Movie Madness!

The summer movie season's here!  I am so, so happy!  Granted, it is expensive to see all these movies, but I've been saving pennies for the express purpose of doing this.  While some people like going to sports events and others like going to resorts for summer fun, your humble blog hostess and her crew like going to the movies!  I'm in the process of working on 5 movie reviews at the same time right now (this is so much more fun than schoolwork), but if you're in a hurry, here are the grades.

• The Grand Budapest Hotel: B+
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier: A
• Godzilla: B+
• X-Men: Days of Future Past: A+
• Only Lovers Left Alive: B
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Honestly, I haven't even bothered to go yet

Yes, I know this all sounds like grade inflation, but these flicks I've seen really are THAT good.  Next up: Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, and How to Train Your Dragon 2!  I am expecting great things.

In related news: some people are so inherently beautiful that they can make even scrubs or 1970s fashion look goooooood, baby.

Monday Therapy: "Twilight"'s Ultimate Hater

La Parisienne and I hate Twilight, and we are pleased that we not alone. Still, one does wonder if the entire Twilight experience has driven Robert Pattinson mad.

Hilariously Hateful: Let's Shred "Twilight"

The lovely La Parisienne and I are tickled by these two microblogs:

• Reasoning with Vampires
• No One Hates Twilight More Than Robert Pattison

The first blog gloriously teaches good writing by highlighting bad writing and explaining why it's bad.  And Meyer's writing is so, so bad.

The second one is especially funny because La Parisienne had noted long ago that Pattison stated in interviews that he hates the character that he plays - the utterly creepy Edward Cullen, undead sparkles and all.  Even since then, she and I have liked the actor more.  The blog painstakingly collects every disparaging remark he's made about the franchise.  It really does seem as if the entire experience has driven him slightly mad.  It is, though, hilarious: "If Edward wasn't a fictional character and you met him in reality, he'd be one of those guys that'd be an axe murderer."

Nerd Fun: What If Other Authors Had Written "Twilight"?

For La Parisienne -- this idea is full of win.

Movie Review Rant: "Twilight: Breaking Dawn"

The rant isn't by me, but it basically encapsulates everything I've been saying about the "Twilight" phenomenon.  Read the whole thing.  Blurb here:

People always make a big deal about how Bella is a just a human being fought over by two monsters. But to me she's always been as monstrous as Jacob and Edward. She has the superpower of draining away everybody else's emotional stability and sucking them into her endless melodrama. 

... Bella was growing into the most horrifying monster of all: a girl-woman with no drive to do anything but feed her bottomless hunger for adoration, luxury, and attention. She's a supernatural version of Octomom.

I do have one big objection, though, and that's to the cavalier labeling of the "Twilight" tale as a "conservative romance narrative."  What?  Kindly define what you mean by "conservative."  This center-right/libertarian and all her like-minded girl friends are all appalled by Stephenie Meyer's twisted, deplorable, utterly hate-able, emotionally and socially retrograde creation.  

In Case of Vampire ...

Delightful bit of advertising for the TV show "True Blood."  Kudos.

Mini-Movie Review: "Fright Night"

"Let's kill something."

Finally, a proper vampire flick that doesn't have idiotic girls named Bella or self-loathing (and infinitely loathe-able) sparkly pseudo-monsters whose heart I want to cut out with a spoon!  Nope, you'll get none of that here even though the protagonist Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) is a teenager. "Fright Night" is sheer campy horror fun.  With plenty of rip-roaring suspense and action -- not to mention rousing turns by Colin Farrell as Jerry the unapologetically and delightfully creepy vampire and David Tennant as Peter Vincent the hilariously overdone Vegas personality who hunts him -- "Fright Night" delivers some stylish, sassy genre entertainment in a genre that desperately needed an intervention to kick it out of its brain-dead Twilight stupor.  "Fright Night" better deliver that jolt -- Marti Noxon the Buffy alum wrote the screenplay!  This horror-action-comedy remake of the 1985 cult classic is a great way to end the summer.  (Yes, I used the UK poster because it has David on it.  So sue me.)

MM gives "Fright Night" a  solid grade of B.

Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a Fresh rating of 77%.

"Fright Night" runs 101 minutes and is rated R for language, violence, and gore (though, frankly, I thought it barely deserved this ... Then again, I usually laugh at horror-schlocky violence!).

De Gustibus: Mitt Romney and "Twilight"

Well, there's no accounting for taste.  But "Twilight"?  Dude, really?

Movie Madness: Joss Whedon Comments on Joss-less Buffy Movie Project

First we had this.  (More here.)  Now The Whedon responds.  Oh, he is fabulous.  Also fabulous: David "Angel" Boreanaz, who responded with a photo on Twitter.

What Fresh Hell Is This? Warner Bros. Reboot Buffy Without Joss Whedon

WHAT?!!!   NOOOOOOOOOO!!

Hating on "Twilight" in Delicious Detail

The Kamikaze Editor sent me the link to a website called Reasoning with Vampires, and I have been amusing myself with it for days.  Some enterprising, dedicated hater of "Twilight" has gone to great lengths to dissect and disassemble it.  You knew the book sucked, but you may not have ever fully appreciated the sheer magnitude of its awfulness.  In some ways, this is the literary version of the magnificent video beatdowns of the Star Wars prequels.  Our hater scans in an actual bit of the book and then adds her own observations.  The result is often brilliant and always entertaining.  Here, let me give you an example.  Click to enlarge.

Couch Potato Chronicles: Live Free or Twihard -- Dean Winchester 1,000,000, Twilight 0

The title of the most recent new episode of "Supernatural" is so simply awesome that I can't top it.  In fact, most of the episode was a hilarious bit of subgenre-on-subgenre violence.  Oh, sure, technically both "Supernatural" the show and Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" books/movies inhabit the "supernatural/fantasy/horror/sci fi" supergenre, but that is no reason for the two to play nicely together. In fact, "Supernatural" pulled out the stops to bash "Twilight" mercilessly and relentlessly for pleasure and profit, and I frankly LOVED it.

From the opening sequence's riff on "vapid idiotic 17-year-old girl loves creepy vampire pretty boy" (I can't have been the only one who laughed uproariously when the girl's name turned out to be "Kristen" and her vampire lover boy's "Robert") to Dean's priceless reaction to the girl's ridiculously decorated bedroom/shrine-to-vampires, the "Twilight"-bashing was delicious.  Haters gonna hate, I hate "Twilight" with a fiery vengeance, and I hadn't had this much pop culture hate-filled fun in a while!  Plus, here are just two of the numerous quotable lines: "What are you, twelve?... Are you wearing ... glitter?!" and "These aren't vampires, man!  These .... these are d*****bags!"

Here's Exhibit A of Dean's glorious animosity (from 0:00 to 1:35):

So there you have it.  Two memorable "Supernatural" episodes in a row (I loved last week's Bobby-centric tale, as you recall), and the show, apparently remembering finally that it was its combination of snarky pop-culture humor and tongue-in-cheek genre storytelling that made it great in the first place, is beginning to win me back.  Besides, Dean Winchester is once more fun to watch, now that he's no longer spending every other moment of screen time moaning and wailing and hand-wringing.  Let's get back to the fundamentals, shall we? "Cute Guys Killing Monsters While Cracking Jokes About Pop Culture and Listening to Awesome Music."
UPDATE:  Take a look at io9's review.

Couch Potato Chronicles: Winchesters Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread

So far I haven't been too impressed with the new season of "Supernatural," (and it's still on probation in my book after last season) but I have to say, tonight's episode made me smile. Check out this clip (slight language warning). It captures the fun that used to be the hallmark of the show. Plus ... Oh, Castiel.  How I've missed you.

OK.  You might appreciate this along with La Parisienne.  In the preview for next week's episode, Dean Winchester did wonders for himself in my good graces by slamming "Twilight."  Oh, this is the sort of snarky utterance Dean used to give all the time: "These aren't vampires; these are d*****bags."  All right, Dean.  Win me back.

UPDATE: 10 Reasons to watch "Supernatural."  As the Kamikaze Editor summed it up recently, "Cute guys killing monsters."  Nuff said.

Movie Madness: Take That, "Twilight"! It's the Trailer for "Vampires Suck"

The trailer's pretty funny, so let's hope the entire spoof is too.  You know, as the entire "Twilight" debacle rolls on, I have to wonder how much you can actually parody this thing.  I mean, it practically parodies itself.

Book Review: "The Passage" by Justin Cronin

A 700-page-long horror thriller novel about a vampire apocalypse? I haven't read this thing. Still, it's been getting a good bit of bookworm buzz (director Ridley Scott is interested in turning it into a movie), so here is a review.

Well, at least it's not yet another zombie apocalypse!

Pop Culture Commentary: JJ Abrams Versus Joss Whedon

Choose you this day whom you will serve, pop culture fans!

UPDATE 1: Heh!

UPDATE 2: OK, I went back through the archives and found this, my most gushing fangirlish praise of Abrams, and it included this line: "credit must be given where credit is due to JJ Abrams, who helmed this project and more or less achieved Joss Whedon status with it." Hmmm!

Oh, Joss. I'll always be your girl. I'll always adore you for giving us "Buffy" and "Angel" and especially "Firefly," because, as Hyacinth Girl says so well, I LOVE MY CAPTAIN. And Wash. Always Wash.

But JJ, I'll raise a glass to you for "Alias" (when it was good, that is), the fabulously resurrected "Star Trek," and for showcasing the adorable Greg Grunberg as even more adorable Agent Eric Weiss. All of you other girls can keep that high-strung pretty boy Vaughn. Give me Weiss. Cheerful, courageous, unpretentious, huggable Weiss.

Movie Madness: How "Twilight" Should Have Ended

Some movie fun for La Parisienne and everyone else who hates "Twilight":

"Let's go eat some people! Whoooooo!"

Movie Review Preview: "Daybreakers" and "Percy Jackson"

I've been busy on campus, but here is the short version of 2 movie reviews:

"Daybreakers"
Fun little vampire flick that has a creative twist on the genre -- that doesn't involve sparkly epidermis and mopey emo teenagers. It has elements of "The Matrix" and zombie apocalypse, and it presents a fascinating vision of a world filled with vampires as the dominant species. I give the flick a good solid B, though if you don't like lots of theatrical blood, you won't like this. I, on the other hand, tend to laugh rather than scream. Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe star, along with Sam Neill as the villain. Come on, Sam Neill is an evil corporate vampire. That alone should be reason to see this thing! Plus 3 words: Vampire. Feeding. Frenzy.

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief"
An amusing little flick with a ponderous title, "Percy Jackson" isn't great, but it's colorful entertainment for a gloomy wintry February. I liked it despite its flaws, of which it has plenty, but what it does right is pretty diverting. I'm talking about Uma Thurman as a fabulous Medusa, some fun twists and mythological references, and Pierce Brosnan as Chiron the teacher-centaur. Come on, Pierce Brosnan is a centaur. That alone should be reason to see this thing! Plus the always excellent Sean Bean as Zeus and the delicious Kevin McKidd as Poseidon. (In all honesty, I went to see these guys, not Logan Lerman and his teenaged posse on a quest.) There's a vibe of "National Treasure" meets Greek mythology, though clearly someone hasn't figured out that Athena is famously a virgin goddess. B- overall.

(Oh, and one more thing: the movie makes one laugh-out-loud stupid line of dialogue that hints Obama is a demigod. HA! Really? Who's his divine parent? The god of deficits?)

Bad hair day.

The Cinema-Mad Sibling Reviews "Daybreakers"

The Cine-Sib and I recently went to see the new vampire movie "Daybreakers" with some of our friends. Here is the latest Cine-Sib haiku review:

The world is undead.
Humans are farmed for their blood.
But is there a cure?

My own review will be online later. Caveat: there is a lot of gore in this flick! It's of a video-game, horror-flick schtick ludicrous sort of gore, though, so my buddies and I were laughing uproariously in our seats.

Short version of my review: I liked it. Come on, just think -- Sam Neill as a vampire villain! Besides, this flick is an anti-"Twilight." You can read this until I get my own review done.

Film Culture Commentary: Uncomfortable Age/Gender Questions and "Twilight"

I've just never understood (a) what appeal "Twilight" has for its screaming teenaged fangirls, or (b) the even creepier appeal it seems to have for some middle-aged women, some of whom are the moms of the teenyboppers.

Call them "Twilight Moms" or whatever, but there's something really disturbing about their obsession with Edward Cullen. La Parisienne and I have talked about this, and I'm now amused to see that we're not alone. Take a look at this: