Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL: THE SPECIAL EDITION: FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY: THE MOVIE

This is one of those things where they take an old movie that was very popular, and then they change it, because they think the only way anybody would want to see a movie they loved on the big screen again would be if somebody just completely fucked with it and tried to ruin it. They did the same thing with the Star Trek pictures, and the exorcist (see below) and Night of the Living Dead on video (I’m still staying away from that one).

This goes into the Star Trek category where the individual who made it (Steve Spielberg) gets old, forgets everything that made him vital when he was young, and decides to change things, but claims it’s actually perfectionism. The most infamous thing here is that he wanted no guns in the movie at all. Which is kind of weird for a movie where the main characters get chased by a mob of cops. So there they are, a bunch of fuckin cops and government spooks, running around all holding a walkie talkie with their trigger fingers poised to, I don’t know, hit the little beeper button that you use for Morse code.

What they didn’t pussy out on was the language, because there is a bit of cussing from out of babe’s mouths and shit. The famous one is the little boy, Elliot, yells “SHUT UP, PENIS BREATH!” to his brother. Congratulations to Steve Spielberg for leaving that in, although I would have liked him to update it to the more common “COCKSUCKER!” (more…)

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Fly Away Home

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

First of all I want to thank this news group for the way you guys are pretty nice to me. To be frankly honest a lot of the people I’ve bumped into since getting out have NOT been exactly COOL about it. Although not everyone especially people that don’t know about it, they are nice. But point is you guys have not given me too much shit as far as I’m concerned. Quite honestly it means a lot to old vern. It really is a fucking beautiful world out there in my opinion but a lot of people are too wrapped up in evil and especially negativity to really breathe it in

Thanks especially to my bud who gave me some writing tips and movie ideas to rent. Tonight I rented fly away home on account of the “posting” here about it. Yes, it was a good movie although it is about geese. In fact in my opinion the movie is god damned beautiful both as far as the look and as far the story plot.

Now I know what you’re saying old vern went and rented a pussy movie. Yeah you can say it all you want but fact is a loved this fucking movie and I am not a pussy. There are guys that could vouch for me as far as stabbing, lifting, hitting etc. my speed is not what it used to be due to my age but however I’m not as bad as most guys pushing the big six. I still have a healthy sex life as many young ladies could tell often still in their early twenties or late teens. Anyways as far as the movie, I know a lot of the guys in my cellblock would bend me over for saying this but it really in many ways is a poem of nature and beauty. The glint of the son across the water, the black shadow on the wing of a flying goose, the joy and blissfulness in the eye of a young girl acting as mother to orphan birds of nauture. These are many of the shots to offer in fly away home. (more…)

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Finding Neverland

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

FINDING NEVERLAND is one of those movies that feels kind of like a remedial imagination class they force you to take on Saturdays because you fucked up. You may not know this, it tells you, but it turns out imagination is important and magical and all that kind of crap. Johnny Depp plays J.M. Barrie, the writer of Peter Pan. The movie starts the same as ED WOOD, he’s the writer of some flop play that the audience already hates literally about 2 seconds after it starts. It’s the first line of dialogue and a dude is already asleep.

So J.M. needs to imagination up his life somehow to inspire him to write Peter Pan, and luckily he runs into a widow (Kate Winslet) and her spunky kids (a bunch of kids) while he’s walking his novelty oversized dog. Next thing you know he’s hanging out with the kids, dressing up in silly costumes and imagining stuff with them. They’re still pretty bummed about their dad dying so he has to teach them to have a childlike sense of wonder, etc.

I mean it’s a good sentiment but I think the whole thing is too broad. It’s one of those movies where it’s supposed to be real life but they got Darth Vader style villains. Both J.M. and his new surrogate family have to deal with a crusty old bitch who just doesn’t understand the power of imagination, et al. J.M.’s always gotta put up with his social climbing wife, and Kate Winslet’s gotta deal with her rich old bitch of a mother bossing her around. There’s no need to argue, parents just don’t understand.

When J.M. imagines stuff it appears on screen, but usually in play form, since he’s a playwright. I got pretty confused at first because he’s dancing with his dog and telling the kids it’s a bear. Suddenly he’s in the middle of a fake circus with a painted audience, dancing with a guy in a fake looking bear costume. So the kids are imagining that the dog is really a guy in a bear costume? What kind of a fantasy is that? (more…)

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Fantasia 2000

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

In 1940 the Walt Disney animation company unleashed a bold new experiment, Fantasia, a collection of animated pieces inspired by classical music. Unlike say a Bambi or a Pinocchio this is a movie with no dialogue or traditional feature length narrative story. In a stunning display of craftsmanship and artistic achievement the animators listened to the music and created stories, sometimes retelling a fairy tale like The Sorceror’s apprentice or riffing on some goofball premise like dancing hippoes or mushrooms. At fantasia’s best moments it triumphs in bold flourishes, splashing abstract type shapes across the screen or depicting evolution and the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. My favorite is the night of the bald mountain king sequence in which a demonic demon comes out of the mountain and all the ghosts fly up, and then afterwards a whole bunch of people are marching along with candles I believe.

This film fantasia was Mr. Disney’s attempt at respectability for the Artform of the funny cartoons however everyone pretty much told him to go fuck himself on that one. The movie received poor reviews, was cut down to 81 minutes and used as a b-movie on double bills, and even 22 years later Igor Stravinsky described it as “unresisting imbecility.” But I mean the dude’s name is Igor how do you expect him to behave, go get me a dead body Igor you piece of shit.

Anyway it wasn’t until the 1960s that LSD hit the market and people were more willing to sit through the movie. Today many film academics and grown adults who watch cartoons everyday believe that Fantasia is the best of the Disney cartoons. They recognize the uniqueness of the concept, the way it respects the cartooning as an Artform and seeks to elevate its craft, as well as the fine work done by the animationists and the musicians on the many great sequences. However I think the whole idea of this being the disney movie they most enjoy to watch is a HUGE load of shit, i mean tell me do you have more fun watching the pinocchio movie or watching this fantasia. And how many times have you watched it all the way through without falling asleep, pal, seriously I’m asking. (more…)

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The Next Karate Kid

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Two time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, hailing from Bellingham, Washington, stars in the explosive finale to the Karate Kid quadilogy. This one was Swank’s first starring role and came out in 1994, when movies were just as crappy but not quite as funny as their ’80s counterparts. The director is Christopher Cain, father of Dean Cain and director of The Amazing Panda Adventure.

Swank plays Julie, a pouty, sullen teenage girl who lives unhappily with her grandma after the death of her parents. Anything anybody says to Julie, she takes offense and throws a hissy fit. You know how old people are, they try to be nice but they don’t really understand where your teenage mind is coming from, so they offer you some lemon bars or something and you’re like “GOD DAMN IT WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!” and run out of the room crying. So then Julie goes in and stabs grandma to death in her sleep, while jerkin off. Or was that a different movie? I can’t remember.

No, that’s right, I was thinking of Ken Park there. The grandma doesn’t get stabbed to death in this one (spoiler). This grandma wants to straighten Julie out, but she’s too smart to send her off to one of those teenage deprogramming ranches that Montel Williams would’ve suggested. Instead she accepts an offer from her old friend Mr. Miyagi to go stay at his garden while he looks after the teen.

You remember Mr. Miyagi, played by Pat Morita. He was nominated for best supporting actor for the original Karate Kid, but unlike his pupil, he went home in shame. If you are too young to know of the Karate Kid, I gotta explain that Mr. Miyagi was once a beloved character in American culture. He’s a short old guy who speaks in broken English and purposely annoys young people by getting them to wash his cars and crap like that. But they will soon see the wisdom behind his foolish appearance and how he is actually training them to be great fighters. And when shit goes down, like some bullies pick on him at the gas station, he will use his very slow and stiff Dolemite-like karate master skills to somehow whoop their ass. (more…)

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The Polar Express

Wednesday, November 10th, 2004

THE POLAR EXPRESS 3-D IMAX SPOOKARAMA

A few years back I wrote a piece called FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (working title: BORING: THE MOVIE). It is available on this web sight as well as in my collection 5 On the Outside. In the piece I talked about the wrongness of computer animators trying to create photorealistic human characters. I argued that no matter how real they looked they would never look completely real, because they wouldn’t be able to walk quite right, or have a human soul, etc. I guess I didn’t mention it in that piece but there was a scene in the movie where two realistic human characters kissed, and it was like watching mannequins go at it.

(For your information, there’s a porno called REAL DOLL: THE MOVIE where pornographic professionals like Ron Jeremy stick their penises inside ten thousand dollar silicone sex dummies. That movie is disturbing in a different way from FINAL FANTASY because the dolls are not moving and their faces don’t look alive. So it looks like these guys are having their way with dead bodies. But picture two of the dolls going at it with no animate objects involved. Then picture a rated PG version of that. That’s the scene in FINAL FANTASY, I guess. It’s not natural.)

Well nobody seemed to care back then but now many of the ideas I presented in that piece have worked their way into the mainstream, as reviewers of the new computerfied Robert Zemeckis Christmas fantasy THE POLAR EXPRESS have criticized the creepy, dead eyed look of its overly realistic computerized cartoon characters. Japanese roboticists have even expanded on my theories, calling it “the uncanny valley” where your ability to relate to a robot or cartoon character suddenly plunges as it gets closer to humanity. So Mickey Mouse is our buddy but final fantasies give us the willies. (more…)

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Garfield

Sunday, November 7th, 2004

the asshole cat

Man, what a fuckin week. On Tuesday Bush got either “re”-elected or re-”elected,” and I’ve been stumbling around muttering to myself ever since. Stabbing at my porridge with my spoon, staring blankly out the window, mouthing the word “why” to myself over and over again. One thing I know, there are some things in this world that just cannot be explained. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes people vote for a president that couldn’t be trusted to put on his own pants. And sometimes a guy gets the blue state blues, walks around town in a daze, suddenly finds himself at home having rented the movie “GARFIELD,” not really knowing how or why. I know for a fact this happens because you’re lookin at the guy who it happened to. Me. It was weird.

What this is is a movie based on the popular comic strip from the 1980s called Garfield. Like all comic strips it is not funny and about a talking animal. This is a cat called Garfield who is orange. The thing about Garfield, he is real fucking fat, he eats lasagna. That’s funny because real cats eat cat food, but this one also eats lasagna. Also he says “I hate Mondays” at the beginning although this does not turn out to be important. But it is that sort of detailed characterization that makes him, you know, Garfield. I guess.

I mean, think about it. Why the fuck is a cat gonna hate mondays. Especially this particular cat, this Garfield. What he does, he sleeps, he eats, etc. For a cat, even a talking, dancing asshole cat like this, he is not gonna give a fuck if it’s Tuesday, Thursday, the 12th of February, anything. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to work. He doesn’t have to get out of bed. Every day of the year is the weekend to him. There is no beginning of the week for a cat with that particular lazy asshole cat type of lifestyle. Even when he is expected to eat a mouse, he just fakes it. There is no fuckin reason this cat even knows what Monday is, let alone hates it. And yet he says it explicitly that he hates Mondays. You see. That is why it is funny. Because why would he hate Mondays. Oh, that Garfield the asshole cat. He hates Mondays. (more…)

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Whale Rider

Friday, June 20th, 2003

Boys,

Well SIFF is over but that doesn’t mean I can’t somehow end up seeing WHALE RIDER, which won best film and best director at the festival. In fact, I DID end up seeing WHALE RIDER, which won best film and best director at the festival. Also I wrote a review of it. Or at least I am writing a review of it right now. If all goes as planned you will keep reading from here and it will be a review.

First of all let me say that this is not about some guy riding around on a whale. I thought maybe it would be some dude who travels from port city to port city helping people, solving problems, delivering goods, etc. I don’t know if maybe he would be on the run for a murder he didn’t commit. Or maybe if it was Seagal he would be an ex-CIA whale rider fighting corruption using his special spook skills, while riding a whale. That’s not really what the movie is like though. If that’s what you’re expecting this may be your biggest disappointment since LAST OF THE DOGMEN.

What it is though is a real well made and moving family movie just like THE BLACK STALLION or that flying goose movie with Anna Paquin, but with less animals. The story is about a Maori man name Koro trying to maintain the ancient traditions of his culture. He says he is descended from the first Maori tribal leader who rode a whale from Hawaii to New Zealand. He believes a new chief will be born and trained in the old ways, and he alienates his family in his obsessive quest for that chief. Especially his two sons who he doesn’t think are good enough to be chief. (more…)

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Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams

Wednesday, August 7th, 2002

This is the story of a man (me), a famous television critic (Gene Shalit) and a children’s action picture called SPY KIDS PART 2. Three entitities living their separate existences. Independent and peaceful. And it coulda easily stayed that way, if not for the simple words of a newspaper advertisement. But it was not to be. Because of those words, our three lives converged. And we would be changed for a while, I guess.

GENE SHALIT OF The TODAY Show RAVES:

“THE MOST JOYOUSLY IMAGINATIVE MOVIE OF THE SUMMER! JUST ABOUT EVERY MINUTE IS FUNNY OR INGENIOUS… IN A WORD, FUN-TASTIC!”

Now I gotta be honest. Normally I don’t pay attention to these fuckwads on the ads. I am one of the most important film Writers today and I never been quoted once. So obviously these people aren’t the cream of the crop. But there was something about this quote from Gene Shalit that intrigued me.

Now first of all let me mention that alot of individuals are down on Gene Shalit, but I’m gonna stand up for him here. Like me, he has a criminal past. Yeah, he used the “senior moment” defense instead of the more honorable “just some bullshit”, but he’s still one of our guys. Now I don’t know what it is about the guy that makes people belittle his work. Maybe it is his ridiculous hair and mustache, or the funny voice he talks in, or the bad puns he uses, or the incredibly bad taste he has in movies. I don’t know. To tell you the truth come to think of it I hate this fuckin guy. I think maybe I was thinking of somebody else. Never mind I’m not gonna stand up for Gene Shalit. But I am going to tell you what about his quote intrigued me: the word “fun-tastic”.

The Webster’s dictionary defines “fun-tastic” as… well, nothing. Because fun-tastic is not a word. And no smartass, it’s not two words either. Two words with a dash between them still counts as only one word, in my opinion. Anyway as far as I can tell this strange new word is some kind of contraction or compound word, which combines all the powers and distinctive qualities of the word “fun” with those of “fantastic”. But really, what is there that is “fantastic” that is not, by definition, already fun? And isn’t fun a fantastic thing to have? Maybe it is a shorter way of saying “fantastic fun”, but then wouldn’t it be “fanta-fun”, to keep the words in the right order? By removing the “fan” from “fantastic” is Gene saying that it is somehow less than fantastic, but still alot of fun?

I don’t fuckin know. So there was only way to find out. To postpone my plans to see XXX and/or BLOOD WORK and go to this kiddie picture first.

Today I learned many things about what it takes for an old man to have a fun-tastic time. And I also learned about what kind of freaky ass shit your kids are watching today. For example they have a movie coming out where there are cartoon vegetables that talk. They are pirates and it is also the bible. There is a caterpillar involved who has a funny accent. There is also a cartoon about Adam Sandler. And because Miramax is putting out a dubbed SHAOLIN SOCCER, they made yet another update of the song “Kung-Fu Fighting.” Because that song never gets old.

What in fuck’s name is wrong with all you people.

SPY KIDS PART 2 is directed by Robert Rodriguez who did the great MARIACHI series. Now he does kiddie pictures. This one’s about two little kids who work for a government agency using all kinds of magic gadgets to fight weird creatures and scientists. There is lots of little kid stunts and fighting. They do kung fu, they dance, they fly around on little jets and fight skeletons and monsters. Antonio Banderas is their dad and Ricardo Montalban is their grandpa, in a flying wheelchair.

This is not really a good movie for the adults without kids (me and Gene Shalit). It is pretty empty, just trying to impress with lots of little computer effects and kiddy fantasy fulfillment, and the occasional poo or booger joke. To be frankly honest I wish they had this kind of crap when I was a kid. The little boy Junie is just a regular lookin pudgy little kid, but he gets to do badass kung fu, wear a little tuxedo and dance ballet at a formal ball. Everything you wanted to do as a kid, except also ballet. He gets to drive vehicles, climb up shit, fly around, play a long guitar solo, etc. There is lots of typing on funny lookin computers with big round buttons. At the end he is disillusioned by the lack of honor in the spy world and vows to retire, which proves that he is a good kid. This is actually a pretty smart theme in the movie – most of the characters are willing to switch sides constantly to be on the winning side or to save themselves, but the little boy knows who he is loyal to. Obviously, there aren’t many little boys in the CIA, FBI or Bush Administration.

In a way this is a new type of movie, a mid-level effects extravaganza. Robert Rodriguez did not have a Star Trek type budget behind his movie but he used the same digital cameras (which actually look fine) and crammed the whole movie full of computerized creatures and weapons and stunts and backgrounds and flying vehicles. They are able to fit more gimmicks in there than they could when we were kids because it doesn’t cost as much. Plus they got Bill Paxton in a small role.

This is not a realistic style. The creatures do not look as real as the dinos in jurassic park or what have you. The backgrounds like at the amusement park at the beginning sometimes look cartoony and phoney. You can tell they’re blue screened and the skeletons they fight are deliberately flickery like the ol’ stop motion ones they are a reference to. They probaly coulda spent an extra $40 million and made it all look more photo-realistic, but then it would still be the type of movie where Antonio Banderas suddenly announces that he once did the kid’s dental work for a year and that was so he could implant special tracking devices in their teeth which happen to be non-electrical so they will still work despite the fact that the kids are on an island with a special gadget that prevents all electric devices from working.

So why bother? It’s all about how many silly gimmicks, goofy adventure and every robot, flying vehicle or monster you can fit in, not about how convincing you make them look. If you are ten or have a ten year old with you (yours, by the way, none of this kidnapping bullshit that’s goin around) then you’ll have a great time. That’s the whole point of the cinema fun-tastique.

[ratings]

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The Prince of Egypt

Friday, December 17th, 1999

Subject: Re: Whats the *smallest* crowd you’ve seen a movie with?
Date: 12/17/1999
Author: Vern

Well I gotta admit when I was still drinking i went to see a cartoon about the bible. This was an american cartoon i believe not japanese so there was mostly kids in the audience, possibly christian. Maybe eight or ten kids plus parents which is a small audience in my opinion although not the smallest.

Well like I said this was when I was still drinking and i had done a lot of bible reading while I wa sin the can, so i guess I must have been pretty belligerent. the thing is these motherfuckers in the cartoon kept singing and what not which in my opinion was a pretty liberal interpretation of the text. so i’m yelling “THIS IS NOT IN THE BOOK, THIS IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT” or whatever and i guess the tone of the voice or whatever, some of the kids started to get scared. (more…)

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