Short list of 2009's movie suprises

My biggest movie surprises this year:

• Jackie Earl Haley's turn as Rorschach in 'Watchmen'.
• 'X-Men: Wolverine' being terribly shallow despite a wealth of source material.
• How 'The Hangover' could be so funny with such a corny plot.
• 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop' making as much money as it did - 'New Moon' making more.
• Michael Mann's best movies are about men getting up and going to work, and 'Public Enemies' proves it.
• The almost sweet charm to the characters in a film called 'Zombieland'.
• Sam Rockwell and all of 'Moon'.
• The ferociously brutal first 20 minutes of the 'Friday the 13th' remake.
• Lastly, the incredible 'The Hurt Locker' being capped by two fearless performances and tension so thick it would make Hitchcock have a back spasm.

The Backlog

Ah, the backlog. Whenever I become overwhelmed with how much I have to do, I turn to you. I pick one thing and run with it.

I've heard a lot of women say "I'm such a good multi-tasker", but not so many guys. Guys don’t admit to doing a lot of different things badly at once. They excel at doing one thing pretty goddamn mediocre, one lame attempt at a time.

That’s why, to me, the essence of the backlog is inherently male. It’s all things you’ve been meaning to do but never started. When you excel at multi tasking, you’ve started a lot of different projects and just left them in a really poor state. That’s not a backlog, that’s just half ass-ing it.

Take last night: I told my girlfriend I’d clean up the loft so company could stay. I instead started on a mix CD for her, and spent the better part of 45 minutes playing with tracks, play order, etc…

So when I finish, she catches me with this dear in the headlight look. I know I haven’t gotten to cleaning. I know she knows because the loft still looks like broken egg shells on dirt. Obviously I haven’t cleaned it up. Yet she asks anyway.

I might have just as well said it’s on my backlog.

Which is to say, “I remembered to think about it while I was doing this other thing.”

Re: What horror movies I SAW

So what did I see? Hmmm... this is all I've got. I've posted trailers for some of them, but if you have any interest in seeing the movies I'd shy away. Trailers give away too much.

1) Best Horror Film - The Descent - Trailer -

A good horror film takes you to a place you don't want to go and shows you things you're not really in the mood to see. The Descent, a UK flick from 2006, starts with a woman losing her family and then works its way down -literally. Most of the action involves spelunking. There are some heavy themes, but it’s a nice change - they people don’t go crazy, they don’t break into rival factions, and they don’t split up to ‘investigate that noise’ one by one.

The focus of the movie is the main character and her attempts to recover. She’s trying to reconnect with her remaining friends. She’s hurting. She’s doing something she used to enjoy, but even that’s going wrong. It’s probably my favorite horror film because I care about these people.



2) Best Psychological Thriller - Bug

Ashely Judd is someone I often give crap to, so every once in a while -when I sober up - I remember how fearless she was in this film. Not every actress is willing to be photographed looking their worst, and it probably forgives her for every half baked movie she’s done. Michael Shannon, pre-Revolutionary Road, works wonders. He's a nobody, a drifter, a friend of her friend - but he's not creepy. They meet while partying and just stay up talking.

So they hang out again. They share secrets. They're people with problems, they're broken, but they connect. It's refreshing to see the front end of a meet-and-greet not cluttered with the obvious romance, or a thriller not about odd fetishes or privately stalking one another. There’s no twist ending. Everything builds.

You’ve really got to watch it in one sitting, uninterrupted. It start slow, but it needs to. That's how it goes when big things happen to normal people.



(pish-posh on that trailer, it keeps calling this film Horror)

3) Best Scary Soundtrack Score - Silent Hill / The Thing

I think an overly loud, pounding score takes away from what's scary. The new Friday the 13th remake had an amazing first twenty minutes. After the opening credits, it faltered. Every shock, scare, kill, and tease was punctuated by drums. It killed the suspense.

A good score should echo what’s on screen, and point out what I may not be seeing. If the killer’s running down a hall, then by all means use loud music. But until you break into a full on sprint, I want it to be a mystery about what’s going to happen. Both these scores have moments where nothing at all happens – I KNOW nothing is going to happen – and I still get scared.



The Thing (Theme)

4) Best Screen Slashing Villain – ‘The Masked Killer’ from Scream

Call me old fashion, but the ‘best’ screen slasher shouldn’t have supernatural powers. So that knocks my constant front runner Jason Vorhees off the list. He’s died and come back so many times it’s cheap, and it’s not fair to be pitted against a slasher unless you know they’re going to stay dead. Same goes for Freddy Krueger. He’s scary, but he’s not a slasher.

For me, it’s the first Scream movie. They lampoon an already tired genre, and it’s done well. The killer gives us creative deaths, playful dialogue, and gives us a proper mystery of whodunit proportions. Best of all, when it’s over the explanation is bullshit.

Slasher killers need to be crazy, and there’s no denying a proper lack of motivation in this one. Sure other films may offer better kills, but their killer is weighed down with motive: “Your forefathers killed my parents by kicking them off this land.” A slasher film killer should be the exact opposite of a well written character. It's technique alone that's appealing...



So that's all I got. How about you? Sound off below.

ODST Nathon Fillion looks like my 5th Grade Music Teacher Who Had Facial Deformities: An ODST Review

Buck from ODST looks a lot like Mr. Dawday, my fifth grade music teacher. He had a slanted nose, one that made an uncomfortable right turn halfway down. That's how I see Buck, only mixed with some sort of Playmobile/Lego character that got left in the sun for a week. It could be said somebody pasted Nathan Fillion's likeness onto this melted, moldy mess, but it wouldn't be a strong argument. Let's just settle for Buck sounding and acting a lot like Nathan.

Single Player

So let's look at ODST. On the plus side, it's a (short) fun game. I put it in Sunday morning and was finished by Sunday evening. Great way to spend the day, but keep in mind I also enjoyed an hour and half walk with my dog, two episodes of Warehouse 13, Christian Slater hamming it up in 'The Forgotten' pilot, cooking wings on the grill, and a nap. Not a power nap, mind you, a deep sleep bear-in-a-cave-hibernating-so-leave-me-the-f-alone nap. I enjoyed all those things plus the game.

So yeah, ODST is a short game. But like I've drunkenly mumbled for years, it's not the length that matters.

That's why I partially hate ODST: it finally makes sense why people laugh at that line. You can't do much with a short stick, and Bungie - try as they might - doesn't make a campaign worth your money. Put it on Legendary and play with some friends is the only advice I can give. It stretches the game into something longer, but still remains nothing worthy of the Halo name.

The structure goes a long way towards taking that length father it should. You'll then spend 80% of the game re-assembling your crew, via a silent rookie putting together clues. Each new clue he finds triggers a flashback, explaining who did what, where, and when it happened. [Ed Note: Why? How should I know. YES! Five points for Me.]

After your flashback finishes, you have to move your guy across the city and onto the next clue. This goes on and on, and unfortunately gets the story nowhere. It's perhaps unfair to compare the narrative style to Lost, I can't help it. Flashbacks work in Lost because it helps sell the story. If you don't have a story, it's hard to frame combat against the context of combat.

The bulk of the plot is hidden in the last two missions, which are after the flashback sequences stop. It boils down to taking a person to a place to get a thing, which is disappointing because it doesn't do much to extend the arch of the Halo mythology.

There's some good moments trapped in those flashbacks, but it feels like the game shuttles you from A to B expressly to display those good moments. It's like a walking tour of a museum, only you're told only to look at certain pieces. It lacks the fluidity of admiring the different exhibits as you pass them.

Multiplayer

Let's make this short and sweet. You're not going to be see much different, but the bulk of your new content comes from multiplayer. Firefight, the much heralded new online mode, is worth your time. It's a new online mode, and it's not so much like Hoard from GoW2 that you've played it to death already. Each successive wave spawns with random attributes, keeping it fresh. You'll enjoy it.

As for the regular Halo3 multi player, it comes with all the new maps.... I mean, c'mon. You know you love it. Even if you think you've over played it, go back and try to limit yourself to just one round. I dare you.

Overall

So is it worth your money? Sure, but not full price. Wait for it to go down to 45 or 30 bucks. The campaign's a turn off at 60 dollars, but the rest is all gravy.

Earthworm Jim - Redux

Holy smokes! Check out what fifteen years worth of progress can do for a game. I can't wait for 2024 to see what's next.

Maya Rudolph, Please Catch Fire

Maya Rudolph showed up on SNL's season finale in a brief cameo. I've never really latched on to any of her characters, and while that might be my fault, I do have some comforting advice for her.

Please catch on fire.

It can be by accident, of course. You could be innocuously walking around your backyard in your favorite gasoline soaked blouse when all of the sudden you bump up against the grill and burst into flames. It happens more than you think, and nobody would fault you for it.

Or you could be at a trendy bar with a twentieth floor balcony, heated in the winter by some genuine tikki torches. Maybe you back into one of them and it suddenly catches your 100% polyester, drag queen-ish suit, inadvertently causing 50% of your skin to be burned within seconds.

Maybe even have you in the middle of a volcano, floating on a bed of ice, and somehow it gets hot enough to melt the ice and have you fall in? I dunno, still spitballing that last one. I'll get back to you when I figure it out.

New Religion

Hey, sorry I've been absent for a while, I've been busy. It was only a short while ago I found inner peace with my new religion. It's called Taco Bell's Grilled Chicken Burrito, and it's 89 cents.

http://www.tacobell.com/grilled_chicken/

FUCK YOU, CHRISTIANITY!

Gallon Challange

>Did you make a youtube video of yourself doing a gallon challenge?

Depends. Are you impressed?

>That's not what it depends on at all.

That's so weird. I just failed a gallon challenge yesterday. My cousin filmed it. What are the odds of that.

> 100%. They're 100%

Oh, CH

Blue Lagoon 2

Best. Day. Ever. Just found out there's a sequel to Blue Lagoon called Blue Lagoon 2. Stopping by Blockbuster's on the way home.

How I Imagine “Pop Champagne” Was Created

Jim Jones is in his study, enjoying a fine port wine. The marketplace section of the newspaper in his hands. He dips it slightly to see Ron Browz walk in. Ron has a bottle of glue and a brown paper bag, which he has been breathing out of.

RON: Jim, I got ideas. I got so many ideas.

Jim puts down his paper to give Ron his full attention

RON: My brain feels like Pregnant Fat Chick it’s so big.
JIM: You must have one whopper of an idea! Do tell!

Ron pours some more glue into his bag. He breathes in deeply from the bag. He starts looking for Blue Pirates – his mortal enemy - which he can see none. Ron realizes he’ll have to huff more glue in order to see through to the truth.

RON: You know that “Na-na-na-nananana-na-na” part of the song we’ve been working on. Pop Champagne?
JIM: The finely tuned melodic interlude? Of course.
RON: Yeah, screw that. We don’t need a melody. I’m just going to turn on the drum machine and let you go.
JIM: How daring. But how will we differentiate our sound? With only a drum, what will we give the listener?
RON: Too much bass. And we’ll mess with vocals.
JIM: That seems lazy.
RON: BLUE PIRATES!

Ron jumps out the second story window.