Ow.

No matter how many of these female empowerment movies I see, they all seem to blur together.

Nevertheless, my memory is fresh enough to realize that The Women hits all the marks. There's a group of 5-6 women. One keeps pumping out babies. One is a tightass and works at a major corporation. A few other ladies tossed in for atmosphere. The central character, Woman A (Meg Ryan, whose upper lip no longer moves) is a homemaker who discovers that her husband's been cheating. Their preteen daughter is a pointlessly-rebellious little drip who scorns Woman A and clings to one of the other women, wishing they were her mother instead.

In a way, chick movies are the spiritual successor to those depression-era movies about rich, white, loony protestants and their hijinks.

During the opening credits crawl, you'd be forgiven for thinking this movie is one giant commercials for Saks Fifth Avenue. In response to a little girl's proclamation of "I hate this store!!", Annette Bening whirls around and responds with an icy glare,

"Nobody....hates....SAKS."

The inflection on "Saks" makes it sound like "Sex", which was probably intentional. You can almost hear the character getting wet over the mere mention of the name. I'll be nice and chalk this up to a harmless attempt at emulating movies such as Bride Wars and Confessions of a Shopaholic. The Women is not as morally bankrupt as, say, the Sex & The City movie. The reason is that it's based on an old 1939 MGM film, though I haven't had the pleasure (?) of seeing it. Their structures are apparently identical: A lineup of scary powerhouse actresses — Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russel back in the day — match wits with an evil slut, with the primary setting being a perfume store.

I don't what's so diseased and pedestrian about me that I actually like Eva Mendez. She was pretty much the sole redeeming aspect of Ghost Rider, and has the advantage of looking ridiculously perfect while still being able to act. She's the one playing the Joan Crawford man-eater, stealing away Woman A's husband for the express purpose of draining his credit cards. Woman A takes it pretty well. Actually, it's difficult to gauge her reaction since Meg Ryan is physically unable to frown now.

Best book cover EVER

Speaking of homages, remember the cameo by a matronly actress who consoles Woman A and acts as an estrogen-powered rudder? This movie has THREE. You read it right: You got Candice Bergen, playing the Learned In The Ways Of The Horny Husband mother of Woman A; Carrie Fisher, playing the Satan-esque Rumor-monger who seeks to exploit the situation; and finally Bette Midler, the New Age Feminist Guru who counsels Woman A to "Live the dream". Rounding out the cast is Jada Pinkett Smith as Token Black Friend. She's a lesbian, just to mix things up. If you forget, she'll remind you in every line of her dialogue.

I actually sympathize with this movie, despite my snark. Bette Midler's message, for one thing, isn't all bullshit. Maybe life would be easier if we just said "Don't give a shit about anybody" and looked out for number one. Oh wait. We tried that; it didn't work out so hot. But I'll give Midler this: She sells it. Another issue (not really discussed but subtly alluded to) is whether or not infidelity is really worth a costly, emotionally-harrowing divorce. All because the husband craves a younger twat? Meg Ryan has an interesting scene where she bemoans having to sleep with the same balding man for over 13 years. Maybe it won't be long before Americans finally wake up and get it though their heads that monogamy isn't always an absolute, perfect mean. We could learn a thing or two from, say, the French.

But what do I know. I'm dateless and live with my parents.

Where was I? So, Woman A goes to live at an ashram or something and comes home with a newfound desire to realize her dreams. She will open her own multi-million dollar business — I've already forgotten what Woman A's field is; at any rate, it's not really made clear — and win the respect of her ungrateful twit of a daughter in the process. Seriously, it's hard enough for Hollywood to produce a chick flick with believable, empathetic woman. Do they really need to include a cardboard cut-out of a prepubescent girl who hates everyone and talks openly about sex? (Kids, today!) Like most moms, Woman A leaves her diaphragm lying around her daughter to find. Or maybe it was a vibrator. Like I said, these movies kind of blur together. But boy howdy, does hilarity ensue!

Woman A's daughter stops talking to her after she leaves the philandering father, and starts cuddling up to the hard-nosed corporate friend. This is perfectly understandable, given that Woman A regularly hosts garden parties on an estate bigger than Buckingham Palace. Who wouldn't feel suffocated?

EYEROLL.

Well....the acting isn't terrible. How could it be, with all the veteran actresses running around? Annette Bening is old enough to be the Learned Penis-hating Guru, of course, but this movie is too full of them anyway. And besides, American Beauty showed everybody that if you want a dysfunctional, materialistic corporate whore in your movie, you call Annette Bening. Interestingly, the filandering husband of Woman A is never shown on-screen, effectively making this an all-ovary production. Points for truth in advertising!

I miss the 90's.

In fact, there are so many ladies in this movie, the viewer is barraged by faces they haven't seen in ages. Debi Mazar? Holy shit! I haven't seen her since she played Two-Face's poontang in Batman Forever.

The song lyrics that play at Meg Ryan's fashion show at the end are: (courtesy Annie Lennox)

Now, Hear this
Pay attention to me
'cause I'm a rich white girl and it's plain to see
I got every kind of thing that the money can buy
Let me tell you all about it
Let me amplify
I got DIAMONDS (chorus: Diamonds!)

This is truly an up-front chick movie.

Would I see it on cable?

Not a chance.

Ew.

Let's talk about Meg Ryan's stuck-up daughter. This joke has been played out. How many movies do we need where the protagonist does a spit-take when their underage daughter says "sex" or "penis"? Surely, there are prepubescents all over this country who know everything there is to know about the mechanics of sexual intercourse, but that doesn't mean I want to hear them flaunting that knowledge. This isn't a Larry Clark film!

Boo, hiss.

Verdict: 3 Missys

Timothy Dalton is cooler than you

This is what I get for interrupting my vacation to look for a job.

Under strong pressure from third parties (i.e. mom), I answered 2 ads in the Daily News. Both were anonymous and listed as "Assistant; F/P" (Full or Part-Tine), "No exp. required; will train". After much phone juggling to prevent schedule conflicts, I ended up screwing myself by making both appointments for the same day. So, I suited up in my jacket and tie and stomped out into the muggy sunlight to find out what "Assistant" means.

Real estate agent, evidently.

The first site, located in Queens, is a real estate office specializing in offloading cheap Florida property on unsuspecting dolts. As I sat in a pleasant woman's office, getting briefed on the 4 late-night seminars on Florida real estate I would have to attend, I do believe my face was mask-like as I tried to conceal my horror. The second job opening, located in Canarsie, turned out to also be a realtor...actually, the same one. Apparently, my interviewer wasn't exaggerating about her company being very large. I shared my concerns over the duplicitous nature of the newspaper ads with mom; she shrugged it off and began recalling stories of family members and college roomates going into real estate and getting rich.

In many ways, my mother is surprisingly innocent. Since I almost never inquire about her past (I confess to low interest), I soon learned that she had once worked for Mary Kay Cosmetics. This revelation came after I reminded her of the disastrous affair with Excell, which is some "nobody" phone service which hired gophers to go out and sign people up with them.

Call it egotism if you want (I do), but I take this as another addition to the already mountain-sized pile of evidence that, although I myself am quite dense, my immediate family far outstrips me in gullibility. For her part, mom has been glued to the Jackson-related entertainment news, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't entirely dominated by attention-hogging members of the Jackson family and their increasingly-ludicrous claims of "foul play" and a "conspiracy". Anyone can tell most of these clowns will say anything to keep the camera on themselves. Mom buys every line unquestioningly, of course.

So, Timothy Dalton is the shit! I've stopped complaining about Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp and their ubiquitous presence in movies. Don't get me wrong, I still can't stand the sight of those androgynous fuckers, but at least they aren't a fat, hairy Seth Rogan or screechy Shia LeBeouf. To each his own, but I'm getting tired of male screenwriters pretending to understand female dialogue while seeing to it for unappealing, scraggly dorks to score with Katherine Heigl and Megan Fox. We have a serious Bruce Willis and Jason Statham shortage. What happened to living vicariously through a 7 ft tower of stubbled muscle and rage? Why do you have to live vicariously though someone as sad as you?

When I was a kid, mom made me sit through multiple viewings of the 1983 Jane Eyre British television serial. I need to be specific about dates, because this film gets remade a whole fucking hell of a lot. Though not as bad as, say, a Merchant Ivory movie, it was still pretty torturous. Particularly the traumatizing laughter of Mr. Rochester's psychopathic wife and the scene where she sets his house (and Mr. Rochester, by proxy) on fire. The remainder of the (2 cassette-long!) movie is a bland ordeal of washed-out colors and an intentionally plain-looking protagonist, the titular Jane (modeled off the book's own author, Charlotte Bronte).


I should backpedal for a sec. The story is about Jane and her trials in Victorian England; apparently, her innate intelligence and poverty-stricken background make her a giant target for those wealthy Dickensian-style villains who usually hang out in English films, openly scorning the heroine while wiping their own asses with money. The book is positively pregnant with these sociopaths, including a Bible-thumping schoolmaster who cheaply allows half of his student body to die of TB rather than fix the heater. Eventually, the adult Jane moves into the house of Mr. Rochester (Timothy Dalton), a beastly egomaniac who gets all the best lines of dialogue, being blissfully comfortable with his own arrogance. Over time, Mr. Rochester comes to admire Jane's sheer backbone, and they hook up.

...Whatever.

I recently saw this movie again. No one could be faulted for assuming that Jane Austin wrote it. It's a slow-moving, guarded romance which focuses way too much on its beleaguered heroine, leaving us to wonder when Dalton's going to show up again to put the fear of God into everyone.

Dalton is obviously most remembered for his unfortunate turn as James Bond in two 80s movies, The Living Daylights and License to Kill. Admittedly, I have never been able to finish the former. LTK is a tiresome experience, made tolerable only by the presence of Robert Davi as the coke lord who killed Felix Leiter. Benicio del Toro is in there somewhere, too (The guy who says "...honeymooooooooon!").

The movies did not do, shall we say, "well". Though more faithful to Ian Flemming's books than Robert Moore's dismal outings, audiences had become more comfortable with the idea of Bond as an over-the-top walking phallus with a suitcase-sized helicopter. To quote one internet critic, all Moore had to do in the 70s was "cast an eye across a heaving boob and it was between his teeth inside a minute." Even so, he turned down the advances of a horny underage skier in For Your Eyes Only, citing the fact that he is (gasp!) too old for her. This was probably a warning that Moore was getting too long in the tooth for the part, but...

I'm getting off track. The concensus is that Dalton's Bond was ahead of his time; anyone who's seen Casino Royale or even the Bourne movies (themselves a revival of Cold War spy thrillers and caper films) can attest to this. The Miami Vice comparisons to LTK are unfair. After all, Moore was driving that hideous Lotus sports car in at least three movies, and Never Say Never Again (Connery's final "unofficial" outing as Bond) smacked heavily of the tv show, right down to the tropical montage and strains of the theme song at the beginning. Connery even dresses like Don Johnson at one point.

The scene in FYEO where a bunch of crooks smash the window of Bond's parked Lotus (marked by a "Burglar-protection" sticker) and spontaneously get blown up is the only time I've ever laughed at a Roger Moore movie.

Dalton was duly pilloried; passed on Goldeneye; vanished into obscurity. Then, in a corrupt moment, someone tossed the script for Beautician and the Beast on his desk. Now, I'm still an unapologetic fan of The Nanny. But that doesn't mean I (or anyone else) wants to sit through a live-action replica of the show with Joseph Stalin standing in for the rich English dad. I have seen the film, and though it starts out promising enough, Fran Drescher's self-deprecating shtick makes way for a bizarre scenario where every man starts finding her desirable and throws themselves at her feet, including one of the pubescent boys in her schoolroom (who happens to be Timothy Dalton's on-screen son, natch). It's pretty much a proto-Princess Diaries — meaning you should watch that instead.

In a circular bit of Bond-related casting (as if anyone cares), the most recent Jane Eyre miniseries starred Toby Stevens as Rochester. Stevens starred in Die Another Day as diamond-themed supervillain Gustav Graves, and was very good, I might add. He's certainly the only bright spot in an otherwise intolerable CG-porn shitfest.

You stay classy!

I read that Dalton is going to guest-star on Doctor Who soon! Even better, it's going to be the final episode featuring David Tennant. Considering how piss-poor the past couple of "standalone" 2-hour episodes have been, this can only be a boon. (The producers could have easily filmed a proper season in the same span of time.) I'm excited.

Other crap I've seen:

Charade (1963)

If you were to see this, you would swear on your life that it's Hitchcock, but I promise you it is not. Holly Golightly hooks up with Cary Grant after her rich prick of a husband gets tossed out of a moving train, dead. In the ensuing investigation, Audrey discovers her husband was living a double — actually, quintuple (?) — life and was carrying a half dozen IDs, all with false names.

This caper leads into a plot involving a bunch of shadowy war vets who are after some hidden gold, which translates to bad news for Audrey. But fear not!, the always-affable Cary Grant is on hand to help. But can this random samaritan be trusted? Is he who he says he is? Will we finally see Cary Grant play a proper villain after his disappointing turn in Suspicion, which was hacked to pieces by a film studio desperate to preserve his image?

Obviously, the answer is no, but Grant's identity is more or less put on the back burner since Audrey sees through his scam right away, forcing him to come up with a series of progressively lamer ones. The banter regarding his half-assed aliases is played as sexual tension, which surprisingly works. It's a nutball thriller, after all. Grant and Hepburn have great chemistry. Walther Mathau is in there, phoning in it as usual (he's dreadful at anything besides comedy).

Would I see it on cable?

Cary Grant is old. But he's still Cary Fucking Grant, so who gives a shit? If you want to see a mismatched pairing of age-opposite actors, go see James Stewart and Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle. Urrrrghghgh. (shudder)

Verdict: 5 dOOds!

June 2009: Another Low Point For Humanity

So, Michael Jackson is gone.

It's probably just me, but it strikes me as poignant that he passed away at age 50; In the deleted ending of Terminator 2, Michael Jackson gets a mention during Linda Hamilton's epilogue describing the new future of peace. "Michael Jackson turned forty." It's a pretty cheesy line and so stuck in my head all these years for some reason, particularly as time wore on and Michael Jackson didn't so much age as regress into a store-mannequin mask that no longer resembled anyone human.

Sure, when Micheal Jackson was on the TV I danced it front of it as a kid. Who didn't? He was pretty much God back in the 80s and there was no one on the planet he didn't touch. ...I'm only now realizing that's a pun.

But hey, nobody remembers Jerry Lee Lewis' marriage to a minor. Christ, I barely remember Jerry Lee Lewis. So maybe there's hope.

What a month. According to the news, we in Brookyn have only enjoyed 5 days without rainfall. David Carradine string himself up by his balls in a closet, Farrah Fawcett finally loses her 3-year siege, and Transformers 2 is a record-breaking success.

So, what do I feel now that he's gone? Nothing....beyond a certain glumness. My mood isn't alleviated by the retrospectives on NBC and ABC following the King of Pop's demise. Not surprisingly, the coverage starts out warm and fuzzy, recalling the Afro-sporting Michael of Jackson 5 fame. But eventually I start to notice that the program is rocketing through his successes like Off the Wall and Thriller as fast as they can, and...you can guess the rest. More than half of the retrospectives are focusing on the child molestation charges.

When a figure as scandal-ridden as Michael Jackson is given a "This is Your Life"-style treatment, it tends to condense a few things and make them clearer. At the time, I remember resenting him for (indirectly) feeding the news channels, ever-hungry for a new O.J. Simpson, tabloid material to assault my brain with.

However, it's interest to note that the past becomes much clearer once reduced to 10-minute sound bites. Yes, I know it's a non sequitor but I'm going to take a leap of faith here and hold on to this theory for a moment. Imagine seeing clips of Michael Jackson through the years, each time looking a bit more pale and alien and granting interviews to increasingly-crass reporters, showing genuine disdain for questions such as "Don't you really have only yourself to blame?" "Could it be this is all a result of your eccentric image?"

On a side note, you can spot the exact point when Jackson should have stopped with the plastic surgery. By then his skin is already pale as death, and his smile is too creepy for words. But in repose, the face isn't, visually, too bad. In the intervening years, his nose continues to get narrower and narrower.

Anyway, "our ever-sadistic media", as Gore Vidal referred them, loves to capture celebrities weeping on camera as they are on death's door. But above that, news reporters can't resist re-posting their old interviews and broadcasts regarding Jackson's child molestation trial. On a surreal note, Martin Bashir was at the helm of ABC's retrospective on Jackson, an unsavory choice given that he was the host of the infamous "Living With Michael Jackson" special who preyed upon Jackson's arrested development and tricked him into looking especially loony. For his efforts, he was awarded an anchor position on 20/20, where he currently resides. Among the other talking heads yesterday evening were Jackson's unofficial "biographer", who (again) pointed blame at his subject for refusing to dial down his weird behavior in the press.

Once again, we are shown footage of Jackson on top of the car outside the courthouse, waving to his fans. Amazingly, the anchor's voice solemnly reminds us this is yet another "bizarre" moment in Jackson's behavior. In retrospect, he's just waving to his fans, some of whom hold up signs reading "Don't give up, Michael!" or something along those lines; many feared he would commit suicide. He's trying to reassure them. What's the big fucking deal?

Last night, Facebook was split between the mourners (of which there were quite few), and hecklers who traded child molester jokes. There is a curious tendency in the American psyche to reject so-called majority opinion. If the mob is telling us to mourn, we mock instead. Surely, a lot of us are getting sick of tabloid journalism and it's occupation with celebrity trials and the sex lives of shriveled-up politicians. Did you know the the princess of Norway was FDR's mistress? No? Well, it's turns out everyone in D.C. knew, but the public did not, because the news didn't report that kind of thing. Private lives were kept private. Now private lives are all we are allowed to know about.

The rant style still clings to my keyboard. And now for something completely different...

Thriller is overrated. There, I said it. I rank my personal favorites with "Billie Jean" at the top, and (probably) "Bad" as a close second. Here's a myriad of other ways Michael Jackson changed my life:

I used to practice the spin move in front of the TV, inspiring mom to buy me tap shoes and enroll me in an all-girl ballet class. I rebelled. The shoes were non-refundable.

Once, I stupidly rented the Genesis version of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, left it on for hours while my mom dragged me to a Cub Scout meeting, and came home only to meet Game Over on the cave level.

I made a grand total of three pilgrimages to the Pepsi bottling plant just outside of Charlottesville, VA, courtesy of unimaginative grade school teachers who dragged us all there in a bus. Each time, the same PR guy in a tie would show us a series of Pepsi commercials starring Michael Jackson from the 80s. Then we'd all play "Wheel of Pepsi", a ridiculously unfair lottery involving a miniature wheel and Pepsi memorabilia as prizes.

Games that ought to be standard on home PCs

Right next to those sterile "Games" tabs labeled Solitaire, Mindsweeper, and that dumbfuck Freecell game nobody can figure out how to play, I propose these additions for the next Windows update (or Mac OS if you want to be gay about it):

PILOTWINGS

The first enjoyable console flight simulator (see: AVGN's ongoing rage at Top Gun and attempts to refuel or land without spectacularly dying) and arguably the best-utilized Mode 7 graphics, if one puts aside their blind Super Mario World nostalgia — admittedly, not a simple thing to do. Pilotwings deserves commendation, however, for its relative simplicity in light of how easy it is to become absorbed in the varied 'flat' environments.

You are a dumbfuck rookie who joins a Flying club, a 4-tier crash course in flying, parachuting, hangliding and...erm, jetpacks. Each level is presided over by one of four instructors, beginning with the affable Tony and ending with the fat, monosyllabic Big Al who lazily observes each and every grisly, gasoline-soaked death and remarks, "SPLAT!" The music score is suitably mellow and isn't exactly memorable, but even so I like it. The best part? Pilotwings isn't grounded in reality, which elevates the material from bland flight simulator to a relaxing exercise in precision.

There's only four maps, but the game manages to milk them a little longer through palette swaps, switching the desert locale to a snow-covered base and revisiting the octagonal island during nightfall. The air bases get progressively more complicated as the game ups the ante, forcing you to contend with headwinds and giant bodies of water. And seriously, whoever was put in charge of the coding for the hanglider missions can go suck off a baboon, because you'll circle ten times around the landing pad and still crash in the ocean. Having said that, Pilotwings really isn't any harder (or easier) with a WASD setup. Seeing as this is an early SNES game, the biplane can only rotate in few cardinal directions, meaning it just takes a few button taps to find the right angle.

Pfft. Typical D.C. pencil-pushers, getting in the way. Good thing we brought an amateur pilot who can kill whoever he wants without any bureaucratic crap! Why? Because he gets results!

Yeah, it's underdeveloped. But that's why Pilotwings is so charming. No bells, no whistles, just an endless series of crashes and failed parachute deployments until you finally, finally nail that bullseye and earn enough high grades to pass the test. In fact, the game would be perfect if not for those MOTHERFUCKING Helicopter missions. Twice during the game, agents from the E.V.I.L terrorist syndicate (you read it right) kidnap your instructors, leaving you to pilot a chopper and rescue them. It isn't a matter of flying the helicopter; the thing basically pilots itself. It's the anti-aircraft guns. Oh yes, you will get intimately acquainted with these flashing red nipples of death as they hone in on your chopper, regardless of altitude, and kill you with one hit. The second mission is identical to the last one, except it's a night mission and there are more guns.

I see where they were going with this. It's the premise of virtually every airplane porn movie every made: Maverick rookie gets called in to perform a high-risk solo mission. But chopper missions don't utilize the skills you've developed during game — you're just tossed into a random vehicle, given a strict time limit to reach the goal (marked as "Fuel"), and told, "Figure it out, fagmo!"

SPELUNKY

PROTIP: Don't pick that up.

OK, before you play, gets accustomed to hideously dying. A LOT. The objective of Spelunky is not to survive, which is borderline impossible, but to amass an assload of gold before the inevitable trap, boulder or arrow snuffs out your miserable life. Technically, it is possible to win the game, complete with a nifty ending sequence, but that's not really the point of Spelunky. It's the mother of all endurance tests.

The kiddie graphics may lull you into thinking this is a highly-marketable game, but there's a delicious amount of over-the-top gore. Our hero (the Spelunker) explodes into cute spheres of blood when killed. Caves are littered with politically-incorrect, shrill "Damsels" who restore your life if you manage to get them to the exit; short of that, Damsels are useless as they routinely run blindly into lethal danger if you leave them alone for more than two seconds. These women can endure a couple hits, too, meaning the game is subtly telling you to use them as flesh shields.

Kindly-looking, bearded "Shopkeepers" have inexplicably-placed stores throughout the game, offering items in exchange for gold. Piss them off, however ("Vandalize" their store by breaking something, or rip off an item without paying), and OUT COMES THE BOOMSTICK. In a flash, the Shopkeeper brandishes a double-barrel shotgun and blows you to shit. Game over (You can obtain your own gun by bombing gravestones marked "Ash", after the iconic Bruce Campbell asskicker). This also occurs if you stumble upon a lurid "Kissing Booth", where the Shopkeeper keeps a Damsel handy in order to restore your hearts for a price. Accidentally hit the Damsel, and the Shopkeeper bellows, "Hey! Only I'm allowed to do that!" and kills you. Yes, Jack Thompson, it's possible to kill hookers in this game.


Really, it's a simple enough game. The complexity arises from trying not to get killed. The Spelunker begins with 4 Hearts, but there's numerous ways to get killed instantly (boulders, spikes, bombs, bottomless pits). Spelunky is a "rougelike", meaning a randomly-generated game like the 1980 dungeon crawler Rogue, or its spiritual descendant Nethack. There is absolutely no way to memorize patterns or cheat the system; no playthrough is the same as the one before. Games like Nethack popularized the ackronym YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death), due to most Game Overs being the result of your own carelessness. I'd aproximate that 80% of my deaths in Spelunky were my own damn fault; needless to say, it really twists the knife.


There's plenty of challenges for those who feel like risking the whole game for added wealth. Spelunky is packed with Golden Idols, Crystal Skulls and other such treasures which automatically trigger traps, most of which poke fun at the temple-raider genre ("I hear snakes...I hate snakes!"). Since each level is random, there's a chance that you might end up in a pitch-dark cave section, meaning you have to light a Flare ("F" key) to save your own ass. You only get 3 flares; after that, good luck stumbling around in the dark trying to find the exit. Oh, and forget about all that gamer's intuition which tells you treasure chests are your friend; more often than not, a planted bomb will bring your tomb-defiling days to a sudden close. Probably the best Indiana Jones gag is the placement of Kali statues in random levels. Place a dead carcass on the altar, and you automatically perform a ritual sacrifice which results in an item. Accidentally damage the altar on the other hand, and Kali inflicts increasingly-worse punishments on you, including unleashing a horde of bats or forcing you to drag around a ball and chain.

It's violent. It's cruel. It's Spelunky.

CASINO KID 2

You know what Windows' card games are missing? Snarky CPU opponents who mock your every move.

Casino Kid 2 to puts you in the shoes of the titular Casino Kid, an anime-drawn punk in a white tuxedo who battles rival gamblers across the globe, all leading up to a duel against the Casino King (evidently the same prick you defeated in the last game, only he looked like a purple Klansman in that one). Yes, it's another one of those tedious 'World Tour'-type sequels, meaning your opponents consists of laughable stereotypes from every foreign nation, including (I shit you not) a Chun-Li clone under the mangled name "Rie Lenka". For those not in the know, the original Casino Kid was more akin to the SNES title Vegas Dreams, with your character wandering around a Kawaii-looking casino to challenge various cutesy gamblers. This time, you can take out the various gamblers in any order; however, to meet the King, you have to beat the lesser ones first. Yep, the map select screen is strikingly similar to Street Fighter II.

What? Fuck you!!

This is not strictly a casino game as you might understand it. You've got your basic game lineup — Blackjack, Roulette, and Poker; but your opponents drop cryptic hints on how to win. For instance, say you're up against the monocle-wearing English asshole, Paul Kieton, in a game of roulette. Kieton will pointlessly remark, "I don't like black cars.", meaning there's a high likelyhood that the ball will land on black. It's essentially Punch-Out! with playing cards; your enemies like to telegraph the outcome of the next hand with clues, just as Punch-Out!'s boxers telegraph their attacks with stupid animations. Naturally, if your opponent gives you an obvious tip, chances are you should disregard it ("Alright!!" during a Poker hand means he's bluffing; his hand is actually crap).

Last Chance Harvey - Reviews in Ten Sentences Or Less!

Last Chance Harvey

A low-key melodrama about a bumbling, unsuccessful dork (Dustin Hoffman) who, following an epic failure of an overseas family reunion, makes the acquaintance of a fidgety Londoner named Kate (Emma Thompson) and proceeds to cling to her like bacteria. The parallels to another film, directed by the blood-curdling executioner of Godfather III, are unavoidable; fortunately, our protagonists benefit from being livelier than Murray and Johanssen (sorry, Bill), and the story is less cryptic as well. The script is peppered with subtle hints as to the characters' motivations which become clearer upon a second viewing, which helps lay out at least a basic case for why this classy woman is tolerating a diminutive geezer who follows her everywhere.

There. I just saved you 102 minutes of your life.

One gets the feeling that this movie was a quick shoot. The story quietly barrels toward its conclusion and there isn't a lot of sightseeing, accents, or even that many costumes (Harvey wears a frumpy beige coat for the greater part of the movie, which takes place over a span of three or so days). I wouldn't be surprised if the director simply lined up his two big-league hitters and just let them take the brakes off. Harvey Shine is a commercial jingle-writer (?) who is struggling to keep his job amidst younger competition and those damn fancy synthesizer machines; clearly, it's Death of a Salesman all over again, only with Richard Schiff (hey, cool!) as Hoffman's asshole boss. This is sustained for the first 1½ acts, at which point Harvey is pretty much stripped of everything he cares about and opts to go get shit-faced in an airport bar. Kate Walker, on the other hand, is a big, walking question mark as we only see bits and pieces of her daily life, not the least of which is her neurotic mother who is terrified of Polish terrorists living next door. (A character thankfully kept at a peripheral distance).

Had the movie not taken place in England, it's actually really easy to see Diane Keaton in this role. The stilted speech, the fleeting expressions on her face; it's all there. Just watch Emma's soliloquies at the end if you don't believe me. Or go rent Something's Gotta Give (Which, despite stupid ending, is still demonstrably better than watching an octogenarian Jack Nicholson jumping all over Helen Hunt's ass in As Good As It Gets).

Over the course of Harvey and Kate's day(s) together, the viewer feels like a voyeur in a casual street-level conversation; that is, the dialogue is very believable and doesn't seem scripted. It's hard to sympathize with Harvey in the beginning, as he runs down an entire list of cliché movie humiliations. (Easy to see why his jet-set family wants nothing to do with him.) But c'mon, you have to cheer when your hero hijacks a wedding toast from his ex-wife's fuckstick husband (a suitably oily James Brolin). And let's not forget the savored victory of arriving late to a wedding reception......with fucking Emma Thompson. IMBD states her height at 5' 4'', which is a complete bullshit lie since she towers over Hoffman throughout the entire movie. Throw in some heels, and it's as if she's on a date with Grampa Smurf.


Would I See It On Cable?

Jumping into the middle of the movie is not recommended, as generous amounts of scene-buffering are needed in order to accept that Hoffman (71) could ever be a believable boyfriend to Emma Thompson, who is nowhere near that old. Following it from the start, however, provides a modicum of believability as Emma is (to put it gently) a tad haggard since her Sense & Sensibility days and her character doesn't do an enormous amount of smiling in the film. Even so, you'll probably need to do a fair share of squinting to imagine Harvey scoring with that fox.


Overall: 5 Bars.

Australia - Bombs, Christianity, and Wacky Kids

Hugh Jackman is death.

Hugh Jackman is Australia's answer to Nick Cage.

Hugh Jackman may cause serious but rare symptoms such as runny nose, nausea, vomiting, congestive heart failure or hemorrhoids. Do not take Hugh Jackman if you are pregnant.

That said, if you must go see something starring Hugh Jackman, at least you'll have the consolation of knowing he's the most tolerable part of the film. He digs out the ol' spurs in Australia, a bold, sappy, FX-laden extravaganza which bears a distinct resemblance to the last one Baz Luhrmann made, only with kangaroos.

Speaking of which, behold the best goddamn sight gag in a movie, ever:




A few minutes into Australia's confusing plot, you, too, will find yourself doing an embarrassing Australian accent. The story, which in itself isn't so complicated, is rendered totally opaque by the constant twangy-voiced exposition.

Our narrator is Nullah, a bi-racial Indigenous boy ("creamy") who is busy dodging the local authorities, which are rounding up all Aboriginal children and depositing them into Bible camps. Nullah is played by an Aboriginal kid actor who endows him with a kind of over-caffeinated charm. I'm already closely acquainted with this character, having played as him in numerous RPGs.

Nullah lands in hot water when he stumbles upon Nicole Kidman's dead hubby, who gets killed by a spear. For some reason or another (I can't remember why), he takes refuge in Nicole's ranch shortly after she boards the first Ye Olde Englishe steam liner to the Outback. Yep, it's another one of those "Christian White Lady takes poor uneducated runt under her wing" kind of movies. Fortunately, the script shows itself to be marginally evolved over its predecessors, as Nullah immediately scurries back to the woods as soon as it's all over. Whoops; sorry, spoiler.

In a separate storyline, we are introduced to The Drover (That's right, THE Drover!) who makes a living out of being rugged and unshaven and posing in front of sunsets in awesome style. His real job involves moving cattle...or something. Anyway, I have no idea who chose to bequeath this guy the name "Drover". What does that even mean? Hugh Jackman imbues the character with an old-skool Gary Cooper badassery, without straying too far toward becoming Chuck Norris. Basically, he's a ranchhand with a heart. How he winds up being a goose-stepping cabana boy to Nicole Kidman, I have no idea; it happened so fast, it's kind of a blur (I believe there's a meet-cute involved).

Of course, no Baz Luhrmann production would be complete with the requisite "Snidely Whiplash pointlessly-evil antagonist". Nullah's father is revealed to be one of Nicole's underlings on the ranch, an assuming guy named Fletcher. He's been banging one of the servants (Nullah's mom) on the side, and establishes his villainy in quick order when he threatens to beat her up — all the while pretending to cheerfully speak to Nullah in his native tongue, so Nicole won't overhear. What a fucker!


Nicole Kidman is also cursed with one of those annoying "my uterus is broken" backstories that you only find in movies. How fortunate that a tiny feral kid has just dropped in her lap. Uhh, wait, doesn't Bambi already have a mom on the premises?

No worries, she gets tragically killed off a scene later. Convenience!

Unlike Moulin Rogue, which instantly established the slimy Duke as a ridiculously over-the-top SOB, Australia cons the audience into thinking the bad guy is actually King Carney, a rich cattle baron (I didn't know there was such a thing). Fletcher just seems like an innocuous goon for the better part of the film, until he reverts to typical Luhrmann villainy and cheerfully starts killing everyone in sight. This guy makes murder look so easy. Want somebody's land? Chuck a spear at him. About to be fired? Kill your boss and bone his daughter. Need a contract signed? Send your illegitimate son and Nicole Kidman to an island which you know the Japanese air force is about to bomb. Crikey. Overkill, much?


Nullah abandons his roots (signified by stupid cowboy hat) and helps out the ranch by using his magic powers to stop a stampede. The sneering Fletcher is on hand to witness his imminent death, of course. As a horde of cows barrel toward Nullah — on a cliff, no less — he drops into his Wolverine stance and whispers a song which makes them skid to a halt.

...ok, it was pretty badass.

Drover, Nicole Kidman, and Nullah start to become a family unit. However, Nullah would like to rejoin his medicine man uncle, King George (No relation to King Carney. There, I just saved you a ton of confusion), to embark on a "walkabout" — from what I can tell, it's some sort of journey through the outback to become a real man. Drover and Nicole Kidman have words over this: Nicole's too clingy, Drover's too taciturn and gruff. Kidman responds, "Then leave! As if you'll ever find pussy this fine." Drover spits and says, "LOL, watch me." And Kidman's like, "Aiiiee! Come back, I didn't mean it!" And Drover's all like, "Bitch, frankly I don't give a damn." Well, you get what I'm saying.

Long story short, Nullah gets sent off to be Christianized, and Nicole Kidman runs after the boat as it takes off — to no avail. Naturally, Fletcher arrives at that exact same moment to gloat.

"I'll SEA you later. Heh heh!"

The latter half of the movie switches from a star-crossed romance to Forrest Gump...no, wait a sec, I'm describing Wolverine. My mistake. Anyway, Kidman and Drover both end up on the receiving end of a Japanese payload of bombs, and both believe the other is dead. Drover wanders through the (admittedly impressive) smoking ruins of Darwin with his Aborigine sidekick, and starts cracking skulls. ...Well, not really. He mostly breaks down and cries when a dumbfuck barkeep won't give his friend a drink. It's a pithy-yet-effective metaphor for racial tolerance. We're all in this together, you know?

Okay, now that that's out of the way, time to kick names and take ass....or the other way around. Drover and his pal ride a boat out to the island to save the orphan kids. Nullah, who should almost certainly be a pile of ashes by now, pulls himself free of the scorched building and is perfectly intact...as are the rest of the kids, who crawl out from some shrubbery. Huh?

...Actually, the first boy to emerge has short hair. I naturally assumed it was Nullah, and that his hair had been burned off in the raid. But nope, that flowing mane is as goldenrod yellow and blow-dried as it was minutes ago. Magic kid!

Drover and Nullah almost sail right past Nicole Kidman; but she recognizes Nullah's whistling, and catches them with moments to spare. The end!

Justice is served, mate!

But wait! Out of nowhere, a disheveled, rifle-toting Fletcher randomly appears and mutters something along the lines of "I'm not gonna letcha enjoy your happiness!" For no particular reason, Nullah starts disco-dancing in the middle of the road like a stoned elf, and we get a slow-mo effect (not dissimilar to the end of Moulin Rouge) where the villain launches a last-ditch effort to shoot the good guys. Only this time, he's speared before he can properly make the shot. That's right, speared. Fletcher, understandably perplexed, turns around to face ...the mystical King George standing erect on a nearby water tower.

This is not a bad movie. The FX are ubiquitous but non-intrusive. It moves at a brisk pace. It's a throwback to Vaudeville age films, typical of Luhrmann's work. And look at the bright side; at least the camera won't give you motion sickness this time.

It is what it is. And what it isn't is Moulin Rogue.

Overall: 4 Bars.

Ed Likes the Jetsons Movie and Doesn't Care What You Have to Say About it

Recently I was browsing RottenTomatoes.com in order to determine what, if anything, was worth reading on it. After randomly punching a few titles into the search bar, I came up with one of my cherished childhood relics: Jetsons: The Movie. And guess what? The stony-hearted bastards gave it an 18% "Freshness" rating. 18%!

Assorted reasons? It's "dated". The "environmental message" was "cynical". The assembly line of fuzzy aliens at the end constitutes a capitalist plot to brainwash our children. The animation style was a "butchery" of the original holy material. One eloquent user posted this one-line review:

"Deserves to be shot into space."

Be happy you have any environmental message AT ALL, you hemp-wearing dolts! "Dated?" The movie's based on a show from 1962!

These are the same idiots who paid to see both Scooby-Doo movies without complaint.

*grumble*

With the recent DVD release of 1990's Jetsons: The Movie, it seemed like an apt time to revisit my VHS copy of the film which I so fiercely sought out and ordered via Blockbuster Video. When it was first released, the film got its ass beat by (of all things), Dick Tracy, despite having been pushed back a year so as not to coincide with the Disney juggernaut. Hanna-Babera's fans were of little help, fuming over the decision to replace the voice of Judy Jetson (Janet Waldo) with that of has-been 80's singer Tiffany, and staying away in droves*. This, despite the studio bending over backwards to record vocal tracks with the remaining original actors from the show (including George O’Hanlon, Penny Singleton and Mel Blanc).

*The wrath of the baby boomers, compounded with other films released during the 90's, no doubt contributed to the current fanboy tyranny under which we so uneasily dwell.

Know what? Fuck all of them. This movie is the shit.

You know what I don't get? I don't get why kids movies are stupid. I mean, it's not like the 80's were a time of great enlightenment, but I do remember a time when I, as a kid, saw some great movies back in the day. And none of the live-action "classics" like Goonies, Camp Nowhere, or E freaking T, either - these were 2-d, animated movies with no CGI, good songs (assuming there was, in fact, a soundtrack) and some rockin' good times in a theater—an environment I now avoid like the plague thanks to seat-kicking brats and the inevitable cloud of flatulence which descends in the aisles from an overly laid-back moviegoer.

Nowadays, it's unthinkable now that I would ever attend a showing of an animated movie. Hell, I couldn't even drag myself off my ass to go see The Dark Knight.

The Incredibles is an exception, due to my being on a date at the time. (Also, Craig T. Nelson FTW).

Today we seem to have forgotten that such films ever existed. A decidedly average film like Kung Fu Panda (damn you, Jack Black, you traitorous swine) has so little competition that people enjoy it as compared to garbage like MadagASScar 2. It's a good thing we have Pixar to keep things a little more respectable. The crap that movie execs insist on polluting our young minds with, just to make a little coin.... It's shameful the kind of crap kids are force-fed these days.

The safety filter does nothing. NOTHING, I tell you!

Jetsons: The Movie is markedly superior to the already-decent cartoon on television. The film sets up a premise that George Jetson's boss, Mr Spacely, has built a sprocket factory on an asteroid. The plant keeps being sabotaged in the dead of night, driving its chief executives, including Mr. Throttlebottom (whose name is a riff on the Gershwin musical Of Thee I sing...I don't know why I possess this information) to nervous breakdown. Faced with yet another resignation, Mr. Spacely frantically searches for "a total dipshit" (Well, that's not the word he uses, but you can tell that's what he means) to replace Throttlebottom. George Jetson, arriving at work to perform the intergal task of pressing a button—Really? That's your role in life?—is quickly duped by Spacely into accepting the job, then shipped off to the asteroid colony.

Now, of course this is all juvenile stuff, the kind of plot that was later "borrowed" by the live-action Flintstones movie (the first one). But that would be assuming this movie didn't display a surprising amount of heart in the interim.

To begin, the Jetsons—George, jane, Judy, and Elroy...oh, and the annoying robot maid and dog, if you must know—uproot their lives to leave Earth and live on the asteroid colony. This upsets materialistic teen stereotype Judy (Tiffany), who was just offered a date with a rock star named Cosmic Cosmo (The guy with the blue hair on the cover art. Only his hair is orange in the movie....no explanation there), who looks as if he lost a fight with a can of paint. The family is somewhat reassured when they reach their new digs, which is an upscale suburb in space.

Now you know who you can thank for this.

Um, remember that stuff I said about CG? Ok, forget all that crap. The exterior shots of the asteroid colony are all handled with computers, and still hold up pretty good considering the primitive state of 3D graphics back then. I attribute this to the retro futuristic art style of the Jetsons, which lends itself well to CG animation. The Jetson's neighbors consist of George's new co-worker, the robotic Rudy-2; his jerkwad "son" (and Elroy's nemesis) Teddy-2; and the Furbelows, each of whom resemble a rapping Chewbacca.

Ah, yes. The rapping. Jetsons: The Movie has three rap songs during its 80-minute running time (if you count the ending credits), and I think many of you are in agreement that that is three songs too many. In addition to the Furbelow rap, we have George and Rudy-2 busting rhymes about pulling levers and making sprockets. You read that right. George Jetson raps.


And we rocket
While we're rappin'
Yes we rocket while we're rappin' and we're rockin' and a rollin' and we rocket
The sprockets
To Spacely.
Yeah!


Meanwhile, Judy is taking her infatuation with Cosmo pretty hard, especially after hearing the news that he's hooked up with another whore. This kicks off a synthesized heartbreaker song by Tiffany ("I Always Thought I'd See You Again") which, in spite of all the psychedelic foliage, is actually pretty decent. Almost makes you forget Judy is singing about some ass-hat musician she met for all of 2 seconds.



But fear not!, as she promptly runs into another alien stud-muffin the minute the song is over. The new boyfriend, Apollo Blue (sounds like a shampoo brand) looks like he was cross-bred from Two-Face and Ziggy Stardust. Somebody want to explain to me why half his body is a lighter shade of blue than the other? I thought it was a lighting effect at first, but nope. Strangely, Apollo is given no room on the poster, despite a prominent image of that big-haired mook Cosmic Cosmo. Maybe he was given a bigger role in an early draft, I dunno.

Just as before, the factory starts going bananas as the saboteurs strike again. Mr. Spacely gets on the horn and warns George that if the place isn't ready by the time the company celebrates its one millionth sprocket (?), he'll be fired. Bent on keeping his job, George remains in the plant overnight, only to be carried away by a horde of fuzzy Ewok-looking things (another Star Wars reference...it can't just be me, can it??). With his dad kidnapped, Elroy forms an alliance with Teddy-2, and the pair sneak into the plant and catch the culprit: A big-eyed Mowgli named Squeap. That's right. Squeap. But it gets better. Squeap tells them (With Teddy-2 translating. ...wait, what?) that he's a member of an alien race called the Grungees, and that they live deep under the asteroid which Mr. Spacely is drilling.

INCOMING NON-SUBTLE ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGE!

And so our villain unexpectedly becomes Spacely as he hot-headedly turns the plant back on, unknowingly endangering the Jetson family with his giant drill. Elroy and Teddy-2 are nearly buried in the rubble, prompting a blood-curdling cry from Jane Jetson. Yikes. Slightly dark for a kid's movie, inn'it? When George finally pulls Elroy from the rocks, he exclaims, "Thank God you're safe son!".

Well, kiss my grits. Hanna-Barbera could just have easily inserted "Thank goodness" instead. Interesting choice, there.

How does the movie hold up 19 years later? Pretty damn well, I'd say. The initial response was lukewarm, but I liked it tremendously when I saw it in a theater. The plot is an obvious allegory not only for wildlife devastation, but also for ethical practices toward natives when mining resources in their country. I suppose that makes Mr. Spacely a corrupt capitalist of the west. This, too, is fairly shaky ground. I recall one critic attacking Quantum of Solace for depicting western businessmen pulling the strings of a puppet regime in Latin America. Because that would never happen! Bwaha! (...)

Then again, judging by the looks of the midget furries who represent the 'peasants', I'd stay away from the metaphor for politeness's sake.

The voice acting is much improved from the original show, with characters now assigned to expressing greater emotion at key points. The addition of Tiffany is, to my own surprise, not at all detrimental to the movie since her voice is a perfect pitch for Judy's angst-y dialogue. As for Elroy, the original VA died before the film was made; as a substitute, the studio hired Patric Zimmerman, better known to us as...

NOW I'LL SHOW YOU WHY THEY CALL ME....REVOLVER.

...Ok. Finished.

For a revival of a half-century-old Hanna-Barbera property, you could do a lot worse. If I were to have children, I would have no qualms showing them this movie. Followed by Back to the Future. And then maybe Se7en, just 'cause I'm twisted like that!


Overall: 4 Bars.









So, in closing, RottenTomatoes is a community of ass bandits with no credentials whatsoever who enjoy smearing good movies and praising bad ones. If you want to read a good review, you'll have to hit up HollywoodBitchslap, or maybe elsewhere. RottenTomatoes has no business being linked to as many Wikipedia pages as it is now.