ROBOCOP REVIEW: THE MOVIE YOU DIDN'T GET

It's been almost 20 years since the first time Robocop stepped onto the big screen. Movies have changed a lot since the 80's as we all know, Hollywood has changed drastically, but most importantly, audiences have changed. And it is clear from the reviews and performance of the reboot that audiences aren't happy with what they got.

For one, its not the action movie it is billed as. In fact, besides the climax of the film, there really isn't any action in it. Of course its sprinkled throughout but if you're going into this movie thinking it is going to be an all out action movie a la Transformers or Pacific Rim, you are sadly mistaken. Where most movie goers are expecting a reboot of this caliber to be a pure visual and entertainment feast they are given something much different than what was expected of this franchise.

The sad truth about Robocop is that people didn't get what they wanted. But I also mean that people didn't get what they wanted. Or perhaps they didn't even get what they saw.

The Unreality of the WWE: A 2014 Royal Rumble Review

 

Three! Two! One!

FEED. ME. MORE.

The spoon fed catchphrase issues forth as the 26th entrant in the 2014 Royal Rumble comes barreling down the entrance ramp, shirt exploding as he enters the ring. A year removed from being one of the last men standing in the Royal Rumble with the full support of the crowd to beat John Cena for a chance to headline Wrestlemania, Ryback now induced an arena-wide cringe. Though Ryback has fallen from grace in the eyes of the fans and the WWE, the anxiety that his entrance brought was due to the fact that only four more entrants were left and there was no sight of the most over superstar on the WWE roster.

Daniel Bryan.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

For every generation of movie-goers, there is a certain cinematic experience/event that defines their era on the silver screen. For some it was Citizen Kane, others it was Star Wars, more recently it was The Matrix, for people my age it was The Lord of the Rings, and now you could say Avatar for the current gen. These movies tie directly into our lives and will always have a special place in our hearts.

For me, The Lord of the Rings trilogy defined a large chunk of my life. I lived and breathed Middle-Earth and I will always cherish the films beyond all others. And now of course The Hobbit is coming out, which has rekindled the embers of my beloved experience. So please, keep in mind that this review is highly biased and full of love and passion.

Where The Wild Things Are Review

Since the first trailer came out way back when, I have been psyched about Where The Wild Things Are. Something about it reminded me of those movies when you were younger that were magical and adventurous and fun. I really thought Where The Wild Things Are was going to be something like that, mixed with modern special effects and great direction. But when I saw it the other night, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t.

Where The Wild Things Are is not a kid’s movie at all. I heard one little kid in the back of the theater that didn’t seem very happy and that was it. The rest of the audience was 20’s - 40’s. And we all loved it, all 24 of us.

I don’t really want to ruin anything for anyone who has yet to see this inspiring film, so I’ll skate around the details but Spike Jonze has created a touching and innocent film that is for the young kid in all of us. Honestly I don’t think kids will even get the movie let alone sit through it without being scared.

Max is a confused kid, looking for friends and fun. One night of poor judgment sends Max running off into the woods where he finds a boat that takes him across the sea to his metaphoric journey. Max finds in the wild things – played wonderfully by the likes of James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, and Chris Cooper to name a few – pieces of himself. The happy, the sad, the angry, and the lonely. They are looking for something just as much as he is but they are too confused to know what it is. Instead rough fun and building forts is exchanged for frustration and sadness.

The visuals, the costumes, the scenery, and the special effects are absolutely gorgeous. It blends so completely that everything feels authentic and right. Not once did I say that looks fake. I was always in the world of the film and I never wanted me or Max to leave.

The dialogue and the humor are all childish but not in the sense that you might think. It isn’t childish humor, it is childish meaning they sound like kids. They are gullible, naive, testy, and quick to forgive. This hits home for all adults who can look back in retrospect and see in the wild things parts of themselves. We can see how trivia the things were thought were so important or upsetting. We are the wild things and they are Max and watching them have fun brings back all the nostalgic feelings of innocent childhood anyone could ever hope for.

I loved this film, but not for the reasons I thought I would. I love it because it made me a kid again. It that 100 minutes I had fun, I cried, I laughed, and I made friends. For that it what childhood is all about, having fun with friends. You’ll laugh and have fun and when things go wrong you are quick to forgive.

If you liked being a kid, go see this movie. If not, you probably don’t have a heart.

Flashforward Thoughts/Review

First off, I'm a frickin nerd.

I love disaster movies, I love sci fi twists, I love super heroes, and I love candy. So when I saw that there is this new show called Flashforward coming to ABC, my interest was piqued. With my favorite show of off time, LOST, ending next year, I'm going to need something even remotely like that to keep me going in life as I look for a job and pick cheese doodle dust out of my chest hair whilst relaxing on the couch in the same sweat pants I've worn three days in a row. I had high hopes for the show that seemed like it had a lot of potential.

With that said, I liked the pilot "No More Good Days". It was entertaining, mysterious, fun, and blue. I mean that, there was a blue tint to the entire show. The effects were great, the holy sh*t moments pitch perfect, and the cinematography dead on. The acting was great and I love to see Sonya Walger aka Penny in Lost any day of the week. I thought the baiting gimmicks were disguised nicely and the show has left me curious to know more. But something was off, it took me a second to see it, but I couldn't help but feel like the network was treating me like a baby.

A professor of mine Mike Atkinson and I spoke of Lost once and he said, "It will never happen again. The show is a fluke, a good one, but it will never happen again." I tend to agree with him on this due to the fact that Lost was the first of its kind. A sci fi masked as a prime time drama. Even before the show started there was a huge cult following and I think JJ Abrams can direct better than David Goyer. Blade Trinity ringing a bell here?

ABC is trying to artificially create another Lost with hints to mysteries and online interaction. This just comes off as cheap to me. I got into Lost because of the story, the characters, the acting, and the directing. Flashforward went to commercial and all the strange little hints were brought up by the voice over guy telling us to go to the official website for more clues and answers. I went to said website where I found David Goyer and Brannon Braga talking about these things we "may have missed". I didn't fucking miss anything! I felt degraded. They didn't even give any answers besides what episodes might give us some answers. Lost just let it ride, and let the audience figure things out for themselves.

There was a kangaroo in the episode. Just walking the streets of LA after the blackout. I thought it was a cool little quirky thing but during the commercial I was told to go online and find out more about it. I did and David Goyer said that there is a back story to it that will pan in throughout the season. Like the episode "What Kate Did" it will be like "What the Kangaroo Did". I'm finished with that thought there because there is nothing more to say.

With Dominic Monaghan and Sonya Walger in the show, its almost like ABC is trying to trick people into thinking that this is the next Lost. There is even an Oceanic Airlines billboard at one point. I say, just let the show be a show. If it gets the same kind of following then good for it, it means its a good show. If it doesn't, let it go. They are trying too hard and its obvious.

They say, imitation is the highest form of flattery. In this case, it isn't. I liked the show, but I don't like what they are trying to do. I just hope they calm down in the episodes to come.

Retro Review: We3

Five years ago, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely brought one of the most unique and innovative Vertigo miniseries to life. We3 is a startlingly disturbing and provocative piece that tugs at our heart strings and forces us to reevaluate domestication and animal cruelty.

When Project Weapon 3 also known as We3 is scheduled for termination, a scientist working with the three animals - a dog, a cat and a rabbit - releases them. Without their daily medications they will die in a matter of hours but the government can not wait that long. But all We3 want is to find home, a place where they don't have to run anymore. This three part epic tale takes a mere twenty minutes to read, but in that time there will be laughs, thrills and heart ache. Morrison has truly crafted a world where these characters - bipedal and quadrupedal - live, breathe and die with more heart than most long running books can muster in a year. Along with Quitely's outstanding, blood soaked action scenes to his gripping, emotionally driving splash pages, We3 is a timeless story that is unflinching in its relevance and dazzling in its beauty.

If you haven't read it, please do yourself a favor and go buy it. I found it on Amazon for $7 and it took me twenty minutes to read. If you consider yourself a comic book fan, this is a must have. Score: A+

Lost "The Variable" Review

After last week's filler "special" episode which was basically a montage of rerun material edited together to give the occasional viewer or the regular "watcher" some clarification of the happenings of our Losties. Now I say "watcher" because there are two different Lost viewers: the "watchers" who look at the pretty pictures on the screen and the real Lost fans, the ones that get into the show and really understand it. So maybe this recap episode was good for the former, but for us die hard Lost scholars, it was just a waste of time. But with the 100th episode "The Variable", it was absolutely worth the wait.

First off, we finally get the Faraday episode we have been waiting for ever since the quirky quantum mechanics brainiac twitched his way into our hearts in season 4. I don't know about you but Desmond and Faraday are my two favorite characters with Sawyer at a close third. This episode explores the relationship with Eloise Hawking and her son Daniel clearing up how he got on the island and how he met Charles Widmore. Though, much like most people, I figured Widmore was his father.

Instead of going too much into this episode, I want to focus on the implications this new story has on this already phenomenol season. This season has focused more on the characters and what each individual has been doing, leaving the plot driven Lost of last season behind. Instead, we are left with more questions then ever as the explanations start coming but leave us scratching our heads in their complexity. My only gripe is that there was no overall story arc giving the season a driving force or uniting the character's journeys under one roof. Don't get me wrong, this season has been fantastic and I daresay that "The Variable" is the best yet. But now that Faraday believes they can change the past I can't help but feel strange.

If they in fact can change the past, preventing the plane from ever crashing, then where does it leave our Losties? Kate goes to jail, Jack buries his father, Sawyer is exiled from Australia, Sun and Jin's life is controlled by her father, Hurley is surrounded by bad luck, and Rose dies. Why would they ever want to go back to that? The show is about the redemption of characters who have no ties to the world and find a better life on the Island. I have a feeling that Faraday is wrong because why would he tell Charlotte what he knew he was going to say and why would Eloise send her son to be shot by her younger self? I believe things will continue to happen the way they always have and with the next episode entitled "The Incident" we will see the birth of the Hatch that we know.

But for now, my theory is being pulled in too many directions. I will leave on this note, if Faraday lives, which I think he will, he will find the bomb buried in the shadow of the statue. Score: A

For "The Variable" easter eggs, go here:

http://www.buddytv.com/slideshows/lost-easter-eggs-for-quotthe-variablequot-34807.aspx

J.C.V.D.

In leu of the release of J.C.V.D. on DVD tomorrow, here is a review I wrote of the film after I went to see it at the Angelika Film Center with my friend Mike Dejoy where he was suppose to have Q & A afterwards but canceled because his dogs were sick. I was going to ask him if he thought there should be a HARD TARGET channel. I think there should be. --

I went into J.C.V.D with all the prepubescent memories of the action heroes of yesteryear; nostalgic roundhouse kicks, horrible dialogue, overdone explosions, one-liners and all. A time where the movie industry churned out the same movie a hundred different ways with the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stalone, and Van Damme in the spotlight. These action movies seem set aside from Hollywood history, not as bad films per say but as their own separate entity where critics and nay-sayers alike had no power to quell the insatiable appetite of young movie goers. A time where this trinity of subpar actors ruled the box offices with their muscles and gun toting charisma. Not that I was expecting J.C.V.D to be one of these films, but it is almost impossible not to be reminded of the better days of mindless entertainment when the film's title is the initials of the King of High Kicking, Jean Claude Van Damme. I was expecting something I have never seen before, something of a reinvention of an American, French, or more importantly, world icon. Which is exactly what I got.

J.C.V.D. is not a Jean Claude Van Damme movie whatsoever, no more than its namesake. There are no drawn out fight scenes, no car chases, and certainly no bad one-liners. Instead, the film is a hybrid, a meta-film, going beyond documentary, mocumentary, or full blown narrative. If I were to categorize it as anything, it would be a documentary of a mocumentary since it isn't afraid to break the fourth wall and does so on many occasions. The narrative is broken up, flipping back and forth if not only for the element of short lived mystery. It is not a character study since Van Damme is almost too well known for that, rather it is reenactment of his life dramatized for Hollywood. It doesn't matter if the story is true or not, the important thing is that Van Damme makes it real. Obviously drawing from his real life experiences, he pours his heart into his cinematic counterpart and proves to the world that he can flex his acting muscles just as well as he can flex his biceps, if not better now in his old age. Van Damme humanizes himself in a way that we have never seen. In a power and telling scene where Van Damme literally is lifted above the fourth wall, he explains to the camera his inglorious life and career, full or mistakes, drugs, and heartbreak. It brings a heart to those action films of yesteryear, of a past where things were simpler and a present where retrospection, as well as introspection, only leads to heartache.

This film speaks about the power of the celebrity and the quick to judge public. It brings to light the blood thirsty court system once it has a celebrity to make it famous. And it shows that not all of these superstars are the personalities we see on film. That they are normal people thrust into extraordinary situations with nothing to do but buckle under the pressure of the public. But beyond the serious nature of J.C.V.D. there are plenty of easter eggs to be found for those pure action fan boys. References to all of his previous work and signature high kicks are spread throughout the film that give it it's humor while the performances and solid writing attribute to many laughs as well.

The opening sequence of J.C.V.D. perfectly captures the message it is broadcasting to our time. It features an action sequence where Van Damme is out of breath and sloppily taking out soldiers while the stunt men and actors alike exhibit their heartless effort for a pay check in the film industry while the director throws darts at a picture of Hollywood. It lacks all the magic of his work while accentuating the cheesiness to a point where the fake film is a mirror image of the action industry today. And as Van Damme tries to catch his breath and lobby for a better film, he can only walk away in disgust of what his beloved career has become. J.C.V.D. is a film that knows what it is and what it is trying to say. Yet it somehow goes beyond that to become something more. It breaks down and then raises up one of the most famous action stars of all time only to show him in one of his best roles. Himself. It is not a tribute to those days gone by where I would rent six Van Damme movies and watch the rest of the afternoon away, it is more. It is a fun, funny, entertaining, and a damn good film. One thing is for sure, I will never look at Van Damme the same way again, and that is a great thing.