Wolfcop and Space Milkshake - B-Movies are the Best

Space Milkshake - is a B-sci-fi/horror movie that knows what it is and revels in its genre conventions. I mean, really, everyone who’s seen a sci-fi film that involves a mutating rubber duck, raise your hand. Oh, it’s just me? Then, everyone who wants to see a sci-fi film that involves a mutating rubber duck, raise your hand.

Okay, good, we’re all on the same page here.

Space Milkshake is about a futuristic spaceship full of garbage-men and –women whose job it is destroy debris that might interfere with space-traffic around Earth. Captain Anton Balvenie is a self-centered sometimes-jerk who’s mired in the petty/unhappy phase of a relationship with his frustrated, fed-up first officer, Valentina. The young technician Tilda mostly just works and keeps to herself, which frustrates their newest arrival – Jimmy, a talkative guy whose first time in space is being ruined by the attitude problem of his new coworkers.

It’s bad enough that Jimmy is greeted by his new boss curtly ordering him to fix a half-dozen different machines, but Tilda won’t even speak to him. It’s pretty clear that Jimmy won’t be able to glamorize life on a space station that uses lasers and spacepods to clear the paths of interplanetary travel. But then an unexpected cargo craft arrives, and Anton goes out on a salvage mission – and suddenly, there’s no radio communications from Earth. Hell, there isn’t even any trash orbiting Earth!

I’m not nostalgic for the 80’s and 90’s, but I have had many conversations lately about the fact that good or entertaining b-movies seem few and far between now. I feel a pang deep inside of me when I browse the horror and sci-fi offerings of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Youtube’s free film selection. Most of them are CGI fests with bad writing and/or acting, and they don’t have an enjoyable sense of tone, and they don’t do anything new.

Seriously, one of the most rewarding experiences as a film goer is getting to see good actors that you know star in low-budget ventures that make a strong effort to tell a good story – when you add the tone and mood of B-movies (think Black Dynamite, From Dusk Til Dawn), you create a possibility to have ungodly amounts of fun. And that’s exactly what you get with SM.

Valentina unloads on a truly unappreciative boyfriend.

Serenity and Iron Sky, Reviewed

In my last MRQ, I said that two intended entries would go instead to one multiple review post. Both films were fine enough to merit their own space and spotlight. The 60+ hour weeks I've been working slowed me down, but here we are with reviews of Joss Whedon's first feature film, 2005's Serenity, as well as the 2012 Finnish-German cult film, Iron Sky.

Serenity

When I was in grad school, an old college friend asked to crash at my Boston apartment. She was a huge Joss Whedon fan, and the East Coast had several advanced screenings for Serenity, the movie based on his short-lived sci-fi TV series, Firefly. I'm always happy to help a friend, so I told her I'd gladly host her for the night. And then she told me she had a second ticket.

My pal knew I'd never seen the series, but I didn't tell her why I hesitated when she invited me along. Basically, I tried to watch Firefly when it first aired, but I didn't especially like the pilot. Then, I saw the next episode and tuned in early enough to catch the theme song - which I thought was so awful that it had me laughing hysterically.

Music is pretty important to me, and Whedon's new series lost me from the get-go. Even more, between the setting and the song, I suddenly got very predictive about the show, (accurately) guessing that there would be a space cotillion, a space saloon fight, a space train robbery, and a space whorehouse. What I couldn't predict was that I would realize I was horribly wrong in my judgment. Firefly was terribly well-written and -acted.

I couldn't find the opening credits video, but it's lots of pictures of the cast, and the final shot is a ship flying over a herd of running horses.

Year-End Top Five

This is as close as I've come to having a genuine top five for the year on December 31 in a long, long time. There's the proviso that I haven't watched a lot of films that I expect might make some noise on this list including but not limited to: 12 Years a Slave (geez, title of 160 y/o slave narrative, SPOILERS much?), Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, Frances Ha, All Is Lost, and Before Midnight.

1) Gravity -- I gushed enough about this previously--it's the film that finally convinced me 3D was good for something. The interesting thing about #1 vs. #2 is how close the race is, and how completely and totally different the two films are. Gravity blends CGI and live performance so extensively that it could technically be termed an animated film; meanwhile, I would be fairly surprised if there's a single frame of CGI in American Hustle. Depending on the day of the week, I could flip-flop these picks.

2) American Hustle -- I'm not sure if this will go up before or after my American Hustle review posts, but if it's before, I'll come back and link it here. Let's just say that I was really taken with this subversive con man film, which is, but isn't really, about the ABSCAM scandal of the late 1970s. This is the kind of movie that could sweep the acting categories at the Oscars if the stars align just so.

Three Kinds of Crazy: Appreciating Nick Cage

Because life can be dreadfully random, here are three short reviews featuring Nicolas Cage. I'm sure it won't be a shock to anyone that in all three he plays deeply disturbed individuals.

Kick-Ass

Ever find a movie somewhat enjoyable and also kinda reprehensible? That's Kick-Ass, the adaptation of Mark Millar's comic book--a decent enough time complicated by story and morality problems.

The story has two parts. The first is the type of high-concept premise that Millar specializes in: what if a regular superhero-obsessed teen (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), with no superpowers or fighting skills, decided to dress up in a wetsuit and go out there and fight crime? The initial result, a high profile beat down at the hands of some hoods, should be the end of the story. Instead, we go to part two, where Kick-Ass--wetsuit guy's actual chosen superhero name--recovers from his injuries and gets back into the superhero game, improbably becoming a big success and capturing the public's attention.

In this second part of the story, the focus shifts from Kick-Ass to two unrelated heroes, Big Daddy and Hit Girl. Big Daddy, played awesomely by Nick Cage, is basically Batman, minus the restrictions on killing and using guns. Cage gives Big Daddy two sides--a mild-mannered and sometimes visibly disturbed civilian identity, and a dead-on Adam West impression while in costume, making the character almost equal parts incredible and pathetic. Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), the Robin to Big Daddy's Batman, is one of the more problematic fictional characters in film history. She's a sword- and gun-wielding killing machine, foulmouthed like Don Logan...and she's also middle school-aged.

Star Wars Month Re-review

Fine, I give up. I loved the original series, but I never learned the names of all the random stuff on-screen. And I never thought I'd write so much about any of those films unless new ones were released.

I briefly reviewed the SW prequels a year ago, but it's Star Wars Month, so the latter series is worth a second shot. I will discuss each picture last. As a bonus, I'm also reviewing the SW filmumentaries I recommended earlier, as well as the audio commentary Red Letter Media made for the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace. I'm doing the last part first.

Mr. Plinkett's Phantom Menace Audio Commentary

It's sort of jarring. A 2-hour, 16-minute commentary track represents a lot of time for one person to talk. And it's a performance piece... It's even odder still, considering Red Letter Media's "Mr. Plinkett" character is supposed to be an elderly socio/psychopath who killed his wives, plays mind-games with his cats, and bakes pizza rolls.

This means that part of the commentary is a discussion of the problems with TPM - and, to the creators' credit, it's different criticism than what they used for their earlier Star Wars Prequels reviews. The points aren't nitpicky. They simply highlight the glaring flaws in a movie with barely a line of sensible dialogue.

But the other part of the commentary is a series of random, insane skits where Plinkett babbles on about his retirement home, his dead wives, or whether his cats will get revenge on him. Hell, the guy makes random comments about his fictitious bowel/urinary problems!

Plinkett is a weird and rare comedy routine - the humor is incredibly dry, and the writing works hard to buck your expectations. It's not that the performance is different from Plinkett's earlier material - it's just that there's a lot more of it.

The non-movie material might seem weird or tiresome, but at least (a) some of the jokes are funny and (b) it'a all in character. You, as a listener, just have to be ready to deal with the weirdness. And, in my opinion, it's likely that the commentary track could become tiresome if all it did was talk about the actual movie.

In short, it's funny and strange, but also makes great statements about TPM and its problems.. I recommend you give it a listen, if you can handle it. 

Star Wars Original Trilogy Filmumentaries

These could more accurately be called "composite commentaries." Anyone who's seen a video with pop-up information will understand the basic idea. In this case, there isn't just static information - you'll be shown behind-the-scenes filming of the crew while they set up, or the actors' practice takes, or you'll see the scene but with audio from a table-reading.

The effort put into these, and the results, are exceptional. It's almost a given - because so many people love SW, and because it was so well-documented, there's a lot of information available. This must have given the filmumentaries' creator the tough/easy task of picking the best material to add onto a cut of the original film. All I can say is that the choices were excellent. They were also surprising, yet fair.

@jamieSWB - Star Wars Begins - The Complete Filmumentary from Filmumentaries - Jamie Benning on Vimeo.

1.5 Double Dip, 1/2 Quickie: X-Men Trilogy

Yes, it's a mashup of two site features, mixing a half-length Movie Review Quickie (only 3 films) and a really unusual Double Dip. I wrote a hefty X-Men review a while back. It was longer than I needed it to be, but I was setting up coverage of X2 and The Usual Suspects. & I guess it’s easier for me to praise or trash a pic than for me to call it “so-so.”

I'm going back to the well, but differently. This time, I'll briefly cover all the films, meaning I’ll tackle X-Men again, if quickly – and I’ll still reserving my long-form X2 review for later. So, it’s sort of a "1 & 1/2" or possibly even a "double-reverse" double dip. Confusing? I call it a bold, elegant, and startling act of symmetry; trust me on that.

X-Men

In two sentences: Good people with powers spend their time learning about themselves and being constructive while bad people with superpowers try to scare humanity into not killing or "tracking" them. An untouchable runaway girl and a rugged man who heals anything get involved in an on-going struggle between 2 charismatic older Englishmen, a kind wheelchair-bound telepath and a brutal rebel who controls magnetism. Yes, that's an actual story.

You will believe a man can rock that hairstyle.

X-Men is at times hollow, weak, effective, heart-felt, cool, clever, dull, exciting, and dumb. The title's misleading, as the film zeroes in on mega-talented Hugh Jackman and his charms and rarely goes beyond him. Hugh's presence sells the pic, but he neither gets the whole film nor allows time for the rest of the cast, so he dilutes its purpose; at least he gets a proper arc.

Introduction, and Summer TV Roundup

Hi, I’m Derek. By trade, I’m a writer and editor, although I also have a law degree and license. I’ve written about baseball for Baseball Prospectus and on the Bombers Broadside annuals, and I’ve also written about baseball and whatever else strikes my fancy over at my web site, The Weblog that Derek Built. Thaddeus--my brother, and the proprietor of this site--has invited me to share my thoughts about cinema here, so I’m glad to join the Net-Flixation family.

And of course, since my invitation here is to write about movies, I’m going to start out with television reviews. It’s not my fault, really. One of my twin boys has been suffering a bit of insomnia, so I’ve been stuck rocking him back to sleep night after night. Needing something to keep me from getting bored to death--and not wanting to commit the time to watch a movie--I’ve gotten some quality (and sometimes not-so-quality) time with the new shows of the summer season. Here goes:

For the record, "Blade" 2 & 3 sucked

I wouldn't write this, but it came up recently. I have a backlog of quality films to discuss (Bergman, Bertolucci, Godard), so the distraction is almost annoying. I may have an affinity for horror, but it's generally unimportant. I only liked the first "Blade" so much because the writer, David S. Goyer, did an amazing job. I knew that such writing - for any genre (even teen romance) - would produce a movie you simply had to see. It only fails if you are averse to violent action pics or scary myths like vampires. But the second and third movies wasted my time. I wish I could un-watch them. I don't say that often. At least "Tango & Cash" was fun. Goyer wrote "Batman Begins" and "TDK," as well as the brilliant-but-troubled "Dark City." Perhaps he shouldn't confine himself to two genres, but clearly the man is very talented. To make any fantasy story (e.g., fairy tale, superhero) work, you have a hard task in making a world that viewers can "accept" for 90+ minutes.

Yet Goyer consistently accomplishes this. Then he goes a step beyond, intelligently carving out credible and interesting characters with emotional arcs and good dialogue. He makes the things they do entertaining, he makes the plot work, and he makes his audience invest in the roles. Even before filming, c'est magnifique!

So it's troubling to know that he also scripted the "Blade" sequels - the writing in each is a cataclysmic flaw. By which I mean "explosively bad." I can muster no certain explanation for their problems. My best guess is that perhaps other people - directors, producers, actors, etc - influenced the final product. Then again, DG may have just "choked." Or maybe he said everything he had to in the original work.

Regardless, parts 2 and 3 are badly-written. #2 has banal dialogue, the same "capture the hero" subplot from the first, and characters that seem lifted from other movies. Also, hideous lines and dumb moments: I was laughing minutes before the climax in "Blade 2" - the annoying/boring eastern european villain was running from one room to another, repeatedly screaming "Faaaather!" while tearing apart a series of doors. 'nuff said? I hope so.

"Blade 3" featured another fairly-bland cast. The main villain has such a non-presence it seems intentional - or the actor was anesthetized. If the former is true, it might be an interesting choice. But since the actor isn't bad, Goyer seems a likely culprit - and he also directed "Blade 3." We get even more pointless bombast than in #2. Example: a woman who hunts vampires while listening to her Ipod. Ugh!

Neither sequel was engaging or particularly believable. Both showed little flourishes of good writing or nice ideas amidst a general failure of plotting and scripting. Nor did I care about the people on the screen. All this, despite the first film's success and the higher budgets of the later movies.

I've always felt that "Blade" was good because it was so low-key (apart from the action, naturally). It was dark and moody, balanced by a nice variety of good jokes. I appreciated its originality, sense of atmosphere, and dead-on writing. These things were largely missing from the two follow-up efforts.

Again, it's hard to pinpoint where things went wrong. It's very hard since the principals, Goyer and Guillermo Del Toro (director of Blade 2), aren't prone to hack work. Nor do they stumble in the face of big-budget productions. In fact, the director with the worst track record (Stephen "LXG" Norrington) released the best film (the first).

In the end, I can only say that the first part of the franchise was a fun, nifty story with fantastic action, while both sequels had good action but no story. To quote a big line from the climax of part 1: "Some mot*********'s always gotta ice-skate uphill."