Good Movie/Better Movie: Sherlock Holmes

So, three quick notes about this edition of Good Movie/Better Movie before we get started:

1. I'm sorry it took me so long to get another one up. Not sorry in like a "I didn't mean to keep my millions of fans waiting" sorry, rather, a "I need to start pulling my weight around here" sorry. So, sorry, guys.

2. I was supposed to do a GMBM on Avatar, however, it's been literally impossible for me to get a ticket at the local IMAX theater during non-work hours. And no, I didn't misuse "literally," this thing is sold out through the weekend and I checked on Tuesday. Apparently, it's pretty good or something; I wouldn't know. Blue is the new black.

3. Sorry about the crappy Photoshop work. I couldn't think of a better way to say that the only way that Sherlock Holmes would have been better was if anyone other than Rachel McAdams were playing her role.

This acts as a pretty blunt but totally effective segue to the crux of this edition of GMBM: Sherlock Holmes would have been better if anyone other than Rachel McAdams were playing her role!

Yes, Rachel McAdams is pretty attractive in a "most people don't look that pointy or pale" sort of way and, yes, that look kind of works for a film set in 19th c. London. The problem is, nothing else about her felt like it belonged in the film. Have you ever been rubbing one out--and I mean really making an evening out of it--and, all of a sudden, your grandma pops into your head? No? Well, me neither but that's probably what it was like watching Rachel McAdams in this movie.

Okay, maybe I should start over...

Sherlock Holmes was freaking outstanding. No, it won't win an Oscar but boy, if you like a cool action flick with some good acting and a decent plot, you'll love Sherlock Holmes. If you liked Iron Man, you'll love Sherlock Holmes. If you like Robert Downey Jr., you'll love A Scanner Darkly and you'll probably cream yourself a couple of times during Sherlock Holmes, so bring a spare set of shorts. Nothing about this movie was bad with the sole exception of Rachel McAdams and her I-can't-completely-put-my-finger-on-it terrible acting.

Here's some back story: her character, Irene Adler, was well-represented by the script. She was an American-born lady of mystery who was the love of Holmes' life both in the literary cannon as well as in the reloaded movie version. However, Rachel McAdams sounded so bad, it's almost as if they went hunting for a character from the stories that wasn't born in England so that she wouldn't need to butcher an English accent. Remember when Kevin Costner didn't attempt any British inflection in Prince of Thieves? Well, it was the same thing with Rachel McAdams; she didn't even try to disguise her modern dialect and when she did, it sounded like a cat getting an abortion. I was half expecting her to start spitting out lines from Wedding Crashers:

Holmes: The game is afoot!
Rachel McAdams: Well... you're not that young.
Holmes: What? Well, surely I'm young enough to know that the game is afoot!
Rachel McAdams: True love is the soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another.
Holmes: Seriously? What are you talking about Irene?
Rachel McAdams: Oh right, England! Ummm... Jolly good?
Holmes: Jesus. Are you guys sure Zooey Deschanel isn't available?

Every interaction felt like that. Whenever it was just RDJ and Jude Law--whether they were wrecking dudes in fistfights or sparring verbally with each other--I was in popcorn movie heaven. Whenever Rachel McAdams came onscreen, all I could think of was, "Man, I'm just so damn grateful that after such a difficult economic year, nobody in America ended up furthering their pain by sitting through the tragedy that The Time Traveler's Wife must have been."

Rachel McAdams was so bad in this movie that it took me out of every single scene. She was so bad in this movie that--wow, this is going to be difficult to admit--I would have preferred to see Maggie Gyllenhaal in that role. Gwoaarffbl! Oh man, almost threw up just there.

So, anyway, go see Sherlock Holmes; it's more fun than watching women fighting in public. Much like Keanu Reeves couldn't manage to ruin The Devil's Advocate, Rachel McAdams couldn't manage to ruin Sherlock Holmes which shines brightly despite the dark, sad pit of despair that is her dearth of acting talent. Well, no matter, we can only hope they make a sequel!

By the way, they will and it's going to be super amazing.

Good Movie/Better Movie: Year One

I'm sorry. I'm just sorry you guys. My standards for "Good Movie/Better Movie" have sunk to this. Also, I suck at Photoshop more than normal. Anyway, I haven't seen a recent theatrical release so not only am I resorting to reviewing a recent DVD release but that release happens to be Year One, starring Michael Cera and Jack Black as Michael Cera and Jack Black, respectively, only with longer hair.

To call Year One a "good movie" is to call a crap sandwich an ice cream cone. I know that doesn't make sense, you probably thought I was going to go in a direction that was more sandwich-related, but it's the only acceptable metaphor for this situation. Year One is a bad movie and I shouldn't be reviewing it.

Much like Adventureland, though, this is a movie that did poorly in the box office and might gain second life on the DVD shelves. I'm here to make sure that it does not, at least, not with anyone who reads this.

When I first saw the preview for Year One, I laughed and thought to myself, "Oh joy! How funny would it be to see Michael Cera and Jack Black trying their hand at being cavemen? Michael Cera is waifish and deadpan and Jack Black is fat and gregarious; neither of them are well-equipped for prehistoric living! Oh, such adventures they'll likely get into!" Remember the preview, guys? Do you? Remember the joke about "no berries for the salad?" Remember the joke about "I'm a slave so there will be no time for socializing?" Well, I hope you remember because that preview contained every trace of humor in the entire movie.

Maybe that's not fair. After all, a lot of people liked Meet the Spartans. If you did, then perhaps Year One is for you. Michael Cera gets attacked by a snake and a puma. If that's enough to get you through ninety minutes then good luck to you. What would have been better, though, is if he were attacked by a bear. In fact, in many ways, this movie would have been greatly improved with an increase in the number of bear attacks.

Bears, unlike Michael Cera, are very strong. If Michael Cera and a bear got into a fight, the bear would almost certainly win and in a landslide, most likely. Whereas Michael Cera was able to fend off a snake and a puma in Year One, I doubt that he would have successfully fended off a bear. Mostly, I think this because bears are so strong and Michael Cera is so not strong. The scenario would probably play out with the bear tearing Michael Cera apart while Jack Black did his stupid "Biddity-dip-dip-DWEEE" noise that he does in everything ever.

The hope, obviously, would be that after the bear destroyed Michael Cera, he would move on to Jack Black. It would have to be in that order because I could see the bear get really full if he ate Jack Black first.

I know, a lot of people are probably thinking to themselves, "Wait, I like 'Arrested Development' and Tenacious D. Why are you hating on these guys?" I'm not, really I'm not. I just think that it would have been a significant improvement if they got eaten by bears or a single, rather large bear. Instead of having to sit through a scene in which Michael Cera is forced to rub oil on a big, fat hairy guy's chest (get it? he's fat and hairy so having to touch him is funny), we could have just watched a bear attacking Michael Cera. Instead of watching the speech where Jack Black tells everyone that they're special in their own way, we could have just watched a bear pooping out what used to be Michael Cera.

The missed opportunities are just astounding!

So, basically, what I'm saying is that this movie would have been dramatically improved if instead of having a movie, they had a brief but violent bear attack followed by the bear taking a nap and then defecating when he woke up. So, how do I excuse calling it a "good movie" even if I've already stipulated that it is not?

That's actually surprisingly easy: Olivia Wilde



She's in the movie, you guys! However, in lieu of seeing the movie, I would recommend that you just look at this picture for about ten minutes and let your right hand follow its heart. May destiny be its North Star!

Maybe next time they'll just have Michael Cera and Jack Black get killed by a bear. Maybe they could even have Olivia Wilde riding said bear! Oh man, that would be sweet! I love it when things I like ride other things I like. We can only hope they make a sequel!

[Image: GQ via theSuperficial.com]

Good Movie/Better Movie: Inglourious Basterds

We've already discussed this movie but because it's the one movie I saw this week, I'm doing this edition of "Good Movie/Better Movie" on Quentin Tarantino's WWII tour de force, Inglourious Basterds. In Basterds, you get yourself a textbook Tarantino film with all the trimmings: great dialogue, fascinating characters, inspiring direction and tactful storytelling. You also get to see a lot of Nazis get killed in a variety of heinous ways. If the icing on the delicious Pulp Fiction cake was seeing Travolta come back to form, the icing on the Basterds cake was definitely the brutal Nazi murder.

There's no longer a need to make a movie about the video game Wolfenstein, they've already made it with Basterds.

So, how could a movie with so much going right for it be improved? Well, that's pretty simple: try having some respect for my valuable time!

Basterds clocks in at a whopping 153 minutes. That's over two-and-a-half hours! That's at least 45 minutes longer than any movie needs to be! Those of you who saw the movie are probably thinking to yourselves, "Wait a gosh darn second here. What in the world would you cut out of this nearly perfect movie? Every scene is like a precious child; how can you possibly choose between them?"

Really? How about this, some kids are flat out better than others. Example: Mozart was way better than you as a kid. If I were making a movie and the scene represented by baby Mozart (or baby Jesus or baby Sean Connery who, I'll wager, was probably totally rad as a kid) were standing next to baby You, I'd cut the "You" scene out faster than you can say "back alley abortion."

I think the metaphor may have gotten away from me there. Anyway, here are a list of scenes that could have been completely cut out and nobody would have cared:

• Rounds 3 through 47 of the stupid party game that the Germans were playing in the bar. We get how the game works, Quentin; you write a name on a card, pass it to the person next to you and then they try to guess who they are. Sweet. We don't need the game explained, demonstrated, demonstrated again, explained again and then demonstrated one more time in order to understand. We are the same people who figured out that the item in Marcellus Wallace's briefcase was his soul. Remember when you knew how to use subtlety? Me too, but only barely. You know that the only reason Quentin did this was so that, one day, he would walk into a bar, find Americans playing the game from his movie and nearly pass out from the massive ego trip that the scene would give him.
  
  
• The entire Mike Myers scene. Hey! Look everyone! Mike Myers is back and he's got an English accent, just like in Austin Powers! Don't expect him to be funny, though; he's just there to take you completely out of the movie and make you try and remember if you liked Shrek the Third. You know that a cameo is a bad idea when a theater goes from dead silence and total engrossment to a flurry of whispers that sound like this: "...ike myer... that's mike my... shagadeli... myers... mike m... groovy baby... mike... thad'll do, dunkey." Yeah, not what you want in the middle of your bloody Nazi epic. By the way, no, you didn't like Shrek the Third. Stop making threquels and stop showing up in my serious movies, Mike Myers.
  
  
• The relationship development between Shosanna and Marcel. For those of you not too great with character names, Shosanna was the smoking hot French-Jewish girl and Marcel was her big, black, Chocolate Adonis of a boyfriend. As far as I could tell, Shosanna's plan, (which I won't discuss any further so as not to play spoiler) could have been a one-man operation. The only real purpose that Marcel's character served was to remind me that I am completely inadequate as a man. What's that? He's giant? He's handsome? He's ripped? He's black? He's French? Oh, okay, then I'll fold... at life. That's just a hand you're not going to beat.
  

So, thanks, Quentin, for a marvelous movie. Inglourious Basterds was truly a work of art. However, not all works of art need to be the Sistine Chapel in terms of scope. The Mona Lisa is the size of an eye patch and people can't shut up about it.
I'm a busy man. When I'm not working or wasting work hours crapping all over other people's movies, I'm watching important cartoons or masturbating or getting irresponsibly drunk. I need every spare minute of life that I can get in order to accomplish those tasks. Next time I see a movie, I'm walking out after an hour and forty-five minutes whether it's over or not, no matter how good it is. If you need longer than that to make your movie, hire a different editor and save the crap that nobody but you cares about for the Director's Cut DVD which you know you're going to make anyway.

Still, I loved the movie; everyone should go see it. We can only hope they make a sequel (without Mike Myers)!

PS: Improper spelling, unlike cigarette smoking and graphic violence, is not cool. Let's set a better example for the kids, okay, Quentin?

Good Movie/Better Movie: Adventureland

The raison d'être of Good Movie/Better Movie was to look at good movies and suggest ways that they could somehow be improved. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to ignore the original purpose of something and use the forum for public service. Do you remember watching GI Joe cartoons as a kid? Sure, the reason that you tuned in was to watch some killer, cartoon warfare but at the end of the show, Snowjob would show up on some hill and teach you a lesson about ice skating safety.** Well, this is one of those times for Good Movie/Better Movie; I need to make a PSA.

Adventureland is a good movie the same way that Tori Spelling is hot. She's not hot when compared to most female celebrities, however, globally, she would still fall on the positve side of the 1 to 10 scale because she's still hotter than the morbidly obese, the elderly, the starving, the invalid, dead people and most dudes. By any other metric, she's gross. Compared to any other decent movie, Adventureland is a huge disappointment, however, because movies like Epic Movie and Good Luck Chuck exist, I guess I could consider Adventureland a "good movie" for the purposes of getting it into Good Movie/Better Movie, if only so I can warn you off of it. That's what this is: a PSA to not see Adventureland (despite its 88% Tomatometer rating).

You know what would have improved Adventureland? Comedy! From the previews, the posters and the reviews I was under the delusion that this movie was supposed to be funny. Ryan Reynolds was in it, two SNL members were in it and the theme of marijuana was heavily infused. Welcome to Chuckle City, right? Wrong! Welcome to The Sad Look on the Face of a Homeless Guy's Dog City. By the way, this city is terrible! Why would anyone create such a city?

Adventureland is about a guy with no personality and frizzy hair who's hyper-pretentious and sucks. He's the kind of guy that would use a needless french phrase where an English phrase would serve the exact same function. He gets a job at a carnival because his dad gets demoted at work and he's not qualified to do anything else despite his college degree (really?). Now, instead of going to Columbia grad school, he has to spend all summer smoking weed, drinking booze and making out with the two hottest girls in the amusement park. Boo hoo! They hook up with him despite the fact that he says things like, "I read poetry for fun" without irony and despite the fact that he weighs about 95 lbs. soaking wet and holding a stack of books about Emily Dickinson's vagina. Oh, and you better believe he spends the whole movie pissing and moaning about his lot in life because he's got it so bad.

Right away, you hate this guy. Even chicks who listen to the Jonas Brothers hate this guy. You think that the movie is a comedy, though, so you can't wait for either bad stuff to happen to him or for him to learn an important life lesson so that he transforms into a dude you can stand. Well guess what? Neither happens!

Adventureland lacked jokes, levity and perspective but, most of all, it lacked clowns. I know that most people hate clowns because they're super creepy and they're heavily associated with child rape but if you need to take some arrogant prick down a peg or two, they are your strongest allies. When Boring Main Character Whose Name I've Chosen Not To Remember (or BMCWNICNTR, for short) starts talking about how he wants to write nonfiction travel journals just like Dickens, WHAMMO! Pie him in the face! When BMCWNICNTR waxes poetic about how Shakespearean sonnets affected his first relationship, KAPOW! Spray some seltzer in his eyes! When he's having an introspective moment about how much he hates his life wherein two babes inexplicably throw themselves at him and things get "complicated" BLAMMO! Run him over with a clown car and then, like, a dozen clowns all pile out of the car and break his knees with their clown crowbars! Also, they spit on him and he cries.

Now, that's funny! Okay, maybe that last one was a little violent but I think the point remains: clowns would have added the necessary jocularity that a comedy should have and that Adventureland sorely lacked. Normally, that role would have been occupied by Ryan Reynolds but the makers of this film decided that they'd rather have him play a troubled custodian trapped in an unfulfilling job and a broken marriage. Good call, fellas! I can accept that Ryan Reynolds doesn't have to be funny in every movie but, dammit, if he's not going to be funny, he'd better at least be shirtless (see Amityville Horror). Putting Ryan Reynolds in your movie without letting him be funny or shirtless is like hiring Randy Moss to be your divorce attorney: you're just not making use of his most valuable skills.

How would clowns help? Maybe Ryan Reynolds leans in to smell a pretty flower, next thing, "squirt!" his shirt is covered in ink! Better take that off, Ryan! Maybe that's a little ridiculous and more than a little suspicious for an allegedly straight guy like myself to suggest but the point remains: Adventureland sucked and could have been greatly improved with a boatload of clowns running around and pranking the crap out of the main characters. It might not have been a great movie this way but it would have at least been a funny movie. We can only hope they make a sequel!

**Okay, here's the parody version I know you were hoping for.

Good Movie/Better Movie: District 9

Last night, I saw the new sci-fi masterpiece by Peter Jackson, District 9. This will be a relatively spoiler-free review so if you haven't seen it, let me say two things:

1) See it. If this were the 1920s it would be the cat's pajamas.
2) Read this. I won't ruin the movie for you.

District 9 was probably the best movie I've seen all year except for The Godfather: Part II which I saw on Netflix for the first time a month ago and was marginally better. District 9 is original, it's visually stunning, it's compelling and it really makes you reevaluate your conception of human nature. If you're going pay eleven bucks like I did, this is the movie at which to do it.

That said, this movie was rated R and it was completely devoid of any nudity or sexually explicit scenes. I don't even think the words "pork," "boink" or "rusty trombone" were used anywhere in the script. This is not to say that sex didn't come up--at two points the notion of sex between the humans and aliens came up in a passing fashion--it just wasn't used to give me an erection.

This should be frowned upon.

Let's see here, this movie has aliens, explosions, psychological intrigue and... zero naked ladies? That's like making a delicious pizza with a crispy crust, savory marinara sauce, fresh cheese and... zero toppings! Come on, District 9, you were so close to perfection and you let me down. I'm not the only person who thinks this, either. Check out these reviews:

"District 9 does a lot of things right, including giving us aliens to remind us not everyone who comes in a spaceship need be angelic, octopod or stainless steel. [Also, what's with the no boobies?]" --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"In the midst of it all you almost take for granted the carefully rendered details of the setting, the tightness of the editing and the inventiveness of the special effects. [Also, what's with the no boobies?]" --A. O. Scott, New York Times

See? I'm not saying that District 9 wasn't a great movie; it was. What I'm saying is that District 69 would be a really, really awesome porno. And no, I'm not some sicko who thinks that it would be cool to see giant insect aliens getting down with Earth ladies. Far from it! All I'm saying is that in between the giant robot thing catching the missile and the ennui of the final scenes, if I saw some hot, sexy human-on-human action, I wouldn't be complaining. Here, I'll write a scene as an example:

Hot lady bystander: Oh noes, it's totes alienz!
Dude that looks suspiciously like me: Fo' sho'. Let's hide and get intimate with our privates.
Hot lady bystander: Sounds like a plan!
(Ninety-second sex scene)

Boom, then you go right back to the action. Nobody would consider that distracting, right? That's just squeezing every last drop (pardon the pun) out of your R rating. District 9 was terrific but, like most things in life, it could have been enhanced even more so through the magic of graphic sex. We can only hope they make a sequel!

Good Movie/Better Movie: The Watchmen

Did everybody see The Watchmen? No? Okay, well I'm going to assume that you did.

Alright, fine, quick synopsis: The Watchmen is a movie about a bunch of pretty strong and fast dudes who fight crime in an alternate version of America wherein Nixon is president for life. In that way, it's like Futurama but way less hilarious and way longer. After one of the strong 'n' fast guys gets killed, the rest go bonkers trying to not die while attempting to save a society that doesn't abide their vigilantism.

Sounds interesting right? Well, kinda. It was a good movie but the long and the short of it is that the movie was way too long and way not short enough. Holy hell, did that thing drag on. What in the world could have saved the movie from becoming the snoozefest of the comic book movie genre?

Easy: The Tick.

For those of you who don't remember, the Tick was a comic but was most famous as a Saturday morning cartoon in the 1990s. In The Watchmen, there are no real super heroes. As I mentioned, it's just some costumed people who happen to be really strong and fast and not funny at all. Oh yeah, and one of them is probably God but don't worry about that. The Tick may not be God, but he would fit right in with the rest of them. He is both really strong and really fast but would also add to the movie insofar that he is super hilarious and bangs into crap and makes bold declarations about humanity that always derail before he's done**.

Look at the facts:

1) The Tick yells "SPOON!" at the top of his lungs while barreling into any and every battle situation. Why? Shut up, that's why! This tops Rorschach's Christian Bale-esque mumblings any day.

2) The Tick owns a capybara named "Speak" (because that's what he does). Capybaras are the world's biggest rodents. They smell; they're funny looking. None of the Watchmen have cool pets and the one guy that picked an animal for his costume ended up looking like a gay Batman.

3) The Tick is giant and blue, just like Dr. Manhattan. However, the Tick has the dignity not to spend every waking hour with his CGI-enhanced penis flopping around all over the place. Advantage: the Tick. Plus, look at the way he balances out the poster! It can't be coincidence that it looks so much better framed by blue guys.

So, you like heroes? The Tick is the greatest hero. You like action? The Tick hasn't met a person, place or thing immune to his unintentional brutality. You like giant blue guys? How about a movie with two giant blue guys? That would be like having double the smurfs in an episode, only giant!

How can you argue that the addition of the Tick wouldn't improve The Watchmen by a factor of a million? Answer: you can't.

We can only hope they make a sequel!

**Example: "You know, evil comes in many forms, be it a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin. But you can't let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad. You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness. Bad dog! Bad dog!"

Good Movie/Better Movie: The Hangover

I'd like to present the first of what I'm hoping will be a fun series of Photoshopped movie posters that I'm going to call "Good Movie/Better Movie."

In this piece, I began with the runaway comedic hit, The Hangover, and did my best to present what I feel would have been an enhanced version of the already successful original movie. As much as I enjoyed The Hangover in its original form, I couldn't help but feel that there were some missing elements. Specifically in this case, I'm referring to monkeys: the brilliant hairy clowns of the animal kingdom.

The inclusion of a monkey in The Hangover would have been an improvement in several ways.

First, it would have made Alan's (Zach Galifianakis) task of carrying the baby or--as I would have it--monkey, a much more eventful experience. It must be remembered that monkeys don't care to be carried around by people. Although Alan dealt with the pain of a right cross from Mike Tyson, I would have enjoyed seeing him cope with walking around with an enraged beast strapped to his body. I think it would have been fun to observe the monkey clawing at his face and pooping on his chest as he attempted to navigate the sun-soaked streets of Las Vegas. I think you would have as well.

Second, I would have loved the philosophical conundrum that the audience would be confronted with as the gang returned the monkey to Jade the stripper (Heather Graham). That conundrum, of course, would be, "Why does this stripper own a monkey?" Imagine walking into a blockbuster comedy only to be confronted with this sort of bewilderment. Is there an answer to this question or did the film's creator just make the greatest absurdist masterpiece since "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?" The question only leads to more questions! "Do all strippers have monkeys?" "Is monkey ownership even legal in Nevada?" "Is the monkey part of her stripping act? Like does she start out dressed like a zookeeper or a safari adventurer and then take her clothes off? Because, now that I think about it, that could be totally sexy!" Pure genius.

Third, I would have the monkey wearing an oversize cowboy hat with a big star that says, "Sheriff" on it. This improves on the baby in a couple of ways. First, it proposes the idea that a monkey could be the sheriff of a human town which, in its ludicrousness, is absolutely hilarious. Also, it makes the monkey look ridiculous and adds an additional element of "stuff that monkeys don't like which riles them up." We already know that this is funny from the earlier example of the monkey being carried around by Alan. In this case, I'm talking about hats in general, much less hats of the oversize, cowboy variety. Monkeys hate them! It's a proven fact that animal + things animals don't like = comedy gold. Take "tiger + hotel bathroom," which was so successful in the original as a prime example. I rest my case; the cowboy hat stays.

Thank you for taking into consideration my first edition of "Good Movie/Better Movie." I hope that you will agree that my version would have been far superior to an already wonderful original film.

We can only hope they make a sequel! (You guys, that's gonna be my tag line!)