The Bourne Ultimatum

I’ve come around to The Bourne Supremacy since I harshly reviewed it back in 2004. Admittedly, I was more than likely pissed off because I only got to gaze upon Franke Potente for the first 15 minutes. Then the Parkinson’s car chases/kettle-whistle tour through the most haggard spots on the other side of the world didn’t help.

But since the initial viewing I’ve come to appreciate The Bourne Supremecy as one of the better spy movies, actually surpassing many James Bond movies. Not exhibitionist, reasonably modest and still fun.

The Bourne Ultimatum seems to be offering some more of the same. Cryptic yet swift sprinting and other movements from the movie’s star, Matt Damon. Paul Rudd spoke for us all when in The 40 Year-Old Virgin when he said, “Y'know, I always thought that Matt Damon was like a Streisand, but he's rocking the shit in this one!” about the man in Bourne Identity, and Damon hasn’t disappointed yet.

As Damon works his way up the Asshole Government Official Involved With His Amnesia food chain, he finds more clues about his past and gets closer to David Straithairn as the man who trained him. Joan Allen is back as Landy, and what would a Bourne movie be without the dumpy face of Julia Stiles? Plenty of trickiness and seizure and nauseous car chases also. The best part is that Bourne does it all in New York City. So yeah, looks good. Sorry, I’m actually kind of looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum. I could say something about Damon being a Howdy Doody look-alike with street cred but it’s just pointless now.

The Ten

I’m a big fan of The State and Wet Hot American Summer, so my opinion probably isn’t going to count for shit here, but Paul Rudd narrating the trailer for The Ten (in which he also stars) and the quick random bytes of imagery weren’t doing a hell of a lot for me. Rudd explains we’re going to see a vignette for each of the Ten Commandments.

We see Winona Ryder, Adam Brody stuck in the ground, a doctor who leaves a pair of scissors in a patient, Liev Schreiber buy a cat scan machine only because one being delivered to his neighbor’s house, some naked guys, Rob Corddry in prison, Oliver Platt rolling around on a pair of young black guys and Gretchen Mol get a rickshaw ride from a one-legged man. Some stuff was funny, but some stuff was whatever.

Then Rudd starts alphabetically naming off The Ten’s cast with an accompanying shot of the respective star. Rudd stars off with Brody’s name dramatically and as he goes on he sounds progressively and incoherently more drunk with each name and when he gets to his own it sounds like teenage lions hissing at each other. He hocks up a loogie for Justin Theroux’s name. Then lastly he drops Jessica Alba’s name with the utmost of articulation. I am going to go see The Ten for that reason alone. I watched that part of the trailer 5 times and it didn’t get old. I admit I would’ve gone to see The Ten anyway, but this just means that I’ll be that much more pissed off when it most likely doesn’t open around here.

Underdog

We’ve got a trailer for a live action version of a reasonably decent '60s cartoon. Underdog will be created through some really creepy CGI and voiced by Jason Lee. And it’s horrible.

Granted, it was only 90 seconds of my life, but it was the way that it opened with that whole buildup like it’s got something to do with Superman or someone cooler than Underdog. I can only help but wonder why I’m supposed to care about a live-action version of Underdog. The cartoon was okay but beyond acting as a capsule to another time no one gives a shit. Hong Kong Phooey was way better.

The average schmuck is going to watch the original cartoon of Underdog under a very specific set of circumstances: It’s 2AM,  you’re baked out of your gourd, and nothing else is on TV. Nobody goes out of their way for Underdog. So between the anticlimactic buildup and the creepy-looking computer-generated dog voiced by a Scientologist who isn’t really a redneck but plays one on TV, I’m out. I fold. Done.

2 out of 3 of those things apply to me now and I truly couldn’t care less. The trailer for Underdog is so incredibly bad! None of the quasi fun or charm from the cartoon. Just bad quips geared towards the special ed crowd. Bah!

Hot Rod

If you’re pissed that you have to wait the better part of two months waiting for the new season of SNL, you can watch Andy Samberg play a wannabe stuntman in Hot Rod. It looks kind of funny, but more in that who gives a shit kind of way, you know? It’s just bad comedy that, given the cast, is a notch above or below another bad SNL-based movie.

We’ve got the bad Jackass-like stunts thrown on some mildly funny physical humor. The asshole from Deadwood shows up for some Clouseau and Kato shit, there’s that cute redhead Ali G knocked up, good times for all. We’ll make fun of red states and it’ll be awesome. Yippee.

Maybe on cable. Possibly from Netflix if I can ever get off my lazy ass and set an account up. Maybe sooner if a few miracles happen. Whenever.

It’s going to be another retard with a heart of gold story and so what? I guess it all comes down to how long you think you can stand to look at Samberg’s face. Personally I’m surprised I managed to get through last season between that kid’s head and Tina Fey leaving. Maybe this is the paint thinner talking, but I’m thinking I’ll see Hot Rod sometime in the distant future. I know as much as I care—not much either way.

Rush Hour 3

There’s a really good reason why I haven’t seen any of the other Rush Hour movies. Because Chris Tucker annoys the shit out of me and I’m from the action school of the kung fu movie, not the slapstick shit. Nothing beyond Dead Presidents or The Fifth Element and the occasional Bruce Lee or Jet Li flick.

So I’m looking at a third one where Tucker and Chan go to Paris. So we’ll be irritating, pick on the French, go after a Bad Guy, get in some fights, look at some chicks, blah blah blah. So what?

Maybe it’s fun but who really gives a shit? Some people think this is The Best Shit Ever and some people consider the Rush Hour movies a guilty pleasure. And some people drink a lot.  For me it’s neither of the first two. It’s just really annoying. Shrieking, loud noises, explosions, Jackie Chan doing awful Mushmouth-from-Fat-Albert impressions. I just don’t care at all and if I were still reviewing the movies instead of their trailers, I’d blow off Rush Hour 3 in a second to do something more constructive. Like reading to an old and/or blind person. Maybe wash the car. Take the dogs for a walk. Anything else..! All I know is that the who’s on first rip-off made me want to go look for Jesus. I’m not sure if I’d want to follow him or beat the shit out of him for letting not one, not two but THREE Rush Hour movies happen. 

Captivity

When the trailer began and I saw Elisha Cuthbert I got a little bit excited. Someone slipped her a roofie and further down the rabbit hole I went. She still looked good but she started whining. Admittedly if someone slipped me a mickey and shanghaied me off to some deserted warehouse I’d probably be a bit that way too.

But as the trailer for Captivity (which stars Cuthbert and Some Dude as people abducted by some Evil Genius) went on she just started looking more and more like some spent truckstop hooker that lives off Red Bull and Red Dog. Whoever this Evil Genius was he just kept doing shit without taunting Cuthbert and Some Dude. It was a creepy attempt at a David Fincher masterpiece that’s more lame than anything.

When Captivity comes out on DVD, it’ll probably have a commentary track rife with pretentiousness as it’s writer, director, or writer/director wax ominously about how Kafka’s The Trial heavily influenced them while they created this. I expect it to end up on some Onion AV list.

Look, if you plan on seeing Captivity intentionally (not coincidentally or just happen to be along for the ride or end up at a drive-in some night) there’s probably something you should know: you’re dating the wrong people.

That guy from work? You knew that wasn’t going to work out before you got his dick in your mouth. The fact that he didn’t reciprocate afterward should’ve raised a red flag. When you’re not dating, you’re either recycling exes or buying new vibrators. I mean, come on! This isn’t Bridget Jones we’re talking about here! For Christ’s sake! God! Fuck!

So that’s my advice for the ladies this month—don’t let yourself go and don’t be afraid to make the first move.

The Invasion

I’m thinking one of the only things worse than a remake of a horror movie is a remake of a remake of a horror movie. Third generation make any sense? But if you’re going to make the same movie (in this case Invasion of the Body Snatchers) for the third time you better have a pretty wicked ace up your sleeve. After all, the story doesn’t quite have the exact same relevance as it did during the McCarthy era, does it?

I know, I know! We’ll get icy-eyed European types on the cast list. And instead of some raving loon shrieking “you’re next” into the camera, we’ll get Nicole Kidman as a woman fighting to the death to keep these things from getting to her child.

The Invasion is bad. Not bad because it’s a story about aliens taking over the world by taking over our bodies, but bad because Daniel Craig is in it. And if Daniel Craig’s here that means he’s not making another James Bond movie. Craig was so great in Casino Royale that I think he should be locked up somewhere and should only be making James Bond movies. I don’t like that! I plan on bashing The Golden Compass movie coming out later this year for the very same reason.

So we change up the dynamic, offer up an explanation (a space shuttle crash brings alien spores, radiation, something or other) and add a touch of creepiness. And no emotion whatsoever—hence the overseas casting because they do it better. Nicole Kidman is so pale that she’s to a point where she looks like some twisted zombie vampire if her eyes get even the slightest bit red. (I’m not saying I wouldn’t, I just might feel like it was necrophilia or something. but still.) Watching someone fall off a building in the trailer was cool, but no thanks. Really.

Superbad

Superbad brings with it one of those good for me bad for you types of situations. It’s good for me because I get yet another opportunity to let my own personal biases get in the way of good, old-fashioned objective journalism. I don’t care because it doesn’t matter one way or another for me to care. It’s bad for you because you may have to wade through some pious bullshit courtesy of me. Or not, your choice.

I think Superbad is going to kick ass. At the website there’s an R-rated trailer that’s funny as shit! At least worlds better than that minute-long one that tries to lure you to the website. The super dorky kid drinking with the idiot cops, the creepy round one trying to get laid. I think I heard one of them was on Arrested Development and the other was in The 40 Year-Old Virgin for a minute. But this trailer was pretty dirty—not in a bestiality kind of way but they’re talking about mom’s tits and Seth Rogen sports a pretty mean Hulk Hogan moustache. And they’re rocking out to Panama by Van Halen. I can’t really explain why but I’m already sold.

Halloween

Rob Zombie is like the Willie Nelson of our generation. He’s got great taste (just going by what I see him play when he hosts TCM’s Underground on Friday nights) and from interviews I’ve read with him he seems like a stand-up guy who’d probably be great to talk to and hang out with. But I don’t really like anything that either of them have really done.

Willie Nelson is a cool guy. He’s a wise old hillbilly who’s cool to the environment and smokes weed. The cool old uncle everyone wishes they had. But I don’t really dig on his music. I can listen to it, but I’d never really buy it.

Then we’ve got Zombie. He’s a film nut, he’s well read and he’s got the same birthday as I do. But he makes crappy Mario Bava-Chainsaw Massacre hybrids that I can kind of watch but would never buy.

So now Zombie makes a Halloween remake. It just looks like a slightly creepier version of John Carpenter’s original. Malcolm McDowell plays Loomis, it’s more gritty and blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more interested in Zombie’s take on Halloween than his other stuff, but I wasn’t aware that the original had necessitated a remake. But there I go forgetting that Psycho was remade almost a decade ago and all bets were off at that point. Maybe this will be Zombie’s Red Headed Stranger.