My Cousin Vinny

There are three kinds of purchases one can make: intentional, impulsive, and irrational. The other day, I went to Best Buy with the intent of purchasing the Always Sunny Christmas special; this was an intentional purchase. While at Best Buy, I saw The Fountain, Snatch, and Black Hawk Down on sale for $4.99 each. These were all movies that I had always had some interest in buying or seeing, but did not intend to purchase when I had walked into Best Buy. These purchases, thus, were impulsive. And then I bought one more $4.99 DVD: My Cousin Vinny. This cannot be called anything but irrational. As my friend (who was with me at the time of the purchase) said, this movie is on Comedy Central all the time and, well, isn't even that good. But I had never seen it, had only vaguely heard of it, and "justified" the buy by saying, "but it's got Joe Pesci and the Karate Kid, and Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for her performance in it!" Fine. But, having never previously known much of anything about the movie at all, this was still an irrational buy. Now, the movie itself was alright. But only alright. Aside from two tiring miscommunication shticks at the beginning, 100% of the humor was derived from the "Yankee down in Dixie" cliche. Two Italian New Yorkers are falsely accused of a crime in Alabama and then two more Italian New Yorkers come down to try to bail them out of trouble. Culture clash! You get the picture. As far as the acting goes, Joe Pesci was funny, but mainly because of his over-the-top guinea-ness. Marisa Tomei was cute and all, but an Academy Award? I know the "best supporting actor" awards are kind of thrown about with little rhyme or reason, but this might be one of my all-time "really?" reactions to an Oscar-winning performance. She was way better in The Wrestler, which at least saw her nominated for the award. This movie was a six in my book - not "bad" by any measure, but very forgettable and average at best. Not bad for an irrational purchase, but then again, it's always bad when you make an irrational purchase.

The Fountain

Pretentious. That's one word you may have heard describing Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. And the people who label it as such are not without merit. The plot is wide open at best and completely nonsensical at worst. There's a very in-your-face religious combination of Judeo-Christianity, Mayan lore, and Buddhism at the core of the film. Symbolism, imagery, and quirky transitions run rampant. So, yeah, I suppose this is one of the more pretentious films around. But it's certainly not a bad one. I didn't love this flick, but I did enjoy its graceful ninety minute run. It's shot and scored beautifully, and the acting is nothing to complain about either. In trying to describe (defend?) the film's lack of a coherent plot, Aronofsky likens his project to a Rubik's cube; there's no right way to solve it, but there is definitely one solution. The solution here? Something about death. (There's no real plot to spoil, so read on with no fear of having the movie ruined.) There's a man who loves a woman, and she's dying from brain cancer. The man (a scientist) tries very hard to find a cure for her cancer, and while he's at it, he finds an anti-aging device (my guess is that this is symbolic of the titular "Fountain" of Youth; yeah, I know, I'm not really going out on a limb with that one). But this woman has written a book that takes place in Inquisition-era Spain, and as the man reads the book, he pictures himself as the chief conquistador and his dying wife as the Queen of Spain. And eventually there's a future-version of the man who is riding through space with the (dead) biblical Tree of Life in a giant bubble toward a supernova. Yep, it gets pretty weird pretty fast. But the imagery is cool and the message manages to be somewhat straightforward (don't fear the reaper, is what I took from it - along with some various stuff about self-sacrifice and the danger of seeking eternal life and such). So was the movie "pretentious?" Yeah, probably at least a little bit. But did it suck? Not at all! I'd watch it again in a heartbeat, even if mostly just to see if I could pick up on some subtle shit (you know, the bread and butter of pretentious films) that I didn't catch the first time through. It certainly beats the hell out of Pi. Pi sucked.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas

The much-anticipated Sunny Christmas special was something I knew I needed to buy this Thanksgiving break and watch with all of my friends. I didn't expect it to cost $20 (for something only 43 minutes long? yikes!) but cost wasn't really a constraint here. Anyway, earlier tonight I did indeed bring it to a friend's house, and it was enjoyed by all present. My biggest fear going into the double-length episode was that, being a Christmas special, this episode would have some kind of "very special" bullshit twist to it, like "the gang learns that the true meaning of Christmas is giving" or "love and friendship are the greatest gift of all" or something similarly feel-good and tacky. And it almost did employ such a twist. No thank you. I like my Sunny the way it's typically served: relentlessly amoral. Fortunately, there was just enough of that good old me-first Sunny spirit to save the episode. But it was not without its weird moments. At times, it really seemed to drag. In fact, the Dennis and Dee half of the story was downright boring, save for a ridiculous off-the-wall scene that ends with a sweaty, naked Danny DeVito escaping from the interior of a leather couch. But the Mac and Charlie half was very solid; they were able to carry the story pretty well for the first half hour or so. Then, in the final dozen minutes, things got kind of weird. There was a musical Rudolph-style claymation sequence (Frank's dream) that would have made for a great DVD extra but felt very out of place in the episode itself. The ensuing ending was also a little weird. It lingered around the "feel good" cliche that I had been so desperately hoping the special would avoid before ultimately ending in a way-too-expectable-to-actually-expect twist that kind of undoes what the "feel good" ending had done. The episode finally ends with the gang embracing one of Mac and Charlie's favorite Christmas traditions: throwing rocks at trains. The whole thing just felt a little too weird by the end; what had started as a solid (if sometimes slow) Sunny episode became something entirely different about a half hour in. So, in rating and reviewing the DVD, I'd call it 75% decent Sunny episode, 25% fucked up (different) Sunny Christmas special. In that order. I'm not disappointed by it as much as I am confused, I guess. Oh well. What matters most is that I have no regrets. And that says a lot, because I paid $20 for this 43-minute "movie" of an episode.

Deadwood: Season 2

Last Christmas, I got a few hefty gift cards to Best Buy as well as some kind of camera thing that I had no use for and returned, for store credit, to Best Buy. With a couple hundred dollars to spend there, I opted to expand my HBO on DVD collection, buying both seasons of Rome, all five of The Wire, and all three of Deadwood. Each episode of each of these 10 seasons is between fifty and sixty minutes long; the going, so to speak, is slow. This morning, I finally finished the second season of Deadwood. It took me four sittings (over the course of several months) just to make it through the first episode, but once I had, I watched the remaining eleven in under a week. And that's kind of fitting; Deadwood is not the easiest show to just jump into. There are dozens of characters and plot points going on at any different time. Differentiating between thirty different bearded white men in hats, and committing each of these characters to memory, is a difficult task indeed. But, once you get enough of a gist of what's going on, every episode is a real treat. In a way then, Deadwood is all about delayed gratification; if you struggle through the first few episodes - even if you don't like them much at all - you're going to reap the rewards down the line. Of course, I wouldn't be able to fault anyone for watching any random episode and saying, "this show is boring as hell." To be honest, that's a somewhat justified statement to make. But, I promise, if you keep chugging through the episodes (and reading recaps or plot summaries for clarification when necessary), you will appreciate this show. Because that's exactly how I came to appreciate it. A friend of mine calls Deadwood one of his favorite shows of all time, but I won't go that far; having now seen two thirds of it, I can't call it amazing or awesome in any way. Certain characters and story arcs are great, sure, but as a whole the show just doesn't blow me away. I guess that's exactly what can be expected from any HBO series though; you know you're going to get excellent production value and acting (well, save from Entourage), and you know the show will have a promising concept with plenty of depth. But that doesn't mean you'll love it or find it extremely memorable in any way. Look, if you haven't been able to figure it out by now, I'm torn on how to rate Deadwood. Twice now, I've started a season and been bored to hell by it, struggled through the early episodes, and thought "this is not a great show," only to really enjoy the latter half of each season and think each time at the closing credits of the season finale, "this is a great show!" I definitely think it's worth checking out, but only if you're going to give it an honest investment of time and attention; this isn't a half-hour comedy series that you can see once or twice and gage accordingly. If possible, find a week where you can spend two hours a night on the first season. If you like it, great; check out seasons two and three. If you don't like it, that's fine too. But please, fight your instinct to jump to judgment on it after three or four episodes. That's all I ask of you, and I'm sure the show would ask the same.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

The last time I posted this picture, I had completed part 1 of the Metroid Prime trilogy. The game was great, and I wondered how part 2, Echoes could live up to the first. Most reviews seemed to say that Prime 2 was a very good game, but not at the level of Prime 1. I disagree- Prime 2 to me was even better. The few flaws from the first were corrected and the whole game had a much better flow to it. First off, I never felt limited like I did in Prime 1. In that game, it seemed like everywhere I turned I needed a new upgrade to get anywhere, and didn't feel very powerful until the end of the game. In Prime 2 the first few upgrades are given rapid fire and before you know it, you're kicking bosses' asses. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenge, but Metroid is typically challenging due to it's puzzles. No one wants to spend a good portion of the game thinking "I could be doing so much better if I only had the double jump." Anyway, second, the whole game just seems so much better organized. Where Prime 1 has Samus jumping around from level to level with no rhyme or reason, Prime 2 actually has a pattern to it and emphasizes beating one level at a time before going back to explore old ones for powerups. This helped me keep track of where I had and hadn't explored, making a much more enjoyable final powerup search before the final boss. This leads me to the third improvement- incredible boss fights. While the first few bosses in the game are nothing special, later boss fights were especially memorably due to some innovative techniques- I'll remember a late boss fight where Samus boost jumps back and forth on a circular magnetic track, whacking pieces of debris off of a robot boss for a long time. There were some great ones here that were more puzzles than fights, exactly what a Metroid boss should be. The game made a few more changes, to varying degrees of success, such as a decent plot and a dark world based off of the normal environment. Overall while Echoes may not have reinvented the wheel, I feel like it was the best of the trio. But of course if you have time, just go play the whole trilogy.

Mission: Impossible III

I've been exceptionally long-winded with my posts lately, so I'll keep this one short and do my best to make it sweet. Tom Cruise is, last few years aside, arguably one of the biggest movie stars of the past twenty years or so. Yet, remarkably, I had never anything that he had done (aside from The Outsiders) until late 2007. Consider this: in the past two years, I have finally gotten around to seeing (for the first time) Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, and all three Mission: Impossible movies. (I still have yet to see Magnolia, Vanilla Sky, War of the Worlds, and believe it or not, Top Gun.) So I've gone from being a Tom Cruise novice to someone quite familiar with his body of work. And do you know what? The Mission: Impossible trilogy is definitely the weakest part of his resume. This shouldn't be the case; any bona fide action star is best remembered by his defining trilogy. For example, Bruce Willis may have saved the planet from an asteroid, but first and foremost we think of him as John McClane; Arnold (I'm not even going to attempt to spell his last name) may have played Conan, Kimble, a pregnant man, and a father attempting to secure a popular Christmas present for his son, but he is, above all, the Terminator. (Hell, even his current role - Governor of the largest state - pales in comparison.) Matt Damon is Jason Bourne. Harrison Ford starred in two classic trilogies, and as such, is both Han Solo and Indiana Jones. But when you think of Tom Cruise, do you immediately recall... Ethan Hunt? I doubt it. And that's really all I'm getting at here; despite being a quintessential big-budget action-thriller trilogy, it's absolutely forgettable. The first one was too slow and convoluted. The second one was ridiculously over the top and convoluted. This last one? To my great surprise, not so convoluted! I popped this DVD in earlier tonight with low expectations, and half an hour in, I was already bored out of my mind. But things picked up. In this movie, for the first time, it wasn't just all about Tom Cruise - his supporting team played a much larger role this time around, and that gave it more of a feel-good vibe not unlike that from the Clooney-Pitt-Damon Ocean's movies. I liked this movie just enough to say I didn't hate it. And that's more than I liked either of the first two. Especially the second one. I think my biggest problem with the second one, in hindsight, may have been Tom Cruise's long and shaggy hair. He looked like such a douche! I mean, seriously, a grade-A asshole. Mission: Impossible III is the type of movie that you should definitely not hesitate to check out if you find it on TV one night. The best part is, you don't have to have any familiarity with the first two flicks - seriously, knowledge of Ethan Hunt's previous endeavors in no way enhances this movie. Alright. I hope I was short and sweet enough to live up to my promise. But you know what's getting really short? My movie backlog. Just ten films remain now. Ten! I've made it down to ten! Christmas presents pending, I see no reason why I can't have an empty movie backlog entering 2010. Amazing. Anything is possible!

The Perfect Storm

Two years ago, I decided to partake in my first Black Friday shopping experience. I got two hours of sleep, then woke up to drive to Best Buy in spite of freezing temperatures and enormous lines of crabby people. I was exhausted, and the whole thing was surreal. I'd never seen the area Best Buy so crowded in all my life, let alone at 4:30 in the morning on a frigid day. Simply terrible. Anyway, once I got inside, all hell broke lose. I was delirious and tired, and must have told myself, "Fuck this, I'm getting like ten DVDs to make sure this was worth it," because I ended up purchasing some movies that I never could even remember wanting to own, at all. Anyway, I got home hours later and immediately collapsed into a sleeping stupor. I think this even happened on my living room floor. By five in the evening or so, I woke up and it was completely dark out. I had no idea what was happening, or what time it was. But the thing that confused me the most was emptying out my shopping bags and finding this DVD among my purchases. I mean, what? Why? Really? Don't get me wrong; this isn't a movie anyone should be embarrassed to own or anything. But it's also far from a must-own; who wants to see a bunch of blue collar guys work on a fishing boat and then drown? And who wants to see it happen more than once? (I had already seen this movie years prior - again, one of my most baffling DVD purchases to date, and I paid ten dollars for Bio-Dome.) Anyway, I was kind of planning on watching this DVD exactly nine days from now. (Or, eight days, I guess. Always tough to decide when to call it a "new day" if midnight has passed but you're still not asleep.) Why? Because that would allow me to watch it on Black Friday, of course. Symbolism, yeah? But my half-hearted plans changed earlier tonight when I began a homework assignment - due tomorrow (today? today!) - at 2:00 in the morning. Fortunately, like all self-respecting engineers, I never do my homework out; I just copy it from the solutions PDF. So with at least an hour's worth of copying to do, I decided to doubletask and knock a movie off of my backlog. Fortunately, my backlog has dwindled so much that I was (unfortunately) limited to a very small selection to choose from. I wanted to put on something I'd seen before, as otherwise I'd have been 90% distracted instead of, say, 50% distracted. In fact, to minimize distractions, I put on what I thought would be the most boring already-seen movie of them all: The Perfect Storm. After all, don't I have better things to do next Friday than make time to watch this movie? I do. So I popped it in, gave it a watch, and can honestly say that I'm glad I made that purchasing gaffe two years ago. This movie was good. Certainly not feel-good - although, in a way, it was bittersweet enough to have a similar effect as a feel-good movie; think Titanic, which is actually kind of a good comparison for this movie in general. Let's compare the two. Both are historically semi-accurate stories about boats that sank in the North Atlantic. You enter both movies knowing and expecting that everybody is going to drown, but during the final act you are teased into believing - mostly because you want to - that they'll survive the ordeal. Both were love stories, albeit to different extents. You get the picture. There's really not much to say (or spoil), plot-wise, so instead let's focus on the cast. Now, I remembered this movie primarily as one that starred George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg and no one else. You can imagine my pleasant surprise when John C. Reilly, Agent Mahone from Prison Break, and Diane Lane showed up. Alright, I know this post has been long-winded enough, but let's discuss Diane Lane for a minute. She was pretty hot in the late '80s when she was in her early twenties, and she's arguably even hotter now in her mid-forties. But, having just seen mid-thirties Diane Lane (this movie came out in 2000), I can say I wasn't blown away. If anything, I was a tad disappointed. In fact, at first, I didn't even recognize her. So what's the deal? How could someone who was bangin' at the ages of both 20 and 45, but not at 35? That's almost inconceivable, right? (Barring weight fluctuations, that is.) I have two theories. The first theory is that "young" hot and "middle-aged" hot are different kinds of hot, and that women in their thirties are unfortunate victims of temporary identity crises. Perhaps there's an adjustment period between when a woman loses her youthful attractiveness and when she has finally figured out how to make her age and experience work for her in a physically appealing way. Think of it like a second puberty. Kids are usually really cute, and young adults are usually some level of attractive, but middle schoolers and young high school kids are downright goofy-looking. My second (and probably more reasonable) theory is that Diane Lane was just made to look her part in this movie: a fisherman's gal in a blue-collar town. Maybe we can't find fault with her for not being a knock-out when she spent the whole movie all covered up in flannel shirts. Maybe my second theory holds more validity than my first one - people say Diane Lane was amazing in 2002's Unfaithful - but it's not nearly as fun. Oh well. At any rate, the movie was a good one, even if it was also a tear-jerker. I'm sure the families of the fishermen who perished at sea during the storm had mixed reactions. I did too. On the one hand, these men were foolish (well, at least the captain was) for ignoring the many storm warnings and pushing way out into the sea just to catch some fish. On the other hand, they really needed to make some money - it can't be easy making a living as a fisherman - and perhaps you can't blame them for doing their best to scrape by and provide for their kids and girlfriends. And their ultimate end, drowning, has to be one of the worst ways to go. I for one would put it way down near the bottom of my list of "preferable ways to die," and off the top of my head the only rival I can think of for the bottom spot would be being burned alive. And yet, there's something poetic and timeless about men losing their lives at sea. The film ends with a dedication that I at first could hardly believe: "to the 10,000 Gloucester men who have been lost at sea since 1623." That's twenty-six men a year! And make no mistake; Gloucester is no big sprawling city. It's a little coastal fishing town of about 30,000 people. Imagine twenty-five able-bodied men from your hometown dying every year, all with the exact same profession. Just crazy. Alright. It's bed time. And the worst part about all of this is that I still haven't even finished copying my homework. This sucks. I can't get more than three hours of sleep at this point. I hope no one lets me go shopping for DVDs tomorrow; there's no telling what I'd end up buying.

The Wrestler (2008)

Before I can talk about The Wrestler, I need to say a few words about professional wrestling. When it comes to professional wrestling, there are three types of people. First, we have those who believe that wrestling is entirely real. These people are primarily children, though in rare cases (idiocy, I suppose), some adults do manage to fall into this category. The second type of people are those who "know" that professional wrestling is "fake." They are smart enough to know that professional wrestling's "rivalries" are scripted and that matches in the ring are orchestrated. However, they're a bit too quick to debunk the athletic prowess of many professional wrestlers, the courage and pain tolerance required of such a profession, and the general wear and tear (both physical and emotional) that a lifelong professional wrestler is put through. This second group of people, then, is the group that thinks it knows what pro wrestling is, but are too stubborn or ignorant to admit just how real it actually is. Enter the third group of people: those who know that matches are orchestrated and that in-ring "rivals" are more often than not great pals, but who also respect (or at least know) the extent to which pro-wrestling is "real;" they're not necessarily fans of the business (though some are), but they're capable of avoiding the misconception that the pain and anguish pro-wrestlers go through is somehow "unreal." My point is that there are far too many Type 2's in the world today. I'm not saying that Type 3's are a minority; I do think that many adults, if not most, understand what's real and what's not when it comes to wrestling. But, really, could the Type 2's stop dumbing down the entire professional industry with the oversimplified and untrue, but all too common, statement that "wrestling's fake?" Anyway, I got a little off track here, but The Wrestler is a movie that every Type 2 should see. I mean, it's not based on a true story or anything, but absolutely nothing in it is exaggerated in any way. Yeah, that's right... unless you're making millions in the WWE - and often, even if you are making millions in the WWE - it totally sucks to be a professional wrestler. Like, completely. Everything is sacrificed, from families to free time to basic cognitive function and longevity. And this movie really drives that point home. See it if you haven't, and especially if you're still not convinced that professional wrestlers deserve at least a little bit of respect. Darren Aronofsky directed it, which is weird, because it's such a normal and simple movie - none of that Pi nonsense or Requiem-level over-the-top grotesque shit. Perhaps the best part of the movie is its tone. There's little to no background music, and the scenery and backdrops are those of a dull blue-collar lifestyle. We're talking deli sections of grocery stores, seedy strip clubs, and trailer parks. I'm not saying this was an A+ movie by any stretch, and yet, for what it tried to be, it was very nearly flawless. I hope that makes sense; just because a movie isn't one of your all-time favorites, it doesn't mean that movie wasn't the very best it possibly could have been. Well, shit. I've rambled a ton now. Sorry about that. The bottom line is, you should check this movie out. It's straightforward and simple and totally bittersweet. What's not to love?

Saw V

I wanted to like this movie. If you read my glowing review of Saw IV two weeks ago, you know I wanted to. Hell, this movie barely spent any time in the backlog at all - I purchased it just two days ago! Alas... this movie really wasn't that good. Saw IV left me with a vibe that the series, much like Lost, had a specific direction and was constantly using flashbacks to slowly reveal that everything was far more connected - and intended - than any casual viewer could have assumed. But after seeing Saw V, I'm stuck wondering if there's any plan at all. Allow me to explain; general spoilers of the entire series will inevitably ensue. At the end of Saw III, we learned that there was a little girl trapped in some location only known by Jigsaw. When her father killed Jigsaw out of vengeance, he failed his test, and was notified of this fact. I figured that the little girl's whereabouts would surely play into future films. Instead, this movie basically starts with Jigsaw's apprentice - Hoffman, we'll call him - walking out of the trap-laden building of Saw III and IV with the little girl in his arms. So, what the hell? Apparently, the girl was only even brought up at the end of Saw III to drive home the point that her father was a total fuck-up who had just killed his daughter. You know, just typical feel-bad "horror fluff." Here I was, expecting at least part of a future plot to revolve around the rescuing of this girl, and... it's done. But that's just a minor gripe compared to this next one. Saw IV began and ended with Hoffman listening to a Jigsaw recording, telling him that even he himself was not going to get away from Jigsaw without a "test" of some sort. Again, this scene came at both the beginning and the end of Saw IV - it really seemed like they were trying to drive home that the next movie would feature Hoffman partaking in a "game" of some sort. But... no. That's not what happened in Saw V. Not at all. Instead, Hoffman was testing (and framing) a colleague. In the beginning of the film, said colleague is placed in the trap depicted on the DVD cover (use your imagination) and manages to survive; when Hoffman finds out about this survival, he's stunned. Now, Jigsaw's whole modus operandi, back in the good old days when he was in charge of setting up traps, was to make a victim face his or her own death and make some kind of sacrifice - usually one inflicting great physical pain - in order to survive. Hoffman's victim does exactly that. But Hoffman still seems hellbent on framing and re-testing him. The whole movie felt like a great unraveling of whatever pseudo-moral code Jigsaw had established in the first place. Ultimately, Hoffman lures his colleague into another game. This time, the catch is something along the lines of, "just trust me and do exactly what I tell you to do." Yeah - a guy is really going to trust a man who has already tried to kill him once. Is this even a fair game? Now, of course, Hoffman prevails when his victim - who, by the way, has found out that Hoffman is Jigsaw's apprentice - does not trust him at all. Again, why the fuck would any sane man trust a guy who has already tried to kill him once before and furthermore is Jigsaw's apprentice? It doesn't make any sense at all. And here's a random plot point that never gets resolved: Jigsaw's former lover at one point opens a box left to her in Jigsaw's will. Sure enough, we never learn of its contents. Will we in Saw VI? I couldn't tell you. After all, I thought we'd see Hoffman put through some posthumous Jigsaw tests this time around. I also thought we'd see the Saw III little girl's rescue play a far more relevant role in the series than it did. If Saw is like Lost - and that's a very generous analogy - then Saw V was like the worst parts of Lost - namely, Season 2. We wanted answers, and got more questions. At times it seemed like the writers had a master blueprint that was slowly unfolding, but for the most part, this movie (and that season) just felt like they were stalling for time. And oh yeah, by the way, there was a whole second, completely unrelated plot point in Saw V. It involved a game in which five strangers had to make it through four rooms. I mean, this thing was as cliche and predictable as anything I've ever seen. Would you be surprised to learn that one person died in each room, leaving just one sole survivor? Would you be shocked to hear that these five strangers shared a secret connection that they never figured out until the final two cracked the case in the final room? Would you doubt it for a moment if I told you that, as it turned out, the five people could have all survived each room had they just worked as a team? I thought not. Worst of all, as I already mentioned, this subplot had absolutely nothing to do with the main story or the main characters in any way. Goddammit. I really did want to like this movie. In fact, I still do want to have liked it; it was almost definitely the worst movie yet in the series, and yet, I can't help but think of it more fondly than Saw II or III. Why this is, I cannot say. But the movie had a shitty plot that was almost entirely unrelated to the main Saw story as a whole - despite numerous flashbacks and extended glimpses of previous moments in the series. I just hope that Saw VI lives up to the quiet hype it's been getting; when I someday buy and watch that DVD, I want to be impressed again. Maybe it'll be best if I go in with no expectations whatsoever, and not expecting any headway to be made on Jigsaw's promise to test Hoffman one last time. After all, I went into Saw IV expecting to hate it, and liked it a lot; I hoped V would live up to IV, and it failed miserably to do so. Fuck it; forget the critical reaction altogether. I'll watch Saw VI as begrudgingly and reluctantly as I possibly can. Until then (January?), it's time to move away from this series and explore the rest of my backlog.

Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous

This Veterans Day, in honor of the men and women who risk their lives to keep us safe here at home, I decided to watch... this direct-to-DVD piece of shit. I purchased it for next to nothing two days ago at a Blockbuster that was going out of business. Why? A few reasons. Firstly, I love Jessica Simpson. She's such a sad sap. She's an innocent and (usually) beautiful sweetheart but leads a depressing and often-ridiculed life. She gets fat, she gets dumped, and she gets mocked by vegetarians, and the whole world knows about it. Her fucking dog gets eaten by a coyote, and the world giggles at her sadness. And it's probably because we, as people, love seeing successful people fail. But anyone who knows her like I know her (and I watched every episode of The Newlyweds - how many other guys can say that?) knows that she's a sensitive, religious, Southern gal without a malicious or pompous bone in her body. Secondly, I own about 300 movies and only a couple of them can really be described as "absolutely terrible." Paris Hilton's Pledge This stands alone as the worst movie I own by far, and I felt like giving it some competition. Thirdly, well, just look at the lower left-hand quadrant of the DVD cover. Yeah. Right? Right. So let's get down to business with a review. I'm going to break from tradition here and just let the movie's plot speak for itself. Spoilers abound, but honestly, does anyone reading this give a shit? I didn't think so. The movie starts with an opening credit montage of Megan Valentine (J-Sims herself), a movie star, enjoying her rich and famous lifestyle. It's a big day for her, as her newest movie is premiering. But the movie bombs! And while using the restroom, Megan catches her best "friends" talking shit about her! And then after going home, she catches her boyfriend cheating on her! With her male manager! Sighing and sulking, she barely has time to give a heart-warming J-Sims pout and collapse on her couch before her agent comes in and tells her her accountant has stolen her entire fortune from her! Talk about a terrible night, huh? Now homeless, boyfriend-less, friendless, and career-less, our movie star actress drives off in a drunken stupor, crashes, flees the scene, and passes out somewhere in the middle of the city - but she still looks just adorable all the while, still wearing her red carpet dress, carrying her expensive heels, and having mascara running around her eyes. She awakens the next morning in front of the doorway to an Army recruiting center - miraculously, unraped and unrobbed. It is here that Ms. Valentine realizes that she has found her life's calling - she's got to join the Army, obviously. No sooner has she signed the paperwork than she finds herself on a bus en route to training camp. And here's where the movie really starts to get silly; she's still in her red carpet dress! I guess, in direct-to-DVD world, the Army recruiters don't give you time to go home and change. Or even pack. Now, I was at least partially on board for these first ten minutes of the movie. "Sure, this is cliche in every way and the jokes aren't great," I thought, "but I don't think this belongs in the IMDb.com Bottom 100." And then, J-Sims' bus arrived at boot camp. Apparently, this film's boot camp is entirely co-ed, allows its participants to wear street clothes, and lacks anyone who really wants to be in the armed services. And that's the next forty minutes of the movie, in a nutshell. But don't worry, because some of your favorite actors are along for the ride as well. There are A-list actresses like Vivica A. Fox and Cheri Oteri! Classic TV guest stars like Keith from Scrubs, or Bullit from The OC. As the movie unfolds, our darling little heroine slowly learns to embrace her situation, and her cute-as-a-button pouts and crying sessions give way to dimple-betraying smiles and moments of laughter. She makes friends, takes new responsibilities, and finally thinks she has her life together. But then, in an end-of-the-second-act turn of events unlike any in movie history, Valentine has a falling out with all of her Army friends, gets in trouble with her drill sergeant, and, due to a processing error that hasn't been found until just now, discharged from the military. She returns to her mansion (apparently her financial woes have been resolved while she's been away), but this time around, she's a changed gal. Now, she's calling the shots. This is made clear when she fires her frienemy staff-members and gay manager and then tells her agent that she's making all of her career and wardrobe decisions from now on. I'm telling you, the balls on this chick! These days, when J-Sims' non-white maid comes upstairs to serve her breakfast in bed, the bed is made and the former diva is already out and about on an early morning run. And before long (I mean, it's literally been like three minutes of movie time since she's been discharged), J-Sims rejoins the Army and picks up right where she left off - at basic training's final mission! I'm sure I don't even need to tell you what happens, but, for the sake of being complete, I'll just do so: she leads her band of misfits to the finish line, displaying leadership and determination no one ever knew she had - catching fish with her urine (seriously), crossing a river full of alligators, and capturing the heart of her super-dreamy supervisor all along the way. She did it! She transformed her life, and all it took was basic training! Now, she's free to go off and face the world - which is weird, because I always thought basic training graduates weren't free to do anything at all short of getting shipped off to Iraq immediately. Oh well. Forget semantics and enjoy this feel good movie. I give it a 3.5/10, and I'd call it "moderately watchable." Sorry, Pledge This. Looks like you're still the cellar dweller after all. Happy Veterans Day, everyone.

SuperFreakonomics

Finally, the long-awaited sequel to Freakonomics has come out. I have read it and enjoyed it. The book, just like its predecessor, takes an anti-mainstream approach to exploring and analyzing, well, everything. It suggests that drunk driving is less hazardous than "drunk walking;" it claims that child safety car seats are no better at saving lives than regular seat belts. It purports that nonviolent television is just as responsible for increased crime rates as violent television. And it backs up all of these seemingly outlandish assertions with the most ironclad proof of all: statistics, facts, and trends. Rather than blindly jumping to conclusions or assumptions based on mitigating evidence, Levitt and Dubner look at exhaustive datasets before alleging that, for example, automobiles are far more environmentally friendly and fatal-accident-proof than horses. My favorite chapter of all, the final one, deals with global warming. Now, I have a stance on global warming that many - myself included - would consider ignorant: not so much "it isn't happening" as much as "what's the big deal?" Yeah, I've heard all the doomsday proclaimers. I get that runaway warming by tens of degrees Fahrenheit would kill hundreds of millions. But this planet has endured frequent and drastic climate change for life's entire history. (Consider the glacial formations and retreats that have shaped the very continents we now inhabit.) I realize that this "so what?" mentality seems rather cold-hearted, but I'm just not buying global warming as even a top ten threat to humankind. It is, as it has so charmingly been dubbed by its most visible opponent, an "inconvenient truth." But so are stubbed toes and tooth aches. Whatever. The point here isn't that I don't think global warming is a big deal; it's that Levitt and Dubner take everything you've ever heard about it and throw it out the window, coming up with their own explanations for its emergence and their own solutions for its inherent dangers. I loved it. While Al Gore has asked everyone to take drastic steps to reduce their own carbon footprints (while not doing so himself - but that's another story, and his hypocrisy is irrelevant for the sake of this discussion), Levitt and Dubner, reasoning in pure and simple economic terms, realize that the incentive just isn't there; people aren't willing to make great sacrifices for small scale, delayed, and shared rewards. Instead, they propose a few cheap and easy (relatively) solutions that are far more feasible than Gore's, even if they're not nearly as "feel-good" as the wishful scenario in which each and every person, corporation, and government "goes green." I won't spoil the book by giving these solutions away, but I'll say that one of them involves pumping coal plant pollution into the stratosphere. Yes, these two guys dare to proclaim that we can solve the global warming crisis by using the very same poisonous gasses that - according to popular opinion - created it. Again, the book is a thrill to read from start to finish, and your perception of various "facts" of life is bound to change upon your completion of it. It ends with a short epilogue detailing a hilarious episode in which several monkeys were trained to use currency. I fully recommend SuperFreakonomics, as well as its predecessor, to all who fancy themselves "creative thinkers" of any kind. Two great books from two great minds.

Okami

I believe it was former U.S. Poet Laureate Ice Cube who coined the phrase "life aint a track meet, it's a marathon" and I can't think of any phrase more appropriate to sum up my feelings after finally beating Okami. Okami is an action/adventure game I purchased last Black Friday that has drawn comparisons to the Legend of Zelda series. I got about an hour into it sometime last December and quickly gave up, only to restart the game two weeks ago. This has been an arduous task- finishing in at about 37 hours means I averaged 2.6 hours per day. Of course I wouldn't have been able to keep up this pace with a terrible game so you know it's good, but the truth is Okami is a fantastic game. Puzzle-filled dungeons, beautiful landscapes straight out of a painting, and an epic story- all staples of the Zelda series- abound here. Hell, you play as a wolf, just like in Twilight Princess. What sets this apart is that the whole thing feels so fresh, while Twilight Princess seemed to be struggling to show something that we hadn't seen before. Okami is very loosely based on Japanese folklore, and defies many story-telling conventions- for instance, you face the guy who's hyped up to be the final boss a little over a third of the way through the game. Instead of using items normally, you paint items- to slash an enemy, to repair a broken bridge, to make the sun rise and set, etc., you paint. While the game does do almost everything right, unfortunately when it does something wrong, it sticks out even more, and there were two things in specific that really held Okami back. First, quick-time elements simply shouldn't use the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities, considering how shaky they are. Two seperate QTEs- one to draw five circles, on to draw 8 lines, literally took me over an hour to complete combined. Talk about stopping the flow of a game to a halt. The other misstep here was the reuse of bosses. One boss, the one I mentioned before, is fought three times, all the same. I mean this literally- you fight him once and kill him, and then you fight him two more times in the exact same fashion for no reason than to add length to the game. I could understand if they had added in a new challenge or made him more difficult, but it was just the same boss fight three times! Several other bosses are fought twice as well. Well, aside from these unfortunate miscues, the rest of the game is superb and this merely drops Okami from a "must-play" to a "if-you-have-some-free-time-play", and I'll be honest, it was fun while it lasted, but I'm really glad this behemoth is out of the way. Onward!

The Ancestor's Tale

This book surprised me in a number of ways. For one, I never thought I could read through a 614-page scientific book at the grueling pace with which I just did. Secondly, I never thought I would read anything by Richard Dawkins and like it. Allow me to back up a bit and explain. My knowledge of Dawkins, both prior to and after reading this book, is that he is a brilliant man and an exemplary biologist with tons of arrogance and elitism regarding his own fervent atheism. South Park satirized him pretty well in a recent two-part episode, essentially mocking his oft-stated (hell, he wrote an enormous book about it just recently) opinion that without religion, humanity would have had so much less violence and so many fewer problems in general than it does today. (The South Park episode's stance, which I agree with, was that humankind will always find something to disagree, argue, fight, or even go to war over, regardless of religion.) I need to tread carefully around the issue of atheism, not because I fear offending anyone (that's right, you four readers - I don't give a shit about your feelings!) but because I myself struggle when it comes to applying a label to myself. Raised Catholic, but having enjoyed a completely modern and secular upbringing, I don't really find myself siding with either "the religious" or "the non-religious" on just about anything. To oversimplify and stereotype, one side is ignorant and blind to the possibility that their beliefs are incorrect, and the other side is arrogant and blind to the possibility that their beliefs are incorrect. In short, it's tough for me, a moderate in nearly every sense of the word, to respect an extremist from either camp. I guess this makes me an agnostic, which only means that neither side can respect me; in the eyes of the religious, I'm too weak to have faith, while in the eyes of the atheists, I'm too weak to denounce religion. And all of this is fine by me. My point, I guess, is that diehard atheists and the diehard religious are far more alike than either side would ever admit, in that both spend far too much time debating, questioning, proving, and disproving an issue that simply can never be proven one way or the other and therefore, in my mind, simply isn't worth the argument. But I digress. A lot. The Ancestor's Tale contained, I was pleasantly surprised to discover, far fewer jabs at religion than I had anticipated in a book by a world-class atheist. Instead, it was a book that dared to attempt to trace the lineage of mankind back to life's origins, "meeting up" with various other organisms (chimpanzees first, then gorillas, and so forth and so on) along the way. The parallels to The Canterbury Tales were numerous and intentional. I was at first relieved, but later disappointed, to find out that this book was not nearly as science-heavy and unreadable as I had expected it to be; while it'd be a chore for anyone with little to no background in biology to get through, I frequently found snippets of information that had been explained to me ad nauseam in various introductory biology courses. Dawkins presented each "rendezvous" along our lineage as a separate chapter. Thus, we had a "Chimpanzee's Tale," a "Gorilla's Tale," a "Peacock's Tale," and a "Redwood's Tale," just to name a few. But instead of these tales being about their titular lifeforms, each was instead about a specific part of evolution; the "Peacock's Tale," for instance, related the general "story" of sexual dimorphism in animalia and its implications on evolution in general. The "Fruit Fly's Tale" is all about evo-devo, the field that studies how genes manage to assemble body sections in the right places in an embryo (preventing us all from having - except when mutations arise - eyes on our legs or fingers coming out of our heads). This was the most brilliant (albeit totally unoriginal) aspect of this giant book; while we humans "journey" back through time, "rendezvousing" with our cousins the apes, and then our more distant cousins the rodents, and so on, we begin to gain a more and more complete picture not only of our evolutionary tree, but also of the evolutionary process as a whole. I credit Dawkins with being able to cram so much scientific information into so entertaining a "journey," and praise this book as one of the greatest nonfiction ones that I have ever read. It did run out of steam a bit toward the end, in my opinion, as Dawkins began to try to extract "where should science go from here?"-type tidbits for the final fifty pages or so instead of letting the mainframe of his work speak for itself. Still, his efforts deserve the recognition they have earned. I'd go into detail about some of the points in the book that I found particularly interesting or cool, but then, in a way, that'd be like posting spoilers. Besides, I've run on for quite a bit now, due in no small part to my largely unnecessary disclaimer about Dawkins' rampant atheism. I guess I'll conclude by saying that while I still don't really appreciate Dawkins the atheist, I have certainly come to respect Dawkins the scientist. And that's something.

Platoon

The first - and biggest - thing that impressed me about Platoon was its very large and recognizable cast. Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, John C. McGinley, Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker, and Kevin Dillon are just a few of the talents on display in this 1986 "Best Picture," and it was refreshing to see much younger versions of these notable actors who have enjoyed successful careers. I went into the movie with no expectations whatsoever - right down to the point where I had no idea that any of the aforementioned guys, let alone all of them, were involved with it. It was good. I mean, obviously a picture is "good" if it's won the Oscar for Best Picture. But really, that's all I can describe it as. Maybe I'm just a little down on war movies, or have seen too many of them, or can't appreciate older ones as much as I should, but for whatever reason, I just didn't love this movie. I liked it. I can't call it disappointing, because, again, I went in expecting nothing whatsoever, and the movie itself cost me all of five bucks several months ago. There were definitely moments that really hit me in a "no fucking way did shit like this really happen" kind of way. Of course, I'm sure "shit like that" really did happen, and frequently. If you've seen the film, you might know which specific part or two I'm alluding to, but I won't spoil it for those who haven't. So, yeah, Platoon was a good flick, and I did not dislike it. I suppose that on a quest to finish every DVD I own, that's good enough for me.

Back to the Future Part III

Ah yes, it's the final film in everyone's favorite Michael J. Fox trilogy. I don't know where the consensus stands, but the first few times I saw the trilogy, I ranked Part II as the best movie, followed closely by the original, with III coming in a pretty distant third. Yet, today, I would struggle to call any of them better than each other - they're all very related and similar, but each is a very different story with a slightly different genre. At any rate, I've now seen the entire trilogy four or five times, and while I can't say I agree with the time-traveling logic it employs (as I rambled on and on about in my Part II recap), I can definitely call the trilogy as a whole on of the very best of all time. Each movie is exciting and humorous. What more could you ask for from a group of PG-rated blockbusters? The characters - well, really only Marty and Doc - are incredibly memorable and charismatic. Now, I really hate to do this, because the series is so great and I've already complained about it once, but I need to get some more time-traveling shit off my chest. (Spoilers, of course, ensue.) First of all... when Marty and '55 Doc discover that '85 Doc has been killed, what's the rush to go save him? Marty races back in the time machine to 1885 to prevent Doc from meeting an untimely doom. This is all nice and good and all, but my question is, what's the rush? At present (1955), Doc has been dead for 70 years! There's really no need to rush off immediately to save him. Why doesn't Marty take a breather? Perhaps go back to his present (1985) and bang his girlfriend at the lake a lot like he was planning to do? He's certainly earned it, as he's just saved himself (and the universe, in the process). Instead, the screenplay unfolds in a way that might have you believing that it's crucial to go back and get Doc before it's "too late," which of course is never the case when you have a time machine. The whole "we have no time to lose!" mentality is of course vital to action movies in general, but becomes counter-intuitive in time-traveling movies; you've always got time to lose, because you can regain any amount of time you wish to merely by traveling back in time. This isn't an issue exclusive to this trilogy by any means, but still. Here's another small nitpick; in this film (and most), it appears that when you travel through time, you re-emerge at the exact location on earth that you left from. (Consider the unfinished bridge at the movie's end that becomes finished when Marty jumps forward 100 years.) But the earth is moving rapidly around the sun, and also rotating, and also the solar system itself is rapidly rotating and revolving around the center of the galaxy, and in general the earth never really occupies the same absolute location in space. The Delorean's time traveling model uses an impossible Earth-based location system; somehow, time travelers are capable of winding up at the exact same location on Earth that they "left" from, even though those two locations on Earth at two different given times could be billions of miles away from one another. Furthermore, what happens if, I time travel into the future from any specific area, and in the future, that area is occupied by some kind of matter. A tree, a person, a building, whatever. When I suddenly "pop in" to that time period, what prevents me from being killed instantly by the fact that, I've, say, become one with another car. At the end of this movie, Marty very nearly avoids getting hit by an oncoming train. What if he had traveled forward in time to just a few moments later, right when the train was passing through the region of track which Marty appears on? How would atomic physics handle this? Suddenly, two objects are occupying the same space. I imagine things would be catastrophic at the molecular level as all kinds of materials changed their structure, alignment, and general properties to accommodate an influx of matter. Chemical reactions? An enormous electrical charge? Whatever happened, one thing's for sure: Marty, the Delorean, and the train would all be immediately disfigured and rearranged (physically), so quickly and completely, that Marty would never have known what hit him. This begs questions regarding any time travel at all, even into "open air," because even "open air" is a mixture of all kinds of molecules; they're just not as densely packed together as, say, the molecules of a train. When I time travel in the Delorean, how do I survive the inevitable fusion of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen into my own cell tissues? I'm no biochemist, but I have to believe that any such event would seriously fuck up and compromise all kinds of cell properties and functions. Alright. I'm done shitting on this fantastic series, and I feel bad for having done so. But I needed to voice all of my concerns somewhere, and since I doubt anyone would want to sit down and listen to me ramble about flaws in a twenty-year-old movie for five minutes, I decided to do so here. I hope that's okay with all three of you readers out there.

Saw IV

Wow. Call me impressed. Here I was, prepared to hate Saw IV more than any previous installment, and instead, I really genuinely liked it. Fuck the critics; this flick was the best one since the first one. It probably helped that I had watched all three previous films over the last week, because this film absolutely ties up some ends left loose by movies two and three. The movie also served as a prequel of sorts, detailing Jigsaw's backstory beyond the basic "guy with cancer has a new and bizarre outlook on life" stuff we were fed at the end of the first Saw. The movie did, of course, have flaws. For one thing, the "final twist" that every Saw movie contains was especially predictable and weak this time around, and I called it no more than ten minutes into the film. It was also full of needless gore and torture, although not as much as Saw III was. So, yeah. I liked this movie a lot. I was way too premature in saying the franchise had jumped the shark. What's more, Saw V is supposed to be better than Saw IV was, and reviews on the recently released Saw VI call it the best in the series since the very first installment. Shit; it looks like I've got at least two more Saw movies to buy and add to the backlog. But for now, I'm all done with my horror movies. I'm closing in on twenty remaining DVDs, and these include ten TV seasons and a dozen films. Dare I call my DVD backlogging task doable by Christmas? No. Probably not. But anything is possible.