Why I am Not Watching "Watchmen"

As anybody who knows me is aware of, I'm sort of a comic book nerd. And not the kind of asshole who will dismiss every comic book movies because, let's face it, the print medium allows for a lot more leeway in terms of what can be accomplished versus the film medium. I love the Chris Nolan Batman movies as much as I love The Rocketeer and the three X-Men films.

Historically, Alan Moore's work has seldom translated well to film and Moore tends to distance himself from every bit of work of his that has been adapted (see: V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, etc.). Watchmen is by far most popular work (next to maybe "The Killing Joke") and with all the hype surrounding it, I'm far more interested in watching "I Love You, Man."

The fact of the matter is that Watchmen was a great story for the 1980s, but these ideals that were explored in the graphic novel have been redone and, in the case of Kingdom Come, done much better. More than anything, however, there's about a million douchebags who are just discovering this shit now which makes it all the more anti-climatic.

Boycott the Watchmen.

Review: Twilight (Movie)

ruining my favorite comics

last week, james and i saw "forgetting sarah marshall" and the trailer for "wanted" played before the flick. ugh.

for those of you who aren't total nerds, "wanted" was this sweet comic by mark millar that was about a secret league of assassins; this movie makes said group look like a bunch of pussies with morgan freeman as (probably) the only redeeming quality of the flick. angelina jolie's in it but she tends to ruin movies for me (except for "hackers").

a few years ago, mark millar expressed interest in getting eminem to play the lead guy, which would've been much better since homedude looks like marshall mathers in the comic.

anyway, this trailer did not look appealing at all. what a crock of shit.

the case for: rappin'

I was out on a date a few nights ago and the girl and I were talking about awful movies we held in high regard. This was sort of brought on by the fact that I own many of Freddie Prinze Jr.'s movies. I asked her if she had ever seen "Rappin'," which she had not, and I was sort of surprised. This movie needs to be seen by everybody. To paraphrase Mike Myers in "Wayne's World 2" (another shitty movie), it needs to be sent out in the mail along with samples of laundry detergent.

"Rappin'" is a categorically bad flick starring everybody's favorite S-curled Hollywood spawn, Mario Van Peebles. The plot is pretty simple: dude gets out of prison and tries to save his neighborhood from getting developed by winning a rap contest. This same plot was also used in "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," which was released a year earlier.

What makes "Rappin'" so awful/awesome is that Mario New Jack actually raps himself, which puts him up there with other celebrities who have no business ever getting in front of a microphone (a list which includes Shaq, Karl Rove and various contestants of that stupid cable rapping contest show). In fact, Chris Rock once said that the reason why he got Kool Moe Dee to do Gusto's raps in "CB4" was because Mario Van Peebles was so shitty and that he had the foresight to see that he [Rock] was not a rapper.

So if you're feeling down, go out and rent "Rappin'" and you'll feel about a billion times better. Trust me.

Related Links:
Rappin' on Amazon
Rappin on IMDB

fricka freedom writer

Bellingham's favorite daughter, Hilary "The Next Karate Kid" Swank, is going to be stinking up the silver screens in a minute with her latest foray into overdramatic acting, "Freedom Writers," an MTV film about a White teacher bringing a ray of hope into the lives of a group of n'er-do-well urban youths. This film, of course, is being released during the apex of Oscar buzz.

Michelle Pfieffer must be pretty pissed right now.

Personally, I don't think this film could generate any type of Oscar buzz, save a green muppet on a public television show ridiculing it; in fact, I'd be surprised if it even does relatively well at the box office. I don't know how many more of these "White Shadow" flicks we have to sit through before we just start shooting ourselves in our collective feet. The whole genre smells of a rotting dead corpse, not unlike the Black/White buddy-cop movie staple. On top of this generic mess, it's an MTV film for God's sake. How many good MTV movies have there been? One, probably [1]. "The Perfect Score," which wasn't that great to begin with. Their line of stinkers, however, is pretty impressive: "Joe's Apartment," "Varsity Blues," "Coach Carter," "Save the Last Dance," "Crossroads," "Orange County," the list goes on.

As far as these kinds of movies go, Jon Lovitz made the king of all of them back in the late-90's. Everybody else is just clown shoes.

[1] I realize that "Better Luck Tomorrow," one of the best movies of all time, was released by MTV, but technically, MTV only dumped money into its release and promotion. The film was long completed before they sunk their fangs into it.

ain't a damn thang changed

The other night, the wife and I were watching some tacky New Year's Eve special on Fox when a commercial came on for a new Cedric the Entertainer flick, "Code Name: The Cleaner," which looked to be some cross between "The Long Kiss Goodnight," "If Looks Could Kill," and "Spaceballs." Then I started hitting up MySpace this morning, and there are banner ads for this fucking movie sprawled all over, as if the 'Space got a case of Cleaner-itis.

While I didn't expect for Hollywood to start churning out, I don't know, good movies in the new year, I certainly didn't expect a new Cedric the Entertainer movie, mostly because his take on the Honeymooners was such a fiery piece of crap, that I was under the impression that his flicks would be straight-to-DVD from here on out. At least until another "Kings of Comedy" tour movie. I also couldn't believe that Lucy Liu or Mark Dacascos would agree to star in this movie. Well, maybe Mark Dacascos; I don't think he's reaping any residual checks from "The Crow" television series.

I loved Cedric the Entertainer in "The Steve Harvey Show" and "Barbershop" and anything else in which he's relegated to a sidekick. But giving the man his own movie is a lot like giving Carrot Top his own flick and we all remembered what happened with that motherfucker, don't we? [1]

[1] "Chairman of the Board," Carrot Top's starring film with Courtney Thorne-Smith, Bill Erwin, Larry Miller and Raquel Welch TANKED! And it was a pretty sucky movie.

oh i get it! it's not (bleep) in a box but rather dick! LOL! (not)

It's Thursday and in internet time, the whole fiasco and hubub surrounding SNL's new digital short with Justin Timberlake and that Narnia dude is months old. Still, for all its Lionel C. Martin references and hilarious jabs at Color Me Badd, Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown, I couldn't help but remember a similar clip in 2002's "Run Ronnie Run," that featured faux R&B duo, Three Times One Minus One.

Not to say that the "Dick in a Box" video isn't entirely enjoyable; it is pretty dang funny. But if it's those Lonely Island dudes wrote these Digital Shorts, they really must be running out of ideas if they're assuming that nobody watches "Mr. Show." Biters.

"Dick in a Box"


"Ronnie and Kayla's Love Song"

bastards of $$$$$$$

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I had the chance to sit down and watch "Bastards of Young," a 70-odd minute documentary about the contemporary pop punk (read: emo) scene. If there was ever a movie that made me feel slightly old, then this would be it. "Bastards" almost exclusively follows bands that have somehow wound up on a major label: Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, the Starting Line, Midtown, Armor for Sleep, Jimmy Eat World, Something Corporate, blah blah. The bands that are interviewed and featured reads like a "Greatest Emo Bands from 2003" list on Amazon.

It begins its focus with New Jersey basement shows, guided by Geoff Rickley of Thursday, and ends at one of Thursday's huge theatre shows. Even the music writers involved in the film, Jonah Bayer of Alternative Press and Jessica Hopper, throw their two cents in of the importance of the eem, yet none of them disputes (at least in the footage that made the actual video) the stagnant nature of the genre. In fact, one of the best moments of the DVD is the extended interview with members of Fall Out Boy, in which they openly admit to ripping off Lifetime.

Yet Lifetime isn't even mentioned on the actual feature itself. No band that largely contributed to modern punk (mall, pop, emo, et. al) like The Replacements, Jawbreaker, the Promise Ring, the Get Up Kids, Cap'n Jazz or even Face to Face are given a mention. Rites of Spring, Embrace and Mineral are talked about, but not extensively; they are more like a footnote.

If this is meant to be a video companion to Andy Greenwald's excellent book, "Nothing Feels Good," it's pretty bad by comparison. Greenwald's book is researched well, as well as hitting all the right watermarks of the culture. "Bastards of Young" seems really hastily put together, not unlike some of the bands that exist today.