Kelly WandXmas Movie Review Round-Up Sumthin Words Max-tacular Cubed
December 11th 2009 10:01
"Papa, what's there to do at the beach again?"
I have a new excuse for not updating this beloved (by me, anyway) blog in a pushmi-pullyu’s age in addition to my general trademark terribleness: I’ve somehow been rousted into doing a weekly podcast for www.quartertothree.com with two other chimps: esteemed and prolific games reviewer Tom Chick (non-gamer nerds may know him best as gay Oscar’s ex-lover on the American version of The Office, who made Pam cry at her art show) and Xtien Murawski (whose main claim to fame thus far is not making Pam cry, haha pwnt). In a nutshell, the podcast, along with kidneystones, exploding teeth, and general malaise, has been siphoning my cinematically critical energies, since – although I once felt quite the reverse of this -- it’s actually less work to jaw about movies for an hour a week than it is to write 1000 words about them once a month, even if you’re an actual obscure writer. In fact, I highly recommend everyone get a podcast, especially if it’s monetized (although ours isn’t, or Tom’s holding out on us). Failing that, and especially if you want to hear how inarticulate I am in the online flesh, go to the movie forum at www.quartertothree.com or type that nonsensical key-phrase into your I-Tunes doo-dad and look for a picture of three kids watching a projected elephant. I'd say you won't be sorry, but such promises are probably actionable.
Anyway, a bazillion apologies for my protracted neglect here, print fetishists, but know that text will always be first in my heart, especially since I hate the sound of my own voice.
Meantime, here’s some stuff I wrote about stuff I saw that other people wrote that may well be regurgitated at wildly greater length on said podcasts, just to tide you over till you listen to one of them. Or, albeit unlikely, more!
Paranormal Activity – Since I already used the line “taps into our universal fears of San Diego” on the podcast, let me just append that this excellent, terror-through-inactivity sleep-repellent also taps into our universal dread that the one demonologist your crappy (American) health-care system covers will be out of town the one month out of your whole life that you need him. In both this and Drag Me To Hell, the female protagonists in relationships with dumbass relentlessly skeptical boyfriends are consistently pure and sweet as apple-pie snow-cones. One gets the sense from these films that demons look at Goth chicks and go, “Meh, too easy.” I know I do!
Where the Wild Things Are – My ride home from this boring debacle (a 9-year-old wearing a wolf-suit, ironically) made us walk out midway through, but I hear the kid lives (after being puked up by the girl-wild-thing). Been on that date.
A Serious Man – The Coens’ greatest movie since Burn After Reading (and third wait-that’s-really-the-end? gotcha in a row)! If you emerge perplexed, it may cheer you to know that the packed audience of ancient Jewish couples I saw it with emerged looking collectively baffled and muttering stuff like, “What was with that fable at the beginning? He looks like a zombie but he isn’t? Oykoysh begoysh?!” Also apparently the name “Sy” actually means “Psi.” Which explains everything. Also, canals.
The Men Who Stare At Goats – If your third act consists of a mass LSD trip and killing off two-thirds of your main characters in an offscreen helicopter crash a la Henry Blake, you’re hewing closer to the “truth” than you really need to.
2012 – Best Roland Emmerich disaster movie since Stargate! John Cusack convincingly plays a nanny who wrote the world’s greatest novel even though it sold only 4 copies and that ends with the profound coda, “Everybody has a neighbor in Wisconsin.” Or something. (Spoiler alert: all the kids live – you’re so edgy, Roland!)
An Education – Since I wasn’t completely sure that lead actress Carey Mulligan was really only 16, during the movie I only masturbated twice. (Recycled from the podcast; see what you’re missing?)
The Road – It’s like The Road Warrior, only minus the warring, and the kid can’t fling a boomerang. Spoiler alert: at the end, the guy (played appropriately by Guy Pearce) who’s been (inexplicably) following the two main characters along the road the whole movie offers this sage advice, “You should stay off the road.” Hey Guy Pearce character, maybe you should make contact with your rescue-ees a little timelier. Huh.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox – The Das Boot version of Chicken Run*. All Roald Dahl adaptations officially need to be stop-motion from here on out.
Anyway, sorry for the slim pickens but I hereby promise to update this boxy purple space more often, at least until the end of the decade (self-hating cough). FWIW, now that I’m writing this, it feels like reuniting with an old friend. Plus now that I have two jerks harassling me to see a movie a week for that damn podcast, my movie-going frequency has octupled, so I guess that’s good (give or take the 3 hours I spent in 2012 watching giant computer-generated structures bloodlessly kill billions of non- or B-movie stars).
*A line I wish I’d come up with before the podcast. See what you’re not missing?
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