On tap this week:
— Rocky, Rambo, DaSilva?
— Avatar still looks awful
— Killer titties
And slightly much more!
One of the perks of having female friends is that on occasion one of them has an awesome husband/boyfriend to hang out with. One of my closer friends Gen has one of the greatest guys ever as her husband. Why? Because he came up with greatest idea in the history of ideas that weren’t already used in Monty Python and the Flying Circus sketches.
He was inspired after walking out of Jewel the other day. There was a table asking for donations to the Breast Cancer Society of America, or something like that, and people were asking to donate money to “Breast Cancer.” Me, I’m all about that. The female breast is one of the handful of amazing things God created so anything that helps to fight a horrible, horrible disease like breast cancer is alright with me. But Brian, inspired by the pithy words of the young woman asking for him to donate money to “Breast Cancer,” came up with an even better idea: Change his name to Breast Cancer.
Think about it. You can stand outside and go “give money to breast cancer” with a straight face because that’s your name. The people feel good because they’re helping to fight against killer titties. And you get a whole bunch of cash, which is good because you can totally not declare it as income and thus feel good for “sticking it to the man” at tax time. But then again, thoughts like these kept me out of the good colleges.
Random Thoughts of the Week
So I was in a movie this weekend, trying to kill some time before going out to the bars for the greatest holiday event of the year (Slut-o-ween), when I saw the full length trailer for Avatar. And my first gut reaction from the teaser trailer still stands:
This is going to be our generation’s version of Tron.
Don’t get me wrong. Tron was a marvel of technology that proved more influential then commercially viable. Because of it a lot of other films were able to use the technology to develop their concepts into great films. Tron developed a cult following and is still something of a spectacle to behold, and watching it now is still one of wonder for the effects, despite it not having a good story or acting.
And Avatar, if anything else, has the potential to revolutionize certain ways CGI and animation are used in cinema for potentially the next hundred years. Too bad people are overlooking the spectacle and not seeing that it’s probably going to be more about the effects then it is about story-telling.
Nuts for nothing, I congratulate James Cameron for being able to get his vision and develop the technology to do so. It obviously was a labor of love and more power to him for putting the money in to do so. But if the trailer is supposed to be the best of a film, to entice you to see it, all I’m seeing is a $200 million version of Battle for Terra.
My prediction is that the major critics are going to praise it for its effects and no one will talk about the story; it’s going to be all about how wonderful it looks, et al, and no doubt it’ll be incredible as an a/v experience. But mark my words: the film is going to be an intergalactic turd. And no matter how great the effects are, when the trailer’s premise is “big one liners, cool effin explosions” you know a film is going to be bad. Die Hard wasn’t advertised as “Hey, see a building blow up.”
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s Film – Nighthawks
Ahh…. The glory of the early 1980s, when Sylvester Stallone was still untouched by a plastic surgeon’s knife, Billy Dee Williams could hock malt liquor with impunity and Rutger Hauer was about to become everyone’s #1 choice for a villain. There’s something to be found if you can get young Hauer as your bad guy, I think, and this would be his American debut.
Nighthawks follows the tale of two undercover cops (Stallone and Williams) who are pulled off their current assignment and placed on a special task force to catch international terrorist Wulfgar (Hauer) who has come overseas. As Wulfgar starts his campaign of terror, aimed primarily at the United Nations, it’s up to the two police detectives to save the day. With Stallone doing a number of his own stunts, including one of extreme danger, and Wulfgar a perfect foil this should’ve been a nice start to a crime thriller franchise for Stallone and Williams. If Murtaugh and Riggs got four films, two too many in reality, then Stallone and Williams should’ve at least had Nighthawks 2: Electric Bugaloo.
But the thing is, it’s not very good. In fact, the painting called “Nighthawks” is more interesting to view then this movie is on occasion.
Starting out as a second sequel to The French Connection, featuring Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) teaming up with Richard Pryor in the Williams role, but wound up on Stallone’s desk as another potential franchise vehicle. Coming after a second Rocky sequel, and a year before First Blood, in theory it seems like a perfect choice for a young action star. This was still six years before Lethal Weapon, and a year before 48 Hours would establish the template for all buddy cop action flicks forever, so Stallone was almost in front of the curve on this. Williams was still a star, still known primarily as Lando Calrissian, and Stallone’s career was still red hot. Rocky elevated him to A-list status immediately and he hasn’t really left it since.
Recommendation to avoid.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
The Men Who Stare At Goats – George Clooney leads an all-star cast of psychic soldiers in the war on terrorism.
See It – Every other year George Clooney has two films that come out. A serious Oscar contender and a goofy comedy within several months of one another is his trademark. Several years ago he had Michael Clayton and Leatherheads in theatres around the same time. Now he has Up In The Air to win awards and Goats as his wacky comedy. Usually both are good films, and I don’t see why this would break the trend.
The Box – Frank Langella gives a couple a box that’ll give them a ton of money by randomly killing someone in the world. Bad things happen.
Skip it – Apparently Frost/Nixon didn’t pay Nixon (Langella) as much as he had hoped, hence a stupid horror film.
A Christmas Carol – The 300th version of the story of Scrooge, except with Jim Carrey. And it’s animated.
Skip It – I really don’t care how many times they make the film out of the original source material, or how different it is, the story is still clichéd and trite.
The Fourth Kind – Alien abductions involving Milla Jovovich.
Skip It – Any film that purports to be a “documentary” reenactment is immediately stupid.
Do you have questions about movies, life, love, or Branigan’s Law? Shoot me an e-mail at Kubryk@Insidepulse.com and you could be featured in the next “Monday Morning Critic.” Include your name and hometown to improve your odds.
