Cowboys and Aliens Review: goldgoldgoldgoldgold

By Spence Blazak

There is an old story that says a reporter once asked Alfred Hitchcock why his movies were all so good. Even his lesser works were on a completely different level than most of the movies coming out at the time. He said that it was because he took into account two things: everything must have a purpose, and he was aware of "refrigerator logic". He defined the self-made term as "When you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that something in the movie you saw that day didn't make any sense." Essentially, a bad plot hole. One of the best examples is in the movie Memento. If Leonard can't remember anything from after the point he was hit with the mirror, then how does he remember that he the extreme short term memory loss disease? Still an almost perfect movie, but ya know.....

Some movies aren't as lucky to get off the hook for having things that don't make sense, specifically Cowboys and Aliens. Almost none of the logic checks out, and I'm not talking about the fact that there are aliens. And its just...not good. At all. Even its schlock value can't save it. You know a movie is a real dud when I, the world's biggest proponent of unintentional comedy, think that its just too bad.

Basically, if you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the first 25 minutes of the movie. Stranger wakes up in New Mexico without any memories and an alien bracelet on his hand, gets arrested in town, and then saves the town from an alien space ship that is abducting the townsfolk. He then goes with a slew of characters to hunt down the alien overlords, and get everyone's family back .

I knew this was in trouble during the opening credits. Despite having names like Spielberg, Howard, Grazer, and Favreau attached, the fact that it had 4 different screenwriters is a deal breaker for most movies. Imagine going on a date with that really hot girl from Latin class whom you always ask for a pen, even though you have one that works perfectly well. She is cute. She has a donk. She has a nice personality. She mentions she is a serial killer. She has angelic dimples above her perfectly painted lips. Her eyes look like the foamy waters of the Coral Sea. Lastly, she has a GREAT sense of humor. A real "Babe-raham Lincoln" right? No matter how many good things something has going for it, one pesky little problem can botch the whole thing. If one or two writers can't make something good, why would 4 of them be able to? Always remember that.

Cowboys biggest problem is that it tries to be too many things at once, and winds up being none of them. It wants to be taken seriously, but the material is too absurd for it to happen, so tonal inconsistencies pop up like Whack-a-moles at a Chuck-E-Cheese. It also wants to be an homage to old Westerns, but just falls on its face miserably. Favreau recreates a few famous shots from The Searchers and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in the first few minutes, then just gives up. By making his shots cut so short and smooshed together, it completely ruins the Western mystique. And the action aspect of it is just sad. There is no better word to describe it. Daniel Craig's fight scenes are good, and then they introduce the aliens....some of the worst use of aliens since Santa Clause vs. The Martians. Nothing actually happens. I know it sounds weird, but its true. The aliens just kind of...roll over and die towards the end. Not one particularly cool thing happens during the fights, which wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't an action movie, but alas, it is.

Favreau struggles with nearly every aspect of the movie except with the performances. He gets a bad ass showing from Daniel Craig, and a hilarious "I'm playing myself" performance from Harrison Ford. Olivia Wilde (the hot girl from Tron and House) does a solid job playing the token woman in the alien hunting posse. She pulls off her job of being hot very, very well. Honestly? Its all she needed to do with the part they gave her.

The movie's crowning achievement comes from the bit part actors. Some of the best schlocky acting I've seen all summer. Notably, a drunk guy at the beginning who stumbles around a group of Harrison Ford's cattle, before they explode. He bashes the Ford and the cattle, and his voice is so funny that my eyes watered. Even more notably, Clancy Brown as the ole preacher man. Thats right. The man behind the voice of Mr. Krabs. Literally every time he opened his mouth I was howling with laughter. He is rounding out his career by having possibly the most diverse resumé ever: Flubber, this, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Finally, I must say that the best schlocky part of the movie is the aliens' reason for attacking: they want our gold. The only dialogue addressing it is "Its as valuable to them as it is to us." AND THEN IT IS NEVER ADDRESSED AGAIN. Thats refrigerator logic, my dear readers. Several minutes after the line was uttered, my friend Dave Pic said ".......but why in the blue hell would an ALIEN need GOLD?!?!?!?!?!?!" I think that summed up the movie better than this whole review.

With 4 stars being Unforgiven or True Grit (2010) and 1 star being Wild Wild West or Alien: Resurrection I'll reluctantly toss this a 2.25 stars. Solely because the gold thing and Mr. Krabs were so hysterical.

Was the Zach Galifianakis Cover Story In Rolling Stone Written by God?

by Spence Blazak

I know this isn’t exactly a movie, but it kind of sort of has to do with movies and I’m the one with the blog SO SHUT UP. This also isn’t as much a review as it is a recommendation. I just wanted to take a minute to do a quick piece on one of the greatest bits of journalism I’ve ever read: The Zach Galifianakis cover story from the mid-June issue of Rolling Stone. I know it seems like I frequently toss around the prepositional phrase “of all time” (usually preceded by things like “that talking cat is the funniest thing” or “Cheap Trick is the best crappy band”) and frankly, thats because I do. Nevertheless, it just might be one of the funniest articles.....of all time.

The article is a character profile of Galifianakis, one of the best comics of our time. It starts off with a few forays into the real Galifianakis, whose humor lies in his dead pan expression as he says phrases taut with anti-humor (“I was looking for a place to sleep this week, and my friend told me I could crash on her futon. I said that I had a rule to never sleep on anything that rhymes with crouton.”) or horribly hilarious insults to people he doesn’t know (he says to Bruce Willis, “When you were making The Whole Ten Yards.....were you ever worried that it would be too good?”).

With these traits alone, it makes no sense that this guy could be likable, and yet somehow he is. The article captures how Galifianakis gets away with being this way through his child-like charm, and it reveals his persona in brilliant fashion. I’ve always been intrigued by the breakdown of celebrity psyches (my favorite examples of Stone’s in depth profiles were on Michael Cera, Ke$ha, and Jeff Bridges [they almost make up for the two decades of haughty crappiness that plagues the other sections of the magazine AM I RIGHT?!]), and this one is enthralling.

The article is peppered with some of Galifianakis’s best shtick, including a racist joke so funny that I shot coffee from my nose....and I was drinking Mountain Dew (if I typed it here, I would completely ostracize 90% of the blogs meager fan base), and a side-splitting story from Hangover co-star Bradley Cooper. When his longtime girlfriend broke up with him, Cooper called up Galifianakis to break him the news and hoped for some consoling words. All Galifianakis says is, “Oh. Did she see Limitless?”

The article is truly solid gold. I took a week to read it just so I could make it last longer. When I finally got to the last page, the article completely changes tone. The serious side of Galifianakis is portrayed in a Holden Caulfield-esque vein that takes the article from a 10 to an 11 (on the scale of 1 to 10). I don’t want to ruin too much, even though I already have, but seriously, read this article if you enjoy things that are comical or just plain good. 4 out of 4 stars.

Green Lantern Review: Stop whining. You have a magic ring, Blake Lively, and killer abs…what? He does

by Brian Long

Yes true believers; it’s the summer of the superhero. This year we have four (count ‘em: FOUR) superhero films. One of which is DC’s attempt to show the world that there’s more to them than just Batman, which brings us to Green Lantern. I’ve always believed that the worst thing in the world is wasted potential, and that’s exactly what this movie serves up for its audience. It’s a shame because it’s clear that director Martin Campbell (who brought James Bond back from invisible car purgatory with Casino Royale) had a strong vision for the world of the Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds does a fair job playing cocky Hal Jordan who gets his higher calling from the dying Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison-Hey! Jango Fett!) to join the ancient peace keepers the Green Lantern. The film nails the huge scope of the Green Lantern mythos. The Green Lantern home planet of Oa, as well as its thousands of alien members is rendered in glorious CGI along with some impressively creative constructs coming from each members ring. Whenever the movie embraces its space opera and comic book elements it shines. And then the rest of the movie happens.

When Hal is out of costume he’s a bit of a jerk off, kind whiny, and frankly unlikable. While the Hal Jordan of the comics has always had a Maverick from Top Gun swagger, he always balanced that with an ability to back up his boasts with a “never give up, never take shit” attitude. Compare this to Movie Hal Jordan who quits the Green Lantern Corps because the training is hard and Sinestro (a painfully underused Mark Strong) is mean to him. This all takes place after being on Oa for a whopping ten minutes.

The screenplay stunk of an attempt to emulate the Marvel comic formula of jerk turned good (Iron Man and last month’s Thor) but fails because the jerk in question lacks any charm or any sign of heroism until the final moments of the film. This has frequently been the problem of adapting DC versus characters to film. Writers are often trying to find ways to make the heroes “relatable” without realizing that, frankly, DC characters aren’t supposed to be relatable. When Stan Lee created the core characters of the Marvel universe he set out to create a pantheon of heroes that people could see themselves in; Spider-Man has money and girl troubles, the X-Men are hated by society, the Hulk has a literal emotional demon lurking inside of him. Marvel characters are who we are, while DC characters are who we wish to be.

Take 2006’s Superman Returns, in order to make Superman more “relatable” the film features Superman’s illegitimate child and Lois Lane not giving him the time of day. Which leaves us with a Superman who mopes around, stalks Lois and doesn’t do anything, well, Super. Contrast that with Nolan’s Batman films. Hey, Green Lantern, Superman, you know who has problems? Batman. You know what happened to him last movie? The woman he loved got blown up. BLOWN. UP. You know what he did after that? He put on his cape and kicked the bad guy’s ass. It’s that indomitable spirit that has made superheroes into our new mythology and when that is taken away it can completely destroy a film.

This review turned into a bit of a tangent, so lemme slap a star rating on this and give it 2 out of four stars. There’s definitely half of a good movie here, but not enough for people who aren’t huge Green Lantern fans to feel really satisfied with.

Bridesmaids Review

Lets face it. Most movies these days are about as entertaining as watching my cat drag its butt across the kitchen floor. You can’t do much about it except hope that you’ll catch the few good ones when they come around. The problem is that I love movies, so I will frequently go to the theater even if it is to see some hellish piece of cinema like Blood Red Blood 6 in 3D. Its like having your favorite food be pork roll, and being trapped for eternity in a restaurant that gives you every type of pig related food that isn’t pork roll, but I digress.

I decided to see Bridesmaids the other day. Its been out for a few weeks, has gotten generally positive feedback, and has Judd Appatow’s (the patron saint of irreverent comedy) holy name on it, so I figured how bad could it be? Its not that it was a terrible movie...it just wasn’t good.

Written by and starring the SNL veteran Kristen Wiig, the movie follows her character as she prepares for her best friend’s wedding. Simple enough. Wiig made the movie to showcase the talents of female comedians in a predominantly male industry, but after the first half hour of the movie, you realize that they are just trying too hard to not use males. This is the first roadblock that the movie runs into. Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame provides the funniest performance of the movie, but he only appears briefly three times. It just doesn’t feel natural. The creators tried so hard to stick with the “oh man! So many broads!” gimmick that they turn their back on many funnier roads that the plot could have turned onto.

Another fault that the film faces is trying to cram in eight gagillion characters. Film critic Joel Siegel once said something about how the more main characters there are, the likelier a movie is to suck. For instance, Hamlet is about as good as it gets and has 7 main characters. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 has about 11. Bridesmaids crams undeveloped characters down the audiences throat like the waiters at Sonic do with tater tots on Free Tot Day. After the first few cartons, all you can taste is grease.

It does have a few saving graces though. Despite the movie’s flaws, Kristen Wiig carries the movie very well. The main objective of a movie star is to not be loathed by film goers (I’ve always wondered how Cameron Diaz or Rob Schneider get jobs. Seriously, is there anyone who likes these schmucks?), and Wiig accomplishes that and then some. The easy jokes are also pulled off very well. Unexpected bouts of cursing, funny faces, animal humor, and slapstick all get check pluses. This increases its watchability factor from a level of “dung beetles mating” to “well...at least I didn’t have to see any dung beetles mating.”

Overall, Bridesmaids is a chuckle filled movie, but not much more. The way it awkwardly tries to put a heart at the story’s center half way through the movie is akin to Dr. Frankenstein slapping a serial killer’s brain into his monster’s cranium. I’d recommend it for a year-and-a-half from now when Shotime gets the rights to it and strips it 24/7, and you have nothing better to do.

Now I’ll explain the way I rate movies. You have to compare them to things they are similar to. For instance, I would call both The Godfather and Caddyshack four-star movies, but they are both in a completely different league. Its like comparing tiramisu and the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake. Two different takes on perfection. So if we say that Forgetting Sara Marshall is a 4-star adult comedy and Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj is a 1-star, Bridesmaids comes in at 2-stars.

2 out of 4 stars