The Cinema File #14: "True Bloodthirst, aka Vampyre Nation" Review

You  know what, fuck it, I still like vampires.

It seems like every time the discussion of horror movies or movie monsters comes around to vampires, it quickly descends into a debate about how much they now suck compared to other classic monsters or just in general, mostly in the context of their recent romantic forays in the Twilight movies, and shows like True Blood and (I assume because I've never actually seen it) The Vampire Diaries. Admittedly, while True Blood has its moments, the two out of three of those properties I've seen have been pretty disappointing for exactly the reasons people tend to talk about, which is why, for all its many flaws, today's film, the SyFy Channel Original Movie True Bloodthirst (originally titled Vampyre Nation) is one that a part of me wants to really say I enjoyed. I'm not quite sure yet if that's the part of me that also holds the capacity for logic and reason, but we'll figure that out along the way.

I decided to review this movie basically out of a concern for monster movie fairness, having just reviewed a recent straight to DVD werewolf movie. Now all I have to do is find modern straight to DVD takes on Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and I can finally finish masturbating...I mean finish my collection of monster reviews. Yeah, that's it. Everything I can find on this movie in terms of other reviews describe it as a schlocky twist on the film Daybreakers, where vampires ruled the world, but it seems most of that came before the change in title to what actually is a better source for comparison, an action thriller version of True Blood, without all the romance and faeries and shit. The Daybreakers parallel is also sort of ironic considering that when I saw that movie, I remembered thinking that it was way more stylish and good looking than it's story deserved, and really would have worked better as a SyFy Channel Original Movie.

The Cinema File #13: "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World" Review

I had this idea for an anthology TV show once called T-Minus Ten. The idea was that we'd find out the end of the world was upon us in ten years, and there was nothing we could do to stop it, and each episode would follow a different character or set of characters as their lives change as a result of the news. We'd show different people at different points in the last decade of human history, some stories just following the discovery, others near the end, and more in the middle. I could never get the idea to work enough in my head to actually sit down and write a pilot outline, and I think I finally know why. I just finished watching the indie romantic comedy "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World," a movie that for all its initial charm, really points out the flaw in telling a story where the end is so definitive from the beginning.

The story ramps up the impending apocalypse to about a month away, the result of an unstoppable asteroid, and we follow a man who never bothered to try for the life he wanted, and somewhat listlessly finds himself on an adventure to re-connect with his highschool sweetheart before the end, with a plucky optimistic British neighbor along for the ride. Gee, I wonder what could possibly happen between them along the way. It starts strong, as we see how various people react to the idea of their inevitable deaths, most giving up all pretense of social niceties and indulging in hedonistic excess. Patton Oswalt shows up for a cameo that probably ranks as the funniest part of the film, but after the set-up, I find myself wanting more of the wacky side characters and less of the main story, which you can basically plot out in your head as soon as the two leads meet and the road trip segment of the movie takes off.

The Cinema File #12: "That's My Boy" Review

Dammit, another one! Something is definitely wrong with me.

That's My Boy, the most recent live action Sandler effort to date, is a movie about growth. I don't just mean its about growing up, though it certainly is. And yet, looked at in another way, its probably as much about accepting arrested development as it is about overcoming it. Still, what I mean is, everything about That's My Boy builds and grows on you from the beginning, starting at a point somewhere in the middle in terms of typical Sandler standards of comedy, and then getting better and better as it goes on until stopping at I'd say just below some of his better earlier efforts.

The story starts out as a comedic version of the Mary Kay Letourneau sex scandal from the point of view of the underage boy, now a grown man seeking to reunite with his now adult son and convince him to appear on a reality show to make a quick buck and dodge the IRS. Like most Sandler movies, the set up is quick and simple, the stakes are clear and easy to understand, and pretty much everything you need to know to understand the story is found out in the first fifteen to twenty minutes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I think any more complexity might have bogged things down. Still, I'm curious how many Sandler movies this makes that ends with a race to stop someone from making a romantic mistake he or she will regret for the rest of his or her life. Come to think of it, it's the second one just this year alone.

The Cinema File #11: "Ted" Review

Yeah, I'm not really a Family Guy...guy.

Okay, that's probably an understatement. It seems like every time I happen to catch an episode of the show (usually because I forget to turn the autoplay off on Hulu after The Simpsons and I'm too lazy to get up), my opinion vacillates between slight distaste to vehement dislike. It's not that it can't ever be funny, it's just that too often it seems like instead of trying just a little bit harder to find something funny out of a given situation, the writers seem to think simply substituting something crass, esoteric, or annoying is just as good. And even when it is funny, to my mind it's always felt like something was missing, an absence of some ineffable quality that made any enjoyment I might derive from it hollow somehow. I just watched Seth McFarlane's first movie, Ted, and I think I now realize what that missing something is.

The story follows a man and his life long best friend, a talking bear named Ted, brought to life by a childhood wish, and kept alive long past the point where anyone finds that shit cute anymore. Now the boy is an adult and the bear has grown up mentally, while remaining the same physically, developing the personality and voice of a slightly less caustic Peter Griffin. I try not to gear up to hate a movie, but I have to admit, it was hard for me not to come into this one expecting the worst. The set-up, while interesting in the abstract, felt like the perfect opportunity for McFarlane to indulge in his least healthy impulses, laying on lazy "it's funny cause a teddy bear's doing it" jokes whether you found any of them funny or not. Best case scenario, I thought it would be what I imagine a Family Guy cut away about Teddy Ruxpin would be like if you stretched it out for two hours. Thankfully, my doubts were very quickly assuaged.

The Cinema File #10: "The Watch" Review

The best thing I can say about The Watch is that while it is not very funny, it is also not painfully unfunny, as so many comedies of its type nowadays tend to be. As I watched, never too engaged, but never annoyed either, my mind kept going back to Ivan Reitman's Evolution, another movie that seemed to proudly strive for just good enough without trying to build upon a central vision, even as it tried to ape the feel and tone of a much better movie, in that case Ghostbusters. I wanna say it makes me mad, but I can't be, not because it's really good in some way, but because I don't see any potential for it to have been better, so it was impossible to disappoint me. I nothing this movie. As I watched The Watch, I kept trying to figure out exactly what movie it was trying and failing to be like, maybe some cross between Old School and Men In Black, and by the end, it stopped mattering to me, because the whole bland mess was over with and I was happy to just move on. It wasn't a chore to sit through, I didn't agonize over it or learn anything. It didn't add anything to my life, positively or negatively. I feel as if I would have accomplished the same with my night had I simply left the TV off and sat in the dark. It is essentially the cinematic equivalent of a non-commital shrug. Probably not the best reaction, huh?

The Secret World Of Super Monkeys: Another Pointless Top List Of Pop Culture-y Things

Okay guys, this is going to be a long slog.

I tend to go overboard sometimes when I get an idea in my head. Here's an example. I have a weekly podcast called the Dirty Sons of Pitches, where my friends and I throw out often silly or crazy ideas for movies and tv shows. In episode 11 of the cast, I was trying to think of a way to revive the Star Trek television franchise. Long story short, what started out as a two sentence description for use on a podcast that is otherwise mostly about my penis quickly became a show bible, a seven season arc plan of Straczynskian proportions, and the first ten pages of a pilot script. Now keep in mind, this is a thing that will never, in a million years be produced, and probably won't be read by anyone other than me, and perhaps all of you if I decide to post it here at some point, if only out of a sadomasochistic impulse. Fuck, I've even cast the thing. Michael Ironside plays the captain, a Commadore Decker-esque ticking time bomb, Eliza Dushku plays his sexy archaeologist daughter, and cult actor Doug Jones plays the odd ball break out character ala Data and Odo. The point is, I will often expand completely unnecessary amounts of effort on creative endeavors, knowing full well that they will have no realistic pay off.

I bring all of this up because recently, while perusing Youtube for old TV theme songs from forgotten 70's and 80's shows, I was reminded of another similarly fruitless project I started a few years ago, and wasted far too much time on before ultimately abandoning it. It was my idea for a 90's style superhero show like Street Sharks, Sky Surfers, Mummies Alive, or the Extreme Dinosaurs, which, as if I even need to point this out, was planned despite my having absolutely no access to an animation studio or a network willing to distribute my genius. It was called Agents of C.H.I.M.P., and it followed a group of super hero monkeys (or apes, I've never understood the distinction) who protect the Earth from a group of evil monkeys bent on enslaving mankind. C.H.I.M.P. stood for the Crimefighting Highly Intelligent Monkey Project, though a running gag would have had one of their human allies constantly question whether P.C.H.I.M would be a better name. They are at first led by the Flinger, who uses his natural ability to fling small solid objects as an expert marksman with a backpack full of ceramic bombs, though he is soon captured in battle by their enemies and brainwashed into a villain, replaced as leader by Monkey See, a chimpanzee with the power of adaptive muscle memory, and his tiny transforming robot Capuchin sidekick Helper, who can turn into any weapon on the fly.

This Is A Thing That Exists!: Freddie As F.R.O.7.

I have no words...

Okay, that's a lie. I probably have lots of words, and since you're evidently going to read them here, prepare yourself, because I'm quite sure they won't be making all that much sense. I just finished watching a movie called Freddie as F.R.O.7 about a frog secret agent voiced by Ben Kingsley, and it might just be the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. I am dumb founded. I didn't know what series I would place this under on my blog when I started watching it, or even if it was going to be worth writing about at all, but now that I've survived it, all I can say about Freddie As F.R.O.7 is...This, Is A Thing, That Exists!

My favorite movie of all time is The Secret of NIMH, and if I have one blind spot when it comes to movies and film criticism, it's animation, and in particular traditional hand drawn animation. It takes a lot for me to hate an animated movie. That's not to say there aren't many I very much dislike, but even the lesser ones possess a certain charm, or at least have some element I can latch onto to appreciate, if only from a position of nostalgia for a slowly dying medium. Freddie As F.R.O.7 isn't a bad movie, or anything close to a good movie. I'm not even sure it's a movie to be quite honest. I don't know if it's an experiment in absurdest or dada-esque storytelling, or just eight movies mashed together at the script stage and morphed into some unrecognizable monster of a thing. I have no frame of reference for this, nothing to appreciate on any level.