Fuzzy's Media Consumption

It was a fun little experiment, but I've folded the content from Fuzzy's Media Consumption back into the main FuzzyCo blog and new updates will appear there, mixed in with regular posts.

MI:3 opens with a terrifying torture scene. After that, it's just sort of an adequate action movie. And, not to give away too many spoilers on a year old movie, there was only a double-cross where I was expecting at least a triple- or quadruple-cross.

The Ghost Rider comic was never what you'd call high-concept, so I wasn't expecting much from the movie adaptation. But I was disappointed even in my low expectations. There's so little substance to this movie that I spent half my time watching being sad that Nicolas Cage and Sam Elliott are obviously working so hard to try to make their characters half-way believable.

XXX is such a terrible movie. And don't think I'm saying that because I'm some sort of snob who thinks an "extreme-sports star turned secret agent" movie is bound to be bad. I think the idea holds plenty of promise. I just think this is a terrible "extreme-sports star turned secret agent" movie. In fact, I'm kind of mad that the movie squanders both the concept and the talents of Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, and Asia Argento.

In Erica and my on-going teen-performance film festival, we've seen a lot of bad movies. But High School Musical may be the worst. Now, admittedly, we're definitely not in the target audience for a Disney Channel made-for-tv movie, but even taking that into account it's still pretty terrible.

For a movie based on toys, Transformers (or Transforme, as the marquee at the theater said) is a pretty good movie. I mean, it doesn't really make any sense, but it's funny and actiony and a number of actors have a lot of fun with their roles. I give it an A-, Erica gives it an A+.

Slither is a really good scary monster movie. Amazingly, for a movie of its genre, nobody does anything dumb. (Or at least, nothing dumb that's out of character.) FuzzyCo Grade: A

Erica and I saw this hit documentary about a font tonight. Helvetica is a history of the 50-year-old typeface and its influence on design -- and the documentary ends up as an overview of post-war design in general. It was delightful and fascinating. Even Erica, who is not a designer, thought it was great.

Once was recommended to Erica and she decided to wanted to see it on a date night last week. I took a glance at Rotten Tomatoes and saw that it had gotten 97% on the critics tomatometer. I immediately closed the window -- if a movie is recommended a couple of times, I'd rather see it without any extra information that might color my experience of watching the movie. The next day the Regular Guy on XRT reviewed Once -- I managed to miss the review, but heard the DJs say, "wow, the Regular Guy really liked that movie". Great -- another data point in favor of the movie.

So, with the provisio that you enjoy patient (some might even say slow), intimate movies, I'll add my voice to those saying "go see Once".

If you are the sort who wants more detail before you see a movie, I'll note that this is a sort of a kind of musical -- but no one bursts into song for no reason -- the two main characters ("guy" and "girl") are both musicians and so they burst into song for reason. The guy is played by Glen Hansard of The Frames and the girl is Markéta Irglová, also a musician, and they really wrote all the songs they perform in the movie.

Oh, and I was a little distracted during the first part of the movie, because it was filmed with handheld (digital?) cameras and it looks a lot like a Neutrino Project (with better sound than we ever get).

What's not to like about Over the Hedge? Great voice cast, cute animals, slapstick action, original Ben Folds songs, and a heart-warming message about family. Now I need to check out the comic strip. Team Gerdes score: A.

Hot Fuzz is the same creative team behind Shaun of the Dead applying that same treatment they gave zombie movies (half-reverent, half-mocking) to cop buddy flicks.

The result is both hilarious and exhilarating. Team Gerdes gives it an A+.

We saw Grindhouse at the Brew and View, which I think might have been the perfect place to have the kind of complete experience that Rodriguez and Tarantino were trying to create with this movie. I enjoyed both halves, but I really appreciated the layers that Tarantino brought to Death Proof.

Comedian is one of Erica's favroite movies and I needed a movie tonight that I could listen to more than watch, because I needed to do some computer work. The computer work fell by the wayside as I was drawn into the rhythm of this documentary. I didn't learn as much about the craft as I thought I might, and Orny Adams bugs the hell out of me, but it's still a fascinating movie.

TMNT (2007)

I would have been impressed if this was three episodes of a Saturday morning cartoon, but it just didn't feel like it was worth a movie. Oh, and, hey, movie, we get it. "Family is important." Thanks.

And does the first "T" now stand for Twenty-something? These guys are old. Hmm... they have MySpace pages, maybe they are still teenagers.

(Anything you found amusing in this post, Erica came up with it.)

Batman Begins (2005)

After so many cartoony Batman movies, it was great to have a -- I almost said "realistic", but we are still talking about a guy in a bat suit -- thoughful one. With actual, if brief, character growth. Erica and I agree that there could have been a lot more of Bruce Wayne learning his skills. But overall, quite a good superhero movie.

We had some friends over last night specifically to watch Jackass - Number Two. It was the first time for them, but the 5th and 3rd times, respecively, for Erica and I. Jackass is such a specialized (which is to say, sophomoric) taste that I'm not sure what to say about this other than if you're a Jackass fan already, you'll love it. If you're not, you'll hate it. I could try to persuade you of its worth with lots of handwaving about 'transgressive humor' and so on, and then Steve-O would throw up or somebody would poop or something and you'd be grossed out and I couldn't blame you at all.

I was really suprised that I enjoyed Crank as much as I did. The plot is ridiculous -- hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has been injected with a poison for which the only cure is his own adrenaline (I'm sure the elevator pitch was "it's just like Speed, only his own body is the bus!"). And I'm sure it would be pretty easy to hate the over-abundance of visual effects. But the action is, as Chev requires, non-stop and I came to sympathize with his likeable assholeishness, just trying to survive this terrible day.

Much has been written about 300, and I almost wish I hadn't read quite so much before I saw it. On a purely guys with swords level, it's pretty awesome.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Mitchell

Erica and I got quite a bit done chose-wise yesterday and wanted to veg out with a movie a bit. She'd never seen a full MST and Mitchell is one that has influenced the way my brother and I both talk (the reciprocal movie for Erica and her brother is Wayne's World) and I persuaded her to give it a try. It lags a bit in the second half, but Erica still enjoyed it.

"Word on the street is you're a jerk."

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

This wasn't the most brilliant movie ever, but it was a pleasant lazy Sunday afternoon's entertainment. And Erica and I both loved the way that nonsensical comic phrases were heard and dealt with.

I saw this great zombie short -- Birthday Call -- and so when I read that the filmmakers had expanded it into a feature film and that it was going to be shown on SciFi I immediately Tivoed it. And it sat on the Tivo for six months or so, until I got Toast's Tivo2Go working, and then moved it onto my iPod*.

Hide and Creep is a zombie movie that knows about other zombie movies -- the first scene is a great monologue by a video store clerk categorizing the great zombie movies of the past. And as such, I was a little disappointed. The movie never quite seemed to live up to the grand promise it showed in that beginning. There are some great moments, but overall the movie drags. And the one big addition the movie makes to modern zombie lore is revealed too late in the movie to really have any effect on the plot or the characters. A great first effort, but not a great movie.

* I mention these technical details to a) brag that I got all these crazy systems to work together and b) to be honest about the limitations under which I watch some movies. I'm never going to get the full effect of a great special effect on the iPod screen.

Funny story -- a couple of years of ago I was involved with an improv show that was based around documentaries. Part of our rehearsal process was to watch regular documentaries. Watching all those docs, I half-remembered one I had heard about and got pretty obsessed about finding it. Two months later, I discovered that a VHS copy had been lying on Erica's coffee table the whole time. I converted the VHS to DVD and then... never watched it. All that effort, and I just... eh.

I had told this story to some friends and then a few days later ran into them again. They had just been to a live This American Life taping and the director of the new TAL TV show, Chris Wilcha, mentioned his first big project... The Target Shoots First.

And then I came across the digital files I had made in the process of creating the DVD. I ran them through Instant Handbrake to make a file that could play on my new video iPod. And, over the course of several train rides, I watched it.

In 1992, Christopher Wilcha was hired by the marketing department at Columbia House (the record club people) largely on the basis, it seems, that he was a Nirvana fan and the music industry giant has no idea how to market to the growing alternative music culture. He took a brand new Hi8 camera with him to work and began taping everything. The 200 hours of footage he shot became this 75 minute documentary. It's an inside look at Columbia House, but certainly not an expose. If anything, it's largely about office culture, and Wilcha's struggle to adapt to his new job. It's great, though, and if you can get your hands on a copy, please do.

The Oceans 13 trailer made Erica and I realize we hadn't seen Ocean's Twelve yet. We had both enjoyed Ocean's Eleven, so we figured it was worth a whirl. Ocean's Twelve is a delightful bit of brain candy. Fluff, but nice fluff.

By the time they get to Ocean's Twenty, introducing the characters is going to take most of the movie.

I watched Infernal Affairs and The Departed back-to-back this weekend. If you didn't know, the Scorcese film is a re-make of the 2004 Hong Kong movie about an undercover cop and an undercover mobster. In typical Fuzzy fashion, I've actually had Infernal Affairs lying around for a couple years, but only just got around to watching it. It's a good movie, but The Departed is a great one. Of course, it's also a full hour longer than the earlier film, so there's a lot more room to flesh out aspects of the movie.