Saw it. Liked it. Not a fucking clue what it’s actually supposed to mean just yet, but it’s incredibly arresting and watchable. Manages an interesting trick with a minor supporting character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh whereby she evolves into about the closest thing the film has to an outright villian – and a fairly reprehensible creature of one at that – entirely offscreen. The character turns up about four times very briefly, but somehow second-hand information from other characters fleshes her out more than some of the more frequently-seen players. Neat trick, if nothing else.

The basic idea here is a middle-age-to-death story of a struggling theatre director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who opts to use a McArthur Genius Grant to stage a “massive theater piece.” His scheme involves renting a MASSIVE warehouse, building a to-scale recreation of New York City and populating it with actors playing himself, his aquaintances and just random people in an autobiographical recreation of… well, everything. Soon enough, there are actors playing actors PLAYING ACTORS, the story turns so inward that a set of the warehouse goes up IN the warehouse and the whole thing seems to consume everyone involved. It may help to note that the world outside the warehouse is actually MORE surreal: One character buys and lives in a house that is perpetually on-fire but never burns down, a therapist seems to operate through some form of precognition, and the Director finds the actor to play him in a mysterious fellow who has been following him around secretly his entire life. Oh, and there are small implications throughout that even the “real” parts are being stage-managed in some way, like Hoffman pausing to squirt in artificial-tears before a big breakdown scene.

So, yeah… it’s a Charlie Kaufman movie. I’m not sure it all fits together as well as some of his previous scripts, but it’s incredibly interesting and full of BIG ideas to chew on. Oh, and a topless Emily Watson. You CAN’T go wrong with that. (She’s soooo much hotter than she gets credit for most of the time.)

Incidentally, for what it’s worth, a “Synecdoche” (Sin-Ech-Doh-Key) is when you use a part of something to refer to a whole, usually as in a group (i.e. referring to an army as “500 guns” instead of “500 men WITH guns.”) I’ve not the foggiest what it means in the context of the film-proper, however, aside from a rhyming pun on the central location of Scenectady, New York. Make of that what you will.

…is completely fucking awesome and needs to be seen by you NOW.

It’s just this side of ironic that the whole “hook” of Punisher as a comic character is that he’s essentially a “realistic” movie-vigilante transplanted into a superhero-vigilante world, hence translating him “back” to film has always been slightly difficult. Here, they’ve finally made it work by letting Punisher bring the “comic-book-ness” of his world to the movies with him: We’ve got a hero who’s basically yet another John Rambo/”Death Wish” heavily-armed urban crimefighter set up against a villian – the disfigured gangster Jigsaw – who’s additude and operations are right out “Batman.” And yet, it finally.

Plotwise, it’s uncomplicated: Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson, officially an action star) aka “The Punisher” is an ex-military hardass who’s waging a one-man war on NYC organized crime after seeing his wife and kids killed for witnessing a mob hit. He hits a moral dilema upon learning that his most-recent mob mass-execution has produced a pair of unintended consequences: Firstly, he’s unwittingly placed psychotic low-level thug Billy “The Beaut” Russoti (Domonic West) – now bearing horrible facial scars and rechristened “Jigsaw” – into leadership as the sole survivor of The Family; and secondly that one of the hoods he DID kill was actually an undercover FBI agent – which puts the law MUCH more heavily on his trail and places the late agent’s widow and daughter into imminent Jigsaw-related danger. Do ya suppose maybe he’ll consider hanging it all up, only to see… I dunno, maybe evil rising in his absence and realize he’s the only one who can keep doing what he’s doing? I wonder…

The details all seemingly grow out of the Marvel Studios mandate to “listen to the fans” that informed “Iron Man” and this year’s OTHER successful “reboot” of “The Incredible Hulk.” For all the talk of drawing from Garth Ennis’ recent work with the character, this version of Punisher hews most closely to the characters mainstream comics heyday in the 1980s – right down to amusing supporting roles for complicit Detective Soap and tech-saavy Microchip (Wayne Knight in a surprising “straight” semi-dramatic turn.)

Otherwise, it’s all about how many bullets can be fired, how many faces can be blown-up/caved-in, how many explosives can be set off and how many times the audience can be made to applaud the sheer bravado with which “Green Street Hooligans” director Lexi Alexander – a stuntwoman and former kickboxing champion turned filmmaker – piles on the badassery like she’s on a one-woman mission to out-testosterone every male action director on the planet. She comes pretty damn close, too. It’s easy to imagine this film taking away “Crank’s” crown as the ultraviolent “guy movie” to beat.

This is everything I want in a Punisher movie, and damn near everything I want in an action movie. Taken on it’s own terms, it’s damn near perfect.

Wow.

Does this suck.

It’s not QUITE “Twilight” awful (i.e. everyone’s favorite Mormon Vampire Abstinence Porn blockbuster will remain the worst thing I’ve seen all year for the forseeable future) but it’s up there. Think “Pearl Harbor” bad. Think “Transformers” bad.

Baz Luhrman is one of those filmmakers who I like in principal even while despising most of his movies. I understand that they have their defenders and even genuine fans, but Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet are easily two of the most brutally terrible things I’ve ever had to sit through. The guy has an eye for cinema, he knows how to stage a scene, he’s got good taste in actors and he can coax that rare playfulness (or even WARMTH) from Nicole Kidman… I just wish he’d put all this to use in movies that don’t suck.

Also – and not that this is his “fault” or anything – but have you ever noticed that lots of the same critics who turn up their noses at, say, Robert Rodriguez or post-“Kill Bill” Tarantino for their indulgence in deliberate reference to the movie-ness of their movies have NO apparent issue with Luhrman, even though he’s every bit the conossieur of cinematic reference? I guess when you’re callbacks are to Busby Berkley and Judy Garland instead of Chang Cheh and Pam Grier, that makes it “okay.”

Anyway, the idea here is for Luhrman to stage a big “old hollywood” melodrama epic about his homeland as if it had been staged in the actual Golden Age. It’s a nice idea, but the follow-through is all over the map. Half of the time the characters are acting like the elevated caricatures of pre-method actorly bravado, the other half of the time they’re “normal.” Half the time it looks like a Technicolor road-show, half the time it looks like Saving Private Ryan.

The story is so predictable you can plot the entire film note-for-note based on a single mammoth chunk of exposition in the first five minutes: Nicole Kidman is a British aristocrat who needs a Drover (“aussie cowboy”) played by Hugh Jackman to help her move beef cattle across the outback to break a land baron’s monopoly. A conspiracy murder mystery, political commentary, the Stolen Generation of half-caste Aboriginal children and the WWII Japanese bombing of Darwin all conspire to keep them from settling down for 2 1/2 hours while you tick off how many “historical epic” cliches Luhrman can bungle within that running time. If you’re not laughing by the time Aborigini Gandalf shows up to start throwing the magic around, you’re probably one of Luhrman’s financiers.

Y’know what bothers me? We don’t make many comedies about “iffy” people who STAY iffy anymore. Or at least it seems like we don’t. Lots of comedies about all-around good people, LOTS about bad-to-iffy people who turn good in the third act… but very few where the main characters enter AND exit the film as just-this-side-of-dickish.

The original “Fun With Dick and Jane” was about a pair of people who were attractive and witty enough that we ENJOYED them… but who were also shallow, vain, lazy and obnoxious. And it WORKED because that delicate balance allowed the film to achieve that old saw about the having and consuming of one’s cake: We enjoy watching Dick and Jane as they go through their adventure, but they’ve “got it coming” enough that we can ALSO enjoy circumstance conspiring to smack them around a little. The recent remake didn’t have quite the same balls, instead framing it’s leads as fundamentally good people stuck in a bad situation: a corporate raiding has left them unemployed and desperate, and they turn to crime as a last resort; while in the original they were a pair of pampered yuppie scum who turned to crime because it was easier than having to go get normal jobs. Unsurprisingly, the new version isn’t very good.

See also: Part of the genius of the first “Vacation” is that Clark W. Griswold NEVER actually learns “his lesson” or anything else: He begins and ends the film almost psychotically-obsessed with his perfect family vacation, with his ultimate triumph being the final surrender of his family, the local police and even the proprietor of Wally World itself into joining him in the surreal fantasy-land where his perspective makes perfect sense.

The fact that comedies generally don’t have those kind of balls anymore for the most part means that, when one goes to see a new comedy about “bad” or at least “socially unacceptable” behavior one must assume ahead of time that the film is going to turn – usually dishonestly – against itself in the third act… And it almost NEVER fully works, because most “bad behavior” comedies are at their core about letting the audience enjoy said behavior vicariously. See: “Wedding Crashers,” which would have been even MORE hysterical and edgy if it had allowed Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson to remain committed to their sketchy-yet-effective sexual hobby rather than having them “grow up.” Problem is, it’s harder than you’d think to really muster up the artistic guts to DO that when, at the end of the day, people LIKE their entertainment to ultimately reassure them that the basic mythology of “mainstream” cultural institutions (particularly ones they’re part of) is sound and desirable.

And so we have “Four Christmases,” which has a plot structure that allows four pretty-good setups for “dysfunctional family gathering” movies to be boiled down to their funniest elements and served together for maximum impact… but the same aforementioned lack of follow-through that finally renders it only 3/4ths of a good movie.

The central figures are Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as an urbane San Fransisco couple who are philosophically opposed to marriage, have no interest in becoming parents and are – this is important – completely and utterly in love. They ADORE one-another, spend as much time together as possible, and for all the world just can’t be happier. And, for a moment there, it seems like the film might be more interesting than it seemed: Here are two characters SOMEHOW managing to live a life outside the social-strictures of “how relationships are supposed to go” who AREN’T poorer or flawed for the experience. But, you know it can’t last: It’s a modern American comedy, so you know ahead of time that the film will eventually contrive to punish their frivolity and cheer the triumph of Glorious Conformity. But they’re fun while it lasts.

Understand, for the record, that I’m not griping about the film’s message in and of itself – just the execution. The IDEA that these two people’s rejection of the traditional holiday mythos represents a personal and relationship flaw that MUST be corrected… fine, no problem. Sure, it’s trite and predictable, but nothing ultimately WRONG with it. The film just doesn’t do a good job SELLING the premise: What we see of the relationship is perfectly functional, and the supposed “rifts” essentially boil down to their failure to reveal past family-related traumas.

Both characters are the children of messy divorces between colorful parents whom they make an annual ritual out of avoiding for the Holidays. But when circumstances collide forcing them to miss a vacation flight AND appear on TV looking guilty, they resign themselves to a marathon visit of all four eccentric households on Christmas day. This includes his boorish father (Robert Duvall) and roid-raging cage-fighter brothers, her born-again mother (Mary Steenburgen) and “cougar den” of sisters and aunts, his hippie mom (Sissy Spacek) and much younger boyfriend and finally her father (Jon Voight) the final uninteresting stop because thats where the “lessons” have to be learned.

The first three sketches, at least, retain a degree of the edge hinted at by the first act as, one by one, the various sacred cows of the American Christmas get trotted out for a swift kick in the ass: The kids aren’t sweet and wonderful – they’re brats. The babies aren’t magical – they’re loud and smelly. The Church nativity play isn’t heartwarming – it’s plastic and repellant. The thought ISN’T all that counts. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! It’s all very funny and spectacularly cathartic if you can just forget that you’re being set up for a “lesson” – especially the parts focusing on Witherspoon, who’s natural I-practically-shit-fresh-baked-apple-pie All-American persona is here used to great ironic effect. She has a scene involving the improper holding of an infant that I actually felt a little bad about laughing so hard at, and several others involving her phobia about children. You haven’t had this much fun watching a blonde chick whack the stuffing out of little kids since “Narnia.”

But the fun DOES have to end, and end it does at the doorstep of John Voigt – who may actually be MORE insufferably treacly and heavy-handed here than he was in “An American Carol”… and in THAT film he was playing the Ghost of George Washington haunting the wreckage of 9/11. The guy’s still a great actor, but he’s allowed typecasting to turn him into a one-note effigy of The Repentant Boomer. I’m not sure how much of the goodwill the man garnered from his much-lauded 70s films and the much-appreciated fathering of your wife/girlfriend’s secret gay crush he has left to throw away in these treacly cameos.

It’s not a bad film, it’s just a miss. And I just couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to just follow through on that initial energy, kick the crap out of Holiday Cheer and leave the uplift to the other three billion Christmas movies.

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2008/11/episode-fifteen-politics-of-gaming.html

“The Politics of Gaming,” or “Bob Asks For Trouble By Trying To Divine – Even As A JOKE – What The Political Leanings Of Various Game Characters Might Be.” The line to hurl invectives at me for “slandering” your favorite mascot by suggesting their theoretical politics might align differently from yours forms to the left, behind the angry man dressed as Dixie Kong.

I don’t know which makes me feel like a bigger attention-whore: The constant self-promotion or the tactlessness of double-posting it into both blogs. BUT, that’s the game.

ScrewAttack.com has informed me (and, I presume, many many many others) that I am elligible to be nominated for their Gaming 1337 (“leet”) awards. So… if y’all dig my stuff, howzabout voting for me? 😉

Here’s how it works: Go to this page: http://screwattack.com/Nominations Where you’ll find a form with multiple fields in which to nominate folks/projects by their name and website URL for various awards. “Game OverThinker,” for example, would best fit into the “best independent gaming show” category. Fill out each field (or only the ones on which you have an opinion) with the name and URL (my URL here is http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/ and the name is “Game OverThinker” remember,) then your name and email below and click “submit.” Apparently you can do this once a day… I bet that would be a fun thing to do 😉

Thanks again for the support.

I’m hoping against hope that I get to review what is apparently the most successful work of Mormon Vampire Abstinence Porn ever produced “officially” under different circumstances, but let me offer a few thoughts in no particular order:

• Joss Whedon is a fucking genius. I know I’m late to the party on this, but honestly I was never MASSIVELY into Buffy at any point. Just not my thing. But now having seeing what “teen-angst vampires in high school” looks like as executed by people without the first clue at what they’re doing? WOW. I never knew how good I had it.
• Lead heroine’s name is “Bella.” Ha. Ha. Ha. Wow, I’ve got WHIPLASH from the sheer force of how clever that is.
• This movie IS the Love Story of our time – as in the MOVIE “Love Story.” And much like that earlier film, this one will be loved FIERCELY by it’s audience and make a ton of money but less than a decade from now they’ll all be pretending they knew it was lame all along and NO ONE will be able to explain why it was ever such a big deal.
• Just about everything you need to know about the mental-stability of the folks working the teen-abstinence/”purity ring” movements is that they’ve largely embraced THIS franchise – the story of a sullen, antisocial teenaged girl who instantly subsumes her entire being into a relationship with a much older manic-depressive creep who behaves (to put it charitably) like a full-blown stalker and worries about getting too close to her because he might lose control of the urge to rip her throat out – as presenting a healthy view of romantic relationships to young girls.
• Things this movie “removes” from the vampire mythos: bats, coffins, fangs, garlic, stakes. Things it “contributes” in their place: Vampires like to play baseball, but they have to do it during thunderstorms because their super-powered bat-cracks won’t be noticed; and instead of bursting into flames in sunlight, vampires’ skin spontaneously sprouts a layer of Body Glitter. Sparkly, baseball-playing vampires. I never thought I’d miss Wesley Snipes so much…

Seeing “Twilight” later tonight. Y’know what’s already bugging me? I get that the lead vampire guys all look like the Jonas Brothers because it’s mainly a movie for teenaged chicks… But how do they get all their man-makeup and hair gel properly applied without reflections? Or is this another “everything you know about vampires is wrong” thing? I dunno. When was the last time there WAS a vampire movie where all the ‘rules’ were in place, to begin with?

Also: Now that “Captain America” has a director and two writers (Joe Johnston and the Narnia scribes, respectively, in all three cases ALARMINGLY good if on-the-nose choices) thoughts now innevitably turn to casting. Let me weigh in on one of the bigger sticking points right off the bat: I think Captain AMERICA should be played by an AMERICAN actor – not because of some notion of patriotic symbolism… I just know it’ll be annoying as HELL to have to hear that particular question-and-stock-answer come up in every damn interview for the next year and half.

“Casino Royale” had no jokes, no inside-references, no gadgets, no henchman, no nicknamed bad guys, no funny-name Bond girls, no SPECTER, no hideout, etc. “Quantum of Solace” has a couple jokes, one inside reference (to Goldfinger, and cracking well-done by the way,) a couple sorta gadgets, a sorta-henchman, a bad who’s kind-of nicknamed (mock-environmentalist named “Greene,”) one possibly funny-name Bond girl, the SUGGESTION of a very SPECTER-like ‘Quantum’ society and something almost resembling a hideout. My question: At this rate, is it going to take two or three more sequels for James Bond to turn into James Bond instead of a slightly-less whiny-bitch version of Jason Bourne?

Hey, lookit that! “The Escapist Show” is airing another of my reviews, this time for “Max Payne.” What swell guys.

Check it out here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-show/421-Episode-Four-Mirrors-Edge

I’m in there at about 6:05, but you should watch the whole thing because they’re good guys doing a good job. It’s a little intimidating, to be honest, to be sharing vid-space with even a TRAILER for Zero Punctuation. I mean… who the hell am I, right?

As before, if you dig me doing this, let The Escapist know you’d like to see me more often:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/contact/

Aw, crud…

I really don’t like these things, but the burden of Internet psuedo-celebrity is that if someone calls you out and you don’t respond people notice. FINE…

For the record, I got “tagged” for this by “Dirty Harry,” the increasingly ironically-named right-wing movie blogger who – to his credit – is pretty decent about letting me treat his comment threads like a combination shooting-gallery, stress-relief ball and Free-Range Nutcase Game Preserve all the time. Yes, I know, he’s being dippy about anti-Prop. 8 “McCarthyism” and I don’t know that I’ve ever been called a “dolt” before… (http://dirtyharrysplace.com/?p=5652#comments) but c’mon, folks – Republicans are about to have a REALLY long, REALLY sucky four-to-eight years; you’ve got to expect a little snit-fit here and there. Be understanding with the poor little darlings – like you’d be with a small child or a Cubs fan.

Anyway… the fellow “tagged” me for a movie-blogger meme, which apparently originated over at Blog Cabins (http://blogcabins.blogspot.com/2008/11/alphabet-meme.html) by which your supposed to list various movies alphabetically. Well, easy enough… and I do need to post more. So here goes…

Anaconda
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
Casshern
Dark Backward
Equilibrium
Frankenstein Conquers the World
Godzilla
Hunger, the (anyone who tells you they liked more than about ten to fifteen total minutes of this is probably a liar.)
It Came From Beneath The Sea
Jigoku (see “Hunger, the”)
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Last Dinosaur, the
Monster That Challenged The World, the
Night of The Lepus
Orochi: The Three-Headed Dragon
Planet of Dinosaurs
Q: The Winged Serpent
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Syngenor
Tron
Ultraman: The Next
Valley of Gwangi, the
War of The Gargantuas
Xtro
Yog: Monster from Space
Zapped!