Coming next fall on the CW

There are movies that you can really sit down with the guys, have a few beers and enjoy. Normally, you look at amovie with Vince Vaughn and think, "This is going to be one of those movies! Call the afore mentioned guys. Grab some so called "cold ones"!" Then you realize that this particular Vince Vaughn movie is The Break-Up, which, while it does have Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, this is not going to be Swingers Part Deux, You're So Money Again. That's okay though, you know that it's not going to be something great, you don't expect it to be. Hell, it's a DVD that your fucking bank sent you for using your debit card so much. They just sent it as a thank you. And you thought to yourself, "Well, it's got Vince Vaughn, how bad could it be. And besides, it's got that once chick from Friends, she's kinda hot..."

How bad could it be?

Bad.

Really bad.

Boring bad.

Not funny bad.

And that was it's biggest flaw, it was movie filled with jokes that didn't work. Clichés that were...well, old clichés. It was predictable from beginning to end. The only thing missing was the scene where they paint a line down the middle of the condo. This was an episode of a sitcom stretched out into a feature length movie.

Rather than two 30-something adults, this should have been about 2 late-teen kids. I mean, if this is how adults are supposed to resolve their disputes, than I'll be a toys-r-us kid forever!

Here's the deal, Brooke and Gary meet at a Cubs game. They date, fall in love and move into a condo together, time goes by. Brooke gets mad at Gary and breaks up with him. Want to know why she breaks up with him? To make him appreciate her more! How do you intend to bring someone closer by pushing them away? What kind of fucked up chick logic is that?? So, Brooke goes about trying to win him back by getting him kicked off the bowling team, having her brother sing to piss him off and then dating a couple other guys, all while arguing over who should keep the condo!

By any standards, this was just NOT a fun movie. I know that drunk old dreamrot isn't the target audience for this movie, but shit, who would be? That people actually paid to see this is amazing. You want to see a movie about a dispute over their living space? Watch 2ldk, now there was a movie that took the concept to new levels.

As for The Break-Up...I guess it was worth what I paid for it (since I got it for free), but only just.

Welcome back, to that same old place that you laughed about.

I guess the reality is that I just can't stay away. I wish I had the time to update this more regularly, but right now, I just don't. So, my Christmas gift to my 3 regular readers (not to mention my New Years Resolution) is to at least pop in and work my blogging magic infrequently. I think I can handle that.

So, tis the season for year in review type lists, right? Of course. Everyone loves them. So, I thought I'd do one myself. Now, I'm not going to do a Best of 06 for you (unless I change my mind), because, lets be honest, many many many bloggers will. And besides, when I think of the movies I watched this year, I realize that it would be a pretty short fucking list (and a list consisting of V for Vendetta and A Scanner Darkly isn't much of a list).

Instead, I thought, maybe I could make a list of the worst movies I saw this year. I'm not going to rank them though, because lets be honest, shit smells like shit, there's no two ways about it. What I will do though it select one movie from that list and award my brand new annual award, The Turd-y.

Without further ado, here are your nominees for Shittiest Movie of 2006:

Earth Vs The Spider: You were so awe inspiring that I changed the channel to watch an episode I'd seen 30 times.

Cyber Wars: If you'd been coherent, you really coulda been great. No, I'm kidding, you had way more problems than that.

X3: I didn't have the highest of hopes to start with, the initial reviews weren't very good. Everyone said it was pretty bad, and for one, a movie lived up to it's hype...

Pulse: The original was ok. I like Kristen Bell. Holy hell was this a waste of money though.

The Omen: I didn't like the original either.

UltraViolet: Regular violet wasn't enough, this was ULTRAviolet. Ultra Crap. (me-Did I REALLY just make a joke that bad? Holy shit, that joke was almost as bad as the movie!)

Zombie Honeymoon: Somehow managed to forget to put zombies in the fucking movie.

Izo: Wow...that's a sword...coming out of your vagina...

And the one that started it all, the first review I ever did for $7 Popcorn...King Kong: Bad but disqualified to to the fact that I actually saw it in 2005.

Those are your 9 nominees. And now, you winner is...

Who the hell sealed this envelope? Did you use packing tape? Holy christ man, what's wrong with you.

Ok, the winner of 2006's Turd-y for worst movie of the year goes to....UltraViolet!!!!!!!! With it's incoherent story, bad acting and terrible effects, it really just was the bits of corn in the turd that was 2006's movies.

You tell me.

I know that I've kind of been piling on Dead or Alive, which is admittedly, a little unfair. The movies not out, and I haven't seen anything beyond a few still and a trailer (a very bad trailer).

From the website:

"The story, a cross between Charlie's Angels and Enter The Dragon, revolves around four beautiful women who begin as rivals in a secret invitational-only martial arts contest, but find themselves teaming up with one another against a sinister force. Joining Tina, Christie, Kasumi and Helena at the lush jungle location are Zack, Bayman, and Leon.

Others come to the island for their own ulterior motives. Bass, a world-champion wrestler, arrives to convince his daughter Tina not to put her life in danger. Then there's Christie's former partner-in-crime Max, who masquerades as a Brazilian kick-boxer but has his eye is on an even bigger prize than the $10 million purse.

On the other hand, Princess Kasumi is surrounded by her own entourage of characters: her bodyguard and friend Hayabusa, her half-sister and would-be assassin Ayane, and her brother Hayate, who disappeared during the previous Dead or Alive tournament.

Who will win the Dead or Alive tournament? Will Princess Kasumi survive long enough to find out whether her brother Hayate is still alive? How will Helena's learning the truth of the unseemly death of her father, the founder of the Dead or Alive tournament, affect her loyalties? Can the former allies-turned-sworn- enemies Christie and Max reunite to pull off the biggest heist of their careers? And exactly what does Donovan have up his sleeves?

Intrigue and mystery, beauty and brawn, exotic scenery and extraordinary sets - this plus awesome state-of-the-art martial arts and wire fighting - all await in Dead Or Alive !"

And, now some pictures...


I guess they're fighting on a boat. Jamie Pressley's boobs look weird though...actually, everything about her looks weird in this picture.


A pillowfight gone wrong? Or are they fighting with poultry?


Well, shit, I'm glad they included the Extreme Beach Volleyball part of the video game series.

Look, all I'm saying is that the only thing that could make this less appealing is if it was directed by Uwe Boll.

How bad is this movie going to be?
	It's going to be bad.
	It's going to make Snakes on a Plane look good.
	I't going to be so bad it makes Showgirls look like like an ocsar nominee
	It's going to be so bad you'll wish you were watching a Gigli/Glitter double feature
	It's go to be so bad that it makes it becomes the shortest ever entry in Quick Reviews of Bad Movies

We're not supid, are we?

I never thought I would agree with Ron Howard on something. Not because I tend to disagree with him, but because I've never heard or cared about how he felt. Sorry, Opie, it's nothing personal. It's just that, you've always been a million miles away, and you've never taken the time to ask how I felt, so fair is fair.

The Da Vinci Code will not have a disclaimer stating that it is a work of fiction. In related news, water will not have a disclaimer stating that it is wet.

Apparently, some in the catholic church have so much faith in the movie going public that they feel we won't be able to tell that Forest Gump is not really a Harvard Scholar.

It's a movie, I think we all know that it's not factual. It's a story. It's made up. Just like Jesus. Maybe.

Ok, lets look at it this way, it's no more true than Dogma and no one put a disclaimer on...wait, there was a disclaimer on that. A movie with a POOP MONSTER needed a disclaimer.

Maybe there's some truth to it all. Maybe ALL movies should have a dislaimer...

Ultraviolet could have used one:

WARNING - This movie is a complete waste of time. Go ask for a refund now. It's PG-13, so there aren't even any boobs or blood to save it. How do you make a bloodless vampire movie anyways?

Or King Kong:

Warning! - Sure Naomi Watts is hot as hell, but she might as well make out with the giant monkey

Or Star Wars: Attack of the Clones:

DUDE! - If you pause the movie at XX:YY:ZZ when Padme and Annakin are in the ship, about to leave Tatooine to go to Geonosis, you can totally kind of see Natalie Portman's nipples.

Well, you have to keep your target audiance in mind.

It's ridiculous though to have to tell a movie audience that they're about to sit down and watch a piece of fiction. It's a given. We understand that. Movies have been around long enough now. And I would think that a movie like The Passion of the Christ should have been more in need of outrage and disclaimers.

Warning! - This is the story of Jesus as told by the crazy cop from the Lethal Weapon movies. He played Mad Max for fuck's sake! And now, what? He's a religous scholar? RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIGGHHHHHHHTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Movies are movies. They're entertainment. They are not now, or ever a replacement for genuine learning tools like the internet. Because everything on the internet is true.

Vampirephages...blah

Sometimes, a movie just looks so cool. And you anticipate it's release. You look forward to it even though in the pack of your mind you know it can't possibly live up to your expectations.

And then, you finally see the movie. And it's bad. Worse than you'd heard. Worse than you could have reasonably expected. It's so bad that you start thinking about all of the things you could be doing, things that would be more enjoyable. Like cleaning the toilet, or shopping for underwear with your grandmother. Just anything to end the pain of watching the movie.

Ultraviolet was such a movie.

Ultraviolet is a timeless tale of vampires (or hemophages... though, I prefer hemopire, vampirephages) against the political/religious/medical establishment. Violet spends the movie pulling weapons out of nowhere, fighting against...everyone...to protect a child she found floating inside a briefcase. She then takes the boy (named 6) to Garth. Garth is a weapons expert, I guess, I'm not sure. He does research. They say it's really important.

And that's one of the problems. They don't take the extra couple of seconds to explain anything. They use some sort of dimensional technology to hide weapons or rooms...but never say much about it. The movie comes in at 88 minutes. They could have explained a few things better and still come in under 100 minutes.

Of course, since it was PG-13, there was almost no blood. Which for a vampire movie (even the bad ones) is odd. They cut people with swords, and they don't bleed.

And why do the military guards wear armor made out of ice, or glass? And why do the swords catch on fire at the end?

It's like Kurt Wimmer thought of just a bunch of shit that he thought would look cool in a movie and decided to put it all in a movie.

So, congratulations Ultraviolet, you were worse than King Kong.

It's been a while...poor neglected Milla

Sure, M:I 3 and Cars and V for Vendetta all got commericals during last Sunday's Super Bowl, but where was the commercial for UltraViolet???

Originally scheduled for a Feb 24th release, it's now been pushed back a week till March 3rd.

The real question is...when can we expect to see a little advertising for it?

At least it's coming out somewhat soon.

See, I have this problem. I need to have something to look forward to. And, since I've seen Underworld: Evolution now, I need something new. So, I'll look ahead to UltraViolet.

That being said, here's your Milla fix for today.


Enjoy.

Mmm...Milla...

UGO has a trailer up for the new Milla Jovovich movie Ultraviolet. Essentially a Underworld/Resident Evil looking hybrid, Ultraviolet is about a group of humans with a vampire like disease on the verge of civil war with the healthy humans. Jovovich's character finds herself responsible for the life of a 9 year old boy marked as a threat by the government.

Luckily for me, I liked Underworld and Resident Evil and have been a fan of Milla since The 5th Element. In other words, I will probably end up seeing this.

Watch the trailer

Quentin Tarantino Presents: Sequel.

After the opening weekend success of Hostel, a sequel has already recieved the green light. No plot or cast has been announced.

The plan is to have Eli Roth resume his roll as director and get the movie made and released by this time next year.

Also still up in the air is whether Tarantino will slap his name on the sequel as well...

Saves me the trouble of seeing it

After seeing the cinimatic diarrhea that was House of the Dead, I haven't watched any Uwe Boll movies. So, I never really intended to see BloodRayne anyways. Luckily, gaming blog Kotaku is saving me the trouble.

Had it been bad, I probably would have enjoyed some elements of it. I would have, perhaps, found it campy or silly or just worthy of ridicule, but what I saw last night was really just, just mediocre.

For the rest of the review, head on over to Kotaku.

You know what Pete, someone should rub your nose in it.

I went and saw King Kong a couple weeks ago. I should have written about it then, but $7 Popcorn didn't exist yet.

So, King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson who of course directed 3 of my favorite movies...The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In LotR, what stands out is how great the effects were. How seamlessly they worked themselves into the movie and how REAL all of the fantastical creatures looked. Saddly, this could not be recreated for King Kong. Sitting in the theatre, there were just too many times when a bad visual effect took me right out of the movie. All of a sudden I just was sitting there thinking about Jurassic Park and he good all of the dinosaurs looked and comparing the two movies and noticing how much better a 13 year old movie looked. Too often you noticed a computer effect and it looked cheezy.

Now, this isn't of itself enough to indict a movie. There have been some great movies with horrible effects. And that only shows the importance of story, acting and directing. In King Kong, the acting was pretty good. Jack Black was fine. Naomi Watts was good when she wasn't around the monkey. Adrien Brody was...fine. There were no real bad acting jobs. The acting was good. The story was not. And perhaps that is just a flaw going back to the 1933 original. I can accept that. But then there was the directing. Which left me with two questions:

How in the world do you make a pretentious monster movie?

Did the studio make you cut the make out scene between Naomi Watts and the giant monkey?

You can wrestle with that first one yourself, the second question though...come on! I haven't laughed at such a bad love story since Attack of the Clones. At least Watts and the Monkey had some chemistry together!

In the end, all I can say is that King Kong was almost worth what I paid to see it. The problem is, I saw it for free.

Because you have to start someplace

Who the hell declared Quentin Tarantino the god of modern cinema? Seriously, what's so great about him that his name needs to be plastered on every movie coming out in the past few years regardless of his having ANYTHING to do with it. Chunking Express is the first movie I can remember this problem with. Right after Pulp Fiction, and in fact it was a trailer on the Pulp Fiction VHS, Tarantino wanted to "introduce" the world to this movie. He continued by "presenting" Hero, a movie that had been released in China a year prior to being released in the States. So, QT slapped his dumb name on it and it got released here.

Have you seen the movie Oldboy? It recieved the Tarantino Seal of Approval...even though it's NOTHING like a Tarantino movie (it's MUCH better) it's assumed that because Tarantino is an "edgy" director that fans of his work would LIKE this movie I suppose?

He's an Executive Producer on Hostel...you know what? That makes me want to AVOID the movie. Christ, I liked Resevoir Dogs. I liked Pulp Fiction. I mostly kind of liked Kill Bill (sorry, but the script was unnatural and the acting was stiff. it's saving grace was Go-Go Yubari played by Chiaki Kuriyama).

There's a fine line between payng tribute and ripping off. And for a guy who has thus far made only 4 fucking movies, I'm just thinking that he's maybe getting a bit too goddamn full of himself.