Category: Movies

  • Tales from the Video Store: Guardians (2017 Russian Film)

    If you are not aware, I do love bad movies. And Amazon Prime has become a goldmine for me when it comes to finding new awful films to watch. With their feature “Customers Also Watched” for movies which can lead me down a rabbit hole of amazing horrible bad movies.

    That’s how I got to “Guardians,” a 2017 Russian superhero movie that no one should ever confuse for anything associated with Marvel, or DC for that matter. I had actually thought it was one of The Asylum’s mockbusters, such as a rip off of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Nope, I got something even more culturally rewarding.

    This “Guardians” is not only a bad superhero movie, but it is a bad Russian superhero movie that bombed in Russia. It’s like an added bonus that it’s disliked in two countries.

    It’s not really an awful idea for a movie. The superheroes are created but the Soviets during the cold war, with the lead scientist going crazy. The scientist blows something up, and everyone goes into hiding. (That’s the not so awful part; the Soviet thing, but I have a feeling the “Black Widow” movie this year will tell a better story… I digress…) Then years pass, the evil scientist returns, and so the superhero band has to be put back together. Stuff blows up, and the end. We got a guy who controls rocks… sure, why not. The super assassin guy, a dude who turns into a bear (Russian after all) and a women who disappears when she gets wet, or touches water.

    Oddly, no one flies, which means they were always dependent on a ride if you think about it.

    Not a very original film, and the worst part, besides some really awful special effects, is the montage of the band getting back together. The Rock guy is the one who goes out to collect everyone. So, each character gets a moment of showing how they have been using their abilities since breaking up. And after they get done demonstrating their abilities, usually meaning something blew up in slow motion, the Rock guy is there, right off camera to have some witty comment, which surprises that other hero.  It’s like no one sees the Rock Guy coming, ever.

    Either way, it’s a terrible/wonderful awful hour and a half of pretty much cliched superhero stuff from the other half of the world. I was left thinking that since this movie is generally hated in its home country, then maybe Americans and Russians are not that different after all.

  • Enablers

    I was nervous that Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t get convicted. I hadn’t been following the case closely, as I felt that it was only a 50/50 shot, he would be found guilty, and I had already decided that I believed the survivors. I didn’t need a jury to justify my stance.

    But Harvey is going to jail, and I hope that this brings about the beginning of the end of the idea that there are “untouchable” men in any industry that take advantage of their position.

    Now, it’s time that we start addressing the enablers that helped Harvey. The agents who sent women to his hotel room, and office. The directors who were ordered to put women in, or take them out of their movies, the assistants who heard what was happening and did.

    I know that there are people out there that want to punish all of these enablers, and I understand where they are coming from. And that may or should happen.

    From my experience, and I have spent some time in theatre education, it needs to start in all theatre classes, and be reiterated again, and again, all the way up to grad school, and supported by all the unions in the entertainment industry. There needs to be an ethical standard that everyone needs to understand and follow. And I’m talking about simple things like no more one on one meetings between actors and producers or directors. Actors/artist have the right to have an advocate present at all times.

    Harvey didn’t create this world of casting couches, and treating women as if they are disposable. And it is wrong for us to believe that even if these few men that have been outed by #MeToo all go to jail that this issue will go away. We have to start building the new acceptable culture of the entertainment industry today.

  • Thanks, Alex

    I think I need to take a break from the news. I could talk about South Carolina, or that Harvey Weinstein was just found guilty on two counts.

    But what I really want to talk about is listening to Parliament.

    What has brought this about recently is that we showed the kid “Guardians of the Galaxy, and Vol. 2” this weekend, and she completely latched on to the movies, the characters, and the music. (She’s been running around the playground telling the other kids that she’s Gamora.) We added both soundtracks to a playlist for her, which means we have been listening to it pretty much non-stop. That’s not a complaint.

    Vol. 2’s soundtrack has Parliament’s “Flash Light” on it, and this is how we get all of this tied together.

    I have some time for myself this day to work in the home office, and this would make a great time to start listening to Parliament again.

    I know the first time I heard/saw them, and that was on Saturday Night Live in 1986. (I know this only because I can look it up, not that the date was seared into my brain.) Watching George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic did leave me a little confused, as I knew it was a band, but the music and attitude on display was not like anything I had seen before.

    Jump ahead five years, and being in 9th grade I make that friend who loves Parliament, and my music horizons are broadened in a most needed way. The Mothership Connection, and Bootsy Collins, and the funk, and for a little white kid growing up in the suburbs, it was like getting invited to the party with the cool kids.

    I mean, I want funk uncut.

  • The Fanboys and Movies

    Fanboys have broken me.

    I was watching the Star Wars Final Trailer, and it was fine, and made me a little excited to see the movie, too. I will be taking my daughter to see it at Christmas time, and for that reason alone, I know I will have a great time with the movie.

    And then the thought of the fanboys came into my head, and the continuous shitting on the movie that will happen the second the movie starts playing. It’s just draining to hear constant nitpicking.

    I am fully aware I can ignore people, but sadly, I am good friends with some fanboys, though they figured out they are fanboys.

    What bothers me is that fanboy culture has changed the way we now think about criticizing movies. I know this is an event movie that lots of stuff will ‘slpode in. But whatever inconstancy or error that some fanboy discovers will then be blown up into the greatest of all transgressions, and thus the movie is shit, and you are shit for liking it.

    The outrage! “How could they do this to us, they most loyal of loyal fans! We deserve better!”

    How did we get here, again?

    Sure, you can blame the internet for creating an arms race of outrage and offense that must be expressed to the highest degree…

    But the other side of it, that some of these movies really are very good, but there is no context for constructive criticism.

    I think this was a part of the point that Scorsese and Coppola were trying to make; Star Wars and Marvel movies right now are just telling the same story repeatedly. With all these two-dimensional characters that are tumbling towards a third act in the movie where everything will explode, and the heroes are protected by plot armor, and in the back of your mind, you know that in six months you are about to do this same thing all over again, just with a different cast and setting.

    This is what the fanboy beast wants to be fed, and the billions of dollars prove that right now, its still a winning formula. And that outrage is also part of that formula now.

  • Trump or the Emmys?

    These are the first two thoughts that popped into my mind when I thought about writing a blog today; do I write about Trump or the Emmys?

    I could say that writing about Trump, again, will do nothing but make me feel defeated and powerless. Yet again, we have another situation where Trump has gone and done something illegal, and then ho goes and gaslights the world into believing that he was doing everyone a favor for doing this thing, which in his opinion, wasn’t illegal at all. I think Bill Maher had the best reaction this past Friday which was that this will follow the same cycle of denial, then admitting to it but it wasn’t wrong, and then starting another scandal to make everyone forget about the first scandal. I also expect this to happen, which is why I feel defeated and powerless.

    Speaking of defeated and powerless, I watched part of the Emmys, and it was a rather dull affair. The only take away I had was the free broadcast television was now officially dead. SNL was the only over the air broadcast show to win, and the rest went to cable or streaming. This is the new entertainment world we live in. It is a little sad that free tv is no more, as what I mourn for are all the great 15 and 30 second commercials we will never see, as no one watches commercials. All of those jingle writers will be out of a job. Sad.