Challenge Accepted: The Room

Well I asked what Crap movies people wanted reviewed, and boy did my old buddy Shawn point out a doozy. Well, I watched it, well most of it anyway. Let's just say I was sober when I started, by the end I was not. Anyway, Let's get this over with.

The Room is a film that brings a lot of hard questions to mind. Why in God's name is this movie called The Room? How can you spend 6 million dollars and make something so awfully bad with it? Why does anyone watch this film more than once, or indeed more than .85 times? Who is that guy? Who is this guy? Why is everybody talking to them like we should know who they are? What the hell does that mean? Why did she say that? Why does Tommy Wiseau look like he has some kind of palsy? Did we really need 4 Sub-Skinimax quality Make out scenes with crappy music, rotating camera shots, and recycled footage of Tommy Wiseau dry humping some girl who could not possibly have been paid enough?

Anyway, I'm hardly the first person to make fun of this waste of 99 minutes on Earth. And staggeringly, this film has collected a kind of cult following, much like Troll 2. I'm a big believer in the concept of "So Bad it's Good", as seen in Big Trouble in Little China and Troma movies for example, but this is more along the lines of "So Bad I'd rather have medieval dental surgery than see it again."

I can't shake the feeling that this turd started out as some kind of braggadocios boast that got out of hand. "Yeah baby, I'm a director. Sure, you can be in my movie" then a few months later "oh yeah I'm still getting the funding together" and later still "We begin principal photography next week, can we make out again?" But Tommy Wiseau apparently didn't realize that he didn't actually have to make a movie. And The Room is what happened as a result.

That brings up the biggest problem with this "Film." Tommy Wiseau himself. He's the Producer! He's the Executive Producer! He's the "Director"! He's the walking void posing as an Actor! And he's the writer! And based on the way he portrays females in the script, he's the Misogynistic prick who's Mommy didn't hug him enough growing up! He's ridiculously overdubbed too. He acts like he just got his face surgically replaced and he hasn't figured out how to make it move yet. The story seems to center around proving to the audience what a great guy Tommy, er, I mean "Jonny" is and what vile lying sluts his two faced fiance and every other woman in the movie (and presumably in his head) are. He and everything he makes is awful.

The story is despicably bad. The term Plot Hole can't cover it. It is one huge Plot Hole minefield, and you never know what subplot is going where and when. I swear, there were scenes where the characters would start out talking about one subplot, then they would talk about something else, and the next sentence they would be back to the first topic, but they were discussing it as if they had never spoken of it before, let alone 30 seconds ago.

Sound wise, the idiotic overdubbing has to be mentioned. I don't know if Tommy just never learned the importance of Projecting in the Five Acting Schools he studied at, and he just never spoke up enough to be heard on film. Or maybe he was such a shitty actor and director that he didn't realize what a crap performance he was delivering until well after shooting had wrapped. Who can say, but it's awful, that much I can say. There is one laugh that I swear is used every time Tommy's character makes what is supposed to be a joke, even if his mouth isn't smiling or even moving. Combine that with Public Domain symphonies and dime store R&B for the freaky scenes, and the sound becomes a true enemy of the audience. Speaking of the Freaky scenes, whoever was in charge of putting random Tommy Wiseau grunts into these scenes over and over, thanks, I may never sleep again.

Overall, there is nothing redeeming about this. It bothers me to think that people who like bad movies might actually be making this doofus some money. The good news is, whatever I see next can't possibly be worse... I hope.

0 Capable Actors out of 10.

Old Ramblings: Van Helsing

All this talk about crappy movies reminded me of this little gem I wrote up a while ago. Check it out.

Where to begin... Well for a start I have to say that when I heard that one of my favorite actors was slated to play a Vampire Hunter (Cough, cough, ) I had high hopes. Hugh "Logan" Jackman hunting the most fearsome of nightwalkers, Vlad Teppes Dracula. Unfortunately, 3 or 4 minutes into the movie, I knew that I was in for a huge letdown. At the start of the film, Van Helsing has never even seen a vampire before, but he does have an impressive record of killing cheesy "monster movie" monsters. But I digress. The opening scene is a replay of Frankenstein (the whole "It's Alive!" bit) when suddenly Dracula shows up for some reason. Now, I was willing to accept the "Dracula funded Frankenstein experiment" spiel that followed, and the chase to the windmill and subsequent burning of said windmill was actually enjoyable. However, at the moment Frankie's monster spoke, I knew this was going to be a long two hours.
WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD: IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PLOT OF THIS MOVIE, SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH!!! That statement is pretty laughable, considering the subject. Anyway, the lame-o story revolves around Van Helsing, the only cool character in this stink fest, and servant of a secret division of the Vatican. He kills abominations for the Vatican, but the Vatican refuses to support him openly. Thus, when his victims return to their human forms, all the common people know for sure is that he killed someone. Van Helsing is also troubled by strange dreams, including fighting in battles in ancient Rome. He has no recollection of his past beyond being found by the church near death and nursed back to health a few years past. He wears an all black ensemble of wide hat, leather trench coat, and long brown hair. He fights with blades and crossbows, and almost always looks cool doing it. All in all, he is a cool character with a lot of potential and style. So, having this character fight the likes of Mister Hyde, Frankenstein's Monster, a very Bella Legosi Dracula, His white-skinned but Indian dressed wives, and hundreds of crappy CG imps feels, to me, like asking someone to tap dance on a tight rope wearing speed skates. The Good guy and bad guys clash worse than hot pink and royal blue. All of the villains are one dimensional caricatures of what the original monsters represented. The aristocrat who drains the life out of the common people to slake his own thirsts is now a family man who will stop at nothing to bring his dead children (the aforementioned Imps, don't ask me why) to life, the mindless lackey of a mad scientist is now a greedy little troll who loves maiming animals, and the werewolf just plain looks stupid. So the plot goes as follows. Dracula commissions Dr. Frankenstein to create his monster, in the hopes of using the technology to bring his vampire children to life, since the children of vampires are born dead. The creature is thought lost in the infamous windmill fire. Then, Van Helsing is ordered to kill Dracula. He goes to Transylvania and meets the daughter of some gypsy king or something like that, she's mostly in the movie to look at anyway. Her brother is bitten by a werewolf and then bites Van Helsing who receives the antidote just before the transformation is complete and right after killing Dracula in his Demon form (since he got his powers in a pact with the devil after The Left Hand of God killed him centuries ago). By the way, Van Helsing is the same LHOG who murdered Dracula. So in effect he killed him twice. Confused yet?

Well, overall, the true crime of this film is the fact that it is called Van Helsing at all. The name is famous and a vampire hunter of the Van Helsing line should be fighting VAMPIRES, not Mr. HYDE. If this movie would have been called "stupid excuse for a lot of cheesy special effects" I may not have hated it as much as I did.

But alas it is not.

One thing I forgot to mention, whoever wrote the script must have been pretty drunk when he wrote some to the "One Liners". Here is one Gem I can't seem to beat out of my skull. As she kills a vampiress, the gypsy chick says "If you're going to kill someone, Just kill them, don't just stand a round talking about it" Imagine that sentence with a really poor Romainian accent, and you should have some idea of how crappy the dialogue was.

Oh, one last thing. If you have seen Blade II, Interview with the Vampire, Vampire Hunter D, An American Werewolf in Paris, and the Crow, you have seen about 80% of this movie already. If you have seen Indiana Jones, James Bond, and The Thing, you've seen the other 20% as well. Remember the UV flash-bang from Blade II? Well Van Helsing's friar buddy makes one (this is 1785 or something remember). There is a bit where VH and the Friar are walking around in the Vatican's secret lab and talking about new inventions, which, considering the friar's accent, plays a lot like Q giving 007 a rundown of his new gadgets. Almost nothing about this film is an original Idea. The only original idea I can think of is the "vampire kids are born dead" Idea, but it is a pretty stupid one, so it hardly counts.

The flabbergasting thing is that they are already planning a sequel. My question is, what the heck is he going to fight this time, Captain Kid? (Hey Abbot!)

2/10 (the two is for the fact that I laughed myself to tears at how bad it was. It is good in the same way that Big Trouble in Little China is good.

Old Myspace Ramblings: The Priest movie was always going to suck.

This is a post I made on Myspace in November of 06. My hopes for Priest have actually decreased since then. Enjoy.

Priest on the Big Screen: Movie I've been hoping for or movie that will piss me off to no end?

Current mood:worried

It should be pretty easy to see that I love Priest, seeing as how it's the background of my Myspace page and all. I am a huge fan of the manwha (korean comics, for the uninitiated), as full of heart-wrenching personal tragedy and socio-political intrigue as it was full of zombies, Renegade Angels, buckets of blood, and action of a breed rarely seen in comics, raw and visceral. As far as Anti Hero protagonists go, few can stack up to the utter cool factor of Ivan Isaccs, a truly tortured soul who's rage and sorrow fuel the engine of his revenge without fail, more than a mere man, a juggernaut who seemingly can only be stopped by his own personal demons. Add to that the antagonists, a circle of fallen angels who seek to resurrect their leader, Temozarela, an angel who's contempt for humanity and in turn God himself drives him to rebel in a most foul way (too many spoilers in that sentence as it is, hehe). Well, maybe I should let tokyopop's website's description say the rest.

"In the frontier of the American West, a veil of evil threatens to engulf humanity. Servants of the fallen archangel Temozarela are paving the way for their dark lord's resurrection. One man stands in the way of the apocalypse: Ivan Isaacs, a fallen priest who sold his soul to the devil Belial for the power to fight evil. Armed with a wicked blade and silver bullets, Ivan will give the heretics a baptism of blood in his pilgrimage for humanity's redemption. An epic journey across hundreds of years and spanning the globe, Priest is the most ground-breaking manga to come from the new entertainment hotbed of Korea. "

Now I found out just recently that Priest is being developed into a Hollywood movie, and my first reaction was, naturally, to enter a state of joyous shock. I never thought it would happen, and when I heard it was, I lost it. It was like when I heard that Lord of the Rings was going to be a major motion picture all over again, that's how big the series is to me. So of course, I started to search around for more info and found this site:

http://www.domas-porada.co.uk/main.php?id=Movie&nav=Nav_Movie

Most of the info is promissing, untill I hit this paragraph:

Plot Line: "A vampire Western that concerns a warrior priest who disobeys church law by teaming with a young sheriff and a priestess to track down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped his niece."

This pisses me off beyond words, if it's true. Without giving away too much of the plot of the comics, this plot is almost completely wrong. It's easier to list the things that are correct, since they are few. It is a western about a former priest who is a warrior. It isn't a vampire western, has nothing to do with Ivan's niece, since she doesn't exist, the sheriff is a federal marshal and not Ivan's ally (as far as I know) and there is a priest who teams with the marshal, but he is very definitely a man. Most importantly, no fugging vampires. Zombies, fallen Angels, religious zealots, demonic possessions, Vatican hit-men, twisted mutants, crusaders, Turks, dark priests, and one ravening mad Demi-God but not one goddamn VAMPIRE!

I know Vampires are Hip right now, but really, you can't just dump a few vampires into any movie and expect it to make a good movie. Maybe that's just me tho.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, why all the outrage. Well it's simple really. I am outraged that a comic with such an enthralling story is getting the Doom treatment.

Director Man: "I want to make Doom into a movie"

PC Ass-hat studio: "okay, but the fact that your main character's are fighting demons will offend people. Can't you just toss aside everything the original story was about besides 'shooting stuff' and make a movie about that?"

Director Man: "uh, I guess so

It's asinine, and it ruins great ideas. The truth is, Priest doesn't shed a very kindly light on religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, but that's part of what makes it so interesting. It's not just mindless hack n slash action at every turn of the page, it is deep and challenging, not just "guy kills zombies cause it's cool". More like "Tormented guy kills zombies to get to their angelic masters." Much more interesting.

A Challenge of sorts.

So I've been noticing, I've only really reviewed things I overall enjoyed, some more than others, but there really hasn't been a stinker so far. With that in mind, I would like to open up the floor to anyone who may read this and ask for suggestions of movies (or whatever) I should look at that I may not like. Bear in mind, I tend to enjoy Cult movies, so things like Big Trouble in Little China may not be your best bet. Anyway, Just a thought. One such film I am already thinking of watching and subsequently verbally destroying when it comes out is Priest: The Bastardization Edition. See, I'm starting already.

Anywho, whatever, just thought I'd throw that Out there.

As an example of a movie I hate, I present the following. This trailer can't do this horrid movie justice.

Spoiler: This is the real reason I hate this movie. The 3 minute mark is where it becomes so stupid I can't believe it.

Seriously, she became an internationally renowned feminist writer simply to seduce one bubble-headed playboy? Way to set your gender back 100 years or so. The whole idea that she doesn't believe in the teachings of her own book, because she intentionally wrote it to be as full of crap as it could possibly be to attract his chauvinistic attention, makes the whole plot feel pathetically misogynistic. Gah, I could bitch about this movie all night, I better let it go, haha!