Ghost Protocol

While most people spent New Year's Eve celebrating in some way, I actually pretty much holed up in my room and watched all six Rocky films, which was great as I haven't seen any of them aside from I and IV, so I got to see the whole story arc unfold over the course of a day. It was one hell of a journey and I intend to write a bit on each of the flicks.

However today is dedicated to Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol.

My viewing of the Mission films actually occurred pretty late, having not seen any of them until well after M:I 3 came out. At some point while digging around the house I saw that my dad actually owned the first two movies, and later that night I found the third one in a blowout bin for 3 bucks so I picked it up and began my journey into the M:I world.

I enjoyed the films very much, seeing them all as great pieces of popcorn entertainment. What I found more interesting however, were the filmmakers behind each of the flicks. The directors of each of the movies were, at least in my opinion, some of the greatest talents in their field. Just as the Alien movies have this amazing pedigree, so too does the Mission franchise. My absolute love for Brian De Palma is no secret, but then you throw in the greatest action director alive John Woo and modern day geek maestro J.J. Abrams and that's an impressive resume.

I always saw the Mission films as escapist fun, and I'm sure each of the director's knew and followed that form stepping in. However, each of the movies had their own strengths and weaknesses. The first Mission had a plot no one could follow, but also carried with it absolutely breathless suspense, as well as a classical spy feel. The second is almost cartoonishly goofy, but it had John Woo's amazing action direction. III finally had a story you could keep up with that made you care about the characters, as well as a great villain in Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but it lacked the, I guess elegance that the more experienced De Palma and Woo brought.

Finally, the fourth installment has released, Brad Bird was chosen to helm and he is yet another extremely talented and loved director. I really liked Mission I and III and liked certain aspects of II, but Ghost Protocol is the first film in the franchise to feel complete. It takes all the strong points and elements from the first 3 and combines them to create a film that is frankly leaps and bounds above the others.

If one were to study Bird's prior films, they would notice that his strengths in characterization and action are really among the best out there right now. So what if the movies were animated? Frankly it's ridiculous that in this day and age many still look at animation as an inferior art form, used only as children's entertainment, or as crude sitcoms. Regardless, he has always had strengths as a director that would lend themselves greatly to adventure or suspense films.

Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol has both. It is without question the best of the franchise and in my opinion, one of the best pieces of big screen entertainment I've seen in a long time.

*Note: Among other things, this movie has a sequence in which Ethan Hunt scales the world's tallest building. It is absolutely edge of your seat mind blowing and actually gave me a bit of vertigo. This scene alone is worth the added price of admission for an imax ticket.

Stream of Consciousness: John Carpenter

This is just copied over from my blog on Suicide Girls, cause I posted it there first. Also, shits acting weird and I'm too lazy to figure out how to fix it, so just highlight ever the area below to see the text.

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New post, still just rambling on about movies.

As a movie fan I'm often asked what's new that I've seen, and honestly, I never know how to answer that question. Well I mean, sure if I happened to just catch a flick in theaters then I'll answer with that, but now that I'm working full time, often with overtime on weekends, it's hard for me to find the time to get out to the cinemas to see something. Besides, as a movie geek I've always been the type who watches films in waves of directors. I'll go through a Hitchcock phase, or David Lynch, or Scorsese, or De Palma or whatever. Right now I'm going through a pretty hard John Carpenter binge.

As of this moment, the Carpenter flicks I've seen are Halloween, Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, Assault on Precinct 13, and Escape from L.A.

If I had to choose a favorite movie, I'd have to go with Big Trouble, it's just... the greatest movie ever made. It certainly helps if I'm in an altered state of mind. After that it's sort of the big jumble of the rest of his stuff. Although I have to ask, am I the only person who likes Escape from L.A.? I mean, sure it's campier and definitely stupider... and more poorly written, but it's just so much fun. And Snake's such a bad ass!

Anywhoo, no point to this blog, just rambling on. If you are reading this though, and you happen to be a fan of Master John Carpenter, then let me know what your favorites are.

Also since I'm still going through De Palma pretty badly, let me know what your favorite of l'incorruptible is.

Brian De Palma, Ranked

Bored, wanted to type something up about flicks but couldn't think of anything, here we are.

I've become even more obsessed with Brian De Palma since my initial post about the man way back when. So I decided to look at all of his films that I own and have seen and am going to list them in order of favorite to least favorite. There are still several of his flicks I haven't seen, mostly cause I don't want to, such as Wise Guys, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Mission to Mars. There are also a few I really want to see but haven't yet. When I watch them I'll come back and add them to the list. They would be The Fury, Casualties of War, Redacted, and his early comedies with De Niro, Greetings and Hi, Mom!

Note: I've enjoyed all the films listed, just to varying degrees.

15. The Black Dahlia: This one comes in last mostly because it was massively disappointing. There are great things in the flick, but unfortunately it was cut down from De Palma's original director's cut by nearly an hour. Leaving us with a movie with way too many plot threads. Still, there's some great stuff on display here, I just wish I could get that director's cut.

14. Phantom of the Paradise: The Black Dahlia was the only film on this list I had any complaints about. Phantom is a great little rock musical, only this far back cause I like his other flicks more.

13. Snake Eyes: It's kind of weak in some of it's execution, but this flick has some of De Palma's most breathtaking shots and displays of visual excellence. Also, 14 minute tracking shot.

12. Obsession: Closest thing we'll ever get to a new Hitchcock flick.

11. Sisters: Maybe it's the low budget vibe, but this flick is creepy as hell. Also amazing use of split screen.

10. Carlito's Way: A somber, quieter gangster flick. And that end sequence in the train station? Probably one of the greatest things De Palma has ever done.

9. Mission: Impossible: No, I do not know what the story is. Some sort of spy stuff with betrayals and shit, but it is fucking entertaining.

8. The Untouchables: Great upbeat, exciting, popcorn crime flick. Makes you feel good don't it?

7. Raising Cain: The movies pretty much disliked, but I think it's a great little piece of De Palma fun. I guess it's like Diet De Palma, but Lithgow in this is wonderful.

6. Femme Fatale: Won't say anything other than it's definitely worth your time.

5. Body Double: I think this would be De Palma at his visual storytelling best. And shows that just cause you're dealing with trashy material doesn't mean it can't be great. Not everything needs to be Raging Bull

4. Scarface: I stupidly resented the film for a long time because 1) Everyone loved it and 2) It was nothing like either The Godfather or Goodfellas. I was stupid, how dare a film be it's own thing, and loved by many people.

3. Blow Out: Honestly, it may be his best film. It's certainly De Palma and everyone else at the height of their powers. I will saying nothing else so you can discover it for yourself.

2. Dressed to Kill: Soooo close to being my favorite De Palma flick. It actually might be, but at the moment it's number 2. As it stands this is still the only De Palma movie I've gotten to see in theaters, and I gotta tell you, it's just about the best slasher flick I've ever seen.

1. Carrie: Everyone has their own ideas of whats scary. I honestly think it's fucking stupid to be truly afraid of monsters and vampires. You show me a creepy as fuck mother with hair and a face like a porcelain doll walking towards you with a knife as her head bobs around like it's about to fall off? Add to that the fact that she's an insane religious person whose own fear of sexuality has led to the complete torment and destruction of her own child? Yeah, I find that fucking scary. And the flicks pretty damn great too.

But the Man on the Television Said it Sucks!

Since I had last weekend off, I had planned to catch up on my summer movies. Instead I just dicked around the internet and went to a family gathering. I did make it out to see at least one flick though, unfortunately I already wrote about Super 8, can't do that again. I did still want to get something else up this week, keep the habit going and what not, so this is the result. Sure it's been said so many times that if it were food it would actually make the big lump at work full, but I'm saying it anyway.

So I'm looking at the reviews for Green Lantern, and yeah, it's looking pretty shit. I wouldn't say I was eagerly awaiting the flick (I think the only movies I'm eagerly awaiting this year are Scorsese's Hugo Cabret, Spielberg's Tintin and Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), but it was something I was looking forward to. As I've said many times in the past, I'm a very director oriented movie buff, and GL is directed by Martin Campbell. I know Campbell is far from a great director. He's definitely made several piles of turd, among them The Legend of Zorro (Disappointing seeing as Mask was great) and Edge of Darkness (So we get him walking in heaven but no scene of Mel Gibson licking his daughter's vibrator? WTF?), but he also made some flicks I really dig, most notably Casino Royale, which to me, is the epitome of the modern American action flick. For this reason alone, I will always keep him in the list of director's films I'll watch, pretty much no matter what.

So yeah, Green Lantern is getting some rancid reviews, but I'm still gonna watch it. And that's the attitude I'll take with any film I want to see. I honestly could not care less if a film I'm looking forward to gets ecstatic reviews, or just pure hatred. Yeah, it's nice if a film I dig is loved by many other people, but at the end of the day, it's my opinion. I can't speak for anyone else, I don't know how anyone else thinks, or how they would act, or how they feel about a movie. All I know with absolute certainty is what I think. I know that The King's Speech got good reviews, but I don't like it. I also know that Flash Gordon is generally disliked, but that I dig it.

Maybe I will hate GL, just as I've hated many movies I've seen in theaters. But after all the effort we put into getting excited for a movie, even if that's just saying, "I wanna see that flick," after watching a trailer or reading a synopsis, isn't it kind of a damn shame to not create your own opinion?

Super 8

Something that has always bothered me about when people write about a product or whatever is all the good things will be pointed out first, but then the final paragraphs of the review will be spent talking about all the things they didn't like. They even end their final sentence with something along the lines of, "Blahblah is a great product, however it does have several noticeable problems, if you can look past them then you should consider purchasing one." You know what impression this leaves me with?

This Product Sucks Monkey Balls.

And then of course you look at the score, at it's something like, 8.5 out of 10 or some other totally decent rating. It doesn't matter though, cause now all you really remember is that the reviewer had problems with it. So in an attempt to break that feeling, here's what I disliked about J.J. Abrams' Super 8 up front:

Just a bit too much time spent going to the military when what we want is to see the evolution of the children. That's who we care about.

Things got a bit too silly with the various shots of tanks rolling over and crazy action that seemed to be there for the sake of having something blow up.

The relationship of the main character and his father seemed to wrap up really quickly and in a manner that really didn't involve growth from either people.

Okay, that's out of the way, now on to the rest.

J.J. Abrams' had always made it clear that he wanted to make his sort of tribute film to 80's Spielberg. Interestingly, it's the second one that came out this year, the other one being Greg Mottola's Paul. Of course Paul was a wild comedy that paid homage in various ways to Spielberg and Science Fiction films, like Shaun was to zombies and Hot Fuzz to buddy cop pics. What Super 8 went for was to create an authentic Spielberg movie, think Planet Terror versus Death Proof.

In my opinion, he succeeded. He brought us back into the small town, the creative and interesting children, the heartache that lies in the characters, basically a beautiful portrait of small town Americana that can easily be it's own film, and then adds the supernatural element.

I have to say, I loved every second the young actors were on screen, it must be difficult to find, for lack of a better word, good young actors, Abram's has found at least six. In particular, I have to give credit to Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning who, in their performances gave us something to care about. It created a central focal point for the drama and story to unfold, just as Spielberg's best movies did.

The flick of course, also brought with it, a big budget and special effects not possible when Spielberg made movies like E.T. and Close Encounters. Abrams stages the action well and holds back on the shaky cam stuff he did in Star Trek. The monster is appropriately creepy, threatening, and kinda lovable. And the film has a few truly great jump scare moments.

This is not my favorite movie of the Summer(well, because the Summer isn't over yet so how would I know?) But if I had a kid and could only take him/her to one movie this summer, it would be Super 8... and it's great for everyone else too.

P.S. LENS FLARE!!!!!

What Makes One an Intense Mother F**king Film Geek?

This is, first of all, not really an answer to the above question. Really, it was just one of the many ridiculous thoughts that stampede through my head every day. Secondly, this bit was really just done for fun, there's no insight or anything contained below. I just wanted to post something today to get back into the habit.

The idea of those "Would you rather..." or other wacky hyphothetical questions is in many ways, pretty fucking stupid. At it's best it's filler talk for people who have nothing left to say as they wait in line to get the guy who sculpted Batman's nipple's autograph. And yet, you have to admit that under the right circumstances it can be entertaining as hell, okay so alcohol is usually involved, as well as situations that get more homoerotic by the second despite the fact that both guys would rather have their testicles pulled off than see a gay couple walking down the street. Fine.

Where was I going with this? Right, so anyway this morning, as I was getting ready for work, hopelessly dreaming about a world without warehouses and early hours, I had one of those hypothetical questions pop into my head.

If you had the opportunity to fuck any girl on the planet three times, at the cost of never being able to watch another film by [insert favorite director, genre, franchise, whatever], would you do it?

Now I'm a very director based movie geek. I'm very loyal to directors I dig, perhaps stupidly so, so I would take it in that direction. So to be fair, I'll choose a director I love who still has a lot of, ahem, life in him. So no De Palma, Scorsese, whatever. Why? Well it's not very fair if you choose a director that's already had a long illustrious career and whose best years are probably behind him. So for me, I'd choose someone like, P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, Wong Kar-Wai, Edgar Wright or something.

So would I do it? Well, ridiculous as it may seem to regular people, no. In fact, HELL NO! The cost of never being able to see Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, or the final film in the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy, or anything by P.T. Anderson ever is simply wayyyyyyy too much of a price. I don't care who or what you throw in front of me, movies shall always be my mistress.

Not in any way a big post, but damn I have to say I am excited as hell for David Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The man really is one of the greatest talents to have come out of the 90's and can direct the hell out of a "Mean Film," and it's been a long time since he's made a "Mean in your Mother Fucking Face Film."

Love the hell out of that poster, as well as the trailer. I prefer the Red Band International one as opposed to the one here in the States but both offer the same vibe.