RELAPSE – The Faculty (1998) – Robert Rodriguez

The Faculty (1998) – Robert Rodriguez (Dir.), Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Famke Janssen, Clea Duvall, Robert Partick, Bebe Neuwirth, Jon Stewart, Usher, Salma Hayek, OMG everybody

Oh yes, Usher is in this. You know what no movie ever needs? Usher.

Apparently, Halloween is terrible for my personal growth, both the physical and the metaphysical. Every goddamn place has goddamn candy every goddamn where I goddamn go and I have to eat it. You know why? Because I have a soul, people. Also, the horror genre becomes required, repugnant viewing for the entirety of the October season. Thus more abject cinematic ass-sludge glosses across my gaze. All I can do is sigh and allow wave after wave of nonsensical plot twists, colon-based art direction, and massive blood-brazed breasts to wash over me. Yes, I was meant to watch The Blair Witch Project last night, according to the poll…but I decided to wait around to see it with my lady friend. Instead, I got trashed with a fellow lady-blogger (not that I’m a lady-blogger, that ‘fellow’ was only in reference to the ‘blogger’ part. I’m not insecure, I promise). Whilst in the throes of a madness brought about my mediocre Trader Joe’s wine, the Mark of the Maker and, of course, beer (the potatoes of alcohol, which are, in turn, the meat of vegetables – look it up), we scoured the ‘Horror’ tab of the Flix of Net. There, we discovered a gem, a time capsule if you will, an artifact from the nineties saved in pristine condition. Much like a mammoth dumb enough to stand in the same place long enough to be frozen and preserved like the asshole it is, we found this shiny little asshole glinting in the midst of genre-whorish nonsense. All we had to do was remember Josh Hartnett’s haircut and the decision to watch was unanimous.

Ah, the 90s. A simpler time. A gentler time. A time when all I had to worry about was good grades and not sticking my private parts in a blender (almost happened a surprising number of times). A time when girls had cooties and punches in the crotch were a commonplace condoned social activity. A time when Michael Bay could only boast The Rock and Bad Boys on his resume. A time of innocence. I wandered into The Faculty, not knowing my elbow from a specific area of my rectum and I was dazzled, enthralled, entranced, enraptured and enbiggened (I discovered the amazingness that is Famke Janssen…even when she has a decapitated squid-head). It was shiny, sweary, bloody, scary, pretty and goofy. Everything an 11-year-old could ever want. Does it hold up to the scrutiny of hindsight? Does it survive the test of time? Is it, in truth, a worthless collection of absurdities threaded together into a quilt of such horrifying incompetence that it literally causes momentary blood clots in the brain?

The answer might surprise you…but it probably won’t: This movie isn’t good.

Things no one is ever meant to see: the T-1000 mixed with alien squid monster. That is the stuff of bed-wetting nightmares.

BUT. And that’s a big ‘but’. Not like J-Lo big (you know, enough to have its own gravitational field) but maybe a Jessica Biel (shockingly large for a white girl with no talent). It ain’t that bad. This will take a lot of qualification. Let’s start at the beginning. This movie is about stars before they were famous doing things that they probably omit from their storied resumes. We have Josh Hartnett as the bad-boy genius drug-dealer wearing FAR too many t-shirts and sporting a haircut that, in silhouette, looks suspiciously like Daffy Duck’s behind (we later learned that ‘he cut it himself’ according to my lady-blogger’s far-too-Hartnett-informed friend. The 90s were a time of choices); there’s pre-Frodo Elijah “DOES THAT KID EVER AGE?” Wood as the nebbish newspaper photographer, Jordana “Why does her face look like it’s made of moldy clay?” Brewster as the hot one, Clea Duvall as the lesbian punk chick, some dude with pubic hair on his head as the jock, and the suspiciously new/naive/hot/apple-pie/oh-my-god-it’s-so-obvious-she’s-the-bad-guy girl. This rag-tag bunch of miscreants uncover a plot by the T-1000 (Robert “If He Were My Girlfriend’s Father I Would Jump Out a Window” Patrick) to infect the entirety of the school, Faculty first (eh? Eh? See what they did there?) with evil squid puppeteer monsters that turn the afflicted into invincible, serenely psychotic killing machines. It’s up to these idiots to find the queen (SPOILERS: it’s the new girl) and kill her with caffeine pills while classic rock songs of the 70s and 80s are cannibalized by Creed… Yes. Creed. Alice Cooper…by Creed. CREED! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? GODDAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! (Not sure where that came from. I guess I have some unresolved issues with Creed. They are the Nickleback of Christian Rock…well all of Christian Rock is the Nickleback of Christian Rock. It has that je ne se pas…that sine qua non…that aurally-abortive quality we look for in all rage-inducing terribleness. *Shudder*).

“I’ve NEVER witnessed a milkshake explosion. I don’t think it’s even possible.” ~ Famous last words.

So…on the surface, this is a fairly by-the-numbers vehicle for a star who crashed and burned with the rest of the US fleet after Pearl Harbor (too soon?). However, beneath the sheen of awful late-century soundtrack choices there’s a little more humming under the hood. This was the first real studio picture after the nonsense that was From Dusk ‘Til Dawn (side note: everyone see that movie. It is terrible, batshit insane and one of the most beautiful acts of cinematic defecation you will ever witness) by Mr. Robert “Bitch, Please” Rodriguez. For all of his ridiculousness of sophomoric inclinations, the man knows how to construct a movie. For science-fiction/horror, this thing has more characters and relationships than a Shakespearean Key-Party (Benedick would totes do all the ladies). We’ve got satire tip-tapping it’s sneaky little digits across the piano of human distress and bleakness that is made of disenfranchised teachers, each of them stripped of their humanity one by one. We have the intersection of high school social strata, from the jock wishing to be reevaluated for his intelligence to the nerd falling for the hot girl. All things considered, Rodriguez achieves something almost fascinating. What seems to shallow on the surface, subtly subverts expectation, both of character and theme, and attempts to use its frame of an Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-equse tale to unearth some uncomfortable truths pertaining to totalitarianism, gender relations and their place in our education system.

So, beyond the ear-bleedingly terrible covers of great songs, what is going on here? We’ve got ‘Every-School-Ever’ in ‘Some-Town’ Ohio. Now, based on the choice of our villain being a water-based, shape-shifting, tentacle-flinging, ear-rapey squid monster, it’s odd that its selected target is an almost land-locked state in the middle of fucking nowhere (and I know this because I went to school there. If Samuel Beckett’s plays could be a state, they’d be Ohio. Or Indiana. Seriously.) Though nerds would contend that this would be a lapse in logic on the part of the nefarious Squidworth, it seems that the selection is one that sets you off. This is meant to be any school anywhere. This thing could have appeared in the middle of Seattle (and murdered some Twilight suckers) or Nevada (squid-hookers anyone?) and the end result would have been the same. As someone who is deathly afraid of any kind of mental-nomming invasion (be it zombie, infection, pod-people, spores or herpes) that shit gives me the willies! The willies, I tell you!  In terms of the social commentary, we’ve got a few other minute threads caught in the Creed-tainted wind flittering about. Schools have no money. Teachers hate their jobs. Students hate school. Students and teachers have inappropriate relationships. PUBLIC SCHOOL IS MISERABLE. That is, until an overlord of the ‘ignorance is bliss’ ilk decides to give it a shot. And you know what? They look super happy! Suckin’ on their water bottles and vomiting parasites into ear-holes, they’re all just so content. It almost makes you question, is humanity really all that great? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just sacrifice ourselves to the placidity of a hive mind and relieve our lives of the burden of choice? Why can’t we all just become human batteries fueling a perpetual dream of awesome fight sequences with Hugo Weaving? I mean, come on, we are responsible for poverty, the collapse of public education, global warming, nuclear weapons, slavery and, of course, Creed. For the love of sweet baby Jesus, CREED.

And that was the moment Jon Stewart’s ‘Ping Pong’ demonstration took a dark and inappropriate turn…

Those odd musings aside, perhaps the must unsettling and perturbing element of this film involves a certain lifeless, talentless, goateed science teacher who gets his fingers removed with a paper cutter and his eye impaled with a caffeinated ball-point. Yes, that teacher is none other than Jon Fucking Stewart. It is so jarring, so unpleasant, so fucking strange to see him with facial hair that I felt the overwhelming liberal segment of my brain headdesk itself inside my own skull. It’s as though his evil twin had come through to this universe from one where Sarah Palin is president and Donald Trump’s antics go un-ridiculed to spread the malevolent nature of Jon Stewart’s acting career. Have you seen that guy try to say lines he hasn’t written? It’s like a stoned piece of wood deciding to play dead. It’s worse than Keanu Reeves. Consider that, plebs. The poor guy stumbles his way through scene after scene of not hosting his own show but rather saying words while pretending to be another human being who has a squid parasite living in his brain and making him invulnerable all Stepford Wife-ish. You know. ACTING. I love you Jon Stewart. I love how you make the political world made sense. You digest the swarming maelstroms of bovine crappery and distill it into a foul, yet funny, commentary on the disintegration of civil discourse and modern journalism. But please, please, PLEASE for the love of all that is good in the world: the birds, the bees, babies giggling and farting at the same time, dogs chasing their own tails and that one video about a gentleman not sure about the things going into his butt…never, never, NEVER act in anything ever again. God, it’s almost as bad as Creed.

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED! (Dramatic fist shake)

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

RELAPSE – Dredd (2012) – Pete Travis

Dredd (2012) – Pete Travis (Dir.), Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey

“Judgement is Coming” – Coincidentally also the title of my new courtroom-based porno

There come moments in a boy’s life. Moments when he, no matter how pretentious, high-brow, self-important or, like a throat, ‘deep’ he thinks he is, there comes a calling. We know not from whence it comes, perhaps carried on the breeze of omnipresent testosterone flowing downwind of Chuck Norris, perhaps the mental eddies of a pyroclastic id finally breaking free of societal constraints and spreading through the nexus of the human imagination and reducing members of the male gender to barbarous, penile primates. Perhaps it’s simply ‘that time of the month’. Well, on a Thursday night, with all of my inaptly titled ‘bros’ previously engaged, I had a hunger. It is the hunger of the child who used to sit on the stairs and watch my parents watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It is the ephemeral calling of a deeply-seeded genetic warrior-culture long since dampened and whittled down to domestic complacency. And so, lost and energized by Ares, I smuggled a bottle of Maker’s Mark into the theater and joined four other random-ass strangers/brave compatriots in a viewing of Dredd. Within ten minutes, I realized something incredible, earth-shattering, world-spearing, Britney-Spears-in-2006-ing.

Being a boy is really, really, really dumb.

I’m not sure if any of you remember, but Mr. Sly Stallone inflicted a movie upon the world that was Judge Dredd back in the mid-nineties. Now, of course, at the time it had seemed like a sure buck. We had a star, no matter the extent of his genetic facial malefaction, a hot girl, the knight from The Seventh Seal, a villain played by an actor with an absurdly foreign name (seriously, who calls their kid Armand? Fraiser fucking Crane?), a well-known comic book series and, of course the most bankable element of all, Rob “Oh God I Just Remembered He Existed” Schneider. It was a delicious, hot, whorish mess of future-y stuff and explosions and plot twists and growling and Sylvester Stallone attempting English again after miserably failing in the Rocky series. And it was PG-13. This anti-hero of the comic-verse that was famous for ripping out enough criminal entrails to construct an entire strings section of a philharmonic (nobody ever really went for my 100% human flesh orchestra. Don’t know why… Racism, probably). Stallone’s version was a naughty as a 3rd grader’s joke book and about as compelling as one too. Still, seeing Max Von Sydow continuing to act in horrible sic-fi movies is a dish of schadenfraude that I can never pass up. It’s depressing, yet oddly delicious. Like Ben & Jerry’s entire business model!

Let’s return to the present. We have Mr. Travis and his new rendition of the Dredd legend. I’m not entirely sure what occurred during the signing of the deal, but when he pitched his concept of a Dredd grittier and meatier than an Arkansas breakfast, the executives seemed to have said “PERFECT! Let’s do it! Except…you get no budget and it has to be in 3D”. Thus, Dredd 3D was born. I was lucky enough to wait until all of the 3D screens were occupied by Adam Sandler’s recent cinematic equivalent of a creampie so that I didn’t have to endure 90 minutes of bullets careening towards my Maker’s Marked face. This thing is lean, mean and…well, it’s cheap. Really, really cheap. Once again, we are treated to a distant future that looks oddly similar to Detroit where clothing is pretty much the same, skateboards are the same, cars are the same and…well…everything except a few monstrous structures is completely unchanged. Is this because Travis is commenting on how we, as a society, are slowing our progress to a Godot-esque crawl with our dependence on technology and our lack of true innovation…or that he didn’t have enough money to hire a real art director? I’ll leave it to you to decide.

This is one of dem ‘classy’ joints.

What’s the story? Okay, so there’s this Judge. His name is Dredd. He murders people. Like…a LOT of people for the law. He has to take a rookie out on her final evaluation, the hauntingly, obsessively elfish Olivia Thirlby (who, for some reason, has psychic powers. Whatever). Well, they take in the wrong black dude and suddenly Cersei from HBO’s award-winning adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (bow down, you weaklings, under the might of the MARTIN) decides that she wants ‘all y’all mutherfuckers dead’. What ensues is shooting, murdering, more shooting, some explosions, slow motion and even more shooting. That’s it. It’s 90 minutes of killing. And that’s it. No wit. No charm. No pathos. No pace variation. Nothing but the truest form of expression: death. I haven’t witnessed a film with shallower intentions since Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. There is no pretense of character, arc, theme or challenge. Cersei wants them dead. They don’t want to be dead. LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

Here I come to a crossroads. There is an Andrew, smart, witty, generally engaging and a dawg with the ladies, a veritable James Bond of such suavity, he could convince Queen Elizabeth to play a game of ‘Catch the Sausage’, who would view such primal and basal material as entirely lacking in point and time-worthiness. And then there’s the Andrew who plays video games, lives in his mother’s basement, giggles with glee as Ash replaces his hand with a chainsaw and watched the entirety of Sucker Punch without vomiting or grievous bodily harm (it took more willpower than you could ever imagine). Sometimes the id loves to play. Sometimes it’s delightful to see drug-chuffing perps gunned down with absurdly over-compensating artillery. I thought this was the Andrew in attendance of that film last night. I was sorely mistaken.

Thug: “What shampoo do you use?” Olivia: “It’s called L’Oreal-I’m-Going-To-Rip-Your-Nuts-Off. It’s for damaged hair.”

Karl Urban is fine. It sounded as though his dialect coach had made a morning blended vat of concrete, Cuban cigars, the worst whiskey in the world, burning rubber tires and Phyllis Diller to drop his vocal cords into a spectrum of such gravel-ness that even my driveway is telling him to ‘dial it back a notch’. He never gets to take off his helmet so when he gets into a fight with another masked Judge (Spoilers…I guess) the pair of so indiscernible you just have to wait until the end and assume the dead one skewered on his own windpipe probably isn’t the hero. Also, we have the lovely Lena Headey looking as though she went tet-a-tet with a weedwacker and lost. She made Drew Barrymore’s teenage years look like Orphan Annie’s. Either Ms. Headey, after spending her finer moments in Westeros all year, was simply too tired to offer a performance of any perceivable worth or her acting is simply too subtle for this bull-ball-testosterone-injected mess of a movie. Finally, we have the exquisitely attractive miss Thirlby who, somehow in a future where everyone apparently applies a thick layer of biological waste to their skin every morning (‘This is Obama’s America!’), is as pristine as decorative knob on polishing day (tee hee. Double entendre!). The effect is so unnerving in this grime-tastic universe Travis has constructed that it’s almost as though someone stole a prop head from the Lord of the Rings and affixed it to some Judge armor. She floats from scene to scene, a removed beacon of beauty and brilliance, never once integrating into the grander aesthetic. She is barely even objectified! We get a total of .3 seconds of some thug’s fantasy and a whole lot of unflattering kevlar. It’s as though someone cast the fucking Keebler elf in The Expendables. A really, really pretty Keebler elf that was in Juno. It’s that jarring.

I tried. Guys, I really did. I waited to see what entertainingly brutal ends Dredd would dole out like popsicles from an ice cream truck (note to self: sitcom spin-off idea). I witnessed the dude’s head ignite, the bodies exploding into a shower of crimson carnage after falling 200 stories and an adam’s apple crushed into a man’s spine. I watched and I ‘meh-ed’. Am I so desensitized that when the guy’s hand exploded all I could muster was a, ‘yep, saw that coming’. This film, objectively, was one of the most violent movies I’ve seen in…well, months. Yet there was no creativity, nothing I hadn’t seen before. Granted, the scenes of narcotic-induced slow motion was anatomically fascinating, seeing exit wounds blossom in flowers of gore and Mama’s vertical end had a kind of violent poetry to it…but that was it. Otherwise, it was simply scene after scene after scene of Dredd murdering people. Not cleverly. He just shoots them. He kills so many goddamn people it’s absurd. Legions upon legions. AND I WAS BORED. What the fuck happened to me? Is this the new colosseum? I mean, it made sense for him to murder all those druggies within the context of the film and, to his credit, he does it extremely efficiently. Am I not entertained? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Have the Saw films gone to my head? Now, does a character’s death have to be more elaborate than a fucking Rude Goldberg machine? Will I suddenly march over to Mufasa in The Lion King and say “Sorry dude, a stampede of wildebeests won’t cut it. What happens if they’re carnivorous and begin eating you and THEN they drag you five miles in a victory lap, all the while peeing on your corpse? I think that would be much more affecting. STOP CRYING SIMBA, I’M TALKING TO YOUR CORPSE OF A FATHER.”

“Have you see my brother? He’s about yay high, ugly and played by Peter Dinklage? Tell him his sister has something to shove up his ass.” ~ Cersei 2.0

It would seem as I have ‘aged’ and ‘matured’ and become ‘less of a shit-head’, my love of raucous and explosive bouts of boyish id has waned. Now, as I’m confronted with video games where disembowelment, dismemberment and debasement of functional organs are not only commonplace but greatly encouraged as well as innards-soaked epics of glorious gore, I open that cookie jar of my youth and reach in, ready to enjoy myself that sweet sugary nectar that is indulgence incarnate. But it doesn’t taste so great. I find myself asking, “But…but why? Where is the character? The point?” I mean, I still love the shit out of Die Hard, Indiana Jones and Inglorious Basterds. They’re dumb action right? WRONG. They have likable protagonists, grander themes, plots snakier than Madeusa’s beautician. Dredd has none of that. Its final attempt at holding a place in my memory is to eviscerate victims in increasingly hilarious fashions over its thankfully truncated runtime. Otherwise…what’s the point? Why are we watching in the first place? Is it even worth it anymore? Oh no…Have I been infected by ennui? Has my film-watching self become French?  What has become of my snarky British heritage? Has it been inevitably tinged with peppered sauce of sarcasm? The soft cheese of pretension? The Chateau Lafite of wearing turtlenecks? NO! It cannot be! I can feel my awesomeness melting away and replaced by the croissants of international judgement! Nooooooooooo! Please! Somebody save me!

Merde.

Looper (2012) – Rian Johnson

Looper (2012) – Rian Johnson (Dir.), Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels

It’s like JGL is being reflected by a mirror that makes you look like you were in “Death Becomes Her” and never recovered.

Sometimes, as a fake online journalist/opinionator/random offer-of-the-mouth, a movie comes along with such headline potential that you simply cannot leave it alone. Every internally rhyming play on words stews beneath your surface, a molten sea of steaming low-brow-ity finding any all cracks in a writer’s dignity to burst forth in an eruption of such groan-worthy punnery that readers’ faces are literally (and I use that word accurately here) reduced to melting the fuck off in the fear that any more turdalicious wit might follow. And sometimes, you must indulge those urges and gurgitate (it’s like regurgitate but the contents of the vomitous mess have already been digested before even seeing the light of day) the worst jokes of your life. It is my duty, as an asshole, to step into terribleness.

LOOPER WAS SUPER!

LOOPER AIN’T NO POOPER SCOOPER!

LOOPER IS CHRIS COOPER! (in that it’s quite good and memorable, but not THAT good or THAT memorable)

Alright, now that’s out of the way we can get on with our lives. Yes, I enjoyed the shit out of Looper. And, for once, that was an accurate hyperbole because I even enjoy some of the more fecally-repugnant moments (not that there were many). PLOT TIME: Looper is Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, Brick, that one episode of Breaking Bad that everyone either loves or fucking hates) dipping his dick into the delightfully dangerous pot of sci-fi nonsense. Joseph Gordon-my-future-boyfriend-not-sure-where-that-came-from-Levitt plays a ‘Looper’ (see what he did there?). Apparently, it’s incredibly difficult to kill people in the future (unless you shoot them in China and then burn their house) so criminals in the future use the most incredible invention that humans could ever possibly stumble upon not to go back and make a shit ton of money or to help them take over the world…but dispose of bodies in farms. JGL shoots the temporal-interlopers, makes money, with the eventual goal of murdering himself 30 years in the future, thereby ‘closing the loop’. It sounds cheesy and, well, it kind of is. It also doesn’t make a goddamn lick of sense, but we’ll get back to that later.

So the plot, like cottage cheese left in the sun too long, thickens. Turns out, in the future, not the near future in which the movie is set, but the far away future where not-the-movie is set, there is this dude called the Rainmaker who is murdering all the Loopers. You know, fulfilling the contracts that they signed. And like the similarly named Rain Man, this Rainmaker is a terrifying dude. He can count cards and reinvigorate Tom Cruise’s career (well, nothing so nefarious as that.) Well, when JGL wearing someone else’s face comes across a man with no hair and the look of a being whose soul had been sucked out of his ass by Demi Moore, he hesitates and gets his shit wrecked. Bruce Willis, as future JGL, goes on a rampage trying to murder child he believes to be this ‘Rainmaker’ and JGL, or past Bruce Willis (with decidedly more hair than Die Hard Bruce, but less than Hudson Hawke Bruce), tries to murder him. And then everything takes place on a farm with a farmhand (Emily Blunt) bonerific enough that even Willis might get it up again (low blow? What I’m saying is that he looks like a man who hates his life, his choices, and the fact that he still has a career that, like the T-Virus, is a constantly reanimating force that seeps through his decomposing corpse and drags him back into a world that would probably be better living only with his memory. Did you even see the trailer of A Good Day to Die Hard? Man looks like fucking Nosferatu).

Joe! What happened to your face? It looks like the prosthetics fairy vomited on you while you were asleep!

This is a good movie. It isn’t going to win any awards, nor will it be particularly remembered for any good reason. However, every aspect is so well constructed that you can’t help but marvel at the fact that nothing is really that frustrating about it. The acting is exactly what it needs to be, for the most part. We have Jeff Daniels doing his best to look like a mob-boss who specializes in drinking his own urine and wrestling abominable snowmen, Emily Blunt offering cuss-words and shotgun blasts left right and center, and Joe Levitt being dreamy  quite good. Even Bruce Willis seems as though he’s actually trying. I KNOW. It’s like sitting in a room with a catatonic family member, assuming that they really have nothing left to live for before we pull the plug…and then they leap out of their chair and start yelling in your face about time travel. You don’t have time or prescience to judge whether or not the speech is any good or particularly affecting, you’re just ball-assed stunned that the fucker is moving at all. Seeing Willis act reminded me why I like the guy. I don’t care for the Willis who seems perpetually carved out of an intensely depressed piece of concrete, displaying about one and a half expressions for a two hour runtime. I like the guy yelling ‘yippee-ki-yay’, making wise-cracks, and screaming as he jumps out of skyscraper windows.

Rian Johnson is a man who knows what he’s doing. One of my favorite movies in recent years is the bowler-hat-wearing-quirktastic-jerk-fest-Rachel-Weisz-marry-me that was The Brothers Bloom. Equal parts hilarious and poignant, thrilling and silly, classy and basal, it’s one of the oddest movies you’ll see for quite some time. Luckily, he transferred his wit to this otherwise growl-fest of a film and injected some of the more brutal moments with slivers of tasteful irony and meta winks. His vision of the future is carefully restrained and shockingly plausible (with perhaps the exception of telekinesis thrown into the mix) and, even when we make it to the ‘further away future than the rest of the film future, which is still in the future, but not quite as far away’, or FAFTTROTFFWISITFBNQAFA for short, the whole thing seems like a simple expansion of where we currently are. Johnson seems to have learned from the mistakes of past sci-fi writers that our exponential acceleration into a technological dreamscape isn’t quite what has occurred over the past decade and a half…most likely due to the rise of media-focused devices and the Internet (I’m not going to win a Nobel for saying this, LOLcats are hindering us as a species. Fucking cats.) So, seeing a world that still kinda makes sense with a few extra gizmos is delightfully refreshing (and, handily, cuts down on the budget. Huzzah!) I mean, things get fairly incongruous when you actually begin considering the implications of the fact that the future has time-travel…and yet all they use it for, instead of say killing Hitler, getting A’s on history projects with the help of Abraham Lincoln and Billy the Kid, or making sure dinosaurs still exist as human pets and/or terrible lizard butlers (I’d call mine Mr. Tyrone-a-saurus Penniweather Rex, also, he will have tails and a monocle) they just send dudes back to die. Hmm. Also, telekinesis? Sure! Why not?

And there is the rub, as they say in Elizabethan England. This movie walks a line, carefully and flagrantly, sometimes dipping its toes into the sea of boiling, furious nerd-sauce and sometimes leaping about in the waters of ’emotional accessibility’ (yes, those are two distinct and incompatible groups). This is a matter of great concern and thought for me. As a lover of science-fiction, I’ve become trapped so often in the past trying to decide whether or not to exclude films from my opinions because of their weak-ass attempts to incorporate ‘science-y things’. I used to be one of those people who, when in the presence of snot-nosed plebs that declare Star Wars as real science-fiction, I’d slap them across the face and bark ,’Mom, you ignorant slut!’ And then I’d get grounded. For though those bellicose celestial bodies may be fantasy, they exude no interest in science, technology or a basic understanding of how humans interact with either and thus negates the series’ claim of being part of the sci-fi lexicon. It’s medieval in space. That’s what it is. 2001: A Space Odyssey, when you manage to agonizingly crawl past the technicolor acid trip at the end, is hard sci-fi. It considers big questions about human nature vs. that of a computer. Science! One of my favorite examples of a hard sci-fi movie would be Singing in the Rain. If we whittle the definition to its basic parts, sci-fi is simply the exploration of how advancements in technology affect human behavior and create an emotional impact. It’s a movie about how talkies destroyed old silent film actors. Science!

“Freeze! I was in Cop Out! Not that it’s applicable to this situation, I was simply attempting to spread awareness of that fact!” ~ Bruce Willis forced into self-promotion after firing his publicist.

So, what is Looper? It’s soft sci-fi. Not in that it’s limp and flaccid, but more in terms of focus. If you squint hard or spread vaseline around the camera lens (ala every Barbara Walters interview since her sixth facelift) the thing looks like science fiction, tastes like science fiction, even sounds like it with flying motorbikes and little children screaming the insides of dude all over the living room (that part was fucking awesome). But, the rules don’t make sense. Let’s compare Looper to another true Willis classic, 12 Monkeys. Granted, that movie is nuttier than squirrel turds. However, Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python film penis aside, it deals with time travel in a semi-plausible fashion. Yes, the idea that humans have enough resources to create one of the most difficult and implausible machines ever devised but are incapable of finding a fucking vaccine for a virus is slightly further in the bat-shit category than I’d be willing to admit…and Brad Pitt seems more likely to eat his own feces than in any other role (other than, perhaps, Ocean’s 11…he’s always eating! There’s only a matter of time, statistically speaking, before he experiments with his own biological waste), 12 Monkeys approaches time travel in an intelligent fashion. In many ways, it’s about people trying to change the past and, in doing so, only make it come to being because, as the laws of causality are, there is no way to alter the path that brought you to where you are. It has already happened. Oh, spoilers, but whatever. If you haven’t seen it, shame on you. The characters’ main objective isn’t to stop the virus from escaping, it’s to learn as much as possible from its beginning so as to inform their search for a cure. Makes sense right?

Now…Looper. Oh Loopie Looper. Bruce Willis wants to change the past. And he does…and, in doing so, his memories change according to the shifts. What the what? But…but…by changing his choices…he’s changed who he is…why would his memories change? And why did old Paul Dano not already have a nose (most chilling sequence in the whole fucking movie) and…and…ARGH. HEAD-A-SPLODE.

THAT ISN’T HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS!

You know who doesn’t have a fuck in the world to give? Like…he could have the world’s stockpile of fucks in a locked safe, more than even Charlie Sheen would ever know what to do with, and a poor virgin, searching for his only salvation: a single, solitary, flying (for some reason) fuck comes crawling to his door and he turns him away like the fuck miser he is? Rian Muther-Not-Giving-a-Fucking Johnson. He jokes about it. He don’t give a shit about what nerd panties are filled with causality-rage-turds. You know what he does do? He defines his rules. He sets his parameters. And, if not for one very large plothole, he sticks to them. I could walk to Mr. Johnson, slap him with my comically miniature nerd penis and declare ,”You, sir, are incorrect!” And he shall turn to me and demand, “By whose metrics? Yours? That you made up? Based on something that is completely impossible anyway?” And I’d say, “Um…I guess. I mean it makes sense…” and he returns with, “Ah, to you, my young padawan. But remember, this is all silly make believe and, in my world, this is how time travel operates.” And I’d say, “But that’s not how…” and he says “MY WORLD” and I’d say “But…” and he’d scream “MY FUCKING WORLD. NOT YOURS. MINE. MINE. MINE. MINE.” And then he’d take my lunch money and I’d run home to my mommy crying about an indie film director bullying me with his irrefutable logic.

“I once pooped in Dumb and Dumber. I pooped a LOT.” ~ Jeff Daniels, proud of his accomplishments

What Johnson does, instead of adhering to all these fucking logical rules and declarations by a singular community, is something commendable. He tells a fucking story. Isn’t that novel! With the backdrop of his fantasy rules, he creates a fascinating dichotomy within a single character. Joe, (JGL and BDubs) are simultaneously the antagonist and the protagonist…and yet you’re not always sure which one is which. They both have clear motivations, whether it be deep seeded selfishness or love of a woman, and they are both equally compelling. Ultimately, after the shooting and the violence and the little kid blowing everything up with a scream, the movie becomes about a singular theme. Imagine that, mutherfuckers. We have a clear goddamn theme with clear goddamn characters with clear goddamn arcs. People, take fucking note. This is how it is done. This movie is about how hatred begets hatred. Solving problems with destruction only creates more destruction. Perhaps the most touching section of the movie includes Mr. Willis going to the home of a rainmaker suspect as a child and then murdering him to make sure the mob boss never takes power. Immediately, he realizes, due to the fact that he doesn’t whip back to the future to live his hunky dory life with his hot asian wife, that the kid he just killed was entirely innocent. You understand why he did it and yet you condemn him. And he condemns himself. PATHOS, BITCHES.

Johnson has created an action movie with a firing brain and a beating heart. Everything about this thing is wrapped tidily in a sweet, violent, hilarious and challenging package. It isn’t original, nor is it necessarily plagiaristic. It steals elements, like a food critic at a buffet, taking samples of everything, eating what they please and tossing the rest. It’s noir, it’s self-reflexive, it’s a western, it’s a comedy, it’s 12 Monkeys, it’s Brick, it’s Total Recall, it’s Die Hard…and yet, in the end, it’s Looper. It is itself and it is wonderful. As someone who wishes to bring real stories, deep characters and actual theme to tired genres, this is my new cinematic hero. We thought Inception would be our champion, but it got it’s dick stuck in the Chinese Butt-Trap (TM) of defining too many rules that it couldn’t uphold. Looper is the perfect balance. And yet…because it is so devoid of massive flaws, it will most likely be forgotten before long, just to chill on the action shelf next to turds like Time Cop and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

But I will remember you, Looper. I shall carry the torch. Your work will never be forgotten.

NSFW – Some Like it Die Hard (1959/1988) – Billy Wilder/John McTiernan

Some Like it Hot (1959) – Billy Wilder (Dir.), Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

and

Die Hard (1988) – John McTiernan (Dir.), Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia

There are worse places to put your head.

And so, as chaotic systems eventually come to rest, livers collapse like supernovas and I get sick of spending all of my money buying drinks for girls I’m only half-convinced exist due to paralytic inebriation, so did my Summer of Singlehood. Yes, it’s kind of exciting. I am no longer single and everyone I work with is really glad I’m being less of an asshole. So, you’re welcome. However, with meeting a new partner/lovely lady and delving into her deepest and darkest truths, discovering her most well-kept secrets, needs and desires, analyzing hopes and dreams and generally putting one another through the Emotional Spanish Inquisition that comes with the first month of a relationship, I discovered something that made me squeal with horror.

She. Had. Never. Seen. DIE. HARD.

Let that sink in. I inquired further. “Some Like it Hot?” “No.” “The Big Lebowski?” “No.” “Aliens?” “No.” “Children of Men? The Hurt Locker? Seven? Being John Malkovich?” “No. No and No.” I KNOW, RIGHT? Turns out this chick was taught to ‘read.’ You know every time I watch a movie? She reads a book. Like an entire book. I’m not joking. I have witnessed it. She’s like the insatiable reading queen. Well I must reeducate her! Let’s get rid of that ‘intellectual’ nonsense and in with some explosions! Some drama! Some crossdressing! And so, I have decided to cop out of the whole ‘watching random difficult movies that can be a little rapey’ for the moment (like I haven’t been doing that for months) to return to some of my beloved classics with a new eye. Now, the lady, as she is known (she shares a name with a famous family. See if you can guess which one! And no, it’s not ‘Hitler’) gets to choose which movies we view. I’ve decided, based on her complete ignorance of these films, we shall view the randomly paired tales and I shall do whatever I can to conflate the disparate pieces, attempting to use great art to dig deeper into the creative crust that Hollywood has so buried itself under for years. It shall be a new segment! And, due to the fact that both of us practically race to fall asleep during movies first, it shall be the greatest Narcoleptic Society of Film Watchers this world has ever known! We shall watch great movies and I will cross-examine them! We will have to do it over about four days at a time because we keep falling asleep! Huzzah! So, what do we have first…?

The inspiring tale of a man born with a burning building as half of his head.

Some Like it Hot? A cross-dressing comedy set during 1929 in Chicago? And Die Hard? The baddest of badasses with a yippee-ki-yay-mutherfucker here and a yippee-ki-yay-mutherfucker there, here a yip, there a yip, everywhere a yippee-ki-yay-mutherfucker? Well…shit. I’m a smart lad, I can do something.

To those of you not in the know, Some Like it Hot is the tale of two musicians, Tony “What Did You Do To Your Face?” Curtis and Jack “When God Gives You” Lemon, down on their luck in prohibition era Chicago. Like the dullards they are, they witness the brutal and, honestly, bemusingly bloodless murder of the totally-based-on-a-real-person’s-name Toothpick Charlie. They have to get out of town and do so by masquerading as female players in an all-vagina band led by the titillating, titalicious and severely drunk Marilyn Monroe. Well, Curtis falls in love while doing an impersonation of Cary Grant, Lemon almost gets mounted by a randy millionaire and all of the mobsters get ruthlessly massacred. Fun for the whole family!

No, nobody mentions that these two broads have Adams apples the size of Lake Manitoba nor do they notice that they both look about as comfortable in dresses as a that one cup does in that video about two girls loving it so (And chocolate ice cream). And no, Marilyn Monroe doesn’t mind that Curtis was lying to her about everything. And no, the randy thousand-year-old doesn’t give a flying fuck that Lemon isn’t a woman. But that shit is hilarious, continue please.

If I have to tell you what Die Hard is about, I will come to your home and person push you out of a 97 story building while looking like my hair is trying to sprint away from my scalp in fear of my deafening manliness. Don’t fuck around. This shit is serious. Game faces people. Suffice to say, it is Alan Rickman at his best, Bruce Willis at his most exasperated (except for every time someone brings up Ashton Kutcher) and Bonnie Bedelia at her most permed. This movie will rock your cock, fry your face, badger your vagger. It is awesomeness incarnate.

Worst. Tango. Album. Ever.

Now, there aren’t too many literal links between the two films. Both are perfect personifications of their respective genres. Both hit every single beat precisely and pristinely, never missing a single step. Hot gives us set up, punchline, set up, set up, punchline, punchline. Die Hard, on the other hand, is the epitome of what an action movie should be. We have a villain (the inaccurately titled ‘Terrorist’, Hans “Sounds Like a Sausage Company. Is that Racist? I Don’t Think That’s Racist” Gruber), the damsel in distress, the crazy ballerina dude with a massive machine gun and the black guy from Family Matters. The plot builds with the exact intensity and pace required and indicates the percent completed by way of intelligently projecting itself upon McClane’s physical appearance and bodily deterioration. His shirt becomes bloodier and bloodier with each lethal skirmish, terrorist head squished and Twinkie mishandled, whittling him to a pulp of flesh and bullets by the final showdown. It’s fucking exhilarating and I won’t hear another word about it.

All that said, what caught my eyes was a single item. Both have an interesting take on gender roles (shocker, I know). While Hot deals directly with two men having to sacrifice their masculinity in order to infiltrate panties as stealthily as Seal Team Sex (see what I did there?), constantly subverting their usual roles in order to find a new lot and direction in life, Die Hard is about alpha males standing their ground, whipping out their dicks and flapping it in everyone’s faces. Fascinatingly, though Curtis’ character never particularly changes throughout the film, we see a marked difference in Jack Lemon before the credits roll. While his regular male form is horny as hell and ready to hump the desk lamp given half the chance, his female half slowly and steadily is weened away from that teat and convinced into a life of marriage with a man of wealth. We see this stallion dragged from predation to obedience, willingly giving up his life as a bachelor to take the role of housewife, thereby providing stability, both financial and emotional. What is totally wonderful and peculiar is that Lemon’s Daphne is entirely pleased with the concept to the point that both Lemon and Wilder convince the audience that, with the caveat of having a penis, this is the perfect choice for his life. At first, you laugh at the absurdity, but the more you analyze, the more you can understand the true gravitas of this choice. Jack Lemon and the randy millionaire are in love. Purely and unabashedly. No matter what Lemon does to convince Osgood otherwise, even revealing that he’s one clam short of a bake, the man’s mind can’t be changed. Is this love? Stockholm Syndrome (which, hilariously, is mislabeled in Die Hard as ‘Helsinki Syndrome’. Seriously guys? It’s called research. I do it all the time – INSERT LACK OF RESEARCH HERE)?

Ah, true tucked-back love.

Or perhaps this is the first instance of Hollywood actively endorsing an alternative lifestyle. Perhaps, beyond the jokes and the nonsense, this was actually about two human souls connecting, societal norms be damned! Let their love be free of judgement! Let it blossom like a flower! Let it live long against the tyranny of ignorance and bigotry, let it persevere through hate and horror, let it DIE HARD!

(And the award for best segue goes to Andrew Mooney)

Let’s check out this bad boy. Well, between falling down ventilation shafts, blowing up SWAT teams, Ode to Joy, Mr. Takagi’s head exploding and the one really awkward black hacker in a group of Aryan Fabio impersonators (with Genghis Khan thrown into the mix), there is a deeper and more affecting tale at the center of this awesomemess (it’s a mess that’s awesome). This yarn is, most primally, about a man protecting his wife and his kids and this couple rediscovering why, all those years ago, they said ‘I do.’ McClane is a man with gender issues of his own, once the breadwinner while his clan was back in New York, now reduced to the weakened, weekend visitor to his kids while his wife becomes a major executive down in Los Angeles. Early on, we’re explicitly told that he had no intention of following Holly’s aspirations because he assumed they’d fail. He was wrong and now he’s an asshole. And he acts like one two. Granted…the fact that he’s being a shit means that he’s moping in the bathroom and doesn’t get captured due to the clever use of DISTRACTION TITTIES, but he’s still clearly in the wrong. And, though she gets about a minute fraction of the screen time of Willis, Bedelia is given scene after scene where she is standing strong against Snape’s I, uh, mean Rickman’s vitriol and brutality.

Bruce Willis re-enacting his own birth.

Is it a feminist film? Fuck no. There are metaphorical penis flying every which way. We even get two dicks by the name of Johnson shooting REALLY BIG GUNS from motorboats (they’re actually helicopters, but there is nothing sexual about helicopters.) In fact, very little of what John McClane does would be the choice of any sane gentleman and, if you were fucking stupid enough to try anything he does, you would have been dead at least thirty times over. In the end, it’s about fighting for his wife and realizing why he was in the building in the first place. Yes, she makes the money. Yes, she owns the house. Yes, she…well… does everything. But he knows how to shoot people in the head with a gun taped to his back. That’s, like, really useful and stuff! This is a movie about subverted gender roles finding their “natural” fit (those are “irony” bunny ears. Those second ones are not. They’re just bunny ears to make sure you knew I was naming something. Fuck me, English is complicated). Though Holly is the successful one, she is reduced to the damsel in distress once physicality enters the mix. John is given a place in her life once again. He becomes the hero, forced to return and murder the shit out of some Germans.

But, as we all know from the second movie, it doesn’t last. And it’s because, you know what? People aren’t attacked by terrorists and forced to protect your family with a gun every day. If you’re John McClane, it only happens once a year. And apparently that isn’t enough to keep a successful woman with a real career married to a suffocating, arrogant, chauvinist pig.

Is that offensive? Sorry. Chauvinist pork-based mammal. At least now I know that all I need in my burgeoning relationship is to either lie about everything or to save her from a illustrious career by ruthlessly murdering Germans. But then again, that’s how all Brits start relationships.

Alan Rickman giving the world’s smallest and flattest ghost-blowjob.

SUMMER EPILOGUE 2012: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Joss Whedon

The winds of a distant winter are rising. Cold fronts, like chilled custard, are gradually consuming the Midwest and with it Chicago. Those summer dresses that make ladies seem so dishonestly ephemeral are quickly disintegrating to the temporal safety of jeans and sweatpants. The summer is coming to a close and, as Ned Stark would say if he had an issue with premature ejaculations (referring specifically to the archaic definition pertaining to elocution), Fall Is Coming. Finally, I’m able to cast aside my vibrant colors in favor of dour earth tones. I no longer need to repel the incessant whines of “Andrew, you should try shorts, you’d look adorable” because it wouldn’t be adorable, it would be as horrifying as looking into the Ark of the Covenant, doesn’t anyone understand I AM EXTREMELY INSECURE ABOUT MY PASTY LEGS.

Well, for a Summer of Film, like any good night of sex, there is a shit load of build up and anticipation, a middling execution with some high points (and seriously low ones) and finally a required and sleepy denouement. This is that sleepiness. A decomposition, if you will, a digestion, that special walk that you take after Thanksgiving Dinner in the hope that burning about fifty calories will offset that Herculean gorge-fest that was that five course monstrosity. Perhaps these will take the form of awards and, if they do, they will be more important than the fucking Oscars (because, honestly, what isn’t?). Perhaps they will take the form of rants. Perhaps the form of an elaborate and labyrinthine puzzle, dragging you through the depths of your own psyche, revealing grotesque truths about the human condition before finally revealing what I actually thought about a shitty film franchise. Perhaps. I haven’t decided yet.

Oh Summer of 2012, what a beast you were. You had such dazzling highs and such confounding lows. You were filled with aimless, drunken wanderings through the streets of Chicago, ending with confused mornings waking up in puddles of Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwiches (true story). You were riddled with dates and drunken make-outs. Midnight showings and Bat-a-thons. You were epic and understated at once. Much like my fifth grade math teacher, I entered you a boy and a left you a man (not a true story). I have gained some loved ones, and lost some (you will be missed, Donnie. New York doesn’t deserve you). I went from living with four wonderful and crazed souls to living alone. And I saw both The Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus. I will be forever changed. So, now that I’ve arbitrarily decided to structure this like a rewards show, lets get this thing on the road. Without further ado…here are…

ANDREW’S SUMMER MOVIE AWARDS 2012!

Welcome, welcome ladies and gents. It’s been a wacky and wild roller coaster this summer, hasn’t it, Jane?

(Insert painfully unwitty, overly-enthusiastic response from once-pretty co-host whose face looks like it’s had more nips and tucks than a fucking French pastry)

Hilarious, Jane. You’re so on point. Well, let’s get to it!

Most Mediocre Movie I’m Glad I Missed

Winner: The Amazing Spiderman; Runner Up: The Borne Legacy

OH NO! MECHA-GOJIRA! Nope…my mistake. It’s just boring.

So, I know these were both on my list of “Movies I Will See and Hate Myself“, but guess what, other than a few noted exceptions, this was not a summer of self-harm. I read reviews of Spiderman. My friend told me it was, and I quote, “Totally Fine.” You know what? Fuck totally fine. I don’t want totally fine. This is the summer. If I want ‘totally fine’, I’d be in January. This is the time for RPX/3D/IMAX/ VHS/ADHD/CPS/SIDS to melt your mutherfucking face off. If I’m not feeling some facial phase-changes, then it has no business being in the summer movie line-up. I like Andrew Garfield, but it was so infuriatingly clear in every ad, clip and interview he was trying to be a total badass. You know what? No matter how many times you shove a lightning bolt up a corpse’s ass, you don’t get reanimation, you just get the suffocating smell of cooked, rancid meat and charred hair. My Peter Parker will always be the animated one that awkwardly fought the Green Goblin on Saturday mornings…and then got all weird and sexy with Madame Web and…well…let’s not talk about that. Also, The Borne Legacy, I heard Jeremy Renner was wasted. For that, I say, you deserve a penis in the ear. That is the one place no one likes a penis. Well, I’m sure someone does. Anyway, it’s invasive and unpleasant. You’re welcome.

Most Pissed Off I Got That Nobody Would Drink a Fifth of Jack With Me and Watch

Winner: Battleship, Runner-up: Piranha 3DD

YOU GUYS, IT LOOKS SO GOOD! SERIOUSLY! YOU GUYS!

Seriously, like, seriously guys. Why would NOBODY watch Battleship with me? Of course it’s moronic. Of course it’s about as worthy of sense as Gary Busey on the third day of an acid binge. Of course Liam Neeson will cash a paycheck. But still…COME ON. I heard there was an old person montage! And Rihanna acting! And Tim Riggins on a Boat! (For the record, I do not know, nor do I care, who Tim Riggins is. He has a cool name. Discussion over). I tried, time and again, to Shanghai someone to sneak a bottle of bourbon into the movie theater with me and drink every time someone said the words “Ship”, “God” or “Hey, isn’t that the guy from True Blood?” This summer has been seriously lacking some Transformers, over-the-top, misogyny-riddled, nonsensical action and I need my shit-fix. Why did you all abandon me? WHY?

Piranha gets honorable mention because, honestly, it’s a Piranha movie and those cannot be missed. At the same time, I heard it sucked massive elephantitis-balls. Like, globe-sized, Jack-and-the-Beanstalk-style giant testicles. And not in the good way. More in the, “just got back from rowing the Atlantic ocean and am suffering from about 12 different fungal issues in the nether-regions…do you still want to do this?” way.

Most Forgettable Movie of the Summer

Winner: I can’t remember; Runners-Up: Men in Black III, Brave

It’s that one movie…with the thing…and that guy, from that other movie…

It’s only logical that the least memorable movie was one that literally forgot its existence. This has happened numerous times. Some of the more memorable least-memorable films would be…um…that one with the cops…a black one and a white one…maybe the one with a scary thing in the something or other…or when that one person was on trial for something and somebody was trying to do something with the…it was by John Grisham, I know that. So, here’s to you, the least memorable movie of the summer! I might have written an article about you. Maybe. Maybe I didn’t because you were so fucking forgettable that my brain forcefully rejected your existence the moment I left the theater/my living room. Not because you were bad. No, bad movies deserve remembrance. You have committed the worst crime of all existence: you have stolen time out of my life that, not only will never be returned, but I cannot recollect. You’re a black hole of blandness. A vortex of vapidity. A nebula of nebul-‘eh’. So, movie that was positively pointless, thank you.

The other two runner-ups are nearly as blameful. Men in Black III was fine, without a capital ‘f’ because it doesn’t deserve such frills. It was a movie constructed by the corporate machine, placed in the hands of jaded, half-spent celebrity and given nothing to do other than make a really amusing joke about Andy Warhol. Otherwise, the film was so inoffensive and uninteresting that I literally forgot I saw it until I looked back at my articles written for this summer. And, Brave, you just stick that fucking bear tail between your legs (do bears have tails? I can’t remember. NOT THE POINT). You’re a Pixar, not some poxy by-the-numbers bullshit excreted by Lionsgate. You have a legacy to uphold! Now, yes, I enjoyed the film just fine (there’s that word again! I know grammatically the sentence is incorrect, but the issue is the same. Oh US parlance.) Semantics aside, Brave attempted a few things and succeeded. The issue was one of scale. I return to the face-melting essential nature of summer film. Wall-E fucking sublimated my entire head. Up transformed me into a sobbing, weeping, sniveling husk of mush. Brave? Brave made me shrug my shoulders and go “It wasn’t terrible.” Fuck that noise. I expect more from you people. I expect my very dreams to be haunted with your cartoonish mugs. I expect my bowels to loosen during the opening credits. I expect…

Holy shit. I just remembered what the most forgettable movie was. It was…wait…gone again. Oh well.

Most Good Movie Until a Super-Zombie Showed Up

Winner: Prometheus; Runner-Up: Um…Prometheus?

This is much more accurate depiction of that movie: people doing things that bear no relation to other things

You know how it is in the morning. You wake up, make yourself a cup of coffee, discover an alien planet that probably instigated all of evolution on planet earth, take off your fucking helmet because you “think it’s oxygen” and everything is forgivable and fine until a fucking SUPER ZOMBIE jumps out of nowhere and wrecks every non-named character? Know what I’m sayin’? No? That’s never happened to you? Well, Prometheus, I would like to thank you for obliterating the last twinkle of hope I held for modern science fiction. Thank you for taking such a deliciously dense, fertile, deep and compelling premise and the injecting it with Michael Bay cinema-herpes-riddled spunk. Much like the chaos-black stuff that infected and fundamentally transformed your characters, so did this Bay-Semen attempt to latch its genetic material onto yours. And, in self-same fashion, instead of becoming stronger, better and more interesting, you just became a fucking super-zombie, roaring like an idiot, throwing people this way and that, and eventually being crushed under the wheel of good fanboy taste. Yes, Prometheus, you are a dumb asshole. Not only that, but you built my hopes, you promised so much! And yet, as I drew back the veil, ready to place a ring on that finger and pledge my love to you, I instead discover the whale-vaginal, made-up visage of Guy Pearce peering back, Charlize Theron forgetting that human beings are capable of lateral movement and a big white dude giving forced fellatio to a crustacean.

It breaks my heart. It really does. Well, Prometheus, I really want you to be happy. Just…not with me. Bu-bye now.

Most Batman

Winner: The Dark Knight Rises; Runner-up: Moonrise Kingdom

Surprisingly Batman

This was a difficult category to decide. The list of contenders was long and contentious. We were offered an entire platter of Bat-films. Who could forget when the Dark Knight helped that family in Dark Shadows beat the evil witch’s curse? And when Bruce Wayne traveled back in time to help the Union get the silverware past the vampire threat in Abraham Lincoln: I Still Can’t Believe They Made This Movie. And, in one of the more memorable moments of summer film, who would ever lose sight of the iconic scene where the caped crusader gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Judy Dench after a fatal Over-British-Dose in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? Undoubtedly, however, the award for Most Batman goes to The Dark Knight Rises, fearlessly having Batman in as many as six scenes! They did so well to make sure the cape and cowl had its due, featured in a whopping more than three action sequences! It takes a lot of strength, determination and creative prowess to offer so much screen time to an icon of the common imagination so immensely awesome that it naturally eclipses and obscures all sense of nuance and depth. But they did it.

Our runner up may seem like a surprise, especially with movies such as The Avengers which are simply blatant love notes to the amazingness that is Batman. I mean, they deliberately put all these mediocre characters together in an attempt to make some sort of kind-of-decent Comic-Book Voltron, composed entirely of Stan Lee’s penis inner neuroses. And they were completely and utterly successful in their attempts to show that the Dark Knight does indeed rise above the rest. However, Moonrise Kingdom takes the proverbial cake for second-place Most Batman. In fact, it’s one of my favorite origin stories of all time. X-Men: First Class was a campy/sexy mess; Batman Begins only scratched the surface; and Spiderman was about as subtle as a bottle rocket tied to my scrotum. Moonrise Kingdom charts the unlikely tale of a young Bruce Wayne, his family killed before the film even begins, falling for a young weirdo outsider whom we have to assume is Rachel Dawes (again played by Katie Holmes who really looks like she’s aged a lot since the end of TomKat) and running away from his captors (Ed Norton as a pre-police force Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Willis as Mr. Freeze before earning his PhD in ‘cold things’). I tell you, casting Bill Murray as Clayface was inspired and Frances McDormand as Harley Quinn was a stroke of genius. So, I thank you Wes Anderson, for filling in the missing pieces of Bruce’s journey. 

Least Batman

Winner: The Avengers; Runners-up: The First Half of Dark Knight Rises, Magic Mike

This movie poster is still dumb.

Ok, I lied about The Avengers being a love note to The Dark Knight Rises. It was, instead, the Beethoven-esque, ovary-busting overture celebrating the eventual and glorious birth of one Mr. Joss “Fucking Finally” Whedon, a man that has been flirting with commercial greatness and total fangirl vomitoria for years. Throughout his career we have been fed tasty morsels of wonderment, from the episode Hush in Buffy season 4 to Serenity. We’ve also been plagued by Alien Resurrection and Joss Whedon fanboys (I’m not going to make any friends saying this, but if ANYONE begins singing Dr. Horrible around me, I will personally gag them and mail them to Nicaragua). The bald/ginger behemoth of pure nerdom has been gestating in a womb of ridiculous female caricatures and self-referential nonsense for years, only to bloom into a snarky, badass epic ball-buster that was The Avengers as well as the beautiful and hilarious send-up of horror films that was Cabin in the Woods. This was, in no uncertain terms, the summer of Whedon. I shall award him the honor of Least Batman because, contractually, the is no fucking way Batman can appear in the Marvel universe and, more importantly, the overall manic tone of The Avengers couldn’t haven’t been further from the Dark Knight’s noir necropolis. So, well done, Avengers. You did us proud.

The runners-up are slightly less Least Batman. First of all, the first half of The Dark Knight Rises does an incredibly admirable job of pretending to be about Batman and yet teasing us constantly with the fact that the caped crusader doesn’t show up for about THREE FUCKING HOURS. Yes, I understand pathos and that this is the first ever Batman movie that is actually about Batman. But c’mon! I want bat-antics (you know what they are because they’re labeled!)! I want gadgets! I want action scenes! I want to see Batman do something that makes my fanboy panties need a serious deep-clean on the ‘Teenage Boy Without a Girlfriend’ Cycle. The other runner-up, a film I did not see, seemed extremely not-Batman. Because, if the sixties taught us anything, there is nothing gay about Batman. Magic Mike looked super homo. Also, Matthew McConaughy is like anti-Batman. Not in that he’s something awesome like the Joker. No, he’s like buttered toast that falls on the ground butter-side down. He’s like getting a hang-nail while cutting lemons. He’s like Halle Berry’s Catwoman.

Very not-Batman indeed.

Best Movie of the Summer

Winner: Moonrise Kingdom; Runners-up: The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises

So surprising. Yes, it was the best. Deal with it.

Commence ‘Serious Face’ (TM). Yes, my favorite movie of the summer was indeed Moonrise Kingdom. Honestly, that movie cut me deeper than anything I’ve seen in some time. Deliriously funny, oddly dark and so whimsical that my testicles almost bloomed into Mumford and Sons and played a pop-folk concept in the middle of nowhere. It is probably the most entertaining modern tale of what it’s like to be a child I’ve seen in years. It was truthfully the most affecting thing I’ve seen in a while, both due to its examination of the child’s experience and because it makes you REALLY uncomfortable about how close to naked the little girl gets. *AWKWARD* That aside, thank you, Mr. Anderson, for serving us the same dish every single time and that same dish is absolutely fucking delicious.

Honorable mentions go out to the already lauded and fellated  The Avengers and Dark Knight Rises. So, yes, congrats, good movies. You’ll probably be the best movies I’ll see for a while. Unless someone FINALLY watches Battleship with me.

Movie I Wish I Had Been Drunker For

Winner: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Runner-up: Men in Black III

This poster is the most disconcerting thing I have seen since…well, this movie.

Seriously. My head was already fucking spinning, like that silver-coated axe wielded by our less-than-fortunate-looking 16th President of ours. So many things branded into my memory would have been offered the forgiving haziness of Jack Daniel-instigated inebriation. Perhaps Dominic Cooper’s horrific accent wouldn’t have pained me so. Perhaps I would have chocked up the absurdity of certain scenes to my waning control over basic motor skills. Perhaps I might have excused the nonsensical nature of the, well, the everything. Maybe Temur Nab-I’m-Not-Going-to-Look-up-How-To-Spell-it-Cus-Fuck-That-Guy-bakov would have been praised in my review for creating Inception-like complexity within his work. Instead, I had to watch it with a shitty Starbucks Latte in one hand (sorry for the redundancy of ‘Shitty’ and ‘Starbucks’) and my crumbling self-worth in the other. At least I had candy, but that can only do so much.

The runner-up here was Men in Black III solely because, if I had created a drinking game where the only rule was ‘Drink every time Will Smith is purposefully non-threatening to white people’ I might have been so drunk by the final scene that I might have involuntarily slept through the utterly hackneyed, inorganic and confusingly weep-tastic conclusion. But, hindsight is 20/20.

Movie I’m Really Upset I Missed

Winner: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Runner-up: Battleship

Come back! I can see Battleship another weekend!

So, I heard Beasts of the Southern Wild was one of the coolest, prettiest, most exhilarating films of the year. Its trailer had me crumpling my blanket in shoving into my mouth in fear that I might swallow my tongue due to a sudden wave of Cute-Black-Child-itis. Of course, I can’t really write anything about it and I don’t have a good reason for why I didn’t see it. I suppose time simply slipped away from me. Hours flew by, days even, and soon the only screen in Chicago playing its beauty allowed it slip away, quietly into the cinematic aether. And here I am, complaining about pieces of shit portraying presidents as Sarah Michelle Gellar’s only claim to fame and missing movies starring Rihanna as, well, a human being. Here I am missing true art and complaining that everything is decomposing into a massive stew of imaginative fecal matter. Here I am. I wish I had seen it, experienced it, written about it. Perhaps I’d be a different person, instead of a bitter jerk fuming over Michael Bay’s legacy. Perhaps. Lessons for the future, I suppose. A cautionary tale how lamenting about the terrible clouds our understanding of the good. Aye me.

The runner-up is Battleship. All pathos aside I REALLY WANTED TO SEE BATTLESHIP.

Most Hilarious Response to One of My Reviews I Have Ever Received

Winner: Fahrenheit 451; Runner-up: Batman Returns

So, this is the Internet. Though it is filled with wonderful things such as my blog, the blog of Raving Mad Scientists (check those ladies out, they are awesome), Netflix and every porn site ever, it is also home to less savory things. Like Goatsie (google it) or /b/ or every porn site ever. In expanding my writing to the World Wild Web I have braced myself for accidentally tapping into the vein of anonymous hatred that sneaks surreptitiously between sites, and allowing a deluge of trolling and nastiness. Luckily, I have not actually experienced any of this…yet. I have had a couple of amusing moments. My favorite of which was in response to my severely uninformed (and openly so) analysis of Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451:

“Well….I guess you gave it a good college try. You missed it on some of the facts (Wikipedia isn’t the end all and be all of information). Actually, Truffaut had originally set Werner to play the role of the captain (eventually played by Cyril Cusack – father-in-law to Jeremy Irons). When Stamp bowed out, Werner did not want to take over the role of Montag — but Truffaut pleaded and cajoled (they had worked so well together in Jules and Jim). Werner (in real life) experienced Kristalnacht in Vienna and saw more than his share of book burning. He had a hard time with the way he felt Truffaut ‘triviliazed’ the book burning scenes. Half way through filming, the two would not even talk to each other and had to use go-betweens to get their messages across. Werner wanted to add more sympathy to the character of Montag than Truffaut did, etc. etc. I completely agree with you about how miscast Julie Christie was. Unfortunately, at that time, she was the biggest thing in box office and the film would not have been funded without her in it.” ~film fan

Thanks for the info, ‘film fan’! I do take your criticism about lack of research beyond Wikipedia and offer, in return, a gif!

And in not quite close second, after my Batman Returns piece:

“Burton himself has said that Catwoman wasn’t meant to be supernatural but ambiguous and have that whole 9 lives vibe and motif going on. When she is pushed out the window (a brilliant scene “actually, it’s a lot like that!”) she hits at least 2 awnings and falls into a mount of snow. And she only falls about 6 stories (Jackie Chan did a similar stunt for real in Project A). After this she has a pyschotic break and develops a new personality not bound by morals or society. A force of nature. The cats wander around her as they live in the alley and are suspicious and hungry. The backflipping and martial arts skilled are explained in an earlier draft when she tells Bruce about how she was a gymnastics champion as a kid and took many self defence classes but her teacher told her she wasn’t any good as her mind wasn’t clear. She replies that it’s clear now.

But a great review, I enjoyed the read.”

That was from the enigmatically monikered ‘G’. Thank you for the compliment, it will not be forgotten. But seriously, that is some serious Burton-Knowledge. All I can say is:

In all honesty, thank you for reading, all of you. I love comments. Of all kinds. I met my internet friends that way. And seriously, we all know these blogs are an attempt to find people throughout the universe that aren’t related to you who might like something you wrote. Fleeting passes of digital connection, helping us avoid feeling the crushing weight of loneliness if only for a moment.

Also, if you want to call me on my shit, bring it. I HAVE SO MANY GIFS TO WHIP OUT.

Well, now we must wait for the Oscars to collectively jerk off our tear ducts in an attempt for studios to garner those self-congratulatory golden dildos. Get ready for movies with Abraham Lincoln not fighting vampires. Movies that make you cry, though you keep telling yourself that you’re watching trite nonsense. Also, The mutherfucking Hobbit. I’m only entirely excited. And now…a contentious list of megachiroptean action movies from best to worst.

All Batman Movies Ranked from Best to Worst with Comparisons to Things that Get you Drunk

The Dark Knight – Like an aged Scotch, smokey, mysterious and surprising. With a dead guy in it.

The Dark Knight Rises – Hendricks Gin. Solid, delicious and makes a summer night worthy of enjoyment.

Batman Returns – Maker’s Mark. Makes you say hilarious things and surprisingly delicious. With hints of Walken.

Batman Begins – A wine. Not fine, but tasty and good with a helping of Neeson. You drink it before it’s done breathing. Like an idiot.

Batman: The Movie – Tequila. Gets you fucking drunk. And maybe a little homosexual.

Batman – Absinthe (sans Wormwood). You think it’ll be more fun than it was and it tastes vaguely of something made in the mid-eighties but without the fun.

Batman Forever – Absinthe (con Wormwood). Should be illegal in the States and makes you feel like you are tripping balls. Jim Carrey might appear wearing all green and torment your worst nightmares.

Batman and Robin – Homeless Person’s Vomit. Self-explanatory. And it might give you a staph infection.

RELAPSE: Small Soldiers (1998) – Joe Dante

Small Soldiers (1998) – Joe Dante (Dir.), Gregory Smith, Kirsten Dunst, Denis Leary, David Cross, Jay Mohr, Phil Hartman (*le sigh*)

‘Big Movie’ might be a sliiiight exaggeration. I don’t think ‘Decidedly Medium, Completely Forgettable Movie’ had quite the same ring to it.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there was this period of time called the ’90s’. Specifically, the late 90s. It’s a time, after the cocaine riddled nightmare/dreamscape of the 80s and darkest of human days that was the early 90s, from which came all the kids that told the Generation Xers to shut up because, sweet Jesus, we get it already, you grew up in the eighties. Here’s a fucking medal now get back to running our economy into the ground. Well, I grew up in the late nineties and I’m gonna tell you all about it and yes, I want a fucking medal, because I’m one of those assholes, Rugrats or not, who is stuck in this economic quagmire because you cokeheads.

Ah the late 90s. A simpler time. A time with a Federal surplus. A time when children went to school asking teachers what a ‘blowjob’ is and ‘who the fuck would touch Monica Lewinsky with a ten foot pole? Oh right, Bill ‘Corndog, well any kind of dog’ Clinton.’ A time of the great Hollywood Blockbusters such as Independence Day, Stargate, The Rock, Wild, Wild West, The Mask of Zorro, The Matrix, Con Air and…well, the list goes on. And on. And on and on and on. It was a time unfettered with the need to be bashful for our misunderstanding of Middle Eastern people, where villains were flagrantly British, no matter what their country of origin. It was a time of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Hey Arnold, Doug (without those brand-ass-spankingly terrible sleeves) and the rest of Nickelodeon’s good shows were forced on a Bataan Death March to the cemetery of childhoods-past by a fucking talking sponge. Basically, what I’m saying, is that I was a child in the late 90s. And it was amazing. I was also a fucking idiot, as I have previously expressed.

Elijah Wood called, he wants his everything back. Also, he’s suing you for sucking and not being in Lord of the Rings.

So, when my friends and I decided to surf the Flix of Net for some lighter fare, when we discovered this little gem, this artifact of Joe Dante’s post-Gremlins career, just resting there, waiting to be oggled by our ravenously bored eyes, a cheer echoed through our house. A cheer fueled by the agonizingly annoying nostalgia we so hate from our Generation X companions. A cheer fueled with a need for David Cross to be back in our lives, even if he isn’t covered in blue paint and wearing denim cut-offs. A cheer fueled with the desire to witness the late and divinely great Phil Hartman mildly phoning it in. And so…we watched.

To those of you not in the know, Small Soldiers was Joe Dante’s belated follow-up to the manically brilliant and positively insane Gremlins 2: The New Batch. If you have not seen the entirety of the Gremlins franchise, I demand you flagellate yourself for such insolence and then buy both movies immediately. They are genius. Also…Pat Morita. ‘Nuff said. This movie is about a defense company, run by the beautifully non-acting Denis Leary, purchasing a toy developer and accidentally designing a line of action figures that gain sentience and try murdering each other and any other human that gets in the way. Home run, right? Well it certainly fucking was when I was ten. Now it’s a little, how should I put it lightly? Um…dated? Trite? Paralytically stupid? Please, don’t mistake me, this movie is neither good nor bad. It transcends such meager definitions, floating above us in the heaven of pure batshittery, resting next to works of genius such as From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and anything else made by Stephen Sommers. One cannot denounce this film for its basic laps in human logic (Why are toys dangerous? You can just kick them. Also, how can you turns Barbies into self-aware killing machines  using a fucking static ball and a cupcake tray?) you simply must sit back and all its glory to wash over you.

Even with the curses of its bland lead actor (Gregory Smith? Ever heard of him? Unless you have a rather traveled heroin addiction, probably not), its use of a decidedly not-legal Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella cursing his agent with every line-reading, this movie shines with its supporting cast. If one were to do a cross-section of the late-nineties comedy circuit, Dante basically employed EVERYONE. We have Denis Leary being, well, Denis Leary. He’s a penis and he’s hilarious. Next, David Cross during his fascinating “being in things” period of his career. There’s Cheri Oteri, that terrifying, tiny lady who was in sketches with Will Ferrell back in the day. Kevin Dunn, the man who has apparently made a career of playing incompetent fathers. Voices from Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer (that’s right ALL of Spinal Tap, bitches). And finally, last and least, Jay Mohr that guy from SNL and other things no one gives a shit about and acts as a litmus test for all movie watching. All one must do is ask “Is Jay Mohr in it?” If the answer is ‘yes’, the movie must be from any time between 1995-2000. Dude hasn’t been in shit since. What is a hilarious choice on Dante’s part is that every single executive/official is played by a bumbling stand-up comedian, thereby suggesting that our entire Military Industrial Complex (that’s right, I took notes in history class) is a complete joke. See what I did there? I went to college!

“Kill all of them except for the big one. I really like him on the Simpsons.”

May I take a moment here to remove my hat, hold it over my heart and remember the greatness that was Phil Hartman. He will forever be one of my favorite comedic actors of all time before he was gunned down by his wife in a fit of rage. The man was brilliant. Troy McClure, Lionel Hutz, News Radio, SNL, and all the rest. He will be missed. Let’s take a moment to remember.

That was a good moment. You can’t tell I took one, because I’m writing. But I did. So shut up.

Back on track, this movie’s biggest issue, fourteen years down the line…wait…14 years? It’s been FOURTEEN YEARS? What the fuck am I doing with my life? How…? When…?

Sorry about that. I’ll weep in a corner later. Anyway, it’s biggest issue is that Dante is clearly attempting to make a point of how technology is infiltrating every aspect of our lives. In almost every frame there is a piece of media technology, from TVs, to walkmen, to…wait did I just say ‘Walkmen’? Oh god I remember those. At one point the kid makes reference to ENCARTA 95. Do you know what that is? No, you don’t. It’s wikipedia on a CD. Do you know how useful it is? That’s right, about as useful as a thumb up the ass. Uncomfortable and ending without the desired result. Of course, he makes his point, one that is intelligently prescient and salient, but with the side effect of causing everyone in the room to laugh at how hysterically terrible living in the 90s actually was. Dial-up internet? No text messaging? Cassette tapes? Jay Mohr? The whole prospect of those dark days is enough to give you nightmares. Jay Mohr nightmares (I’m trying to say that he is fucking terrible. Get it? Yes? Good. Moving on.)

It’s a fun piece of nonsensical fluff, wrapped in a surprisingly hilarious score (Spice Girls, anyone? I believe they were all recently bitten by zombies raised from the dead and forced to sing like dancing abominable monkeys at the Olympics). Never once do the toys ever seem like they might do any damage because, honestly, they’re fucking toys. Also, Joe Dante hates the military. That much is clear. But, beyond the flagrant misunderstanding of the capabilities of hardware vs. software (artificial intelligence is software, David Cross, not hardware,you bald-headed sexually inanimate boob. I still love you, though) it’s a little too silly to take seriously. While it attempts to satirize and attack America’s obsession with the intersection of violence and entertainment, it succumbs to its own demons, reducing the affair to a game of ‘Hold the Fort’. Even the tritely named Gorgonites have to let go of their pacifistic ideals to kick some ass.

Brick Bazooka took the advice to “Break a Leg” a little too literally. He also decided to detach his pelvis. Because he’s a fucking MAN. Well…toy.

Perhaps the best dig in the entire film at this prevailing violence-fixation epidemic is a one-off line from Mr. “Angels Sing When I Think of You” Hartman. While watching his massively high-def television, he declares “I think World War II is my favorite war.” Think about that for a second. If we take Sherman’s quote, “War is Hell” for granted…how in God’s name can we have a ‘favorite’ war? It’s such a side-line joke and yet it encapsulates Dante’s Thesis (the less exciting sequel to Inferno though the Thesis Defense was as horrifying as the lowest ring of hell, trust me) far more wittily and succinctly than a bunch of facially deformed super-toys blurting tired puns and building Might Morphin’ Shitter Ranger Mobiles to kill pacifists.

That is the power of Hartman. Long live the Hartman.

SUMMER RELAPSE: The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Christopher Nolan

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Christopher Nolan (Dir.), Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman…let’s be real, pretty much the cast of Inception.

Disclaimer #1: I can be slightly irreverent at times. Well, extremely irreverent most of the time. In this ‘review’ I’m going to use harsh language, sarcasm, overly extended metaphors and general jackassery. However, this is purely in the spirit of fun and film criticism. My jokes and nonsense are meant in no way to belittle the horrific events at the midnight screening in Aurora, CO. My thoughts and prayers go to the victims of this tragedy. If you want some light-hearted ribbing/brutal emasculation of a major film franchise, please read on…

Disclaimer #2: Another one. Sorry! Well, I’m not sorry. Deal with it. This is for everyone wary of the dreaded ‘S’ word. That’s right…Shitzus. None of those yapping little fuckers will appear in this review. There will, however, be spoilers. I have demarcated them clearly. You’ve been warned.

It has arrived…through the ceiling apparently.

Here is a dramatization of me seeing this movie. Last time on ‘Andrew Meets Girls That are Actually Movies: Prometheus’

“Oh hey, I’m Andrew.” “Oh hey, I’m Prometheus. I’m pretty but I actually suck. Wanna make out?” “Any human contact is welcome. Even if you are simply a heavy-handed metaphor. Thank you!”

I’m back at another party, weeks after having surreptitiously exchanged mental saliva, if only briefly, with Prometheus in a closet. It turned out the movie/girl of my dreams was just that. An illusion. Well, the party is thumping but I’m standing in the corner gently swirling my beer in a shitty cup that is always red for some reason. Or blue. Any primary color other than yellow. I’m bored, checking my watch, ready to head home.

“Hey.” She’s right behind me, looking, for some deliriously (and wonderful) reason, like Anne Hathaway in a skin-tight cat suit. I am about to comment on how inappropriate it is based on our recent weather…and then I realize I need to shut the fuck up before I do something stupid, you know, like scare away a hot lady in a cat suit. “How’s it going?”

“Oh. Good. Thinking of heading out…”

“I just got here though.” She smiles at me. I’m interested (read: extreme understatement).

“What’s your name?”

“The Dark Knight Rises.”

I finish my drink. “I’ve heard about you. You’re supposed to be pretty amazing. But I’ve already been burned once this summer… Not sure if you know Prometheus…”

“That’s a shame. It’s also a shame that, not only am I hot, but I’m also surprisingly emotionally poignant, politically relevant and filled with Oscar-winning actors.” I take pause for a moment and consider the last item on the list. I’ve heard weirder things. I’ve done weirder things.

“That’s awesome and everything. But the last girl who said that wasn’t, well, all there…”

“Really? Not smart? Or deep? How about me? I’m a sprawling epic about class warfare, reminiscent of the French Revolution, all the while threading together a narrative of intense emotional destruction and, at the same time, extensively exploring these themes in relation to the concept of parental abandonment and societal isolation”

“Oh.” I grab someone else’s drink and down it. “Well…in that case…”

And then we make out. Everywhere.

“Who the fuck is Rick Ross and why the fuck is he in my police report?” ~ Batman, a Rick-Roll virgin.

We have finally reached it. After Nolan’s years of puttering with forms and structures, he has at last reached his eventual goal of inserting true thoughtfulness and literary considerations into a product so commercial it practically has a McDonalds ad taped to its nut sack. This is probably the closest we will ever get to a legitimate movie masquerading as a blockbuster film. Now, I know to some of you lugheads, that might not sound so appetizing and so, in response, I offer you this: Anne Hathaway in a fucking cat suit (#drool) and, for the ladies, Tom Hardy is only mostly disfigured (meaning he could still take on Matthew ‘Duller Than Matlock and Impossible to Spell’ McConaughey in a prettyboy-off with one check bone tied behind his back). There are action scenes! Joseph Gordon-Levitt is likable! Michael Caine cries! Twice! (It’s like watching an angel weep, if that angel has a grizzled British accent, has killed multiple people with a sawn-off shotgun and once stole a bunch of Italian gold). Apparently, Mr. Nolan decided to put in a little bit of everything for everyone which might explain why this movie is almost THREE FUCKING HOURS LONG. But I forgive him. I also forgive him for the fact that I only slept like three hours last night because I was so fucking excited about the end of the movie I couldn’t pass out, like a child terrified of closing his eyes in fear of wetting the bed once more (Editor’s Note: totally never happened to me. Totally never.)

That day, rock/paper/scissors ended terribly.

What’s it about? I refuse to give away much (like some other phallus-gobbling reviewers out there. I’m looking at you ‘The Guardian’ and David ‘How Have You Been Doing This For So Long?’ Letterman). So. Batman. He’s sad. Bane. He’s evil. Bane wants to fuck Gotham up. Batman doesn’t. Gotham gets fucked up. Batman gets fucked up. Aaaaaaand Anne Hathaway helps a generation of boys become men. That’s all I’ll give you. It’s as complex as a Dickens’ novel, if Nicholas Nickleby used his armory of ultra-tech to do battle with a severely steroid-jacked Oliver Twist (Note to Self: TV series idea. I’m thinking…Lifetime Channel?) It also, structurally, has about five fucking acts packed to the gils with twists, turns, ups, downs, side-to-sides and Anne Hathaway in a cat suit, as well as a half-way point that basically screams INTERMISSION. I expected a Pythonesque curtain to descend and John Cleese to try to sell me an albatross. Alas, that dream shall continue to go unfulfilled. This thing is so long and all-encomapassing that you eventually leave the theater a crushed shell of your former self, as though Bane has pummeled your innards into a veritable pea-soup of fanboy glee. Sense, patience and the ability to stand long monotonous barrages of tribal drums will be melting out of your fucking ears as you stumble from the multiplex. If that doesn’t entice you, stay the fuck away. This shit ain’t The Avengers. Yes, there are some witticisms (this should be fucking shocking coming from Christopher “Humorous as a Holocaust Vigil” Nolan) but this is an EPIC. Not in the sense of assholes with backwards caps and popped collars going for the record number of jaeger shots to be ingested by way of their rectums, but in the Homerian sense of omnipotent narrative brutality. It’s a marathon. If you don’t train and prepare, bringing with you acceptable sustenance (a jumbo popcorn, a hotdog, three packs of snow caps and a roast turkey should do it) you might die. No joke. It’s that draining.

In the apocalyptic dance-off, Batman realized that he had no way of competing with a perfect landing of a triple sow-cow.

As the years have passed, Nolan has been secretly weaving together a tapestry of immutable acting talent and, like that fungus at the bottom of my pantry, is growing with each delicious morsel that he consumes. I’m not sure if he signs a contract for these actors’ souls or if he’s just pleasant to work for, but Nolan’s Harem of Beautiful Men is on full display here. We have Tom “Watch Bronson Right Now, You Little Whores” Hardy acting the fuck out of this thing, even with Darth Vader’s fist lodged in his mouth. Also, there’s Morgan “God – I will keep making that joke because it is still funny to me” Freeman given more to do than simply point and spout at fancy gadgets. Marion Cotillard is back as Nolan’s shadow, steadily murdering all of his dreams and driving him mad with boner-popping desire (she is a very attractive woman, even if she a frenchie). Also, finally, Mr. Oldman is allowed to come into his own, truly stretching out those Oscar-pants he so graciously tried on earlier last year in Tinker Tailor This Sounds Like A British Porno Spy, and offering up a performance packed with so much heartbreak you’d think it was a bad day in the trauma ward (my thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families affected by Grey’s Anatomy day at Northwestern Memorial Hospital). I would also like to say, for all of the attractiveness of Ms. Hathaway and her figure that simply will not quit, even if you take it’s stapler, stop paying it and move it down to the boiler room, she delivers one hell of a performance. While most of the film is a mirthless cortege of unending barbarity, Ms. Hathaway is positively delectable as Selina Kyle, expertly adapted to stick just close enough to the comic’s conception without ever dipping into the realm of painful punnery or Pfeiffer whippery. She seems to be the only person here enjoying herself, constantly gobbling each scene with cat-like don’t-give-a-fuckery and impenetrable confidence. Both she and Cotillard aid in a pleasant departure from Nolan’s usual sausage-fest offering, providing at least two women in Gotham who can be classed at a level above ‘District Attorney/Wet-Blanket Barbie’ (Side Note: there was a limited edition of Wet-Blanket Barbie’s released in the mid-90s to help with menstrual education. It was a limited edition for a reason. Side Side Note: There will never be a ‘District Attorney Barbie’ for the obvious reason that legitimate employment hurts chances of marriage). We must also offer her the age old honor of ‘props’ for making herself both likable and engaging enough to survive some of the more ridiculous shoe-horning of her character into the latter half of the film. Honestly, she has no place being there…but no one is going to argue. Trust me.

There are two standouts, however. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is as shiny as a new nickel playing the ingeniously conceived John Blake. From a structural point of view, the wide-eyed and almost impossibly intuitive cop provides an emotional spine for a good deal of the movie while our heroes, Oldman and Bale, are otherwise indisposed (which really sounds like they’re on a sex holiday. That would have been incredible.) In the hands of another actor, Blake would have been limper than a penis in a Phyllis Diller convention. But this boy is erect as hell (That metaphor went to the wrong place). Joe Levitt is that wonderful intersection of young talent, endless charisma and 3rd Rock From the Sunness that we need in our new acting generation. Never once does he lose believability and literally every time his character is threatened onscreen, the audience gasped. They didn’t even do that for fucking Batman and the movie is named after him. On that note, let’s talk about Bale. Yes, the bat-voice is still here, intermittently. Finally, though, he has crafted a human being on screen that we actually are interested in. No longer is the hot-headed billionaire-jackass but a reclusive drinking-his-own-urine type of shut-in (you know, like that famous one…Hugh Hefner.) He’s hurt, physically, emotionally and metaphysically; and he’s looking for a way out. Instead of seeing the Bat as this infallible machine of pure ass-kickery, we get a glimpse of the human underneath and the fact that nobody’s physical form can take that kind of depreciation and still face off against Tom Hardy. His performance truly forms the missing piece of the emotional puzzle, bringing his arc into full-body over the three films. Though we barely even see the Bat throughout the nine hours of this film’s length, we see a shit load of Wayne. And it couldn’t be more necessary.

Bruce just made a really off-color joke. He hasn’t realized that ‘negro’ is no longer acceptable nomenclature.

Of course, since this is Batman, we must discuss the villains. While the last we saw of Bane was the Hulk as though he’d been roped into an impromptu S&M convention, this one is simply a bastard of such dickish proportions he’d give Stalin a run for his proletariat, with arms the size of my head and a mouth with more metal than a Slayer tour. It’s an interesting, though not wholly sense-worthy, departure from the manic insanity of Heath Ledger’s divinely-inspired Joker. This antagonist is deliberately sadistic, fully in control of his hatred and completely lacking in anything resembling empathy. While there was an irrational sense of safety in the fact that there was no rhyme or reason to the targets of the Joker’s malice, Bane is coolly calculating and evisceratingly vengeful. When he has your number, he will pound your ass harder than a fist-ended jackhammer. Granted, his plan to turn Gotham into a sinewy fiefdom is so far-fetched it makes the horizon look close but it certainly makes for some exciting cinema. Especially the hilariously out-of-tone court hearings overseen by a gleefully disheveled Cillian Murphy. In the end, however, this villain is far closer to the heart for Bats than the mad-dog off the leash, even if the titanium crab attempting to emerge from his esophagus does reduce his facial emotive capacity to zilch. There is nothing comparable to the Joker, but the rest of this film beats the hell out of Harvey “Your Yelling Voice is Kinda Whimpy” Dent and Eric “Smarmy Ass #4” Roberts. Advantage: Rises.

*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*

Alrighty, boys and toys, ladies and babies (Editor’s Note: no baby should see this movie on account of having to explain the fact that Selina is in a momentary lesbian relationship that never really comes up again. Though babies have a keen sense of lesbianism and alternative sexuality, their capacity for disjointed character traits is nil) have you all seen the movie? If so, continue. If not, STOP READING AND WATCH IT. IT’S AMAZING. If you don’t plan on watching it, well, then, I guess…to each their own. Batman ain’t for everyone. Well, intrepid readers, ahead thar be plot-points! Tid-bits! In-depth discussions of thematic arcs! Jokes about Inception! You have been warned.

Now, the big thing that people are doing is directly comparing this movie to The Dark Knight. This isn’t fair for a multitude of reasons. Dark Knight existed in a vacuum, providing something rarely seen in the span of human existence: intelligence in blockbusters. It discussed some stuff in an adultish manner, had thru-lines, characters attempted to exist and the Joker was in-fucking-credible. What The Dark Knight Rises does is tie together the disparate elements from both the first and second movies which, to be honest, seemed so fucking divergent they could be a Chicago-based young adult novel. This is the keystone, holding together this at-once muddled mass and at-twice a sprawling examination of chaos/order/fear/parental loss. We all watched Nolan wrap his lips around the massive sausage that is this franchise, expecting him to gag on it, predicating a vomitous explosion of akin to the Schumacherian efforts of the earlier series. However, unlike any other Brit in existence, this gentlemen seems to know how to chew after biting off too much. He artistically deep throated this comic book, bringing it to a climax so titillating you can…well, we’ll leave that metaphor to finish itself (INNUENDO). Not only that, but like the master of the shadows it portrays, this movie stands alone, without any aid from its predecessors.

At the curtain’s close, after the sneakily named-Robin wanders into the Bat-cave and we get a glimpse into Wayne’s new freaky-deaky life as Bonersaurus Rex alongside Sexelina Kyle, just pounding it out Florentine style (with some added Alfred action) we have been treated to a comprehensive view of this hero, a fully-developed arc stretching all the way from the homicidal little ass who gets the shit slapped out of him by Katie Holmes to the infringer of basic civil liberties while fighting the Joker to the broken shell of a man who almost loses all principles in search of final vengeance. Going into this film, they clearly hint at Wayne’s demise, offering a thematic thread of a man who is seeking his own destruction before realizing that death is by far the simplest option. That, coupled with his unhealthy obsession with a woman my friends described as ‘Sarah Jessica Parker on a good day’, is beautifully juxtaposed with the twisty tale of a forbidden love affair between Talia and Bane. It’s the only moment of humanization Hardy is afforded in the entire film, just a ephemeral glimpse of that angelic face before being maimed in the name of love (not the Bono name of love, the name of love where you are vigilantly stopping an entire prison from raping a small girl. You know, Twilight love). In that second, this codification of the purest of evils transforms into nothing more than a star-struck lover, a guardian of the only thing in life that he cares about. A love that would blow up a fucking city. Yo, Bella, would Edward take an entire metropolis hostage with a weaponized nuclear core and systematically murder dissenters just out of pure affection? No? Bane’s a real man. Also, he’s a psychopath. So…he’s like pretty much every dude after their balls drop.

Batman…I’m your father. Well…in a metaphorical sense. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Please stop crying.

I will say that I had some issues with plotting etc. Batman’s ‘death’ was a little too reminiscent of both The Avengers (without the wit) and Heroes season one (without the terribleness). Also…if he was vaporized by a neutron bomb…what the fuck did they bury at the end? There was a patch of disturbed ground under his tombstone… Did Alfred bury his Wayne sex-doll as some sort of perverted effigy? We all know he has one. Also, we harp so hard on him getting his shit wrecked, when he easily just appears at the end with Selina, I expected the camera to pan down and see a spinning top spinning away. It just seemed so easy in comparison to the rest of the film. No doubt, my inner fanboy was pissing himself with relief, as this continued to confirm the fact that Batman is, in fact, immortal. Seriously, though, if I were Alfred, after the emotional fecal maelstrom Wayne had put him through over the course of this 20-hour ordeal, I would have walked right the fuck over to that table and punched Bruce in the nut sack. Then hugged him. And then the nut sack again. What a cock.

Finally, here is a list of absurd plot devices throughout the film that didn’t fit too well into reality: the fact that the core decays in EXACTLY the amount of time Batman needs to heal his spine; the fact that Batman is suffering from a decay of cartilage (a chronic disorder) which is then completely ignored after his back is miraculously healed…who are these guys, the dudes from The English Patient? Geographically, it makes sense, temporally…not as much. Also: why does no one ever shoot Bane? Or Batman? There must have been stray bullets going everywhere in that final fight. None made contact? None? Also, I know Robin is meant to be the ‘Boy Wonder’, but that doesn’t make him fucking Miss Cleo. How the hell was he predicting all the bullshit he goes through?

But I can forgive all that. Why? Because Batman, that’s why. Because this is thoughtful, delicious entertainment of the highest order. Because watching this movie is like a 2 hour 45 minute Swedish Massage, it’s gonna get that deep tissue and it’s going to fucking hurt…but a pretty lady is touching your naked back and the next day you feel like a million bucks.

*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*

The only time since Transformers 2 that I’ve ever wished I were a motorcycle.

Nolan’s come a long, long way. So often his films are pretty and heady as hell, but lacking the emotional core required to draw in someone of my particular tastes. I, shock and horror, didn’t care all that much about Inception. It had a shit load of style, it was kind of smart in places, but it’s a soulless demon of a film experience. Even The Dark Knight felt unfairly manipulative in its designs. You felt as though Nolan was more on the Joker’s side than the Bat’s, gleefully obliterating hope and life in the goal for more excitement. Here, however, you never once doubt that Nolan is with the Bat, pushing him along, praying that he’ll win out against this foe so evil, even Aleister Crowley would be reticent to invite him to a goats-blood and virgin-rape party. This movie, unlike anything Nolan has really produced in the past, is about people. Hurt people. People searching for redemption. And we want them to get it.

Hopefully, this movie changes things. Hopefully, we’ll finally get the better class of blockbuster we, as a people, so deserve. Perhaps audiences will reconsider seeing Transformers 4 in favor of something a little less intellectually necrotic. This is the new wave and Batman is the banner man, charging into the darkness of popular taste, waging war against mental sloth and lackadaisical pop-shit gluttony. We need more Nolans. We need more Whedons. We need the good shit to be the norm. And we need to celebrate it, unfettered, unadulterated and unashamed. Go see The Dark Knight Rises. Let movie companies know that this is what we want. Tell them to shove their What to Expect While You’re Expecting and their Expendables 2 up their rectal channels, along with the rest of the shit they plan on laying out over the next few years. This is a revolution. A revolution of the smart blockbuster.

Also, I hear the IMAX is awesome. That’s not part of the revolution. That’s just pretty.

BAT-A-THON: The Dark Knight (2008) – Christopher Nolan

The Dark Knight (2008) – Christopher Nolan (Dir.), Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts…basically everyone again

Dude, it’s behind you…

As we have witnessed this franchises lowest lows, so must we visit its soaring high. As the flashing neon of Schumacher and the pop music of Burton drift off into the distance, Grand Master Nolan reaches down from the grit-covered heavens and offers us entry into the darkest most decrepit vision of the Bat-world. If The Avengers hadn’t soared its glorious way across the silver screen this last summer, The Dark Knight would have to unequivocally be the greatest comic book movie ever made. Other than Ang Lee’s HULK, of course. But I’ll go off about that work of brilliance another day (read: sarcasm). I remember when I was living in England, the trickle of news about Ledger’s joker infecting the news waves, tickling our fanboy titties, just teasing us with the titillating temptation of the Dark Knight’s greatest villain. Honestly, all I was hoping for was a musical interlude in an art museum and purple berets. I was sorely disappointed when that was replaced with ‘good acting’. What pish-posh! Thematic depth? Well constructed character arcs? Get yourselves out of my genre of goofy bullshit and go back to that Ishiguro movie. The one with Keira Knightly where she maybe gets naked. Maybe not. I haven’t seen it. The point remains the same, who let you be so fucking good at this Chris Nolan? Did Zeus descend from Mt. Olympus disguised as a ‘talented director’ and impregnate your mother (thinking it was, after all, Rob Reiner circa 1985…ewww)? How did this happen?

Most violent game of duck, duck, goose ever.

Well, let’s check out what’s going on here. After Ra’s Al Ghul took the phrase ‘getting on like a house on fire’ the wrong way and got off at one El stop too late (i.e. the one where he dies) Batman is cleaning up Gotham like a champ. And he has groupies! One of them being a hilarious dude wearing hockey pads (side note: Andy Luther, the hockey pads dude, is an amazing Chicago actor and stand up guy). Well, mob bosses are all wetting their panties in fear of the Bat, they hire the world’s worst kids’ entertainer to, well, I believe the technical term is: fuck shit right up. And he does. In increasing maniacal and vicious ways. All the while, we have Bruce pining after a woman who looks as though the original version of her was kidnapped and forced into slavery by Scientology (and nobody minds) and Aaron “Chin of the Year” Eckhart is trying to be the best DA in town. Well, shit gets nasty, stand-in-Katie-Holmes gets blowed up, Aaron’s beautiful, beautiful face gets a healthy dosing of the Courtney Love Vagina treatment (don’t ask what that is), a truck flips over on Michigan Ave, Batman gets a new motorcycle-batpod-thing and Heath Ledger dresses in drag. It’s a feast for the eyes! Basically, Nolan has taken the basic premise of the chaos vs. order dichotomy and injected it with a vicious dose of Heat (all the parts without Val Kilmer) as well Goodfellas (without Ray ‘Exasperated all the Time’ Liotta) and The Untouchables (without Kevin ‘American Robin Hood’ Costner. And no, I will never let him live that one down. The bastard). It’s complex. It has something to say. And, like a goth stripper with a PhD, it will let you know in the most boner-inducing, gorgeous way possible.

Okay, so, the movie is good. It’s got a solid script, decent set pieces yada, yada, yada. What elevates it from the mantel of ‘Pretty Good’ to ‘Ball-Blazingly, Seizure-Inducingly, Melt-Your-Face-Off-Good’ is Mr. Heath ‘That One Time in the Mountains With the Cowboys’ Ledger. Holy shit. While we were watching, doing our regular jackassy thing, the room fell silent whenever the Joker entered. He has Scenes, with a capital S. You know, for Actors with capital A’s. Every other mutherfucker unlucky enough to be dumped into a comic book franchise barely even phones it in. I believe Chris Walken mailed it in, that’s how little of a fuck he gave. Ledger, on the other hand, crafts something otherworldly. It’s a performance that reminds you plebs out there that actors don’t simply interpret, they create. Ledger was a fine artist who, of course, will be sorely missed. But day-um. What a way to go.

Harv, the Crypt Keeper called and he wants half his face back. Also, he was wondering if you were around for poker on Tuesday. Are you guys seriously friends?

Unfortunately, by contrast, the rest of this A-list cast looks closer to a matinee performance of the Mikado in Bum-fucktonville Idaho. It’s not that they’re bad…they’re just adorable in comparison with their ’emotions’ and ‘gravitas’. This is probably my favorite role of Eckhart’s other than Thank You For Smoking and yet, whenever he has a scene with Ledger, you almost feel bad for him. You want him to be as good, you pray for him to be as good, but his scary half-face looks as intimidating as a fucking corgi. The man just doesn’t have the ABs (that’s Acting-Bollocks, a technical term for when Marlon Brando would pull down his pants and slap his adoring audiences with his 400lb nut sack. True story.) Oldman is still around kicking tail as Gordon as is Morgan “I had a friend named Andy Dufresne” Freeman. But, Mr. Bale…oh Mr. Bale. Can someone please tell Chris to clear his throat? Or stop eating cigarettes? Or stop using the bladed dildo? Who ever thought that impression of a gravel road was an acceptable form of communication? It’s fine when he’s demanding to know where the drugs are going, but when he’s having a simple conversation with Harvey Dent, he seems more likely to begin coughing up radioactive phlegm rather than plot points. Just take a lozenge, you silly man.

Also, let’s be real. For all it’s titty-twisting beauty, this isn’t without its flaws. First and foremost we have the extended Tom Waits impression that is the Bat-voice. Next we have far too much footage of the Bat-pod. Seriously, I know you spent a really long time building that thing and it looks fun as hell, but Mr. Nolan this isn’t a meditation on how totally sweet Batman’s wheelies are. I think, if you remove half of the batpod footage, you’d get this monster of a film down to an acceptable length. Another bone to pick: we are led to believe that Batman is a stand up guy, making sure to never murder any perps…but he doesn’t seem to give a single, voluntary, airborne fuck when it comes to collateral damage. Every chance he gets, he’s blowing up parked cars or walls or malls or glass or…what is he, a nine year old who found the cheat code to the tank in Grand Theft Auto? Also, if anyone has read my review of Mississippi Burning, you know some of my fury when it comes to the conservative undertones of this movie, specifically in regards to police brutality and the whole cell-phone radar conceit at the climax. I mean, it’s a debatable thesis and I won’t get into it again, but I will say this… The Joker is holed up in a totally abandoned building filled only with hostages, dogs and thugs. How can Batman use cell phone radar in the entirety of the structure? Are the bad guys live-tweeting their murder of civilians? Are the guard dogs instagramming the whole affair: “W/ Joker LOL. Here comes Batman! Charge! Oh he punched me! ROFL!”

Also, a lot of dogs get thrown down elevator shafts. What does Nolan have against dogs? Is he just kind of a dick? Is he simply a cat person?

The Joker: Most Unnerving Blackjack Dealer Ever.

On a serious note, for once, what Nolan did with movie is rarely achieved. He took something in the popular domain that, honestly, has a rather basal approach to thematic exploration and doesn’t really have any huge dwellings on the Human condition, and turned it into something good. I’m talking The King’s There Will Be No Country For Old The Hours in Love with Atonement good. It raised the bar for what we expect in a summer blockbuster. We’re not just here to sink into our jumbo buckets of heart-attack-corn, only to have our brains numbed by an onslaught of visual and cranial anesthesia. His work on this franchise takes all other major titles to task. Forever more, summer movies will be judged against this work of pure panty-wetting bliss. It’s a movie like this that would force a studio like Marvel to do something drastic such as hire a veritable madman to almost single-handedly craft their golden child of a film franchise into whatever he pleased. Now, The Avengers is by no means nearly as deep or thoughtful as The Dark Knight, but it isn’t a piece of shit like everything else that parades across our eye-testicles every summer. It had quality acting, taught directing and fight scenes that made sense. This is becoming the norm. I hope. Give people something juicer to mull over during the waning summer days, not just more sugar-coated schlock to make us ever more artistically bankrupt than we already are.

So, Mr. Nolan, you have raised your bar high. Perhaps too high. Bring it home with what could be one of the best blockbusters of all time. Or else. You bastard.

Well, this is the end of our Bat Saga until the grand opening of the Film Du Jour. As a celebration, my friends, Alex and Kevin, joined me in competing for the ‘Best Bat-Voice Impersonation’. The prizes were of the highest caliber. Here is a little smattering of how fucking ridiculous my friends are:

Alex as Emotionally Supportive Boyfriend Batman:

Kevin as Batman rehearsing with his cat:

And, finally, me as Batman ordering movie tickets:

I believe I ‘won’. My prize, well, let’s just say the emotional roller coaster it put me through upon its reception could be best summed up with this picture:

There are no words.

Well, now for some serious Tweetage.

Kids, this is what happens when a smurf farts. ‪#batathon‬

I like that all the clowns really want to give exposition. ‪#batathon‬

Oh Heather Ledger, work the fucking balls. ‪#batathon‬

Yes, nobody will notice the school bus that came out of the building.‪#batathon‬

“I’m not wearing hockey pads!” Batman has been drinking way too much Jack drenched in cigars drenched in Phyllis Diller. ‪#batathon‬

“Sir, Batman just left. He left when you were talking to him. How rude.” ‪#batathon‬

“Oh Maggie Gyllenhaal. She looks like Sarah Jessica Parker on a good day.” ~ Kevin. Wrong. ‪#batathon‬

“I want your trust. And a mustache ride. Not in that order.” ~ Dent to Gordon, still a better love story than Twilight. ‪#batathon‬

“Look at my whore, Rachel. This is how I impress women.” ~ Wayne. ‪#batathon‬

“No ballerina would have tits that big!” “Have you seen Barishnakov’s bosom? He is a well endowed mutherfucker.”‪#batathon‬

Wait, everyone shut the fuck up. The Ledger is approaching.‪#batathon‬

“You’re a hard man to reach.” “You’re a hard man to reach around.” “What?” “Don’t worry about it.” ‪#batathon‬

Did Morgan Freeman start a Meth Lab in Wayne Industries? Hey…Walt? Jesse? ‪#batathon‬

And starring Maggie Gyllenhaal in the new sitcom from Fox: “Oh that bat!” It consists of her shaking her head with a smile in every scene.

And then Alfred had sex with everyone on that boat. Man, woman, child, mineral, vegetable…it was a veritable sex-topia. ‪#batathon‬

“Why So Serious?” “Um…you have a blade in my mouth. Do you really want me to answer?” ~ Ended terribly. ‪#batathon‬

“Leave your cell phone.” “I use that one solely for bitches.” ~ The Freeman. ‪#batathon‬

“John Woo should have directed this scene. You don’t understand, there are doves and people jumping with two guns EVERYWHERE in China”

“That card completes my Pokedeck!” ~ The judge, about to be mercilessly murdered. ‪#batathon‬

“That bitch behind him has some awkward tan lines happening.” ~ Meg. Vigilant. ‪#batathon‬

“Let’s get drunk and sexually experiment. I mean…let’s just get drunk.” the commissioner, lonely ‪#batathon‬

“Hey, Maggie, remember that movie where I made love to your brother? This is like that, but with less cowboys.” ‪#batathon‬

“You remind me of my father. I HATE my father.” ~ With a knife. How Harry Reid gets the Senate to vote in his favor. ‪#batathon‬

How did Batman not die from that height? Also, they forget they left the Joker with a room full of innocent rich people. ‪#batathon‬

Batman…were you just standing there for like 20 mins until we got here?…that’s kinda creepy. ‪#batathon‬

“A riddle…Riddle-er” “Shut the fuck up.” ‪#batathon‬

“I don’t think we need a minigun to do that.” “But it’s sooo cool.”‪#batathon‬

And Joel Schumacher was allowed to direct a single scene. You know, the one in the gay night club. ‪#batathon‬

“Anyone in this town you can trust?” “Bruce.” “Okay, anyone you can trust who won’t put his penis inside you?” Silence. ‪#batathon‬

“I was literally a block away from you. We should torture suspects together.” “Sounds hot.” “Sounds like a sitcom.” Batman/Dent high five

“What will you have me do, Alfred?” “Endure.” In fairness, they had the same conversation when he wet the bed as a youngster,‪#batathon‬

I wish Aaron Eckhart’s chin had more press conferences. ‪#batathon‬

“Ok, that’s NOT good.” ~ Thank you Greek Chorus of idiocy.‪#batathon‬

You know…that’s not how physics work…but it’s okay. Because it’s amazing. ‪#batathon‬

Batman, you suck at braking. ‪#batathon‬

Gordon is wearing a turtleneck! You know, I shall let that one pass.‪#batathon‬

“Glad we have mood lighting so that Batman totally can’t hide behind you.” Seriously, there is one door. How didn’t he notice him come in?

“Like a leper!” “I’m not a leopard. I’m a bat.” “I said leper.” “I’m NOT a LEOPARD.” “Um…let’s move on…” ~ Batman, mishearing

“This is the WORST SURPRISE BIRTHDAY EVER!” ~ Dent before a severe facial. ‪#batathon‬

Wait…wouldn’t the GCPD have a unit in the areas next to both Dent and Dawes? Isn’t that how Police works? ‪#batathon‬

“Let’s play a game. I spy something beginning with B. That’s right! Barrel of gasoline! Harvey…Harvey?” ‪#batathon‬

Chris Nolan: “We’re playing for keeps. The only female character gets mercilessly murdered.” ‪#batathon‬

“The guys at the station bought you this dildo. It was a joke and I didn’t have money for another present. So…I guess, here’s a dildo.”

On the upside, Harvey, your teeth look REALLY good. ‪#batathon‬

“Fuck plans! Plans are pathetic!” ~ Joker, the man who plans the entire elaborate climax to this film. ‪#batathon‬

GTA. Either Gotham Transit Authority, or the City of Gatham encourages violent rampages and sex with hookers in a hilarious manner ‪#batathon‬

And then Mr. Freeman discovers the center of the Matrix. He uses to watch all the penguins in the Antarctic for narration purposes.

“Mr. Wayne, you don’t have to use the silly voice with me. I know who you are.” ~ Lucius Fox.

Remember, kids, wear a seatbelt or Two Face might murder you.‪#batathon‬

Wait…whose cell phones are they using here? The SWAT teams? “I’m on the roof, LOL” ‪#batathon‬

And Gordon chooses his favorite thereby making every Thanksgiving far more awkward for years to come. ‪#batathon‬

Batman falls like three stories and we’re worried he’ll live. He also fell from a penthouse onto a fucking car and was fine. WHAT?‪#batathon‬

“Dad, why didn’t Batman sign my tits?” “Because you don’t have tits, son. You don’t have tits.” ~ Gordon and his son, confused‪#batathon‬

YAY! The Batathon is over! The Dark Knight Rises, you better not fucking disappoint, or I will murder EVERYBODY. ‪#batathon‬

And so, I’m seeing The Dark Knight Rises on Friday night. Be on the lookout for the review on Saturday.

BAT-A-THON: Batman Begins (2005) – Christopher Nolan

Batman Begins (2005) – Christopher Nolan (Dir.), Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, Gary Oldman…basically everyone ever

And starring Dracula as Batman!

Finally, we have reached it, like Orpheus emerging from Hades, the Eurydician Batman franchise, can see the light of life once more. It’s golden rays trickle across it’s skin, turning it into a sexier, leaner, darker, better, harder, faster, stronger version of its former self. Gone are the cheesy soundtracks by Prince, the insane leaps of comic-book logic (almost), Jim Carrey’s crotch and the abortion of Arnie’s comedic ‘skillz’. What we have here is the closest thing to a ‘film’ this Dark Knight has offered up thus far. Christopher “Look How Smart I Am” Nolan leaps from his backwards-logic, indie, thriller-face into blockbuster-dom, a knight in dark armor, wielding the blade of ‘Good Acting’, the lance of ‘Intelligent Direction’, the bow of ‘Coherent Characters’ and comically oversized battleaxe ‘Sensical Plot Developments’. Yes, he does have to confront the terrors of ‘Cliche One-Liners’ and ‘Complete Logical Fallacies’, and yet, like Mel Gibson emerging from the Thunderdome, he steps out, victorious, and makes out with Tina Turner on her lady lips (Tina Turner being, in this metaphor, ‘General Not-Terribleness’). He injects this tale with, as the Jews would say, hootspa. And, for pretty much the most part, he’s incredibly successful.

So, as the title would correctly suggest, this is the beginning of Batman. We see him as a whiny kid, demanding that he not see opera on the grounds that opera is terrible (bring on your wrath, opera singers, I will take you on, one by one). Well, apparently God loves opera because, in order to teach young Bruce a lesson, he has a crackhead murder his parents. Oops. Boys and girls, take note and listen to your Benjamin Fucking Britten, otherwise your parents will be mercilessly gunned down. Well, Brucy-wucy gets all angsty, and decides, like every college graduate, to go to Asian and find himself. And by ‘find himself’ I mean pick fights with random Chinapenese people in prison. While there, Liam “Very Special Set of Skills” Neeson discovers him and tells him to climb a mountain. Which one? Who the fuck cares? At the top of said mountain is an oddly-hairless-upper-lip Ken Watanabe doing the most racist impression of a Japanese person I’ve seen since, well, Inception. Well, Bruce, a man who is determined to never murder people, ends up blowing up the League of Shadows, thereby indirectly causing the deaths of dozens of men, either from random wood falling or just simple exposure. From there, he returns to his house, where Michael Caine is planning an elaborate heist of everything the Waynes own by hiding Minis surreptitiously throughout the mansion and playing ‘The Self-Presevation Society” on a loop. From there, the infinitely wealthy and kind of intellectually dull Bruce Wayne turns from a whiny little bitch trying to do an impression of Jack Ruby into a deadly spelunker and then into the Batman we all know and love. And it is fucking awesome.

Trust me, honey, keep the bag on. I know it’s terrifying, but it’s better than what’s underneath.

Also, the terrifyingly and unnervingly beautiful Cillian Murphy has returned from murdering British Nationals and slipped into a mask closely resembling a Stephen King wet dream to drive everyone in Gotham mad. Will Batman be able to stop him before he evaporates all the water and drives the city insane? Yes. Duh. (Spoilers) Will it be awesome? Yes. It fucking will be. Seriously, finally we have some badass bat-action. There isn’t a SINGLE turtleneck in the ENTIRE film. Do you know how happy that makes me? There was a scene where Katie “Fills Out A Sweater Surprisingly Well Too Bad About Her Inability to Be Interesting” Holmes is wearing one and you can see Christian “YELLING” Bale ready to rip it off and assimilate its fashion-blandness in order to join his misguided predecessors. But he doesn’t. In all the previous incarnations, Batman has some fucking random-ass gadget to help him out of exceedingly specific situations (Shark repellant aside, people) and occasionally he punches someone in the face. In this, he’s a fucking ninja. Do you know how cool ninjas are? Let’s put it this way: take pirates, remove the gay with the patented Rick Santorum “Pray Away the Gay Rape Spray” (TM), add a dash of cowboys, a hint of samurai and a double dose of ‘Don’t-Give-a-Fuckery’; distill it down to its base essence, cook it in Chuck Norris’s prostate (made of stainless steel, like all good Cuisinart tools) add a sprinkling of offensive asiaphilia and you have just one tenth of the awesomeness of ninjas. Now, take someone as infallibly panty-wetting as Batman and mix him with this ungodly potion for titillation and what do we have? We have theater owners mopping up rainbow vomit across the nation. Because people vomit rainbows when they are excited. Look it up.

So, yes, Liam “I Make Even Clint Eastwood Nervous” Neeson is the bad guy. I suppose he took time off from yelling at people down cell phones about his daughter and punching wolves in the snout to try to drive Gotham insane with his magical ‘Macguffin’ Device. I mean, I know this is Liam Neeson, a man known to skin major action stars and wear their anuses like decorative hats (because the Irish must have decorative hats), but his intimidation factor is severely decreased when his facial hair looks like he just ate a fucking poodle and forgot to wipe his lips. Seriously, it’s like an awkward teenager who insists on growing facial hair even though it’s patchier than my memory of New Years Eve 2010. And then we have Master Bruce, who for the most part is just kind of a rich prick. That’s fine, it just makes you care more about the indefatigable Alfred and his army of hidden Minis. Seriously, Nolan took the downtrodden butler that we saw in the previous films, shoved a healthy does of Bull-Adrenaline up his urethra and let him go. That smarmy asshole is one of the most well-rounded characters in the entire movie. Oh, and of course, we discover why Wayne is able to create such impossible pieces of technology because he has Morgan “God” Freeman making them for him. Mr. Freeman waltzes through this movie like a fucking pimp, tossing off lines as though the subtext is always: “I drove Miss Daisy, bitch.” I half expected an army of penguins to march through and begin mating at the sound of his sonorous tones.

This is your brain on meth ~ Michael Caine, teaching bat-related lessons

But, to top it all off, we have Mr. Gary Don’t Fuck With Me Oldman as the man everyone wants to be their father. I’m not sure if you know this, but Gary Oldman must be a fucking Highlander, decapitating every imposing figure in the English pool of late-age acting talent, whittling the competition down to nil because, after all, there can be only one. He, as Jim Gordon, is ball-blazingly amazing in both this movie and the next. With that porn star mustache you almost forget that he was the speed-freak bat-shit Tazmanian Devil-impersonator gunning down entire families in The Professional and accept that he’s just a big ole teddy bear made of candy and dreams. Also, hilarious side note, previous to becoming the nastiest little smegma-receptacle to ever take the throne, Joffrey “Someone Slap the Shit out of Him” Baratheon is in this movie as a wide-eyed little child having a bad LSD trip. I know we were supposed to care for him or whatever, but I really wanted one of the bad guys to take a hard back hand to his cheek. That’s for Ned Stark, you little twat-wazzle.

So, yes, I could come all over this wonderful redemption from the darkest of sides (“It’s ‘ice’ to meet you” – I will never erase it from my brain, Arnie. You bastard.) I could recollect the constant wet dreams that occurred in the months proceeding the life event that was this movie’s summer release. But I shan’t. Why? Well, with the handy tool of historical perspective, this movie has lost a little luster. At the time, the world was still caught in the almost decade-long flamboyant tailspin brought on by Clooney’s tepid Bat-thing, and Begins was the bat-equivalent of the Second Coming of Christ. There was no fur! No neon! No puns! This was something close to a real movie. I say ‘close’ because, as it’s sequel demonstrates, it could have been so much more. It’s not nearly as fun as, say, Batman Returns and doesn’t have anywhere close to the depth of The Dark Knight. It was a marker of the delicious wonders to come, like the menu for a box of chocolates, just teasing the taste-buds with the concepts of deliriously succulent treats hanging just beyond the horizon. This script was written by David “Blade Trinity” Goyer and, for the most part is pretty solid. But, like Madonna’s wrinkles, the ugly truth seeps through the Botox. We have sprinklings of cliched terribleness here, there and everywhere, from Gary Oldman declaring “I gotta get me one of those” to a random homeless dude announcing “nice ride.” They’re out of place, out of theme, out of character and came out of Goyer’s ass. If Batman is gonna be serious, then make him super-serial. Make him a thematic meditation on the concept of chaos versus order and the interaction of classes having violent climaxes. Oh wait. That’s the next movies. Also, the ending of the movie is fucking ridiculous. They have a machine that ‘vaporizes water’ with such violence that the entire plumbing system erupts throughout the city. You know what’s made of 80% water? Human beings. If that microwave emitter actually existed, Batman and Ra’s Al Ghul wouldn’t have been able to fist fight because they’d be too busy impersonating Veruca fucking Salt. Oh well.

Also, Katie, I know you did the strong thing and divorced Tom “Don’t Get Too Close He Might Have Sex With Your Earholes” Cruise. I respect you for that. Unfortunately, you are about as engaging as a soggy cinder block. You see it, lying there, and you wonder how it got there and why someone would take the time to get it all wet. And then you remember, it’s a fucking cinder block. It’s not going to make you laugh or cry. It’s just going to be a cinder block. You can’t expect it to be anything else. That wouldn’t be fair to the cinder block. Let it return to its friends in the massive wall of cinder blocks, all of them similarly dull. Let Ms. Holmes return to her ocean of general attractiveness, let her disappear into the waves and never been seen again. Honestly, she’s that forgettable. Luckily, Nolan was counting on that for the second movie. He recast the role with the significantly more talented Maggie Gyllenhaal, to which the world went, “Wait…well, we don’t really give a shit.” A victory for all, I feel.

“We’re here about Pod-Racing.” ~ Liam Neeson before a random fanboy tried shanking him in the gut. That fanboy is now a decorative rug.

And, of course, Tweets!

And we’re off! Please, Mr. Nolan, pull down your pants and let me see your delicious manhood. ‪#batathon‬

He fell and died! Batman Begins: Kid Ends. Movie is over. Go home.‪#batathon‬

“This is what happens when you pirate movies in China!” “You grow a beard?” ‪#batathon‬

Oh no! White man is oppressing us! Where is Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker? ‪#batathon‬

“What country is this?” “Chinapan.” ‪#batathon‬

“Your midiclorien count is very impressive Batman.” ‪#batathon‬

“You can become something else entirely.” “Wait, I can be Michael Jackson?” “No…I…” “I want to be MJ!” Bruce didn’t get it ‪#batathon‬

Neeson stared at him so hard that he fell off the back of a truck. Such is the power of Neeson. ‪#batathon‬

“Which mountain is he supposed to climb?” “There is ONE mountain in Asia. It’s Mount Jackie Chan!” ‪#batathon‬

And the asians run in fear of walking in front of Christian Bale’s shots. ‪#batathon‬

“Colonel Sanders, do you have the chicken I ask for?” ~ Bruce Wayne very confused as to his purpose in Asia. ‪#batathon‬

Why didn’t Neeson just kick the Nazi’s in the nuts? That would have been way more efficient than that fucking list. ‪#batathon‬

Opera. Rich kid form of time-out. ‪#batathon‬

Yep, Waynes, go out the back door. Like a piece of shit (see what I did there?) ‪#batathon‬

Thus began Bruce Wayne’s life-long crusade against opera.‪#batathon‬

They should remake this with Gary Oldman playing EVERY role.‪#siriusbat‬ ‪#batathon‬

Oh shit! It’s the guy from Blade Runner! Disguised as Jerry Springer!‪#batathon‬

They died because of your white privilege. You little fuck. ‪#batathon‬

“They come for you. And you make lists. List after list. Of jews. Jew after jew.” ~ Neeson, hero. ‪#batathon‬

Katie Holmes, just where you belong. In the kitchen.‪#whydidyouleavetomcruise‬ ‪#batathon‬

“Wayne’s still in sweaters. I don’t care yet.” ~ Meg. Not giving a fuck like a champ. ‪#batathon‬

Hey Joe Chill, wanna see my Jack Ruby impression? ‪#batathon‬

Oh no! Hers was better! ‪#batathon‬

IRONY! It’s a criminal offense in Chinapan. ‪#batathon‬

But this batman has a NINJA turtleneck. How about dem apples?‪#batathon‬

“Can you believe Tom Cruise was the last samurai? IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!” ~ Ken, bitter. ‪#batathon‬

And then the movie turned into the Descent. And Bruce Wayne was eaten by albino Billy Corgan. ‪#batathon‬

And Helena Bonham Carter as all the Bats. ‪#batathon‬

“No, Cillian Murphy looks like he’s had plastic surgery and a creature from the deep.” ~ Rebecca, not getting it. ‪#batathon‬

“This is the worst business tragedy since Harrison Ford chased me naked through the rain.” ~ Rutger Hauer ‪#flashbacks‬ ‪#batathon‬

I also made a documentary about penguins, would you like to see it? ~ Morgan Freeman. ‪#batathon‬

I also have Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box, would you like to see that? No? ~ Morgan Freeman. ‪#batathon‬

“It’s called memory cloth. It remembers every time you jizz in it. BE CAREFUL.” ~ The Freeman. ‪#batathon‬

“Wait…if I’m afraid of lawnmowers? Would I become lawnmower man? I should make that movie!” And it ended terribly… ‪#batathon‬

“I’m Batman.” And fanboy panties were wet everywhere. ‪#batathon‬

“Would you like some tape, Master Wayne, because you’re ripped.”‪#batathon‬

“I’m more than just a man drenched in cunnilingus juice.” ~ Wayne‪#batathon‬

“I own the Muscle in this Town” ~ Falcone, gay club owner.‪#batathon‬

Purple lightning brings purple rain. Prince returns… ‪#batathon‬

“Oh, we don’t care what’s in that crate. It’s probably dead hookers. It usually is.” ‪#batathon‬

The Narrows, brought to you by Final Fantasy VII. ‪#batathon‬

“My boss is missing. We’re going to have a party! A search party. It’s very serious.” ‪#batathon‬

That’s Katie’s mean face. Watch out, she might divorce you!‪#batathon‬

That’s the Scarecrow’s sex face. In that it is his only face. ‪#batathon‬

“Stop spraying yourself, Scarecrow.” ‪#batathon‬

Apparently, Scarecrow is scared of black men. Like all 1 percenters.‪#batathon‬

Bitch, you are no longer hallucinating. I’m dressed as a bat. Go back to sleep. ‪#batathon‬

Don’t move! Neeson can’t see you if you don’t move! ‪#batathon‬

“How many dementers are on the loose?” “Dem-what?” “I mean…forget everything I said.” Sirius Black, revealing himself‪#batathon‬

Batman…do you need a lozenge? ‪#batathon‬

Who the fuck wears silk to fix a burned-down home? Katie Mutherfucking Holmes. ‪#batathon‬

Wow, this one is harder than the others. That’s what Goldilocks said. :O ‪#batathon‬

The cop version of “Anything you can do, I can do better” but with more grievous bodily harm. ‪#batathon‬

And Batman spends the entire movie not turning his neck. ‪#batathon‬

Thanks again, folks. Now, for the creme-de-la-fanboy-creme, we move onto The Dark Knight today at around 4ish CST today. There will also be a Batman impersonation contest. It will be glorious.

BAT-A-THON: Batman and Robin (1997) – Joel Schumacher

Batman and Robin (1997) – Joel Schumacher (Dir.), George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman

Spin the Wheel of Terrible! Everyone’s a loser!

Here it is. Like a virgin trying to hide his boner while waiting for her to ask him up for a cup of coffee at the end of a third date, the big moment has come. We have reached it, the White Whale of movie turdery, the sasquatch of insanity, the Fecal Queen of this cinematic shit-scape: Batman and Robin. Back in 1997, the world waited with abated breath and vomit ready to spew as Joel Schumacher descended further into his Heart of Darkness (where the furry, luminous pink things are kept) and produced this thing, this filmic equivalent of a piss-stained mattress: you wanna see, but then you just feel dirty after. Val Kilmer is out and a barely-known TV doctor is in, bat-nipples and all. We even have Clarissa Explains it All along for the ride. And Chris O’Who-The-Fuck?-Donnell! Well, before I launch into a full on, category five diatribe-icaine, as the US Government said to the Afghani people back in 2001, “I want to lay some truth bombs on you.” Except, they said it without the word ‘truth’.

Batman and Robin is a resounding success.

Now, before you fankids have aneurisms so hard that your brains rupture and blood has nowhere left to go but explode out of your genitalia, let me explain. Calling Batman and Robin a success in no way means that it was ‘good’ or ‘enjoyable’ or ‘not-porcupine-enema- inducing’. It isn’t any of those things. In 1995 the world observed our beloved brooding bat bent over a barrel and brutalized. What had been a decidedly odd, yet macabre, franchise was frilled and killed with colors so eclectic it made Ozzy Osborne believe he was having yet another LSD flashback. However, after allowing the horror to subside and my body to regain many of the fluids it needed after such a long session of dry-heaving, I observed Batman and Robin from a different perspective. What makes this movie so successful is that it is exactly what Joel Schumacher wanted. This is no Heaven’s Gate. This is the only logical conclusion put forth by Batman “What the Fuck?” Forever. Thus, if you see this movie with any other expectation, of course you will be disappointed. While Batman “Make it Stop” Forever was a frail sixteen-year-old boy wearing sparkles to prom while clutching the arm of his beard, (poor Shelly, who really did like him. Thus began a slew of closeted boyfriends for the girl and an eventual death by over-catting her studio in Brooklyn), Batman and Robin is that same boy returning from college and introducing the nice lad on his arm as ‘Dick, my boyfriend’. The sequins are the same. He still over-emphasizes the word ‘fabulous’. But now, more than anything, we’re just proud that he can finally be himself.

Batman was discouraged when he discovered that both he and Robin were disqualified from little-league hockey due to pedophilia.

That being said, Joel Schumacher is one of the worst fucking filmmakers of all time. It’s really adorable that he did exactly what he wanted with my favorite childhood superhero. I’m really glad that he got to bury that blade into the Bat’s back over and over again (a multi-colored blade with a matching fur handle). Why couldn’t he have done it to someone else? Someone who sucks? Like Aquaman? They could have made all the semen puns he could have ever wanted (I imagine the dialogue consisting only of ejaculations – see what I did there? Ejaculation is an old word for speaking…nope? Illiterate fools!). But no. We are treated to even more Bat-Crotch and Bat-Butt. Jim Carrey’s sparkly green package has been dutifully replaced with Bane’s impenetrable and terrifyingly over-sized chastity belt. Tommy Lee’s unnerving cackle has be substituted with Arnie’s incompetency with the English language. And Uma Thurman’s breasts have been tossed into the mix (to help people toss off). What we have is a mess of such Chernobolic proportions that even Keith Richards would look at it and say ‘Dude, get your shit together’.

What’s this one about? Who fucking knows? Batman is here, still sporting turtlenecks and looking like he will have sex with anyone anytime. We have Robin again, pearl earring and all. Alfred is sick with ‘Stage One’, a nefarious disease of such Voldemortarian levels that nobody can even say it’s name. The story consists of Mr. Freeze, looking like that time Tobias covers himself in the diamond face mask in Arrested Development, trying to bring his wife back from the dead with the cunning use of diamonds. Why? Because she’s a materialistic whore diamonds are a girl’s best friend? Also, Uma Thurman goes from looking like she just got off the set of Les Miserables to getting dumped in poison and returning as a drag queen even RuPaul would envy. Oh yeah, she also has Lou Ferrigno following her around dressed as the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Maybe he’s Bane. It’s hard to tell behind all the grunts. Poison Ivy and Freeze join up to…I guess destroy the world? So she can breed a super-race of plants and reenact the biggest production of Little Shop of Horrors? I guess? And this is totally disregarding the fact that ice kills all plants, unequivocally. Again, this thing doesn’t make a goddamn lick of sense. Oh yes, and Alicia Silverstone implausibly pouts her way into tight rubber to join them as a woefully employed Batgirl.

Robin was horrified when he later wikipedia-ed the term ‘Cleveland Steamer’.

Firstly: the writing. If we had played a drinking game based on the occurrence of a pun, our livers would currently look like Edward James Olmos’ face. Thank god we refrained. In terms of film time, on average, for every thirty seconds, there are ninety puns. There are that goddamn many. They begin fairly high-brow and witty – “The Iceman Cometh!” Eugene O’Neill reference, well done. And they end…well…about has highly-browed as a meth-whore going into the dumpster for one last look: “Slippery when wet” – it’s so bad, it might not even be a pun. Seriously, the pun-o-meter was flickering in the red for so long, I’m surprised Oscar Wilde didn’t return from the grave and bugger this movie to death. The script was like the literary equivalent of a group of dads sitting around 5 year olds trying to top one another in the ‘Please dad, shut the fuck up’ category.

Who do we have on parade? First, there’s Arnold, spewing phonemes that, when put through a language analysis device, turns out to be a garbled form of English. Mr. Schumacher took one of the more tragic figures in super-villainy and turned him into a Mighty Duck-employing, pun-spouting, Polar Bear-slipper wearing monstrosity. I’ve never regarded Arnie’s chops as being particularly dramatic, but here, it’s just kind of sad. What’s even more discouraging is that he’s trying harder than anyone else in this damn movie. He sells those fucking puns, like that theater kid running through the halls of his high school trying so hard to get people to care about his production of Waiting for Godot: The Musical.There’s a heartbreaking level of commitment, of professional naiveté, as though his agent was playing a joke on the man when he suggested him auditioning for the role and it just got too far down the line for him to yell, “Gotcha, Arnie! Don’t be in that fucking movie!” It’s depressing.

Next, we have Miss Uma “I Will Murder You With Sex” Thurman playing the role for which she was born, Poison Ivy. Honestly, though my favorite incarnation of this character is a murderous queen of freakish plants, Uma’s turn as a villain so campy she could pitch her own tent is incredibly amusing. From the moment she appears like Venus emerging from the clam (though it’s more Puxatawny Phil appearing from his hole in the ground) to her turn as a sexy gorilla creature at the ‘Wayne Ball’, she is just having the time of her fucking life. She employs this homing red mist that makes guys and girls alike take one-way trips to bonerville and, inexplicably, makes highly-choreographed male dancers enact surprisingly impressive routines without direction. Every one of her scenes is a cavalcade of terrible acting, gaudy set design and horribly misplaced wigs. It’s as though she thought she was still in Pulp Fictionafter seeing Bane as her costar and never got the memo that the flaming dude behind the camera was not in fact Tarantino and this was not an ironic send-up of terrible comic book movies. Who cares? She is, hands down, the most enjoyable part of this movie.

He looks like if you dipped the Cavity Creeps in Toxic Waste.

Last, and certainly least, we have the worst possible Batman anyone could have ever suggested to anybody. The only way Batman could be any worse would be if he were played by fucking Urkel. In perfect Clooney-esque fashion, he just sort of wanders from scene to scene, oozing charm, wearing the shit out of a double-breasted blazer, and saying lines like the only thing in life he will never give is a fuck. Because he doesn’t. You can tell. I’m not sure if Schumacher bribed him, or had a miniature explosive device attached to his nut sack, ready to detonate if he left the film set before shooting was wrapped, or what. It is so painfully obvious that Clooney doesn’t want to be there that he seems more like that spoiled kid on the field trip who is constantly pissed off that his mom refused to pack him a Three Musketeers when he specifically asked her like three times and this was the one time because they always made fun of him for not having any candy so can’t he for once just once have a fucking candy bar on the field trip so he doesn’t feel like such a fucking pariah! Whoops, not sure where that came from. Anyway, Chris O’Donnell carries his shit-eating grin from scene to scene, donning his absurd waistcoats mixed with white t-shirts and employing an inexplicable, neon motorbike toaster. He seems to be having a great time! Even Alicia Silverstone doesn’t mind entering the film looking like Britney Spears circa 1999 and almost pouting her baby-face into oblivion.

This is an historic film. It marks the lowest of the low of DC comic book movies. Even the abortion that was The Green Lantern couldn’t hold a candle to this bastard of a b-roll. However, like all horrific historical events, we have to examine what it brought about. Perhaps this gave Clooney the impetus he needed to escape to Italy, cocoon himself in all that is man to return as a golden god of celebrity-hood? We know for sure that if this movie hadn’t gone down like Amelia Earhart, we wouldn’t have had Chris Nolan to reach into the crypt and resurrect this beloved franchise. To get angry at this movie is like getting angry at a puppy shitting on the floor. You can yell and you can shout, but your white carpet is still covered in poop. Just know that puppy has learned and it will grow to be your best friend. This film is terrible. It’s awful. But, it still exists. And it will always exist. That is unless Clooney’s team of assassins finds every single copy and ritualistically burns it in the form of a Schumacher effigy. That would be freaking sweet.

And now…Tweets!

Why are there two bats? Is the bat buttfucking the robin? ‪#batathon‬

Is he toasting his motorcycle? I see the neon budget has tripled.‪#batathon‬

Um…that’s not how ice works… ‪#batathon‬

“I’m Batman.” ~ Clooney sounds like he’s presenting to his daughter’s second grade class. ‪#batathon‬

And cameos by the Mighty Ducks. Brought on by Emilio Estevez’s returned drinking problem. ‪#batathon‬

He would literally have to freeze everywhere for the henchmen to go anywhere. Did they skate there? ‪#batathon‬

Is that a load-bearing brontosaurus? ‪#batathon‬

Why didn’t he freeze his head? THAT WOULD BE FAR MORE SENSIBLE!! ‪#batathon‬

Why does air surfing make you fall faster? ‪#batathon‬

Apparently, this is the movie where Robin goes through puberty.‪#batathon‬

How is he slowing his free fall? “He’s freezing everything below him.” ‪#WHATTHEFUCK‬? ‪#batathon‬

Robin is dead. Dude. Leave him. Even if he isn’t, it’s okay. We hate him. ‪#batathon‬

And now: a completely different place with nothing to do with anything. Continuity! ‪#batathon‬

Uma Thurman in full Les Mis mode. She dreamed a mutherfucking dream. ‪#batathon‬

Bane: brought to you by Nutty Professor III: Now he’s white. Well, green. ‪#batathon‬

That chastity belt on Bane must have been made by Lockheed fucking Martin. ‪#batathon‬

What was that? “That was his death yowel! A murderous yop!”‪#batathon‬

Apparently, Mr. Freeze impersonated Benny Hill and died. Learn from this children. ‪#batathon‬

This is the era of film where Clooney should be fucking up a vampire Quentin Tarantino. ‪#batathon‬

“Night night. No smooches? Shall we play flowers for Algernon?” ~ Alfred. Melancholy. ‪#batathon‬

This is Joel Schumacher’s She’s All That. ‪#batathon‬

“Dudes. This is real botany. Right here. Seriously.” ‪#batathon‬

Why does Freeze have a concubine? Maybe he likes to BLUE BALL himself. Thanks Meg. ‪#batathon‬

“It’s not diamonds. It’s what he ejaculates.” ‪#batathon‬

Helena Bonham Carter as the dead bitch. Maybe she’s not dead. Maybe she’s just Helena Bonham Carter. ‪#batathon‬

BAT TURTLENECKS AGAIN!!!!! ‪#batathon‬

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over my sideburns.” ~ Robin. ‪#batathon‬

Clueless – Alicia Silverstone and everything in this fucking franchise.‪#batathon‬

That’s Clooney’s “She’s DTF. Which end do you want?” face.‪#batathon‬

“Uncle Alfred?” “What is it? I’m masturbating to memories of the empire.” ‪#batathon‬

“Alicia. Make dimples. Now talk.” “But…I can’t do both at the same…” “DO IT!” ~ Joel’s directing style. ‪#batathon‬

“Queen Latifah is in this!” “Ryan, they are not all Queen Latifah.”‪#batathon‬

Uma, baby, lose every frill on your outfit. Then we can talk ‪#batathon‬

The reporter with the eyebrows on her glasses is back. Please punch her. ‪#batathon‬

I’m glad the pubic hair monsters joined the partay. ‪#batathon‬

Did Poison Ivy pop in her own CD? And then turn into a sexy gorilla? ‪#batathon‬

The one pun missing when talking about Ivy’s Vjay jay, “It’s a jungle down there.” ‪#batathon‬

If you get far enough into Ivy’s vagina, you’ll find Marlon Brando mumbling incoherently. ‪#batathon‬

Is that a neon bongo? And a batman credit card? Need to hemorrhage…rising… ‪#batathon‬

Arnie, that was a bad pun. It wasn’t a ‘ice’ pun. ‪#batathon‬‪#ihatemyself‬

“In the circus, the Flying Graysons were a team.” “Yep. And they got fucking murdered. Shut up.” ‪#batathon‬

“Alfred, I’m bored. Can you sum this up without the dramatic pauses? Oh good, a flashback. Thanks!” ~ Batman, a teenager‪#batathon‬

Sound effects brought to you by my 2 year old cousin. ‪#batathon‬

BANE! FENG SHUI! I LOVE DECORATING! ‪#batathon‬

“FLIP THIS HOUSE!” Bane, the only person on Flip This House who could, actually, flip this house. ‪#batathon‬

“Did that flower just orgasm?” ‪#batathon‬

What instrument is that? A saxo-lin? A trump-iano? A penis in the ear? ‪#batathon‬

And Coolio reminds us that his head looks like something I picked out of my nose last week. ‪#batathon‬

“By the way, I just want to point out, this movie is still happening.” ~ Huntsy ‪#batathon‬

“They’re totally ripping off Grease 3.” ~ Ryan. Optimistic. ‪#batathon‬

Gary Busey would have been a better Mr. Freeze. You wouldn’t even have to write dialogue, just dress him in neon and hope for the best.

Oh no! Arnie and Uma! PUN…LEVELS…OVERLOADING… ‪#batathon‬

“Reinforced steel.” THAT IS OBVIOUSLY BRICK. BECAUSE IT IS BRICK. THAT’S WHAT IT FUCKING IS. ‪#batathon‬

“He’s not Mr. Bane. He’s just Bane. Like Madonna. But with bigger tits.” ‪#batathon‬

What they leave out of Freeze’s wife’s back story is that she was a horrible Nazi war criminal. Oh well. ‪#batathon‬

Holy Hardon Batman! “I’m hard too. Well, we might as well just do this.” ~ later described as the “incident that shall never be discussed.”

Why does Ivy need consent? Is she really that sex positive?‪#batathon‬

“Oh no! Holy Pea Pudding Batman!” And then Robin died of prostate cancer six months later. ‪#batathon‬

“Where is Harvey Dent? Oh right, he was black then he was Tommy Lee Jones. Happens.” ‪#batathon‬

Wait, who will suffer? Hugh Manatee? The British manatee? What did he ever do to you, you poxy bastard? ‪#batathon‬

“He’s suffering from Stage One.” “Stage One what?” “Shut up. I’m a doctor, you piece of shit.” ‪#batathon‬

“Didn’t we resolve this issue when I dumped you in pudding?” ~ Batman. ‪#batathon‬

“Hey Alfred, I know you’re dying, but can you hurry? I’m, like, really bored.” ~ Batgirl ‪#batathon‬

If Ivy’s pheromones cause a boner that lasts for more than four hours, please consult your local Batman. ‪#batathon‬

Wait…your first guess for Alfred’s password was “Alfred”. Try 12345, you fucking idiot. ‪#batathon‬

This movie would have a far more interesting meaning if at the end of every flashback Alfred stands and pulls down his zipper.‪#batathon‬

This movie makes Lawrence of Arabia feel like a five second film.‪#aaaaaargh‬ ‪#batathon‬

THIS….FURNITURE…SET…WOULD…LOOK…LOVELY. ~ Bane, still not understanding the basics of mid-romantic interior design.‪#batathon‬

“I really had nothing to do with the decoration. It was all Bane. Especially the beads.” ~ Ivy ‪#batathon‬

“My lips are immune to your charms.” ~ Robin. You know you can just hit her, right? That’s something you can do. ‪#batathon‬

“Robin, pretend like you don’t recognize Barbara. It’ll make her feel included.” ~ Batman. Supportive. ‪#batathon‬

Why is Vanilla Ice not in this movie? An opportunity missed, I feel.‪#batathon‬

And Coolio wasn’t used in some kind of pun battle? Seriously, guys?‪#batathon‬

In the time it took to change into matching clothing, they could have stopped murdering half of Gotham. But fashion is too important!

“Hang on, obligatory minorities! Let’s do this.” ‪#batathon‬

The girl who used ‘Alfred’ as the first choice of password is a ‘computer genius’. Then my gall bladder is a fucking neurosurgeon.‪#batathon‬

“We found her. Restored her. She has her bubbles returned. Also, you do know people need oxygen? She’s been dead for years.”‪#batathon‬

Oh yeah. He has Ewan MacGregor disease, you’re naked all the time and then you’re in Star Wars. (That’s Stage Four) ‪#batathon‬

And Freeze has the magical cure to ‘Stage One’ in his arm. Because he needed to have it there. All the time. ‪#batathon‬

I want them all to laugh, hug, high five and then freeze frame.‪#batathon‬

DAMMIT SCHUMACHER! JUST TURN THE CAMERA OFF!‪#batathon‬

So, we have come to the end of the terribleness. I can see the light, just off in the distance… Join us this weekend. Saturday around 5pm CST we will charge into Batman Begins and then the fanboy porno that is The Dark Knight around 4pm CST on Sunday. Get ready, bitches, for some real fucking Batman.