Bright Blue Lights

I'm from San Francisco, so it's required that I hate that other city to the south of us. Sorry. Sure, I have friends Los Angeles and even applied to some colleges in the area. But, my San Francisco pride remains strong! Which means I'm thrilled about influx of films depicting LA as it gets the ever living crap kicked out of it. Aliens seem to be a popular way to go about showing the City of Angel's destruction, and Skyline is leading the charge. Unfortunately, for the messiah that will usher in the destruction So-Cal's pride and glory, it's kind of a lame duck. Sorry to say it, but Skyline sucks, and I mean really sucks! What started as some stock footage that wowed the crowd at Comic-Con has turned into a painfully bad, cliche ridden tale of extra-terrestrial mayhem. State of the art effects can't save it. Cool premise can't save it. This one is DOA!

Oh crap!

Cinematic Captions #2

Ok, so. I can't be bothered to come up with funny lines for every single screen grab that I get my hands on, so I'm going to take a leaf of advice form Castor and change up CC. It is now interactive, a game, if you will. Every week, I'll post a picture, and then you, the loyal reader, will sound off in the comments with your witty phrase. The winner will be announced the following week, with their phrase proudly etched into the picture. I'll make a leader board. You'll fight tooth and nail to get on it. It'll be spectacular! Ok then. Let's do it.

Impress me!

Trailer Trash: The Beaver

It's time to root through some trailers. What sorts of wonderful things will be alluded to today?

Soooooo... Mel Gibson. Crazy dude, right? Kind of a jerk, it would seem. It must suck to be Jodie Foster right now. Imagine this. You're trying to promote your new movie, in which you star and direct, and your male lead is making headlines for spewing phrases that would make the leaders of the Klan blush and squirm uncomfortably. I don't know about you, but I'd be a little distressed if that were the case. Wonder how Jodie's coping with it? Yeesh...

The Beaver is about a man, Walter Black, who finds himself in a mind numbing depression after being kicked out of his house by his wife and less than loving children. He can't pull himself out of it, until one day, when he finds a beaver in the form of a hand puppet in the garbage. He puts it on his hand, and, crazily enough, the beaver takes on a life of its own. Soon, Walter is living vicariously through this beaver, and all looks good, until the beaver starts to exert more control over his life. When his family tries to pull him back to them, Walter finds himself struggling to come back to reality.

Sooo... yeah. Mel Gibson. He's Walter, and, here's the crazy thing. People who have seen this movie say Gibson is fantastic in it. Like, it's a career best for him, and a serious Oscar contender, that is, if he weren't the intolerant douche bag he is in real life. Oscar doesn't want to give out it's main acting award to a jerk. It's shame, because if Gibson is, in fact, as good as this trailer makes him out to be, and as good as people are saying, then some award love would only be fitting. Jodie Foster and Anton Yelchin also show up as Walter's wife and son, respectively.

This trailer depresses the hell out of me. Those images of Walter lying on his bed, floating in his pool, or curled up on his couch are actually kinda heartbreaking. This looks like one of those movies. You know, a film that tugs at the heart strings and makes you empathize with the main character's plight in a very honest and realistic way. In other words, a damn good movie! The only problem? Mel! Fucking! Gibson! I doubt many people will be willing to give a film with him in it a shot. Well, bully for them. If the film is as good as the trailer makes it out to be, then they'll be missing out.

Muscle Milk

Men! We're a brutish subspecies, aren't we? For all our pandering, and romantic bullshit, and our useless groveling, we will always return to our most basic tendencies, those being, desiring to blow shit up, grunting, and doing excessively macho things like fighting wild boars or taking a bath in molten lava.
...
Ok, fine. Maybe that's a glorified description of how stupid men are compared to women, but, some of it strikes home. Traditionally, men will go for something fun, loud, and exciting, but ultimately hollow and forgettable. Which would explain why The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone's celebration of muscles and bullets and blood did so well at the box-office. It's a whiz-bang, hell of a good time action flick, but one that is devoid of all humanity and subtlety. Oh sure, it's a lot of fun, and you will walk away from the film chatting about how awesome that one part with the stuff and the thing was, but, wait a couple of days, and you'll be hard pressed to remember why you made such a big deal about it in the first place.

Lucky for us, no acting required!

Glee Review: Special Education

Am-badass-ador! Ha ha ha! Puck, you slay me!

With Kurt gone, Mr. Schu is struggling to find a new member of the club so they will be able to compete at sectionals. He finds one in the resident fatass Lauren. You know, that whale of a girl who wanted Mr. Schue's babies in Brittany/Britney, and the one who got him sick in The Substitute? Yeah, that girl. She's a bitch! Big deal. Not the point of the episode.

As the club gears up for Sectionals, tensions don't just flare. They explode! Will finally realizes that he has been ignoring the other talent in the club in favor of Rachel and Finn, his two heavyweights. So, he pulls a fast one on everybody, declaring that Sam and Quinn will sing the opening ballad of their set list, and that the big number will be more dance centric so as to give Mike and Britney a chance to shine. Well, Rachel's pissed, and begins acting even more ridiculous than usual, stooping so low as to come into rehearsal with duct tape over her mouth as protest of being silenced, which causes Will to finally lose it with her. Powerful stuff. Meanwhile, Kurt is taught a lesson in humility when his tendencies to take control are rebuffed at the first rehearsal of his new club. He takes it a lot better than Rachel though.

On another note, Special Education was pretty heavy in terms of relationships. Santana finally spilled the beans on her and Finn sleeping together way back in Season 1, leading Rachel to drag him to couples therapy, and then cozy up to Puck. Artie and Brittany run into snags along with Mike and Tina when Artie and Tina begin to suspect that Mike and Brittany, who are spending a lot of time together rehearsing, are going at it. Oh, and Emma impulsively marries Carl. Yeesh!

I must say, it was sort of refreshing to see everyone blow up in each others faces like that. Sure, they all bicker at each other and whatnot, but they have always kept their emotions in check. To see people actually start shouting was a welcome change of pace. Gotta say though, I wanted to punch Rachel and Mercedes in the face in this episode, especially Rachel. She's always been a selfish bitch, but she was a raging selfish bitch in this episode. She claims to learn about being part of team and things like that, but the second she doesn't get a solo, she's goes crazy! It's gotten to the point where it's stopped being funny, and is just aggravating. I don't like the character anymore, and I was actually on Finn's side when he broke it off with her. While I think it was nice for all the other relationships in the club to remain intact, I think it was a good move for the writers to break up Rachel and Finn. They got together way too quickly, and they couldn't stay together forever. People would get bored.

Sang it sista!

Music wise, this episode was strong. The Warbler's rendition of "Hey, Soul Sister", led by Darren Criss, sounded awesome. Sam and Quinn's duet of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" was beautiful, and soundly destroyed Finn and Rachel's duet of "Faithfully" from regionals last year. New Directions' big number, "Valerie", was a lot of fun, as was the finale of the episode, Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days are Over". The only weak song, if you can call it that, was Rachel and Kurt's rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from Evita. It's not that it's a bad song. It's just that, compared to the raw power of the other numbers, it felt a little tame.

All the humor in this episode fell to Puck and Brittany. Puck was righteous hoot as he tried to get the other football players to man up and join glee. His version of the Bruce Springsteen story was hysterical, and I loved how he shouted Karofsky down for how he forced Kurt out. Brittany also had some winner lines, as when she confuses adultery with being stupid, or, as she puts it, being adult. Funny stuff.

I honestly don't know how I feel about Glee this week, or anymore, for that matter. There have been some very heavy plots being thrown into the mix, which is all well and good. I love me some serious drama, but it comes at a cost. The stuff that makes this show so great is being pushed to the side, that being, absurd humor, a celebration of cliches, and fun songs. The songs are still there, but the cliches are not so much being celebrated as they are being condemned, and the humor isn't anywhere near as biting. That could be because Sue hasn't been showing up as much, and her material isn't as strong when she does. Even so, Special Education was a decent episode. A lot of the dramatic stories were finished in this episode. Kurt's at Dalton, Rachel and Finn have broken it off, Emma's married (though it's not gonna last long. I'm calling it), and the club is moving on to Regionals. So, hopefully, now all this serious stuff is wrapped up, the show can return to its fun loving ways. I sure hope so!

So, Brittany does motocross. Strangely, that makes complete sense.

According to the Movies #19

If the movies say it, it must be true!

Have you noticed this? There has been something that bothered me about medieval films or fantasy films set in medieval times. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, until now. I was watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King just last night, and on that slo-mo shot of Miranda Otto's Eowyn cheering right before the Rohirrim charge, it hit me. All these people have such impeccable teeth!

Ok, hold up a sec! How is this possible? These people are living in medieval times. Last I checked, toothbrushes weren't exactly a popular commodity back in those days and dental hygiene wasn't explicitly a problem people felt they needed to concern themselves with. But, in these films, there they are, those pearly whites. 

Granted, only the leads have good teeth. Nothing gives away a villain like a disgusting set of chompers, but still. What's the deal? Let's look at some examples, shall we?

Uh-huh...

Well, this one's a bit dark, but believe me. They're immaculate!

Do you see? Look at those things!

Powerful stuff.

The Lesson: If you are a good guy in a film set in a time of castles, swords, shields, and bloody bloody warfare, chin up. At least your teeth will be pretty.

Cinema Code of Conduct

Here's my contribution to a meme that Wynter over at Cinema Scream is heading up. Here's how this one works. We post the picture you see below. Then, we come up with our own, additional rule to add to the list. Two days form now, on December 3, Wynter will write up a post with everyone's additional rule. Easy enough, right? He wants all of you to get involved as well. So, here's what you do. Download the picture here, and then post it to your... whatever you use, and then link back to Cinema Scream with your 11th rule. Let's see how many the Black Hole can churn out. Come on minions! We can do it!

The Black Hole's 11th Rule: No sleeping! Seriously! Yes, the actors on screen can't see you, but, you came to the theatre to observe their art. Show some bloody respect. And if you just can't keep your eyes open, then, for the love of Lucifer, do not snore! No one wants to hear that! Karate chops to the neck are allowed if you snore. Also, I have a pack of rabid dogs, and they have an appetite for balls! Do you want that? Didn't think so. Don't do it!