Justin: The Beginning

What?!

Remember when Darth Vader yells WHAT?! after the guy next to him blows up? That was funny.

Also: I'm BACK!

Seven days in Los Angeles and then two days back home before three days in Boston. Exciting, no? Yes. I picked up some freak global nerd flu in Los Angeles and traveling a lot didn't help me get rid of it (it finally withered up and died this past Tuesday or so).

I got a Wii. It is incredible. No property damage to report yet, however, sadly.

I changed my AIM screen name from KlNGSLEY ZISSOU to F0REVER v ENDEAV0R. Kaboom.

All right, so, I spent hours and hours turning my notes and whatnot from my coast-to-coast ten day adventure into a running diary like I did for my China trip.

Well here's the cold, hard, facts: it wasn't funny -- not even to me and I always think I'm hilarious. I don't know if I was just off my game or if the trip really did inspire less than favorable observations and discussions with myself but...yeah, it got to the point where I just didn't feel like it was worth putting up.

Anywho, I will post more of the typical thoughts and rambling I normally do, soon. I just wanted to drop in and leave some thoughts.

If you are so inclined: my Celebration pictures and pictures from my day trip to Dunder-Mifflin.

I had a dream Bill Simmons wrote a column about something I'd written. Speaking of which, Bill's podcast = perfection. The installments featuring Marv Albert and Adam Carolla were unstoppable. Actually, all of them have been exceptional. I want more.

Recent movie grades:

• Knocked Up (A+)

It's perfect. More dramatic and "real" than The 40-Year-Old Virgin -- which is not a slam to Virgin at all, because it is absolutely one of my favorite movies and an exceptional comedy but just more of a testament to Judd's abilities and versatile writing. A fair analogy would be Knocked Up : Freaks and Geeks :: Virgin : Undeclared. Both are obviously not carbon copies of each other, but in terms of tone and whatnot, I think that's an accurate comparison.

Anyway, Knocked Up has terrific comedic and dramatic writing, as well as pacing and I really loved all the performances. Ben's circle of friends were absolutely legendary; I liked them even more when I noticed they had not changed any of the character's names from the actors on which the parts were based/written for.

Even the bit/one-scene parts (Bill Hader, Paul Feig, Judd's kids, etc.) were off the charts. I truly feel I am a better and smarter person for having seen this movie. Please tell me three other 2007 films which evoke that feeling.

• Ocean's Thirteen (B+)

A return to form. I watched Ocean's Twelve before going to see this (not necessarily because the stories are linked or anything but mainly because I had not seen Twelve since I saw it in theaters and wanted to at least give it another chance). Anyway, Twelve started out so terrifically but I think injecting a character as prominent and as un-Ocean as Catherine Zeta-Jones completely out of nowhere was a mistake; the scene where she is introduced is like the scene given to Danny or Rusty except we KNOW Danny and Rusty; they threw Catherine at us like she was an old friend...when she was not. I also never dug the fact that half of Ocean's twelve men were gone for most of the third act. Come on!

Anywho, Thirteen is pretty much Eleven - Redux. It's bigger, more elaborate and with a slightly different motivation than just personal financial or romantic gain, which I thought was cool for a movie that doesn't really seem to register a lot of emotion in its characters or plot points (that's not a bad thing at all, I'm just saying: the crew is really just a dozen professionals who accept gigs to get paid -- they don't normally rob places to get back at people or anything...but they DO in this movie, which was cool).

It is a little sillier in a few of its elements but never did any of the laughs seem out of place or heavy-handed. I just found myself wanting, more and more as the movie went along, to be Danny or Rusty. Hell, I'd even "settle" being Virgil or Turk. I liked Al Pacino in the villainous role and Ellen Barkin was serviceable in her role (I fluctuated back and forth between thinking she was hot and thinking she looked strange).

Anyway, I thought it was a fitting end to this storyline...the first film is still the best but Thirteen is better than Twelve.

• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (D)

I didn't think the second one was worth much, to be honest. A lot of the action and stuff was just shoehorned into it because, for some reason, the entire world thinks Jack Sparrow is the coolest and funniest person ever (I personally find him to be a douchebag more times than not).

This movie just seemed like Spider-man 3 to me, in that it was probably written in the fashion "ok, make sure these characters are in it and that the story ends up HERE". They didn't bother trying to reason or explain things and when they did, the explanations had no real bearing or relevance. I'd rank it behind Dead Man's Chest because this one was entirely just a dog and pony show whereas Chest was at least a dog and pony show with a sliver of story related to the first film.

• Shrek The Third (F)

Someone needs to stab this franchise in the heart. The second one was an exercise in "let's put Shrek in an unfriendly situation!" and produced some genuine laughs but this installment was just a turd. They are clearly out of jokes and have devolved almost into a parody, entirely, rather than a real story with jabs at other movies and culture peppered throughout.

In a related story, I am built like Shrek.

Yep. I have not seen Hostel 2 and don't plan to, at any point in my life. I would rather watch Hostel...by that, I mean I would rather subject myself to a terrible experience.

"I would rather watch Hostel" should enter the vernacular as "I would rather shoot myself" or something because that's where it needs to rank.

I demand to know why it is so fucking hard for people to write decent movie stories that span three films. Is it really that hard?

SHE'S GOTTA GREAT ASS,
JB

posted by Justin @ 12:05 AM