Everybody Loves Lists!

Due to my recent relocation, I've been unable to finish this week's Twilight update. So, in the meantime, I thought, well, everybody loves lists! They're meaningless and people always think they're wrong, but we keep making them anyway. They generate discussion, at least, and if there's one thing this blog needs, it's decent writing and something insightful to say. Sorry, that's two things. Well, amongst the things this blog needs is discussion, so I'm putting forward a number of my own personal top five lists. You'll note that, with the rare exception, all choices are mainstream with (allegedly) A-list talent. The obvious reason for this is it's hard to get discussion going when I'm tossing out people and films no-one's heard of. The less obvious reason is that, especially for the "worst of" lists, it's no fun beating up on small fry with no money and lots of heart. I mean, if I didn't have this rule, the Five Worst Movies could be any random sample of Uwe Boll films. I thought it would be more interesting to take the piss out of films with millions of dollars made by people from whom, rightly or wrongly, we expect better. So here goes:

Best Movies of All Time, Ever, Objectively True and Correct:
5. Blade Runner--Possibly the most visually influential film of all time. (Yes, I've seen Citizen Kane.) Also has the dubious honor of popularizing the "director's cut".
4. The Road Warrior--The template for seemingly every post-apocalyptic genre film of the last 40 years. Only The Road Warrior's apocalypse looks more likely with each passing decade.
3. Dr. Strangelove, Or, How I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb--For years, I heard this was the greatest satire of all time. It is.
2. The Godfather--The Mafia never looked so cool. Brando gives the greatest performance of his career, and his isn't even the strongest in the film.
1. Memento--Great acting, great mystery, and a twist ending that's both shocking and unexpected and completely believable and in keeping with the rest of the film. Seen it eight times, and every time I caught new nuance. Even the Gap-Toothed Woman of CSI fame can't ruin this movie.

The Worst Movies of All Time:
5. Wanted--An adolescent male fantasy for sociopaths. Forces Morgan Freeman to share the screen with Angelina Jolie's lips.
4. Princess Aurora--If your child is murdered as a result of your neglect, you're perfectly justified in killing everyone the child encountered that day to assuage your own guilt.
3. The Constant Gardener--A morality play about how if your politics are right, you can't do anything immoral.
2. Goodfellas--Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci playing gangsters? You don't say! I wanted the main character to die throughout the film. He never does.
1. Southland Tales--See my review here.

The Worst Movies I Had the Best Time Watching:
5. Lady Terminator--A blurry photocopy of The Terminator, only the Terminator is an Indonesian sex demon who humps men to death with her serrated sawblade-vagina. Or shoots them. Both methods work.
4. The Room--You're tearing me apart, intarwebs!
3. Dragonball: Evolution--Definitive proof that crappy anime should never be done in live-action. Shockingly offensive example of Lead Actors are White. I laughed at the villain's bad make-up job every single time he appeared onscreen.
2. Birdemic: Shock and Terror--Hands down, the worst acting you've ever seen. And special effects. And everything else. Deserves to make the next list, but it's just too funny.
1. The Happening--Who knew tree-induced suicide could be so hilarious?

The Most Incompetent Excuses for Movies That Hardly Deserve to be Called Movies:
5. The Last Airbender--See my review here.
4. Any of those Resident Evil things--The only entertainment to be had from this abominable series is figuring out which real movie each entry is ripping off. Subsists entirely on young boys obsessed with somewhat-attractive women in tight black leather shooting machine guns. (See also the Underworld series. Better yet, don't.)
3. Redline--Made me appreciate the care and craft that went into The Fast and the Furious films. Yes, I'm fully aware of what that statement entails.
2. Jack and Jill--Less a movie than a scam to bilk investors out of $70 million. More product placement than The Price is Right. A worse Adam Sandler movie than Going Overboard.
1. Disaster Movie--I only intended to watch maybe 15 minutes of this but resolved to continue until I saw a scene that wasn't worse than the previous one. I finished the whole movie.

The Most Overrated Directors:
5. Quentin Tarantino--A screenwriter of talent, if limited range. Would love to see a screenplay of his directed by anyone but himself. Wait, that was True Romance. Never mind.
4. David Fincher--Disowned Alien 3, easily the best film he made. Yeah, I went there.
3. Oliver Stone--Revealed by the films he makes to be insane. Allowed Kevin Costner to be in his film.
2. Peter Jackson--The Frighteners was decent, but everything else he's made has been the worst piece of crap ever produced (Bad Taste) or unbelievably dull (Lord of the Rings) or that godawful King Kong remake (Godawful King Kong Remake).
1. Martin Scorsese--Making films dirty does not make them good. Michael Mann does everything people keep telling me Scorsese does, only Mann doesn't suck. Best work of his career: Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.

Three-Name Actors Who Earn the Right to Use Three Names:
5. HBC--The best there is at playing the role of HBC.
4. Jada Pinkett-Smith--I have three words, one for each of your names: Fire your agent.
3. James Earl Jones--I'm a big fan, even if he did assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. Makes even a Tennessee Williams play watchable.
2. Tommy Lee Jones--Is there anything the man can't do? (Answer: He can't be bad in a role, even when directed by Joel Shootmenowmacher.)
1. Edward James Olmos--God walks among us.

Three-Name Actors Who Haven't Earned the Right to Use Three Names:
5. Sarah Gellar--Even fans tell me she's the weakest part of Buffy. (What? Like I'd watch that.)
4. Catherine Jones--Gives a good performance as an elitist socialite who isn't half as brilliant or witty as she thinks she is. But any actor can play herself.
3. Richard Anderson--Who needs charisma to headline not one but two TV dramas?
2. Stiffler--This is the only role he plays, so why not credit him as such?
1. Jennifer Hewitt--"Love" isn't the four-letter "L" word that explains her career.

The Worst Actors to Pollute My Movie Screens:
5. Sam Worthington--See any of his films--Whatever of the Titans, Terminator: Enough Already, pick any one you want--and see if you can distinguish him from the CGI backgrounds. Ha-ha! I'm kidding, you can't.
4. Clooney--I refuse to use his full name. Plays the role of "smug, vaguely handsome jerk" in Every Film Clooney Has Been In. Thinks smiling and nodding constitutes acting. Is generally a horrible person.
3. Sean Penn--Someone tell this man that shouting your lines is not the same thing as giving a dramatic performance. Also generally a horrible person.
2. Kevin Costner--Will be remembered long after his death for delivering the worst Robin Hood of all time. Russell Crowe weeps nightly that his awful Robin Hood will be forgotten while Costner's lives on. "Because I'm a survivor" indeed.
1. William Hurt--This man won an Oscar. That sound you hear is the award's credibility going down the toilet.

The Bestest Actors Ever:
5. Guy Pearce--From action hero to insurance investigator to dopehead to Andy Warhol, he just oozes screen presence, sex appeal, and sensitive-guy machismo. American accent was so good I got the vapours when I found out he's Australian. Oy!
4. John Malkovich--He's weird, he speaks fluent French, and he starred in Being John Malkovich. Oh, and his surname is Malkovich. Come on, that's just evil-sounding and wicked.
3. Samuel L. Jackson--Known for shouting, obscenities, and shouting obscenities, yet he can deliver subtle performances in great films (Unbreakable) and terrible films (Sphere), no matter how badly directed he is. Well, okay, except by George Lucas.
2. Jack Nicholson--Yeah, I'm a sucker for Jack doing Jack. Still, for the haters, see Wolf or About Schmidt. He's capable of subtlety when he bothers to act. (See also Brando, Marlon.)
1. Christopher Walken--Does just fine giving a normal performance, but for my money, give me that old Walken Weird! How many times has he walked into an otherwise crap film and Walkenised, giving the audience a respite of awesome for that brief moment he's on screen? (Answer: Uncountable.)

Most Underrated Films:
5. Cube--An English-language Canadian film that's taut, suspenseful, chilling, and thought-provoking. Hey, where are you going? Yes, this is a real film! Oh, come on, get back here! It's got Ezri Dax not sucking!
4. Save the Green Planet!--Features a towering performance from Paek Yun-sik. Pays homage to a number of different films--both good and bad--yet still has its own voice. A truly subtle and fascinating ending.
3. The Ref--Stars Kevin Spacey as Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary as Denis Leary, and Judy Davis as HotSexyAwesome!!!. A funny black comedy about a couple that hate each other. (Alternate title: The Movie The War of the Roses Tried to be And Failed.)
2. Prophecy--Christopher Walken as the archangel Gabriel, lots of Bible-quoting, an almost-priest with a crisis of faith, and Amanda Plummer? How could I resist? (Hint: I couldn't.) I was happy to see this movie ripped off by that atrocious Ghost Rider sequel. Hey, it means somebody saw it besides me!
1. Demon Knight--Great performances from William Sadler, Billy Zane (stop laughing), and Jada Pinkett-Smith Pinkett. Also okay are Thomas Haden Church, Dick Miller, and CCH Pounder. The demons look good, the backstory is straightforward and clear, the villain's motivations are suitably nefarious and simple, and the final showdown shows some moxie from a sassy heroine.

Most Overrated Films:
5. Se7en--M0rg4n Fr33m4n i$ gr34t 4$ 4lway4$, but th3 r3$t i$ ju$t unr3m4rk4bl3. Oh, and the "twist" is as shocking as a closet homosexual Republican. Remember what I said about the twist in Memento? Yeah, this is nothing like that.
4. Equilibrium--Noteworthy if you've never encountered dystopia. For everyone who has, the only fun is figuring out the sources the film's pilfering from. Oh, and Sean Bean dies (by which I mean, Sean Bean is in this movie).
3. Jacob's Ladder--The ending not only renders the entire movie pointless, but it's cheap and derivative. Plus, Tim Robbins sucks.
2. The War of the Roses--Thinks it's a sharp, witty deconstruction of marriage, but it's really just a crass exercise in misogyny and unfunny. An utterly unbelievable exercise in ludicrous violence and Michael Douglas "acting".
1. Every film Martin Scorsese has ever made. Yes, including the ones I haven't seen (i.e., most of them).

There! I hope you enjoyed this installment of "Things I Like or Dislike Arranged into Groups of Five". If you agree with any of my choices--and God help you if you do--please leave a comment. If you don't, then I kindly invite you to leave a long, angry rant explaining that I'm fat and stupid and probably gay and/or a furry that in no way addresses anything I said. And for the one reader out there for whom making lists like this accounts for approximately 42.7% of our conversations--and you know who you are--I know you're thinking, "Alas! What will we bicker pointlessly about now?!" Fear not! Print a copy of these lists, along with your own annotations, and bring them to our next meeting for further pointless bickering.

EJO Review: The Green Hornet

Being unable to sleep on twelve-hour flights to Korea means I end up stuck watching many hours of crap new releases. (Remember The Book of Eli? Yeah, I watched it on one of those flights, and there were only two walkouts! *rimshot*) Most of them are pretty forgettable time-wasters, though I do remember laughing continuously through the last 40 or so minutes of Rise of the Battle of the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (yet another film in which Andy Serkis's CGI creation has more warmth and genuine human emotion than any of the actors actually on screen). I remember seeing That Mummy Movie With Jet Li in It and thinking it sucked. Then I immediately watched Jumper and thought, you know, That Mummy Movie wasn't all that bad. Next came Wanted--a film based on a comic book created by a man who apparently thinks Frank Miller's writing is too warm and sympathetic and filled with the triumph of the human spirit--and twenty minutes into it I was longing for all life in the universe to end.

Because I've seen Wanted, The Green Hornet (2012), starring Seth Rogen (*gulp*) and Jay Chou (who?), isn't even bad enough to be worth discussing. Sure, it sucks, but I've seen Disaster Movie, a film so bad Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't authorize its use on suspected terrorists. So why am I talking about The Green Hornet? Because I'm struggling with a vital spiritual question that sprang unbidden into my mind while watching it: Why the hell is God in this film?

No, really. I remember sitting through this mess, having not yet cracked a smile despite Rogen's antics, and then suddenly He was there. He had maybe two lines and was gone. He shows up in maybe three scenes total. If all the footage of Him they included in the movie amounts to even a page of script, I'd be astonished. Why you would hire God to be in your film if you don't have anything for Him to do is a big question, but a bigger one is why He in His wisdom would agree to take this nothing role in a crappy Seth Rogen flick. I guess He does work in mysterious ways!

God plays the role of Mike Axford, by all accounts the one who ought to be running the newspaper that is instead put in the hands of Rogen's Britt Reid (the titular zero--I'm sorry, I meant hero, really) when his old man bites it. Britt is an irresponsible, overprivileged slacker with no skills, training, or competence in anything other than using money he didn't earn to get drunk and bed trashy women--wait, you already knew that? Oh that's right, because he's played by Seth freaking Rogen. Taiwanese actor Jay Chou plays Kato, the elder Reid's personal mechanic, inventor, martial arts expert, and coffee maker. That's right, our Kato is a regular Renaissance man, able to single-handedly build a car that is bulletproof and has color-changing paint and no-flat tires and a license plate switcher and hidden machine guns and ejector seats, kung fu the bejeezus out of multiple armed attackers without breaking a sweat or any of them so much as laying a glove on him, and make a damn fine cup of coffee.

Now all this absurdity could work in a comedy. Sadly, the filmmakers opted not to make a comedy, since there is precious little that's funny about this film. Are we supposed to laugh that Kato--the same essentially invincible Kato that I just described, who repeatedly does all the work of taking out the bad guys while Britt just stands around looking useless (there are even a number of "jokes" about this) and never so much as takes a punch--that Kato can't take out the pudgy, clumsy, untrained Britt when they get into the obligatory fistfight? And lest you think it's because Kato doesn't want to open up a can on his friend and hurt him, after Britt puts him through a table(!), Kato gets up, enraged, and declares, "Now I'm gonna hurt you!" Yet Britt is still rather implausibly able to stand up to Kato in hand-to-hand combat. I guess it's because Kato doesn't use his ability to slip into the Matrix and superimpose red lines over enemies and/or their weapons. (The film is very sloppy about what the red lines indicate.) How did he gain this ability to enter bullet-time and see his enemies and/or their weapons as red lines? I don't know, and I don't think anybody involved with the film does, either.

Britt becomes the zero (oops, there I go again)--hero when he comes up with this Clever Plan: He and Kato will become superheroes who pretend to be supervillains, because then the other villains can't try to influence them by threatening to kill civilians. I'm not kidding; that's really his plan. Somehow, the villains are dumb enough to buy this, thinking he is a rival gang leader muscling in on their turf even though he has no henchmen, no drug labs or distribution networks or anything to suggest he is in any way replacing them, and no corrupt cops or politicians or anyone on any kind of payroll.

Much merriment is made of Kato's lack of a cool superhero name, even though he's the one with all the talent. Being from Shanghai, Kato probably can't be blamed for not making the obvious retort: the Green Hornet doesn't have a cool superhero name, either. (To be fair, this recurring joke did get the only solid laugh from me, and in the very last scene: "The Green Hornet. His reliable partner, the Blue Wombat!") And this is the name that the newspaper people give him (not knowing he's actually Britt) after Britt himself suggests, I kid you not, "the Green Bee". After they all laugh and declare him the Green Hornet, Britt checks again to see if they're sure the Green Bee isn't cooler. Now if there's one thing even a dope like Britt would know, it's that "the Green Bee" isn't cool. Bees aren't cool. Put any adjective you want in front of "bee" and then tell me it's cool. It can't be done. Even killer bees don't scare people. Who cares if the bee is green? If there's one thing manchildren talk constantly about, it's what sounds cool, yet Britt is here insisting on a patently uncool name for himself. The filmmakers can't be bothered to get the hero's characterization right.

I haven't said anything about the villain because he's played by someone I don't know, never comes across as either threatening or funny, and is given little of interest to do or say, at least until he inexplicably decides to murder his right-hand man and become a costumed supervillain because then he'll be scary. (He still isn't.) He is introduced laying the smack down on some young up-and-comer trying to usurp his position as kingpin of crime in Los Angeles. That the film would've been better with the up-and-comer as the central villain just illustrates just how misguided this entire project is.

Oh, and Cameron Diaz is somewhere in the film. I didn't want to punch her.

I have to admit, having said all this, I'm no closer to answering the eternal question of why God took a role in this film. Not even as the villain or anyone of importance, but just as a guy who sets up a few of Rogen's lame punchlines. Sure, He gets to run the newspaper in the end, but was it worth it? He looks depressed to be there, shaking His head sadly at whatever embarrassment Rogen's braindead character is currently engaged in, trying vainly to get Britt to behave in a way that is remotely mature or at least doesn't make him come off as a blithering buffoon who couldn't dress himself with both hands and a trained monkey to help. Perhaps He took such a small role so we wouldn't really notice He was there. Perhaps, in the end, He didn't come to Earth to suffer for our sins in some big public spectacle. Maybe He just classes up the joint, one Seth Rogen movie at a time.