I completely forgot that I reviewed THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN when it came out in 2005, but there it is. It’s not the kind of movie I normally review, but I thought it would be important to include in this series as the most influential comedy of the summer and as the opposite of WEDDING CRASHERS. That one was about smarmy well-paid pickup artists really falling in love while trying to just get laid via deception, this is about an awkward dork who works as a stocker at an electronics chain store and doesn’t own a car who has spent his life deliberately not trying to get down women’s pants, and the lie to the woman he’s falling for is just not telling her that he’s okay with not having sex yet because he’s scared he’ll do a bad job.
Steve Carell (last seen in BEWITCHED) plays Andy, friendly but socially awkward action figure collector whose life changes after his co-workers David (Paul Rudd, HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS), Jay (Romany Malco, URBAN MENACE, TICKER) and Cal (Seth Rogen, DONNIE DARKO) very reluctantly decide to invite him to fill a vacancy in their after-hours poker game in the store. He does such a bad job of joining in their locker room talk that they figure out he’s a virgin and make it their quest in life to help him change that. “From now on your dick is my dick. I’m getting you some pussy,” vows Jay. (read the rest of this shit…)
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is exactly what I hoped we’d start seeing after SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE: more animated features feeling they have permission to go wild with their visual styles. Directors Jeff Rowe and Keyler Spears already took the baton and ran with it two years ago in THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES; MUTANT MAYHEM shares that film’s anarchic doodles-on-your-notebook spirit and preference for cartoonish exaggeration. But this time they’ve largely abandoned three-dimensional computer animation’s longstanding quest for realistic textures in favor of artistic flair. Not only the backgrounds, but even the characters look like energetic oil pastel sketches. Even objects that appear tactile are covered in lines, squiggles, smears. Light-colored scratches on swaths of black give the impression of reflections or lights, but also of lines drawn by human hands. Computerized precision takes a back seat to creative looseness and chaos. Every frame looks like the concept art that you see in the making-of coffee table books, as if they somehow removed that final step that polishes things but inevitably loses some of their personality. The personality is intact.
It’s also like SPIDER-VERSE in that it’s a fun animated all ages super hero tale with plenty of laughs, good music, and some emotional substance. And until we have too many of those, I enjoy that too. (read the rest of this shit…)
I’ve enjoyed rewatching this Jamie Lloyd trilogy of HALLOWEEN sequels. I never liked them, hadn’t watched them enough to remember them very well, but they look better on Blu-Ray and this is the most I’ve ever enjoyed parts RETURN and REVENGE.
CURSE, though, is a tough one. This is just not a good movie. But worth discussing anyway.
It starts unlike any HALLOWEEN movie. A young woman is about to give birth. There’s a medical staff pushing her on a bed down long hallways, beneath pipes, into some kind of boiler room type area, and eventually what doesn’t even look like a hospital. Now they’re in some place lit by candles and wall torches like the arena in BLOODSPORT, and she does not seem to be having her health care choices respected. This is actually supposed to be Michael’s niece Jamie Lloyd, but she’s now played by decent lookalike J.C. Brandy (WHAT LIES BENEATH). (read the rest of this shit…)
You guys know how these super heroes are. Good guys turning bad, bad guys turning good, Hawkeye getting mind-controlled by a magic crystal, alternate dimensions, recastings, reboots, team-ups, betrayals, fake deaths. It’s no surprise they can’t all get along. I mean, it was hard for Nick Fury to convince them to be The Avengers in the first place – in fact a guy had to die and then he had to cover up that he actually didn’t die (see tv show) to inspire them to even stay together in the first place. So it’s a miracle they went this long without a breakup. The Pharcyde only got through two albums. N.W.A only did one before Cube left.
In what is technically CAPTAIN AMERICA 3, but almost seems like THE AVENGERS 3, the government tries to get the Avengers to agree to being controlled by the U.N. That actually seems better than the original formation under S.H.I.E.L.D., a privacy-invading ultra-spy agency that turned out to be controlled by evil space-Nazis or whatever. But after three years of the Avengers as an indie locally-owned Mom & Pop super-team, Captain Steve R. America (Chris Evans, STREET KINGS, SNOWPIERCER) – who, to his credit, was never comfortable with S.H.I.E.L.D. – is not about to sell out. He doesn’t want to risk being sent somewhere he doesn’t belong, or not being allowed to go somewhere that he does.
But Tony “the Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr., NATURAL BORN KILLERS, 1985-1986 season SNL cast member) and some of the others think it’s a good idea. At the actual signing ceremony there’s a bombing that kills the King of Wakanda (John Kani, THE WILD GEESE), and security photos pin it on Steve’s war buddy Bucky T. Wintersoldier (Sebastian Stan, THE COVENANT, RICKI AND THE FLASH), who fell off a bridge in part 1 but in part 2 turned out to be alive and had been frozen and had a robot arm and was brainwashed and was a super assassin and evil but maybe he’s still Bucky inside but now he’s on the run (long story). The police and the Avengers are after him to kill him but Steve believes he can be rehabilitated and wants to bring him in alive. So it turns into a ghost protocol with Steve and an all star team of sympathizers going underground, and the two sides get into some scraps. (read the rest of this shit…)
I wasn’t intending to include CLUELESS in my Summer of ’95 retrospective, since I mainly like to look at “blockbuster” type movies. And I feel very familiar with it. I saw it a long time ago and then I’ll watch parts of it on cable now and then. But I think Mr. Majestyk or somebody said he was hoping I would do it and you know I’m like a DJ, I try to read the audience and move the crowd and what not.
And man, when you sit down and watch it from beginning to end for the first time in a while, CLUELESS really holds up. It’s a funny, unique movie, one that’s simultaneously very ’90s in attitude, music and cultural references, and timeless because of its stylishly heightened (I hope) depiction of the world of Los Angeles rich kids. And you know what, nothing against James Acheson, who won a costume design Oscar for RESTORATION that year, but do you think he ever sent flowers to Mona May, who did this shit? I mean come on. It’s brilliant. Apparently she got her start working with Julie Brown on MTV (not Downtown, the funny one who plays the gym teacher here).
Alicia Silverstone plays Cher, the spoiled daughter of an angry widower lawyer (Dan Hedaya, ALIEN RESURRECTION). She and Stacey Dash as her best friend Dionne (they were “both named after famous singers of the past who now do infomercials”) in some ways fit the stereotype of Beverly Hills teen girls: they obsess over expensive name brand clothes and their own popularity, they think less about school and their futures than about boys and parties (though they don’t seem very interested in drinking and look down on anything more than occasional drug use). They are superficial, but they’re generally well-meaning, nice people. Then one day, inspired by ex stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd, GEN-X COPS 2: METAL MAYHEM)’s comment about Marky Mark* attending a tree-planting ceremony, Cher decides to try using her popularity for good.
*This was before FEAR, let alone BOOGIE NIGHTS, so nobody called him Mark Wahlberg, not even his parents.(read the rest of this shit…)
ANT-MAN comes out today, with Paul Rudd (HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS) playing a Marvel super hero. He’s not a traditional square-jawed action guy, but a handsome dude who got his start playing pretty boy boyfriends (ROMEO + JULIET) isn’t a completely outside-the-box choice for such a character. Sure, he’s turned out to be best at comedy, but ANT-MAN seems to be a super hero story with a few more laffs than usual, so it makes sense. I’ve read that Rudd had to get in shape for the movie, but they didn’t make him turn into He-Man like Chrises Pratt, Evans and Hemsworth.
And I think I know why he got away with that. Paul Rudd happens to hold an Action Movie Legitimacy Card that none of those other Avengers do – one he shares with Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins, Steven Seagal, Darren Shahlavi, UFC’s Don “The Predator” Frye and Nathan “Rictus Erectus” Jones – he was the white dude in an Asian action picture. The film in question is the year 2000 sequel GEN-X COPS 2: METAL MAYHEM, which is the version I watched, though it’s available in a different cut with the Cantonese parts dubbed into English, under the title JACKIE CHAN PRESENTS GEN-Y COPS.
I haven’t seen part 1 (from 1999), but it must be about these two somewhat comical undercover cops Match (Stephen Fung, THE AVENGING FIST, TAI CHI HERO) and Alien (Sam Lee, MAN OF TAI CHI), who are introduced driving a Ferrari that Match bought with money from founding a successful websight. They are supposed to be very modern and computer savvy, so Alien keeps talking about ICQ. (read the rest of this shit…)
I am no expert on comedy or laughing, and you know that. But not too long ago I reviewed a movie called “THE WEDDING CRASHERS” which I said was lazy formulaic forgettable throwaway crap that will be forgotten forever about 20 minutes after the last time they advertise the dvd on tv. The movie is already considered a smash hit but I still stand by my evaluation. If you want to see Owen Wilson lie to a girl to get laid and then really fall in love and go riding bikes onbeaches and saying cutesey shit and then having his secret discovered and being hated but then proving himself by going and making a long humiliating speech about how much he really loves her and that other horse shit, please, by all means, go watch it. You’ve never seen anything like it, unless you have a TV or grew up in a country where there are TVs.
I wanted to say a few words about STEVE CARRELL IS… THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN though because in my opinion this is a movie that could be a good influence on WEDDING CRASHERS and teach it how to grow up and become a man and contribute to society. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Miguel Hombre on Disclosure Day: “To follow on from Borg9’s comments about Spielberg and fractured families visa – vie THE FABLEMANs and Spielberg’s filmography. I…” Oct 29, 14:34
Borg9 on Disclosure Day: “I’ll take this one. Yes, Pegsman’s reservations about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS notwithstanding, it remains a masterpiece, arguably second only to JAWS…” Oct 29, 10:14
Dreadguacamole on Clayface: “I’m not a comics book guy (nor do I remember the Batman animated episode), and I just thought this was…” Oct 28, 13:39
VERN on Disclosure Day: “I don’t think I’ve watched it since the early 2000s or maybe even the ’90s. Any good?” Oct 28, 09:17
Gepard on Disclosure Day: “Vern hasn’t reviewed Close Encounters, has he? That feels like an oversight. Especially given it’s conceptual similarities to (as well…” Oct 27, 13:01
Mr. Subtlety on Blood Frenzy: “This plan isn’t worth much of a slasher, but it’s sure a horror movie for the field of psychiatry. Your…” Oct 27, 09:44
Bill Reed on Clayface: “I read another review which said the Depardieuy henchman was played by Corey Johnson. He’s an American actor based in…” Oct 27, 09:13
MJ on Blood Frenzy: “As slasher-type films go, I strongly suspect you would enjoy SCREAM BLOODY MURDER (1973). I watched it as part of…” Oct 27, 06:33
dreadguacamole on Blood Frenzy: “Wow, nice find. The one movie I thought might qualify was DEADLY MANOR, a pretty terrible 1990 American slasher from…” Oct 27, 03:17
Curt on Blood Frenzy: “How likely is it, do we think, that the character of Barbara Shelley was named after the British actress who…” Oct 26, 14:33
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Inspector Hammer Boudreaux on Blood Frenzy: “It took me most of this review to realize you weren’t talking about BLOOD HARVEST from north-central Wisconsin’s finest auteur…” Oct 26, 12:26
Johann Tor on Blood Frenzy: “Vern, since you are taking suggestions; I did a quick search on the website and couldn’t find any mention of…” Oct 26, 09:00
Bill Reed on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: “Moved this up on my watchlist because it obtained the Vern Seal of Approval. It’s probably my favorite Lee Cronin…” Oct 26, 08:47
Bill Reed on Nickel Boys: “Just caught up with this– pretty good! I think the major point of the POV shots is about how black…” Oct 26, 08:21
August 19, 2005
Steve Carell (last seen in BEWITCHED) plays Andy, friendly but socially awkward action figure collector whose life changes after his co-workers David (Paul Rudd, HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS), Jay (Romany Malco, URBAN MENACE, TICKER) and Cal (Seth Rogen, DONNIE DARKO) very reluctantly decide to invite him to fill a vacancy in their after-hours poker game in the store. He does such a bad job of joining in their locker room talk that they figure out he’s a virgin and make it their quest in life to help him change that. “From now on your dick is my dick. I’m getting you some pussy,” vows Jay. (read the rest of this shit…)
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is exactly what I hoped we’d start seeing after 
I’ve enjoyed rewatching this Jamie Lloyd trilogy of HALLOWEEN sequels. I never liked them, hadn’t watched them enough to remember them very well, but they look better on Blu-Ray and this is the most I’ve ever enjoyed parts 
You guys know how these super heroes are. Good guys turning bad, bad guys turning good, Hawkeye getting mind-controlled by a magic crystal, alternate dimensions, recastings, reboots, team-ups, betrayals, fake deaths. It’s no surprise they can’t all get along. I mean, it was hard for Nick Fury to convince them to be The Avengers in the first place – in fact a guy had to die and then he had to cover up that he actually didn’t die (see tv show) to inspire them to even stay together in the first place. So it’s a miracle they went this long without a breakup. The Pharcyde only got through two albums. N.W.A only did one before Cube left.
ANT-MAN comes out today, with Paul Rudd (HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS) playing a Marvel super hero. He’s not a traditional square-jawed action guy, but a handsome dude who got his start playing pretty boy boyfriends (ROMEO + JULIET) isn’t a completely outside-the-box choice for such a character. Sure, he’s turned out to be best at comedy, but ANT-MAN seems to be a super hero story with a few more laffs than usual, so it makes sense. I’ve read that Rudd had to get in shape for the movie, but they didn’t make him turn into He-Man like Chrises Pratt, Evans and Hemsworth.
I am no expert on comedy or laughing, and you know that. But not too long ago I reviewed a movie called “THE WEDDING CRASHERS” which I said was lazy formulaic forgettable throwaway crap that will be forgotten forever about 20 minutes after the last time they advertise the dvd on tv. The movie is already considered a smash hit but I still stand by my evaluation. If you want to see Owen Wilson lie to a girl to get laid and then really fall in love and go riding bikes onbeaches and saying cutesey shit and then having his secret discovered and being hated but then proving himself by going and making a long humiliating speech about how much he really loves her and that other horse shit, please, by all means, go watch it. You’ve never seen anything like it, unless you have a TV or grew up in a country where there are TVs.
