Quickie Review: 2012 (dir. by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Arleigh

[guilty pleasure]

When one sees the name Roland Emmerich attached as the director to a film on any given year one almost has to audibly groan. He’s not on the level of Uwe Boll in terms of awful films, but he does give Michael Bay a run for the title of worst blockbuster filmmaker. It’s quite a shame to see Emmerich’s films one after the other get worse and worse. This was a filmmaker who showed some talent in the scifi-action genre with such cult classics as Universal Soldier and Stargate. He would reach his apex with the popcorn-friendly and thoroughly enjoyable Will Smith alien-invasion flick, Independence Day. Since reaching those lofty heights each successive film has been more groan-inducing and worse than the previous one. For a brief moment in 2009 this would change as he finally succeeded in destroying the world that he had only hinted at with previous films such as ID4, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. The film 2012 was released in late-2009 and, while it was universally lambasted by critics and a large portion of the public, I thought it was his most fun film since ID4.

2012 literally has the world greet it’s apocalypse according to the Mayan Calendar in the year 2012. The first forty or so minutes has Emmerich explaining the details of how the world will end in 2012 either through the film’s lead scientist (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) or through a conspiracy-theorist played with manic glee by Woody Harrelson. The bulk of this film is almost like disaster porn for film lovers who are into disaster flicks. We have earthquakes which sends the whole California coast sliding into the Pacific. Supervolcanoes erupting in what is the Yellowstone National Forest right up to mega-tsunamis that dwarf the highest mountain ranges.

The cast might be called an all-star one, but I rather think it’s more a B-list with such names as John Cusack playing a goofy everyman who must save his ex-wife and two young children right up to Danny Glover playing the lame duck of lame duck presidents (I guess Morgan Freeman was unavailable or already done with disaster films after doing Deep Impact). The performance by this cast ranged from alright to laughable, but even with the latter the sense of fun never wavered. This was a flick about the world ending and Emmerich delivered everything promised.

It’s the scenes of world devastation which made this film so enjoyable for me and has become one of my latest guilty pleasures. No matter how bad the dialogue got or how wooden some of the acting came off the sense of wonder from Emmerich destroying the world on the big-screen and on my TV made this film fun to watch. Maybe those who hated it or thought it was trash were aiming to high. I will admit that the film is trash, but in a good way that past enjoyable disaster flicks of the 70’s were fun. It took the premise serious enough, but the filmmakers involved didn’t skimp on over-the-top destruction. I mean this film’s premise means we get to see in high-definition billions of people die as the planet decides to suddenly switch things around to get a better feng shui vibe to the planet.

Scenes such as the mega-tsunamis topping over the Himalayan mountain range was awesome. But even that scene couldn’t top the super-quake which destroys Los Angeles around Cusack’s character who tries to outdrive the quake and the resulting chasms which appear to chase his limo with is family inside. Seeing Los Angeles and the bedrock it’s on upheave and slide into the Pacific was one of the best disaster porn sequences I’ve ever seen and I don’t see anything topping it in the near future.

2012 as a Roland Emmerich production already has a black mark on it because of his reputation as a filmmaker, but for once he actually made a film that was able to surpass all the glaring flaws from it’s one-note, stereotypical characters to it’s wooden dialogue. He did this by making a film with disaster scenes of such epic spectacle that one had no choice but to just sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s a bad film, but it sure was a fun ride. This is why I decided on a fan-made trailer which best exemplifies this film and not the one made by the studio.

I eagerly await the sequel I fully expect from Hollywood: 2013: Disaster Strikes Back.

A Guilty Pleasure — The Above The Influence “We About To Go Get Twisted” PSA

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

We’ve been talking a lot about guilty pleasures here at the Shattered Lens. Most people, when they hear the term “guilty pleasure” assume that the term applies only to film and the occasional episode of Ringer. However, I would argue that there are wonderful guilty pleasures all around us. You just have to be willing to look.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching anti-drug PSAs that feature either incorrect or nonexistent slang. As an example, allow me to offer you this little gem from the whole Above The Influence anti-drug campaign. In this one, a student in a diner learns that choosing not to get “twisted” guarantees you a free meal.

I love this commercial almost as much as I love the “A.J” Broadview Home Security commercial and that’s saying something!

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards. I also got on twitter and made a lot of snarky comments. People seemed to enjoy it and for that reason, I say, “Yay!”

Why Was I Watching It?

Because I am an awards show junkie! Seriously, those glue sniffers on Intervention don’t have anything on me when it comes to craving the excess, glamour, and foolishness of a big, silly Hollywood awards show! Add to that, this is still a fairly wide open Oscar season and the Golden Globes are, as they always say on E!, a “precursor to the Oscars.” Winning a Golden Globe usually guarantees at least an Oscar nomination. Plus — Ricky Gervais was back to host and like a lot of people last night, I spent the minutes before the ceremony asking myself, “What ever will he say!?” in feverish anticipation.

What Was It About?

For the past 69 years, the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have thrown a big banquet in January and given out a lot of awards to various TV and movie stars. Nobody’s really sure who the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are and, to be honest, the Golden Globes always have a slightly unsavory air to them. There’s always more than a few nominations that mostly seem to be designed to get famous people to show up at the ceremony, Last year, they nominated the Tourist, this year they nominated The Ides of March. Anyway, the Golden Globes are distinguished by the Oscars by the fact that they serve alcohol during the show and, in the past, someone’s always ended up giving a drunken acceptance speech or launching into an incoherent political rant and, for the past few weeks, we’ve been told that with Ricky Gervais returning to host the 69th annual banquet, anything could happen and probably would! Yay!

What Worked

Last night, I mentioned on twitter that if nothing interesting happened on the Globes or if Ricky somehow failed to deliver the expected amount of snark then I would devote this section of my review to talking about my boobs.

With that in mind, what can I say except that they’re a little big and heavy and they pretty much ended my dreams of being a ballerina but I like my boobs, or as I call them Pride and Joy. They go great with every outfit I own and I’m pretty sure that they’re also the reason why I’ve never had to pay a speeding ticket. Plus, they allowed me to say stuff like, “I should be Ms. Golden Globes!” while I was watching the show last night…

Actually, I’m being a little bit unfair to the Golden Globes (the awards ceremony, not my boobs). The tribute to Morgan Freeman was well-done and was probably the high point of the ceremony but then again, how can you go wrong with Morgan Freeman? Seriously, when I’m on the verge of doing something silly (like using a review of the Golden Globes to show off my boobs) , I imagine Morgan Freeman saying, “Now, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Fashion-wise, I saw a lot of red dresses last night and that made me happy because I look really good in red.

Among the winners, Christopher Plummer (Best Supporting Actor for Beginners), Jean Dujardin (Best Actor In A Comedy Motion Picture for The Artist), Martin Scorsese (Best Director for Hugo), and Claire Danes (Best Actress In A Dramatic TV Show for Homeland) all gave good and classy acceptance speeches that made me feel good to be alive. And Uggie the dog was so adorable up there on stage when The Artist won Best Motion Picture Comedy. Actually, speaking of The Artist, it was kinda nice to see so many French people accepting awards last night. (Oh, stop it! I love France!)

I enjoyed it when Madonna won for best song because she was so shocked that she forgot to speak in her fake accent.

On an admittedly petty note, Rooney Mara did not win Best Actress for David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and that amused me greatly because I knew that all the little AwardsDaily Fincherites were torn about how to whine about Mara losing with coming across as if they were criticizing Meryl Streep for winning.

What Did Not Work

So, let’s start with the main problem. Last night’s Golden Globes ceremony was so respectable and predictable and slow that it might as well have just been the Oscars. Ricky Gervais started out the ceremony by telling us that he had signed an agreement to not make any offensive or outrageous statements and then he did just that. What’s especially annoying is that Ricky didn’t seem to be neutering himself as an act of protest or anything of the sort. Instead, he just came across like he was too smug and sure-of-himself to realize that he was bombing. It was as if he just expected his reputation to convince us that he was being funny and outrageous without actually being funny and outrageous. Last year, Ricky Gervais skewered Hollywood phonies. This year, Ricky Gervais was a Hollywood phony. I sat there waiting for him to say just one thing that could potentially end his career and he refused to do it.

But Ricky wasn’t alone. Seriously, where were the drunk winners launching into incoherent politically themed rants. I mean, it’s an election year for God’s sake. People on twitter were using the occasion to make all sorts of silly and naive political statements but the actual celebrities — the people who we depend on to act like a bunch of dumbasses — just sat there in this sort of placid anxiety like they were waiting for someone to show up for an intervention.

BLEH!

The majority of the night’s acceptance speeches were neither good nor bad. They were just boring. Listen, Meryl Streep is a great actress and I have no problem with her being recognized and awarded for her talent but oh my God, I nearly fell asleep trying to listen to her. Now, if Meryl (or any other winner) had gotten up on stage and started slurring her words or making dirty jokes or something like that, it would have made for great television. (Though I do have to give Meryl some credit for being the only winner to get bleeped.)

The Descendants won Best Motion Picture Drama but seriously, it’s hard for me to accept that this well-made but essentially unchallenging and rather forgettable film is now the Oscar front-runner. Seriously. Much as with every other award it has won, The Descendants felt like something of a compromise choice and, considering that Scorsese won best director, it’s hard to gauge just how much momentum the Descendants is going to get from this victory.

Oh! And another thing that sucked — how did George Clooney win a Golden Globe for essentially playing the same character he always plays while Michael Fassbender’s brilliant work in Shame was ignored? What type of game is that?

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

: To quote Joan Crawford, “I’ll show you a pair of Golden Globes!”

Lessons Learned

This is shaping up to be one of the worst Oscar seasons in recent history. Seriously, if just one deserving film or performance wins in February, I will be amazed.

A Guilty Pleasure – Tron:Legacy

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Leonard Wilson

For January, one of the themes for this month were “Guilty Pleasures”- those films that you simply can’t get enough of, despite how good or bad they may actually be. My first contribution for this is 2010’s Tron: Legacy.

When I look at Tron:Legacy, I see two things. I see a missed opportunity in trying to break new ground for the story, and a hint of promise from it’s director, Joseph Kosinski. I attended the premiere for the movie at the IMAX with a friend and his son, and was totally with it for the first half of the film. However, in it’s second half, it slowed down just like the film before it and admittedly, I almost fell asleep. Let’s face it, Tron as an overall universe was never really that strong.

And yet, I watch it just about every time it’s on, if only for the Lightcycle Race and Clu’s speech. Seeing the grid in an updated view and the new look of the light cycles always brings a smile to my face. Granted, it could be listed just as a Scene I Love, but I find I can tolerate most of the film.

Let’s go with the Missed Opportunities first.

Tron: Legacy’s biggest problem is it really only gave the audience a rehash of the original tale. While the angle with Sam and Kevin Flynn were interesting, along with Clu being a villain this time around, I feel the writers really could have taken the story places. Instead, they went the lazy route and decided to go with what anyone who saw the original film could remember – a problem that I feel plagues many sequels / remakes of old films. I figure if you’re going to do a sequel to film that’s more than 5 years old, be seriously prepared to throw something (at least one thing) new on the table.

When James Cameron made Aliens back in 1986, he took Ridley Scott’s tale and built on it, expanding on the Aliens universe with the addition of the Colonial Marines and the Alien Queen, giving the creatures themselves a sense of heirarchy. For Tron: Legacy, the only real new element would be the ISO’s, but then we’re never really shown just what they’re capable of, within or outside of the grid. It’s an empty element that only serves the purpose for bring Sam and Kevin together.

Tron: Legacy also suffers from a Video Game Tie-In Syndrome, something I’ve hated ever since The Matrix Reloaded. Back when that movie was due to come out, Warner Bros. And Atari came up with the idea of making a Video Game that would bridge the gap between certain elements in the story. If you play Enter the Matrix, you’ll actually have a slightly more complete story than you would by just seeing the film. That robs the audience of content. Granted, they don’t need to know everything, but Tron: Legacy has a few elements that are only really understood in the story for it’s video game, Tron: Evolution.

Then there’s the sense of promise.

Joseph Kosinski was originally a commercial director, his most famous being one for the game Gears of War that featured the Gary Jules version of “Mad World”. Between this and his Halo commercials, it made sense that for the visual style that Tron: Legacy needed, he’d make a perfect fit. Tron needed something new, wasn’t that critical of a franchise to play with and gave Kosinski the freedom to take it wherever he wanted to go (within the constraints of what the writers gave him, of course). For a first time film director, I think he did very well, but that’s just me. It should also be noted that it was his idea to bring on Daft Punk for the soundtrack. If the movie is remembered for anything over time, it’ll be for the music, because that score is just cool.

Tron:Legacy on a visual scale is really beautiful, and it’s cool to see the design updates in the machines, by way of Digital Domain and other F/X companies. That alone is enough for me to watch this repeatedly (it’s on as I’m writing this). I haven’t found myself compelled to pick up the Blu-Ray, but Starz and Netflix have it available to watch.

If he’s lucky, Kosinski may end up getting a project that he’ll really take off with. Maybe it’ll be something of his own making or another remake, but for me it’ll be interesting to see where he goes.

6 Trailers That Did Not Win Any Golden Globes

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First off, allow me to again apologize for being late with my weekly trailer post. I had some asthma issues that basically left me fairly useless on both Friday and Saturday. Still, better late than never. In this latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers, we acknowledge some films that were NOT nominated for Golden Globes.

1) The Flesh Eaters (1964)

I just recently got this one on DVD but I haven’t watched it yet. Of course, I love any trailer that starts out with a countdown.

2) Beach Girls and the Monster (1965)

The star of the film (which apparently co-stars the Watusi Dancing Girls), John Hall, was briefly a star back in the 1930s. This was his attempt at a comeback film and he ended up committing suicide after it was released.

3) Blast-Off Girls (1967)

This film was directed by the infamous Herschell Gordon Lewis. I want to be a blast-off girl!

4) Monsters Crash The Pajama Party (1969)

I don’t own this one on DVD, mostly because I’m kinda scared that if I watch it, a monster will pop out of the TV screen and try to drag me off to somewhere.

5) The Fat Black Pussycat (1963)

Awwww, cute little kitty!

6) Mortuary (1983)

Agck! This trailer is actually scary.

Trailer: Moonrise Kingdom (dir. by Wes Anderson)

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

January is the time of year that you look at what’s being released into theaters and you think to yourself, “Oh my God, is it summer yet!?” This is the time of the Devil Inside and Joyful Noise. This is also the time when we find ourselves watching trailers and previews of upcoming films for just a little bit of hope that maybe things are going to get better.

And, on that note, here’s the trailer for Wes Anderson’s upcoming film, Moonrise Kingdom. I don’t know much about Moonrise Kingdom but, seeing as it’s directed Wes Anderson, it’ll either be very clever and unappreciated or else it will be so self-consciously quirky that I’ll end up having a seizure halfway through the film.

AMV of the Day: Fullmetal’s Back

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Arleigh

Ok, I never thought I’d say this but it looks like Backstreet Boys has finally been part of something that’s been fun to watch and quite enjoyable. It’s this very one thing which is the latest entry in our recurring blog feature: “AMV of the Day”.

The video makes a play on the Backstreet Boys’ party song title, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”, by taking out the band’s name and putting in Fullmetal. Yes, this is an anime music video where creator Rider4ZMusicVideos has combined the very popular shonen anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist, with the aforementioned Backstreet Boys song. To say that it was a surprise to see the two work well hand-in-hand would be an understatement.

Rider really plays up some of the comedy in the series with scenes chosen, but also does a great job of picking particular scenes to help lip-synch the lyrics of the song. Once again, I was thoroughly surprised just how enjoyable this video was and for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed listening to a Backstreet Boys song.

Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Song: “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by Backstreet Boys

Creator: Rider4ZMusicVideos

Arleigh’s 10 Worst Films of 2011

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Arleigh

I’ve been pretty good at avoiding fillms that I knew was going to be awful before I even stepped into the theater so certain films from 2011 that everyone call the worst I probably won’t have on my list since I never saw them. So, such films as Jack & Jill, Bucky Larson and Zookeeper will not make my list since I was smart enough to not pay to watch it.

This ten worst list of 2011 are from films I did see during the year whether in a theater or on video. I couldn’t decide which film was worse than the next so this order doesn’t really determine which was worst. It’s just my way of keeping things organized.

Shark Night 3D – I had high hopes that this film would be 2011’s version of Piranha 3D in that it would be silly, goofy and over-the-top and knew it. Instead it’s tame with it’s PG-13 rating (seriously a film about Sharks eating college kids in 3D gets a PG-13 treatment) and has none of the joie de vivre that Piranha 3D had or the bugnuts craziness that Drive Angry 3D threw at you.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – With a cast that looked to be better than the Orlando Bloom/Keira Knightley one of the original trilogy I thought this new beginning for Capt. Jack Sparrow would breathe new life to the trilogy, but instead we get one of the worst entries in the franchise (that’s saying a lot) and one that ended up wasting the talents of Ian McShane in the role of Blackbeard.
Season of the Witch: I never saw it in the theater after I read Lisa Marie’s review of it. So, I waited until it arrived on Netflix and took a chance that maybe it wasn’t as awful as she said it was. I think she was being kind with her review. This film was awful in it’s awfulness that I couldn’t even enjoy just how bad it was.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – When I first saw this film I enjoyed enough of the action when it was robot vs robot so all the human interaction part never registered, but as I saw it again on blu-ray I realized just how awful this third entry in the Michael Bay franchise was in a franchise that should’ve been fool-proof. I mean it’s giant robots that transform fighting other similar robots. I think if Shia LeBouf was replaced by someone like Jason Statham I would’ve enjoyed this film more, but Shia’s whining and screeching took away any enjoyment I had from seeing robots fighting.
Cowboys & Aliens – Another film that had a premise tailor-made for the summer blockbuster season with a cast that had Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde (Mmmmm), Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, etc…not to mention Jon Favreau in the director’s chair. I thought that Favreau may have been railroaded and made a scapegoat for some of the failures of Iron Man 2 in 2010, but seeing what he ended up doing with this film made me rethink that maybe Marvel Studios was smart to cut him loose and bring in someone else.
Green Lantern – DC Studios…Geoff Johns…one of the Justice Leaguers. One would think that was recipe for one kick-ass space opera that would rekindle the fun that are superheroes the way Iron Man did in 2008. Instead what we ended up getting was one of the worst superhero films ever made which made Hal Jordan an emo character fighting against a villain who wasn’t terrifying and a cosmic evil that made the Lost smoke monster look horrific in turn. Fuck you DC and Johns for ruining what could’ve been a great franchise.
Arthur – I’m a child of the 80’s so I remember the original Dudley Moore version, but I was willing to give this one a chance. I shouldn’t have and any goodwill Russell Brand got from me with his performance from Get Him to the Greek vanished with this film.
Apollo 18 – Moon rocks with legs!! Nuff said.
Dream House – Another film that I thought was interesting enough to take a chance on despite the trailer pretty much ruining the twist in the story, but I thought it would have an interesting path getting to that twist. Daniel Craig may need to just stick to being James Bond, because he was almost like a cardboard in this film and the rest of the cast weren’t far behind. I never thought Jim Sheridan would ever make a bad film. I guess I was right. He didn’t make a bad film. He made a horrendously awful film.
Priest – This was another film that could’ve been fun fluff or even an entertaining bad film, but it wasn’t either of those. This was directed by Scott Stewart who did the abysmal Legion from 2010. I thought maybe he would do better a second time around adapting a popular Korean manwha title, but I guess the saying is true: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I’m sure I left out a few other titles that ohters think should be on this list, but those probably I actually enjoyed or weren’t bad enough to bump any of these ten from my list. This list is pretty much almost a full day of my life wasted and me not able to get a refund. It’s near to 24-hours of awful that took a full day off of my lifespan. Ten films which could be the death of me down the line.

AMV of the Day: This is War (One Piece)

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Arleigh

[Marineford War spoilers]

The fourth and final One Piece-themed “AMV of the Day” doesn’t come courtesy of AMV creator PixelCreekAMVs, but instead from Regiosk8 and is the best of the four.

“This Is War” takes it’s title from the 30 Seconds to Mars song of the same title. I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of this group, but for some reason this song of their’s continue to be a favorite amongst amv creators especially when trying to convey and video’s epic nature. The Marineford War story-arc in One Piece definitely fills the criteria of being quite epic. One must consider the fact that this anime was and still is epic on it’s right, but this story-arc took it to a new level. It’s the arc which added a major level of seriousness to everyone’s fun as it’s creator, Oda Eiichiro, decided to kill off several main characters (fan favorites) and do so in a way that didn’t leave no question as to their final moments (American comic book writers could learn a thing or two about how to kill off characters and keeping them dead from manga writers).

I’m sure that 30 Seconds to Mars’ “This Is War” will be make another appearance in other amv’s but for now this one looks to be the best. Great job by Regiosk8 on the video and a nice tribute to one Edward “Whitebeard” Newgate to end the video.

“Throughout the Battle of Marineford alone Whitebeard had received 267 sword wounds, 152 gunshot wounds and 46 wounds from cannonballs- adding up to a total of 465 injuries upon his time of death. Despite this, there was not a single scar on Whitebeard’s back showing cowardice.”

Anime: One Piece

Song: “This Is War” by 30 Seconds to Mars

Creator: Sergio Tomas Reyes Ramos