Argo (2012)

It's that time again. Time to watch the movie that won Best Picture in this year's Oscar race with judgmental eyes and a crossed-armed "impress me" attitude that will surely be a healthy way to go about it. Not that my expectations were already set against "Argo" like they were for "The Artist." This one looked like a film I could conceivably enjoy. And I was just glad "Lincoln" didn't get top honors. So at the very least, that's something. But in the back of my mind I'm eternally gritting my teeth that "Django Unchained" didn't win. Quentin needs his Best Picture statue, dammit! He's earned it more than most of the rest of these chuckle-heads getting them like candy!

What I ended up getting from "Argo" was a movie that I didn't dislike. That's about the best I can say about it. I didn't dislike it. It was okay. It was acceptable. It was the textbook definition of something that sure didn't suck. And there is no way in Heaven, Hell, The Feywild, Valhalla, Middle-Earth, Cimmeria, or the Romulan Nebula that it was a better picture than "Django Unchained." I haven't seen "Zero Dark Thirty" yet but I'm guessing it was nowhere near as good as that one, either. As it was last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that one too, the Best Picture award went to the safest choice. Boo to that mess.

On the other hand, I did like it better than "Lincoln."

"Argo" is about a not-until-recently declassified operation during the Iran hostage crisis of the early 80's. Apart from the hostages being held at the embassy, there were 6 Americans who had managed to flee during the storming of the building, and were taken in by the Canadian ambassador. There they hid for months until the CIA launched a plan so ludicrous that it had to work. The plan was to get them out by disguising them as a film crew scouting locations for a movie. Of course, to make the cover story stick, they had to do a good chunk of the work required to actually make a movie.

More airports need a scary looking bearded man leering over you in quiet judgement.

They went as far as having a script, a producer, a cast, and news events promoting it. And it is fun to watch all the attention to detail that goes on, and how all those pieces eventually come together. The most tense moments of the movie are completely reliant on those little details, as these characters who have no knowledge of the film industry are having to whip out the illustrated storyboards and posters at airport security as they're being grilled on the validity of their story, and having to describe the artistic vision of the movie that they're not making. It does make for some mild suspense.

There's also some surprisingly good humor to be found. Most of the comedy can be found in Alan Arkin and John Goodman's performances, which are admittedly top-notch. Arkin is a very typical "Jew-y" producer with the trademark dry wit and sarcasm that you'd imagine someone like that to have. One of the best bits of "Argo" has him pulling an "I don't like you and you don't like me but screw it let's do this because we're both jerks" speech on another producer to get his support for the project, and it makes for a pretty funny scene that also feels very natural. And John Goodman is again playing John Goodman, and that's awesome. He's like Jeff Bridges in that he's always the same guy, but you never get tired of him because he rocks so hard. Bryan Cranston also gets a few good ones in there too, which is also unsurprising as he's Bryan Cranston and also freaking awesome.

"Bryan, where are you going?"

"Aw ta hell with all this. I'm making meth."

It's no surprise that the most interesting bits of "Argo" are the Hollywood bits with Arkin and Goodman. I don't want to say that the Iran portions were necessarily boring, but like I'm going to bring up later, there's no suspense because you know the Americans made it out. The Hollywood stuff was classified. We don't really know how they did it or what went into it, so there's some genuine drama there. Plus when you've got Arkin and Goodman tearing it up, it's hard to care as much about Affleck and his beard on the other side of the world.

This leads into my biggest problem with "Argo," which was that there wasn't enough going on to warrant that tension the movie thinks it has. Upon reflection, not a whole lot really happened. Americans escape overrun embassy in Iran, Canadians hide them, the CIA concocts a fake movie production, Ben Affleck goes in, the plan works, they get on a plane, they leave Iran. Roll credits. Truly an epic tale that makes J.R.R Tolkien look like E.L. James.

All this is no doubt well made, and the attention to detail and time period is pretty outstanding, as the movie rather egotistically points out during a masturbatory end credit sequence comparing shots from the movie to actual photos. But when all a movie has to hang its hat on is getting little details right, there's not much to get all arrogant about. And all that tension people were saying it had basically boils down to two phone calls. That's the big climactic hurdle our heroes must overcome: Getting someone on the phone. It's not even a tense conversation. It's just that John Goodman had to pick it up in time and say "Hello, Studio 7." Aside from that his biggest challenge was getting past a nerd with a walkie talkie, which between that and dealing with an Iranian extremist proved the more challenging venture.

"No, look you guys, this movie's legit. It's about a kid and an old wizard with magical powers, but later we find out the magic is actually bacteria! They won't be able to print money fast enough."

Not helping was the fact that the ending was already known to us from the very beginning, as it's based on a true story. We know they got out. All those little details don't matter too much when you're building tension because you know they're going to be fine. Even when their cover gets blown at the last moment and there's an effort to stop them before their plane takes off, there was never a moment when I was worried for them. The minute John Goodman picked up the phone I knew they were going to be just fine, and the dash to stop them, which was the nail-biting climax of the film, was completely ineffective on me.

The problem with "Argo" is that the fluff is good, but there's no crunch, so to speak. I brought nothing away from it. It's not a movie that's going to warrant any kind of discussion afterwards. Now I don't mean that to imply that unless a film is "deep" it's without value. Plenty of my favorite films wouldn't warrant any discussion afterwards besides "Did you see that guy getting blown in half?!" That doesn't mean it's bad. That means it's entertaining for what it's trying to do. But with "Argo" I can't say that I went as far as to even think about it after it was over. It was done and out of my head. In fact it was sometimes difficult to think about it when it was happening.

At least the proposed movie featuring a guy getting blown in half would have elicited a reaction out of me. In that case it would have been excitement or a high five if someone else was in the room. But when I feel absolutely nothing about a film afterwards, I just feel like I've wasted my time. I'd honestly rather watch an epically bad movie than something bland like "Argo" or "The King's Speech" or "The Social Network" or "Lincoln" or any of the rest of the "made-to-win-Oscars" brand of film making.

Now I'm not saying Affleck is a bad director...but I'm sorry, Ben. Tommy Wiseau has you beat in the entertainment department.

And by the way, don't look up what really happened if you want to enjoy "Argo" as a factual film, because the reality of the situation was actually far less exciting. I'm not saying that a movie has to be 100% accurate to be good, after all that's why it's called "based on true events" so they can have dramatic license. It's a movie, that's fine. But when you're bored by a film and then find out later that they actually jazzed it up quite a bit for the sake of "excitement," and it's STILL dull, it's all you can do to shake your head and wonder if it was worth it.

So once again my reputation for being a complete snob and not caring much for any movie that wins Best Picture is intact. I can't call "Argo" a bad film. It's just so unmemorable. Ben Affleck may be the newest sacred cow of Hollywood, but I think we may have another George Clooney/Sean Penn on our hands with him - meaning that he's going to get way more credit than he probably deserves, simply because he is who he is. And that's a shame because I think he's pretty good. I'd hate to see it go to his head. But even if it doesn't I'm sure Tarantino will still get jipped.

Check out the trailer for "Argo." I like how they used the "Inception" BWAAAAAA to make it intense.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Argo" is a solid example of basic competence. This is a vanilla milkshake. This a vodka and tonic. There is nothing overly special about it, tasty as it may be. I can't see a single reason this deserved Best Picture. And it's not just a matter of me holding it to a higher standard than others. I would have thought the same of it had it been by anybody else, or even if it hadn't been nominated for anything. It's worth a look, but not worth any gold statue.

Total Recall (2012)

Don't despair everyone. I have the solution to our troubles. A desk, a computer, a nail gun, and a stack of paper. That's all it would take to solve the remake epidemic.

Just hire a guy to sit at a desk all day. In front of him will be a big stack of paper. On each sheet of paper would the name of a film. All this guy would do would be to sit at that desk and go through the stack one by one, and sort them into one of two piles: the "Remake" pile and the "Leave it alone" pile. Using the computer to do research, he would determine where a movie belonged according to the following criteria:

A) Is the movie less than 20 years old?

B) Is the original film rated R? And if so, is the remake going to be PG-13?

C) Is the original generally recognized as a "good movie?"

If the answers to ANY of the above criteria is "yes," it automatically goes into the "Leave it alone" pile. If the answers are all "no," than it is acceptable to put it in the "Remake" pile. However, every time a piece of paper goes into the "Remake" pile, the guy has to pick up the nail gun and shoot himself in the leg with it. That way we can be damn sure that movie needed another go around.

"Oh man. This remake of "Clash of The Titans" better be awesome!"

I understand why they keep remaking movies since you know, less work is involved because being original takes effort. There's also the built-in audience demographic that go and buy a ticket out of shear morbid curiosity, only to find out that the remake is in 3-D, so they have to shell out $15 for a ticket. That way when the votes are tallied, and everyone decides the remake is a pile of woodchuck vomit, the studios have still made their money back. Brilliant. But of course it's our own damn fault.

That brings us to the remake of "Total Recall." You know, because that was necessary. Walking into the theater, there was really only one thing going through my mind over and over again: "Why can't they stick to remaking bad movies?" It's not like the original was some masterpiece or anything, but it was good! It's probably the smartest Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ever made. What am I talking about, probably? It is the smartest movie he was ever in.

Seriously, I really like "Total Recall" and movies like it. By "movies like it" I mean any kind of movie that can have massively different interpretations depending on who you talk to. Remember when you realized that it's possible that Quaid is dreaming everything past the point where he sits in the chair at Rekal? Didn't that just blow your mind? But what's great is that it's just as likely that he's not dreaming. It's really up in the air, and you can dissect it for days and still not have a definitive answer. It's like "Blade Runner" in that regard.

And let's not forget the practical effects in "Total Recall." As unintentionally hilarious as the "explosive decompression" scenes are, those are some awesome effects that are actually happening in front of the camera. And it's not only the eyes bulging out of the head stuff, either. There's Arnold pulling the tracking device out of his nose, the exploding lady disguise, Kuato coming out of the dude's stomach, and let's not forget the immortal three-breasted hooker. "Total Recall" was really one of the last movies to really do this kind of thing to this extent.

So what's the deal with the remake? Will we see models and lots of cool makeup work, or overly-flashy fake looking CGI? I'll give you two guesses, but you'll only need zero because the answer is obvious OF COURSE THEY CGI'D THE CRAP OUT OF THIS MOVIE. But that's merely the beginning of this conga line of betrayal.

I feel ya, man.

Oh man. This freaking movie. I barely know where to start. Now, I will admit to never reading the short story "Total Recall" is based on, called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale." I can't say whether it was more faithful to the story than the Schwarzenegger film was, but just 15 seconds into the film, I gotta tell you, I was ready to leave. This story is just plain dumb, and if that's how the original was, the changes they made in Arnie's film made it waaaaay better.

In the remake of "Total Recall," there are only 2 inhabitable places left on the planet: Britain and Australia. In what I can only assume is meant to be an allegory to history, Britain rules over Australia, or "The Colonies" as they're called. Subtle. Bryan Cranston is Vilos Cohaagen, who is either the ruler of Britain or simply an obscenely wealthy man who moonlights as a warlord, and wants to take over the world (ie - Australia). Anyways, for reasons of fast transport as well as establishing and maintaining control, Britain and Australia are connected by...oh god I can't believe I'm typing this...gah...a tunnel that has been drilled through the core of the Earth to connect the two countries. I'll let that sink in.

Ow. My brain.

Do I even need to explain to you in how many ways that is insultingly stupid? First of all, it's called "pressure" and "heat." Look it up. Second of all, who in the hell built it? And how? Did they hire Delroy Lindo and Hillery Swank? Thirdly, in the CENTURIES it must have taken to dig it, even if it were possible, which it isn't, how was it financed? That would have bankrupted the world thousands of times over. And don't tell me it's like "Star Trek" where money doesn't exist anymore because we clearly see money, which has Barack Obama's face on it now. Because they would totally have American currency since in this movie AMERICA DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE.

Why couldn't they just build a transport on the surface of the planet? They have hover cars and all kinds of crazy technology, and you're telling me that the best idea they had was to pull a Bugs Bunny, take a wrong turn at Albuquerque, and wind up on the other side of the planet? And I'm talking about this from a perspective of it NOT being physically impossible, which it is. I mean, heat and pressure aside, do you have any idea how fast they were traveling? We see in the beginning of the film that it takes less than 2 hours to go from one side to another. That's nearly 4,000 mph. That's quite the brisk clip, I'd say.

But lastly, as I pointed out to my friend Stephen as we watched the film, even if they could magic the damn thing into existence overnight, the whole thing would be rendered useless in under a decade. I just leaned over to him and said "Dude, Steve, continental drift."

That's right. Tectonic plates move, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I'm guessing it wouldn't take too much change in alignment to make that tunnel through the Earth unusable, especially at the mind bending speeds they're going at. One little hiccup in the line and it's good night for everyone involved. I can't be the only one troubled by this stuff, can I?

Can you believe I'm only 15 seconds into this movie? I've been ranting like a madman about this and I'm 15 seconds in. Good gravy, I'd better cut to the chase.

In all honesty, I was actually entertained by the first half hour or so of the new "Total Recall." It begins much like the original, so it isn't surprising to have that be the best part of the movie. Colin Farrell however, as much as I can enjoy him in a role, just doesn't possess the shear charisma that pours off of Schwarzenegger. As passable of a job as Farrell did, and I would call it passable, I just spent most of the movie missing Arnie.

::sigh:: "I remember when Arnold used to shoot a big gun one handed..."

The biggest problem with the new "Total Recall" is that it's just so stock. I swear, if you hadn't watched the first 20 minutes, and just walked in without knowing the setup, I really don't think you'd possibly peg this as a "Total Recall" remake. I believe you'd think you were watching "Conspiracy Laden Sci-Fi Action Movie #689." That's what was great about the original: it had a uniqueness to it that helped it stand out from the standard schlock. A lot of that came from the fantastic effects work, but it also because it played a lot more with the idea that this is almost entirely in Quaid's head.

The new "Total Recall" really kind of forgets about that whole thing pretty early on. In fact, I realized near the end that for the last 40 minutes or so, I had totally forgotten about it. It really had just degraded into a loud, dumb, explosion with no real point. It was like I was watching a Michael Bay movie with less racism. Now, there were action beats in the original that momentarily got away from the mind-screw aspect of the story, but they had laid it on thick enough in the beginning to really help it carry over through the rest, so that you were still thinking about it after Arnold got done punishing traitorous cabbies with a drill. This movie though, they didn't even try.

I asked Steve after we left the theater the question, "If you had never seen the original, would it have occurred to you at any point that the whole movie was a dream the moment after Colin Farrell sat in that chair?" He thought for a (quick) moment and said "Nope. I never would have gotten that."

About the only thing in the film that alluded to Farrell dreaming was an advertisement for Rekal on a big billboard right at the very end of the film, as Farrell smugly contemplates his victory. I thought it could have been like an end credits roll for his dream, kind of like "This has been a Rekal production." Steve thought I was probably giving the movie too much credit. Steve is a smart man.

I know you're not going to believe this, either, but I have not begun to get mad at this movie yet. Oh no. There was something in this movie that was so awful that I literally have no idea how it made it past the preproduction stage. It has to do with casting, but not for the reasons that you might initially think, even though nobody involved is a paragon of acting. I'm referring to the casting of Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale. Jessica plays Colin's love interest and Kate plays his "wife," who functions as one of the main antagonists.

Take a look at these two ladies.

Kate.

Not Kate.

Hey, "Total Recall." Want to know how to make your movie needlessly confusing to the point of unwatchability? MAKE YOUR HERO AND VILLAIN LOOK NEARLY IDENTICAL TO EACH OTHER!

To begin with, they look like they could be sisters already. Then they are given the exact same hair cut, and they both wear dark clothing which looks the same. And this isn't a situation in which they do anything with it, they just happen to be played by two actresses that look like identical twins, and nothing about it is ever mentioned. I cannot tell you how frustrating that is.

I lost count of the number of times I was momentary befuddled because I thought Kate Beckinsale had switched sides and was helping Colin Farrell. It got to the point were I was asking Steve nearly every 10 minutes "Is that his wife or his girlfriend?" The most he could say was "I have no idea." And what blows my mind about this is that it would have been roughly the EASIEST FIX IN THE UNIVERSE, and it's called "bleach." Give one of them blonde hair or something. Or a wig, if they didn't want to do that. This isn't difficult, people, for love of Crom. Hell, just CGI their hair another color. You CGI'd everything else.

The funniest part of the whole "Are you Kate or Jessica" debacle was a scene that was so gloriously incompetent while proving my point in such full, intimate, and unflinching detail that it almost made the frustration worth it. It occurs right at the very end of the movie, after Cohaagen and presumably Kate Beckinsale have both been vanquished. Ferrall wakes up in an ambulance to see Biel sitting there, saying that they won. She then kills an orderly and is about to kill Farrell, because it's not Biel, but Beckinsale.

You see, in trying to tie in things from the original, they had to put in that disguise that Arnold had (you know, the fat lady with the exploding head), only this time, it's a hologram that goes over your head. Well, Beckinsdale got a hold of one of these things and used it to get to him. But the moment that she pulls the hologram collar off her head is priceless. As Jessica Biel is choking Ferrall, she yanks it off dramatically to reveal Kate Beckinsale!

And had I not seen the rest of the movie, I would have bet $500 it was the same damn person. It would have been hysterical had it not been pissing me off for two hours at that point.

I'm just so very tired.

You know, "Total Recall" is one of those movies that just makes me more angry the more I think about it. Apart from the simple reason that it just plain should not exist, the changing of the story in such a stupid way is just insulting to a great film that was a landmark in sci-fi.

THE BOTTOM LINE - While there is some admittedly good action in the first half hour or so, the fact it devolves into a by-the-numbers explosion-fest with a stupid plot by the end makes the remake of "Total Recall" just plain bad. What's worse is that it's unnecessary, and could stand as a monument to the perils of remaking good movies that didn't need fixing or updating. Just watch the original again. Skip this crap.

John Carter (2012)

Am I the only person who found it impossible to not say John Carter's name like Arnold Schwarzenegger? You know, cause it's really close to "John Conner?" Didn't you ever look at the poster and think "John Conna! Cum wit me if you vant to live!" Or maybe you actually saw the movie and when John Carter gets transported you maybe thought to yourself "Nygaah! Git you ass to Mah's!"

Nobody? Ok then. Disregard that last paragraph.

"John Carter" is of course famous for failing. Along with "Battleship," this film was the first of two huge financial disasters for Disney in 2012. Both of these films had budgets that could have fed a small country for a few months, and both of them tanked like a horse in Skyrim. (/nerdjoke) It's pretty clear why "Battleship" went under, even though I thought it wasn't that bad. I think the main problem was that people couldn't get past the fact that the genesis of it was a board game. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as awful as people made it out to be.

With "John Carter" it was the advertising. This has been a note of record, and I'm pretty sure plenty of people in that department got fired. And rightly so. The trailer for "John Carter" was a big, jumbled mess that didn't tell us anything about the movie we were supposed to be excited about. I thought it looked like it was trying to tackle too many ideas, and I had no idea what anything was or what was going on at all. It was a terrible trailer and advertising campaign. And it was so quietly shuffled out of theaters, head hung low, that I never got a chance to see it.

So I finally got to see "John Carter" and I have to say, I'm really glad I didn't blow $9.50 on it. Had I seen this in theaters I would have been ticked off. Or maybe not ticked off but tired and bored. I didn't give two craps about this movie. And it's not because it was overly bad, which it wasn't, but because it just was so bland and unmemorable. That's a weird thing to say about a movie as admittedly visually stunning as "John Carter" is, but it's true. "Bland" is the only word to describe it, not because there is any notable lack of tradecraft, but because it's just so unbelievably stock.

It's really sad when you can see stuff like this in a movie and say "It's been done."

The story concerns an American Civil War soldier who, through some technology never really explained, is transported to Mars (Oh, I'm sorry. Barsoom. More on THAT later, because THAT didn't get old). Thrust into the middle of a conflict between two countries on the planet, he leads an uprising to stop the war. Or something like that. I know it involves these 4-armed bug type creatures for some reason, and there are these pale dudes who are kind of like gods but not. Oh, and there's a princess.

See, this is what I'm talking about. I saw this movie yesterday and I've already forgotten nearly everything about it. I can't even remember a single character's name besides John Carter, and I only remember him because his name is on the freaking box art. I had no clue what was going on, but at the same time, I knew everything that was about to happen, because the story is so paint-by-numbers.

I know that "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a classic sci-fi story that has been the inspiration for a lot of films. I've never read it, and nobody I know has ever read it, true, but I'm aware that it exists. The fact that it is a story that other films have lifted heavily from does give it a pass on being derivative. After all, we can't blame an old story for being influential. But that doesn't mean that it will be fresh and exciting when we've seen this story a hundred times before. It will be boring. Like "John Carter" was.

It's a shame, but when a story has been mined so much that nearly everything about it has become a trope or cliche, that's going to be boring as hell and annoying to sit through despite how pretty you make it look. It's not the story's fault, but that's the way it is. Fortunately, Hollywood doesn't do that too much.

OH WAIT.

There were two other things that irked me about "John Carter." Or at least, these were the things in the movie that were memorable enough for me to remember that I didn't like.

The first was the cast. Taylor Kitsch as John Carter was...how to put this nicely...bad. He was bad. Between this and "Battleship" (Headlining two earth-shattering bombs in a row. Ouch.) I'm not sure he's going to have much of a career. And based on his performance as John Carter, which essentially consisted of him squinting and grunting while seeming like he was distracted by the football game on the TV in the next room, I can't say that I'll be too sad to see him go. It's not a good thing when Channing Tatum has more charisma than you do, I'm just saying.

Lynn Collins as the token Princess was also quite irritating. It's not that she did a bad job necessarily (she was better than Taylor Kitsch, anyway) but I can't stand her character. It's that same "I'm a Princess who is tough and strong and totally a strong role model but ugggh I have to run away from everything and get somebody else to fight my battles for me" crap that you always see. Also, she's another one of those chicks with a "kind of" accent. It's kind of there. Enough to where she can't pronounce "John Carter" properly. It's "Jawn Cah-tah." I hate that accent. Oh, and she whispers a lot. Why does every Princess do that? She's like Liv Tyler in "Lord of The Rings." You just want to chapter skip through her scenes.

On the plus side Willem Dafoe is in this movie. That's cool.

Oh wait. You don't see him? That's crap.

The second thing was that the culture of Mars, oh sorry, BARSOOM, is shoved in our faces pretty hardcore. That's not a problem by itself necessarily, after all it lends credibility, but geez give us some time to adjust. You want to know why I don't remember anybody's name? It's because they are all these crazy alien names that are impossible to remember, and many of them sound the same. I swear there was one word that was used to address like 4 different people. It sounded like "Rejjick" or something, and it was really confusing for me because I was thinking that was the name of Willem Dafoe's character, and then all of a sudden that's what they're calling Ciarán Hinds! About halfway though the movie I realized that it must mean "king" or "leader" or "Your Majesty" or something. Could have used that info earlier, guys. Or here's a thought: "Don't do that."

I think that maybe if "John Carter" was a TV series this alien culture could have been more gracefully introduced as to not be so jarring and disorientating, but we are thrown on Mars (oh sorry, BARSOOM) at about the 15 minute mark, and are there until about the last 10 minutes. That's about an hour and a forty five minutes that we are dunked headfirst into this culture with all the subtlety of a freight train. That's not nearly enough time to adjust to the amount of stuff they throw at us.

 For reference, as the credits roll on "John Carter," Gandalf hadn't even fought the Balrog yet in the Director's Cut. And there's two movies left. #doingitright

You know, I just realized something. I can perfectly sum up how confusing "John Carter" is: I don't even know if the people on Mars were originally from Earth. I don't even know if the aliens are aliens. That's pretty bad.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "John Carter" isn't a bad film, but I just didn't care. It was a stupendously boring and confusing cluster of stuff being thrown at me in front of a bunch of pretty CGI. Don't waste your time. Skip it.

Red Tails (2012)

Remember when Cuba Gooding Jr. was relevant? Take your time, it's been a while. Well, to give you a little reminder, it was around 15 years ago. That's the last time anyone cared about Cuba Gooding Jr. And while at first it was hard to understand why that was, considering the man won an Oscar for saying "Show me the money," it became clear after a while: Cuba Gooding Jr. makes horrible movies.

I think "Radio" was the final nail in his "take me seriously" coffin, but Cuba Gooding Jr. used to be in decent films. "Jerry McGuire," "As Good As It Gets," even stupid stuff like "Outbreak" was far better fare than what he started doing in the 2000's, but I think it was right around "Pearl Harbor" when he lost his dignity. Leave it to Michael Bay to make someone's career tank.

The point I'm getting to is that there is a bit of irony going on with today's movie, "Red Tails." The irony is that this is a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, who were a group of black fighter pilots that held one of the most prestigious records in World War II. Cuba Gooding Jr. is in this film along with Terrence Howard, another actor far past the point of being cared about. But their washed up status isn't what is ironic. What is ironic is that for Cuba, this is familiar territory.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a good movie.

"The Tuskegee Airmen" is a great flick. It was a 1995 made for TV movie starring Cuba and pre-"Matrix" Laurence Fishburne. I remember watching the crap out of it when I was a kid going through my "fighter planes are awesome" phase, which to be fair I've never completely grown out of. I love fighter planes, and a good movie featuring fighter pilots doing their thing is a guaranteed great time for me. So "Red Tails" is looking promising!

Too bad comparing "The Tuskegee Airmen" to "Red Tails" is like comparing having a nice Jack Daniels and Coke on the rocks on a warm spring night to having a dog turd floating in a dixie cup shoved down your throat with a funnel whilst being chained to the ground in the desert in the middle of July.

This movie was abysmal.

"Red Tails" is like a perfect storm of bad. It is cast with middling to bad actors, the script is a mess, the action, for a pretty as it is, is boring, and for a movie that is two hours long, it feels like about 70% of the film was cut with the spastic, whiplash inducing edits and abrupt endings of scenes. But more than anything else that is infuriating about "Red Tails," and there's a lot, this has got to be the worst example I've ever seen of unforgivably bad dialogue.

There is no scene during the entirety of "Red Tails" that doesn't feature some corny, overly scripted, exposition heavy, completely unrealistic, soul crushing, over-the-top, horribly delivered terrible line that would be the stuff of legendary mockery in any other film. And it's like every single line with these mugging jackasses. If you're having trouble contemplating the horrors of what I'm talking about, think back on some of the worst lines you've ever heard. I'll get you started:

"A barrel roll. That's a good trick!"

"Are you an angel?"

"Hold me like you did by that lake on Naboo."

"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."

"Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

(Huh. Was there a pattern going on there?)

It's a showstopper like that every other line. It's really astounding how utterly, completely, shockingly BAD the words spewing from these actor's mouths are. And I realize looking back on it that the dialogue is the kind of stuff you'd hear in a video game. It's not hard to imagine having a controller in your hand, frantically pressing the "A" button in an attempt to skip a cutscene when lines like "The sky is blue, and my guns are hot!" are spewing from the actor's mouths.

There was a point in this film that I was trying to give credit to the actors and say that it wasn't their fault, and nobody could have delivered those lines well...but I lost hope before the end. I'm just going to come out and say it - These actors are terrible. All of them. And I was really trying to cut them some slack. But it was nails on a chalkboard BAD all around.

The final indignity came during the climax of the movie, during the biggest mission of the pilot's careers, deep into Germany. In what was at first shaping up to be a heartbreaking moment (had the rest of the movie been an effective lead in, anyways), Lightning, the main character Easy's best friend, is shot up as he saves Easy's life and takes out the anonymous German ace who functions as a kind of villain in the lamest way possible. As he spirals out of control, dying as he says goodbye to his friend and wife, the beginnings of an emotional payoff seem to be occurring.

Then he crashes into a fiery ball as Easy, flying overhead, in his anguish over his best friend's death exclaims "DAMN you, Lightning!" with the same kind of intensity he would have had if Lightning had borrowed a pair of Easy's underwear and not washed them before giving them back.

Now, it's a stretch, a REAL stretch, but I could actually see that line working if a more talented actor had attempted it. Maybe Morgan Freeman. MAYBE. Even he might have had trouble with that one. But I can also imagine Morgan saying "Now, isn't that kind of a silly line? Why would I curse him? That makes no sense in context. Wouldn't I save the anger till later? I would imagine Easy would just be sad at that moment."

"Meh. I'm bummed. I guess."

Oh and by the way - that important mission deep into Germany which would basically validate the black pilots and help turn the tide of war? Dropped after Lightning's death. Apparently stuff like the mission (see also: what he died for) isn't really important. "Red Tails" just jumps straight from that to them landing saying "Gee, good thing the mission was successful. But Lightning didn't make it!"

Not like seeing the successful outcome of the mission would be any kind of emotional catharsis at all.

That brings us to the rest of the problems. On top of everything else, the editing and pacing in this film is a joke. There's not a single scene that flows into the next one organically. Scenes just abruptly end with the grace of a sledgehammer to the balls. Not only that, but this film desperately needed another pass in the editing room to trim about 20 minutes off, mostly by eliminating two exceedingly stupid and useless subplots.

The first is a romance between Lightning and an Italian girl that basically has Lightning come off as a stalker, and the other is a prison break with another character that plays out like if you condensed "The Great Escape" into 2 minutes. Because it's totally viable to build up effective tension in that amount of time. It's so laughably stupid and out of place that it stuns me that anyone thought it was a good idea. These plot threads go absolutely nowhere, but keep popping up to throw an anchor down on any momentum the plot may have gathered by a fluke accident.

I can't really say much more than that. It's unbelievable how badly a good story like this was botched, especially when it's been done before to much greater effect. "Red Tails" is a joke, and George Lucas should once again be ashamed of himself.

Did I mention he produced it? You know, I hate to jump on bandwagons...but George is really making it hard to not hate him. Between him and Spielberg I'm not going to have any childhood favorites left to be a fan of soon.

Look at him. He knows he should be ashamed.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Red Tails" is making my list of Worst of 2012. There's no possible way that it's not. I pray it's not. If I have to watch 10 worse movies this year, I might kill myself. "Red Tails" is pain to the point of unwatchability. And it had the gall to feature the awesome Bryan Cranston. For shame.

Drive (2011)

This is going to be more of a rant about style than the movie itself, for two reasons. The first is that as far as plot goes, the less you know about "Drive," the better it will probably be. This is because there are some genuine shocks in the movie that you probably won't see coming, which of course the trailer does a nice job of spoiling, so don't watch it, and I don't want to ruin anything either. The second is that the plot isn't what is going to make you want to watch this movie. What is going to interest you, if you're interested, is the fact that "Drive" is very influenced by the independent film movement, and if you like stuff like that, you're going to love it.  That for me, however, was the thing that ruined what could have been a very good film.


"Drive" stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for robbers and such. He's very good at it, and seems to be doing well when he gets pulled into a situation with some mobsters who are shaking down the ex-con husband of a lady living next door he happens to have a thing for. In an effort to help them out, since he has come to like them, bad things end up happening and Driver (we are never told his actual name) has to become a guardian angel for these people. In essence, it's a remake of "Shane" with intensely brutal Robert Rodriguez level violence near the back half. At least, when the film feels like having stuff happening, which for the most part it's not too keen on doing.


I think that at its core, "Drive" is a good movie. I'm just not a fan of its direction. I regret to say that I've not seen any other film by director Nicholas Winding Refn, but if this is his usual M.O., I'm guessing I probably wouldn't like much of his other stuff, either. I know he's kind of a big deal in the more hip, independent film movement, and boy does it show, because this movie has "independent" written all over it. And if that's your particular cup of tea, by all means, disregard what I'm saying here and know that you'll probably like "Drive."


What do I mean by independent? I think the easiest way to describe it is "taking its time." There are long stretches of not much, if anything, being said by the characters in the so-called "conversation." I put that in quotation marks because whether or not it counts as an actual conversation can be argued. It's not that there isn't anything being said, it's that 80% of the content is what's not being said. And that's fine, I can dig that. It means that the actors are forced to emote without dialogue, which makes for good acting.

But I can only dig that to an extent. My problem comes from the fact that as an audience, we know what is being conveyed through looks and meaningful glances pretty quickly. Is that a point in the favor of the audience for being smart or for the actors for being really good? I don't know. But the fact remains that it's never very obtuse what's going on. And because of that, it always seems like the movie is playing catch-up with me. I understand the fact that Ryan Gosling is becoming attached to the family next door to him. I don't need to see 2 minutes of him staring at them with a slight smile on his usually stoney exterior to get that.

You may think this is a static picture, but it's actually 3 complete minutes of the film.

In some ways, as heady as "Drive" is, it really seems like it looks down on its audience. After all, if this was movie for smart movie goers, it wouldn't hold our hand or brow-beat us with emotions like that. We can read faces and expressions to deduce emotions. Overly long moments of the same emotion for so long just seems to scream "DO YOU GET IT?!" Obviously, this is not what was intended, so I can only assume that "Drive" is a movie for people who really like very, very long stretches of build-up.


And why do they like it? To look smart. That's my take on it, anyways. If someone gets a heightened sense of tension or emotional turmoil boiling up underneath from it then more power to them (far be it for me to judge) but I think deep down, that's what's really going on here. "Drive" and indeed, the whole independent film movement is basically tailor-made as a direct response to the faster paced, flashy Hollywood model, and the idea seems to be to just do whatever it is that Hollywood doesn't do. And because of this I don't think that it's always done because the filmmakers are passionate about this style. They do it because it's what is expected of them. Because independent movies are smart, see? And if they make a film this way, the director is smart as well.


I totally understand the purpose behind slowing things down. You do it so that when the action does happen, it's amplified. The juxtaposition of loud and quiet is important to any effective thriller, and sometimes a movie just needs to breathe. But sometimes it can just get obnoxious, especially when you have dynamite actors popping up elsewhere in the film, reminding you of how much more interesting the villains are than the two main characters. They are absolutely blown away by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, who knock it out of the park every time they appear, and provide far more tension with actually doing stuff than Ryan Gosling is staring intensely at someone. Why can't we see more of them? Why can't the movie be about these guys?!


Because decent pacing is for those Hollywood hacks who aren't "smart."


This is just my personal taste and grievance with pretentious movies in general. I wouldn't go so far as to call "Drive" pretentious, it's not like it's a piece of garbage Terrence Malick self-congratulatory wank-fest, but it is loitering in Pretentious' parking lot. There are definitely some noses elevated a few degrees above normal here.


There's a good movie in here somewhere. I like the story, the action scenes are downright inspired, including an incredible opening 15 minutes, and despite my comments earlier I like the characters both good and bad. It just needed another pass in the editing booth to shave 20 to 25 minutes off the run-time that it desperately needed. 

It really does have a great cast, though. I've said that before but it bears repeating. I don't particularly like Ryan Gosling, but he was quite good at playing a quiet, brooding, borderline psychopath. Bryan Cranston also fun to watch as always, but the real gems were the bad guys, Ron Perlman and particularly Albert Brooks. The screen was on fire when they were on it. Although with Albert there was something a tad distracting...

You can't not see it...

I'm thinking David Cronenberg could have done amazing things with "Drive." It's actually not too far off from a lot of his stuff as it is. Watch "A History of Violence" or even better, "Eastern Promises" and you'll see what I mean. Cronenberg knows how to pace a film, and knows how to take his time, but he doesn't go overboard with it. You never feel like fast forwarding through a Cronenberg movie.

This one, however, I did.


THE BOTTOM LINE - If you're a fan of independent movies, this is for you. If you go into it thinking it will be a fast-paced explosion fest, it's not. Worth it for some really good acting, but know what you're getting yourself into first. Also, fans of excessive, borderline comical gore would also do well to be warned. Cautiously Recommended, with a BIG "if."