Tag: movie

Categories
Recommended

Thoughts on Southland Tales

It’s been about five hours since I left the screening for Southland Tales.

Southland Tales is the much maligned second film from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. It (somewhat famously) was ripped to shreds by critics at Cannes 2006 – Roger Ebert described it as “the most disastrous Cannes press screening since, yes, ‘The Brown Bunny'”. Forced back into the editing room, ST has been cut down slightly, and put into limited release this month to the sound of even more critical shredding. It’s currently holding a polarized 33% on RottenTomatoes.

I cannot begin to describe the plot. The best approximation would be to read the film’s keywords listing from IMDB, which I will reproduce here:

alternative timeline, anti conformity, apocalypse, apocalyptic, big corporation, blackmail, conspiracy, doppelganger, dream like, dystopic future, ensemble, fourth of july, friendly fire, future noir, government corruption, heat wave, ice cream truck, kidnapping, marxism, metaphysics, near future, nuclear weapons, political, porn star, riot, satire, split personality, surveillance, time travel, zeppelin

My initial impression, upon the credits rolling, was that it is the most gloriously incomprehensible movie to come from someone not named David Lynch I have ever seen. And I’d like to stick by that, if you don’t mind – it feels like a Lynch film, certainly more parts Mulholland Drive than parts Eraserhead.

I’ve certainly found RottenTomatoes to be wrong before, but I’ll be honest: there exists a significant chance that you could hate this movie. It is, as many reviewers on both sides of the fence pointed out, a mess. There exists a significant chance you’ll dislike it. It’s not mainstream, and possibly not even acceptable enough for the “underground”.

But, to remain honest, I did love it. Even amongst the mess, I found reasons to laugh, to be afraid, to cringe, and to smile. Within the busy backgrounds and near sensory overload lay extra jokes, bits of story lines, and small details for those paying attention. It is a movie that, in some small way, rewards NADD.

To tweak a line from the Boston Globe, it is a messy movie for our messy times. And for that, I recommend Southland Tales.

Categories
Enjoyed Recommended

The King Of Kong

Few associate them with kill screens, an arcade in New Hampshire, and an electronic ape. (Call it the Moore/Gore effect.)

I had the chance on Friday to see *[The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters](http://billyvssteve.com/)*. The story documents the history, the hysteria, and the unintentional hilarity surrounding [Twin Galaxies’ Donkey Kong record](http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=22&pi=2&gi=3852&vi=22) and the two main players involved, Billy Mitchell and Steve Weibe.

It does hit a little close to home – and not just because of VJA and PNN. There’s a bit near the beginning with a [Funspot](http://www.funspotnh.com/) employee proudly declaring his vices:

> “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs – I play video games. Which I think is a far superior addiction to any of those other ones!”

As soon as he finished, I knew the words that were to immediately escape Katie’s lips: “THAT IS SO YOU.” Guilty as charged.

The film is currently open in four cities, and [is rapidly widening](http://billyvssteve.com/tickets/). If you have the chance to see it, please do. It’s hard to not enjoy.

Categories
Disliked Puzzled Over

Are You McLovin?

Today, I was talking to [Matty](http://www.capndesign.com/) about [Superbad](http://www.areyousuperbad.com/). So sure, the original trailer is great, but the “red band trailer” (distinguished by the red MPAA screen) is fantastic, possibly even the stuff of legend.

But [the YouTube link](http://youtube.com/watch?v=FPc28FASaEE) I had posted before has been pulled. Now, seemingly, the only way to get at it was through the official site’s [age verification section](http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/superbad/site/agegate/index.html).

An abridged list of things we’ve learned on the Internet in the last ten years:

* CAPTCHAs don’t work.
* Cats are simultaneously hilarious and adorable.
* Anti-spam methods don’t work.
* Talking like an idiot never goes out of style.
* Age verification methods don’t work.

I’d like to focus on the last one, obviously.

The form to verify your age looks something like this:

The fine print on the same page reads:

>I understand that I am allowed to enter the Restricted Area only if I am 18 years or older and have a valid driver’s license. To verify my age, I hereby authorize Verification Financial Assurance Corporation (“VeriFAC”) to confirm the accuracy of the information I have provided against government-issued records. I acknowledge that the information I am providing on this page will not be collected by Sony and that it will only be accessed and used by VeriFAC to verify my age and for no other purposes.

So you have to have a driver’s license and be 18 or older. It would be easy to question the wisdom of forcing people to have a license to operate a motor vehicle to view an awesome movie trailer, but let’s not argue with that decision. It’s not like kids could just use their parents details – no kid under 18 knows their parents first *and* last names, let alone their birth day and their zip code. That’s some strong four-factor authentication.

Anyhow, the truly amusing part for me is that so much of the original trailer revolves around one character (Fogell, played by the incredibly named Christopher Mintz-Plasse) getting a fake ID with the name “McLovin” on it.

In what may be the greatest wasted opportunity in movie web site hisotry, the form does not successfully validate if you use a last name of “McLovin”, with a birth date of 06/03/1981 and a zip code of 96820. You get an error complaining that you didn’t fill out the first name field. Jesus, people, don’t you get it? He doesn’t even *have* a first name. HE **IS** McLOVIN.

I guess all you kids under 18 are out of luck if you want to watch [the red band trailer](http://flash.sonypictures.com/video/movies/superbad/site/SB_redband.flv), and you’ll have to wait till you’re older to see the DVD of what may be the greatest summer movie of all time. Sucks to be you, kids.

Sucks to be you.