2012

The movie 2012 is a movie about how the Mayans somehow ridged up the sun to melt the inside of the earth should the planets ever aline in the year 2012 because they are stupid jerks. Why would they do that? We never find out. There aren't even any dumb Mayans in the movie because they are all gone, but we do find out that John Cusack is probably the luckiest mother fucker in a movie ever. The twist? Because he is MAYAN!!!

So Roland Emmerich once made a movie called Stargate, which is a pretty cool movie. It has Kurt Russell in it. And it's an action sci-fi movie that skips over having starships and other played out sci-fi shit and goes strait for the gun battle scenes instead. Then he made Independence Day, which every single human being on the entire planet born after the year 1974 has seen. Then he made The Day after Tomorrow, the movie George W. didn't want you to see, being the reason I tried to vote for him in 2008 but wasn't allowed to. And finally he made 2012. His magnum opus. A blockbuster beyond blockbusters. Where calling it stupid entertainment just makes you the stupid one, because can you actually hear yourself? "A movie where the entire planet just starts exploding and breaking apart and flooding is unrealistic? What an insightful observation."

Seriously though, this is the dumbest, most great, fun to watch unless you think about any of it for a second, type movie there is about the year 2012. And since I'm writing this in the year 2012, I'm guessing there aren't going to be a whole lot of other movies about 2012 in the years to come. Because apparently the world ends in 2012. I better write this quick.

The far less exciting prequel "2011" was just about the British Royal wedding and Occupy Wall Street

Despite how terrible Roland Emmerich's movies are, beside Stargate, I have a soft spot for the guy. ID4 was pretty cool when it came out too, but I'm not really talking about his movies. They are as cheesy and dumb as any other blockbuster to come out. In fact they're where the bar is set for cheesy and dumb. But I've always felt a kind of kinship with Roly. Because the two of us seem to be the only ones that actually like disaster movies. Although this argument is void because there have been a million disaster movies coming out recently, I don't care, once upon a time there were only a few, and they were far between, and they were almost always terrible. The Disaster Genre has the potential to be one of the most interesting. You deal with characters in survival situations when the stakes are high and they have no one but each other to get them out of danger. You have explosions, or falling buildings, or an avalanche, or genetically engineered genius sharks. You have exhilarating stories where anything can happen at any time. But they always turn out crappy because they are about genetically engineered genius sharks.  But you have to give it to Roland, because he says fuck it and makes them anyways. And he doesn't fuck around either.

You know how movies will sometimes shaft believability by having the bomb be deactivated with 1 second left on the bomb clock thing? Not 5 seconds, or 20, which is still pretty close, but just 1 second, where you literally couldn't have came any closer to blowing up. Or when someone runs out of a burning building RIGHT as it collapses? This movies is 2 and a half hours of that. There is a scene where John Cusack and his family jump in a plane and are taking off the runway right as everything else around them is exploding and breaking apart in a giant earthquake. Up until now they were driving in a limo through buildings and jumps huge caverns, and now the entire state of California is turning upside down, with the only solid ground being the runway in front of them. Everything to the side: Gone. Everything behind them: Exploding and earth quaking away, all of it moving closer to them as they try to get their plane off the ground. As they move forward, the ground once beneath them gives away immediately, and they take off just as the rest of it goes, flying off as they try to dodge crumbling buildings and a subway train seriously goes gliding over them. Roland goes balls out with this scene, and then he turns around and does the same exact thing, plane taking off and all, 2 MORE TIMES. He puts the same exact scene in the movie, but done bigger, once with them just taking off as the Yellowstone super volcano goes off, and again with a giant plane as Las Vegas folds in on itself, TWO MORE TIMES!! That takes guts. There's no way you couldn't notice you'd already done the "plane just barely takes off in time and doesn't have the altitude to make it so they pull up and just scrap a nearby building/Rock on fire/Eiffel tower" scene. His writers must have said "We already did that" and he still said "Do it again. Twice!"

 The deaths of millions of innocent people just trying to mayan'd their own business

 

Because he knows that's what you want. He knows you don't want to learn more about the characters. I do, but you don't, and he knows that and the movie becomes scene after scene of Washington collapsing, aircraft carriers hitting the president, India flooding, Volcanoes fucking up Hawaii, a cruise ship being overturn by a million foot high waves. There's a scene where we see people in the Sistine Chapel as Michelangelo's painting of Adam putting his finger out to god has a crack come in and pass right between them. I actually yelled at the movie for that one. Scene after scene. Disaster after disaster. We see thousands of people falling to their death or being crushed just as the camera pulls out enough for it to not be too gruesome, and instead is kind of funny. We see these two old women driving around like old women right before they crash into something with a goofy sound effect. We see it more and more until it becomes all we want to see. People falling to their death, getting crushed by giant boat gears, drowning. Over and over. Roland Emmerich has completely said fuck you to all the subtly most movies try to bring and just goes for it. I'm not joking, its kind of admirable. He's cut out the bullshit and made a movie that consists entirely of disaster porn.

"DON'T DO IT, MOVIE!"

And the last act is the best part. We find out the government has been making these huge super boats, which they call arks, and even hammer it home by showing them flying in animals, although they apparently only had Elephants and Giraffes, because its the only animals they showed, and they showed the giraffes a million times, which is almost ironic since we find out at the end that Africa was fine. So they only saved two species of animals, which have no use to humans at all, that aren't even in danger since they are from Africa while all the bears and sea otters have drowned. No more cows either. No more hamburgers. They have these awesome Sci-fi boats that they take white water rafting down the Himalayas, and this weird sci-fi twist comes almost out of nowhere. Granted they also start having dumb ethical discussions about leaving some people to die dispute the fact that the other 6.99 billion people who were alive 3 hours ago have all died no thanks to them deciding to not tell anyone about the world ending, so now they get all righteous about not wanting to let a few hundred other people, who were all just rich assholes that had their boat break down anyways, die. The boats are awesome though. It drives home the whole "yes the world did end and now we move forward at restarting a brave new society" feeling that gives the story some weight. It's not a great story but at least you feel like everything you watched has some historic importance within the world created, and can't help but wonder where the story might go next. It's the most interesting part of the movie. It's not saying a lot, but I just liked the turn it takes at the end. Feels like the beginning of a better story. Like pretty much Battlestar Galactica.

It's also funny how this movie king of spits in the face of the Day After Tomorrow, despite it clearly being influenced by Roland wanted to outdo himself. Whereas the Day After Tomorrow was all about global warming and how we should take care of our planet, this one is all about earth being a giant asshole. I guess he couldn't help wanting to upgrade a movie where everyone is killed by winter to having everyone killed by everything.

Despite some of the pandering at the end, the movie never tries to be anything other then eye candy. It's people falling to their death and being crushed eye candy, but there is no promise beyond that. I like disaster movies, and although I'm still waiting for an actual good one, I usually take what i can get. So yeah, on one hand you could look at it as one of the stupidest movies ever made, but on the other, it's the finest cinematic example of Mayan political propaganda about wiping out the otter scourge once and for all. I'm not even going to try to put a rating on that.

2012 out of 10

Monsters

I remember hearing about this movie when it came out. It was getting a lot of press for being a high concept movie about an area of Mexico where Alien lifeforms have popped up, but filmed on a very low budget. As such I figured that it was the kind of movie with a great idea but would probably be a badly executed and overly-long movie that sneaks in a few CGI monster shots for flavor. While this is mostly true, I actually really liked it.

For the most part the movie does relay on it's premise to make the story interesting while being almost completely about two character's just hanging out with each other as they travel through Northern Mexico. While it's a cool idea, it kind of brings the whole "This is a low budget high-concept movie" vibe up constantly. I don't know if its me, but it feels like the movie is really pleased with itself for coming up with a clever way to be about alien monsters, without having to show that many alien monsters. It is smart of them to do, but you go into the movie knowing that they are just going to be hinting at there being monsters around without ever showing them, making the movie kind of predictable. So though the movie is about these two character's getting to each other as they make their way through this dangerous territory, it's the actual dangerous territory that keeps you interested.

The story is about Samatha being in Mexico for some reason when some photographer dude is sent by her Father's company to help get her back to America. A NASA probe thing had discovered Alien life in the solar system, but wrecked over Mexico while trying to land, scattering lifeforms over half of the country. The first part of the movie establishes the atmosphere as we see them walk around Mexican villages and cities while talking about "the creatures." We see all kinds of "Warning" signs with gas masks on them and "Prohibited Area!" while having people talk about how dangerous the Infected Zone is because soon the monster's will be migrating this way. And the second part of the movie is them going into the infected zone, chilling out on boats or hiking through the forest, while only hearing the creatures from far away or seeing hints of them being in the river. Although this kind of plays into the pre-established idea that we aren't going to see the monster's that much, it works really well for the atmosphere of the movie.

 Though out of every conceivable name they could have called this movie, "Monsters" is admittedly pretty unoriginal

For one, we actually do get to see the monsters. At the very beginning, a little in the middle, and than a good deal at the end. So it's not like we go the movie without seeing them. It's pretty clear that they are real and the locations we visit alone show what a huge threat they can be. Which is pretty much what the heart of the movie is. It's realistic in telling us about these monstrous creatures that have been around for 6 years, but it doesn't just show us them outright. Their allusive nature makes them feel like real animals, and we spend the majority of the movie taking in the sights and sounds of the various beautiful locations affected by these things suddenly showing up.

And that's where the movie shines most. As a character study, we see these two people get to know each other as they depend on themselves to make it through this beautiful but dangerous area. And as a Sci-fi movie, the theme is more about the discovery and territory of a new animal species that's existence is ever present while being rarely scene. The movie is shot on real locations in Mexico, and despite it's low budget, does an amazing job of presenting a realistic atmosphere of disaster.

The movie also seems to benefit from other recent Sci-fi movies and their themes, specifically District 9 and Cloverfield. While Monster's has the Documentary "realistic" feel that Cloverfield had, without it actually being a Mockumentary, as it deals with the subject matter of monsters, it also shares the theme of District 9's "Alien's just showed up here and we are having trouble dealing with them" premise. The down and dirty realistic style helps make the movie feel like a good companion piece to either, although the two by themselves are quite different. It seem to promote these movies as a kind of new movement, and since I like all 3 of them, it makes me excited for whatever comes next.

Overall the movie does a good job of getting the most out of it's small budget and telling a compelling story. Though i went in looking to find problem in it thinking it was just another Paranormal Activity type deal, I can't really think of a reason to complain. The pacing is pretty slow, especialy in the first half where it takes a while to get started, but despite this usually being a big deal to me, I had no problem sitting through it. I doubt I'll watch it again anytime soon, but that doesn't make it bad. I've always dug sci-fi that felt realistic, and with movies like this and District 9, it's doesn't get more real.

Word.
7 out of 10

Spider-man Trilogy

In honor of the new Amazing Spiderman coming out, why not look at the original trilogy that helped send the comic book genre into the billion dollar blockbuster territory it's in today? There is no reason, so shut up.

Spider-man

It's possible the first X-men movie may have come out before this, making it the starting point of the latest Super Hero obsession in Hollywood, but I don't care enough to look it up, and considering the fact that Blade came out in the 90's, and Superman was huge in the 70's, it doesn't even matter. Regardless, Spider-man was a big deal when it came out, and was a lot better than stupid X-men, which is a pretty boring movie if you go back to watch it, that helped cement "dorky" super heroes as a marketable franchise while being critically hailed. As a big fan of both Spider-man and Sam Raimi, I was extremely excited to see it opening night, and since I was actually in High School at the time and could fully identify with Peter Parker's story, it left a pretty sizable impression on me. The class loser problem, the crush on the pretty girl that will never be returned problem, the ability to climb up walls problem. All staples of whats its like growing up, which is what led to the comic being popular for like a 100 years in the first place.

Though the effects and story telling may not match up with the more recent efforts in the genre by comparison, its hard to argue this movies achievement in defining the genre. Still, some problems still exist, such as the stories lack of re-watchablity, mainly on account of it being an origin story, the melodramatic love triangle, and Tobey Maguire as Spider-man.The Green Goblin custom didn't really help either, and it's not like you didn't always know what was going to happen next.

 What kind of dumb name is Tobey?

With all that said, I've probably seen it a million times, that most likely being the real reason I can't sit through it in one watching anymore (making my previous statement bullshit) and years of watching day time television and Hong Kong movies has made it easier to stomach melodrama. But Tobey Maguire is still really hard to buy as Spider-man, though I guess its not impossible if you don't think about how much better pretty much anyone else would have been. In the end Raimi's direction gives the movie a lot of heart, and, in the end, it gives the movie a feeling of being a classic. Or maybe that's just because I saw it in high school.

Spider-man 2: The curse of Buddha

Then Spider-man 2 came out and everyone thought it was the best superhero movie ever, until X-men 2 came out, if it hadn't already (X-men 2 was amazing). Building on the conclusion of the last movie, with the will-they-won't-they relationship of Pete and Mary Jane, the fact that Harry thinks Spider-man killed his dad for no reason, and the whole J. Jonah Jameson hating Spider-man thing, this movie hits the ground running. Actually it doesn't. I should have said swinging, but it doesn't do either. Though this may be me always having to find something wrong to complain about in every movie other people like, I remember having a lot of problems with this movie, despite actually enjoying it. So while it's probably better than the first one, the action is awesome, I remember being somewhat indifferent towards it.

So it should have hit the ground running, but instead opens with Spider-man saying "Hi, I'm Spider-man" and then punches us in the face with example after example of ways Peter Parker is a useless human being. He looses his job, he can't pay the rent, he's about to flunk out of school, Mary Jane is going to marry some other guy, Harry hates Spider-man, Bruce Campbell won't let him see Mary Jane's play, he can't get a single thing to eat at a fancy party, and also his powers stop working for pretty much no reason. Also the bad guy is really a nice guy that turns bad probably because Peter jinxed him. Also also J. Johan still hates his guts. So he quits. What a great movie.

Spider-man 3: Put a Venom in it

 No one likes this movie. Like X-men last stand, the third of this trilogy is pretty well known for coming off the tracks in such a disastrous wreck that it fucked up the whole franchise. With X-men they decided to just start making prequels, but this piece of crap lead them to just reboot the whole series from scratch. And it probably would have been a shock if not for the fact that this movie was so dumb, making us not really care about such a weird move.

The problem with the movie supposedly came from the studio, surprise surprise, wanting to cram venom into the movie, which Raimi didn't like until later when he did because he didn't really have a choice I guess. So we have 3 bad guys, with Harry becoming the new Goblin, Venom randomly coming from the sky randomly, and randomly having some random convict get completely weird random sand powers. There's just TOO MANY BAD GUYS, guys! The weird part is that Sam actually wanted stupid Sandman in the movie and had to be convinced to shoehorn Venom. The movie ends up being a clusterfuck of nothing really being important on account of so much going on, but I can't help but feel that the "dark Spider-man" story line was the only thing giving the movie a purpose, despite how cheesy it was done, like we needed more angst, while the Sandman story was completely pointless and way out of whack with the reality the previous movies had established. Harry as Goblin mock II was pretty sweet though. I think his fight with Peter is one of the best in the series, probably because they had been building up to it through the first two movies. Too bad it ends with Harry getting dumb plot convenient amnesia. His story then becomes pointless, Sandman all of a sudden becomes a big deal because they retcon it to him being the one that killed uncle ben before he becomes pointless, and then Venom really never has a point to begin with. The story just isn't there.

 Why's he so broody anyways? He gets to be Spider-man.

You have one thread that is the end of a character's entire arc through out the last 2 movies that has to serve as the beginning and then put on hold, some random occurrence where "something" falls from outer space and makes the main character a dickhead for half the movie before becoming a different character, the same melodrama with Mary Jane now that this time she's the one down on her luck so now they can't be together, and the most random story of some guy we just shouldn't care about who is written in in such a clumsy way that it does retro damage to the first movie, all woven into one story.

Overall the first two movies are seen as classics, although I never agreed that the second one was the best. They were an important part of  bringing superhero movies up into the light to be seen as blah blah the third one ruined it... surprise surprise...

The Cabin in the Woods

I didn't know Horror fans could be so pissy. I usually see them as the ones sitting back with their arms folded, snickering at all the uptight soccermoms who complain about sex and violence in entertainment. "They just don't get it." The point of these movies is to have fun. Then a movie comes out that deconstructs the slasher/horror movie genre, being hardly the first, and they shit their pants. How dare they? How dare they make a movie that plays with the tropes and cliches of slasher movies by changing the context to give the story a wider scope? Grrr. What do they think they are playing at, huh? Making a movie that is fun? Why would anyone make a meta slasher movie? Yeah, I don't know, but I'm inclined to agree with that one. Because the Slasher genre is fucking terrible. So I guess it's too bad these guys are so hung up on maintaining the sanctity of a shitty genre, because this movie is great.

I knew nothing about this movie until right before it came out. This was mostly due to the fact that the movie is called The Cabin in the Woods and the poster is a picture of a fucking cabin, but also on account of the fact that horror movies generally bore the shit out of me. So when I hear a horror movie is coming out that "completely changes the genre forever!" it didn't really do much for me, but for whatever reason I was in the mood to see it. Maybe because it was Friday the 13th. Or because it was written by Joss Whedon and co-written and directed by the guy that wrote Cloverfield. Or because Cabin in the Woods sounds weird to me when I say it out load. Like you are saying Camping in the Woods in a weird accent, or talking about racing taxi's into trees. It just sounds like a shorthand for the word Cabing, which doesn't exist, because Cabin is a legit actual word for little wooden house.

Cab'n in da woodz

The movie is more or less some teenagers cab'n out and having fun before getting murdered, except that there actually is more because a whole lab of scientist, including the bad guy from Billy Madison, seem to be watching and controlling everything they do, possibly being the entire reason they are there, for some possible secret dark intent or otherwise hidden good intentioned motive possibly.

While not being that into dumb slasher movies, I still know the tropes well enough from Scooby Doo to understand and enjoy the basic idea of the movie. The slasher/evil-in-the-woods/survive-til-dawn/don't-have-sex-or-you-will-die-horribly formula has been put pretty steadily into place in our society's culture mind. So stepping back a bit and giving it a broader context and actual purpose rather than "teens die just-because-why-not" by throwing in some sci-fi secret laboratory action sounds like a good way to make this lame shit interesting for once. And that's where I'm not following where a lot of "horror fans" are coming from on this movie. Because a lot of them hate it, which considering how good it is while being in such a dumb genre, sounds wrong. Like they are just objectively wrong. I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how flawed and stupid horror movies are, and probably will, but I think we've all agreed that they aren't really that good. Through there are good horror movies, they are technically just good movies that happen to be horror, and if you look proportionally at all the terrible movies that have ever been made, I'd say a good 80% of them are fucking horror movies. So I don't get this high and mighty "This movie is a insult to the Horror genre!" hullabaloo, because even horror fans admit that they don't enjoy the genre for its quality, but rather it's fun attitude.

And how the hell do you insult a fun attitude? The genre is synonymous with the word terrible, so saying a good movie insults it is like saying "Johnny Cash is an insult to Country music!" or "Sex is an insult to Garbagemen!" It's all backwards bizarro and shit.

Dr. Funattitude

The movie does a great job of serving up classic horror fare without tipping its hand to whats actually happening. It tells you just enough for you to know there is more to the story, but still concentrates on the characters, allowing you to be invested in the moment. So as the movie goes on, you figure out that although you know what is going on with these kids in the cab'n, you don't necessarily know whats going on with the rest of the movie, so you may be able to see the next kill coming, but you know about it because you are supposed to. And that's one of the things that lets me actually enjoy movies. When I don't know what will happen next, forget I'm watching a movie, and get immersed in the story. What else can you even ask for from entertainment than immersion? You have identifiable characters from great actors, a tight, interesting storyline that keeps you engaged, and sex+violence, pretty much for it's own sake of sex+violence.

The problem I'm seeing here is the whole inferiority complex driven "fuck those elitist that think they are so smart" bullshit that's been coming up in our society a lot lately. Apparently this movie was made back in 2009 and was delayed so they could 3Dify it. Luckily they never got around to it, but for the past few years it's built up quite a reputation with critics and film snubs as being the next big thing in horror. I guess some horror fans, who consider themselves purists(Jesus Christ...), found it insulting that some fancy pants "Meta" horror parody comedy movie thought it could be a better horror movie than the standard by actually being a better movie. Once upon a time this shit was reserved for hillbillies to help them deal with the fact that they were dumber than city folk, but I see even kids using it these days. Grr. "All the out of touch pansy critic elitist like the movie because it's self-referencing and thinks it's so fucking smart!"

I was blissfully ignorant to all the bullshit pretense surrounding the movie, so I was able to see it without having much in the ways of expectations or needing to like it or dislike it to validate my self identity as a filmbuff/nerd/person. So I liked it. Liked the shit out of it. Instead of feeling looked down upon by uppity intellectual filmmakers, I actually felt respected by a story that didn't feel a need to talk dumb to me and could instead allow me to trust that whatever happened next was going to be fun. Maybe because I'm not ashamed of my intelligence. Because I'm smart. Or because it was a pretty good movie and I don't get why people gotta get all political and shit.
It's these goddamn hipster kids with their tight jeans and their raps music stop making fun of my cat and GET OFF MY FUCKING LAWN!!

8 out of 10 Cab'ns