The pReview Re-viewing
Thursday Breakdown of..
July 6, 2012!
(warning: Cursing and sardonic ranting at a molecular level. The Higgs Boson will be pissed!)
clicking movie posters will open their Official Sites in a separate window
(Side note: You can probably just skip the entire first paragraph.. I.. Uhmm.. Sigh)
by Jeff Finck
written: 7/5/2012
Before we begin today: You know I love stories and history, right? Well, I do. I’d like to take this time to address probably one of our silliest periods in history-- This isn't to take away from any real, factual, or actual knowledge about our world history-- But I assure you that this is a very serious, possibly (definitely) fake, devastating revelation about the strange goings on in the 1940s. I assume that everyone is very aware of what "book burning" is.. And if you are not, then you should read a book. Libricide, as it has come to be called, has been carried out since the birth of writing. Such perpetrators of these heinous acts include insecure psychos like Hulagu Khan, Qin Shi Huang, Itzocoatl, Hitler.. And who could forget the New York Radical Women protest of the Miss America pageant in 1968? The very famous burning of bras across the country because they contained dangerous writing-- What? There wasn't an actual bra-burning? Or books written in bra-form? Oh.. Well.. Uhmm.. Hitler, though! Am I right? Seriously, though, this "burning" of the written word has repeated itself over and over. Which brings me to the point of this little rant: Hitler's insecurities led to the craziest ceremonial purging in history. No, it wasn't the eradication of hobos, nor was it the Great Monkey Raping of 1936. I am referring to.. Seditious marshmallows. That's right, alleged propaganda written on marshmallows actually led to the downfall the tiny dictator. In February of 1945, Hitler ordered Wolfgang Herrmann to round up every fluffy, sweet treat in all Nazi occupied territories. Herrmann, the hotdog/bratwurst king of Berlin, as well as the blacklist compiler of books to be burned in 1933, reported this order of lunacy to his superiors who, in turn, set up a direct meeting with Herrmann and Hitler in April of 1945. Also present at the meeting were a large force of Nazi troopers and Eva Braun. Herrmann showed up to the meeting with 4,000 pounds of fake marshmallows to be burned, but as an insurance plan, he lined his uniform with a suicide napalm kit. While the small force stood around roasting these dummy snacks, Hitler and Braun snuck Herrmann away to a private bunker. Once in the bunker, Hitler immediately drew a pistol on Herrmann, calling him out on his insubordination. Ready for this attack, Herrmann pulled the string, igniting the entire bunker with napalm. With all three on fire in a slow burn, Hitler did the only thing he could think: Mercy kill his new bride and then himself. But not Herrmann.. No.. Hitler thought to himself, "That traitor can burn!" Herrmann, ever the scholar, was forward thinking, and had coated himself with a special fire gel called "Ballet Butter", which was a common flame retardant used in fire stunts by local ballet troupes. So, while the bunker burned and the Nazis roasted marshmallows, Herrmann slipped out of the small base, only to ironically be struck and killed by a passing truck carrying blacklisted books, while trying to hitchhike home. To add to the irony, the driver was a homosexual Jewish man from Warsaw who had actually just stolen the truck three hours prior! Andy Kaufman (Taxi's Latka Gravas) would go on to play Herrmann in a television movie in 1983, and Richard Grieco would play the hobo. The movie was universally panned and subsequently recalled in 1984.
Now that History 1-0-Completely-Made-Up is out of the way, I feel we should move onto more pressing matters. The Amazing Spider-Man came out yesterday! We can finally see Mark Zuckerberg's best friend make good! Also, Katy Perry's Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D comes out today, which will probably bring every teenage girl in the country out to the theater and leave every teenage boy at home, waiting for the DVD. Oliver Stone brings a Don Winslow novel to life for his first full length movie that isn't an unnecessary sequel to a fantastic 1987 film with Savages. If you ever wanted to know how Morgan Freeman would play a wheelchair bound alcoholic wooing that chick from Candyman, well, The Magic of Belle Isle is for you. Jay and Mark Duplass continue to showcase their ability to be realistically awkward in The Do-Deca-Pentathlon. Martin Donovan writes, directs, and stars with David Morse just being really fucking creepy again in Collaborator. Crazy Eyes is an indie flick that looks like it asks, "If you nickname someone 'Crazy Eyes', should you pursue a serious relationship with this person?" And then immediately answers it in the same preview with a resounding, "No." And lastly, China releases a documentary called China Heavyweight, which shows the world who their next crop of Olympic athletes will be.. And quite possibly who they will be sending after the United States to collect their money.
The Amazing Spider-Man
Ahh, the movie that started it all: My first blog post ever! Way back in August of last year, I wrote a massively wordy (see: First paragraph of THIS post), kind of extremely (and possibly unnecessarily) loooooooong review of a two and a half minute movie trailer: The story of little Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and his journey to becoming our friendly neighborhood web-headed superhero. In this, the bad guy is the Green Goblin.. Green Goblin is of course Norman Osborn (played by Willem Dafoe).. What? There's no Green Goblin in this? The rights weren't available? Ah.. Then this must be the one where the bad guy is The Lizard, who is, of course, Dr. Curt Connors (played by Rhys Ifans). The trailers appear to hint at some extra details about Peter's parents and imply that we're getting ready to embark down the road that is the beautiful relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). You just know that it's going to work out for these kids. Click this wonderful picture of the two lovebirds sharing a beautiful momen-- Uhmm...
Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D
First it was Hannah Montana in 3D, then the Jonas Brothers got all up in your face, then the Biebster, then Glee 3D.. Even U2 shoved the Edge into your gaping eye holes. Now: Perry. Katy Perry. Well, I mean, Katheryn Hudson. The rock-u-mentary is basically a VH1's Behind the Music of a small town girl, living in a lonely world.. And then took a bunch of acid and experimented in college, made some catchy songs and blew up bigger than.. Uhmm.. Who's slightly less popular than Katy Perry right now? Lady Gaga or something. Yeah, bigger than Lady Gaga. The trailer is hard hitting, letting us all in on those most intimate moments with fans with cupcakes on her head to those intimate moments in the dressing room with.. Cupcakes.. On her.. Head.. This whole thing does seem like a perfectly acceptable experience for super-fans of hers, but I'm not sure that it's going to grab anyone outside of her core demographic. Unless she unleashes Godzilla breath attacks.. That might grab our attent--
Savages
This is directed by Oliver Stone and is based off of a novel by Don Winslow. That alone makes the movie worth checking out.. Even if it'll be over 2 hours long and most of the action won't happen until the last half hour or so. But Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are a couple of young bucks out to make some money in the drug business. Their joint (haha) girlfriend, Ophelia (Blake Lively) gets abducted because the boys don't want to play nice with the big, bad Baja Cartel. The Baja Cartel is the most vicious Mexican drug cartel this side of fiction. Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek) refuses to give Ophelia back until Chon and Ben give them the hook up. What she didn't expect is that Chon and Ben are based off of Rios and Salem from the 2008 co-op "Fuck You With Guns Until You Die From It" video game, Army of Two. So the duo match wits and bullets with corrupt DEA Agent, Dennis Lastname (John Travolta), as well as Elena's enforcer/Ron Jeremy stand-in, Lado (Benicio del Toro).
The Magic of Belle Isle
Rob Reiner has thrown himself behind some pretty spectacular films: Heavy hitters like This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and Ghosts of Mississippi.. Or acclaimed romantics: The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., and Sleepless in Seattle.. Or just damn good movies that are just a delight, like The Sure Thing, The Jerk, Misery, North, and Alex & Emma. My point is, Rob Reiner has pretty much earned the right to make whatever the hell he wants. This particular movie reteams him with Morgan Freeman for the first time since 2007s The Bucket List. Morgan Freeman is a well-known novelist called Monte Wildhorn (seriously). Monte once specialized in Western fiction, but everyone knows that if your name isn't Louis L'Amour, you ain't standing the test of time in that genre. In order to find his inspiration again, after losing his wife, Monte heads out to Belle Isle to stay in a lakeside cabin.. But things don't always go as planned. He meets a lovely young woman by the name of Virginia Madsen, and together, they must defeat the Candyman.. I mean, together, they find a connection that they both seem to have lost. Probably Monte more than anyone else.. On account of his whole "given up" and alcoholic thing.. This'll probably be worth renting. Be sure to check out:
And now for a segment that I am going to call the International Indie Corner.. Mostly because there are some movies coming out.. Some of them are foreign and some of them are independent.. And I am totally cutting "corners" by not ranting on and on about them for a whole paragraph, or making a second image! ..They're just, like, little paragraphs-- Petite paragraphs, if you will.
The Do-Deca-Pentathlon Have you ever had a sibling around the same age as you? If you answered no to one, or all of those questions, stop reading right now! I'm kidding.. Keep reading.. Please keep reading?! Because this movie looks hilarious. Two brothers rage against one another in a 25 event Olympic competition. It's kind of like Kenny Vs. Spenny, if Kenny and Spenny were related.. Or funny! Crazy Eyes Alcoholic, single father, Zack (Lukas Haas), has never been one for kissing and telling.. Mostly because he doesn't remember the random girls he keeps sleeping with. That makes it easier I guess. But once he starts falling for one in particular.. Who WON'T sleep with him, he calls her Crazy Eyes and starts to realize that he needs to get his shit together.. So he can sleep with her. But then he probably ends up becoming a better person or something. | Collaborator Failing playwright, Robert Longfellow (Martin Donovan) is home visiting his mom when his childhood neighbor, Gus (David Morse), comes over and hostages the shit out of him. Gus is an ex-con holding up for the night and just looking for some company.. Robert is about to get the inspiration he needs for his next play! It's win-win! Except for the part where Gus is most likely going to jail.. And Robert may get shot.. But still! China Heavyweight Have you ever wondered where Chinese Olympic hopefuls come from? Literally (probably not even close to literally) every single one is recruited by boxing coach, Qi Moxiang. This documentary follows Qi and his recruitment process in the suburbs of China. He goes out, finds able bodied hopefuls and trains the Charles Dickens out of them until they are 100% (again, probably not even 1%) cut from granite and steel. |
Final Breakdown: (This week's Final Breakdown, brought to you by terrible memes that are just.. Terrible!)
The Amazing Spider-Man
Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D
Savages
The Magic of Belle Isle
The Do-Deca-Pentathlon
Collaborator
Crazy Eyes
China Heavyweight