Check In: The 20 SF Movies We're Most Excited To See In 2010

I really like the website io9.com. It gives me my daily geek quotient without going overboard with smarmy attitude or bland reports that aren't news to anyone. It's well written and pays homage to classic science fiction. I've gotten a lot of great book recommendations from the site, and even a few good movies, too.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, there's one thing I really want to kvetch about. It's the article from Jan 6, 2010, "The 20 SF Movies We're Most Excited To See In 2010." Here's the list:

1. The Book of Eli
2. The Lovely Bones
3. Legion
4. The Wolfman
5. The Crazies
6. Hot Tub Time Machine
7. Repo Men
8. Kick-Ass
9. A Nightmare on Elm Street
10. Iron Man 2
11. Jonah Hex
12. Toy Story 3
13. The Last Airbender
14. Despicable Me
15. Predators
16. Inception
17. Priest
18. Red Dawn
19. Tron: Legacy
20. Green Hornet

This list really stuck in my craw. I suppose it's that I just didn't share the excitement about many of the films on the list. Heck, I don't even agree that some of them qualify as "Sci-Fi." Now, the definition of a genre these days can be a slippery slope but Toy Story 3... Really?

The list bothers me in part because it shows just how shallow the pool of sci-fi films coming out of Hollywood truly is. I mean...

Sequel	Iron Man 2 Predators Toy Story 3 Tron: Legacy
Remake	The Crazies A Nightmare on Elm Street Red Dawn The Wolfman
Based on TV	Green Hornet The Last Airbender
Comic Book Adaptation	Kick-Ass Jonah Hex Priest
Book Adaptation	The Lovely Bones Repo Men
Original Idea?	Legion The Book of Eli Hot Tub Time Machine Despicable Me Inception

Let it be noted that Green Hornet and Priest have been pushed back to 2011 while I have yet to really see a firm release date for Red Dawn. But, really, 17, 18, or 20 movies... I gotta ask... is this the best you've got?

It's September 6 and I've seen everything on the list that's come out so far and, really, I'm just not impressed. In fact, some of them were bloody terrible. I'm not even talking about movies that were lambasted such as The Last Airbender and Jonah Hex. I've got A Nightmare on Elm Street, Legion, The Lovely Bones, The Book of Eli, and Iron Man 2 in mind.
Now, I can't blame the list's author, Charlie Jane Anders, for choosing some duds. I've been fooled by previews, casts, and past director performance before. Though, I question some of the choices as being wise (The Crazies?) or even science fiction (A Nightmare on Elm Street? The Green Hornet?). But, more than anything, I'm sad about how slapdash this list is.

The list seems to have been culled from a year-long look at the fare from the major distributors. Didn't the last few years teach us anything? Some of the best sci-fi fare doesn't come from the majors but the independents. District 9? Moon? Time Crimes? Mock Up on Mu? Do any of these ring a bell?

With a little more research this list might have forgone the horror, fantasy or action movies and replaced them with actual science fiction.

Some of these I've seen... most I haven't... but I'd much rather take a chance on them than the kind of crap that's been junking up the multiplex all year:

1. Splice
2. Daybreakers
3. Mr. Nobody
4. Earthling
5. Mars
6. Monsters
7. Skyline

I'm sure there are more that would better qualify and better entertain than Legion...

The Bad Penny

A name from the past has come back to haunt me this week, Antonio Gragnaniello. I wrote a warning/diatribe about Antonio over on my site a few years back (read it here) and have gotten quite a few emails this week from fellow traders that have gotten burned by Antonio just in recent months. Yes, he continues to lull traders with tales of grandeur told in broken English.

Allegedly, he and a few other guys (Massimo Lavagnini, Mattia Mariotti, David Oakes, Saad Khan, Javier Castellanos, "plus hundreds of collaborators from all over the world") have a book, Fantastic Cinema, in the works. Allegedly? Yes, some feel that maybe the book is as empty as Antonio's promises but, not to worry, Antonio assures the world that "I could take you hundreds of testimonies to prove of the existence of the book, bur for what? You don?t deserve such an effort. Why do you think we have written all those reviews till today, involving thousands of people, for fun? Why do you think we took months, years to find watch and review Albanian, Mongol, Egyptian, Afghan, Cingalese, Nepali, Estonian, Fijian, Armenian, Turkmen, Srilankan, Cambodian, Bolivian, Honduras, Lybian, Lebanese, Pakistani, Icelandic, Syrian?????? films without even understand the languages: because they are masterpieces or because they are pieces of collection wanted by all?" (sic)

I have to laugh about the idea of Antonio writing a book of movie reviews as I'm sure that the majority of them will be of movies he will insist are not available anywhere (his "protected list"). I also weep for poor David Oakes as I'm sure his job is to clean up Antonio's famously funny broken English. There's nothing funnier in the world to be bitched out by Antonio.

Keep your eyes peeled for Fantastic Cinema. Here's hoping it's real, well-written, and that it's not just a book of reviews for movies you'll never be able to see.

Exclusive: Movie Blog Doesn't Feature Inception Review

I was looking around for movie blogs that might be interested in doing a "blog tour" of my book. Of the last six blogs I looked at, only one of them didn't feature one (or more!) review(s) of Christopher Nolan's Inception. I shan't be writing about that movie here--at least not now.

The search for movie blogs that would be more appropriate for my book continues...

DIY Desperation

Do It Yourself. Yes, I usually do. But sometimes I get burned out and that's how I'm feeling right now. I'm in the home stretch. I've got a release date for the book (Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collectin) and just about have the final files to the publisher but it's that last little bit that's dragging me down.

What I want:

• a person to produce audiobook
• a person to plan book release party
• a person to set up a book tour
• a person to send books for review
• a person to buy ads
• a team to promote the book

I love that people are trying to help me out with recording an audio version of the book but I realized that this is yet another thing where I'm going to have to chase people down, verify quality, and nit picky until there are no more nits to pick. Where's the person to take this off my hands?

When it comes to a release party, I'd love to have one down at the Burton Theater where anyone could come, buy a book, and watch a favorite film that ties into the book like Phantom of the Paradise, Black Shampoo, or Lone Wolf & Cub 2. Hoping that the Burton will get back to me soon.

I'm fine mailing stuff and emailing stuff - it's just a matter of collecting all the data of who reviews books where, how much ads are and the specs for all of those.

And, as far as a book tour goes, I know I'd love to go to Quimby's in Chicago and Atomic Books in Baltimore but I don't know where else I should go or who else would have me. Heck, I'm not even sure if Quimby's will have me yet. Still need to ask them.

Why a team? I get a little tired of going out and hitting everywhere and saying, "Dude, check out my stuff, it's rad." It'd be much better coming from someone else saying, "Dude, check out this guy's stuff, it's rad." Or maybe using some of that hip new lingo the kids are using like, "This be da bomb, yo."

Maybe I need a personal assistant.

We Don't Need Another (Season of) Heroes

After the continuous pummeling to my balls that was Heroes Season 2, I went back for more punishment with Season 3 after the folks behind Heroes 'fessed up and admitted that maybe Season 2 was a big steaming pile. They promised Season 3 would be better... they lied.

There were so many sudden shifts in direction during Season 3 that viewers were in danger of whiplash. The tone and narrative thrust didn't shift over the course of a story arc but, instead, each episode felt like a failed attempt at a "reboot" -- the kind you have to do after your computer bombs out.

Let's look back at some of the FAILS of the season:

• Prison Camps - The season began with our faithful protagonists being easily captured, detained, and sent up in an airplane to a prison camp courtesy of Nathan Patrelli, resident dick. This may have been a good idea save for that the plane never arrived at its destination. No, it didn't break up over a remote disappearing island. Instead, it crash landed and all of the familiar characters escaped (unharmed). Was this the first transport to the camp? Does this camp still exist? Was the purpose of this plane ride just to get all of these superpowered people in one place at one time, a kind of X-Men/Con Air scenario? I can't figure out why Hiro was flown from Japan to join this plane ride -- why couldn't he have been flown straight there? And why is Hiro the only "Hero" from outside of the United States?
  
  
• Fugitives - They've escaped! They're on the run! Not so fast! Rather than living up to the "Fugitive" chapter title of this season, the Heroes were on the lam for a few episodes before they would only occasionally be troubled by the ubiquitous forces of this season's baddie, Danko ("The Hunter"). For being fugitives, the Heroes seem pretty relaxed and move around with ease, running into the black-clad agents only when a sudden burst of danger is needed (or we take one of those aforementioned left turns). Going back to what I said about Hiro being the only non-U.S. Hero. If Danko is working under the impetus of some U.S. directed decree... maybe head up to Canada or go over to Europe?
  
  
• Plot Holes Galore - You're chasing a kid whose power is to breathe underwater. You end your search at a pool... without looking in the water! WTF? This is one of the gazillion plot holes this season.
  
  
• Danko - Of all the great villains... he's not one of them.
  
  
• Sylar - He's good! He's bad! He's seeking redemption! He's looking for his Daddy! He's got a protege! He's missing for a few episodes! He can shape shift! He's a traitor to the Heroes! He's changing into his own mother! His clothes can shapeshift too! He wants to kill the President! The writers don't know what to do with him! Yup. Between he and Danko, it's fairly obvious that there are no good villains in this world of Heroes.
  
  
• Matt Parkman - Matt's one of the most troublesome characters as he's the easiest to relate to. Normal guy finds out he's got powers, ruins his marriage, falls for some hot piece of tail after he goes on a spirit journey and suddenly can start seeing the future.... huh? We were with you at the beginning, Matt, trying to do your job with your new powers but once you left the force, found your Dad, and went to Africa, we lost you. Matt only did the Isaac Mendez thing a few times during Season 3 but they were a few times too many. His relationship with Daphne, the Speedster, was a rocky and doomed one. Apparently Matt thought that a wound to Daphne's shoulder was fatal as he didn't realize she was still alive until a few episodes after she got shot and then mysteriously died (apparently she wanted off this equally-doomed show). Matt has forgotten all of the tricks that his Daddy taught him (locking people in "mental prisons"), has a boner to screw up Danko's life, and now has a kid -- with super-powers of course. His jagged path exemplifies everything wrong with the show.
  
  
• Save the Wig, Save the World! - What is up with Hayden Panettiere's awful wig this season? If she's wearing a different hairstyle for another project, use it. Perhaps she might alter her appearance if she's in "hiding"?
  
  
• Save the President, Save the World! - All the politics of Season 3, especially making the President a target of Sylar's takes Heroes out of the fantasy world and into an alternate reality that just doesn't fly (pun intended).
  
  
• Isaac Mendez's Eternal Loft - Who's paying rent on this sweet Manhattan space? After Mendez died it became Mohinder's not-so-secret lair and is still the clubhouse for various Heroes to meet. It's even got a new apocalyptic floor-painting of the Capital being destroyed. Not to worry, it only took about a half hour for this subplot to be introduced and diffused. Just as Mendez's loft keeps getting used, so do the "we must prevent this future!" plots -- even without Hiro having time-travel powers. This is more annoying (but not by much) than Ali Larter showing up as different characters.
  
  
• Rebel - It's the kid, Micah. I was hoping we'd never see him again. Rebel only showed up to move the plot along when it was getting tedious (and that is often) before disappearing for episodes at a time.
  
  
• Remembrance of Season One - How dare you give us an episode that takes us back into the past via Angela Petrelli that explains a few things from Season One! That was such a good season! Why must you throw that in our faces?
  
  

That's just the tip of the ice berg. Charting out the various plots and subplots -- and which managed to undo another -- would look like a schizophrenic's EEG. Like Freddy Kruger, Heroes feels like it's the son of a hundred mad men that all raped the good idea that was the first season of the show. Each episode is its own twisted spawn. Related by blood but independent of thought.

13 Worst Films I Saw in 2008

Rather than calling this the "13 Worst Movies of 2008," I had to put in the "I Saw" caveat. There were a lot of films I avoided like the plague and since I'm not in the pocket of any major (or minor) studios, I wasn't about to plunk down my hard-earned cash on a lot of crap like The Happening, 88-Minutes, or any insipid romantic comedies. That said, here are my personal picks for the worst films I suffered through in 2008:

13. The Day the Earth Stood Still - Casting Keanu Reeves as a charmless alien was a stroke of genius. It's the role he was born to play. Otherwise, there's little other intelligent life to be found in this ill-conceived remake of the classic sci-fi film. Even worse than the lack of resolution to the lame "you'd better start recycling or the world will end" plot was the presence of Jaden Smith. Playing the bratty stepson of scientist Jennifer Connelly; I wanted to strangle this kid.

12. Appaloosa - It wasn't that bad of a film. I liked Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen quite a bit. However, this film was ruined by the character played by Renée Zellweger. She stuck out like a sore thumb and managed to ruin the overall viewing experience.

11. Seven Pounds - Melodramatic tripe made simply to garner tears and awards.

10. Diary of the Dead - Though I managed to see this one in 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival, it didn't come out domestically until 2008. Bad timing brought it on the heels of Cloverfield, a superior shaky-cam film with some real thrills. Diary of the Dead looked like the kind of crappy zombie flick that would be lucky to merit a blurb in Fangoria. Alas, this flick was helmed by the maestro of the undead, George Romero. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. That this movie could make me suddenly find Land of the Dead a relatively innocuous film by comparison speaks volumes.

9. Alien Versus Predator: Requiem - This came out at the tail end of 2007, meaning that it missed out on topping a lot of "worst lists" of that year. Allow me to say that this flick managed to be horrible enough to hold over for both years. Pitting the two titular creatures in Small Town, USA should have been a rip-roaring good time but was slowed down to a crawl by the lukewarm script that never gained momentum. With enough life to fill a thimble, this blight on both the Alien and Predator franchises was a death dirge to fun sci-fi mayhem.

8. X-Files: I Want To Believe - Rather than continuing the mythology of the series, this tepid thriller was a two hour "filler episode" that was a disappointment to fans and casual observers alike. The overwrought Christian claptrap was only slightly less jaw-dropping than Dana Scully googling the medical procedure she performed. Pray that she's never your doctor.

7. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Continuing to piss on the formerly good name of the Star Wars franchise, George Lucas greenlit this lame kiddie flick to kick off the floundering animated television series. I could only shake my head at the inanity of the rudimentary story and the depths to which George Lucas will go to make a buck.

6. Plastic City - Beating out The Mummy 3 as the worst Anthony Wong film of the year, Plastic City is a Brazilian crime drama with Wong as a crime lord. Sounds promising, right? Unfortunately, this flick is over-directed by Nelson Yu Lik-wai. He turns the proceedings into a long-winded art film that boggles the mind and numbs the posterior.

5. Burning Plain - A self-indulgent family drama from Guillermo Arriaga (writer of Babel), this flick has yet to get a U.S. release date. While some would contend that Hancock was the worst thing Charleze Theron was in during 2008, I contend that this was worse. The only thing going for this melodrama was the fractured time structure which only helps to muddy the waters of Burning Plain, making it appear deeper than it truly is.

4. Martyrs - While I dislike torture porn films, I think the French have cornered the market on making the worst of the lot. More than disgusting, Martyrs is trés pretentious and trés boring, perhaps even being the most extreme in these two areas.

3. Speed Racer - This film might have appealed to me if I were an 8-year old boy with ADHD. As it was, I felt like my eyeballs had been raped after I shuffled out of the theater.

2. The Films of Friedberg and Seltzer - We have a tie! It's impossible to say which flick is worse; Meet the Spartans or Disaster Movie since they're essentially the same film. These two movies by schlckmeisters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer continue to follow their patented "every pop culture and movie reference plus the kitchen sink" formula of unfunny comedy. They've almost reached a level where they've managed to deconstruct comedy into its basic elements in order to remove all traces of funny.

1. The Love Guru - I didn't expect anything good when I stumbled upon this Mike Myers back alley abortion. I had heard how terrible this film was -- it even became something of an endurance test for the people around my office: "How far did you make it into The Love Guru?" was a test of manliness. As a point of pride, I made it to the end even if my stomach had wished I hadn't. Like watching a spoiled manchild undergoing self-therapy by parodying Deepak Chopra, this flick managed to be worse than The Cat in the Hat.

As for films that I liked in 2008, those were few and far between. The boffo box office blockbusters didn't do much for me. I enjoyed a number of films but my qualification for being the "best" meant that it was something I'd readily see a second time.

Of those, there are four: Iron Man, My Winnipeg, JCVD and My Name is Bruce.

Let's hope 2009 is a better year.

2008: Year in Review

2008 was a year filled with travel and new adventures.

January

Early in the year, Andrea and I were invited to Cancun to spend Christmas with her family. This prompted us to sit down with a calendar and go over all known and desired trips for the year. We sketched out quite a few long weekends for us and film festival trips for me. We didn't hit everything that we ended up doing but we were close. Rather than doing one long Mexican vacation in December we chose small trips throughout the year.

February

We started off February with a trip to Las Vegas and a stay at the Planet Hollywood Casino. We really lucked out on this. As (free) members of the Flamingo's "casino club" program, we were sent a postcard for two free nights at the newly-opened Planet Hollywood. "What's the catch?" I asked the customer service representative. She promised that there wasn't any and, wouldn't you know, she was right.

Two nights at the casino, a $50 credit for one of their restaurants, and a free show (their proprietary version of Stomp). We just had to get the flight out and I used miles for it, making this one of the cheapest trips we could do. I spent a lot of the trip reading The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre by Stephen D. Youngkin. It just about broke my arms (it's a weighty tome) but it definitely aided my appreciation of one of my favorite character actors.

March

It was in March when I made the fateful decision to finally give up the ghost and let Cashiers du Cinemart die a dignified death. I pulled the plug on my ailing publication and dedicated much more of my mental faculties to writing for pay. I had been losing money with my writing since 1994 and only made my first penny from a word of prose in late 2007. This felt pretty good and I wanted to keep getting checks (however paltry) for what I had been giving away (at a significant loss) for so many years in the pages of my zine.

By April I was still writing for Detour-Mag.com and added Detroit's Metro Times to my regular repertoire of places to contribute. I approached a few other publications but was thwarted at every turn, usually because my whacked-out sensibilities of cinema just don't play too nice with others.

April

My trip to Philadelphia for the first annual Noircon gathering was rather fateful. I was on a discussion panel for David Goodis's "The Professional Man" with the ever-eloquent Howard A. Rodman and met a number of folks who would appear later in starring roles in 2008 including Noircast.net podcasters Shannon Klute and Richard Edwards. I also finally met Megan Abbott. She's writing novels now, but I remember reading her stuff in the Michigan Daily back when I was in college. And, I also had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Melanie G. Dante who's since invited me to be a part of a book project for 2009.

Speaking of books... Cashiers du Cinemart wasn't even cold yet when I decided to start picking flesh from its bones; cannibalizing my past and putting together a "Best of" collection in book form. This started the ball rolling on a project that would fill many hours for the rest of the year.

I also stopped by the Toronto branch of my employer where I hung out for a couple days and spent the evenings with friends. Rita Su and I checked out Evil Dead: The Musical and had a blast.

May

The month started off with a bang as I headed down to Baltimore to partake in the Maryland Film Festival where I moderated a panel on the state of film criticism in this cyber age as well as watched a lot of movies and hung out with some dear friends. It's always a treat to be in Charm City.

I ended the month with an equal bang, heading back to New York City after many years. Andrea and I did the "tourist thing"; taking a tour of the city via double-decker bus. It was a hoot. We also caught Avenue Q and even managed to have dinner with my old friend Leon Chase. I still regret that I missed the performance of his new band, Sister Anne.

June

Andrea and I took one of those mini-trips in June over to Niagara Falls. It was a blast. We did all the touristy things you can do without going broke; Maid of the Mist, Journey Under the Falls, the Butterfly House, et cetera. We stayed away from the tourist trap center of town until the last day when we did the overly expensive Ripley Museum. Fun, but pricey! Again, we got to hang out with a good friend. Dion Conflict drove down from Toronto and we all went to the Flying Saucer restaurant. Excellent.

July

Shannon and Richard from Noircast.net asked myself and Howard A. Rodman to participate in their show. Together we did an episode on Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur. It was a hoot.

I continued to work on proofreading/cleaning up of old articles and gathering them for inclusion in the Cashiers du Cinemart book.

August

The month started with a whirlwind trip to San Francisco/Berkeley where I introduced Shoot the Piano Player as part of the Streets of No Return film series - films all based on the works of David Goodis. This tied in nicely to the feature I did on Goodis in the last issue of CdC.

This year I gave up another thing I had been doing for years - I stopped running SuperHappyFun.com, a bootleg DVD site.

September

I would say, "As usual, I went up to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival," except that this year may be my last TIFF. I was so disappointed in their lineup and they way that the festival was run; I'm looking into other, better fests that will fit my schedule and tastes more. I've got a short list going but, so far, none are as convenient as TIFF.

I did have fun at the B-Movie Celebration in Franklin, Indiana in September, too, and that's definitely on the short list. It was there/then that I finally got to meet fave director Greydon Clark.

October

With the fall, I began my annual hibernation. The Cashiers du Cinemart book manuscript was in the hands of Lori Higgins all month as she continued to finesse and polish the prose from me and my fellow contributors. I finally got down to work on the piece I'm contributing to a journal in 2009. I'm still not giving too many details about it, in case it falls through. Suffice to say, I spent every weekend watching Fetish/BDSM-related films to expand upon an article I had done earlier in 2008 for the Metro Times. I actually started to get burned out on watching people flog one another. LOL.

November

Research on my articles continued. Weekends were spent taking care of family stuff with my Grandmother passing away the second week of the month.

I got the foreword to the book and was absolutely floored. News on that should be coming in early 2009, I hope. Lori wrapped up her layout and handed the project back to me at the end of the month.

December

I'm back to going over the manuscript for the Cashiers du Cinemart book. One final polish, I hope. There should be some more announcements about this project soon. It sounds like the journal I'm writing for will be out around the same time as the book which will be nice. I'm wondering if I should hold off on taking much more than my January vacation(s - to Las Vegas and Cleveland) and seeing about doing some kind of "book tour" later in 2009.

2008 has been one hell of a ride.

TIFF 2008: You've Been Warned

Did you get his with a balled up piece of paper during a P/I screening? That's my subtle hint to TURN OFF YOUR DAMN BLACKBERRY / PDA / iPHONE and quit shining it in my face.

That is all.

TIFF 2008: Biting the Hand that Feeds

It's been four days now and I've managed to see only two of the Midnight Movie selections at Press/Industry screenings. This kind of blows. In years past the MM flicks where shown--gasp--more than once (sometimes) and usually the day of or day before their Midnight screening in order to allow reviews of these films to run in a timely manner. As it is, I'm two Midnight Madness movies behind. Worse, tomorrow there are two MM screenings on Tuesday... within a half hour of one another thanks to the cockamamie P/I programming schedule.

I really am taking umbrage with the screening schedule this year. It used to be that Sunday screenings started a little later due to all the "heavy partying" on Saturday night (not to mention public transportation running late on Sundays). Not this year. As I mentioned, there were eight films that just I wanted to see between 9AM and 10AM today. None of these films are getting a repeat screening with one exception -- Blindness screened at 9AM and 12:30PM meaning that I couldn't see either of these screenings due to my 10AM that lasted past 12:30PM. Not too smart, guys.

Repeat screenings are supposed to happen on different days at generally different times. Likewise, if you're going to have one screening that's at a highly popular time, the other screening should be at a "low traffic time." And, with this whole notion of "Priority Press" screenings, you would think that the "Priority Press" screening should happen first and not after the general P/I screening (as was the case with Burning Plain).

The festival used to be fairly "front loaded" with bigger gala pictures showing for P/I early in the week (Thursday / Friday). Now they're spread out all over, leaving Thursday a gaping wound. I struggled to find things to fill my Thursday just as I struggled to find things to fill my Saturday, just as I struggled today to find something this evening to see. As everything I really wanted to watch played between 9 and 10 this morning, there was little left after my 3:45PM show let out. This lead me down to the Scotiabank to see Babylon A.D.. I'm determined to see four films a day, even if this means I have to pay to see something first run! I'm rather be spending my time watching and writing about movies that really deserve the ink but TIFF isn't allowing me to do that.

Rather than show Flame & Citron, Inju, La Bete Dans L'Ombre, Tears for Sale, or Achilles and the Tortoise (all things on my "I'd like to see" list and all things that played against The Good, The Bad, The Weird and Dead Girl) for a second time this evening for me to review, I was at the first run theater like the rest of the Great Unwashed. C'mon, TIFF, get yer head out of yer ass.

I don't expect every screening configuration to work out but this year's just been sucks for getting that proper blend of interesting films plus available showtimes (with a dash of "convenient theaters" so you're not running around town). Adding additional venues such as the AMC 24 down at Yonge and Dundas should have helped to make more screenings available for P/I folks. It seems that quite the opposite has occurred.

</whine>

Top Twenty Sequels List Misses Mark

I may have to rethink linking over to TheMovieBlog. Their recent list of the Top Twenty Sequels of All Time list leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, some of the choices are just plain assy.

First off, it's rather lame having multiple sequels of the same movie on this list. If that's the case, it should have been the "Top Whatever Series" list. There should have been a "Choose Only One" disclaimer when the author set this up. Secondly, the "double sequels" chosen don't do much to move me: Return of the King had far too many endings while Star Trek IV gets more embarrassing with age ("Double dumbass on you").

I know it may be a little bit sacrilegious but I gave up my affection for Godfather II a while ago. Watching it again over the last few years left me rather bored with it overall. There are some great moments to it, yes ("I know it was you, Fredo.") but the flashback structure is wearisome. Army of Darkness - Same thing. Some great lines but not cohesive overall. For me, the Evil Dead series is all about Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (and the original, of course).

I've already made my feelings about Indy Jones 3 known, as well as Return of the Jedi (I've written reams about the ways in which that film fails). And, um, Die Hard 3? That's another one I've shredded in the past.

I agree with some of the things on this list. Culling it down, I'd go with:

• Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
• Aliens
• The Empire Strikes Back

These are okay but not sure if they're the "Top of all time":

• Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• Rocky 2
• X-Men 2
• Spiderman 2

Movies that should have been on the list:

• The Road Warrior
• The Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Sanjuro
• Lone Wolf & Cub 2
• Drunken Master 2
• The Bride of Frankenstein
• For a Few Dollars More
• Mr. Vampire 2
• Cannonball Run II
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

"Singer Screwed The Pooch," Says WB

It's so refreshing when a movie company actually agrees with your opinion and admits that one of its blockbuster hits wasn't quite the right "direction" that the franchise should have gone. That's the word from Warner Brothers who pretty much pimped out Bryan Singer last week, saying that Superman Returns "didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to." In other words, it sucked.

The full story can be read here.

My take on Superman Returns can be found in the pages of Cashiers du Cinemart #15 and are reprinted here for your entertainment:

Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006)
Little stands out as being starkly different from the screenplay of Superman Returns to the final film version, except for the lack of explanation for Superman’s disappearance and the scenes of Superman flying (in a spaceship) amongst the ruined crags of Kryptonite asteroids.

The cuts between the Superman (Brandon Routh) story line and the Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) story line are jarring. The film moves from the moody introspective Kryptonian, who’s been dumped by Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) in favor of the boss’s son, Richard White (James Marsden) to the hammy criminal mastermind and his Miss Teschmacher stand-in, Kitty Kowalski (Parker Posey). The worst character in the film has to be Superman’s bastard son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu), and his awful Adam Rich haircut.

While I can respect the decision to emulate Donner’s Superman films, aping these superior movies just made me long to see the originals. The John Williams score, combined with the unnecessary cameo appearance by Marlon Brando, only reinforced this desire. Overall, I would have rather have seen J.J. Abrams’s version of the story, as it strayed the farthest from the Jon Peters directives, divorced itself from Donner, and actually managed to feel like an original take on the Superman story.

Even if it hadn’t taken over a dozen years and millions of dollars to bring the next chapter of Superman saga to the big screen, Superman Returns would epitomize anticlimactic. Rather than breaking new ground or taking the Superman story in a different direction (see “Red Son” by Mark Millar), the film was just a rehash of a better film that predated it by nearly three decades.

X-Men Apocalypse

For the last few years I've been buying and reading the Ultimate X-men books. But that's stopping, as of tonight, as of Ultimate X-Men 18: Apocalypse.

This issue is the culmination of a story arc that no one really knew was happening. It ties up a lot of loose ends into a hangmans's noose which it proceeds to snug around its neck before making an airborne leap in the final chapter (Ultimate X-Men Issue #93). It feels like this collection came about at a writer's meeting where someone secretly switched everyone to decaf.

"Okay, we need to come up with something for this issue and I'm tapped."

"We haven't seen that mutant serial killer in a while. The guy that's got to kill ten mutants and he's only killed four so far."

"Yeah, okay. That'll fill out an issue. But let's make it really easy for him to kill those other ten."

"Six."

"Yeah, six. What happens when he gets to ten?"

The silent response is deafening. One writer taps out a popular song on his notebook while Harvey Tolibao adds more muscles to a character he's doodling.

"He gets real big?" One writer ventures.

"No, not just big. Huge. He's like, the ultimate mutant. He becomes... Doomsday!"

"Doomsday's been used. He killed Superman."

After security is called, the meeting resumes.

"Like I said... He becomes... Apocalypse! He can take anything the mutants dish out. In fact, he can control mutant DNA!"

"What does that mean? He can morph their powers? He can turn them normal?"

"No, dumbass. It means that he's like the puppetmaster. He'll make all the mutants attack each other and innocent people."

("You can do that with controlling DNA?" another writer asks under his breath.)

"That's cool. He can use the mutants as his own army and it's up to the other superheroes to battle it out. It's a good crossover opportunity. We can get The Ultimates in there and--"

"No! No Ultimates! We need Spiderman and The Fantastic Four."

"Can we at least get Thor?"

"No, no Thor. I told you. Fantastic Four and Spiderman."

"Hawkeye?"

"He's dead, dumbass. And, not even the Fantastic Four and Spiderman can stop this guy. He's that bad."

("This story's that bad," quips someone in the back of the room.)

("If Spidey and the FF can't stop this guy, why are they here?" asks someone else.)

"So, who's going to defeat this guy?"

More coffee cups are filled. Someone makes a three point shot into a waste basket. Harvey Tolibao keeps adding muscles upon muscles on his doodle. Someone finally raises their hand and says, "How about Magneto?"

"I like it, I like it. Magneto from the FUTURE! No, no... better yet! Charles Xavier, from the FUTURE! Dressed like Magneto!"

"But Xavier's dead, isn't he?"

"Of course not! He got transported into the future. Um... It was all... a plan! Yeah, it was a plan that Cable and Bishop came up with and they've been working this all along. They knew Apocalypse would show up... cause... they're from the FUTURE. So, Charles Xavier's been hanging out in the future and getting all buff and stuff and he can totally kick Apocalypse's ass."

Harvey Tolibao starts a new doodle of a buff Charles Xavier.

"But, I thought Apocalypse was unstoppable."

"Oh, fuck, I don't know. Okay. Bust out the Phoenix. She'll save everyone. Damn. I'm tired. I'm tired of all you guys. I'm sick of this whole fucking book. That's it. Phoenix comes back, defeats Apocalypse, and turns back time to before I was on this fucking book. Story over."

"Can we do anything to make this story even worse?"

The sarcasm is lost on Robert Kirkman who answers, "Yes, we can. Tobliano, you're doing the art for #93!"

"Yes, sir!"

---

That might not be an exact transcription of the events behind Ultimate X-Men 18: Apocalypse but that's definitely how the whole painful experience comes across. That said, I'm giving up after that knee to the groin.

And what's with Tolibao? Just look at the monstrosity below. It looks like a mural painted by the Hale School "special" class:

Last Comic Sucking Redux

Last year I complained about how bad NBC's "Last Comic Standing" had gotten in terms of show structure. I didn't expect anyone to read my blog and change the show accordingly but I didn't expect that the show would actually get worse either.

"Last Comic Standing" has a season broken up into roughly three parts: try-outs, challenges, and vote-off. The most enjoyable section of that (for me) is the challenge section wherein the audience is privy to the diverse personalities of the comedians living together, in-fighting, and being put to the test via improvisational exercises that, in years past, included acting as a tour guide on a bus tour of Los Angeles, speed "dating" with bizarre characters, a roast, et cetera.

All told this season boasted three episodes like that sandwiched between endless tryouts and the vote-off section of the show. In other words, this has been the lamest season of "Last Comic Standing" yet. I won't even go into the two hour episodes that switch from 9-11 to 8-10 without warning!

Suggestions:

• How about some "Comedy Bootcamp" with some previous years' winners?
• More show / fewer teasers (repeats of jokes within five minutes... not too smart)
• Fewer weeks of auditions - This isn't "American Idol"!
• Funny comedians should make it to the house, not "diverse" ones (and votes from "talent scouts" should actually count -- remember the Drew Carey debacle that exposed how rigged the show truly is?)
• Feel free to kill the overseas auditions and stick to North American comedians -- as if Chicago, New York, L.A., Toronto don't have enough funny folks to populate a show? Or, if they're that determined those overseas comedians can fly themselves over.
• One hour show / consistent time slot (think "Survivor" in terms of show pacing with reward/immunity challenges at :15 and :40)
• No "double vote offs" - one comic versus one comic in a head to head "I think I'm funnier than" challenge.
• Finale call-in should be done when we're down to the final four. It should mean something to survive the arduous weeks prior.

Oh, one more thing to show how dumb this show can get... As the tryout section was wrapping up there was a series of "The Ten Best Moments of Last Comic Standing" scattered throughout. You would think that these should include all of the comics who managed to win previous years. Think again! Several of the winners were missing but, sure enough, that annoying bastard (and Season 1 winner) Dat Phan was there!

EW's New Look

Just got the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. Gotta say, I'm not a big fan at first blush. The mix and match of serif and sans-serif fonts reminds me of what I was doing back when I first got my hands on desktop publishing software. Likewise, wordcount seems down and leading appears up. It definitely feels like it's heading more into People territory. That's not a good thing.

Fighting the Good Fight

Film Drunk is saying everything I've been thinking about Disaster Movie. Check it out.

From the press notes: "Taking aim at everything and everyone, from 'Indiana Jones' and 'Iron Man' to Amy Winehouse and 'High School Musical,' DISASTER MOVIE lampoons the blockbuster movie, pop culture icons and public figures along the way as Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer satirize everything as only they can.

In other words: "The unimaginative and uninspired team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer employ their all-too-familiar pop culture mashup of "everything and the kitchen sink" meets "shooting fish in a barrel" crossed with "lowest common denominator" to create yet another abysmal, excruciating exercise in "entertainment" that will keep the severely mentally retarded happy for an hour.

I'm embarrassed for everyone involved with this film, their parents, their friends, their high school teachers, and anyone who might have passing knowledge of their existence. For the love of all that's holy, Seltzer and Friedberg must be stopped.

The Atheist Bookstore

I'm having trouble believing. I have been searching for information on these books and can't prove their existence other than through hearsay.

• The Ronin by Joan Mcleod - Allegedly the inspiration for Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai, the name of this book cropped up in recent documents about the film but no where else.
• Illusion of Freedom: The Films of Peter Watkins by James M. Welsh - This one seems much more legitimate as I can find a ISBN for it and even a release date. But every time I order it, it gets "delayed indefinitely." There allegedly is one available for almost $200 but that's a little rich for my blood.

Be Nice to Nic Cage (Again)

I caught the clip below over at Filmopia and now my head hurts.

Nic Cage stars in the remake of Bangkok Dangerous. The original is a blatant rip-off of John Woo's The Killer (which Woo admits is inspired by Le Samourai) with a "twist" that the main character isn't just a quiet assassin, he's mute (and deaf). That bit seems to have been thrown away for the American-backed remake to allow for Cage to emote via the only way he knows how--screaming, blathering, and generally carrying on like a crazy person.

Check out the clip to see the Pang Brothers (makers of the original) blatantly parrot the Dragon Boat scene from The Killer. Of course, they're "higher octane" by including a motorbike bit and a (n unintentionally) hilarious disarmament.

If you watched that full Woo clip, the part around the six minute mark is parroted in the opening of the "original" Bangkok Dangerous (as seen below).

Prove Me Wrong

I didn't grow up on comic books. Rather, they supplemented my steady diet of Encyclopedia Brown, Judy Blume, Michael Moorcock, et cetera. I remember reading a Fantastic Four sometime in the early '80s and didn't really get into comics until a few years later when I was in Junior High (also known as "Middle School").

Eventually I had to pull the plug on my comic habit. I was spending far too much money. When titles jumped up to $.75 each, it was over. When you're buying every X-men related and Spiderman related titles (plus other things), this added up fairly quickly to much more than my allowance and menial jobs could absorb.

It wasn't until the late '90s that I got back into comics -- though I flirted with "just Spiderman" in the early '90s. This time I swore to not buy single issues. I was just going to get collections/graphic novels. Rather than diving in and catching up with my old superhero friends, I went to my friend Mike Thompson and asked for his advice. What comics would blow my mind?

"Watchmen," he told me. "It's the Citizen Kane of comic books."

This clinched it for me. The way Orson Welles's Kane redefined what could be done in cinema was the perfect comparison to the way Alan Moore's Watchmen rewrote the rules of comic books.

Ever since then, I've been hooked. I still go back to Thompson for advice, especially when I find myself exhausting all of the works of Moore, Millar, Vaughn, et cetera.

Now it's nearly a decade later and Watchmen looms nine months away, destined to come to the silver screen in March '09. I'm terrified of and skeptical about this film.

Going back to Mike Thompson's comparison; Citizen Kane may have roots in the theater and radio but it's purely a creature of cinema. Moving it from one medium to another would irreparably change the storytelling and the message of the film. Can you imagine: Citizen Kane the weekly TV series! See that cranky old Mr. C.F. Kane chew out Jedediah Leland, the rascally reporter, week after week. This fall on the CW!

That said, no matter how cinematic Moore's work may be, the filmic adaptations of his work have left much wanting. It's like taking only the black and white from his works and plopping it on screen, leaving all of the color still on the pages of the original work (this metaphor doesn't work when speaking of From Hell since the comic was monochromatic).

I want to be impressed by the Watchmen movie. I want to be proven wrong. I want this to capture the spirit of Moore's work and not sully the original work. I'm just afraid that the Citizen Kane of comic books should always remain "just" a comic book.

Dollar Coins: Stating the Obvious

Andrea brought home a new dollar coin tonight. It commemorates our fifth U.S. president, James Madison. It also signifies the stupidity of the U.S. treasury.

Considered "The New Coke of Coinage," the Susan B. Anthony coin was a disastrous attempt at reinvigorating the dollar as metal rather than paper. It was significantly more portable than what it replaced, the Eisenhower dollar. The Eisenhower dollar had a diameter of 38.1 mm compared to the Susan B. Anthony's 26.5 mm. That's a rather huge difference of 12.4 mm. While 38.1 mm is too big, 26.5 mm is too small, when compared to a quarter. At 24.26 mm, there's only a 2.26 mm. In other words, not enough of a difference to feel when digging into your purse or pocket for a dollar and coming up with a quarter, or vice versa.

Between the Susan B. Anthony (disparagingly known as "The Carter Quarter"), the Sacajawea dollar, and now this Madison coin, the U.S. Mint seems insistent on sabotaging an American dollar coin. I'm not against dollars, per se, but dollar coins will never have a chance in the U.S. as long as they're the "same size" as quarters.

This is yet another time when we can learn from Canada. The difference between their quarter and their dollar coin (loonie) is significant. The loonie differs in color (bronze vs. silver), thickness (.17mm), and weight (1.27g). The numbers aren't drastic but the contrast is more than enough to avoid confusion and pass the "pocket test." C'mon, America, get with it!

Thank You, TSA!

The more I travel, the more I hate how fucked our airports have gotten. I'm waiting for the Pants Bomber to make those something else I need to take off and run through an X-ray machine (in a very particular way - only your pants can go in that bin, nothing in your pockets!). Perhaps, too, they'll outlaw anything over a 25" inseam, making it necessary to wear floods to the airport or suffer the pleasant staff cutting your pants down to size.

Do I sound bitter? If so, that's only because I didn't want to stand in a line on the way here to check my bag, resulting in my soap, toothpaste, and other sundries being confiscated for being over three fluid ounces. Of course, three fluid ounces are the exact right amount to prevent an attack. Four? You're fucked. Three? The world is a safer place.