This week I’m complaining about:

The aliens in ‘War of the Worlds’ better not have shields, dammit!

There’s really only been two “big ticket” Alien mass invasion movies - the original War of the Worlds (1953) and Independence Day (1996) These movies had two big things in common: special effect mass destruction and of course, aliens with shielded spaceships.

The problem with shielded spaceships is that for the first 2/3rds of the movie the aliens basically blast the hell out of whatever they want (typically national landmarks rather than items of military significance) and humans spend all their time shooting blindly at them or running away. Then in Act 3 the humans find some way to deactivate the shields (ie: with a Mac laptop at the end of Independence Day) or “mother nature” comes in and kills the alien intruders with bacteria / STD’s / mad cow disease. (I’m still waiting for one where the lead alien says “You know what? I think this is the wrong planet… Hm. Sorry about the mess”)

So now we’ve got the release of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” coming up. I’m actually really looking forward to it as I think Spielberg is one of our better, if under appreciated, directors and really excels at “war” films. (1941 doesn’t count) He understands the human drama that is more important than the actual fighting, but on the same token delivers extremely well-done action scenes. Everything he shoots is done very clearly, you know exactly what’s going on and it’s all got a very realistic feel to it. And somehow he always gets excellent special effects into his movies, so well done they just seem real. It probably has something to do with him being buddies of the guy who owns ILM, but who knows?

Which is why if the aliens have shields I’m going to be very disappointed.

The thing is, this movie is called WAR of the worlds, not “One world comes down and has a shooting gallery out of our world” War is all about conflict and loss on both sides. If the aliens have shields, where’s the conflict? All we do is run away and watch our shit get blown up. Now this isn’t all bad but as mentioned, it’s been the course for the earlier alien invasion movies so I really hope Spielberg does something different.

Look at the Iraq war (Either one, take your pick) A superior force goes in and fights an inferior one, much like when aliens attack Earth. Now even though it’s obviously a one-sided battle the superior side still takes plenty of damage. Planes get shot down, helicopters blown up. Sure we still win but it’s not a total victory - lives and equipment are always lost in any large-scale battle.

Now look at the new War of the Worlds (WotW henceforth) Obviously, as seen in the trailer, these alien ships / tripods / whatever are huge and armed with weapons enough to kick our ass ten times over. But so why can’t a F-14 fly by and lob a few missiles at it, perhaps taking out a tentacle or maybe even knocking one down? Maybe a tank could blow a few holes in an alien vessel, and then get stepped on. (Insert Wilhelm scream) If the aliens have enough ships who cares? But if we can cause damager right away then it at least seems like we might have a chance - that we could put up a fight. Or win a battle. Or a WAR. Of the worlds!

Maybe I’m just worrying ahead of time but think of how cool it would be to see jets, tanks and maybe even battleships fighting, actually engaging in battle, with alien tripods! In most “alien invasion movies” to date the aforementioned vehicles lob rounds at the aliens, see them bounce off the god-damn SHIELDS, and then run away with their turrets between their legs. Cut to the President / geeky scientist wondering “What can stop those shields? Let’s think about it for an hour while a bevy of multi-ethic characters hug their wives and save their dogs!” That’s just lazy… I want a bullet, missile, shell and bomb filled ORGY of destruction! Think of how cool it could be, the superbly done battles of “Saving Private Ryan” but with the army fighting aliens. The mind reels at the possibilities.

I should give this film more credit, especially since I haven’t seen it. Spielberg is a HELL of a director who knows sci-fi better than people will ever give him credit for and if anyone can make this film kick ass it’s him. Remember, it was Spielberg who ended the curse of “saving the dog” in 90’s disaster movies when he had one eaten in Jurassic Park 2. No modern director has made the range and variety of war action movies that he has, from the inventive comic action of “Raiders”, to the human and refugee element of ‘Schindler’s List” and the utterly real violence of “Saving Private Ryan” I say “C’mon Steve! Make this the war to end all wars, the ultimate American refugee film, a behind-alien-lines suspense thriller with a heart of gold!” It could be one hell of a film if you think about it, and I’m crossing every finger in toe in hopes that it is.

Just don’t have shields, dammit!

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MY NEXT RANT!

Entitled:

”10 Annoying Trends Started by Hit Movies”

2005 / 141 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

The “Batman” series of movies were stopped cold by the horrible “Batman & Robin” neon-colored camp-fest shitburg of 1997. As bad as that movie was, people seem to forget that 1995’s “Batman Forever” was pretty much just as bad – only it had the uber-big-at-the-time Jim Carrey so the audience gave it a pass. Warners figured they could get away with murder a second time with “Robin” and were wrong.

Comic book movies were pretty much killed by the “Batman & Robin” plague. It wasn’t until 2000’s X-Men, and especially 2002’s Spider-man that audiences came back to the genre. Now we’re up to our eyeballs in superhero flicks and the genre will probably cave in on itself once again before too long.

Oh yeah I was going to write a review here. Ok so now the “Batman” franchise decides to “reboot” itself with “Batman Begins” from director Christopher Nolan. I haven’t seen his other films so I guess I’ll just call “Begins” as I see it. It’s really 2 movies in one: A very well done “origin” film and a not-very-well-done action movie.

Let’s start with the origin stuff first. Obviously we see young Bruce Wayne’s parents murdered, blah blah blah. Then he runs off to the Far East to learn the criminal mind and become an ass-kicking ninja (or something) Liam Neeson - perpetual mentor character - teaches him the fighting skills he needs and how to “overcome his fears” Overcoming your fear is to this movie as “with great power comes great responsibility” was to Spider-man – as in you’ll hear it over and over and over again. Eventually young Bruce decides to quit the ninja dojo thing and head back to Gotham.

By this time probably a full hour has passed. Now it’s a fairly interesting hour, using back-and-forth cutting between the present and the past to explain Bruce’s training and motivation, but that leaves only what, 1.5 hours to set up the entire “bad guy” plot for the end of the film. Anyway, back in Gotham Bruce enlists the help of Morgan Freeman who is one of those “outcast engineers” working for Wayne Industries, as in he’s paid to build stuff that has no intention of going to market. Naturally these gizmos are perfect for Batman and so we see Bruce obtaining and adapting all of them, while also easing back into the billionaire playboy life and becoming reacquainted with his old sweetheart Katie Holmes. (Who really has no point in this film except to be “the girl”)

Alright so Batman has all his gizmos, and a car, and is now ready to “begin” (We have a title!) His methods of sneak-attacking are kind of neat, he takes out criminals in a “from the shadows” method similar to 1979’s “Alien” But it’s the fighting action scenes that aren’t up to snuff and I would qualify as downright crappy. Since we’re living in a post-Matrix Hollywood the fights have to be super fast and “kinetic” Some movies pull this off, others go for “fantasy” and use wire-work for interesting fights. Batman is grounded in reality (ie: there’s only so much he can really do) so all his fights must be “exciting” because of speed and editing.

But they’re edited like crap. Fists whirls, limbs flail, bodies hit the floor – and I can’t figure what the hell is going on. The overt darkness doesn’t help. The camera is 5-7 feet closer than it should be for every fight, and there’s enough edit cuts to make Michael Bay blush. I was sitting in the back row of the theatre so I can’t really find an excuse. These guts probably edit on 19” Avid screens and don’t realize when a picture is the size of a house it takes MUCH longer for the human eye to catch it all. Even an early fight in the film - Bruce against Chinese prisoners in a muddy field – it’s impossible to know the score because on top of the choppy editing everyone’s dressed the same and covered in mud. Basically whoever’s left standing is the winner, because the scene itself doesn’t cover who is.

I know it seems a bit trivial to complain about the fight scenes but dammit – Batman fights people! That’s what he does, let’s see it clearly! The fights in Burton’s first Batman might be slow and a little lethargic compared to modern cinema but at least you could tell what was going on. It really pains me that bad fights really bring this down, an otherwise really good (well, except for the ending, I’ll get to that) movie.

To illustrate the close up choppy nature of the fights in “Batman Begins” I have prepared these special photos. Each is a fight scene from a famous movie, but with the camera “zoomed in” way to much to simulate the way Chris Nolan shot “Begins” Try and guess what each movie is! (Answers at end of review)

My other big problem with this movie is the ending. So much time is spent setting up Bruce Wayne, why he becomes Batman, then HOW he becomes Batman that the “villainous plot” seems like an afterthought and becomes rushed at the end. Granted the other Batman films focused too much on the villains but let’s face it, you have to have the villains in it a certain amount to create the conflict and drama required. The bad guys in this film are kind of weak and since there’s really 3 of them (Crime Boss, Scarecrow and Ras Al Guhl sp?) quite diluted as well. And for all the high-brow talk and crap in the beginning the ending of this film becomes just another big chase and explosion-filled spectacle like every other movie you’ve seen. It’s also very improbable (why a train must be stopped and all, for instance) and the massive damage done in Act 3 is not even addressed afterwards. Perhaps solely to set up all sorts shit to go down in “Batman Begins Again”.

This started out as the greatest Batman film but in the end, in my opinion, stands behind Tim Burton’s first film because of badly done action scenes and of course, no awesome Danny Elfman score. Goofy as Burton’s Batman was at least it was “alive”. Silly as the Joker’s plot was at least the Joker was entertaining. Here we still get a silly bad guy plot but with uninteresting bad guys to deliver it. A second “Begins” film will probably be much better, but hell, Spider-Man managed to do it all on the first shot. Why couldn’t this one?

ANSWERS TO “GUESS THE MOVIE”:

A) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
B) The Matrix
C) The Matrix (same fight, 30 seconds later)

2005 / 141 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

“Batman and Robin” was bad. Really bad. How bad was it? Well, it was so bad that critics are practically stampeding each other in their haste to heap praise on this film.

Don’t get me wrong, this film has a lot of really good qualities. Some great qualities, even. And it’s a hell of a lot better than “Batman and Robin” (then again, aside from notable exceptions like “Son of the Mask”, most films are). And…well, okay, it’s actually a pretty good flick. It does, however, have some major problems, and I’m not about to gloss them over.

The plot of the film is the origins of Batman. There have been at least four films made on this particular comic book hero and, until now, not a one of them have covered the ground that led to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. We’ve seen his parents get shot, sure, and I think we even saw him fall into some neon-lit cave of bats in that one Schumacher joint (“Batman Forever”, maybe). But we haven’t seen his martial arts tutelage, or seen how he designed and fabricated the suit, or gotten to know his parents and understand the loss that he’s felt, we haven’t gotten a real appreciation for the hole that early event left in his soul and psyche. “Batman Begins” navigates all this territory. Finally, we get to see how he befriended James Gordon (and even understand how that man became a commissioner a little better). We see why he chose the bat for his symbol. We get to see how he got the Batmobile and where it came from. (The Batmobile in this film looks like a Hummer from Hell and it sounds like a car geek’s wet dreams all come true. I had some doubts about it from the trailer, but it’s hella cool.) In short, we get to see all the stuff that we might always have wondered about and it’s all pretty damned cool to see.

The origins of Batman are explored in great detail here, and all of this stuff works absolutely magnificently. The buildup to Batman’s emergence is exceptional, and all of the actors do their best. Considering that these actors are Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson and Michael Caine, their best is considerable. Caine, in particular, takes the thankless role of Alfred and makes it, perhaps, the most interesting role in the film. He finds angles of Alfred’s performance that I did not know existed. I was initially worried that he might overwhelm the role, that he was too good an actor for Alfred. What I did not know was that Alfred was a great character who deserved better than he’d always gotten. Alfred really shines here, thanks to the great writing of Christopher Nolan and David Goyer and the regal talent of Michael Caine. Oldman does the same with the thankless role of Lt. Gordon. Gary Oldman is always great (in my opinion) but it’s fun to see him reinvent a character you thought you knew all about. It’s riveting stuff. And Christian Bale is easily the best Batman/ Bruce Wayne since Michael Keaton. He might even be better, though I hesitate even to suggest such a thing. He’s a different sort of Batman, and a more messed up Bruce Wayne. Wayne obviously has some problems, and not all of them get exorcised when he slips into the famous rubber suit. I’m not sure why he ends up in an Asian prison camp at the beginning of the film (the explanation for that is pretty flimsy) but oh well.

The origin story, in other words, is nearly brilliant. The murder of Bruce’s parents is not quite as haunting as it was in Burton’s “Batman” and the way that the filmmakers screw with the sequence of events in the film’s first half hour felt wrong to me. I felt it would have worked better if they had just shown these events in sequential order. Otherwise, this part of the movie is just about perfect. And Bale is truly menacing as Batman. He’s a detective, he’s an ass-kicker, he’s a ghost, he’s a legend, he’s anything he has to be in order to get the job done, and he’s really intimidating throughout.

As good as the actors and origin story are, however, the film drops the ball on a couple of major issues. First of all, the villains and their plot are fairly flimsy. One of the major complaints that most people had about the last couple of Batman films (prior to this one) was that there were too many villains and that tipped the balance of the films. Well, this one has as many villains as the last two movies, maybe even one more, and as a result the movie spreads itself too thin. Had it focused on a single villain, it might have been more effective, more streamlined. As is, it’s all over the map at certain points. It’s so schizophrenic that there’s a major plot hole at the end (a HUGE plot hole, as in a certain necessary thing is not only left unresolved but essentially forgotten about) and the movie doesn’t even seem to notice. The action sequences are also pretty chaotic. The first couple of times we saw Batman kick a lot of ass in a lot of random cuts, I thought it was kinda neat. We were seeing Batman’s attacks the way that the bad guys were seeing them, seeing how intense and quick they were. But after while, it began to bother me. I wanted to see how Bruce was making use of his training. I wanted to see what, exactly, he was doing. I wanted to see why he was so effective. Also, the final action sequence is rather ludicrous and anticlimactic. The end of this movie is a little too open-ended.

It’s not a bad film, and parts of it are as good as any comic book movie has ever been. In fact, it never really feels like a comic book movie. No one other comic book movie has ever taken its story and characters this deadly seriously. But the serious tone can only cover the ludicrousness of certain things for so long, and it can only pardon a finite number of sins. Not only that, but the film never loosens up. It never gives Batman any breathing room.

Personally, I prefer Burton’s original “Batman”. It was just as dark (maybe darker), and it was a lot more fun.

2005 / 120 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Despite the fact that it often feels like it was assembled out of bits and pieces of other movies (“The War of the Roses”, “Prizzi’s Honor”, “Grosse Pointe Blank”, and “True Lies”, to name a few) “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” somehow manages to work and to provide relentless entertainment value for the whole of its running length. You’ll get more out of this movie than simply wondering whether or not its two leads shacked up in reality.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play the titular Smiths, a couple who are seeing a marriage counselor in the first scene. They met and had a smoldering affair in Bogotá, Colombia a few years back (five or six, depending on which of them tells the story) and got married a couple of scant months later. Now, years later, the fires that ignited from the moment they met seem to be guttering and about to die. It’s not that they fight. They don’t communicate with each other enough to fight. They barely talk, and when they do it’s about mundane things that don’t matter. The two of them have so many secrets from one another that they barely know each other at all.

All of that changes, however, when they discover that they are both professional killers working for opposite firms. To say that this further complicates their relationship is putting it mildly. Soon each is trying to bump the other off, in highly entertaining ways. One scene, in particular, plays like “War of the Roses” with live ammo. Will they patch up their lethal differences? Will they kill each other? Will this whole experience actually reignite the spark of their marriage? You’ll have to see the movie to find the answer to these questions.

And you should see this movie. For one thing, it’s refreshing to see an action movie without comic book origins or spaceships (not that I have anything against spaceships and comic book movies…though I think I’d like a break from the superheroes, thank you very much). It’s also nice to see a movie that spends the first forty-five minutes developing its characters and then spends the rest of its running length having fun with them. Brad and Angelina both have great, complex, interesting characters to play around with, and both actors appear to be having a blast. They seem to be having such a blast, in fact, that it’s easy to believe that their onscreen chemistry was indicative of something deeper, something that kept going after the director called “Cut”. I mean, acting is one thing, but these two have an almost ridiculous amount of combustible chemistry from their first scene together (which is, fittingly, underscored by a couple bursts of flame). And it’s that chemistry that makes everything else work. If we, as an audience, didn’t believe them as a couple (a couple that are frankly perfect for each other, even if they don’t know it) then the rest of the movie would just be the usual, hollow, summer spectacle. They have such chemistry that when they started trying to kill each other, the heat between them just seems to grow. It’s fun watching them eventually open up to each other and confess secrets they’ve been keeping for ages (while firing shots and setting bombs to kill one another). The dialogue is clever and snappy, and the plot keeps things moving briskly and never makes things overly complex. We’re never even told what agencies these two work for. It’s a simple story, told efficiently by screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Editor Michael Tronick, and director Doug Liman. And the action sequences are awesome. They’re well paced and truly inventive, and often quite intense. Particularly fun is a car chase/shootout that manages to avoid all the usual car chase clichés. (Well, okay, the bad guys don’t aim directly at the tires, so there’s still that one. But at least there isn’t the average moment where the chase goes the wrong way down a one-way stretch of road. That gag is about as fresh as a vending machine sandwich.) It’s a film that seems to have studied and mastered the fine art of the shootout. God, I’ve missed cinematic shootouts. I’d begun to think that they may have died out sometime in the mid-90’s. The film has a pretty high body count, which befits a movie about two assassins but comes a surprise when you consider the film’s PG-13 rating. And, due to Brad and Angelina (both of whom not only do some of their finest acting work but also look better than either of them ever have) the film generates a palpable sexual undercurrent as well.

The ending is a bit flimsy and leaves a few loose ends untied and Vince Vaughn, while funny, is given perhaps a bit too much screen time and not enough to do with it. I mean, he’s good and all, but compared to Brad and Angelina and everything they’re up to…who cares? I did like Adam Brody (of the “O.C.” television series) however, in his small role as someone that both Brad and Angelina are assigned to dispose of. It’s a nice touch to see him wearing a “Fight Club” shirt while Brad Pitt is interrogating him. Plus, veteran character actor Keith David could have used a bit more screen time. Why hire this total man if you’re only going to give him a scene or two? He’s not even in it enough for me to determine whether or not he did a good job. Oh well. At least he got some work.

As an action movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” isn’t starting a cinematic revolution. It’s not redefining what action films are all about. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun, surprisingly witty, and it’s one of the sexiest movies I’ve ever seen. (Then again, I’m beginning to think that watching Angelina Jolie do a crossword puzzle in a parka would be fairly sexy.) Brad and Angelina are both doing the sort of quirky work that makes them so interesting (especially when the film surrounding them gives them adequate support) and they play off each other exceptionally well. Brad gives the sort of fun, oddball performance he gave in “Fight Club” and “Snatch”. And Angelina kicks a lot more ass a lot more effectively than she did in either “Tomb Raider” flick.

I don’t know if these two are actually an item off screen, but I can tell you this: if they’re not, then they’re extremely good actors. And the two of them make a better couple than either of them did with Jennifer Aniston or Billy Bob Thornton.

This week I’m complaining about:

Digital TV / Cable / Music

(WARNING: This article contains a lot of techno-babble talk and some rough language leveled at technology)

Digital TV is SHIT! Digital Cable is SHIT! Digital Music is CRAP! DVD’s are OK though!

We have reached a sad impasse in this world. People are accepting entertainment (TV, movies, music) of shitty quality simply because a magical word has been placed in front of it.

Digital!

I hate to break it to everyone, but almost every “digital” form of delivered entertainment is pure and utter shit. Why do you ask? I shall elaborate…

In the olden days media (the term I shall use to cover TV, music, etc) was recorded and delivered in analog form. This included TV shows that came over the airways, music on records and laserdiscs. “Analog” refers to the fact that different voltages of power were used to represent the picture (such as 1.5 volts, 4 volts or 2 volts) instead of digital 0’s and 1’s (which are usually +5 volts or 0 volts, cut and dried) The reason this was better was because the entire picture (or sound) was recorded and represented on the screen or in the picture. Though it was analog and thus subject to “flutter” (voltages might be a little off and cause distortion) you still “got everything” that was originally recorded.

Compact Discs (you know, CD’s) are digital but even they record everything, a large spectrum of sound, as digital data. The same goes for video laserdiscs, which record an analog video signal in digital form.

Then came compression and everything went to hell, especially for video.

“Compression” is the act of taking electronic media and removing “unused” portions to make the file size / bandwidth used smaller. In a digital MP3, for example, parts of the sound not heard by humans are removed along with some other stuff. In a digital video file (such as the very common MPEG2) most compressors only record the “difference” between the frames. So let’s say a newscaster is sitting in front of a set. Their mouth and head will move as they talk but the background will be still. Thus, the compressor only needs to record the moving parts of the picture constantly, whilst the background is only recorded/updated every second or so. This is why compressors such as MPEG as referred to as “talking head” compression schemes.

The MPEG2 scheme is widely used today in everything from DVD’s to digital cable to HDTV. It typically uses variable compression, which means the data rate can be changed on the fly (variably) to improve the quality of the picture.

Before I start ripping on digital TV and cable let’s look at DVD for an example of compression done right. A single-sided DVD that contains 2 hours of video can contain up to 4.7 gigabytes of data (Gigabytes as in how the size of your hard drive is measured) This translates to roughly 652k a second, that’s the data rate available as the video runs. (For a reference, a high-speed cable internet connection can transfer about 300k a second) However since a DVD is variable compression the player can use higher or lower data rates depending on the video.

For example, if a movie is playing a scene of Gandalf talking to Frodo there’s not much motion going on, just their mouths really. Therefore the DVD can use a lower data rate, let’s just say 300k/second, for that scene, saving space on the disc. Then, when an army of Orcs attack the DVD can use a higher data rate to better present the motion, action and detail of the scene, perhaps 1000k/second (1 megabyte). By using lower rates in places it free up overall space to allow higher data rates elsewhere.

This can also be called “mastering” the DVD, by optimizing the picture/data rate as much as possible by analyzing the detail and motion demands of the video on a frame-by-frame basis. Jones (you know, the site master) told me the DVD of Ridley Scott’s crap-fest “Legend” was delayed for several years. Upon watching it for a Shitty Movie Night I knew why – every scene contain floating dust, snow, flower petals or stripper glitter. That meant the backgrounds were always in motion and therefore probably a bitch to compress decently. On the other hand some cheap DVD’s of flop movies (such as “The Rocketeer” - starring Jennifer Connelly when she was hotter than shit on an Arizona tin roof) don’t give a shit about the picture quality and just sort of “dump” it onscreen, sometimes with a fixed compression rate. Some scenes may look OK, but others containing action and lots of movement don’t have the extra data available and look bad.

Now I’ve come to the point where I can rip on digital cable/TV because I’ve introduced the idea of a fixed compression rate. While a DVD can spin faster or slower to get more or less data as needed for a good picture streaming video services (such as digital TV and cable) have a fixed amount of bandwidth to work with. So a close-up of a flowerpot gets the same amount of bandwidth as an army of mosquitoes flying over a waterfall. The flower will look good, the mosquitoes like shit.

Remember when I mentioned how a high-speed internet connection can get 300k a second? Ok, so then imagine if that’s ALL the available bandwidth for a video – it’s less than a fixed rate DVD even! (appx 625k) It’s the same basic idea for digital TV that comes over your cable or from a dish. There’s a certain amount of bandwidth and that’s it – no more or less.

What really pisses me off is that people are made to think that it’s better. It’s not. Here’s a hint: the cable companies don’t want to give you anything better, only if it’s better for them. The reason they’re so hard over digital shit is that they can fit several compressed digital channels in the space of one old analog channel, thus streaming more stations of Texas Hold ‘Em and Fear Factor into your living room and bilking you for more money. Compression is not some magic bullet – if media is compressed you loose something. If media is compressed a lot (as with digital TV) you loose a lot.

What really sucks is even with my analog cable TV the station streams are compressed before even being sent to me as analog signals down my line! They’re probably compressed before being sent out to local markets, then decompressed and sent as analog, or passed along as digital if that’s what the person uses. So you get shitty digital quality even if you don’t ask for it! My favorite, the History Channel, comes in like this, even though I don’t have digital cable. What horseshit!

Look closely next time you watch digital cable (or as mentioned, probably a lot of your analog cable channels) Especially bad are close-up water effects, such as an electric toothbrush agitating water – everything turns to ass-looking “compression squares” like a really low-quality JPEG (internet picture) Look at the small text at the bottom of car ads and all the “lice” pixels hanging around it. BARF!

I remember in the past how football games were well photographed and look crystal clear on good old analog television. Well no more! I’m sure it’s not always this bad but last fall I saw a game (off Dish Network) and it was so fucking compressed the grass looked green – as in a solid color green like a 1980’s videogame. I thought I was watching god-damn John Madden Football on my Genesis until I realized the grass in that game actually had a texture to it. And the numbers on jerseys – forget about reading them! Why would you want to anyway, you’ve got DIGITAL TV!

How fucking stupid is it that TV had a better picture 10 years ago? How is that an advance? My car sucks – I must need a horse and buggy! Granted the American TV system (NTSC) is ancient - the color version of it hasn’t changed since 1953 – but why is it being replaced with something of lower quality? Oh yeah I forgot, so they can fit more lower quality channels in the space of 1 old good-quality channel.

Ok now it’s time for the big kicker of digital TV: Even if you get a digital cable package, with “1000 premium all-digital channels” once it goes onto your TV screen it’s no longer digital but ANALOG! Yes, that’s correct – your digital cable is analog! Ha ha ha ha ha!

This is because while the methods of delivering video have changed TV’s have not. Ok granted HDTV’s are different but those are still few and far between, despite what Hollywood and shows like “24” might make you think. The vast majority of people still have 4:3 ratio NTSC TV’s – even high-tech Sony Vega’s fall under this category. And these TV’s still use analog signals as inputs - even RGB (technically “component”) is analog, albeit a very good type. So a digital cable box must take its [shitty] digital signal and convert it to an analog form that your TV can display.

Of course in the future (or present, again if you believe commercials and Hollywood) everyone will have flat-panel LCD or OLED televisions. And then the shit will REALLY hit the fan. See, one slight saving grace of watching crappy digital video on a conventional CRT (tube-based) TV is that since the TV signal format is a bit primitive it “hides” a lot of errors in the digital picture, mostly due to the overall higher contrast of the tube. While an LCD screen, whose range is more even, will reveal more errors. For a good example of this try watching a DVD on your TV, then your laptop. (An 2D animated movie such as “Lilo & Stitch” works very well, unsuccessful 2D movies, such as the first Iron Giant DVD release, have much worse compression and look almost BAD on LCD’s) Using the laptop’s LCD, look at things like text on the screen, or the ink lines of animated characters. You’ll see “garbage squares” - similar to highly compressed JPEG pictures - around ink lines, and “bubbles” around text (when it appears over a picture) However the main color of a character is perfectly clear as it contains simple data (only 1 color) Also watch backgrounds – they’ll appear perfectly still under the camera pans, at which time they’re “jump” to life and move. Now while a DVD is usually well compressed digital TV is not - so imagine those kinds of errors, only much worse, on a LCD television from digital cable in the future. Yeech. I think we’d be almost better to go back to 1920’s-style mechanical TV (look up Mechanical TV sometime – pretty interesting stuff)

While HDTV is better than digital cable it’s still compressed and since most HDTV’s are flat-screen LCD variety the errors they do have are immediately apparent. Look at text and thin lines, such as newscast graphics. You’ll see garbage squares and bits of pixels “jump” around them. The overall resolution is much higher than TV, digital TV or even DVD’s but the same evils of compression are still there. And, as with digital cable, the streams are constant so they don’t get to use more or less data as needed.

Well I’m sure my ranting is not going to have any effect but the acceptance of lower-quality media by the public and the fact we’re made to think it’s better kinda pisses me off. Oh well. Maybe someday when digital cable becomes SO compressed (to fit in 5000 channels of Texas Hold ‘Em instead of the standard 100) and starts looking like video from a Sega CD-ROM game (and I’ve seen some digital movies off cable that, in parts, look ALMOST that bad) people will notice and say “Enough is enough!” That is if they haven’t become complete TV zombies yet.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MY NEXT RANT!

Entitled:

”The aliens in ‘War of the Worlds’ better not have shields, dammit!”

This week I’m complaining about:

People (columnists, newswriters) who think Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ romance is a publicity stunt to help out “Batman Begins” and “War of the Worlds”.

If you’ve gone to the grocery store or ever seen any entertainment-related news story in the last month you’re surely aware that Tom Cruise is dating Katie Holmes, who is nearly 20 years his junior. Normally when an older movie star/record producer dates someone young enough to be their daughter (or granddaughter in Celine Dion’s case) nobody pays it a second thought. But for some reason people think the Cruise/Holmes thing is just a ploy to get more people to see “Batman Begins” and “War of the Worlds”, and you see “quotation“ marks around any word used to describe their romance. (IE, Holmes is “happy” with Tom)

That is complete and utterly stupid horseshit. First off what’s her nuts… Penelope Cruz is only about 7 years older than Holmes and Tom did her for a while. Secondly, Tom Cruise is the single most sure-fire hit making star currently in Hollywood. Practically every film he does makes at least $100 million, even if it’s something as weird as “Vanilla Sky” or off-beat like him being a Samurai and slicing off heads. Not even Tom Hanks or pre-Passion Mel Gibson had such good runs. In fact without even checking I’m pretty sure the only Tom Cruise movies to not break $100 million since, oh how about 1992, are “Far and Away”, “Magnolia” and “Eyes Wide Shut”.

But what really made me laugh, well actually, pissed me off was a recent article/story again saying the Tom/Katie thing was BS, then also saying that “War of the Worlds” needed the help because Spielberg was on a box-office slide. Ok that is just re-god-damn-diculas. Spielberg makes the movies he WANTS to make and doesn’t give a tinker’s damn if anyone likes them (The underrated and much-loathed “AI” for example) Not to mention he’s directed several of the top films of all time and, along with George Lucas, single-filmingly redefined American “summer movie smashes” with “Jaws”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “ET” and “Jurassic Park”, not to mention the scores of smash hits he’s executive-produced.

But NO! “War of the Worlds” is a sinking ship and obviously needs a scandal to get people in seats come this 4th of July weekend because Spielberg doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. I can imagine how the pitch meeting went:

PARAMOUNT EXECUTIVE
Well Mr. Spielberg, it seems here you’d like to make a “War of the Worlds” movie…

STEVEN
Yes sir, that’s correct.

EXECUTIVE
I don’t know, sounds expensive. And are you sure you’re experienced enough to handle it?

STEVEN
Um, I’ve done every movie on budget since 1981. And I have a few Oscars… my own studio…

EXECUTIVE
Yes, well I know you’ve made us BILLIONS with your, what was it, Indiana something series, but I think this “War” thing is too much of a risk. Yeah. In fact we’re probably going to greenlight “The Shadow 2” instead.

STEVEN
Well, what if it starred Tom Cruise?

EXECUTIVE
Tom Cruise? Are you fucking kidding me? “Mission Impossible 2″ only made about half a billion worldwide. And in Euros it’s even less. Sorry, I just can’t justify those numbers son.

STEVEN [nervous]
Ok, I’ve got an idea. Let’s start shooting, but shortly before release I’ll convince Tom to start a sham romance with someone half his age!

EXECUTIVE
Ah, now you’re making sense! The millions we spend on advertising will be shored up by the free Tom plugs in tabloid articles read by forty-something soccer moms who will then no doubt flock to see a killer alien invasion flick.

STEVEN
Exactly! So… I’ve got a green light then? Huh? Huh? PLEEEASSSEEE???

EXECUTIVE
Well… Ok.

STEVEN
YIPPEE!!!

And with that Steven got to make his killer alien movie. Near the wrapping of it though he was forced to confront his good buddy Tom Cruise…

STEVEN
Tom, I think we need to have a talk…

TOM
About what? You already told me where babies come from…

STEVEN
I’m afraid this is more serious Tom. [sigh] I’m sorry, but the studio wants you to start a sham romance with a young chick. It’s the only way people will go see our movie.

TOM
What? But… why? Why don’t people want to see it right now?

STEVEN
I’m just not a good enough a director. And our $200 million of effects and destruction simply won’t cut it these days. I mean, I thought I could make a good war movie like I did with “Saving Private Ryan” but… I guess I was wrong. You’re our only hope.

TOM
Fine. I guess I did just dump that Cruz woman anyway. Do you have anyone in mind?

STEVEN
Well… what about that Katie Holmes from Dawson’s Creek?

TOM
THAT COW? Are you kidding? It’d be a total “bag over the head” thing!

STEVEN
Do it for me, Tom. Please?

TOM
Ok. I guess if I was in “Legend” I can stoop to this…

STEVEN
Shh! You’re not supposed to mention that!

MEANWHILE, ON THE SET OF “BATMAN BEGINS”, ANOTHER TROUBLED, SURE-FIRE FLOP…

JENNY [BEST FRIEND OF KATIE HOLMES]
Katie! Like OH MY GOD! Tom Cruise is coming over to your trailer!

KATIE
Oh GOD not him again… He’s got a face like a horse!

JENNY
Well I think he’s cute!

KATIE
You would.

TOM enters the trailer, a bouquet of red roses in one hand.

TOM
Hiya Katie. You don’t know me - my name is Tom Cruise. I hope you like roses…

KATIE
Oh yeah, they’re great. In fact, I’ll put them right next to my “Cocktail” DVD - in the trash!

TOM
Katie, baby, gimme a chance huh?

JENNY [embarrassed]
I am like, SO out of here.

Jenny leaves. Tom checks to make sure she’s out of earshot, then swoops in for the kill.

TOM
I hear “Batman Begins” is having trouble…

KATIE
What do you mean?

TOM
I mean I hear nobody wants to see it. That it’s gonna sink Warner Brothers. That it’s so bad they’re thinking about putting the Bat-Nipples back on and spray-painting everything bright green.

KATIE
Who told you this?

TOM
That’s unimportant. But perhaps we can help each other out…

KATIE
I’m listening…

TOM
All we have to do is start a “love affair” and the tabloids and media will go nuts. That’ll translate DIRECTLY into box office dollars for our movies.

KATIE
I guess when you put it that way, yeah… Ok I’m in!

TOM
YIPPEE!!! Now give me some sugar, baby!

If those scenes sounded realistic, well it’s because that’s obviously what happened if you believe all the talk. I guess when “Batman Begins” and “War of the Worlds” both become big hits it’ll be thanks solely to Tom and Katie, and once all the dollars are in they’ll break it off (until they star in future “sure fire flops” like “Mission Impossible 3″).

All joking aside here’s a REAL sham romance publicity stunt that none of these E! exclusive types seem to notice: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Think about it: Aside from “Troy” Brad Pitt hasn’t had a success in nearly 10 years and Jolie got lucky with the god-awful “Tomb Raider” but has made exactly ZERO hit movies beyond that. (Or beyond borders) Put it all together this June and it’s sure bet that “Mr and Mrs. Smith” is going to flop harder than a 10 ton pancake dropped from a 747. Oh but I’m sure it looked good on paper:

EXECUTIVE
Boy am I glad that Spielberg punk is outta my office… Come in!

DOUG LIMAN
[director of Mr and Mrs Smith] Hey there! Have I got a deal for you!

EXECUTIVE
Hit me.

DOUG
Ok - True Lies, the movie where the husband was a spy but his wife didn’t know, made like $150 million U.S. right?

EXECUTIVE
Yeah…

DOUG
Ok so get this – if I make a movie where BOTH the husband and wife are spies and neither one knows then we’ll make DOUBLE that!

EXECUTIVE
You know… that makes sense. And wow that’s like, what, $200 million right? I can’t actually do math…

DOUG
Close enough - at any rate it’s MORE! So whadda think?

EXECUTIVE
I’ve already started righting the checks son. So who’s gonna star in this thing?

DOUG
Well the best way to shore up the success of a $100 million production is to use two stars with abysmal track records…

EXECUTIVE
Of course. So what like – Tom Cruise?

DOUG
Actually I was thinking Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. It’ll be a PERFECT date movie, complete with guns and explosions!

EXECUTIVE
God you’re brilliant. But wait a minute – won’t girls stay away because Jolie’s a buxom big-lipped-and-boobed bimbo, and guys will steer clear cause it’s got Brad “I was a heart throb during the first Clinton term” Pitt?

DOUG
I don’t see that happening. Studies say people really connect with actors much more attractive than they are.

EXECUTIVE
I’m convinced! Ok here’s a check for $100 million, plus, aw what the hell, another $100 million – why not, I’m sure this’ll beat “Titanic”. That boat movie didn’t have Brad Pitt, you know!

Well that’s my take on it I guess. But only time (and box office return) will truly tell…

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MY NEXT RANT!

I have no clue what it’ll be about yet, probably something videogame-related. Maybe Mario and Lara Croft will start a faux romance to help sell the Nintendo DS and I complain about that… I can only hope!

2005 / 109 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

“The Longest Yard” is yet another remake that really has no reason to exist. I never saw the original movie with Burt Reynolds, but I did see the first remake of this movie: when it took place in England, concerned soccer instead of football, starred Vinnie Jones and was called “The Mean Machine”. The plots are the two films are pretty much identical, the characters are basically the same except for the accents and the sports being played, and there are some clever moments in both.

The clever moments in “The Longest Yard” (2005), however, are probably all derived from the original source material, as they are the same in both remakes. Therefore, I don’t think you can really attribute a great deal of creativity to this film.

Adam Sandler stars as Paul Crewe, a washed-up former football player whose glory days are long past since he was indicted for shaving points in a major game six years before. He is the kept, trophy husband of shrill bitch Courtney Cox (displaying more cleavage than I thought she had access to) and right there we have to suspend a great deal of disbelief. Someone with this cleavage could do much better in the trophy husband department than Adam Sandler. Hell, pretty much anyone could. I mean, look at the guy. Yeah, he’s occasionally quite funny, but he sure ain’t a looker. He’s got a head shaped like a football, beady little eyes and a huge nose. Brad Pitt, he is not. But oh well. Moving on: Sandler gets pissed at her one night, after a great deal of drinking and too much truth-telling, and drives her expensive sports car around San Diego. She reports it stolen, he gets pulled over, he’s been drinking, he drives away, a chase ensues, the sports car is destroyed and Sandler goes to jail. As soon as he arrives in jail (it’s the sort of movie prison where the guards are all sent directly from the seventh circle of Hell and their idea of a leisure activity is beating people with billy clubs) he is beaten by a vicious guard (William Fichter) and told not to participate in training the guards’ football team. Then he is asked to do so by the warden (James Cromwell, in “evil mode) and told that he must help train the guards’ football team. The poor bastard doesn’t know what to do. Eventually he agrees to help train the team and suggests that the guards play a scrimmage game against the cons for practice. The warden agrees (if he had a moustache he would twirl it, I’m sure) and soon Sandler is assembling the toughest mothers in the prison into a football force of extraordinary magnitude, each one of them more than willing to bust a few guards’ heads open during the course of the game.

The assembling of the team and the training of said team are pretty routine. If you’ve ever seen a sports movie or a movie where someone whips a motley crew of reprobates into shape, then you’ve seen most of this stuff before. There are some allegedly zany character types on the squad (they are types rather than actual characters, the screenwriters couldn’t be bothered to flesh any of them out), each with a particular talent and/or easily identifiable quirk. There’s the guy who can get McDonalds food for anyone in the joint, there’s the guy who’s bad at football and possibly gay (hey, it’s prison, when in Rome…), there’s the fat guy, the huge Indian guy, the fast guy (played by Nelly, who probably gives the closest thing there is to a performance in this movie) and others. Chris Rock soon helps Adam with the training, playing the usual Chris Rock role and saying things like “Can a brother get some hustle” and “that boy’s got slave feet”. You know, the usual Chris Rock shtick. Also on board to help out is a washed up, former Heisman trophy winner played by washed up, former Oscar nominee Burt Reynolds. Burt coasts through this movie, relying on charm that has, unfortunately, dried up over a decade ago. He proves, once again, that “Boogie Nights” was really just a fluke. By the way, have you noticed how disturbing Burt’s plastic surgery looks? He just looks way too smooth, like a burn victim with a bad skin graft. It has nothing to do with the movie, but it’s pretty damned creepy.

At no point does this movie coincide with reality. Pretty much every plot development could only happen in a movie (and a pretty far-fetched one, at that) and every character is about as thin as the paper on which the script was written. Most of the comedy falls flat (there are some good moments about a guard whose steroids have been switched with estrogen- the side of his steroid bottle is even helpfully labeled “Anabolic Steroids”, as I’m sure such illicit substances are in real life- and the cheerleading squad made up entirely of sissy convicts is a nice touch) and all attempts on the part of the filmmakers to generate drama and suspense are undermined by lazy screenwriting. When a character dies, it means nothing unless that character has been established. If he’s nothing more than a one-dimensional caricature, then his death is meaningless, as it is here. All of the usual sports clichés are on display: the third act obstacle, the sad-sack players being turned into top-notch athletes, the motivational speeches, and the big game. You could go into this movie with a checklist, really, and have most of them crossed off by the time the end credits roll. I wouldn’t have minded the rote nature of the movie so much if it had at least provided a lot of hilariously dumb, Adam Sandler humor (like his other good sports movie “Happy Gilmore”) but, as I said, most of the humor just doesn’t work. In fact, it’s like the filmmakers have barely even bothered. “The Replacements” was pretty predictable as well, but it had a certain spark and energy that is woefully missing from this film. And critical punching bag Keanu Reeves was far more human than any of the automatons in this film.

The big game at the end is the best part. Despite all of the movie’s problems this section somehow generates a good deal of laughs and even some dramatic tension. But the rest of the film just doesn’t support it. It wouldn’t really have to, if the film is as likable as past Sandler efforts like “Mr. Deeds” and “Big Daddy”. Unfortunately, this film lacks that level of likeability. Sandler is a likeable guy, even here, but he can’t overcome such ultimately hollow material. The movie has a wildly inconsistent tone, as well. It’s as if the filmmakers didn’t know whether to make a serious film (after all, there is a major character’s death and the film has as many guard-administered beatings as “The Shawshank Redemption”) or the usual Sandler frivolity. They seemed to have compromised and made a film that satisfies neither.

A good remake ultimately must have a point in being remade: this one doesn’t. It’s not awful, it’s just redundant.

Guilty Parties Involved: New Line “Oh crap we’re out of Hobbit movies” Cinema, Jamie Kennedy, Alan Cumming, 64 thousand bad CGI shots and some other poor souls. Directed by Lawrence Guterman, who also brought us 2001’s “Cats and Dogs”.

Fun-Crap Rating: 8 out of 10

2005 / 94 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: I didn’t go blind watching it.

Really terrible part: While getting its diaper changed “Mask Baby” pees in 6 different directions, most of them landing on Jamie Kennedy, then shoots him in the face with a firehouse-strength blast of urine. Also the Clint Eastwood parody bit is inexcusable (Lawrence Gutenburg should be Unforgiven for it).

Memorable line: “WHERE’S MY MAAAAAASKKKK???” screams Loki (Alan Cumming) as he whirls around a museum. Truly awful.

I wasn’t there when this movie was greenlit but it must have gone something like this:

New Line Executive 1
“Hey, didn’t ‘The Mask’ make a lot of money 10 years ago?”

Executive 2
“Yeah, like $120 million. It was pretty cheap to make too, I think we only spent like $25 mil on it.”

Executive 1
“Wow that buys a lot of coke! The Mask franchise is red-hot! We should whip out another one!”

Executive 2
“Jim Carrey won’t do it - even after I told him not to worry, the script is just as bad as ‘The Grinch’”

Executive 1
“We’ll show that loser! Let’s go ahead and make a Mask movie without him and watch as he cries all the way to the unemployment line!”

Executive 2
“Sounds good but somebody’s gotta be in it.”

Executive 1
“What about Jamie Kennedy? He’s cheap! That way we can spend more on shitty special effects.”

Executive 2
“Ok but he has to have a baby in it - you know, to get the female crowd - and the baby has to have Mask powers.”

Executive 1
“I know! ‘Son of the Mask’!”

Executive 2
“Brilliant! Let’s spend $100 million on this turd and tell our shareholders it’s the ‘next Lord of the Rings’”

That’s the only way I can imagine this piece of shit getting made because it’s probably the lamest most uncalled for sequel since “Mimic 3″ However it’s also so incredibly bad it makes for a great Shitty Movie Night T

The plot. oh God help us. Jamie Kennedy plays this aspiring animator (If he wants to be an animator so bad why doesn’t he move to India?) with a baby-wanting wife who comes off as a desperately poor man’s Renee Zellweger. His dog named Otis (the dog in the original was Milo, ha ha ha) finds the Mask and Kennedy puts it on for a Halloween party. (First rule of shitty movies: Have a masquerade ball scene. It’s sad how true this is) A long really really so-bad-you’ll-think-you’re-in-hell lame-ass musical number at the party ensues led by Mask-enabled Kennedy and he then goes home (still as Mask-man) and jumps in bed with his wife. Do the math cause we can’t show the kids in the audience what happens.

The next day his wife announces she’s pregnant! (Yes, the VERY NEXT DAY) We then get a montage of the next 9 months, complete with an ultrasound of the “mask baby” bouncing around inside the womb and playing cha-cha’s - you really have to see this shit to believe it. Meanwhile his “Mask antics” at the party get Kennedy a promotion at his workplace but he can’t find the Mask!

Why not? Well because the dog has it! Once the baby gets born the dog becomes jealous and decides to use the Mask to get rid of the kid. We then get this completely lame sequence of the dog diagramming what he’s going to do to the kid a la Wile E. Coyote and a really bad sequence of the kid using his “mask powers” (that he was born with) to stop him. So Kennedy only wears the Mask I think twice in this piece of shit, the rest of the time it’s on the dog as he fights the kid. There’s also this whole “fatherhood” crap going on with Kennedy being awaken at all hours of the night to feed the baby. He does this as if he’s sleepwalking, at one point almost feeding the baby a small lamp with a broken bulb instead of a bottle. Really. Strangely enough the baby crying never wakes up his mom during these scenes, apparently because she wouldn’t be dumb enough to feed it a lamp and therefore it wouldn’t be “funny”.

If this sounds too awful to be true, well, believe me it’s real because I lived to tell the tale. Barely. Along the way Loki (Alan Cummings) shows up to get his mask back because his god-dad (Sigh. Bob Hoskins) is bitching at him to get it. Loki rides around in a car with license plates that read “LOW KEY” (shoot me now) and checking out all newborn babies to see which is “the one”. This plays like a cross between “The Ten Commandments” and “The Terminator” except written by a coked-up moron. For example, Loki sucks babies’ moms into vacuum cleaners so he can examine the kids. Yes that sucks all right.

Eventually Loki kidnaps Kennedy’s mask-baby and decides to adopt him (since he can piss in 6 directions and such) Kennedy must then don “The Mask” and get his son back via a completely stupid “showdown” with Loki complete with giant hammers, hand grenades (also giant) and anvils (again, giant). All this stuff is obviously supposed to be an homage to classic Warner Bros cartoons (they’re even extremely long segments of those classic cartoons in this film as the baby watches them on TV to learn “tricks”) but it’s so badly done you could literally hook electromagnets up to Chuck Jones’ corpse and power all of California as he spins in his grave.

I’m not a good enough writer to even come close to describing how bad this film is, complete with its “The END??” ending of having the mom become pregnant again. (”Daughter of the Mask?”) But it IS so horribly bad that it makes a great Shitty Movie Night title, even if Jones’ wife begged us to turn it off about halfway in. (A first!) In fact, it’s probably the worst and most offensively bad big-budget movie I have ever seen, even crappier than The Grinch or Batman & Robin. If you watch it to laugh at the badness you won’t be disappointed, but be warned - it’ll take strength!

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 8 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) A full-screen clip of an old Warner Bros cartoon plays.
2) The baby dances.
3) The baby cries and annoys Kennedy.
4) Someone farts.
5) Loki’s outfit changes.
6) Bob Hoskins screams LOOOOKKKIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!
7) Jamie Kennedy is a moron.
The masked-dog snickers and looks at the camera.
9) Bodily fluid flies through the air.
10) You want to tear your own eyeballs out.

Guilty Parties Involved: Starring a bunch of nobodies and Jeremy Irons in possibly the most outlandishly over-the-top scene chewing villain role in history.

Fun-Crap Rating: 10 out of 10

2000 / 107 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: The breastplate! (More on this later)

Really terrible part: Anytime Jeremy Irons mouth opens, Blue Lips, hell, pretty much everything.

Memorable line: Jeremy Irons, literally screaming “LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKKKKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYY!” with his hands curled into hooks and the eyes bugging out of his head.

I’m disappointed in Jones! (the guy who runs this site) We’ve been having these Shitty Movie Nights (SMN) for a few years now yet all this time he’s owned the DVD of “Dungeons & Dragons” and never suggested we watch it. Unthinkable! So we come to a certain SMN and it’s decided to watch some crap one of us already owns. It ends up being “Legend” and “Dungeons & Dragons”. (Jones has “Legend” cuz he’s a huge Tom Cruise fan. Hell, if Cruise showed up in a Mary Kate & Ashley videogame he’d probably buy that too!:)

Tom aside, “Legend” was just lame and boring but “Dungeons & Dragons” was a masterpiece of hilariously bad moviemaking! Sure they probably didn’t have a very big budget but who cares - they could have tried a little harder than they did. What am I saying? I’m glad they sucked balls at making this movie because it was more entertaining that 90% of the “good” films I’ve ever watched!

Right off the bat Jeremy Irons walks into the movie with a pose. God, words can’t describe it. Just imagine the lamest “damn, I’m in a shitty movie, I’m not even gonna TRY” villain walk an actor could do and that’s it. A dragon is then killed, its blood spills into a waterway in the middle of the room, the blood then catches on fire, spreads outside the castle and ignites a lake. If that sounds dumb in print imagine how stupid it looks on film!

This fire allows the movie’s “heroes” to sneak into the Wizard School and steal crap. They’re thieves you know, and are reminded of this when someone tells them later in the film: “That’s the problem with you thieves. always stealing things that don’t belong to you.” Seriously, this is written-on-bar-napkin-after-your-tenth-drink level dialog here, and it’s great! One of the heroes looks like a young Harrison Ford (I’ll call him Harry Jr henceforth) and the other one is a really badly racially stereotyped black character named “Snails” By this I mean 1930’s movie black stereotype, which is even worse. But you know, all stereotypes aside Snails is just a lame-ass annoying-as-hell character anyway so when he dies later on you’ll probably cheer and laugh when his buddy goes “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” in a way that puts Shatner’s “KHAN!” to shame.

In the wizard school the daring duo meets “Librarian chick” who comes off as a desperately poor man’s Rachel Weisz (aka Mummy Chick) She has some map that the bad guys want so she ends up tagging along with the doorknobs. The filmmakers obviously haven’t read “How Dowdy Chicks Become Hot 101″ or maybe they just skimmed the first few chapters because, see, this chick starts out correctly dowdy (glasses, vest, hair pinned up) but after only a few minutes she’s lost her glasses AND her hair comes down, complete with a few scenes of her running. (Think the end of “Tomb Raider”) C’mon people! This has to be done slowly to build tension! She can’t just throw all the goods out there like that, what will keep the audience watching?

Oh wait, the audience will keep watching to see what the hilariously bad villains will do next. See not only is there Irons (whose character’s name “Profion” sounds like one of those drugs you should “ask you doctor” about) but there’s Blue Lips as well. See Irons pulls the strings but it’s Blue Lips that actually chases down our heroes. Why call him Blue Lips? Well, to frighten his enemies he wears bright blue lipstick which, ya know, doesn’t really go with his red cape or black armor but I guess who gives a damn? He also talks and moves very slowly, which probably explains why the only character he manages to catch (and kill) is Snails.

Everybody in this movie is looking for a rod. (That’s their term, not mine. A “rod”) Not just any rod, but a magical one that can unite the kingdom or some such BS. “American Beauty”’s Thora Birch - playing a larger-breasted version of Queen Amidala (wears Geisha outfits, bitches at a Senate) - is also interested in getting the rod so she can save her people, or the whales, or. who cares? She’s wasted and tries to play it straight, making you actually feel sorry for her (until you remember she had to at one point said YES to this role).

So our heroes run around with the bad guys trying to stop them. Along the way they pick up a dwarf who tags along but only shows up in every other scene. The editor was probably like: “Hm, cutaway to reaction shot of hot chick or gross dwarf? Hot chick! Next scene? Hot chick! Oh wait, can’t forget the dwarf. There he is, now it’s back to the hot chick!” They also run across some tree people, a booby-trapped maze filled with eyeballs and an elf woman wearing The Breastplate.

The Breastplate was one of the damndest things I’ve ever seen (and yes, I’ve watched “Tank Girl”) Imagine if you had some of that Magic Shell stuff for ice cream that hardens but it was made of liquid metal. Ok? Now imagine that poured over a well-endowed female to form a breastplate armor. That’s what this thing looked like, complete with navel groove. I don’t know how this elf could bend over wearing the thing, but it certainly was attention grabbing! She also wore what looked to be khaki pants with it and matching liquid-metal leg guards.

The end of this movie is a “thrilling” sequence of flying dragons battling each other, with special effects so bad you think you’re watching a Playstation 2 game. Jeremy Irons screams, Blue Lips dies (I think) and Thora Birch does a voice-over saying “Our people are free!” To save time and money this is over a shot of a graveyard for a true “WTF?” factor, it then pans down to reveal they’ve buried Snails. His “grave” consists of 4 rocks piled on each other with the top one scratched with his name. But that’s not all! Some magical shit happens and apparently he’s not dead, so the remaining characters (Harry Jr, Librarian Chick and I think Breastplate woman) all magically swirl away into the air, obviously leaving it open for a sequel!

All in all “Dungeons and Dragons” is probably the most enjoyable bad movie I’ve ever watched. Unlike a lot of bad movies it’s not boring because stuff actually happens in it (something that keeps Ed Wood movies from being fun, for example) but everything that happens is of course stupid as hell. A true crap classic!

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 5

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) The dwarf is suddenly missing from a scene(s) he should be in. Bonus: Take another drink when he finally re-appears!
2) You see a swooping fake CGI shot of a building’s exterior (Skip this one if you can’t hold your liquor - trust me)
3) When the camera cuts away to the librarian chick looking mad about something.
4) You see something involving eyeballs. (Apparently the director has an eyeball fetish - only explanation really)
5) You see The Breastplate!
6) Thora Birch shows up (Like the dwarf it’s quite sporadic)
7) Magic dust flies through the air and a “hole” in reality is formed and jumped through.
You hear the word “Rod”.

Guilty Parties Involved: Vin Diesel, Keith “You gotta give that baby a REAL name!” David and Thandie Newton. Oh yeah, and get this - JUDI DENCH! (She musta passed on 2 Fast 2 Furious but agreed to this after they caved to her demands of 30 mil)

Fun-Crap Rating: 4 out of 10

2004 / 119 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: The fact that it ends.

Really terrible part: Color-changing spike-covered CGI dogs. And a lot of other stuff.

Memorable line: At one point Vin Diesel croaks out “It’s been a long time since I smelled beautiful” so you’re wondering if he’s talking about Thandie Newton or should take a bath.

For starters don’t worry. There IS a part in this movie where someone screams out “RIDDICK!!!!” because, as you probably have noticed, it’s actually a law that in a shitty movie the bad guy must scream out the hero’s name. See, it’s perfectly ok for a good guy to scream out a bad guy’s name (ahem, KHHHHAAAANNNNN!!!!! anyone?) but the reverse.. Eh.

Anyway this is a sequel to the cult classic hit “Pitch Black” which kinda launched Vin Diesel’s career. See in Hollywood it’s always considered a “good idea” to make a 100 million dollar sequel to a 20 million dollar sleeper-hit that made 25 million. I think this has only worked once and that was because James “I am a God” Cameron was in charge (Speaking of course about “Terminator 2″).

Unlike T2 Riddick (Chronicles of) was a bomb so I guess they won’t get their precious franchise they were after. So all the time they spend building this mythology in the “world of Pitch Black” is wasted. They’ve got all this stupid crap like “elementals” played by Judi Dench, this planet-conquering Borg-ripoff race of jerks called “Necromongers” trying to convert people, prison planets, pumping your veins with blue anti-freeze to traverse space. WHO CARES?

Damn this is sounding like a normal review - I’d better watch myself! This movie is just kind of “there” The effects aren’t so hot but nothing is so bad that you’ll enjoy it on that level either. The action is all watered-down PG-13 BS (even in the unrated director’s cut) You might get a few laughs from the dialog (aforementioned line about smelling beautiful) but it’s mostly a chore to watch this thing.

Maybe some people would be into this movie but not me, and not even on a Shitty Movie Night level. Usually a lame script and overdone special effects are a sure-fire recipe for badness but here it fizzles on both levels. If you see it to rent for a buck it might be worth it, otherwise there’s plenty of “better” bad movies out there.

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 6 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) Riddick takes off or puts on his goggles (Have a strong stomach).
2) You see carved faces (Also have a strong stomach).
3) Someone says “Take the money”.
4) Judi Dench shows up and floats through a scene (Probably between doing episodes of “As Time Goes By”)
5) Thandie Newton’s acting sucks (Drink as soon as she shows up to save time).