SURROGATES is TERMINATOR 3 director Jon Mostow (plus the writers of TERMINATOR 3-4) doing another robot movie, this time free of the expectations and mythology (and budget, from the looks of it) of the TERMINATOR series. The only thing they’re chained to is the “graphic novel” the ads say it’s based on, which means a comic book. Luckily they don’t have to be too careful about adapting it because nobody ever heard of it until it was being made into a movie. You show me someone who has read it and I’ll show you the guy that did the copy editing. I was gonna say the mom of the guy who wrote it but I doubt she read it either. This is not some iconic one everybody knows like Alan Moore’s Watchmen or Garfield’s Big Fat Hairy Deal. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘robots’
Surrogates
Friday, September 25th, 2009Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Okay, first off, this is not a fair review. I didn’t go into this thing in good faith. I never thought there was a possibility I would genuinely like this movie. So don’t think I’m trying to be objective here. But I’ve been getting emails and comments for months asking me to review this sequel to a movie I hated, and there’s a hell of a conversation going on in the comments for my review of the first one. And to be honest I was strangely excited to see it. It just sounded so insane, and as a fan and scholar of the summer blockbuster movie maybe it was important that I see it, just like I saw MY GIANT for the sake of Seagalogy. Whatever my excuse is, the same guy who got me into the first one for free hooked me up for this one too. So your wish is my command. (more…)
WALL-E
Sunday, July 13th, 2008By now you’ve heard of WALL-E. Lovable robot, etc.
I’m no cartoon fetishist, but I’m not blind. Pixar is America’s most consistently great studio, and on first glance this is probaly the best they’ve done so far. You never thought you’d see something like WALT DISNEY’S 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, but that’s what the first act of this feels like. This movie is deep. There is a poetically tragic beauty to it that has never been captured in any cartoon all the way from PINOCCHIO to BARBIE’S FAIRY MERMAID CASTLE 2 or even (arguably) OSMOSIS JONES.
Here is this godforsaken shitpile of a planet, literally covered in garbage, the sky brown with garbage dust, a ring of space litter surrounding the atmosphere. Humans left this place behind 700 years ago, and the only things still moving around are one cockroach and the one remaining robot that was left behind to clean up the garbage.
So there WALL-E is picking up garbage, crushing it into cubes, and building structures out of them. I’m not sure whether this is what he was programmed to do, or whether he is using his crushing/stacking job to create art, but either one is interesting. He’s been doing this for 700 years and had to cannibalize all the other dead WALL-E’s to survive, so either he’s Will Smith in I AM LEGEND, finding his way in an abandoned world, or he’s the robot at the end of A.I., missing his mommy thousands of years after humans have gone extinct. Cleaning up garbage is what he was built for, so maybe he doesn’t know that nobody needs him to do it anymore. (more…)
Transformers
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007Three words for you about TRANSFORMERS: Ho. Lee. Shit. Not as in “Holy shit, I was blown away, it was a blast as well as AWESOME!” but as in “Holy shit, society really is on the brink of collapse.”
Usually if a movie is already playing in theaters I don’t send my review here, I just use it at my geocities.com/outlawvern sight, but jesus, SOMEBODY had to say something. I can’t believe how many positive reviews I have read of this. I think Harry’s was the only negative I saw, but he was polite about it. I read Moriarty’s review before the screening and I thought wow, what if I actually like this movie? Like me, Moriarty hates Michael Bay’s movies from head to toe, style and content, and me and him agree on all kinds of stuff. I don’t remember too many cases where I thought he was being too easy on a movie, at least not a big one like this (only one that comes to mind is the much smaller DAREDEVIL). I never thought I would like this movie until I read his review. He had me about 80% convinced that it would surprise me and win me over, like LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD did. And I might have to seek counseling after enjoying those two movies in a row, but that’s life.
I’ve mentioned a few times before that I have a buddy who loves Michael Bay. But before you rush to judgment, let me say that he’s not some stereotype that just loves to see things explode and hear black guys joke about being “negroes” while a camera rotates around them. This is a smart guy with varied tastes. He gives me tips on older action movies I haven’t seen, but his favorite movie so far this year is some documentary I never heard of. He watches more movies than I do, and is much more fickle than I am. I could not possibly list how many movies I thought were good, or at least okay, that he out and out despised. But still, somehow, he loves that fucking Michael Bay garbage, especially ARMAGEDDON and BAD BOYS 2. He describes BAD BOYS 2 as “the most hateful movie ever made” and always mentions how Bay’s directing credit is over a shot of a burning cross. So his enjoyment seems like kind of a rebellious fuck you to the world, like a kid listening to punk rock or stabbing his grandparents in their sleep. He’s been excited about this movie all year, and I’ve been shaking my head and grumbling about it. I definitely wanted to see it out of morbid curiosity, but felt it would be morally wrong to pay for it. I paid to see GHOST RIDER because I thought it would be funny, and I still feel guilty about it. (more…)
Vern’s Peace Initiative
Sunday, August 13th, 2006As if the whole world wasn’t going to shit already, now we got this war going on between Israel and Hezbollah in Syria. Or according to some people, between the US via Israel and Iran via Syria via Hezbollah in Lebanon or I don’t know. Whatever the fuck is going on over there, it’s not good. People are dying every day and it seems like this could be just the humble beginnings of this latest phase of the world’s biggest mess.
In the old days, like, say, seven years ago, what we would do is the President would make some phone calls, send some diplomats, try to figure out how to get those assholes over there to chill the fuck out. “Come on guys, it’s not worth it.” Like when your buddy’s had a few too many drinks and starts getting in a guy’s face in an argument over a girl or a shoe or a slice of pizza or something. You gotta give your buddy some perspective before things get ugly.
Well, Bush is too busy clearing brush or dumping out stem cells or something. You know how he is, if the world is teetering on the precipice then you bet your ass that asshole’s on vacation. I heard he’s supposed to be reading Camus’s The Stranger on his vacation, which is interesting. Future embarassing off the cuff remark: “Well it’s interesting, in existentialism it says I can kill an Arab.”
Anyway, the point is he’s not gonna do shit. Therefore, I feel it is my duty as an American to step up and set a positive example for our brothers and sisters around the world.
Now, I know you have plenty of reasons to hate each other. The other side kidnapped some of your soldiers, or arrested a whole bunch of people, or blew up your house, or hate your religion, or stole your land, etc. I’m not saying you don’t have cause to be angry. But what you gotta understand is, this shit goes back hundreds of years. So far, blowing shit up has not helped in any way. Maybe, perhaps, it is worth considering that blowing shit up only ever makes it worse, and you gotta stop. (more…)
I, Robot
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Actually, not bad.
This is the story of a world not too far off where everything is similar to now except that Converse All Stars are rare and robots are common. Instead of the other way around. These robots are used to walk dogs, clean the house, chop the vegetables, etc. Everybody loves them, the same way assholes today love their cell phones and their iPods. And they got these new ones coming out pretty soon, the US Robotics corporation is making a big deal about it. These ones talk more like humans and have cute little rubber noses and they are see-through like my iMac. When they talk you can see little dealies moving around inside their heads. Good job on that detail, computer animators.
Also cars don’t have wheels and ceiling fans only have one blade. Otherwise though it’s the same almost.
The story follows a cop played by Will Smith, who enjoys sweet potato pie so he’s alright in my book. At first his character traits verge on the corny. He is obsessed with things that are old, like manually operated CD players and the aforementioned Chuck Taylor approved sneakers. I guess the idea is we can relate to this guy in the future because he likes the same not futuristic stuff we like. I guess. (I didn’t really buy that they would stop making Chuck Taylors by then, though. Those things have been around forever. Where are they gonna go?)
Anyway, this guy is also real paranoid of robots. He always thinks they’re up to no good. And when the CEO of USR dies of an apparent suicide, and there is one of the newfangled robots hiding in the room where it happens, he is SURE the thing did it. (more…)
