Disappointing Friday

This is not a good week for movies. Not a good week at all.

So disappointing in fact, I don't really have a desire to write about it.

Only two movies open today in wide release. Steve Carrell's 'Get Smart' remake of the 1960s sitcom and Michael Meyer's 'The Love Guru.' Good lord.

'Get Smart' is getting pretty mediocre reviews. And based on that boring trailer and the rumored kiss between The Rock and Carrell, this movie is not worth seeing. If you care about this movie, you can prepare yourself by reading these reviews.

And...'The Love Guru.' 0% from rottentomato top critics. Not good. This is not good. The most entertaining part of this movie is reading Rafer Guzman rip it to shreds, and explain why if you like the movie, you're a gross 10 year old. Poor form, JT. Poor form, Jessica Alba.

There is hope for next week, a lot of hope:

The Underwhelming Hulk

I saw 'The Incredible Hulk' last night...

It wasn't horrible. It wasn't terrific, it just was. The film surpassed my expectations of Leterrier's talent (yes, I was expecting to see something closer to 'The Transporter 3'). But the script failed to meet my expectations of Edward Norton's talents. It's annoying to wonder how much of the film was lost in the Norton/Leterrier/Marvel fued. Could it have been the movie that you can see just below the superficial surface of the movie? Leterrier says yes, and that the full movie will be available on the DVD.

Now I don't want to be too hard on the Hulk. It was great watching Norton perform. His knowing smile that seems to suggest he enjoys losing himself in the monster is wickedly entertaining. His co-star Liv Tyler is kind of a drag though. I'm not sure how she keeps getting this roles. Did you see 'The Strangers?' Bleh. At least they had some sexual chemistry. Which contributes to the funniest scene in the movie, as Bruce Banner is starting to get it on but has to stop mid-hump for fear of getting 'too excited.'

All things considered, I was entertained. I'm not a comic book fan, I had no previous allegience to the Hulk (only to Norton), but still, the chase scenes, the explosions, all good enough to watch at least once.

George A Romero's Diary of the Dead

I'm not a huge horror fan. Freddy, Jason, little Asian girls that have weird eyes or come out of walls, they do nothing for me. I do however enjoy the few really well done horror movies that I've seen. These includes Neil Marshall's 'The Descent,' and Danny Boyle's '28 Days Later' to name a few. But even if you don't particularly like the genre, who can resist a zombie movie from the grandfather, nay, the god and creator of the zombie genre itself? George Romero released the fifth chapter of his Dead series, 'Diary of the Dead,' last year. You certainly don't have to be familiar with the Romero zombie cannon to enjoy this.

Filmed on an extremely modest budget of approximately $2,000,000, the film ran the festival circuit with showings at Sundance, Toronto, Vienna, and several others. Critics seem to like it. Rottentomatoes gives it a 61% approval rating, and a top critics rating of 67%. Those reviews are here. Respected critics such as Peter Travers of Rollingstone claim 'Diary' is a 'leader in the scare pack.' My first viewing of this film was at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year. It's now available on DVD so I rented it to enjoy a second time. This time I saw the movie in a different light.

There are several aspects of the film that are excellent. For one, it's filmed gonzo style, like 'The Blair Witch Project,' or 'Cloverfield.' It's extremely effective in adding realism. The plot follows a group of film students as the dead start to wake up and attack the living. All shots are filmed with hand cams giving it the feel of a documentary. The students take a road trip from Pittsburgh to Pennsylvania where the majority of the group comes from. Unlike most zombie movies, there's no back story. No one tries to explain how the undead are walking the streets, they are just trying to live through this horrifying experience they don't understand. The actors are unknowns, unrecognizable which helps the realism as the viewer can see himself in the story.

But as the movie goes on, it gets more and more self-indulgent and preachy. Romero condemns those that are obsessed with filming and/or watching the suffering of other people. Clips of real world events are thrown in (Darfur, the Iraq War) to hit the point home and the dialogue frequently turns to how disgusting it is that one student refuses to set his camera down, even to help his super bitchy girlfriend when she's shaken up because her 13 year old undead brother attacks her. Those unaffected by the the zombie disease tie up the zombies and torture them for fun, and we hear the narrator do a voice over, 'are we worth saving? You tell me.' WE GET IT. Yeah, we like to film stuff, to watch people suffer, that's why I have CNN, MSNBC, MSNBC Headline News, FOX News and TMZ. That's why I spend hours surfing Youtube. As one of the character reminds us, 'For you, if it's not caught on film, it didn't happen.'

What happened to the subtle metaphor? Why does Romero feel like he has to spell it out for us? Look! They're torturing innocent zombies. Since those people represent us...we must be guilty too! Thanks Romero! I get it now. Youtube is evil and I should spend more time raising money for Rwanda.

Despite the tired political and social commentary, the movie does have it's flashes of ghoulish inspiration. The opening news sequence is down right disturbing. The run in with the deaf Amish man Samuel, who enjoys blowing up the oncoming zombies with his homemade dynamite is pure entertainment. There's a reason great writers and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Stephen King recognize Romero as a master, but this film isn't one of those reasons.

Tomorrow...in Theaters

There are two movies opening tomorrow that deserve special mention. First is 'The Incredible Hulk.' Who can't help but be excited about the next film from the director of 'The Transporter,' and 'The transporter 2!' Louis Leterrier (did I mention he was French?) directed this second Hulk movie after Ang Lee's 2003 box-office disappointment starring Eric Bana. Rumors of fights and feuds between Marvel, Leterrier, and Edward Norton (who was brought on not only to star, but to re-write large portions of the script) may have already tainted this movie for fans. Norton skipped the publicity tour because of the negative lime light. Both Leterrier and Norton released short, completely unbelievable statements about how blown out of proportion the rumors are and what pure joy it was working with each other and Marvel on this project.

This movie is particularly important to Marvel as it's one of only two movies it will release this year (the first being the mega-hit 'Ironman'). Despite all of this, early reviews of the film have been hopeful. This coupled with the fact Norton rarely fails to deliver provides hope for Hulk fans, and non-geek theater-goers a like. Here's one of the many trailers released:



The second film is 'Baghead.' I know a lot less about this film. It's directed by the Duplass brothers. Whoever they are. Apparently they had a hit in the festival circuit in 2005 or something called 'The Puffy Chair.' But it obviously wasn't that big of a hit since no one's ever heard of it. What I do know, is that it was a hit at this year's Sundance Festival. I also know it has a rating of 100% on rottentomatoes.com. Click here to read the reviews at RT. While all the reviews are positive, they use what seem like conflicting words to describe the movie. Such as: horror, sexual, scary, political, charming, funny, sweet, warm, and innovative. Frankly, they had me with the first two words, but the last few do add intrigue...

This film is not being widely released, so unless your near a large city with a decent arthouse theater, you might not get to see this one until it's on the bottom shelf at your nearest blockbuster, probably hidden under the 700 copies of the latest Lindsey Lohan movie they ordered. If you do have the opportunity to see it, be prepared for a different type of film making. Nick Schager from Lessons of Darkness describes it as a "semi-improvisatory film making approach, capturing authenticity in their cast's fumbling gestures, half-spoken lines, and stumbling advances.' Still though, the trailer makes it look pretty promising.

Candy Mountain

Wandering through the billions of Youtube videos never fails to endlessly entertain me. It also never fails to make me feel a little sad thinking about the people that spend so much time making these videos that, without some stroke of luck will probably be lost among all the others.



After I get sad thinking about all these wasted efforts, then I get really sad that I can spend hours entertaining myself this way. I start wondering if there is some more productive way I can spend my time, like alphabetizing my DVDs by director. Or making my own Hot 100 list since Maxim's was clearly created by a group of of men/women attracted to the androgynous underdog. It's at about this point that I start to shut my laptop...and just then, I find something like this:



Or this little diddy that Ben showed me:



That's when I get happy again.

4am

Yesterday I went to Salt Lake to hang out with a friend. When I got downtown, my 'Low Fuel' light turned on. I drove a few more miles until I was afraid of running out of gas. That actually happened to me a few months ago. I literally ran out of gas. You know, like when you have to walk to a gas station with a container, buy a gallon of gas and walk back to your vehicle? I've never run out of gas, ever. But it happened (all except walking, because I called a friend to drive me the four blocks to the gas station). I blame it on the gas prices. Never have I feared 7-11 so much.

So I stop at the nearest gas station and end up paying more than 4 dollars a gallon.
This is bull shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some countries have been paying 6 dollars a gallon for a while. So what? I wasn't buying gas in London, or in Paris, or where ever else the average per capita income is like, a billion dollars. Filling my tank at these prices costs over 100 dollars. But hey, at least Iraq is on the road to true democracy (is that why we went there? Or was it Saddam? Or was it the WMDs? I'm confused). Thanks Bush. I owe you one.



During our trip to Vegas two weekends ago, Ben was introduced to the game of roulette. That game is bitchin'. It really is a lot of fun. When we got back, Ben bought all the stuff to make our own table, and we spent about 4 hours making it. This is pretty much what my roommates and I do now. We each buy in using our bottomless savings of imaginary money. What if one of us runs out? No problem, we never run out of chips representing imaginary money. We use a random number generator, or an online roulette wheel to generate our numbers and bet on Lady Luck to win even more imaginary money. Sometimes I pretend my chips are worth 50 dollars each while everyone else's chips are only worth a dollar. It makes me feel like I'm at the high roller table. Does this make me a wanna-be elitist? Maybe. They're my chips though, so back off. After we've lost months worth of imaginary income to 'the house,' we start brushing up our blackjack skills (of which, we really have none). Is it actually possible to win at blackjack? I'm sure it's not. I could pay tuition for years with all the imaginary money I've lost at that game. But I guess that's why it's called gambling. In this picture are my friends, Mindy, Cen, and Bark (names have been changed to protect the liberal sinners).

BYU DISCLAIMER: NO MONEY, SERVICES, OR OTHER PRIZES WERE ACCEPTED OR PAID OUT IN THESE 'GAMBLING-LIKE' GAMES. WE RECOGNIZE THAT DOING SO IN ANY FORM WOULD BE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE HONOR CODE, AND UTAH'S ANTI-GAMBLING LAWS.

Sorry, just wanted to make sure Big Brother knows we're conforming.

Finally, I move to Radiohead. In their continuing conquest to be the best and most innovative band around, Radiohead released http://www.radioheadremix.com/ a few months ago. The band released the separate stems to 'Nude,' a single off their latest album, 'In Rainbows,' and allowed listeners to remix the song and upload it to this site. Visitors voted on their favorite mixes and the polling closed on June 1st. All 2252 remixes are still up on the site. Go listen to them. They're great.

With Radiohead's permission, Amplive remixed seven of the 'In Rainbow' tracks. These tracks are available for download for free here.

Consumption

Have you ever wondered how many pints of milk you will drink in you life - and what that would look like? Or how many liters of tears you will cry? Have you ever wondered how many times you’ll have sex - and with how many people?

I don't agree.

Survey says:

You're The Catcher in the Rye!

by J.D. Salinger

You are surrounded by phonies, and boy are you sick of them! In an
ongoing struggle to search for a land without phonies, you end up running away from
everything, from school to consequences. In this process, you reveal that many people
in your life have suffered torments and all you really want to do is catch them as
they fall. Perhaps using a baseball mitt. Your biggest fans are infamous
psychotics.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

That's bull.

Dane Cook is a Silly Son of a Bitch

My buddy Ben and I took a little trip down to Vegas Memorial Day weekend. It was rad.

We sang karaoke, rode the rides on top of the Stratosphere, played roulette (not to mention I won), and saw Dane Cook perform at the Collesium at Caesar's Palace.

The performance was hilarious. Before the show, Ben heard a rumor that Dane's manager was handing out passes to a VIP after party. So he hunted the manager down, his name was Barry, and snagged us two tickets to the party.



So after the show, we went to a private room and hung out with the 3 comedians that performed and about 30 of the hottest girls I've ever seen in real life (watching The Hills doesn't count as seeing a hot chick I guess).

It feels so good.

One of the many joys of going to my Mom's place in Idaho (and there are many) is taking a shower where the shower head is high enough that the water hits my head.

I understand that student apartments are run by monopolizing companies in Provo that know they don't have to compete with quality because 32,000 students are forced to live within a two miles radius of campus. And I get that these apartments aren't built to really be comfortable, but to stand the test of time. But why, when a bathroom has an 8 foot ceiling, is the shower nozzle so low that it hits me in the lower back? Since I've lived in Provo, I have lived in 5 different apartment complexes, and each one has had this problem. Why? I don't get it.

My Mom started a business and the grand opening of her office space is today. There's going to be a ribbon cutting and everything!