Top 7 Films I Absolutely Refuse To Watch

So I've been watching a lot of crap for the sake of giving you all entertainment at the expense of my own patience. Sure, there's been some good stuff in there too but this blog & my YouTube channel wouldn't be called Coffee With The Cynic if I did nothing but sing appraisal of what I was watching/reading/listening to. That being said, I do have my limits. Sometimes a movie will come along with either a trailer or premise that I'll look at and say, "No. Fucking. Way." I may have my limits and I want to show you the bottom of the barrel, in my opinion. These are The Top 7 Films I Absolutely Refuse To Watch.

Honorable Mention: Jurassic Park 4 3D

I'm gonna throw this one on here because while JP4 is supposedly on the way, I'm not buying it. What Steven Speilberg said at Comic Con is the same old song and dance that we've heard for the last ten years since Jurassic Park III came out, and look how that turned out. Alright, let's give them the benefit of the doubt: let's say the ball is truly rolling on Jurassic 4, you just know that there's a crowd of shmucks that think that a Jurassic Park film in 3D would be the cat's meow. This is not true, as 3D is nothing more than a stupid gimmick used to generate more revenue and cover up lackluster special effects (I'm looking at you, Avatar). If Jurassic Park was a series intended to use 3D (it's been around since the fucking 80s if not earlier, people), it would've already been done. The effects from the first film were/are awe inspiring and re-releasing the original in 3D isn't going to change that. In fact, it'll cheapen it. Basically, in somewhat predictable Hollywood fashion, if Jurassic Park 4 is released only in 3D format, I'll skip the theatrical run. I refuse to support this 3D fad, even if it means skipping something I hold so close to me like Jurassic Park.

#7. Piranha (2010)

This blog isn't going to list nothing but movies that only come out in 3D, I swear. Piranha finds its way onto the list because it's a remake, and a pointless one at that. The original Piranha from 1978 was made and released to cash in on the success that Jaws had three years earlier. Nowadays, Hollywood is adapting everything they can into films (like Battleship) and they have no problem remaking and remaking. It's not like the public was crying for this film to be remade. My mentality is that if people wanted to watch a movie like Jaws, they should just go watch Jaws, it's a great film. Another thing that is making me push Piranha away is director Alexandre Aja. I've only seen one of his films, which was both thankfully and unfortunately his remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I say "unfortunately" because The Hills Have Eyes was an absolutely disgusting film that just went too far in my opinion. You could argue that Hills had balls for going that far, but it was still too far. I say "thankfully" because viewing Hills has sworn me off of Aja's work and this movie looks like nothing but tits and bloody shock value. I have no use for gore being in a film for the sake of being senselessly gory and if I wanted tits, I'd just go to RedTube or TnA Flix. This movie can chew the fattest part of my ass...actually, scratch that.

#6. The Smurfs (2011)

This is one of those movies where I saw the trailer and just went, "Oh HELL NO!" I say this because I really don't have any memories from my childhood of watching the cartoon (although I do remember playing the game on Kelicovision), so there is no nostalgia appeal. Second of, it's part of that stupid 3D fad that's running rampant right now (once again, fuck you Avatar), so that nixes it. The third shot in The Smurfs' heel is that the whole live action adaptations of bubbly kid shows has a really shitty track record, yet they keep somehow turning a bit of a profit and the studios keep pumping them out (Alivn & The Chipmunks 3?! Seriously?!). The fourth and final steak in the heart of any hope of me ever seeing this movie is the fact that Katy Perry voices Smurfette. Not that I have any attachment whatsoever to the character, I just can't fucking stand Katy Perry, her annoying voice and those lifeless eyes of hers. These movies are all the fucking same with badly CGI'd characters, brainless toilet humor that even children wouldn't laugh at & modern culture references just to make it try to appear remotely hip. Fuck this movie and fuck every other movie like it that comes along.

#5. Meet The Spartans (2008) or any other parody movie post-Scary Movie 2

If anyone reading this just so happens to know Kevin Sorbo, please give him a hug next time you see him for being in this movie. Either a hug or a slap (probably a hug, Sorbo's kind of a big guy) because he must've been down on his luck to be in this thing. Meet The Spartans is another one of those parody movies that doesn't just parody a single movie (in this case, 300), but throws in a bunch of references and parodies to other movies that have nothing to do with the original parody material whatso-fucking-ever. What parody movies like Naked Gun, Hot Shots, Spaceballs, Spy Hard & the first two Scary Movies did right was create a boundary for what their movie could parody. Spy Hard was a cheap shot at James Bond and other spy films, where Spaceballs primarily picked at Star Wars' ass and other science fiction films. What parody movies have been doing since Scary Movie III is parodying whatever is popular at the time. Meet The Spartans is the first one that comes to mind though because Spike TV spammed the commercials for this movie during every goddamned break and when Scholar and I saw a trailer for this before Aliens vs Predator: Requiem and being a huge fan of the Battle Of Thermopylae, she flat out said, "I refuse to see that movie." I'm inclined to agree with her. Yeah, we'd rather watch AvP:R again than give this movie a chance.

#4. World Trade Center (2006)

I'm really, really sorry if I piss off any American readers at this point. I really am, but I don't give a good goddamn if this is a true story! I don't give a holy hell if this is Nicholas Cage before he was laughably bad in The Wicker Man! I don't care if the main character has the same name as one of my best friends, I will NOT support this film in any way, shape or form. September 11, 2001 is one of those many days in our history that'll live on in infamy for the rest of our existence as a species and there are probably still those whose wounds still have not fully healed almost ten years later. World Trade Center just looked like Hollywood trying to make a quick buck off of the nation's renowned patriotism and the misery of the victims' families. This would be like making a movie of the Holocaust only 5 years after it happened. This movie could have won every single film award in existence (even the ones it wouldn't even qualify for) and had everybody dancing in the streets over it, but I still would not see it. Even five years after its release, I look at it and still get that feeling that it just has bad taste all over it. No thanks.

#3. The Harold & Kumar Sequels

This picture here is all you need to see of the awful films that are Harold & Kumar. Well, I'm assuming that the follow-ups are excruciating because that's how the first one felt. The only good part about Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle is the man you see pictured above, Neil Patrick Harris. Despite the fact that he is in fact a married gay man with a family, Harold & Kumar depict him as a single swinger with two ladies hanging off of each arm. Everything else about the film was a boring, frustrating and unfunny stoner adventure about two guys trying to get some fucking take out and pussy. Lame. Perhaps this one left such a bad taste in my mouth because my brother made me watch it when I was about to ask Scholar out 4 years ago and pretty much cock blocked me for 4 hours because of this movie. All joking aside, this movie was a waste of reel and the sequel, Escape From Guantanamo Bay, looked like the same fucking movie again, just like the Saw and Final Destination sequels, only this one looks more torturous. The worst part is that a Christmas themed Harold & Kumar film is scheduled for release this year and Neil Patrick Harris is back again. Is he seriously the only reason why people go to these movies? People, watch How I Met Your Mother instead. At least show actually has a few laughs.

#2. The Twilight Sequels

Okay, I'm kind of cheating on this one for two reasons. One, I used a picture of the books instead of the movie. Sue me. Two, kind of like the previous entry, I'm referring to more than one specific film. Again, sue me. I tried reading the first Twilight book and due to its sloppy writing, I got maybe about a page and a half into it before I had to put it down and walk away. The movies aren't any better and at one point, I seriously did consider the first Twilight film the worst film I've ever seen and shattered any hope of me watching the sequels, even to just tear them apart for entertainment purposes. The movie looks visually unappealing in its atmosphere, everyone talks like love children of Ben Stein, Bella is a huge stuck up bitch and all Edward does is sparkle like a fucking fairy and be all Broody McBroodbrood. Hell, when Scholar & I watched it for our review (Part 1, Part 2), we got to the damn DVD menu and we were already reaching for the sympathy candy we had on hand to get through it. The problem is that Twilight doesn't know how monstrously bad it truly is and doesn't know how to have fun with its own concept. This made for one horrible mess of a film and I've heard that the series of both books and films get worse with each new entry...and considering that the last book is stealing a page from the Harry Potter franchise and turning the last book, Breaking Dawn, into two separate films, so I shudder at the level of shit squall that'll be. Oh, and Robert Pattinson needs a fucking comb.

Women anywhere from 6 to 50+ years old worship this guy as their brooding prince. LOOK AT YOUR PRINCE AND HIS DERPY FISH EYES, LADIES! LOOK AT YOUR DERPY GOD!

And the Number One Film I Absolutely Refuse To Watch is...

#1. 2012 (2009)

Goddamn, this movie looks stupid! They might as well have called it The Day After Tomorrow 2: 2012, because it looks like the same fucking movie. To be honest, The Day After Tomorrow wasn't all that great, but in this days of remakes, pointless sequels & countless parody movies, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Hollywood decided to cash in on the whole crock of shit conspiracy theory that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012 according to the ancient Mayan calendar. You know what happens on that day? It's the end of the calendar, not the world. That's like saying doomsday is upon us December 31st, 2011. When a calendar ends, a new one starts. The only reason why there isn't another calendar after this one is because the fucking Mayans aren't around to make a new one. Of course, it doesn't help that the studios enlisted Roland Emmerich, who seems to have a hard-on for destroying the world (although he's been favoring America lately) and paper thin characters with horrible dialogue, to helm the thing. Scholar's dad tried to get us to watch it because the effects were good, but upon watching some clips online, Brad Jones (aka The Cinema Snob) said it best, "2012 looked like a fucking cartoon." It did, with the ridiculous spectacles that were L.A. sinking into the Pacific Ocean like the Titanic and a tidal wave careening over the Himalayan Mountains. This movie pushed me away from the first teaser, not only in the sense that I don't like end of the world films, but how it hinted the whole 2012 conspiracy was started by the government. The tagline was "How will the world leaders prepare us for the end of the world? They won't." Really, Roland? You don't even try to hide it, you just slather us up in those conspiracies right out of the fucking oven, huh? It's one thing when an internet reviewer rips apart a film, but its quite another when there are so many things wrong with it that said reviewer has to break it up into two parts. Matthew Buck (aka Film Brain) did a two-parter episode of his series Bad Movie Beatdown on 2012 that gave me all the reasons why I should not watch this movie. I will now provide you with the links to Part 1 and Part 2. Hell, 2012 has the notoriety of being so fucking stupid that NASA, yes that NASA, has voted 2012 as The Most Absurd Sci-Fi Film Of All Time. They also went on to list their most realistic sci-fi films, which is including (but not limited to) Gattaca, Contact & Jurassic Park. That's right, folks. NASA says you have a better chance of seeing cloned dinosaurs walking around in some island resort than the world blowing up beneath you next year. Fuck 2012 and its cashing in on people's fear method. Grow up, Hollywood.

-The Cynic

Quick Blurb Review: Inception

Well, I guess you can cross this off of my Top 10 Critically Acclaimed Films (That I Have Not Seen) list, honorable mention or no. Inception has been claimed by many to be the best film of 2010 and many fanboys were crying afoul when Inception did not win best pictures at the Oscars. Upon watching Inception, I am still unsure if the film was truly worthy of Best Picture. Not that it wasn't an intriguing ride, because it was, but since I haven't seen what did win Best Picture (Hurt Locker, I think it was), I can't say for sure.

Pessimistic note: the trailers made this part look cooler than it actually was. Sorry folks.

The story of Inception is pretty messed up. Technology now exists where people can invade people's dreams to steal ideas and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the best in the business. However, he carries a lot of emotional baggage and a man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) offers him one last job: instead of stealing an idea from a competitor (Cillian Murphy), plant an idea and split the empire his father (Pete Postlethwaite *squee moment*) built, eliminating him as competition. DiCaprio assembles his team and then mindfucks occur.

I'm not exactly doing cartwheels around my friend's living room in an emotional frenzy going, "OMIGAWD, INCEPTION IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER AND I HAVE SUCH A HARD-ON FOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!!!!" Like I said, Inception is a good movie for many reasons but there's a lot to this movie. Christopher Nolan has an interesting method of film making and likes to toy with your head so that you stick around to see what the hell's going on. This is not a bad thing, mind you, but with the case of Inception, sometimes it's a little hard to follow...or at least it was for me because while I was watching it, I was also taking notes for things to talk about in this very review, so maybe I missed something.

The look of this film is great. Everything is shot so superbly that even if the plot was paper thin (which it isn't), at least it had cinematography on its side. It's really hard to explain them any further than that. You really have to see it for yourself. The performances here are solid, as per usual with what I've seen of Nolan's work (which admittedly is limited to Batman Begins & The Dark Knight) and if people are bitching about Leonardo DiCaprio, I wanna know what kind of fucking crack they're smoking.

Cobb sharing a moment with his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard).

There's two things that I want to touch base on before I wrap this up. First off is the stuff between Cobb & his wife. I do not want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen this film yet (all five of you), but this is probably what stood out the most for me. The scenes between DiCaprio & Cotillard are painful, but not in the bad way. The dilemma that Cobb is having with Mal is genuinely heartbreaking and I'm not sure if it was the dialogue, the actors saying them or a combination of the two, but there were scenes where I almost shed a tear or two. Another thing that really stood out to me was how the film ended. My experience with Nolan's film endings were fairly simple, but this one really makes you scratch your head. At one point, they explain how you tell whether or not you're in a dream and the credits abruptly drop in on you before you can conclude if the happy ending is truly happy. It might make some people go, "Oh, man! We want a sequel! We need a conclusive end!" I'm in the crowd that is leaning more towards the idea of an Inception sequel tarnishing this ending. This is the same kind of ending that the story I wrote years ago, Predator: Experimentation, had where the film is letting the audience decide for themselves what the outcome was and a follow-up would just cheapen this simple but very effective ending. Christopher Nolan seems to have a good head on his shoulders and I think he'd tell the studios to stuff it if they tried to push a sequel to this film on him.

"Create a sequel to what? You best be joking, pal."

So, the long and short of it is that Inception was a pretty good movie that had many powerful elements in it. My only gripes would be that the hallway fight that people were going nuts over didn't look at mind blowing as I had hoped and that trying to remember what level of dream they were in was hard to keep track of. Then again, this is just one asshole's opinion and I would still recommend the movie for quality entertainment. Just don't be surprised if you feel afterwards that you'll need to see the movie again to fully understand it, or even fully appreciate it.

-The Cynic

P.S. Am I the only one who thinks that Ellen Page looks gorgeous dressed like this instead of her street attire?

Quick Blurb Review: The Simpsons Movie

Everyone knows who The Simpsons are. The combination of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa & Maggie are all a fairly hefty piece of the television popular culture pie, not to mention many of the other great side characters in the show. It's really 50/50 on whether people are surprised or not that the show has become the longest American primetime entertainment series (the 23rd season starts September 2011). However, considering that the series started out as skits on The Tracy Ullman Show and became a full fledged tv show on its own in 1987, it's surprising that with the popularity the show garnered, it still took 20 years to a full feature film to be released. Another thing that surprises people who know me is that since I was such a huge Simpsons back in the day, it took me an additional four years to actually watch the movie. So, how is it? Was it worth the wait?

Fair warning: Half the town doesn't have any lines in this film.

So the plot of The Simpsons Movie is that after Grandpa Simpson has a freakout in the middle of church, Marge attempts to find out the meaning behind it, believing that Grandpa has somehow foretold Doomsday (now with less angel fossils and mall openings). Homer impulsively adopts a pig and dumps its waste into the already polluted Lake Springfield, pushing it to the point where it mutants any animal that jumps in and the Environmental Protection Agency steps in (sadly, without William Atherton) and quarantines Springfield under a giant glass dome. Once it's discovered that Homer was behind it, he and his family go on the run to avoid being lynched.

For some reason, Green Day makes a cameo in it. Don't worry, they die in the first three minutes.

If you were to ask me when the show reached its peak, I'd have to say anywhere between Seasons 7 & 9 (as you can tell from my blogs from last September of Top 15 Favorite Simpsons Episodes), so I'll come right out and say it: this movie came out far too late. Had they released a Simpsons film during Seasons 7-9, then this movie would've been absolutely hysterical. That being said, this movie is still funnier than the show is now (the last episode I tried to watch had Homer making Bart pee himself on a jumbo tron at a baseball game. Pardon the pun, but all it did was piss me off) and while it may not have been great, it was still good. Better than I figured it would be, to be honest. There's a actually a pretty heavy scene involving Marge & Homer's wedding tape that I didn't think The Simpsons had in them anymore, not to mention plenty of funny moments in here, including cameos from old characters, nods to previous episodes (wrecked ambulance by the gorge for the win!), and stuff that the show may not necessarily be able to get away with, including a satirical take on the whole "romantic Disney animal" cliche and Marge's line of, "SOMEBODY THROW THE GODDAMN BOMB!"

I got a good roar out of this part too.

However, there were downsides to this film as well. The movie starts with the town in a theatre watching an Itchy & Scratchy feature film and Homer says that everyone's a sucker for watching something they can watch on their tv for free. Another thing that bugged me was Arnold Schwarzenegger is supposed to be the President of America? Fine, but they just wound up using the Reniere Wolfcastle template for Schwarzenegger, so why not just call him President Wolfcastle? The next thing that pisses me off is how the technology has changed to show the environments in The Simpsons now. The characters are hand drawn (near as I can tell) where as the backgrounds are becoming more and more digital. I can dig the hand drawn characters over the painted backdrops, but when you put something hand drawn over something really digital, it just makes the characters look like a bad special effect and its distracting. Finally, I think the film has a bit of a slow start and nothing really starts happening until half an hour into the picture. The first bit honestly just feels like an unaired episode of the tv series that they just shoehorned into here. Some of this probably could have been trimmed down a tad.

I still want to know who at 20th Century Fox said, "You know what the public wants to see? Bart's penis." I'm not kidding.

Despite any faults the film may have, it's still much better than what's on Sunday nights now. The Simpsons Movie is a good way to kill an hour twenty minutes and will provide you with some laughs (and a faint Wilhelm scream!), provided you can stomach the digital animations sticking out like a sore thumb. If you're a die-hard old school Simpsons fan, such as I was, I'd recommend approaching this film with caution. If it pays off or even breaks even for you, then great. If not, then pop in Seasons 7-9 in your DVD player and enjoy.

-The Cynic

Quick Blurb Review: The Princess & The Frog

Okay, so I haven't really touched base on films intended for much younger audiences on either here or my YouTube account with exception of two posts. It may come as a surprise to some who read this, but I have a soft spot for kids movies. Many great films immediately come to mind: All Dogs Go To Heaven, The Land Before Time, the first couple of Shrek films, Aladdin, A Goofy Movie, An Extremely Goofy Movie (which is the only direct-to-video Disney sequel actually worth watching and could've done well in a theatrical run), Robin Hood, The Aristocats, Peter Pan. It's no coincidence that the last six films that I mentioned are Disney films because let's face it, there's a reason why people keep calling animated movies, regardless of what company produces them, Disney films, because Disney does it best. Lately, you can chalk that up to their collaboration with Pixar Studios to keep churning out well rendered hit after well rendered hit, but something about those films were missing something. Before you start sharpening your knives and flooding the comments with hate (provided you haven't closed this tab by now), I have a lot of respect for the Disney/Pixar films. Anyone who questions the impact that the Toy Story franchise has had on the animation world is a damn fool, even if the 3rd movie was a tad over-dramatic. Yet, after 5 years of CG Disney movies, the whole thing was starting get a little old. I remember saying to my brother, "The next generation doesn't know what they're missing with the older style animation films." Sure, Disney gave the hand drawn stuff a rest after the painfully mediocre Home On The Range but then they decided to dust off the drawing board and gave us The Princess & The Frog, Disney's first hand drawn film in five years.

The plot behind The Princess & The Frog is that Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) was raised in a work work work lifestyle and as an adult, she works two jobs to try and help bring her father's dream of opening a restaurant in New Orleans. Meanwhile, Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) has come to New Orleans to try and find a wealthy wife to get himself out of a financial bind. There, he and his assistant are confronted by The Dancing Shadowman, Dr. Facilier (Keith David) who spins some voodoo magic to convince them that he can give them everything they ever wanted. Long and short of that, Naveen gets turned into a frog and in order to break the spell, he has to kiss a princess. At a costume party, he mistakes Tiana for a princess and makes her kiss him, accidentally turning her into a frog as well. They then go on a mission through the bayou to set things right.

Tiana is also the first Disney Princess to be African-American.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't really take a lot of notes of things to talk about while watching this movie because I was having way too much of a nostalgia trip with Princess & The Frog, so I'll talk about the movie as a whole instead. This movie continues the fine Disney tradition of leaving our main character with only one parent (father's gone seven minutes into the film. Wasn't surprised) but while it carries on this odd tradition, it also pulls out a lot of stops from the hand drawn Disney films that we loved. Elaborate musical numbers with people who can actually sing (Anika Noni Rose was in Dreamgirls), talking animals (including a Jim Cummings voiced Cajun lightning bug), really cartoony sight gags, large ballroom dances, wishing upon stars, it's all here. Not surprisingly, the movie takes a bit of a darker turn in the final act to bring in an element of peril and suspense, but when your villain is a voodoo twirler voiced by Goliath, then I'd be disappointed if it didn't get a little dark (seriously, the things that Fecilier summons to find the heroes are kinda freaky shit!). Watching this movie honestly gave me the sensation that I had back in 1992 when I first saw Aladdin in theatres.

Cynic Fun Fact: This was the first movie I ever saw in theatres. Too bad it was followed up by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

However, as much fun as I had watching Princess & The Frog, the film is not perfect. There's one scene where three hideously inbred hunters try and catch our heroes for supper that I felt was really stupid and not necessary. Being aimed at a younger audience, I can see why that scene was in there and will even let it go. There might have been a couple of parts trimmed down a bit to shorten the run time slightly and Tiana's friend was really annoying, but I think that was the whole point of her. Fortunately, those gripes don't overshadow the rest of the superb quality found in this film. If you've been wanting to revisit hand drawn Disney, give Princess & The Frog a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

If nothing else, YouTube the song "Got Friends (On The Other Side)." It's quite the spectacle and shows that Keith David has a pretty decent singing voice, too.

Quick Blurb Review: Sucker Punch

I was willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubt. Despite the mostly negative press on it, maybe Sucker Punch had some sort of redeeming factor in it that would make the movie mostly tolerable, but no! I HATED this movie! I REALLY. FUCKING. HATED. THIS. MOVIE. So much in fact that if there is anyone, anyone reading this that has yet to see Sucker Punch, I will gladly spill out the shit and spoilers of this film to save you from the torture of sitting through these unwelcome 110 minutes on disc! Read on at your own risk, folks! You thought I got a little nasty with my last blog? You ain't seen SHIT. Here we go!

I know it was a bad sign when I thought the beginning of the film was a trailer. The disc jumps straight into the film without malice or forethought or even a glimpse of the DVD menu. The film starts with Baby Doll (I won't even bother listing the actress' name. The sooner I finish ripping this movie a new asshole, the better. No, I'm not being cute or trying to overreact. This movie genuinely made me that angry) crying on her bed because her mom dies. Her stepdad looks at her mom's will and finds that she left everything to Baby Doll and her sister. Enraged, her stepdad tries to kill her but she escapes and he goes after her sister. Baby Doll tries to pull a gun on her stepdad but when she shoots she misses and accidentally kills her sister. Her stepdad then puts her in a mental asylum for girls (those exist now?) that all look like Zombie Children Of The Corn and it turns out that the place is secretly a burlesque house. During a dance lesson, Baby Doll's mind wanders into fucking lala land and some old guy tells her to gather five items so that she can escape. Convinced this is a fucking brilliant idea, she and four fellow "inmates" (one played by Vanessa Hudgens, I didn't give a damn about the rest of them) decide to pursue this goal in order for freedom. A bunch of really stupid trying-to-be-metaphorical-and-subtle-but-we-beat-it-over-your-heads-like-the-wet-end-of-a-severed-limb shit happens for the next hour and fifty minutes, resulting in massive headaches, high blood pressure & hot tempers.

First off, I want to talk about the overall look of this movie. I know that this has the same director as 300 (an infinitely better film), but at five minutes in, the cinematography reminds me far too much of 300, or even The Spirit, although I'm not sure if Sucker Punch is more or less retarded than The Spirit. This movie made me much angrier, but as for overall stupidity...you know what? Sucker Punch is FAR more retarded. I'm going to shit on it in every other cock-sucking department, so why not this one?

GIVE THE GREEN SCREEN A REST, DAMN YOU!

The next thing that I want to rip into is the soundtrack. Oh. My. God. If you are a nostalgic music fan, stay the fuck away from this movie. You will be subject to audio anal-rapings of such songs including but not limited to "Sweet Dreams," "Army Of Me," "(We Will) Rock You," "I Want It All" and "Search & Destroy." No, not Metallica's "Seek & Destroy" but Iggy Pop's "Search & Destroy." If they did as awful of a cover of "Seek" as they did "Search," I'd probably be getting angry drunk right now. Actually, hold on. *Grabs Keystone Beer from fridge* Okay, let's keep going. The soundtrack completely kills the mood of the film and grates on your ears about as badly as an orgy of Kesha, Katy Perry, The Black Eyed Peas, Rebecca Black, Cradle Of Filth, Mayhem, Death & Johnny Reid, if not worse.

Any copy of this album should be shot, stabbed, stretched, hung, disembowled & quartered...as a start.

The settings of the film go from distracting to absurd. It starts off in an asylum for mental ill girls that's actually a burlesque house. Okay, that's a little twisted, even for me. Who's this movie trying to fool?! This isn't a setting for an action film! Hell, the "action" isn't even real! It's just in this Baby Dingbat's head! None of the hugely over-the-top action scenes actually happen! Which is another thing that pissed me off about this movie! These scenes only happen when she dances, right? If her dancing is so goddamned enchanting, why in the hell can't we see that instead of these ridiculous action scenes that are home of some of the worst fucking CGI in a big budget movie that I've seen in a long time? Anytime we went back to the asylum, it just made me think of the Disturbed album by the same name, which was immediately followed by the thought of, "WHY IN THE FUCK AREN'T I LISTENING TO THAT INSTEAD?!"

"I feel you DIE! In Asylum, I live a lie! Don't know this movie's crap and isn't even ready! To be Released, worldwide!"

I need to touch base on the action scenes some more. The worlds that these scenes take place in are beyond unforgivably stupid. Giant samurais with miniguns? Planes, machine guns & comm units in medieval times? A dragon with a head that looks like a cross of a Ceratosaurus, Spinosaurus & the Cloverfield monster? I, Robot ripoffs? Steam powered zombie Nazis? The only good thing to come out of a couple of these scenes (seeing as how she was only in a couple of them) was Vanessa Hudgens carrying around a big fucking machine gun, which even then was a tad underwhelming. She's not nearly as arousing in this situation as Scarlett Johansson was in Iron Man 2, where when she was beating up all the Hammer Tech goons I thought I was gonna shoot my brains out the end of my dick. Not only do these scenes (and this film in general) fall flat on its face in the mud in the "sexy" department, these scenes are crammed with so much fucking slow motion shots that I swear they're just there to drag out the film. Slow motion looks cool when used in small doses, NOT EVERY MOTHERFUCKING THIRTY SECONDS. KEEP IT MOVING, ZACK SNYDER! WE DON'T HAVE ALL NIGHT, YOU BRAT!!! This movie is like a guy in Burger King wearing a chef's hat: it's trying so hard to stand out and it ends up bathing in a festering cesspool of FAIL.

Get used to dragging action scenes like this one, folks. There's a lot of them. How do you deal with the mass quantity and poor quality? Lots of alcohol.

The fact that this movie is only PG-13 certainly doesn't help it. Not that I was craving naked crazy lady burlesque dancers in this film (if I wanted cast nudity, I'd just Google "Vanessa Hudgens Nude Scandal"), but something this out there and over the top could've used some gore splattering the scenery and a few "fucks" in there. The closest we get is Hudgens (seriously, due to her beauty, she's the only one worth paying attention to in this movie. Too bad she gets killed) aiming at the dragon saying, "I got you in sight you mother" BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a PG-13 movie can get away with saying "fuck" no more than five times before it becomes restricted. Why censor it?

Carla Gugino's accent is pretty hot in this movie too, in all fairness.

The notes I scrawled down while watching this film are three pages of chicken scratch and rage, so I'll wrap this up. On top of all of the awful things in this movie, this film also teases us with an event close to the ending hinting that none of the shit we spent the last hour and a fucking half didn't actually happen when Baby Doll gets a lobotomy, but then it spins us back in the whole burlesque house angle. On top of that, there are animated shorts included on the DVD that are narrated by Kieth David (Goliath, bitches!) and how he decided to get associated with this awful film, I'll never know. Then again, he did star in Delta Farce, so who knows? Maybe Goliath was getting towards the red in his check book. The final salt on the fucking wound with this movie was after the credits roll, the DVD runs through, I'm not kidding, 3 minutes of multi-lingual copyright warnings. What in the hell is the point of that? Then again, when it was made by Cruel & Unusual Films, why should THAT part surprise me? It's not like the rest of the movie didn't give me fair warning.

"Shouldn't we get going?"
"No, we haven't heaved our chests enough yet."

I fucking hate this piece of shit of a movie. While it wasn't as painful as The Love Guru, it was more frustrating to watch than Jurassic Park III. Sucker Punch is nothing more than fapping material to teenage boys as Twilight is to tween girls. Nothing about this movie really jumps out, other than it's gravely low quality of entertainment and its lack of subtlety that bludgeons you at every corner does it no credit, and when I, a guy who describes himself as subtle as a plane crash, says something needs more subtlety, that's saying something. The worst part about this is that Zack Snyder dedicated Sucker Punch to a deceased relative. Ordinarily, I'd feel bad about hating and ripping into something dedicated to someone's memory, but this movie did itself no favors. Sucker Punch is less of a film than it is what Zack Snyder had to show for oogling the cast members during production. Perhaps the guy should just stick to copying and pasting comic books to film, because at least 300 and The Watchmen were incredibly entertaining and the changes he made to those movies helped in the end, whereas his original work here is an attempt to make eye porn for stupid young males, and I think even the stupid young males have higher standards than this shithole of a film set for itself. Avoid this movie as if it were the plague or a bloodthirsty rabid Sasquatch coming to tear down your house and eat everything and everyone you hold dear after it violates them in every orifice the human body houses.

TL;DR (Too Long, Didn't Read): GO FUCK YOURSELF, SUCKER PUNCH! GO! FUCK! YOURSELF!

-The Cynic

Why I Hate Jurassic Park III Now

My fandom for the franchise Jurassic Park needs no introduction, explanation or any further attention to you because if you're reading this, you probably know how I pretty much all but worship the air this franchise farts out and will no doubt take sharp instruments to your genitalia in lieu of any further elaboration on my part. However, what stops me from being one of those Jurassic zombies, as it were, are the comic Jurassic Park: Redemption, the toy-line Jurassic Park: Chaos Effect, and finally, why we're here today, the film Jurassic Park III.

Surprisingly, fandom appears to be hereditary as my now two year old son, Roland (partially named after Pete Postlethwaite's character from The Lost World: Jurassic Park), loves dinosaurs and actually calls them "kas" because he's trying to say the "K" sounds in Jurassic Park, what he immediately associates dinosaurs with. While he enjoys watching the kas in the entire series, he seems to have taken a liking to the third film for a reason I'll never quite understand (maybe because of the "bird kas"). Since it has those two practically magic words in the title, I find myself parking my ass down next to him and watching it too. However, lately Jurassic Park III hasn't sit quite well with me. In fact, the more I watch it, the less I like it, and considering how much young children like repetition, I now like Jurassic Park III far, far, FAR less than I did when I first saw it on July 18th, 2001. Why? Let's dig in and find out.

The Running Time
At a measly 90 minutes or so, Jurassic Park III feels like a member of the ADD generation, sacrificing build up, suspense & character development to show off the "goods" sooner. One of the great things about Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World, was that it took its time before shit hit the fan. It established the characters, it showed off some of the wondrous animals and majesty of the island(s) before putting the characters you should root for in the way of a giant theropod's gaping maw. Here, give it ten or 15 minutes and the cast is already down two mercenaries and a way off the island. Um, okay, fine but why should we give a crap about Tea Leoni or Alessandro Nivola? Or even the two currently digested mercs at this point? Those two probably had a combined, what, 5 minutes of screen time and ten lines? Boo fucking hoo. If you want us to have a reaction, good or bad, to characters dying, you need to get us invested in them. Fail on this department.

Excuse me, sir. Have we met?

Tea Leoni
Now, I'm not harping on Tea Leoni because she's a bad actress or anything because to be honest, I'm not entirely familiar with her work for the most part, just this film and Deep Impact. The problem isn't so much in her acting, but her character. My other half, Picky Momma Scholar, finds Tea Leoni's character Amanda Kirby more annoying than Willie from Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom. I think Scholar shouldn't say things she can't take back (as annoying as Amanda can be, she has nothing on Willie or even Short Round). That not withstanding, Amanda is a fairly annoying character and probably the only grown woman from the Jurassic Park franchise that I wouldn't be bothered by seeing her not make it (I wasn't entirely sold on The Lost World's Kelly Malcolm). All she does is bicker with her ex-husband Paul (played by William H. Macy, who I like), scream and break away from the herd, calling unwanted attention to herself and her associates. After seeing wonderful leading ladies in the franchise thanks to Laura Dern & Julianne Moore, this just seems like a let down.

"Hi, Dr. Grant? S. Aegypticus here. Can you please tell that annoying thing you're scurrying around on my island with to shut the fuck UP?! Thanks to her, I now have to abandon a GREAT meal so I can get a head start to reach you bastards before the Velociraptors do. Congratulations."

The Spinosaurus
Sometimes, change is good. There are those who encourage, embrace and welcome it, but not all changes are good. Such is the case here. Spinosaurus is by no means a no name dinosaur, but not nearly as recognizable as the iconic and first two film's main attraction, Tyrannosaurus Rex. So much in fact, that I, no word of a lie, had people come up and ask me if Spinosaurus was actually a real dinosaur or something they just made up for Jurassic Park III. Spinosaurus is a real species of dinosaur, but the thing was that given its crocodilian snout and light frame compared other predators of similar size, Spinosaurus was designed more for catching fish and herbivorous dinosaurs in the area, NOT for delivering cheap kill shots to Tyrannosaurus and being some unstoppable bulletproof behemoth that this movie makes it out to be. Then again, the series' paleontological adviser, Dr. Jack Horner, just has it out for T-Rex, suggesting that it was a limping scavenger (you see it in this movie) and that Torosaurus & Triceratops were actually the same dinosaur, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Changing the main dinosaur at this point was like changing the lineup in Transformers back in the 80s: nobody cared about Rodimus Prime vs. Galvatron, and nobody cared about Spinosaurus either.

"Hiddy ho, kids! I'm Spinosaurus aegypticus! Even though I'm not nearly as recognized as my old buddy T-Rex and I have no right to rob him of all but 60 seconds of screen time in this movie, that doesn't mean we can't have fun, right? Right? Does anyone out there like me yet?"

The Velociraptors
After the first Jurassic Park film came out, the word "Velociraptor" became a household word. Rightfully so, seeing as they were the park's most terrifying animal (gave me nightmares for a year, not a word of a lie), even though they were more like Deinonychus or Utahraptor, but we can chalk that up to a miscalculation in the cloning. The screen time they got in Jurassic Park III makes up for their screen time, or lack there of, in The Lost World, but JP3 makes them out to be some kind of messiah that'll start a Dromaeosaur uprising that we'll see in Rise Of The Planet Of The Raptors hitting theatres soon. Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) even says in the movie that they were smarter than dolphins, whales and primates. Sure, if those three species in question are dumber than a housecat (I know some primates who are, in all fairness). Most research that I've found has concluded that Velociraptors were probably about as smart as your common feline, which by reptilian standards, is still pretty impressive, but this movie makes them seem like McGuyveraptor (setting a trap in the tree? Seriously?). Another thing that pissed me off about the Raptors is their look. Why ditch the great tiger stripe thing from The Lost World and give them this acid trip coloration? It's like someone spilled some paint and primer on the male and female maquettes (respectively) while having an acid trip cranking some Pink Floyd and said, "Good enough." I'm fine with the males having feathers, but everything else just sucks.

"Whoa! The jungle's on fire, man!"
"Honey, put down the ecstasy."

Dr. Grant's Change Of Attitude
In Jurassic Park, Dr. Alan Grant says to Lex (Ariana Richards) that the dinosaurs are not monsters, but animals. Here, Grant flat-out says, "Now what John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park was create genetically engineered theme park monsters, nothing more and nothing less." What the fuck, man? You study these things all your life and you get pissy after a few years because they just follow their nature? If you took such personal offense to them trying to feed themselves, why not switch professions? Did nearly a decade of sitting on the thought of them sour your opinion of it all? Actually...this is starting to sound a little familiar. In all seriousness though, this just goes to show you that the writers of Jurassic Park III forgot the whole point behind Jurassic Park.

"Your cousins tried to eat me. You're all a bunch of savage Judases."

Which brings me to my last point, and what I hate the most about Jurassic Park III...

Dinosaurs Are Animals, Not Fucking Monsters.
Dinosaurs fascinate so many people because like Steven Spielberg described them, they possess many of the aspects that make mythology so alluring...only its not mythology, its real. Therefore, his goal in the first Jurassic Park, and even the second if you think about it, was to show the dinosaurs more as the animals that may have existed all those millions of years ago rather than creatures ravenous for human flesh. Jurassic Park III took that philosophy, said "To Hell with this noise," and took a huge dump on it. I say this because of a few key scenes:
1. When the group first encounters the Tyrannosaur, they find him chewing on a dead dinosaur. He roars to scare them off, they split, and then he chases after them. The Tyrannosaur gives up tons, TONS of flesh already at his disposal for a couple of running bitesizers? That's like giving up a freshly cooked steak for some stray Skittles. What a crock.
2. When Udesky (Michael Jeter) gets killed, the Velociraptors claw him down his back and when they are called away, the male takes the time to reach down and break his neck, snarling back at Paul, Amanda and Billy (Alessandro Nivola), as if to mock them. You'd think that they'd just slash him again and put him out of his misery or you know, drag him back to their nesting site to feed their young. Just a thought.
3. The one that pisses me off the most, when Billy is thought to be killed by the Pteranodons and the one perched on the rocks nearby looks back and gives that "You're next" look to Grant and Paul. A real Pteranodon would probably screech at the intruders and take off to realign itself and dive at them, if anything. Sorry folks, this was creepy in the first Resident Evil game, but it just looks stupid here.

This movie can officially go fuck itself.

Okay, I think I've gone on about this for awhile now. I've been typing this for a couple hours now and I have other things to attend to. On top of all the things I mentioned, Jurassic Park III also had the lamest CGI (computer generated imagery) and toys in the entire franchise. In the first two films, the CGI looked damn real and still holds up pretty well, all things considered, but with JP3 anytime a CGI dinosaur was on I was well aware that I was looking at a rendered CGI model. This movie rushes into things, not giving us anything to wonder and marvel at with people we don't give a damn about thrown into the fray and is just a frustrating experience. With Steven Spielberg announcing that Jurassic Park IV is apparently a go, we can only hope that they learn their lessons from Jurassic Park III and take their time, both production and final length time-wise, to give us a quality film that will have us invest in the...what's that? Universal wants it out by 2013?

We're fucked.

-The Cynic

Quick Blurb Review: Iron Man 2

I know, I know, I should be ashamed of myself for not seeing this one sooner, but life happens. Thanks to a friend's Netflix subscription, I was finally able to see Iron Man 2.

The story for Iron Man 2 takes place about a year or so after the events of the first Iron Man film. Tony Stark/Iron Man, played once again by the brilliantly cast Robert Downey Jr., has pretty much single-handedly made world peace because nobody wants to come to blows with him and the Mark 3 Iron Man suit. However, the suit that's keeping him alive is also slowly killing him due to the toxicity in the element used to power Tony's super-pacemaker. It turns out that the original designs from his father weren't entirely his own, but shared with a Russian scientist and when Tony's father had the Russian deported, the Russian raised his son in a vodka filled rage. Fully grown and finally having the means to exact revenge, his son (also a scientist, played by Mickey Rourke), builds a similar technology to combat Tony's Iron Man suit.

First off, the casting. Many familiar faces return with the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Gwenyth Paltrow & Jon Faverau, but we see some new ones as Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as Col. James "Rhoady" Rhodes and Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow which was...well...daaaammmmnnnnn. I don't feel there was a single dull performance in this movie, but then again in order for this film to maintain the thunder from the first, it would've had to lack dull performances. In all honesty, one of the most fun characters to watch in this film was Sam Rockwell as Justin "Jack" Hammer. He was such an arrogant suit toting douchebag that he was just so lovably hate-able that I looked forward to seeing him onscreen. Also, I don't know what everyone was complaining about, Mickey Rourke's Russian accent didn't seem THAT bad.

The overall pacing of this movie worked well because there weren't any parts that dragged and nothing felt too rushed either. Unlike the first one, there's more scenes that are either action packed or visually appealing in with the dialogue scenes, but one doesn't wash out the other, which is impressive because the film pays homage to an old arc in the comics called "Demon In The Bottle" where Tony can't control his drinking and the last half an hour or so of this film was absolutely insane and kept me on the edge of the couch. In the action department, Iron Man 2 topped the first film.

Watching ScarJo beat the tar out of a bunch of guards is the most arousing action scene I've ever witnessed. I hope she gets more roles like this.

That being said, I wouldn't necessarily go so far to say Iron Man 2 completely surpasses its predecessor. Probably on par at best. I'm not entirely sure why, but then again, it has been quite some time since I've seen the first Iron Man film so perhaps I should watch the two back to back and see how they compare. My final thoughts on the film would be if you're interested in seeing The Avengers next year and if you haven't seen this one yet, you might want to look into it for the full experience. That, and if you're familiar with The Avengers, the trademark weapons of two Avengers make cameo appearances in this film. All in all, Iron Man 2 was a damn fun movie and maybe I should have seen it before, but I'm glad I finally have this one off the "To Watch" list, for it was on there for too long.

-The Cynic