt me!"

Then they tried to be all emo and shit, and you know how I feel about that. Luckily, everyone died in the end except the good guys, surprise, and Vampire Hunter D rode into the sunset or something, I don't really know I turned it off before the credits came on, that's how much I couldn't stand it.

So I hate anime except Hayao Miyazake, and I know that's such an ignorant American thing to say but if you had to sit through this shitty movie, you'd understand.

In my next blog entry I'm going to talk about the book I just finished and probably pay tribute to fogey Internet trolls stay tuned.

The Hunger

I just watched The Hunger as part of my vampire moviefest that's still going on because I am slow and lazy. Anyway it sucked.

David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve are like these vampire things that never get old, but they have to eat someone once a week. Then David Bowie gets this aging disease and starts to decompose all over the place and Catherine's all "Ugh, not in MY Park Ave. townhouse!" so she puts him in a box like she did when this happened to all her other vampire lovers. They're all stacked on the 3rd floor.

You get to see David Bowie's butt, that part was pretty cool. He was sexy when I was 1, but it sucked in this movie when it took him 45 minutes to die.

The imdb plot keywords are goth, psychic, atmospheric, nipple, and nightclub. They use nipple because one of the major themes is lesbians.

After David Bowie decomposes, Catherine falls in love with Susan Sarandon and makes her come over and then they have a sexy scene with Lakme and a luscious lesbian liplock and Susan becomes a vampire in the normal way. In the end, she decides she doesn't like it and stabs herself in the neck and then Catherine's decomposed old lovers come out of their boxes and push her over the banister and she decomposes too the end.

Now I'm watching the commentary for some reason and Susan Sarandon is all "Yeah, the movie seemed pretty neat when I saw the script... but then they changed it all, so.... hmmm... at least it was unique, y'know, I'd rather be part of a unique movie that flops than something that's been done before... I guess... I dunno it was like 15 years ago why are you even watching this?"

Anyway the movie's totally obsessed with itself to the point where it doesn't even know when it's not making any sense. I hate movies that are like "ooooh, look at me, I'm total art" and meanwhile everyone watching is like "What the hell, you're not doing what you think you're doing, let's have more lesbian scenes."

In all it would be better with more lesbian scenes.

Chinese Vampire Primer

Nothing at all happened yesterday or today; all I did after work was play video games and watch TV, and all today I worked real hard, so I haven't even read the news or anything. So instead, I'm going to tell you about the Chinese vampire movie I saw this week (Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters) about these vampire hunters that pretend to be caterers for some reason and then wait for this vampire to come. I am going to talk to you about it by teaching you what it taught me about Chinese vampire mythology:

Chinese vampires start out as zombies because they are unlucky. They rise from the grave or are resurrected by a necromancer and then hop around with their arms straight out in front of them like hopping mummies. Zombies are mindless hopping killing machines, and the only way to stop them is by putting a piece of paper on their face. Once they kill someone, they get promoted to vampire (with extra responsibilities, but a hefty raise to go with it.)

Chinese vampires are made out of still-wet paper maché. They are very powerful. Their superpowers are flying, evil halitosis, super-strength, and Go Go Gadget Arm with fingernail guns and kung-fu action grip. Do not get close to a Chinese vampire because the evil halitosis is deadly and will set you on fire. If it does not set you on fire, it will paralyze you and then you will start to jiggle and your blood will come out of your eyeballs and mouth in a fine, refreshing mist that will float into the vampire's face through his mouth and eyeballs. Then it will set you on fire. It's pretty cool to watch, but not to experience.

All Chinese vampires are pregnant, and if you cut off the head with your flying-zen samurai moves, the fetus will be very angry. He will come out of the vampire's stomach and become a new vampire with Super Scary Slime coating. It probably smells pretty bad too.

Oh, I forgot to say that Chinese vampires have Gopher Powers and can burrow underground very fast. Prepare to dodge the moving mound of dirt. Sometimes the vampire will put his special metal hands in your body and move them around real fast until you turn into a pile of skin. Try to avoid that too.

The only way to kill a vampire is to be a zen master. Teamwork is also a good strategy. Grenades and dynamite are the weapon of choice, but don't stand too close.

That is all there is to know about Chinese vampires. This movie also teaches you valuable lessons about snakes, consummating your marriage when you have the chance, the value of friendship, and why to avoid covering your dead relatives in wax and putting them in a room together to have dinner (because they can come to life and hop around and even kung-fu can't stop all 25 of them--that part was pretty funny... put them in bunny suits, and it would look like Revenge of the Mall Easter Bunnies!!!!!)

Anyway, the movie was awesome even if it was in Chinese and the subtitler sometimes made up English words that don't exist. Let's calculate the score:

Evil hopping zombies : +10
Plot like an episode of Three's Company : -5
Snakes (+1 ea.) : +1
Confusion factor because all the characters look the same (this is NOT a racist thing) : -20
Paper maché vampire : +50
Engrish subtitles : -2
No hot actors: -5
Tilt for awesomeness : +700

All in all this movie gets 729 stars. Rent it for your niece or the girl you babysit for. She'll love the bunnies.

Curse of the Golden Flower ; Bridge to Terabithia

This long weekend I did lots of things. I may have made two new friends, but that depends on if they call me ever or not. One is Jewish and the other works for a girly magazine (meaning titty mag, not Asinine Adolescent or whatever shit teen girls are reading these days.) I also saw two movies, both of which you have to see immediately I don't care what you're doing.

The first movie is Curse of the Golden Monkey. (P.S. Raise your hand if you hate imdb's total extreme makeover.) Golden Dragon is about the emporer and empress of China like 1,000 years ago. She's sleeping with his son, and he's slowly killing her with poison mushroom tea. I pretty much love stories about royalty of any sort and how they plan and plot and want to kill eachother but then have to go to a party and dance together. It's fascinating to me, and I was going to write this whole long insightful blog entry about all that, but I changed my mind.

Anyway, Curse of the Golden Crab Rangoon stars Chow Yun Fat (Yun-Fat Chow?) who barely does any kung fu at all. What fighting there is has that Crouching Tiger fakeness that you either love or hate. I like it.

Right, but the appeal of this movie beyond the crazy nobody's-a-nice-person cast is purely visual. It's SO full of vibrant colors, it makes me with I knew the first thing about what they all mean. It was like a gay pride parade got hit simultaneously with 15 paintball guns, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and the Care Bear Stare. You've just gotta see it.

Lastly, I want to bow down a bit to Li Gong, who played the Empress because she was fantastic. You may remember her from such films as Da hong deng long gao gao gua or the fabulous Du xia II zhi Shang Hai tan du sheng, but Curse of the Golden Chopsticks is truly her best performance since Xin tian long ba bu zhi tian shan tong lao. Also, she's gorgeous and wears the most fantastic dresses. This movie was a drag queen's wet dream. I knew lending the studio my collection of golden headdresses would be a worthy sacrifice.

The next movie I was was Bridge to Terabithia, which was good, though you have to ignore the fact that it uses a million stereotypes. Also, Josh Hutcherson=NOT CUTE. I don't care if I shouldn't be talking about the attractiveness of 15-year-olds, I'm saying it anyway. But whatever, he's an ok actor. Violet Beauregarde, on the other hand, is so pretty and absolutely lights up the screen. (You'll like her better if you don't look at her imdb pictures in that stupid pink dress. It takes kids a long time to learn how to smile for a camera in a way that doesn't make you want to slap them, and she's not there yet. So ignore the pictures and just believe me... she's fantastic.) Nonetheless, these things aren't important.

Anyway, I remember reading this book (by Katherine Paterson) in the 6th grade and crying a lot. I think the school was trying to weed out the student body that year because we read two depression-suicide-inducing books, the other being Where the Red Fern Grows. Anyway, the only thing I want to say about this movie is that even though some of the plot devices are a little contrived, it's one of the most important stories of our day. Eschewing discussion of actor-cuteness or talent or weird CGI monsters or directing, producing, whatever... I really believe everyone should experience this story. Whether you read the book or see the movie or listen to some little kid's book report, I dont care--just find a way. You'll either learn something or remember something, and I can guarantee you it will be worth holding on to.

Ok, I gotta wrap this up. It's time to go home and watch one of the other most important stories of our day, Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters.

Dreamgirls

Ok, you're all going to think it's just because I'm all gay, but it's not. You all really really have to go see Dreamgirls. Now.

It won the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, so that's something. Though I really don't understand why they just shove musicals and comedies together. Musicals themselves usually fit into one or the other category, but whatever.

As you know, I'm not good at talking about why I like things, but the movie was totally solid. Jennifer Hudson made me cry like a woman (I don't mean that) during her big number, and I never cry. Not ever... especially not uncontrollably like I was. Hell, even Jamie Foxx convinced me, and I've hated him ever since The Jamie Foxx Show.

Eddie Murphy won an award too, but he's not fooling anyone. He may have been good in Dreamgirls, but he's still wearing a fat suit in his next movie.

P.S. I'm going to ruin the ending soon if you care. It's not really one of those movies where the end's all that important, so I suggest you suck it up and read on.

I found myself feeling really bad for both Jennifer and Beyoncé the whole time because the plot of the movie was: "Jennifer's too fat and Beyoncé can't sing." People kept saying that over and over, and it makes for a good story, but how would you like to be hired to play "the fat one" or "the untalented one"?

Incidentally, I want to point out how Jennifer Hudson looked amazing and elegant at the Golden Globes while Beyoncé looked like she hand-made her gown from the foil of 10,000 Hershey's kisses with almonds even though she had sadly not eaten enough (or eaten too many) to properly close the dress over her own golden globes.

But I digress.

Dreamgirls had two problems:

1) that Family song where they're all standing on the empty stage. H to the okey. I may have cried at the big Jennifer Hudson number, but I still can't stand such overwrought sentimentality. "Oh, we're such good friends, oh we'll be together forever." Save it. Give me something with substance.

2) Some of the music (like that Family song) wasn't integrated into the narrative very well. It's because for the first 40 minutes of the movie, all the singing the people do is part of a performance. Then, suddenly people are bursting into song during their daily life. It's jarring. I was thinking "Oh, we're doing this now? Ok... I guess that's fine. Wait, maybe they're rehearsing." A musical has to establish the role of its music at the outset. For instance, keeping with the movie-musical thing, Moulin Rouge established that it was going to do the typical "Characters burst into song when they can't express themselves in words" thing. Good, fine. Chicago did the "alternate-daydream-land where life is a cabaret, ol' chum but nobody sings outside of it" thing. And it worked. Dreamgirls was a little schizo, though the problem ended after the initial shock.

Also, the ending was stupid, I hate when people end things with "And then Effie got over years of being pissed upon and came on stage and everyone knew who she was and Jamie Foxx saw a girl sitting amongst a million people in the auditorium and automatically knew it was his daughter who he didn't even know existed" as so many do. Lame.

I give Dreamgirls 4.5 stars. It lost points for Beyoncé's Golden Globes dress and the looming threat of Norbit.

In conclusion, if you like awesome movies, see Dreamgirls. If you like awesome movies with violence, see Pan's Labyrinth.

Boston, Part 1/3 : Clue VCR Mystery Game

Because my body can no longer handle anything more than a 3-day work week, I took last Friday off and was in Boston all weekend and yeah, I missed you too. Anyway Boston is great! It has grocery stores and the Superman movies and the Clue VCR Mystery Game starring Janet Wong as Miss Scarlet and me as the winner.

Some guy already reviewed the Clue VCR Mystery Game on the internet. Unfortunately, he is a dried-up old mushroom with no sense of fun.

That's not true, I'm kidding. Anyone who uses animated gif files in their game reviews has a fan in me. The difference between me and him is that I loved the movie. It had puns, bad acting, mystery, intrigue, no budget, and Janet Wong, my new favorite starlet. Mix in incomprehensible dialogue, ugly men in drag, horrible racism (CHOP....SUUUEEEEY.... YA GOT THAT?) and the occasional slapstick, and the result is a 60-minute cinematic adventure you will not soon forget.

(The game itself is too hard and takes a gabillion years and 10 viewings of every scene because nobody can remember who handled what weapon and what color the picture in the corner of the kitchen was during that 2-second shot 20 minutes ago. The cards don't help and everybody gets frustrated by the time it ends and starts accusing random people: "Miss Peach did it in the hotel room with the obnoxious, migrane-inducing southern twang." But we still played 3 times in a row and I'm the only person that won because I am a super sleuth.

Those are Miss Scarlets. Janet Wong is on the right, and as you can see, she is the best one of all. In the movie, Miss Scarlet is a Swiss spy who, according to a fabulous website I found, dreams of opening her own gas station one day. I, of course, only called her by her secret spy name, Dr. Tang.

Ok, the end. Next in this 3-part series about Boston, I'm going to talk about the Superman movies. As usual, it will be shallow and completely uninformative.

Eragon

This is about Eragon the movie version because I saw it yesterday and I read the book a year ago and I have good taste in men, so I know what I'm talking about.

It stars a brand new and totally lunchable 18-year-old British kid named Edward Speleers. He has sandy blond hair and a charming boyish face and that indefinable sexiness that comes of being a British 18-year-old. He is Eragon, a farm boy (because the only way to make a sexy blond teenager even sexier is to throw him in a farm and make him wrestle with his also-cute, also-blond cousin) and blah blah blah he finds this egg that eventually hatches into a CGI Rachel Weisz Dragon named Izzy Saphira. They have an adventure that's pretty much the plot of Star Wars. I'm not going through it.

Anyway, the book is better, obviously. Let's talk about that for a minute. People bitch about the book a lot because it's kind of a rehashed plot from Lord of the Rings and Star Wars... I guess it maybe is. I dunno. Lord of the Rings is so boring that I can't read it, and I'd use it's pages to proverbially wipe my ass if I weren't afraid the story's dryness would give me a vicious case of proverbial hemorrhoids. As for Star Wars my entire opinion of that movie series is "I like the Ewoks", which should give you an idea of much of the plot I remember. It's been a long time since I've seen them. So I'm not going to sit here and defend either side of the 'rehashed plot' argument because I quite frankly don't care. Eragon didn't change my life, but it's an entertaining read. If it's unoriginal, it's better than a lot of the other unoriginal crap out there.

The movie adaptation did a lot right and a lot wrong. The first thing it did right, which we've discussed a bit, is taking the characters as Christopher Paolini (the author) wrote them and making them sexy. Like this:

Also, the character of Murtagh is played by Garrett Hedlund and his eyeliner, a combination that made me want to jump through the screen and do something.... indecorous.

There was also a hot girl named Arya. She's an elf. A lot of people complained that she didn't have pointy elf ears, but I submit that with cheekbones and eyes like hers, prosthetic body parts are not only unnecessary, but a slight to her frail beauty. Bitch was sexay!

Lastly, I no longer hate Rachel Weisz because of The Fountain. She was delightful as Saphira. It's a huge relief. Hatred of people because they associate with bad talent is so tiring.

That's basically what the movie did right: hot, talented actors. Except for one, and we're going to use him to transition into the negative things. Cover your ears, I'm about to swear.

John Malkovich was so fucking bad!!!!!!! I could put a weight on my exclamation point button and leave for 90 years and that sentence would still not be emphasized enough. Now I'm not too familiar with the man's oeuvre, but I figure if you have a movie based on your brain, you must be pretty good at SOMETHING. But that something is obviously not playing an evil, tyrannical king, a part that--I'm sorry--is so not difficult. King Galbatorix is Eragon's Sauron except in the movies, that flaming eye thing had a bigger range emotions than Mr. Malkovich did. It felt like he was trying to do the Alan Rickman Menacing Monotone that makes Snape so sexy in the Potter films, but instead he sounded like he was annoyed at his wife for putting too much mayonnaise in the potato salad again. It was the most boring, uninspired portrayal of evil I've ever seen, and all I could think was "Didn't anybody notice this? Why didn't anybody say anything to him? Were they embarassed, maybe it's like when someone has something in their nose and you don't want to make them feel stupid so you hope they'll just sniff on their own."

The film also had a bunch of characters who were introduced and never developed and then they disappeared (which I had trouble noticing because I knew them from the book and they were fleshed out in my mind -- my friend Harry pointed it out.)

Other bad things include the glossing over of major plot points, no sense of a unique visual style (the movie doesn't look like the posters), Eragon too often portrayed as a whiny prat, the kids with the mullets who wouldn't shut up two rows back, and too few gay sex scenes between Eragon and his cousin (though I have high expectations for the DVD special features).

Ok, in conclusion, Eragon is mediocre, but if you're gay or 10 you'll really like it.