Hey, remember when I was a paranoid conspiracy nut? And I was saying this ridiculous stuff about Bush knowing about 9-11™ in advance? Not even a year later now and even the mainstream press admits... whoops, if I wasn't right, at least I was closer than they were.
At the beginning of the Enron scandal the Bush regime said they'd had only a half dozen meetings with Enron. Now that they need to distract us from this one they're saying at least 60. And who knows how toned down that figure is.
If we can expect the same pattern in the "whoops, we were totally lying when we said 9-11™ was out of the blue" scandal then it's hard to imagine the horrors they will be confessing to in the coming months.
In case there is anyone out there who doesn't think these latest revelations are a big deal, let's take a look. Let's pretend (even though the very idea is completely ridiculous) that everything they're telling us NOW is true, and that their sins are no worse than what they've already admitted to. And let's assume, since it's what most people are assuming and since it's perfectly reasonable, that they really didn't know that the hijackers were planning to crash the planes into buildings.
EVEN THEN, we would have to face the fact that, knowing terrorists were likely to hijack planes, the Bush regime did not bother to take the usual precautions that are taken in that instance. On September 11th, there were only 8 air force pilots protecting the entire country, and most of them were weekend reservists, and they were on the ground even after everyone knew that 4 planes had been simultaneously hijacked, an event that has never happened before in history.
Whoops. If not sinister, it was fuckin retarded. If these guys aren't evil, they're incompetent, and extremely fuckin stupid, and they cannot be allowed to remain in these offices that they stole anyway. And you wonder why Bush and Cheney announced from the very beginning that it was a bad idea to, you know, try to look into what went wrong.
Another thing that would've helped would be to have gotten the cockpit doors reinforced on the planes so hijackers couldn't break in. But back then, that was something Ralph Nader wanted, not the republicans. Hell, even honorary republican Clinton had it in his terrorism bill, but the official republicans shot that part down because it would cost too much money for the airline industry. (Or so they thought. It would be hard to be much more wrong than that.)
Sure, they took a few precautions. For example Ashcroft stopped flying commercial in August, and Bush hid out at camp. But that only protected those two scumbags, and not the 3,000 non-evil people who ended up being killed. None of them were even invited.
There's no two ways about it. No matter why they did it, no matter how well intentioned it was (and believe me, it wasn't), these morons fuckin blew it. Bad. Real bad. Worse than anyone ever did. And I know they will never end up in jail where they belong (and honestly I wouldn't have wanted to share a building with these fuckers anyway) but if they don't lose their jobs, then now it's us who are in dereliction of duty.
At a business, if somebody steals from the safe, the manager in charge usually gets fired. Whether it was his fault or not. This WAS their fault, and it was alot worse than some missing money, and let me remind you again that these fuckers were never HIRED, in fact they totally blew the interview, but then they showed up wearing manager nametags, and we didn't know what to do other than let it go.
And now, at a time when leaders with integrity would be doing whatever was necessary to protect our country, this regime is running around trying to cover its ass. And does it anger anyone else how blatantly they are willing to lie to us? For example, this bullshit about nobody ever imagining a plane could crash into a building. Apparently that specific angle to the hijacking was never mentioned in any of the warnings from the CIA, members of Congress, Israel, Britain, France, James Woods, and whoever else is on the list now of people who tried to warn us something was up. So, they claim, nobody had ever imagined such a possibility.
Well obviously that's an irrelevant argument, since you stop a suicide hijacking the same way you stop a regular hijacking. But it's also a bold faced lie. During the Genoa convention, Italy had warned Bush that terrorists wanted to crash a plane into the building, to kill his miserable ass. I'm betting he remembers that. He may also remember the popular Tom Clancy book (or book on tape, I guess) about crashing a plane into the capital, which Clancy was apologizing left and right for after September 11th. Or he might be familiar with the secret service, who consider a plane-into-White-House-scenario to be one major threat to worry about. Or the FBI report that speculated Zacharia Moussai wanted to crash a plane into the world trade center (which, it turns out, he did). Or the other islamic terrorists who wanted to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters. Or maybe the still other ones who wanted to crash one into the Eiffel Tower. I mean even the Columbine kids wanted to hijack a plane and crash it into a building in New York, and they were atheists. OF COURSE it had been imagined before, maybe not by our president or our national security adviser, but by just about everybody else in that business. So either we're dealing with liars who shouldn't be in office, or idiots who shouldn't be in office, or more likely both who should be in jail.
So please everybody, take your cue. It's time to stop being timid about our anger. Bring it up in conversations (when appropriate. not at weddings). Write to newspapers, magazines and web sights. Call radio talk shows. Write your congress and senators (believe me, you get great form letters). Somebody needs to make t-shirts and stickers and posters, and get them all over the place. (I wanted to make one that said "Woild Domination" before but I haven't thought of a new slogan.) We need to make sure this does not die down, is not forgotten, is not covered up and misdirected and pardoned and gotten away with like "election" 2000 and Iran/Contra and Enron and Waco and slavery and every unarmed black dude that's been shot by the cops in your neighborhood and everything else.
They're gonna use the Chandra Levy thing to distract the press. And I'll bet at least one democrat will be accused of some kind of lurid scandal in the next couple weeks. But this isn't about democrats or republicans (and I'm neither one). It's about us vs. these bastards who think they can get away with this shit. Don't lose your focus, and don't let the people around you.
I mean come on. What would Yoda do? Let's get with it friends.
and we'll talk about movies, too
thanks,
Vern
Man I can't believe this shit. I was too slow to see it coming. When FBI people right and left were coming forward to admit they blew it in regards to this whole September 11th deal, who woulda thought they would use it to their own advantage? Yeah, we knew alot of things, we didn't do shit, 3,000 people died. The only way we can prevent this from happening again is if we get rid of all those stupid "don't spy on your own people" and "probable cause" rules.
If you step back and take a look at it, you see that there is no logic in this. They had information that they refused to act on (whether out of incompetence, laziness, or pressure not to screw up the pipeline negotiations with the Taliban - take your pick) - so the way to fix this problem is to get more information to not act on? It makes about as much sense as the sport "rollerball" in the movie Rollerball (2002).
Is anyone else sick of being asked to swallow this kind of Alice in Wonderland logic - and then watching tv and seeing the fake journalists pretend to actually do it? We must take away your freedom to protect freedom. We must install more zealots in Afghanistan to promote democracy throughout the world. Practicing the democratic process is anti-american. Investigating what happened on September 11th would interfere with stopping terrorism. History's most brutal and expensive military couldn't stop 19 dudes with knives from killing 3,000 people, so we need to have a MORE brutal and expensive military. I don't like the taste of shit, so instead I am going to put this shit in my mouth.
I gotta repeat my request from the last column, friends. Don't let this shit go. Don't forget about it. Don't stop talking about it.
The reason I'm Writing another column so soon is to recommend a really spectacular book I read this week. That's right, I said I read a BOOK. And it wasn't even by Iceberg Slim or Chopper. Admittedly, it had alot of pictures.
In fact, that's one reason I think many members of my internet movie community type audience will be interested: all you fuckers read comic books. You wouldn't be able to tell by the dull blue, hardbound cover, by Ted Rall's To Afghanistan and Back is a comic book, or a "graphic novel" as some people call them in order to pretend they are real literature for adults. Or "graphic travelogue" it says on the cover for this one.
This book really blew me away, and I vowed that I would recommend it to everybody I knew. But most of the drunks on the bus didn't seem interested so I thought I'd tell all my friends out there in "cyberworld" or whatever it was they used to call the whole internet deal.
What it is, Ted Rall is some editorial cartoonist who decided to go to Afghanistan during the recent war. He lived with the journalists, saw alot of bombing, got robbed blind by the locals, grew many strange rashes and could've been killed (as some of his fellow journalists did). The book is a real quick read, beginning and ending with several essays and articles about his experiences, but the meat of it is the story of his trip in the form of cartoon drawings and boxes, or whatever. Just to warn you there are no muscles or super powers in this book, it is just a dude with little dots for eyes trying to find out the truth about the war.
Now you would definitely have to say Mr. Rall comes down as against the war (that's why Bill Maher calls him an "anti-american pinko" in the introduction). But I think even people who, insanely, are in favor of war would be interested in the story he has to tell. It kind of reminded me of THREE KINGS in the way it depicted the surreal side of living in a war-zone that you don't usually hear about it. It's also interesting to see the story of what the journalists go through. They end up spending hundreds of dollars for short cab rides (which they all blame on CNN for having done it first). They get casual about enduring constant bombing, since hearing loud explosions off in the distance doesn't seem very personal. They actually get bored. But they oughta be afraid. Some of them are robbed and killed by Northern Alliance soldiers (the good guys) and both the US and the Northern Alliance (the good guys) have a policy of not helping any journalists.
Of course, Mr. Rall counters alot of the propaganda we heard. He says that the air force was definitely bombing everybody and everything, not just looking for military targets like they claimed. He explains clearly why we didn't win (and not just because the one guy we were supposedly after got away). He says that he never once saw one of the yellow food packages we were supposedly dropping. He explains how and why the guys replacing the Taliban are literally the same exact guys as before. He even brings up alot of weird details I never heard before, like most Afghanis believed bin Laden crossed the border early on with the help of the CIA.
This is a must read book for all americans. Please buy it or check it out from your local library, and if you like it as much as I did please spread the word.
You can buy it directly from the publisher , or check out their sample pages if you're not convinced. Or go ahead and buy it from The Man to make it clear that there is money to be made in tellin it like it is. (At least, for people besides me.)
If we're ever gonna get our country back, it'll take a strong cultural battle, and I think one baby step we can take now is to support art that counters the Fox News version of what's going on. To Afghanistan and Back is the best I've found so far but I'd also suggest a CD called The Big Ka-Boom, Part One by a young man named Jello Biafra. (Must've had hippie parents.) It's just a 34 minute talk about why war only makes terrorism worse. People who have done alot of reading on the topic won't find much new on the CD but it's worth buying just for the huge foldout collage inside, made out of pieces of magazines and newspapers with occasional inappropriate clipart. The thing is double sided and hits on a number of important topics like america's part in the previous destruction of Afghanistan, Bush's business link to bin Laden, dependence on oil, why invading Iraq would fuck us over royally, etc. It would probaly just piss me off but they also included alot of darkly humorous clippings and slogans like "Support the Northern Alliance: Shoot Up More Often." I hope teenagers are getting this collage, sneaking copies in the teacher's lounge, passing it around.
Before I close out I'd just like to comment briefly on the MTV MOVIE AWARDS because that had one of the most fucked up moments I've ever seen. I mean sure it was nice to see a couple old guys getting nominated for awards, like Christopher Lee and Ian Mackellan's fight in LORDS OF THE RING. But there was a moment when Michael Bay, notorious creator of the Michael Bay style of movie, accepted an award. As if that in itself wasn't appalling enough the man actually dedicated the award to "the 3,000 people who died at Pearl Harbor."
Michael Bayyyyy... this is the ghosts of the 3,000 people who were killed at Pearl Harbor speaking... we have a message for you... we are very honored to share your MTV MOVIE AWARD that you got for BEST ACTION SEQUENCE. That took real class for you to dedicate your award to us. Let us reiterate that it was an MTV MOVIE AWARD for BEST ACTION SEQUENCE that you won for depicting OUR DEATHS. Thankssssss Michael...
thanks everybody,
Vern
suggested reading:
A couple readers have sent this link, Bush 9/11 Scandal For Dummies. Some of the ideas may seem a little far fetched to some readers but it's a real good summary of the whole mess.
Here's a creepy one if you read between the lines a little. It connects the FBI to the notorious September 11th insider trading.
Well I've been holding off on doing a VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS because I want to put together the Post-September-11th-Politcal-Rant to end all Post-September-11th-Political-Rants so I can move forward a little bit. But today I saw a headline that I could not let stand without comment:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/07/10/iraq-invasion.htm
I mean, that's the most insane thing I've read since the one about how the CIA weren't allowed to assassinate but they're authorized to kill Saddam Hussein if it's in self defense (We had no choice! We just happened to fall through the skylight into his palace and he pulled a pistol on us!)
The print version of this new one is even more ridiculous because it has a sub–header or whatever you call it. Something like, "Planners raise bar for Iraqi invasion - provocation would be needed to justify war, say experts."
Oh, THAT'S right. That's what we've been forgetting. After all these months of planning this war, they still don't have a REASON to go to war. It makes our government seem a little more human, you know, to realize that even they want to have a REASON before they send their friends' kids to go kill thousands of people.
Because people are starting to remember that war ain't pretty. Well, I think everybody knew that, except for everybody you see on tv. And a couple of them are starting to realize it. I'm sure one or two of them felt a little queasy when they reported about the American soldiers slaughtering a wedding party in Afghanistan. I read that the father of the groom was considered a war hero, from this same war. He defended Hamid Karzai from the Taliban. Now he's dead, and so are his wife and four of his children. And he didn't get to see his son get married. His son only survived because of a tradition that the groom waits in a seperate house.
Just imagine if something like this happened in the US. Let's say for some reason some troops from Pakistan were helping the FBI search for the anthrax killer. I know, I know - that would mean they didn't already know that it was a scientist from the army purposely using democrats as guinea pigs to see if it's possible to stop a biological attack. But just pretend with me for a minute here bud.
So it's the 4th of July, there are some celebrations going on, and then all the sudden Pakistani planes drop bombs on a couple american suburbs. The attack lasts 2 hours, kills 40 americans in their homes, injures over 100. One of the victims was a war hero, 25 from the same family, leaving a groom behind alone on his wedding night, etc. Whoops, there must've been an errant bomb. The FBI witnesses may have given them faulty intelligence, we can't really say until we hear the facts. We will put together a commission of Pakistanis to figure out for sure if there was a mistake here or not.
Can you IMAGINE how we would react? Picture the tv coverage, the backgrounds on each of the victims, the slo-mo montages of pictures of them in happier times, the tear-filled interviews with their surviving relatives (for those that have any). Picture the endless memorials, the God Bless Americas and the Amazing Graces, the increased interest in bagpipes.
Picture the outrage when it hits the news that the Pakistanis stormed into homes and tied people up so they couldn't help the injured, causing people with broken limbs to bleed to death. And that they were videotaping and photographing all the women around who were naked because their clothese had been burned off by the bombs.
Do you think the Pakistanis would get away with saying, "We have no reason to apologize. We heard gun shots"?
Those were firecrackers! It was the 4th of July!
"The sound was not consistent with firecrackers." And then they start implying that all the outraged suburbanite survivors you heard on the news were actually anarchists from Eugene, Oregon exaggerating to discredit the government's search for the anthrax killer. "Plus, there could've been terrorists in that suburb!"
I mean any reasonable human being knows that this shit has to stop. Because this isn't even the first time it's happened - it's at least the third wedding mishap, and also the third massacre of civilians just in that one province! Read any of the articles about the survivors, or the governor of that province, and you will hear people from different walks of life talking about our army as the oppressor, talking about the day when they will be able to fight back, talking about a "holy war" like the one they had against the Russians (financed by us, performed by bin Laden and pals).
This is what we're stirring up in the name of building an oil pipel-- er I mean stopping terrorism and promoting democracy, freedom and bunnies. AND STILL, despite all this, the unelected CEOs of our government are enjoying themselves, and they want to turn this into a threesome. Welcome to Woild Domination. Expect that within the next few months, Iraq will magically give these thugs the "provocation" they asked Santa for.
THAT SAID, IT'S YODA TIME!
I know nobody cares about this anymore, but I happened to see YODA ATTACK again today and I wanted to say a few things about 1) Yoda and 2) digital projection, second time around. I mean we should go over this one last time before we move on to the post-apocalyptic dragon portion of the summer movie season.
I know some of my fellow internet-based movie discussers were not won over by Yoda in this picture. I read some of them saying, and I also read Roger Ebert saying, that the famous space-saber duel was out of character for our boy.
Now I understand if you didn't like the picture, but that argument is just plain ridiculous. Even I know this.
You see, the Yodaverse is all based on mythology, and archetypes, and of course Akira Kurosawa pictures. The Jedi are obviously inspired by samurai. They have robes, swords, ponytails, incredible skills, a code of honor, they are sent out to act as peacekeepers (like in SEVEN SAMURAI) which usually means swordfights (like in SEVEN SAMURAI). In fact, according to my nerd sources, the first STAR WARS is based loosely on Kurosawa's THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, and the part of Obi Wan Kenobatron was originally written for Toshiro Mifune.
So when Luke Skywalker originally met Yoda in STAR WARS EPISODE 2: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK it was clear to everyone besides Roger Ebert and half of the internet that Yoda was once a great warrior. If this were SEVEN SAMURAI, he would be the old man who is tired of fighting but obviously used to kick some ass samurai style. If it were a martial arts movie, he'd be one of those old dudes with the long beard who teaches a particular fighting style and philosophy.
These type of wise mentor characters always have an asskicking past, and almost always still kick ass. Go no further than the Hong Kong section at your local independent video store to find over 100 movies about wise old men who kick ass. The only difference is they are not puppets, and therefore are not as cool as Yoda.
But I don't think Roger Ebert's ever gonna understand that. Go to his web sight and check out the audio file of his hilariously out of touch review of POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE. He doesn't understand what the people want, which is little cute things that kick ass.
And now number two, digital projection. I mentioned before how bad the digital projection was the first time I saw the Yoda picture. I did some reading on the topic and found that most people seemed to like the new technology. Some people hated it and were told well, everybody else says it looks good, so they must've been projecting it wrong. And they said yeah, maybe they screwed up.
But that's just wrong. I went back to the same theater, now that they've had months to perfect it. This time I sat in the middle, where I heard was the ideal area, in about the same row that a dude sat who said it looked great.
But it makes no difference. It's still a giant dvd. Like I said before, it has its strengths. But all of its flaws are inherent in the technology and will never be overcome. When it is at its absolute, THX certified, Paul Allen's house-worthy, blessed by George Lucas best, it will still be made up of squares. You will still see distracting digitized blurs every time there are words on the screen, or bright lights, or white objects, or etc. In brighly lit scenes, you will still see a grid covering the entire screen if you look closely enough. Sure, you'll be able to let your eyes glaze over after a minute, and you'll fall into the illusion that it looks just as good as a well projected real movie.
Nope, my mind has not been changed. Digital projection is a scam being promoted by the electronics companies that will make money off its development. It is not something that human beings who enjoy watching movies should support.
SPEAKING OF SAMURAIS
You're gonna start thinking I'm a pussy, but I'm about to endorse another fuckin animation cartoon. I was flippin the channels around last week and I came to "cartoon network." And I saw a cartoon about this samurai, who was going on some kind of a journey, I wasn't sure what.
He was walking around, looking real dignified in his robe, with his sword at his side. The show was drawn in a real cartoony style, where he had real big eyes. Kind of like the POWERPUFF style only instead of having thick black lines around all the characters, this samurai has no lines around him at all, like he's cut out of pieces of construction paper. But cut out real nice.
But I knew right away that there was something weird going on, because this samurai was not talking. Usually in a cartoon, I mean I don't watch that many cartoons so I wouldn't know, but most of the cartoons I've seen have non-stop talking. I mean even non-cartoons. If somebody's walking somewhere, on tv, they usually explain where they're walking, or they make a little joke. If there is no talking, they will play a song by Paula Cole or Dido. But not on this one.
The samurai started going across this rope bridge. And all you heard was the sounds of his wooden sandals on the bridge, and the wind blowing eerily below him. Way below him. It was cloudy so you couldn't see how far the bridge went. But he just kept walking, and the bridge kept going. And going. And I realized I was watching a tv cartoon about a samurai who walks quietly across a rope bridge, and that's it. And I was hooked. No pun intended.
Well, I guess that wasn't a pun. He doesn't have a hook for a hand or anything, he's just a samurai. Sorry about that.
There turned out to actually be a plot, when the samurai (turns out his name is "Jack" because the show is called SAMURAI JACK by the way) ran into a huge bagpipe playing thug in the middle of the bridge. This dude was coming from the other direction, and he said he'd been walking for days. And he refused to let Jack pass.
So the bagpiper wants to fight, but the samurai refuses. They argue, and things escalate until the bagpiper slices Jack's straw hat in half. It falls into the abyss, and the bagpiper laughs. So Jack stabs his bagpipes.
First there is a long, bizarre toot as the bagpipes deflate. And then it's on. Big fight in the middle of the endless rope bridge. Eventually they find out they are both running from bounty hunters and they get chained together and team up to fight alligator robots and a talking pig, etc.
Turns out there is a pilot "movie" available on dvd which you can rent, which is a longer episode that explains Jack's origins and his fight with the evil demon Aku, played by the surfer guy that narrated CONAN THE BARBARIAN. It's just as good as the episode I saw. Very stylish and full of atmosphere, lots of cinematic use of letterboxing and split screen, and lots of not talking. There is a ten minute long uninterupted fight scene with no dialogue, where Jack destroys an army of robotic bugs. At the beginning of the fight he's wearing a full suit of armor, at the end he's almost naked and covered in cuts and robot oil.
It's also a weird show because the drawing is so cartoony, especially on the villains and the aliens who are sometimes talking dogs with monocles, and usually talk in goofy ethnic accents. But it's a totally serious story full of great mythical situations and great Kurosawa/Leone inspired filmatism. It's pretty weird, kind of makes me feel uncomfortable. But I love it.
anyway thanks guys,
Vern
CHENEY IN NUMBERS Cheney's 2000 income from Halliburton: $36,086,635
- Increase in government contracts while Cheney led Halliburton: 91%
- Minimum size of "accounting irregularity" that occurred while Cheney was CEO: $100,000,000 (One hundred MILLION dollars)
- Number of the seven official US "State Sponsors of Terror" that Halliburton contracted with: 2 out of 7
- Pages of Energy Plan documents Cheney refused to give congressional investigators: 13,500
- Amount energy companies gave the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign: $1,800,000
(from moveon.org)
As a special favor to all individuals who have been so faithful to my sight and my works, I'm gonna do a special NON-BUMMER edition of VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS, where I talk almost entirely about movies. Not about politics. That is not to say that I will stop complaining about the Bush Regime. Or even cut down on it. Because you can't just ignore that shit. But today I'm gonna.
EXCEPT to promise you that the fuckers will attack Iraq before November, I'm guessin within the next month or so. And then it could get ugly. Nobody in their right mind, and almost nobody who isn't an on-air personality for the Fox News Network, thinks this is even a halfway reasonable idea. But if there is a massive uprising of dissent, which there should be, the mechanisms are already in place for a disaster. Pay close attention to what they're saying about "we don't want to change the posse-commitatus act, no, all we're saying is that we are going to LOOK INTO changing it, but we really don't want to, I mean we definitely won't even consider doing it, we're just gonna LOOK at it. But not do it. Necessarily. Don't worry." Kent State will seem like a birthday party after this. And then people will finally understand what the Bush Regime is. But it might be too late.
Okay! And that's all I will say this time! It's Happy Time!
VERSUS
This column will not be about that weird samurai horror movie but about this new trend in the making of the VERSUS movies. You know, like KING KONG VS. GODZILLA. There are actually three movies about ready to go into production which pit two separate movie franchises against each other. Two of the three have been nerd-dreams for at least ten years, but it will be fitting if this is the year they finally get the greenlight, representing the world now as a deadly battle between evil and evil.
The one that seems to be definite is SUPERMAN VS. BATMAN. It's probaly the least ridiculous of the three premises, even though it's about superfriends. My nerd correspondent tells me there is a long history of these two bein buddies in a children's comic book called "WORLD'S FINEST" which is about how they team up to fight dinosaurs and shit. But he says that nerds are more interested in the one comic "DARK NIGHT RETURNS" where Batman puts on a big metal suit and tries to pummel the shit out of Superman, and at least gives him a bloody nose anyway. Apparently Superman works for Ronald Reagan in this comic so he deserved alot worse.
Also don't forget to mention the cartoon, he says, where Batman dates Lois Lane just to piss off Superman, and follows him to his apartment to find out his identity, and when Superman has taken off his costume and notices a bat-shaped bug attached to it, he looks out the window and sees Batman standing on a building far away holding a pair of binoculars and givin him a thumbs up.
That actually sounds pretty good.
The movie will take the same approach, that Batman and Superman hate each other because one is an obsessed, revenge driven guy and the other one is an all american idealist with a little curl in the front of his hair like Michael Jackson used to have. Then they team up at the end.
The filmatists are a mixed bag. The script is by Andrew Kevin Walker, always known as the guy who wrote SE-(the number seven instead of a V)-EN. But he's also the guy who wrote BRAINSCAN and 8MM.
To be fair, he was a script doctor on David Fincher's actual best movie, THE GAME, so give him credit for that one too.
Then the director is Wolfgang Petersen. He's the kraut who did DAS BOOT and he also did IN THE LINE OF FIRE with Clint. On the other hand his last movie was THE PERFECT STORM. But he seems like a guy who would take the character drama and treat it seriously, like Bryan Singer did in X-MEN. So maybe it could go in the "good" category of movies based on children's juvenile picture comics, but we'll have to wait and see if they got them wearing goofy leather motorcycle jackets like on DAREDEVIL or who knows what they could do.
But I gotta say so far this one is not my most anticipated because if it sucks, it won't be that interesting. Unlike JASON VS. FREDDY, which is guaranteed to suck. Because it's about Jason vs. Freddy.
This is one of those movies that people have talked about for years. Talking about it like it was a good idea. In the end of JASON GOES TO HELL they even set it up. Jason dies, and some muppet arms pull him down into the dirt. Then some leaves blow over and his mask is right there on the surface of the dirt. Suddenly Freddy's glove comes up and scrapes across the mask. So I guess they are fighting right there in the dirt. It's kinda fucked up man, I don't get it.
Ever since I saw that movie I wondered, how the fuck do people get to have that bad of taste that they would take that as a serious premise for a horror picture? I mean first of all, FRIDAY THE 13TH was never on the same level as A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Even in the bad sequels. Jason is just a dude who goes around and kills people, usually teens having sex, using fancy tools. Yeah there's a certain pulpy primal whatever to it. I love it, especially in 3-D. But the Freddy pictures were always more cerebral. They were based on deeper fears, on surrealism, and Jungian type psychology. And on that whole sins of the fathers thing. The parents of Elm Street were vigilantes. Freddy was a child killer, but they killed too. And they increase the cycle of violence. There is more depth to this concept than Jason, who was mad at the counselors 'cause they let him drown, I think.
In the first FREDDY there was this part where she was in the school, only it was a dream. And there was a goat walkin down the hallway. To me that was the most fucked up part. Why would there be a goat walkin down the hallway? But in a dream it makes sense.
Goats are kinda creepy too man, I don't know.
I mean admittedly after the first one the themes were beat down to their dumbest core, and it just became a formula. Girl doesn't like bugs, Freddy turns girl into bug, squooshes girl, makes pun. But even in those, they were doin some real inventive set piece type maneuvers, inventing very complex makeup effects and putting Freddy through weird transformations and makin him turn black and white or he turns a kid into a puppet and controls him by his veins or whatever. And meanwhile all they're doin in the Jason pictures is makin him jump out and stab a guy in the eyeball or somethin.
Also, Freddy got wrapped up pretty good in that last one, WES CRAVEN PRESENTS WES CRAVEN'S ALL NEW NIGHTMARE ADVENTURE. In that one all the Freddy movies were fictional but Wes and Robert Englund and everybody got stalked by a primeval force that inspired Freddy. It was actually pretty good and did the self–referential thing before SCREAM. Jason never had a sequel as good and serious as that, let alone an original. (And in the original, Jason wasn't even the killer! Fuck, man.)
So right from the beginning you got Freddy slummin by bein in a picture with Jason. It's like Jackie Chan doin a movie with Tom Arnold.
And besides that, what the hell are they gonna do? Have a competition to see who can kill the most people? Or actually fight each other? And how are they gonna fight, anyway? After a long day of walking slowly after chicks in the woods and then catching up, Jason nods off. And he has an ironic dream where Freddy turns him into a chick and chases him through the woods!
This is pretty much the stupidest idea for a movie ever, and that's why I am so happy to see my man Ronny Yu takin it on. Ronny used to be a legimate director in Hong Kong, doing very operatic pictures like THE PHANTOM LOVER and the two BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR pictures. But you know what happened, control of Hong Kong went back to the mainland, and all the good filmatists sold their souls to the curse of Van Damme.
Ronny Yu managed to avoid ever working with Van Damme. But instead he did a movie with talking kangaroos that do kung fu. I mean, you can decide which is worse. WARRIORS OF VIRTUE was a bizarre combination of a straight to video type kids movie that coulda had Rick Moranis as the dad, and an authentic Hong Kong fantasy. There are interesting themes where the good guys try to redeem the bad guys instead of kill them, and some of the bad guys turn good or the good guys turn bad. It also brought wire–fu to america before THE MATRIX, and Peter Pau's cinematography before CROUCHING TIGER. But I should reiterate though bud it was about talking kangaroos that do kung fu.
The kangaroos had some kind of breakthrough animatronic lip synch technology and he had already done two movies with the word "BRIDE" in the title, so Mr. Yu was immediately hired to direct BRIDE OF CHUCKY. This is the Chucky picture where Chucky has a girlfriend who is also a doll, and they have sex (only after marriage, interestingly. I guess that's why it's not JASON VS. CHUCKY). The tone is completely absurdist, sometimes John Watersy camp. And then occasionally they have some pretty beautiful shots of the puppets in tragic poses, again courtesy of Oscar winning cinematographist Peter Pau. Chucky was the first '80s slasher icon to question his own legitimacy in a sequel. Jason followed suit this year when he flew into space and dealt with his feelings of inadequacy by turning into a robot.
So it will be funny to see the same thing happen to Freddy. The first scary horror villain to turn into self parody and then get scary again for one movie and then turn into more of a gimmick than ever.
Apparently the premise is that Freddy is trapped in hell but he manages to send Jason to Elm Street to kill more of the children of the people that killed him. That should be a laugh riot. I hope Jason doesn't go in dreams, I hope he goes door to door. It will be a fish out of water type situation, how is he supposed to run around in this suburb when he's so used to the campground? Or maybe he will be in the dreams but it confuses him. And then later Freddy has to chase people through the woods at Crystal Lake and he doesn't have his dream powers so he just keeps tripping and crashing into trees and he can't even keep up with them.
The rights issues would prevent Chucky from making an appearance, but hopefully Ronny will work some puppets or kangaroos in there somewhere. And keep in mind that New Line Cinema owns the Texas Chain Saw pictures. As long as they're pissing away any integrity the characters once had with the Michael Bay remake, I hope they work Leatherface into this one. Like you find out in a flashback that he got sent to Camp Crystal Lake one summer.
Anyway, I can't fuckin wait.
Finally we have ALIENS VS. PREDATOR. This is not as silly as JASON VS. FREDDY but it's destined to be garbage. This is a worse idea because it's just plain stupid, it doesn't have any retarded charm to it. All they are is two different types of aliens and they fight each other. Fantastic.
Newsies on the talkbacks sometimes give me shit for talking about "nerds" like I'm not one of them. I write on the internet medium of communication, I watch movies, I even write about movies based on children's funny books, etc. So I am no different from them, goes the newsie argument.
Nope, sorry, there is something that separates us bud. And that is Aliens vs. Predator. I have never thought that was a good idea. Nerds get a boner over the idea. That is the difference. No boner (me), boner (nerds).
This is a much more serious case of slumming because in my opinion the ALIEN series has managed to retain some integrity the whole way through. Of course they all have flaws and none of them can ever match ALIEN. But ALIEN is really somethin. It is still influential to this day. It popularized the idea of the working class people in space, the biomechanical type of design, the art of H.R. Giger, the scary alien sci-fi horror sub-genre. It was a brilliant idea to have H.R. Giger and Moebius design everything. It was Jodorowsky's brilliant idea, actually, he was gonna do it for DUNE and then Ridley Scott copied the idea. But it really worked. I mean that alien has no eyes! That fucker is scary.
And what is the deal with those giant dudes made out of bone? You know, the dead guys they found in the spaceship? I still want to see those dudes in one of the sequels. How do they even move?
ALIENS is influential too, and established James Cameron as a major director (before eliminating his entire fan base with one acceptance speech), and ultimately made cinematic history by influencing the much more important landmark BLADE II. The alien queen in there is brilliant, I think that bitch and Yoda are the two greatest movie monsters ever. I mean I look at that fucker and I think it's a real animal. It creeps me out.
The aliens don't look as creepy in the other two and they start to get overexposed, much in the style of Jack Black or the Osbournes. Jack Black is funnier in his socks and underwear if he is used more sparingly. They need to keep him in the shadows more. Haven't these people ever seen JAWS? Come on! That's how you use Jack Black.
But otherwise the movies are pretty good and underrated. I can't tell the difference between any of those bald british guys in ALIEN 3, and I didn't like how the first guy that got killed was just some janitor they didn't even introduce us to. But David Fincher did some great visual work, and most of all showed some enormous Cinematic Balls by killing off all but one of the main characters at the very beginning, off screen, and the other one at the end. Hooray for David Fincher! I think he is going to go onto something bigger.
And then there is ALIEN RESURRECTION by another now-beloved director Jean Pierre Jeunet. Everybody hates this thing, even the guy who wrote it (who now does that "Buffy" show about the girl who kills vampires). Jeunet said he was glad when they came out with a version subtitled in french, because now he knows what it's about.
But I think it is underrated. First of all, the photography is stunning. The best in any of the sequels. Second of all, the characters are better than in Fincher's and you can tell them apart. For example, Winona Ryder is a little elf girl with big eyes. Ron Perlman is a huge muscleman with a grotesque face, who grunts alot. I never once mistook one for the other. Michael Wincott is a good tough guy in it, he has that gravelly voice. Also there is a cool guy, I guess he was originally supposed to be played by Chow Yun Fat. But I still liked this guy with the long dreadlocks who gets the Badass Burden of having to fight aliens with the paraplegic Dominique Pinon strapped to his back.
This is like the doubleman in EL TOPO but badder because this dude has to swim underwater in a flooded kitchen for something like 5 minutes, chased by aliens. There is also a good basketball scene.
The most controversial part is when Ripley does the alien queen, and then there is a half-human, half alien baby that has human eyes. Now I'm not sayin the effects couldn'tve been better but this part was fuckin brilliant. For the first time in one of these movies you actually feel sorry for the fucker 'cause you have to look it in the eye. So you don't get to applaud when the poor bastard gets maybe the most painful death possible, getting sucked into space through a little hole about an inch in diameter. Crying the whole time and looking Ripley in the eye. The whole series, Ripley is trying to exterminate this race, and all it did was follow its own instincts. It's the circle of life, Ripley. They can't reproduce without killing people. Unless maybe they can plant their eggs in tofu, I'm not sure. But in this scene they make you question things a little more.
You can not name a single scene in a PREDATOR movie that is halfway as cool as that. Even if you've seen the movies. Because they are not very good. [note from the future: man, I was so wrong when I wrote this column. I obviously hadn't seen PREDATOR in a long time otherwise I would know that it is awesome. sorry about this everybody I just needed time to change. --Vern, February 27th 2009.] Yeah I know, John McTiernan did the first one, but he also did MEDICINE MAN and ROLLERBALL. I have long since accepted that the dude only did DIE HARD and nothing else is worth acknowledging as a piece in the same filmography.
The only reason this movie caught on is because AT THE TIME the monster was a good design and had a good invisibility gimmick. The only other thing that endures in the picture is to see soon-to-be-former-Governor-of-Minnesota, then-former-professional-wrestler-turned-colorful-commentator Jesse "The Body" Ventura running around with a helicopter gun saying macho shit like "I ain't got time to bleed."
But the design doesn't stand up as being as creepy or weird as the ALIEN design, and mostly you just see that stupid heat-vision-POV footage that I guess at the time might've seemed cool. Now it's what they do on tv to fill out an episode that's too short.
PREDATOR movies don't have much to offer in mythology. They don't have conflicts like Ripley vs. the bureaucrats and militarists. They don't have other alien races. They don't have their own worlds and groundbreaking stylization. They just take place out in a jungle like any of those action movies you see on late night USA Network, the ones that star Roddy Piper or Don "The Dragon" Wilson.
I mean it's really not a very good movie at all, and the sequel is worse.
PREDATOR has absolutely NOTHING to offer in this relationship. I don't see what ALIEN sees in him. So there's no way you're gonna get a director like David Fincher or Jean Pierre Jeunet interested in doing a movie like this. So instead you get the only guy you can get, "Paul W.S. Anderson", which is the new name for Paul "Not p.t." Anderson.
My buddies over at AIN'T IT COOL NEWS really have it in for P.W.S. Anderson. And I don't always agree with those boys but in this case they are definitely right. This is the dude who did MORTAL KOMBAT and I'm sorry to say that's probaly my favorite of his movies. And I've seen all of 'em.
Other than that you got RESIDENT EVIL, which I don't think I have to explain. And you got EVENT HORIZON which is a piece of garbage that people occasionally try to defend. The spaceship effects are admittedly beautiful but the horror is all inept and derivative, ripping off just the violent shit from HELLRAISER and not the creepy shit. And throwing in about ten times the acceptable level of loud-noise-makes-audience-jump fake out scares.
His most respected picture is his first one, the british one, SHOPPING starring Jude Law. This introduced his style of moronic electro-music mayhem. It's about a bunch of fuckwads driving cars into stores and then stealing shit. I know, it sounds cool but it's not. This is one of those movies where a bunch of unconvincing british criminals stand around and brag about how cynical and nihilistic they are.
"But why, Jude Law, why? Why are you gonna rob the most heavily secured mall there is? Are you insane?"
"Because nobody's ever done it before! I NEED TO BE SOMEBODY!"
I mean does anybody really have to do the "one last big score" thing again? Or the "Please, Jude Law! We can go straight! Let's move to (name of city), we can start over, start clean. I'm begging you!" No baby, I can't do it. I can't live with myself if I don't do this job. Did you hear how I said job, that is criminal lingo that I use, because I'm a criminal in this movie. And a cool one. Geez I hope I don't die ironically in the end, though, to add gravity to this mindless crime movie.
This guy never was a good director and he gets worse almost every time out. I'm gonna have to skip this one, even though I like them aliens. They have no eyes. It's creepy.
MY PROPOSAL
Now that I have blabbered on I would like to propose that these three event pictures could be turned into even more of an event, even more of a corporate synergy, a tie-in, a cross–promotion. They could be a tournament.
Here's how it works. The winner of JASON VS. FREDDY, and the winner of BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, and the winner of ALIEN VS. PREDATOR will be put in a hat. Or their name will anyway. From this hat we will draw two pairs that will fight each other in two more movies.
Of course we need one other entry, so I propose a remake/rematch of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA. The original doesn't count because there was no clear winner. I know there is that urban legend that in the american one King Kong won and in the Japanese one Godzilla won. Actually there was only one ending and it was pretty much a stalemate. So let's do that one over and throw the winner in the hat.
Now we got ourselves the finals. I would like to see Superman go up against Jason. Batman is better, but it would be funny to see Jason trying to catch Superman. Superman flies around the world twice in two seconds, and when he lands Jason is already standing there in front of him. Or maybe it would be funny to see Superman against Freddy because both of them have godlike powers. How will they outdo each other? Will Superman's ironic dream involve Batman?
If Predator wins, it might not be that bad because he could potentially go up against Godzilla. Predator is a hunter and what better trophy to have than a Godzilla skull? That's what he thinks. It will be good to see Godzilla eat that little bitch like one minute into the movie. The rest of the movie will be about Godzilla realizing he has feelings for Mothra.But if Alien wins, and let's face it he better, he will have a good challenge with Godzilla. If he plants an egg in Godzilla, would the chestburster be giant and Godzilla-like? Or would it just be regular size, and not do much damage? I'm sure it would at least make Godzilla nauseous, like having little worms crawling out of your skin. And then Godzilla could puke all over the city. I don't know this could be a good match boys. I'm gettin excited.
Of course the two finalists will square off in the championship film in the summer of 2007, with special appearances by Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Abbot and Costello, Dracula and Billy the Kid. Or maybe just DMX.
Please, Hollywood, consider my proposal.
ONE FINAL NOTE.
Harry Knowles from The Ain't It Cool News came to Seattle this week to do a booksigning for that book he had written. I met him briefly and he said he liked my Writing. He was very nice and not as fat as the cartoons on his sight make him out to be. I was kinda disappointed. What a phoney, he is really not all that fat. And he was wearing one of those rockabilly shirts with flames, not a faded Red Dwarf shirt or something like you might expect the "Head Geek" to.
Harry had a pretty dedicated following there, excited to see him. He talked real passionately, and he just wouldn't stop talking. He said "right, okay" alot the same way Mr. Tarantino does.
I know alot of people, including many of my readers and associates, are not fond of Harry, or at least of his Writing, or of what he represents, or something. There are always people questioning his "legitimacy" as a "journalist", or his acceptance of free crap from studios, or whatever. And there was that embarassing three part article on Film Threat where the guy thought he was blowin the lid off of Watergate but all he got was "some guy that Harry knew got busted for selling bootlegs at comic conventions".
I mean look, even I don't like how he says "could of" instead of "could've". Even I know about contractions.
But I really think this guy is the real deal and let me tell you why. He watches movies all day long. He knows all of em. He is talking about people and movies I never heard of. I don't think he's makin em up either. And you can tell by his voice how excited he is to talk about them.
I mean you're right, he doesn't have as many insightful things to say about the movies as some of the more academic individuals on the internet type medium. And alot of the people on there have the same tendency to make every movie that comes along either the best movie they ever saw or the worst one they ever even heard of. But what he does have is a real passion for the movies, and that is a good thing.
I know you heard that one before and you don't buy it, but it's true. That doesn't just mean he likes worthless garbage like AMERICAN VERSION OF GODZILLA and ARMAGEDDON. He also likes weirder, lower budget, more obscure worthless garbage. Garbage that is so worthless, that there is a worth to its garbageyness. Or, I don't know. You know what I'm tryin to say, maybe.
What I'm tryin to say is, I would rather talk to a dude who finds something to love in a lot of crap, than a dude that hates every movie I love. Some people love movies so much, they hate all movies. I never want to get to that point where I go a whole year and only see 1 or 2 movies I really liked. At that point it's time to start getting into NASCAR or something.
Harry was very complimentary to me. I should've thanked him for the support he has given me. Please remember that he has repeatedly exposed my works to an audience of millions. In exchange he got big stacks of talkbacks of people saying I was a fuckin moron and had lowered the bar for Ain't It Cool by 36 feet.
So far, nobody else has done that for me. So in this respect, Harry is the ONLY person who is not a big asshole. Everybody else, fuck you.
So for what it's worth I liked Harry, although to be frankly honest I am not the best judge of character, that is part of why you didn't see much of me during the '90s.
thanks people,
Vern
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