Weekend Movies!

In honor of George Lucas bringing back the same product for the 20th time around but just making a few tweaks I think it’s only right we discuss the movies coming out this weekend. Truthfully I would talk movies anyway but this was a good segway, and before we jump into anything else we need to discuss The Phantom Menace, which is coming out 13 years later after it’s original release.

Lets take a few steps back here because something has happened to me, as I’ve grown older…

I once was an avid Star Wars defender. Truth is I saw Star Wars late in life (my teens) but once I got it, I was in. I went with my friend Jon to the midnight showing of Phantom Menace in Wisconsin and tried to find the good in it – even Jar Jar Binks. I saw Episode 2 and defended CGI Yoda and also the casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. I then went and waited in line for Episode 3 and found myself loving it the 3 times I saw it in the theater.

I was one of the guys, who overly defended Lucas for anything he was doing “wrong” like when he replaced the original Anakin in Jedi, added new scenes to the original trilogy, changed Jar Jar’s voice, and planned to re-release in 3-D (to name a few). I was on board with his excuse that what he was currently releasing was how he envisioned it all along but technology hadn’t caught up yet.

Then… Something hit me. I realized I’m under the force of Lucas and I’ve been defending things I don’t believe in. It makes no sense as to why I’d defend George Lucas. I like Star Wars for what it was and what it did. I came to terms with the fact that Lucas has been adding to something that shouldn’t change. One argument, which is totally valid, is that it’s his product and he can do what he wants. But the other argument is, which is totally valid, is that he’s fucking insecure with what he made so he keeps changing it, and can’t make anything new (and good).

Changing things to 3-D is one thing, but updating a classic is another. I’m not sure Lucas understands that people don’t want new added into the original Star Wars. It took me long enough to learn the name of the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine, I don’t want to be hit with more fictitious names. If you really think about what he’s doing it’s pretty unbelievable… he’s blatantly altering it!

Worst part is… I’m going to see it again! I’m angry with myself and I’m angry I’m under the force of George Lucas and his Santa beard. I digress…

The Phantom Menace is back. It’s currently tracking to make 33 million this weekend. That’s pretty big. I wonder why Lucas didn’t start with the originals. Lucas said he’s releasing new 3-D Star Wars every 2 years. At the current rate we’re not going to get to Jedi until 2022. This just in George Lucas: in 2022 we’re going to have holograms and technology better than 3-D. But you already know that. What are you going to do to Star Wars!?

Other Movies:

I should note that this is Valentines Day weekend and the follow movies are the perfect consumer slate before the “Holiday.”

The Vow: Dear John meets The Notebook. Channing Tatum meets Rachel McAdams. What could go wrong? Nothing. Here are all possible scenarios of why you’d see this movie:

You’re a single female and you love Channing Tatum.

You’re in a relationship and you love Channing Tatum.

You’re in a relationship and you’re desperate to have sex with your girlfriend.

You’re in a relationship and the female runs the show.

You’re in high school.

You read the book.

That pretty much covers it, right?

Safe House: Denzel and Ryan Reynolds. It’s amazing how I currently feel about Denzel, he’s still the man but isn’t the draw he once was. It seems like his sweet spot is to play the Training Day/Man On Fire Guy. It’s the “Don’t fuck with me” Denzel. All in all, this movie is intriguing and in a sense is the anti-Vow. Is it the anti-Vow? I feel like this movie is perfect because women love Denzel and Ryan Reynolds.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island: I love The Rock. I really do. I wish this foray in kids movies worked out for him but they just haven’t hit.  This is the film you take your kids too when you can’t take them to The Vow or Safe House and Phantom Menace is sold out.

Movies that aren’t geared toward Valentines Day and people won’t see… but maybe should:

Rampart: Don’t know much about this movie but I hear it’s a thriller and Woody Harrelson is great in it. I’ll probably see this at some point… maybe even in the theater.

In Darkness: Another movie I don’t know much about, but it sounds somewhat interesting… maybe a bit slow. The Plot: IN DARKNESS tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lvov (former Poland).

The reviews aren’t too bad and I heard the director, Agniezka Holland, is very good.

I want to give a quick “not yet a movie but almost there” shout out to two trailers that were released this week:

The Amazing Spider Man

And

The Bourne Legacy

If you haven’t checked them out I suggest you do. They’re both reboots in their own right but they both look great.

Whatever you see this weekend (if anything) just know that I may be struggling through Phantom Menace at one point or another. Fucking, George Lucas.

 

 

Star Wars Porn.

Oh no... I guess something like this was inevitable, right? This couldn’t have been the first time porn, which parodies Star Wars was created, right? Apparently it’s the first time that monster adult film studio “Vivid” has tackled the subject, which I guess is a big deal in the porn world.

When I watched the trailer below I felt bad for Star Wars, then about 3.2 seconds later every part of me that felt bad remembered that Star Wars has sold out more than an opening weekend screening of Star Wars itself - From the Ewoks (arguably put into Jedi for merchandising purposes) to the re releasing of the films, with altered scenes and characters.

George Lucas is the master of making money off of his idea so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was behind the making of Star Wars porn… seriously. My only hope is that kids don’t see the XXX version before they see the original trilogy.

A few thoughts on the trailer below:

I should mention that this trailer has no explicit images in it… just a good ol’ fashion teaser.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X56oTgum_VQ&w=560&h=315]

 

- This porn may be the first porn in the history of porn that is actually watched from beginning to end. The Star Wars XXX movie may actually be interesting enough to the fan base to find out how it ends. Somewhere Dirk Diggler and Jack Horner are proud.

- The special effects in this trailer are actually better than the original Star Wars effects.

- Kudos for going CGI with C3PO and R2D2.

- Bonus points for the 2 best porn names in these credits: Dick Chibbles as Chewbacca and Lexington Steele as Darth Vader. Doesn’t it kind of seem like Chibbles and Steele are already Star Wars character names?

- Whose gonna play Yoda in the sequel!?

- Looks like they really nailed the Cantina scene.

- True or False: Somewhere Carrie Fisher is jealous she didn’t have a cameo in this film.

A movie train-of-thought: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

It’s 11:30pm and I just watched Jonah Hill’s new trailer “The Sitter.”

Wow, they really put a twist on Adventures in Babysitting. This trailer seemed like Seth from Superbad was grown up and now babysitting kids, but the marketing team behind that movie knows as well as I do that I’ll see it. Oh wow David Gordon Green directed it? Hmmm, I saw Your Highness and it was terrible, interesting because any stoner role is built for James Franco, well, that and any James Dean role.

I think about what I would have done differently with Your Highness for about 8 minutes. Then-

Oh! James Franco. Hmm let me check out his IMDB page-

Checking…

Ah yes, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

I just told my girlfriend that I wanted to see this and she was a bit skeptical. We read the reviews of the film and it’s currently around 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Wow, not so skeptical anymore. I go to arclight cinemas and purchase tickets that are 15 dollars each.

Holy shit! I really just paid 15 dollars for a movie ticket.

Not sure why this surprises me considering I’ve been going to the arclight for years now, I do anything I can to justify the ticket price.

Well I did just get arclight points, which means I’ll probably get free popcorn or something…right? Fuck it, the arclight is awesome. Lets not forget I’m seeing this movie in the Dome, what really compares to the Dome? Nothing. This is a capper to this summer, even though I thought Cowboys and Aliens was the capper, but this may be it… oh and 30 Minutes Or Less which is coming out next week, which may be the capper.

CLICK. I’m back on IMDB looking at random things about the Apes – The director, writer, and producer…

God, I hope these monkeys look real; you can be out of it in 2 minutes if the monkeys are on par to Ed starring Matt LeBlanc.

I laugh to myself.

Ed, that crazy movie about the baseball player monkey, what a interesting costume that monkey had, was there a midget inside that monkey costume? Who comes up with this?

For my own pleasure I was sure Ed had to be based off a comic book, because who would greenlight that movie? I typed in Ed and see that it isn’t based off of anything. I have to think that there was a moment in time when a conversation with Matt LeBlanc and Matt LeBlanc’s agent went a little something like this:

Matt: I want to get involved in movies, Friends is on of the biggest hits on NBC right now. Schwimmer is doing The Pallbearer with Gwyneth Paltrow, Perry is doing Fools Rush In with Selma Hayek… I want in.

Agent: You read my mind! But listen, they’re doing RomCom’s with leading ladies, what if I told you, fuck the leading lady, all I want to see is a leading man.

Matt: But, I’m not really a star, don’t I need a leading lady?

Agent: Monkeys.

Matt: Excuse me?

Agent: A fucking monkey. That’s your leading lady.

Matt: I like where this is going.

Agent: The same writer as Radio Flyer and The Sandlot just wrote a comedy about a baseball player named Jack ‘Deuce’ Cooper who gets stuck with a monkey and it’s actually a good pitcher, and through some problems, he makes you a better pitcher… And person!

Matt: You had me at Deuce.

6.2 million dollars later, Ed wasn’t a massive success.

Ed opened the can of worms into my monkey movie knowledge.

Can I think of monkey movies? Okay they don’t have to have the monkey in a starring role but it would at least feature a monkey. And here we go…

Ed: Tribianni as a ball player. See above.

Outbreak: Damn you little monkey that caused an airborne attack.

I’m convinced this monkey is the most successful primate in cinema history, seriously. There was a stretch when this little guy would pop up in anything that needed some really intelligent circus act or a quick laugh.

This movie by the way was pretty interesting and started the topic of conversation of “what if” – it’s basically a worse case scenario that nobody wants to deal with. Also, it’s interesting that this featured a solid cast – Hoffman, Freeman, Russo, Spacey, Gooding Jr., Sutherland, McSteamy I mean McDreamy I mean Patrick Dempsy.

Congo: RIP Michael Crichton. Like all books turned movie, the book was better, but that’s not saying much. I actually didn’t like either, and I really love MC.

This movie was essentially about a tribe of super monkeys living in… yes…. The Congo. A team heads out on an expedition to find another team and all hell breaks loose, monkeys go crazy and start killing humans, but in all fairness the humans intruded on their land.

12 Monkeys: Does this count? In all seriousness I don’t think so, but it’s a really cool movie.

In my opinion, this is one of Brad Pitt’s finer moments. He received an Academy Award nomination but truth be told it’s because he was snubbed by not getting a leading man nod for Se7en.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls: Bumblebeetuna. Remember the plot to this? No, not many do. But there were silverback gorillas and Ace had his trusty little monkey with him, which was the “Outbreak” monkey.

Not even monkeys could save Jim Carrey’s overacting in this movie. In hindsight I’m really disappointed with this movie. I loved it at the time because Jim Carrey was a driving force for me to want to enter the entertainment industry, he made movies fun but… shit… you know what. I won’t do it. I won’t bash this movie. All I’ll say is that part 1 was better (and a classic).

Aladdin: Sure, it’s cartoon, but Apu was in it! Aladdin’s right hand man and comic relief, one might argue he made this movie. All I really remember from Apu is his little hat and his momentary jealousy of the magic carpet. This is the point and perfect use of monkeys in movies.

Monkey Trouble: I was a kid in the early 90’s and I wanted a monkey. Part of the reason was this Thora Burch movie and the trouble she got into with her pick pocketing monkey.

This plays into the Aladdin angle. Comic relief, had a funny hat, and was your friend. The catch with Monkey Trouble was that this monkey was a klepto and kept stealing from everyone, but just when Burch thinks it’s stole too much, the monkey redeems itself at the end.

I just looked at IMDB – how is this 12,186 on the IMDB meter?

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull: Otherwise known as “The Indy movie made 20 years too late and should have never been made.”

You may not remember the monkeys in this movie but I do, and it’s one of the few times I actually hated them. In the final climactic 3rd act Indys son (which he didn’t know) Shia LaBeouf is caught in a bit of a pickle. He’s lost in the jungle without any escape plan.

Enter the monkeys and a very very bad case of CGI.

Little monkeys lead Shia out of the jungle to freedom assisting him by swinging on trees through the top of the jungle and right into freedom. Lets take a moment and think about the conversation between the writer, George Lucas, and director, Steven Spielberg, on just how they wanted this whole thing to play out:

Steve: George, I noticed that you had this scene with Shia swinging with monkeys in the jungle.

George: Who?

Steve: Huh?

George: What?

Steve: Shia, in the jungle. Do you really think he could swing out of the jungle like that?

George: Would Ewoks save him?

Steve: Lets have him swing out with monkeys.

I may have preferred the Ewoks.

King Kong: Too Easy. Big ol’ monkey. This reboot was 3 hours total and I vaguely remember Jack Black.

Mighty Joe Young: See King Kong. Minus Jack Black.

The Ape: The what? The Ape. Let me copy and paste a brief plot summary below:

Human resources drone and put-upon family man Harry imagines he could be the next Dostoyevsky if he could just get a little peace and quiet. When he moves into his own apartment to craft his masterpiece, his solitude is broken by an unexpected roommate-a foul-mouthed, Hawaiian shirt-wearing gorilla, eager to share his opinions on life, love, and animal magnetism.

Bullshit, right? Wrong. The above plot was a movie written, directed, and starring James Franco. I’m not sure what he was thinking when he made this movie but I give him credit for trying to make it. Maybe he knew that tossing a monkey in a movie would be a sure thing? But to Franco’s credit he does a lot in his career that people question and he just goes with the flow.

Although I haven’t seen The Ape, I hope Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is better.

I stop thinking about monkey movies for a bit because my brain is a fried and I’m not sure how many more monkey movies I can tackle.

However, I don’t think Apes is a monkey movie, it seems like an origin story, and I love origin stories. How could a movie about Monkey’s taking over a planet go wrong? It just seems so right. I think the bigger question is why do I keep calling Gorillas, Apes, and Chimpanzees – monkeys? I’m that guy whose just bunching primates together. I should know more about the monkey species. Wait, my thought is getting off topic, I need to reserve my seats for the movie.

If this movie is good I may rent Ed and The Ape and watch them back-to-back.