Ending the games

Ender's Game

    I’ve never read Ender’s Game, nor any of Orson Scott Card’s books. I don’t care to listen to the man preach to me about the evils of gay marriage. I will let him tell me a story of space, aliens, war and the lengths one goes to when they feel they have no other choice because the two are not mutually exclusive. I can enjoy a story and a movie while keeping the thoughts an opinions of an author. Reading and watching Twilight (why did I admit to this?)didn’t make me want to join the church of the sparkly vampire virgin. If I see an “artist” doing something that physically disgusts me, I do not eliminate his art, I just choose to look at what I want to see in them. Let’s face facts, the people who hate gay people and are disgusted by gay marriage, probably aren’t gonna be convinced by me not going to their movie that everyone is entitled to love anyone they want. Don’t cut yourself off from different points of view because you don’t agree with them. Isn’t that the same as saying that you don’t like gay marriage?
    Alright, enough heavy stuff. The important thing to know is that Ender’s Game is a great science fiction movie. The year is 2086 and an alien race called the Formic attack Earth. Thanks to the ability of a single pilot, the aliens are destroyed. Exactly how it happened is a mystery. Mazer Rackham is a hero to the human race and the aliens were defeated. It is known that the aliens are assembling a new attempt at conquering Earth.  Enter Asa Butterfield as Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a child genius who has the ability to out think and defeat any opponent.  He is recruited by Harrison Ford’s Colonel Graff to join an elite squad of kids who show the promise and the ability to lead the human race in the war against the Formic forces and end the threat for good. To quote Law and Order, these are their stories.
    The subtle and nuanced work of Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin hold their own against the world famous Harrison Ford, Viola Davis and Ben Kingsley. All the key roles are perfectly cast. I’ve been personally worried about Harrison Ford in recent years. He seemed to have fallen into mumbling and resting on the laurels of being one of the most iconic characters in the history of film. Here, Harrison Ford is engaged and indeed very solemn as a man who is most likely destroying these children’s lives.  Ender’s trials throughout the movie show us the lonliness of genius and the consequences of bullying. A whole lot of this movie is a telling statement  on our society. Hailee Steinfeld as Petra offers the lone bit of support and caring for the first part of the movie. As time goes on, Ender builds a team of the losers and freaks and turns them into an elite force to help him fight the Formic army. The key to Ender’s Game is not what happens in the movie but the motivations for most all the tormentors in Ender’s Life. Fear. The bullies, the leaders, Ender, his crew, even the Formic...they all fear what they can’t control.  Fear is the overriding element of every torture, bullying, and action in this film. Perhaps if Mr. Scott Card could look at his own book for inspiration he’d stop trying to attack love and embrace it. That is the point you can derive from Ender’s Game. It’s a good one.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: In the end, hate is beaten by love. Always will. Ender’s Game is a great movie. Don’t let your hate stop you from seeing it.

Quick Hits: Documentary

Documentary Theater 

I have a love hate relationship with documentaries. Some can be really good and some can be about as fun as a teeth pulling. I can already see the backs straightening and people getting all hacked off thinking that I don’t respect the genre. I do. Some of the most impressive films I’ve seen have been documentaries. What I hate are movies that decide to show me how stupid I am and that I am such a sucker for believing the company line. Yes, I am a sucker and I don’t spend my day trying to get someone because they are being shady. In fact, I assume most people are shady and don’t care if Michael Moore points it out. The truth about the 1 percenters is that they really don’t care about us in the real world and anything you do to try to stop them, doesn’t affect them, it affects the dock workers and bank employees who face your wrath for going to work. So for the most part, I don’t go in for a documentary and when I do I am a bit of a sports/serial killer type of documentary guy. There are a few sports docs (both excellent) and a movie doc (interesting but challenging). Every once and a while, I get in the mood and I find some that fit my sensibilities or are on a subject I am intrigued by. These are their stories...chung chung.

Blackfish

 

Blackfish is the story of Tilikum, the largest killer whale currently in captivity. Tilikum lives and works at SeaWorld: Orlando and in his time in captivity has been responsible for the death of 3 people. Captured as a baby, Tilikum has, in his time in captivity, killed 3 people. This documentary is trying to tell the story of why. I always loved the killer whale shows at Marine World and I never gave much thought to the lives these creatures live. My eyes, they have been opened. You see the video of how they captured Tilikum, the environment he was kept in as a young whale being tortured by trainers and his fellow Orcas, and finally the story of the different trainers who all ended up dead. The filmmaker does not blame Tilikum and in fact shows the culpability of SeaWorld in the deaths. Killer Whales are wild creatures with brains comparable to our own. They have a sense of self, of pain, of lonliness. I can understand that. If I were kidnapped from my mother, kept with people who beat me and fed me sparingly, locked in a dark environment which was barely bigger than I was, and  then was forced to perform for a bunch of people, I might lose my shit every once and a while too. Blackfish is a sad tale, not only because 3 people lost their lives but because Tilikum the whale deserves better from us...the “more evolved” species. - In Theaters

Mr. Unhappy Sez: A documentary everyone should see. Not only about animal rights but the corporate entity that allows people to be put in danger for the all mighty dollar.

Hot Coffee

 

I remember when I was a kid and a woman sued McDonald’s for spilling coffee on herself and I thought “How can she do that? It isn’t McDonald’s fault that you are stupid.” Hot Coffee is a documentary which goes in depth about the story behind that case and frivolous lawsuits in general. What you learn is that the woman only wanted her medical bills covered. That she simply tried to add creamer to her coffee while parked. Also you see how frivolous lawsuits may have been a great catchphrase to win election but that most of them were legitimate lawsuits and that now with new tort reform laws, we have weakened our own right to litigation and protected billionaire companies. I can’t say that I agree with all of what Hot Coffee wanted to say but I learned a few valuable lessons and I was shown that what I thought I knew was completely wrong. As my high scholl math teacher Dr. Donovan said once. It is worse to think you know than to not know at all. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: Worth a look. It will make you angry and maybe disgust you a bit (I didn’t need to see grandma’s burned vijayjay) but it makes you think a little too.

Knuckleball

 

 

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of the knuckleball in baseball. You see so few pitchers that attempt to throw it but those who do it well can have a career that last into their fifties. This movie focuses on Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey, the most current pitchers to successfully use the pitch. I always wanted to learn the knuckler as a little leaguer. That pitch would blow people’s minds. You don’t actually throw it with your knuckles. You push the ball so it has no spin. As it floats towards home plate at a blistering 65 miles per hour (some can throw it harder) the wind and airflow affects the ball to a point where the ball seems to dance and dive away from the hitter. If you don’t throw it correctly it is about as effective as a batting practice fastball...which is to say not very effective. The film follows Wakefield through his final year pitching and Dickey through a year when he was just becoming the pitcher he is now. It is a bit frustrating at times because you don’t get a lot of history on the pitch but you do see the bond between pitchers that throw the knuckler and how frustrating the pitch can be for hitters, pitchers, and the managers that coach them. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: I wish I could’ve been a knuckle baller... a little bit taller and somewhat a little more athletically inclined...er.

The Marinovich Project

 

 

In 1991, a quarterback out of USC, Todd Marinovich was drafted by the Los Angeles Raiders. A few years later, he was out of the league. He was JaMarcus Russell before JaMarcus Russell probably could throw the football. Trained since birth by his father to be the perfect quarterback, Todd eventually rebelled against his father’s training and fell into trouble with drugs and alcohol. This is a story about what can happen if you push your children to chase your own athletic dreams. Todd’s father was a Raider whose career was cut a little short and then began to mold his son in his image. Todd was tall and lanky, perfect for a Quarterback. He had a great delivery, the athletic ability to be a star and the desire for none of it. What you see here is a guy who desperately didn’t want to let his father down. Todd Marinovich was a can’t miss prospect who missed. If you watch this documentary, you know why. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: For every Tiger Woods or Tim Lincecum, there are a hundred parents who push their kids to succeed in sports and have to watch them fail. It’s a great watch for a father.

Best Worst Movie

 

I’ve heard a lot of movies called the worst movie ever made. Plan 9 from Outer Space is considered classically the worst. The Room has come on in recent years and I can’t argue based on the few scenes I’ve seen. Another one is Manos: Hands of Fate and I am eager to se it just so I can add it atop my own personal list. I’ve made a habit of seeing bad movies and in the case of Troll 2, I will forgo my need to see it. I saw enough in this documentary which tries to explain how they make  people who set out with the intent of make a good movie, end up make one of the worst ever. First task is hire a dentist as your lead actor. For all their good intentions there is a kind of ineptness that permeates Troll 2...which oddly doesn’t have troll in it. It is an intriguing rabbit hole to fall down and you begin to meet the cast of odd characters that comprised the actors in this movie. By the end, you understand where things went sideways. The actors all had good intentions but just couldn't act. The script had interesting ideas but no way to execute them. It is the story of a movie crashing and burning and then being reborn as a cult classic. This documentary is worth seeing just to follow the journey into just a horrible horrible movie. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: An awful movie, inside a truly good one. For the record, the worst movie I’ve seen is Battlefield: Earth. THAT movie had no excuse.

When Mr. Unhappy was young...

I'd like to make like the fresh prince and take a moment and have you sit right there while I tell you the story of a boy named Skippy.  When I was in college, I wrote an essay about the experience I had, going to the movies on my own. I've been writing again and have not been feeling very bloggy so I thought maybe you folks will like this brief interlude. It doesn't involve a movie exactly but there is a lot of truth in it. Now I pulled up to the theater around 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie, yo homes smell you later...and so on.... Now the adventure of a young Mr. Unhappy, an anti-social pornstar if ever you saw one, at the movies... I call this... 

 Skippy, the Two Toed Wonder Child and other observations from the movie theater.

There are sticky cola stained floors littered with the trash of the others who came before us. The teenage male who feebly attempts to grope his girlfriend with that cliché yawning-arm-around-the-girl maneuver. The fat lady with the ten foot high hat who sits in front of you. The ushers running throughout the R-Rated theaters to rid them of the scourge of underage viewers. There is meaningless trivia decorating the screen with questions about Kevin Costner’s first movie (Sizzle Beach USA) and old people mumbling under their breaths about the way things were back when movies were boring and women were clothed. No wonder old people are so bitter. There was no porn in their days. I'd go out of my mind without a the ability to grope Mr. Happy to the fine breasts of Linnea Quigley in Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama. Which brings me to the final group. Those like me, the loners and the losers watching the loving, groping, teenagers in admiration and jealousy. This is the movie going experience.

I sit in the back of the theaters when I go to the movies, not because I want to watch the many kids aching for a release of their sexual frustration (some of who will release it in their mother’s station wagon later that night) but because I don’t want to bother people. I have heard the snickers of  “Look at his head. Jesus, I am never going to see around that thing.”  So I sit in the back. No one to sit behind me and observe the size of my head which, for the record, is not all that large Miss I-can’t-fit-in-my-seat-so-I’ll-make-fun-of-the-loser-in-front-of-me. Maybe if we took a little better care of our own lives and stopped concerning ourselves with other people’s problems we could evolve a little faster and close the arm rests on our seats. 

I stake my seat in the back and permanently plant my feet on the superglue like cola stained floors and begin to read the trivia questions, view the “memorable moments” that aren’t that memorable and finally learn that “The English Patient” was the best picture last year. When I bored of the screen, I look over at the unpregnant pregnant woman who  screams something about her husband being swallowed by her man-eating thigh. Like this is my problem or something but  I look around anyway for the jaws of life but only see an usher standing there, his pants growing a large wet spot, and unable to move or help the obese whale in the seat in front of me. So being the humanitarian I am, I leap from my chair, grabbing the usher’s flashlight and begin to pry her leg up as she screams in pain. Finally her husband is on the floor next to me, covered in sweat and looking like a new born baby. I have saved another life at the movies even though the lady is now beating me on my head with her purse. So I pull my hand out from under the thigh and look down at the man who smiles. I help him up wondering what happened to the flashlight and nod my head to his wife who continues to beat me with her purse for making her spill her popcorn. All good deeds get punished...
 

I return to my seat without being thanked and being cursed at by the pee-stained usher for losing his flashlight. Tuning him out I look back to the screen where a cartoon tells me not to talk during the movie. Unfortunately the guy three rows up is too wrapped up in his conversation to notice the sign. Besides everyone has to be interested in what his little Skippy did this morning. Apparently he watched MTV for three hours, grabbed his crotch and did the cutest Michael Jackson imitation. Then he moonwalked across the floor, which is tough for Skippy to do because Skippy only has two toes. When he reached the TV, he screamed at the top of his lungs then put in his favorite Snuggle bears cartoon and laughed himself silly.   I can’t speak for the rest of the theater but I could  have cared less. Finally I look back at the screen as the lights dim and the screen lights up. I sit upright in my chair and sink the cushion into my back. Ahh finally relaxation.
 

SHARP DRIVING PAIN! 

My butt goes numb, my leg is pins and needles and I suddenly realize my hand is being used as sexual device by the horny teenager to my left. Apparently two hands groping his girlfriend aren’t enough. Not like I care, best grope I’ve had in my life. I begin to move, trying to alleviate the pressure on my ass and the woman I've been drafted to grope screams. Next thing I know, I’m flying out of my seat and some pimply faced circus midget is slapping me around for groping his girlfriend. Fists are flying quickly and the woman is screaming for me not to kill her “lover man.” Since I hadn’t thrown a punch nor did I intend to, I couldn’t see her point. Multiple “Shut-up you morons” from the people in the theater end the scuffle quickly and I, at the request of the impish boyfriend and the pee-stained usher, agree to relocate to the front of the theater.
    

I looked up to the screen, my neck now craning back to the fourth row so I can see and  that Captain Genius in the back is still yammering away about Skippy, his two toed wonder child and how he can do the perfect impression of a seal. Behind him, the whale of a woman is now contentedly eating her new bucket of popcorn while her husband’s legs jerk spasmodically as his upper half has been engulfed by her thigh again. I look for the usher who has mysteriously changed his pants and a fresh stain is growing. The pimply faced midget in the back still paws at his girlfriend who acts rather disinterested without my hand there to help him(I knew I was good.)  I remind myself that these are not my problems and I relax to watch my movie. Ahhh, relaxation, a movie and then, the whispers. “God, look at his head. Jesus, I’ll never be able to see around that.”

Entering Miss Plaza

    There is something great about the summer. In a effort to increase movie ticket sales, movie companies start doing two late night early shows for the newest movies. It helps those of us who love to go see the late night shows but maybe don’t want to be snuggling with the couple next to us on the aisle who needs to buy the large drink even though it will cause them to leave at the most crucial point in the movie and proceed to fall on top of you (and not in a good way). I’ve never been able to grasp going to the bathroom in the middle of a movie. How can you just get up and miss major part to the storyline of the movie? Sure in a movie like Grown Ups 2, where there is very little you need to know to enjoy yourself, it barely matters but in an intricate movie like say Inception, you are gonna miss some important details. Personally, I’m a holder. I know it is not necessarily the best thing to do but if I don’t feel like I can’t stand up straight at the end of a movie because my kidneys are holding a  few cups of water, I’m not doing my job correctly...or I am severely dehydrated. So I guess my point is, please stop climbing over everyone to go use the cesspool of a bathroom during the crucial scene in the movie. My testicles (which you will undoubtedly grab and twist as you fall across me) thank you.

    Where was I? Oh yeah, the summer late night showings of new movies. As a working stiff who usually has to work on Friday (of course now I have fuck all to do), the midnight showings are a nightmare. You get out at 2 am and if you have to wake up at 8am or earlier, you are entering the arena of “Should I go to sleep or just stay awake?” With these new summer late night shows, you get in at 10:00pm and are out by 12:00 at the latest and able to head home and be asleep by 1am (hopefully). The problem lies on nights like last night. Two movies I want to see were playing at the same time. The Wolverine (I know, I’m a glutton for shitty movies) and The To-Do List were both playing and I had to make a decision. I know this is a first world problem but it is a dilemma for someone like me. The Wolverine has actiony violence and a dude with claws scratching his way through the Yakuza  while The To-Do List has Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza in a light hearted, R-Rated sex romp.

    There were valid arguments to be made for either movie. The To-Do List has one of my favorite actresses in Aubrey Plaza and not just from her role on Parks and Recreation. I loved Safety Not Guaranteed with Mark Duplass. That movie not only gave her a chance to lead a movie but fit with her personal style of humor and there was heart in her performance. She is also a great looking girl. Her deadpan humor and awkwardness is oddly endearing all in it’s own way. The Wolverine has a hulked out Hugh Jackman and a desperate need to be better than the previous effort in the series. I’ve been watching the commercials closely this week and is it just me or does it seem like they are beating you over the head with a desire to say “We didn’t fuck this one up like the last one!” What, do you want a cookie? That’s your job. Make a good movie and don't fuck it up.  The last movie I had that feeling about was Cowboys and Aliens. I don't want to toot my own horn but toot motherf**king toot. As you can probably tell, the choice for me was relatively clear. To avoid a potential suckfest, I went to see...

The To Do List

    I've always enjoyed a good teen sex romp. The boys from Porky’s and American Pie could always make you cackle with joy and absurd sexual situations. I’ve always thought that these movies were perhaps the most realistic idea of what being a guy in their late teens meant. Sex was some how a mythical creature that only the cool kids could get. Sure, you wanted to have  naked fumbling in the back seat of your Camaro with someone but there was no chance you would know what to do or how to do or how to not blow it. You aren’t prepared for the emotions but your body keeps screaming at you to do it now. It is a common movie experience. A boy or boys want to lose his virginity and goes through embarrassing events to finally learn the true meaning of sexual intimacy.
   
    The To Do List switches it up and tells the familiar story of  losing your virginity from the girls point of view. Aubrey Plaza stars as Brandy Klark, an overachiever in the class of 1993 who never had time in High School to have a boyfriend and go through those awkward first fumblings. She was so laser focused on her school work and getting into college that she missed half the point of high school, to build memories and friendships. To have awkward moments with boys, and learn how to kiss, touch, grope and fondle. She is so pristine and uptight that after graduation,  she is dragged  to a party that she doesn’t want to be at until she spies Rusty (played by the excellent Scott Porter of Friday Night Lights) playing an acoustic version of Pour Some Sugar On Me. Something in her snaps and she let’s loose, getting drunk, having fun and enjoying her grad night. After enjoying the party a little too much and being placed in a bunk bed by her friends, Rusty comes into the room looking for his hook up. He awkwardly makes out with Brandy until she constantly corrects his make out grammar, kisses other parts of his face while completely missing his lips and he finally turns on the lights to figure out that she is not the blonde he was looking for.  Sickened  by her lack of experience, she (as an anal overachiever does) comes up with a to do list of sexual acts that she needs to experience before she can lose her virginity to Rusty.
   
    With a little helpful encouragement from her friends, she decides to work down her list during the summer and culminate the summer by getting the boy of her dreams. I’ve always thought that women haven’t been portrayed enough as  wanting sex and pursuing it too. Experience tells me this is not the case. Women can be sexual aggressors. So it was refreshing to see a woman take charge of the bedroom. Lost in the shuffle is Cameron, Brandy’s lab partner who has a massive crush on her and wants nothing more than to be her first lover. He is quite in love with her and when she approaches him at a party because she wants to be finger banged/blasted/bombed (according to who you ask in the movie), he is quite happy. The problem is she is just using him and so those real feelings he is developing is nothing more than a science experiment to Brandy.
   
    I could appreciate the honesty and realism the relationships in the movie and how women can make mistakes and are not all knowing over what should be done. Brandy does not think of what could happen to Cameron and takes it upon herself to make out with him, give him a handjob (with butter) at a movie to the chagrin of those around them. Not to mention that she experiments with oral sex at the pool (where she, Rusty, Cameron and a wonderful Bill Hader all work) with a guy in a grunge band after he’s ingested several pineapple juices to make his come taste better. The To Do List tackles the subject of sex with such earnestness that you are quite happy to follow Brandy on her journey although it is not necessarily a noble one. She is using a guy who really cares about her, hooks up with a guy her friend still likes, and obsesses over Rusty as though he is the golden ticket to a pleasurable loss of her virginity. It is the first time I could say a movie considered a sex romp can be consider sweet.

    And yet the movie is sweet. Her parents played by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton) are the typical parents of the 90's. One is a conservative who doesn’t want his daughter to experiment with sex while her mom is quite open and offers up lube for a more pleasurable sexual experience. Brandy’s sister Amber is a all knowing sexual guru who mocks Brandy for being such a loser. Fiona and Wendy are Brandy’s best friends who have all had sex and encourage her in her quest for sexual experience while really just wanting to have a night they can all hang out and watch Beaches. Brandy herself is so innocent and blind to what relationships are that you can’t really blame her for breaking Cameron’s heart.

    What makes the To Do List so innocently heartfelt is the passion Brandy takes to completing her list that she barely pauses to enjoy the experiences she has. It is a lesson for kids that isn’t the normal “Don’t have sex” company line. It teaches us that sex is perhaps the most powerful act we, as adults, can do but that it cannot be quantified in a scientific way. Sex is, as your parents would say, about loving someone and until you learn that lesson, it really is just squishy parts slamming together in a more or less pleasurable way. When you finally find someone you love, sex is truly amazing. I’m not saying there is not a point to sleeping with someone you don’t love. I’m trying to say that it is so much better when you know, care, and love the person.  I know you are saying “Mr. Unhappy, stop being a preacher.” What can I say?  That’s how it worked for me and now I don’t want anything less. That’s just my opinion, I am most likely wrong.
 

In closing...

Mr. Unhappy sez: The To Do List adds heart where heart has not been before. Sure there is a girl masturbating with a pillow wearing a Hillary Clinton t-shirt but the heart thing too. 

Creepy Dolls and Music Boxes

The Conjuring

Here’s a thought I had as I left The Conjuring tonight. Why the hell did people back in the 1800's make their toys so damn creepy? Was it part of the toughness of growing up that your dolls and music boxes scare the crap out of you? The Conjuring has two such items. One is a doll that while being a little worn still looks like it would frighten the bejezus out of small children everywhere and the other is a music box with a circus theme. When you wind it up, the mirror inside spins whilst a creepy ass clown pops it’s head up and down. Of course when the music stops you can see a ghost in the mirror, the creator of this pocket nightmare obviously performed some sort of virgin sacrifice over it after they came up with it.

The Conjuring is a true(ish) story from the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who as paranormal investigators, have investigated some of the scariest haunted houses on the East Coast. The haunting at Amityville is perhaps one of their most famous cases. Lorraine is a medium who can have visions of the spirits and connect with them. As Ed says every time she does one of these hauntings, a piece of her goes too. Ed is a demonologist, author, lecturer and husband to Lorraine. Throughout the movie, they keep alluding to what they were put on this Earth to do. They live in New Jersey, with their daughter and have an  room dedicated to keeping the haunted items they have picked up in their cases. One such thing is a doll named Annabelle who is the host for a demon or so claim the former owners. The story of Annabelle is told in the beginning of The Conjuring to give us a context for their lives and while it is a great scary story, it is only the beginning of the ride you are about to go on.

The real story of The Conjuring is the Perron family's who moved into a New Jersey home that had been home to several tragedies and I’m pretty sure the real estate agency or the bank that sold it to them, should have been upfront with that. Regardless, the Perron’s sink all their money into the new house and move in with their five daughters. Soon after arriving you know something is not right. The dog refuses to go into the house, the doorway to the basement has been shoddily boarded up, and as they sleep, a odor of rotten meat floats around the house. One daughter sleep walks into her sister’s room and bangs her head against the door to the closet, another daughter talks to her invisible friend Rory who owned the aforementioned music creepfest box, and the other daughter hears whispers in the night and gets her foot tugged while she sleeps. All of this stuff would send me screaming from the house and to my real estate agents house so I could kick him/her in the balls (although if it were a her, I might have to dig around with my foot a bit to find the ovaries and it would cease to be a punishment). The incidents eventually get so bad, Carolyn Perron seeks out the Warrens. Ed and Lorraine decide to visit the house and immediately see that this is not a drafty house with leaky pipes. Well it is but it also has some dark forces at work. As time goes on, we see the incidents gain in strength. Ghosts are seen, things pop out of places to scare the crap out of you, and one of the daughters gets thrown around the living room by an unseen force. An exorcism is needed and fast. The church (as the people who should leap to help you) review the evidence and bring it to the Vatican for approval. Red tape is exactly what the family being stalked by demons wants to hear.  The final battle is as it always is in movies about demonic possessions. There is growling, there is holy water and there is Christ compelling something again.  While the same beats are played, the movie itself remains fresh.

The Conjuring is a good if not great movie to see with your girlfriend, loved on, or just someone you could clutch onto and turn to when someone goes to investigate why the pictures all slammed off the walls. I had a series of good “Where the fuck are you going?” comments and no one to share them with. Don’t be like me. What The Conjuring does have in abundance is creepiness. From the doll to the music box to the anticipation of some unknown scary as hell thing to happens. It keeps you on your toes and offers a few scares that will meet horror movie veterans jump from their seats. I don’t have any reason not to believe in ghosts or demons but I do share a scared scepticism of people like Ed an Lorraine. Do they help explain normal psychotic matters with supernatural means or do we just rather believe that the people are insane then try to understand the evil forces in our world? I hope for the former over the latter. I like to keep my scary forces of evil on movie screens and out of my bedroom where ghosts tug on my foot while I sleep. And please keep your creepy ass clown/dolls the fuck in the other room...across town...in France because well fuck the French, they deserve creepy ass things. Creepiness does not belong in toys. Give me a lead painted doll with a happy face and small choking hazard parts over the toys we gave our great great grandfathers any day. 

Mr. Unhappy sez:  After seeing The Conjuring I may jump from my bed for a few nights, just in case the bogeyman is down there to grab me. Not that I believe in that stuff...but what if they believe in me and my tasty ankles.

Yeah...live with that.

We all go a little mad sometimes...

A Quick Hit on Insanity

      I've always thought that I am a little quirky. I'm sure in many books I would be considered insane. I talk to myself and answer myself sometimes. Perhaps this is insanity and perhaps this is me working through my own stuff out loud. It can be quite embarrassing to have someone catch me talking to myself. I always shut up and pretend I didn't get caught. I try to make the person who caught me think that they didn't catch me and that it is in fact their own head voices they heard. I've been in love with someone for two years that doesn't love me and probably never will. I've barely tried to meet anyone new and those I have met bore me because they are so normal. You ever wake up from a dream where you rejected yourself? I have. So insanity may be something I have a good idea about. So I give you my top 5 insanity movies.

In The Mouth Of Madness

My roommate just recently made the observation that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is the real world incarnation of a Lovecraftian theme. It is that quite astute thought that made me think of In the Mouth of Madness. In the Mouth Of Madness is the third movie in John Carpenter’s apocalypse trilogy and is arguably the best of the three. I could make the argument for John Carpenter's The Thing and I am sure someone out there holds a torch for Prince of Darkness but I still choose this movie. The movie stars Sam Neill as a insurance detective asked to look into the disappearance of famed horror novelist Sutter Cane and how his search that takes him down the rabbit hole into insanity. That he is committed at the beginning of the movie tells you that much. Yet the movie is more about the razor’s edge between the insane and the sane. What if the world went insane? Do the sane people then become the insane? I’ve watched the movie many times and each time it disturbs me. The movie slowly creeps up your spine tickling parts of your mind that might be better left untickled. Go buy it or rent it from Amazon or if you know me ask me for the DVD. I don't think you'll be disappointed and if you are well I can hardly be blamed for your problems.

Mr. Unhappy sez: The end of the world as told by the insane. To quote Ron Weasley "Wicked."

Fight Club

      Based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk this movie is literally about two men who inhabit the same body. Edward Norton is the unnamed narrator who lives his life going to self help groups so he can feel OK enough to go to sleep. Brad Pitt plays Tyler Durden, the man Norton meets who changes his life. That Norton and Pitt are in fact the (spoilers) same person (and if you didn't know that where the hell have you been since this movie came out?) is something you never even suspect until the end of the movie. Once you see it, you can understand and look at the movie in new and interesting ways. I thoroughly enjoy the story of a man who really doesn't know who he is anymore and it takes his own Id to show him a new way to live. This movie, literally, lets you follow insanity and even when you know the trick, you can still enjoy finding all the clues throughout the movie you missed and you get to wonder. How did I not see this coming? 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Don't you hate it when you bang the girl you hate while in a fugue state? Although you are banging...could be worse things to do...like destroy the world.

The Shining 

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Perhaps the scariest movie ever. I think at one point a walrus is blowing a bear. I'm not sure. You got Jack Nicholson at his full Jackness, Shelley Duvall looking like a shaky girl with a mild meth problem, Scatman Caruthers as a freaked out pimp who loves to get in kids heads and give them the sexy eyes, and two twins that speak in unison and then flash into being cut up into not quite even pieces. It isn't the violence...it's the non uniformity of the pieces. Watching The Shining, you wonder if Jack is being haunted or is simply insane. Proof for being haunted is when he walks into room 237 and he makes out with the decomposing girl in the tub. Proof he is insane, my favorite line. "I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm just gonna bash your brains in, bash em right the fuck in!" and the novel he is writing. All I know is that when Shelley Duvall goes running through the hotel finding creepy things along the way, I felt as insane as Jack did. Redrum indeed.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Redrum...redrum...watching a father go insane to the point he'd kill his family. Madness had never been so clear and precise.

Mullholland Drive  

If you've ever watched the scene from David Lynch's Twin Peaks where the little person in a red suit speaks backwards and dances creepily, you understand that a David Lynch movie is not gonna be the most normal experience of your life. Mullholland Drive is a movie that throws you off by simply changing whenever it decides it has run out of story. Mullholland Drive is the short story collection of movies. One minute your watching the story of a young actress who comes to Hollywood to achieve fame the next you are in a diner where a man is describing the dream he had that suddenly becomes true. Then you are back with the actress who now starts a lesbian relationship with the roommate who crawled into her house with no memory of who she was. Then you are transported to the future when the actress and the no memory girl are broken up and she is masturbating in the living room and finally some tiny old people (like smurf sized) grow into normal sized people and chase the actress around the house until she dies of fear because it is scary as shit to have smiling old people chase you. Still gives me the willies. This is the movie equivalent of being schizophrenic...I think.

Mr. Unhappy sez: This movie makes me want to give David Lynch a lifetime achievement award just so I could sit down with him and find out what the hell this movie means. Like seriously what the hell is with those old people?

Psycho 

The original movie about madness. The movie itself keeps the watcher off balance as it takes you through the first half of the movie following Janet Leigh's Marion Crane only to kill her off. The shower scene has made baths the sexy choice when at a motel in the middle of nowhere. Anthony Perkins is genius playing Norman Bates with a likable charm that hides the storm of madness beneath his cool exterior. I've enjoyed this movie from the moment I first watched it. Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspense and gave you a glimpse into the mind of a psychopath. Based on real life serial killer, Ed Gein, Psycho was and is a portrait of a man who loves his mother and what boy doesn't love his mother. I loved mine. Not enough to keep her corpse in the basement and hold conversations with her. Just a note: The 1998 Gus Van Sant shot for shot remake is well done. There are some minor problems with it but as Kevin Smith pointed out to me, if you pause the shower scene just right as Anne Heche falls over and the camera pans above her you can see her butthole. Juvenile...yes...are you gonna check to see if it is true? Of course you are.

Mr. Unhappy sez:  If you ever wanted to see a man play crazy as deftly as humanly possible, watch Anthony Perkins. If you just want to see b-hole...check out Anne Heche.

Identity

I was gonna end on Psycho. It is the movie I quoted as the title to this blog entry but I was looking for something to watch and saw Identity and realized just how awesomely well it would fit with this theme. Identity is the story of a group of people, all stuck during a storm at a Motel where a serial killer is killing them off one by one. One of them is the killer but the trick is figuring out who it is. I'll give you a hint, it is not who you think it is. Also the overwhelming arc is regarding a serial killer being sent to the electric chair unless his last ditch effort to prove himself insane gives him a reprieve. The killer and the folks at the hotel are connected but how they are is the great twist of the movie. I like this movie. It is a smart movie that keeps the viewer engaged and wondering whodunit until the very end.  Like The Sixth Sense, you may want to watch the movie over again to see the things you've missed because it seems so simple once you get it. John Cusak, Amanda Peete, Ray Liotta, Jake Busey, and John C. McGinley all bring their "A" game and deliver a solid mystery and a creepy movie. Not every one's cup of tea but if you give it a chance, I think you'll be happy.

 

 Mr. Unhappy sez: Identity is a movie about who you are and what goes on in a killer's head. Although I may or may not cackle out loud when John C. McGinley's wife gets hammered by a car. Hilarious.

 

 

***

 This is not a complete list of movies that show you madness but it is a good list. Some others you might want to see...

1. Antichrist

2. One Flew over The Cuckoo's Nest

3. Black Swan

4. Shutter Island

5. Misery

 In Closing...

 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Ask not what a psycho can do to your friends, ask what friends you would like to see killed by a psycho.   

Adult Movies...

I’ve been let go from my job. So as you can see I have a lot more free time for things such as blogging, fretting about the future and wondering about the girl who got away. One might say that I shouldn’t be too concerned with my romantic life when I don’t have a job but I’m not wired that way. I always worry about the time when I realize that I am gonna be alone for the rest of my life. Not because I want to but because I didn’t get the chance to show the woman I want to be with that I am worth the annoyance of what it is truly like to be with a undiagnosed depressive personality. Just look at the title of my blog. Mr. Unhappy’s Movie Blog. I could have given myself a happy moniker because at the time I was dating (surreptitiously) the girl of my dreams. Yet something inside of me made me want to self name myself Mr. Unhappy. In truth, Mr. Unhappy was a idea I had for a screenplay for a slasher movie. It wasn’t a portrayal of what my mood was but just something that made sense at the time.

Regardless being unemployed makes you start to think about your life decisions and somehow, someway I start thinking about that moment when I had the gravy train with biscuit wheels and I fucked it up. Yet this is a movie blog and not a whine about my life blog so I guess I should bring this to the point I was originally trying to make. There comes a time in your life, usually a couple of times, when you have to make a decision about what type of person you will be. One is usually in your teenage years and the other come as you hit your late twenties (if you are normal) or your mid thirties (if you are me).

In the movie The Way Way Back, Duncan is trying to figure out what he is in life and a summer at the Water Whizz water slide park helps him find his inner grown up. In the movie Liberal Arts (written, starring and directed by How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor) Jesse is at a critical moment in his life when he meets Zibby and it turns his life upside down while helping him realize what he wants in his adult life. These two movies touch on those special moments in your life when you come to a decision about your life and choose the type of man (or woman) you will grow up to be.

Lets begin with...

The Way Way Back

When I was a teenager I was a lot like Duncan. A quiet loner who liked to be alone and left to my own devices. As Steve Carell’s excellently portrayed douchebag Trent tells him “I think your a 3” and at the beginning of the movie maybe Duncan is. Still it isn’t something your father figure needs to say especially when a kid is really just beginning to deal with his mom dating again after the breakup of his parents marriage. It isn’t the type of bonding moment you should have with your would be stepson. Duncan is on one of these movie vacations where during the summer everyone gets to take three months off and people seemingly don’t have to work or pay rent. Maybe it is an east coast thing. Suffer through the snow and hurricanes and you get three months in summer to enjoy yourself at a beach house.

The trip was obviously not Duncan’s idea. He is stuck at the beach with only Trent’s daughter Steph or the next door neighbor Peter who has a lazy eye that his mother constantly ridicules. So Duncan tags along with Steph and her friends, including Peter’s sister Susanna (played by AnnaSophia Robb, quickly becoming the Dakota Fanning of teenage roles) to the beach where he has little to do but play with sand and check out the nubile bodies of his near step sister’s friends. So Duncan takes off on a bike and eventually comes to the Water Whizz waterpark. There he meets Owen (Iron Man 2’s underrated Sam Rockwell), a manchild who manages the park with as little management as possible to the chagrin of his assistant manager Caitlin played by SNL’s Maya Rudolph. Owen gives Duncan a summer job doing odd jobs around the park and takes him under his wing.

As the summer wears on, Trent is shown for the a-hole he truly is, Owen helps Duncan find his voice and personality (dragging him out of his shell) and helping him find the courage to pitch so serious woo at Susanna who likes him, for some reason. The Way Way Back is a story about finding who you want to be despite what others may think of you. It captures the summers of all of our youths where you obsessed over a girl (or guy), tried to not make a fool out of yourself and looked up to the cool guy who while actually not having it together seems like he has it all. There are moments in this movie when I cackled out loud and I’m pretty sure the smile never left my face. It was a solid debut for Jim Rash (Dean Pelton from Community) and Nat Faxon (from MadTV and various other movies) as writer/directors. They so eloquently capture the awkwardness of early teenage years and never become unrealistic or preachy.

The acting performances are managed as well. Trent is an asshole and he is played brilliantly by Steve Carell who is not my first choice for playing a bad guy. Owen’s glib man child is embodied by Sam Rockwell who seems so effortless in most everything he does. AnnaSophia Robb astounds me in everything I see her in (maybe if I watch the Sex and The City prequel series I would not say that) and she plays her role perfectly, never really coming on to Duncan but always trying to be near him, look after him, and give him a chance to be more than a three. Duncan as played by Liam James (From TV’s The Killing) is able to pull off both the awkward as well as the emotional growth the character has. This movie takes a simple idea, a summer vacation to the beach, and yet makes it all new.

Mr. Unhappy sez: I’d like to go way way back and get a job with Sam Rockwell at the water slide park. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a mess now.

Which leads me to...

Liberal Arts

I was never a good student and as time went on it became clear to me that college, for me, was not the way. I just couldn’t get past the idea of going to class when the teachers or administration didn’t care that I did. I was never a social butterfly so college for me was a waste of money. The only class I cared to go to was Screenwriting and as time went on, even that became something I could do on my own. So I stopped and got jobs so I could pay the bills and move out on my own. I never really got into the college experience. Josh Radnor’s (TV’s Ted Mosby) character Jesse Fisher loved college and the freedom he got to read and be his own man. Now 35 he has just broken up with his live in girlfriend, has a love/hate relationship with his hometown New York City and is drifting through life. So when one of his favorite teachers Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins) invites him back to his Alma mater for his retirement dinner, Jesse is happy to go. Once there he meets the incomparable Elizabeth (Zibby) played to perfection by the better Olsen sister Elizabeth, a 19 year old Sophomore who captures Jesse’s imagination and heart.

Jesse and Zibby begin to hang out (with a little prompting by a quirky performance by Zac Efron as the hippy sage Nat) and when Jesse leaves, Zibby burns him a CD of music to live by and he promises to write her a actual letter (with paper and pen). Back in New York, Jesse is a changed man, listening to the music Zibby gave him and has found his soul again. He writes Zibby and as their flirtation grows Jesse begins to wonder if he can, in good faith, date a woman 16 years his junior. Zibby is grown up beyond her years but as my friend Phil said once of a girl I dated “There are inherent problems to dating someone that young.”

Still Jesse returns to his old school to visit Zibby and their relationship is tested. Radnor in his writing/directing debut is smart to build the relationship first and then begin to point out the flaws so the viewer is invested in seeing this relationship grow. As Jesse learns more about himself and the person he wants to be, he begins to learn about what he wants out of life. The relationship with Zibby is strong and we never are as conflicted as to whether they should be together as Radnor is. I was drawn to the movie for the Mosbyness of it all but the strong story and chemistry between the two stars is palpable. Liberal Arts tells the story of a man who has no idea what he wants finding exactly what he wants. The journey isn’t easy or fast but a necessary one to become the adult he is supposed to be.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Liberal Arts makes going back to college seem easy but growing up a lot harder. Elizabeth Olsen helps...

***

Finding out who you are and what you want is a lot harder than it sounds. For me, I looked at these two movies and while it made me realize some bad truths about myself, it put into focus something that I’ve been thinking for two years now. I don’t want to be alone in life but I don’t fear it as much as I once did. Sometimes when you want something bad enough, you’d rather wait for what you want and risk being alone rather than try to be something your not. From the time when I was a teen, I’ve never tried to be anything but myself. As a 34 year old, I am still willing to hope that the one that got away will still see in me what I see in her. If not, I’m willing to see what happens... and Elizabeth Olsen helps...

The Way Way Back is in Theaters now and 

Liberal Arts can be found on Amazon Instant Watch and Xfinity On Demand

 

   

Hooking up with my mom..

I was 15 when my mother died. I was not quite ready for that to happen but are you really ever ready? She was a great lady and every time I doubt that being a nice person is worth something, I think of her. She was the most kind, loving, sweet and coolest Mom in Mom history. I’m not gonna get into a pissing contest with you on that last statement but I know that in just 15 years, she shaped my life and the man I am now. I miss her daily. I wonder if I would have the abandonment issues I have if she was still here or if I wouldn’t be deathly afraid of doctors and hospitals if she was still here. At 34, I still occasionally have a dream where she was not dead and it was all a mistake so I was able to hug her one last time, talk with her one last time, and go to a movie with her one last time.

I came across the movie Hook tonight and I was reminded of her again. This movie still provides me with the clearest memory I have of her. I sat in the theater watching Robin Williams become Peter Pan before my eyes and Dustin Hoffman disappear into Captain Hook. I remember laughing and loving every minute of it. It concluded with us leaving the theater into the bright afternoon sun and my mother realizing that at some point in the movie, her watch had stopped. If you’ve seen Hook, clocks are no longer allowed in Neverland since that tick tock croc ate Hook’s hand. I remember thinking it quite amazing that my mother’s watch had stopped. It was the first time that a movie reached through the screen and grabbed me. My mother might have stopped her own watch but for that brief moment she gave me my first taste of the sense of wonder and emotional connection to movies that I have carried with me throughout my adult life.

It is with the in mind that I add the movie Hook to the Unhappy Hall Of Fame with the addendum that as long as I remember this movie, I will forever remember my mother and thus keep her alive in my heart. I love you Mom.
 

Hook

Peter Pan has been a classic character in literature, plays and movies forever. It is a story of a boy who doesn’t want to grow up and finds a way to make that happen. Through the eyes of Wendy, Michael, and John we see the amazing boy who chases his shadow into the Darling household and takes the children on fantastic journey to Neverland where they meet the Lost Boys and the villainous Captain Hook. The story captures the imagination. What child wouldn’t want to fly to a far off land, never grow up, and battle pirates? But we all grow up. Hook is the natural addition to the original stories which tells us the story of Peter Pan after he finally grows up and forgets Neverland. However Neverland doesn’t forget him.
 

Peter Banning, a perfectly cat Robin Williams, is a grown up in every sense of the word. He is a corporate lawyer so busy with his work that he is coasting through his children’s lives and ignoring his wife, Moira. He is five steps away from having a heart attack but doesn’t seem to care. He misses his daughter Maggie’s play and his son Jack’s baseball game. When he is around, his cell phone is attached to his ear and this is not in a bluetooth sort of way. This is a one generation past the Zach Morris cell phone. He is petrified of heights and forbids his children from doing anything dangerous. Work comes first in Banning's life and when we meet him,  he is an absent father and husband on the way to death or a divorce. The family is about to head off on a trip to England to visit Grannie Wendy (yep that Wendy). On the plane, Peter is white knuckled and petrified. They make it, despite Maggie drawing the plane crashing and everyone floating to safety but Peter. They make it to Granny Wendy's house and Peter, Moira, and Wendy head off to a dedication of a wing of the children’s hospital to Wendy who became quite the advocate for orphaned children, including Peter. While the adults are away at the dinner honoring Wendy, a mysterious force comes into the Darling home and takes the children. The adults return home to find the house trashed, the children missing and  a note from Captain Hook adorning the children’s bedroom door telling Peter that he needs to return to Neverland and retrieve his kids.

Wendy collapses at the strain and is bedridden calling for Peter. When he is there, she tells him the secret she's been hiding since he was an orphan in her care. Peter Banning is, in fact, Peter Pan. That is a hell of a thing to be told and Peter reacts as any adult would, he needs a drink. That's when Tinkerbell shows up (the remarkably enjoyable Julia Roberts) and takes him to Neverland. The best part of this movie is the Neverland sequences. The pirates seem dirty and freshly picked up at some scurvy ridden bar in the bad part of town. The lost boys live in a tree the Swiss Family Robinson would love. The waters are blue and the mermaids are well...the mermaids are a little treat for all the dad's who had to see the movie. It takes the better part of the second act for Peter to find his inner Pan and as he does, he finds that piece of himself that he lost. The part that never wanted to grow up. He begins to use his imagination, rediscovers his ability with a sword and challenges Rufio (the lost boy left in charge) for control of the Lost Boys. It isn't until Peter finds his happy thought and flies for the first time that Rufio finally realizes that he is the Pan. Peter is finally ready for a final battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook with his children's lives on the line.

The overriding theme in this movie is to never forget what it means to be a child. While growing up is necessary and indeed inevitable, you still need to hang on to your youthful sense of adventure. When you become so wrapped up in being an adult, you lose that sense of wonder. That time when you built a fort in a bamboo bush and hid from your enemies or when you went off on your own for the first time on your bike and the world around your house still seemed so large and untamed. As you grow, the world opens to you but I miss those moments when I was a young child, playing baseball at the park with my brother, or having sword fights with my friends. Adventures are easy as a kid and as an adult you get so wrapped up in your own head that sometimes life passes you by.  I get why we need to grow up but if you completely give up the child like part of you, you stop living and to live is an awfully big adventure.

The Golden Unhappy Awards Hook Edition

Julia Roberts - The proof that the smaller you are, the cuter you get award. 

I have hated Julia Roberts since Pretty Woman. I don't get her "good looks" except that her mouth looks like it could swallow a watermelon...without cutting it. Julia's mouth is the fully dilated vagina of mouths. Yet as the tiny fairy Tinkerbell, she was downright precious. It furthers my theory that as you become proportionally  smaller you cuteness level increase. True story.

Dustin Hoffman - The invisibility cloak award for disappearing into a role.
I look at the roles I've seen Dustin Hoffman play and I've always thought they were all versions of himself. Even Rain Man was a little Dustin Hoffman if he really wanted to see The People's Court. Here, as Captain Hook, he is unrecognizable. 

Amber Scott - The daughter of Peter Pan grew up to be a hottie award.

The little girl who played Maggie Banning in Hook was an amazing find. She could act (reasonably well), was precious enough that you rooted for no harm to come to her and well she sang too. She sang so well that they had her come back for the Academy Awards and sing. She's done nothing since, unless she has a stage name now. Yet if you look at her IMDB page, you see the woman she grew up to be and may I just say,  she has a pants tightening effect on all guys who see her. See for yourself...

Damn.

Superman Begins...

I know what your gonna say. “Mr. U, where do you go when you disappear for 2-4 months and don’t blog? I can’t see movies without your clever brand of wit and wonder.”

I am trying to get better at this whole consistent blogging thing but with a job and the attempt, no matter how pathetic, to have a life, my blog fails to be written on its own. Annoying, I know. Not easy to follow consistently when posts come more bimonthly that weekly. I will reaffirm my goal to write at least one new blog a week. Eventually, I will be consistent and you can point to one of these posts as the time when Mr. Unhappy became a movie reviewer.

But first I give you...

Man Of Steel

 

I was a child of the seventies, the late seventies but still it made me fortunate to grow up watching the Christopher Reeve Superman. He was indeed super. I remember watching those movies and marveling at how he caught Lois as she fell from a helicopter then being amazed when he caught the helicopter too. Some of my fondest memories are watching that stupid kid on the wrong side of the railing at Niagara Falls who then falls and Superman has to save him which exposes Clark's true identity to Lois. The Donner films made me believe that a man could fly and that theme song is all I play in my head when I think of Superman. The Donner films set the bar for all Superman movies and cast a long shadow over the years. Sometimes doing it well can be a problem. 

 

I was happy enough to sit through Lois and Clark : The New Adventures of Superman. I liked them but it followed a very similar plot week to week. I’ve watched a few episodes recently and all I can say is that it was good for a television budget. Dean Cain was passable as Superman/Clark Kent (although his Kent was a little too perfect to have been a reasonable disguise) and Teri Hatcher was great as a updated powerful 90’s woman who didn’t need Clark’s help... though she sure seemed to get in enough trouble to need Superman. It was a step in the right direction. Until the later seasons when there was time travel and a a Luthorless Metropolis. Still, Lois and Clark set a good example to grow from. Not perfect but a blueprint. 

 

The early 2000’s gave me what I regard as the best Superman to date (although Superboy is probably a better description). Smallville brought Superman from the awkward teen years(with Superpowers) to learning how to use his powers and finally to the Superman we know and love. It was a journey in which Superman was shown to be more of a man, making mistakes along the way. Michael Rosenbaum shone as Lex Luthor, a friend to Clark who we all know will fall down the rabbit hole to evil. Watching Clark’s development over ten seasons really elevated the story of Superman and it gave the world Chloe Sullivan, Clark’s best friend and  keeper of his secret. Alison Mack is still my celebrity crush. 

 

Superman Returns and Brandon Routh’s Superman came next. A lot of people hate this Superman but I can’t find any fault with Routh. The script gave him very little to do. He was asked to play Christopher Reeve and he was simply not Christopher Reeve. Routh never stepped out of the shadow of Reeve and that was his only mistake. Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor was boring at best (soft at the worst) and Parker Posey added nothing to the proceedings. Superman Returns made it very evident that we needed to close the door on the idealized Donner Superman and begin a new telling of the man who is super.

 

Man Of Steel retells the origins of Superman and creates a Superman who is just beginning to learn how to be super. The main question in Man of Steel is not about whether Superman will save us but will we allow him to. Can we trust a strange alien from another world who has the power to kill us all? We being on Krypton and watch as Russell Crowe’s Jor-El sends his son to Earth to save him from the inevitable destruction of the planet. Gone is the ice world Krypton, replaced with a fierce wild planet that is  dying. General Zod wants to save his world and tries to take over the world and stop Jor-El from sending his son (the first natural birth on Krypton in hundreds of years) away with the building blocks of their civilization.

 

The prologue is long and needlessly Avatarded with weird flying creatures and odd pools of podpeople. I liked Russell Crowe and enjoyed his portrayal. It had a bit more action than Marlon Brando’s Jor El, again restarting the character. Thankfully we shift to Earth and Clark Kent working as a crabber on the Bering Sea (I’m not sure it is the Bering Sea but when I picture crab fishermen, I picture Bering Sea). Through a series of flashbacks we see how young Clark Kent grew in to Henry Cavill’s buffed scruffy bearded Superman. He saves a few people and channels his rage to avoid hurting a few loud mouths that deserved a super beating all while moving North and towards what we assume will be the building of the Fortress of Solitude. Amy Adams joins the show as Lois Lane, playing her with all the boneheaded fearless reporter gumption of her predecessors. I like her version of Lois. She gave the character a much needed power over Superman that he can’t explain. 

 

The best moments of Man of Steel are the far too little used scenes of young Clark with his Earth father Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner). Costner portrays Jonathan as a man who would allow a bus of school children to drown rather than his son’s secret be exposed. He teaches his son to be wary of using his abilities though Clark seems unwilling or unable to heed his father’s advice. Kevin Costner enlivens the film when he is onscreen and is missed when he is not. Henry Cavill does an admirable job of being a son of two fathers, who each want him to be the man he is meant to be. 

 

Man of Steel is not a perfect movie. The action scenes are not perfect, and Michael Shannon as Zod is perhaps the low point of the movie for me. He isn’t horrible in the least but he isn’t a powerful villain either. He is a means to an end. Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White seems like an afterthought and isn’t given much to work with. Also an afterthought is the Lois and Clark love story. Yet the movie does reboot the franchise. The building blocks have been laid for the inevitable Man Of Steel 2: Steelier (just a suggested title). I found this movie to be similar Batman Begins (and not just because of the Christopher Nolan connection.) The movie set up the movies to come and was a lively affair. I’m eager to see if they can create a Lex Luthor to the level of Heath Ledger’s Joker. 

 

I can’t say Man of Steel isn’t worth the money. As usual, I wouldn’t pay the extra money for 3-D if you can avoid it. The movie is serviceable as a movie to introduce us to a new Superman and I believe Henry Cavill is a Superman who can reinvent Superman for a new generation. I liked the movie as a fan of Superman but I was on the fence because the movie seems to avoid Clark Kent (other than the too brief flashbacks) and the final hour of the movie seems bent on showing off special effects rather than building story. I want this movie to move me but it only stirred my desire for a great new Superman. Pieces were there, enjoyment was there, and I could believe that a man could fly. I just wish he’d be a little more.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Superman without the panties was passable film, I wait with baited breath for Man of Steel’s version of The Dark Knight. Until then, I’ll keep an open mind.

I’d like to also say a brief one liner on these other movies in theaters now.

This is The End
Mr. Unhappy Sez: This is the end of the world I want to live through. Only if I can hang at Franco’s house.

Fast And The Furious 6
Mr. Unhappy sez: Fast, Furious and Vin Diesel’s magical impervious T-shirt. A fun ride and we get Michelle Rodriguez back. Is it wrong that I kind of want her to kick my ass?
The Purge
Mr. Unhappy sez: A purge is a great idea. I have a list of people who could be purged. The movie is a horror movie in the vain of The Strangers except not as well done. Here’s hoping Purge 2 will venture out of the house.

Now You See Me

Mr. Unhappy sez: A magical movie that keeps you guessing as you wonder what the next play is. I am still looking for a movie Jesse Eisenberg isn't good in.  Now You See Me is one to see while you still can.

The Watch on Instant Watch

V/H/S
Mr. Unhappy sez:  An underrated movie. While some of the stories don’t fly but some are downright terrifying. The words “I like you” have never been creepier.


Enough for now... I’ll be back soon with a few more summer blockbusters and a study on madness in movies that I’ve been working on...

Quick Hits on a man with two thumbs

Roger Ebert 

1942 - 2013 

I’d like to start this blog entry by mentioning the death of Roger Ebert. He was a vital part of my movie going and made me expect more from a movie. We didn’t always agree. I still think that Kick Ass was a great movie while he didn’t get it. I still think that The Twilight Series has some merit while he focused too much on the stupid look on Kristen Stewart’s face. A face only Pattinson could love. Yet I always respected his opinion. From the time when I was a child and he was the fat guy to Gene Siskel's skinny guy and I watched his show weekly to now, when I wanted to start writing a movie reviewing blog,  and I went to RogerEbert.com and studied the style of how he gave information on movies without ruining them. I can say that Roger made me want to strive to be better at this movie critiquing than I am. 

     He found a way to tell a story with his words and deliver meaningful critique rather than just mean spirited rants on what he hated. I was constantly impressed with the knowledge of film Roger Ebert had. He knew every movie a movie wanted to be and he held movies as the art they were. Constantly under fire by filmmakers (who wanted/needed his thumbs up to make their film) Roger never wavered from his belief that movies needed to earn his praise. He famously hated the movie “The Brown Bunny”, and was attacked by the director of The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo, who called him fat and placed a curse on his colon. Roger retorted “It is true that I am fat but someday I will be thin and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny.” Gallo and Ebert later became sort of friends, especially after he reviewed a recut version of The Brown Bunny and said that the movie in the new form was a better product. In a world that had more critics than supporters, Roger Ebert supported when he felt the movie earned it (see Dark City) and critiqued when movies deserved it (see Hick or The Brown Bunny).
    I do not pretend that I am half the writer or half the person Roger Ebert was but he had a passion for movies and shared that with me and made me want to share that with you loyal reader. For that, I will always be grateful. I will continue my blog, in order to honor his memory. Roger Ebert raised the quality of the movies we see by pushing directors to give us quality or face the dreaded downward turn of his thumb. RIP Mr. Ebert, you've earned it.


Now on to this weeks movies. In this down part of the movie season, I’ve seen a few movies that deserve a chance to be reviewed so I will give you my special blend of movie reviewing.

Spring Breakers

    I’ll begin with the movie that people have been talking about all over the place. Not because it is a great movie but because it stars former Disney Channel stars that are taking a step into the world of more adult roles. For Vanessa Hudgens, anyone with an interest has seen her naked when someone hacked her cell phone. For post-Bieber Selena Gomez, well you are not gonna see much more than you have already. Not that the nudity is not prevalent throughout Spring Breakers, indeed there are more crotch shots per capita than any movie since the original Porky’s. Sometimes you kind of wish they had told you that the movie was sponsored by Girls Gone Wild.
    The story revolves around four girls and their adventures on Spring Break. Selena Gomez plays the innocent and appropriately named Faith. She is the religious girl who is friends with rebel girls Brit (Pretty Little Liar’s Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) who in order to pay for their trip, steal a car, rob a diner and set the stolen car on fire. Faith goes along with it because she needs to get away from her ultra religious life even if only for a week. Needless to say if you’ve seen the trailers, things go a little wonky while they are down there. The meet a drug dealer/rapper Alien played by James Franco, are arrested for partying too hard,  and soon are robbing spring breakers. The movie has a kind of frenetic energy and a way of doubling back on itself to the tagline of “Spring Break, Spring break forever.” There is an artistry here but if you were gonna go to see Disney girls gone bad, you will be mostly disappointed. As a film, it is effective and tells a good not great story. I wanted more and wish that I knew more about why the girls were who they were. Yet the movie doesn’t fail the viewer. If you can get past the girls gone wild moments and watch the stories being told, you will enjoy this movie.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Independent filmmakers can go one of two ways. Genius or failure. By that scale, I would say Spring Breakers is more genius than failure. As a mainstream movie, I’d say it is trapped in independent film. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Olympus Has Fallen

    I thought more than once while watching Gerard Butler run through the white house killing North Koreans (they are the new Russians in action movies nowadays) that this is the movie A Good Day to Die Hard should have been. John McClane would have fit in this movie like a well tailored suit. Gerard Butler plays Secret Service Agent Mike Banning. He is the ex-special forces guy that can take out an army with a shoelace and a pair of thong panties. After a horrific accident gets him put out of the White House and into a desk job, he is on hand when a small military force of North Koreans take over the White House. Luckily for the nation John Mc...erm Banning knows everything there is to know about the secret ways in and out of the white house. He fights his way through the terrorists and proves to be quite hard to kill. He frustrates and decimates the paramilitary force occupying the White House. Morgan Freeman is great as the acting President (or as his Lean on Me character might say the HNIC) and Aaron Eckhart is very presidential but they all play characters that do their parts but don’t offer much in the way of character depth. Olympus Has Fallen is as close to a new Die Hard as I’ve seen and for that, it is worth checking out.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Yippee Ki-Yay motherfucker... This is a good ride to go on. Bruce Willis and the Die Hard producers should look at this and slap their heads and say “Oh! That is what a die hard movie should be!”

The Host

Stephanie Meyer has been mostly slammed as a hack writer who writes Mormon fundamentalist propaganda. I will say that Twilight as a story is an awful movie. Nothing really happens for the first 100 pages and yet something keeps you reading. So I can understand the criticism of Twilight the movie. It didn’t have a lot to go with and therefore you were dependent on what few action beats they do have. In The Host Meyer again has a love triangle. Not between a werewolf and a vampire but between an alien invader and her human host. The movie opens with the world having been taken over by parasitic hosts that have made taken us over and made the world a better place. There is no greed, no war, no problems with the environment. There are pockets of human resistance and we are immediately thrust into the story of Melanie Stryder, a human who wants to remain that way. When the seekers (aliens police) come for her and her brother she sacrifices herself to save her brother and is implanted with Wanderer, who begins to relive Melanie’s post invasion life. First Wanderer collaborates with the Seekers, much to Melanie’s chagrin. Melanie fights the invasion of her body and succeeds in making things hard on Wanderer. Eventually they go on the run from the Seekers and hook up with Melanie’s Uncle in the desert. The Host suffers from the same problems as Twilight in that there doesn’t seem to be two hours of story in the book. Not much happens in the middle and the beginning and end seem anticlimactic. Still, like Twilight, I found enjoyment out of the movie and the teenage girl in me, loved the love story. It gets complex inside that noggin of Melanie Stryder. I had a few ideas of where the story could have gone but in the end, the movie is what it is. There is no real conclusion but it does have the same obsession as love that was so prevalent in Twilight. I’m not sure if that is a good message for tweens or not but in this world I’ll take a bad view on love rather than a atheistic view of love(by that I mean that no one believes in love) any day.

Mr. Unhappy sez: The world seems pretty cool. Although I don’t think an alien wants into my head... it’s a mess. Surprisingly this movie is not.

Evil Dead

I have a certain affinity for Evil Dead. It is not a great movie but it is a movie that introduces us to the great Bruce Campbell. His character of Ash is probably one of the most iconic characters in movie history. I’m not overselling it. So when you announce that you are making a remake of Evil Dead, a fan of the original might cringe a bit. But the filmmakers don’t try to remake the movie as much as reinvent the story. There are similarities. A group of less than genius kids go out to the woods and find the Necronomicon in the basement of the cabin. That a cabin in the woods has a basement seems to not phase anyone but I doubt it is as common as not having one. The differences are subtle. One, the main character is trying to get clean and is quitting her crack addiction cold turkey. Mia is damaged and her friends are nearing the end of their rope with her. So when she smells the decaying bodies of cats and starts believing the woods are out to get her, they just assume she is trying to get them to take her home. Soon the evil in the woods infects Mia and the others one by one, forcing them to mutilate and kill each other. The new Evil Dead constantly ups the ante and does things that the original couldn’t. Yet it still has the feel of the original film. The humor while not missing is subdued but the violence is every bit as great as the original and may rival the sequel. I look forward to seeing where this story goes in the future. The news of an Evil Dead II in the making no longer makes the fan in me cringe but smile in anticipation.

Mr. Unhappy sez: A great horror movie scares you and makes you an accomplice in the characters deaths. Evil Dead makes you root for their deaths.