RiffTrax is doing Twilight.

From the preview:

RiffTrax was caught up in the Twilight frenzy, and not surprisingly, given that we are staffed almost exclusively by 13 year-old girls. So when we heard rumors of the feature film—the whispers of John Goodman being cast as Edward were especially worrying—we sent so many texts beginning "OMG!!!1!!!!11!!" we nearly shut down our SMS service. At the movie's premiere we were there among the throngs, shrieking with girlish glee when Robert Pattinson got out of his limo (it turns out we had mistakenly gone to the premiere of The Changeling and were actually shrieking for John Malkovich, but the point still stands.) And when it was finally released on DVD we ruined our first three copies by hugging them too much.

This is not allaying my fears that the RiffTrax is going to be "HAW-HAW! Teen girls are so stupid" now. Especially since the RiffTrax is going to be all-guys. I also hated the "'I don't have ...' 'a wang.'" joke. Other bits were funny, but ehhhh ... I hope it doesn't turn into something like this. (And I feel like I'm the only person who hated the latter, as well.)

A few days ago, I saw Pineapple Express, which was a LOT of fun. Okay, the "dating a high schooler" subplot made me cringe. (In every scene with her and Seth Rogen I was praying for them to break up.) So much had me hysterical, though. That CAR CHASE. Who knew Harry Osborn could be so funny? He was so great. Mark was right to watch it with me and Dad, too. My Dad's observation when they got lost in the woods actually made me laugh as hard as many parts of the movie.

"These guys are so stupid, but they're stupid enough that it kind of works out for them. It's like my grandmother used to say: God protects fools and drunks."

(Unless they're Anna Faris in Observe and Report. Ha ha haaaaa ... yeah, that's not funny.)

Oh! Then tonight I saw Adventureland. That ... was not the movie I expected. The trailer made it seem like goofy hijinx in a park all the time. It's actually a romantic dramedy with occasional goofy hijinx. It was ... pretty good. All romantic drama and secrets and stuff. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it. (I wish some things had also been followed through on. Like Joel's story and the story of James' parents -- I think they're kind of lying about the dad's job loss.) Also, the movie was really amusing when I thought of Kristen Stewart's Emily as the dark!, alternate universe twin of Bella Swan. Emily has a bad family life and a new stepparent she doesn't like! Emily dates two guys -- one of them much older than her and the other one a virgin. It's like Bella except Emily drinks and smokes weed and has sex and shit. And she's kind of more likable.

X what you saw
- O what you haven't finished/saw sizable portions
- Bold what you loved
- Strike for what you disliked
- Leave unchanged if neutral
( Read more... )

ETA: I missed taking out some of temperance_doll's opinions. Whoops.

Okay, I suspect this review may have the worst fucking timing ever considering what I just unleashed upon the Watchmen fandom but ... you know what, I'm going to go with it.

Tonight was the first time I ever saw this or indeed, any Judd Apatow movie. Why did I wait so long? Well, when the first stream of movies came out I was in a real anti-movie funk, and that sort of continued over a long period of time. I feel kind of like I'm the last person in the universe to see Knocked Up. When these movies first came out I had the sense I may like them, but as the reports about the movies' sexism came in, my enthusiasm kind of dampened. One of the big buzzkillers were the members of the feminist blogosphere that called Superbad pro-rape because of a subplot where one of the guys tries to get a girl drunk to have sex with her. (See examples here and here.)

Normally this would put me off straight out, and while I do believe those who actually take the "Don't like it, don't read it" option should have their wishes respected when they say "I don't think I'll like this because of X" and not be snottily told they can't have an opinion until they see it, part of me really did want to form my own opinion on this one. Especially since reasons to see it started cropping up again: Seth Rogan's performance in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the really funny Pineapple Express skit and my brother. Okay, mostly it's all my brother, who has started talking about how he and I and my father are all going to watch Pineapple Express together like it would be the holy grail of family-bonding experiences.

So the other day, Mark found Superbad on TV and TiVo'd it, saying we would watch it together. When I told him about the "pro-rape" argument, he was initially irate, and said that was ridiculous, the movie refutes it. I felt a little assured. Then a little while Mark came back and said, "Actually, I could see where it would bother people" and I felt less assured. But I soldiered on.

( Spoilers for a movie I'm sure you've already seen. )

I'm in New Jersey with my family. I saw Friday the 13th because I wanted to hang out with my brother, and felt a little depressed because (well, my brother and I were talking about my love life anyway, which depresses me) but I just watched that movie and was like, "Wow, I could write something about a billion times better and with more care and it will NEVER be as popular as this piece of shit." Not that I expect quality from a Jason film, but sheesh ...

I want to do something productive. Or read something good, but I was an idiot and all my unread books are back in Delaware. Well, except Bloody Bones, but I'm not in the mood for Anita Blake right now.

I could start the second part of my fanfic, but my brother made me feel a little guilty about not working on original stuff. I don't know WHY, as after the movie he was telling me that it would be super awesome if the next installment of the Friday series was Hunting Jason Voorhees. (I also posited a scenario where a bunch of corrupt businessmen go to Camp Crystal Lake to try to turn it into a resort and get killed while they're banging their secretaries. It could be a satire about the real meaning of the series. I don't think he was as fond of it, though.)

So, um ... yeah, blah.

Oh, and brother alerted me to the TV talking about Charles Dickens' ghost. I don't know. The Dickens house didn't feel haunted. He may be in the Rochester graveyard, though. I can see that.

Finished Shock Treatment. It was incoherent. Which wouldn't necessarily be a killer, considering that when you really think about it the plot of Rocky Horror doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But this took out 98% of the sexual stuff and 75% of the fun of its predecessor, leaving a pretty bland cheese. The cheese becomes even more tasteless when you consider Farley Flavors is also the most boring villain ever.

Weirdly enough though, Cliff de Young made a great Brad Majors. Jessica Harper ... eh ... I warmed up to her in the end but it was really hard to process her as Janet Weiss-Majors. Actually, this is the second time I've had trouble with a non-Susan Sarandon Janet, which is weird, because you wouldn't think that role would NEED a certain actor. But I've had an easier time with the non-Curry Frank N Furter I saw at the stage show than I did with their version of Janet. I guess I'm just really attached to Susan Sarandon's "ingenue but funny" interpretation. The girl at the stage show played her as a prissy bitch and I ended up hating her. Jessica Harper isn't a bad actress, but ... she's not Janet. No part of her performance "feels" like Janet to me. And ... this is so weird but ... it was so hard to process her as Janet too because her voice is DEEP. And Susan Sarandon's is ... not. MY BRAIN WON'T COMPUTE.

I really liked Richard O'Brien's character in this film. And Little Nell. Especially because she spends her few lines in the film talking funny and wearing no pants. Okay, so she did that in Rocky Horror but ... I DON'T KNOW. I really dig it this time around.

Actually, hell. I'll just post every worthwhile part of the movie below the cut. Do NOT take this as an indicator of the quality of the whole movie. Just enjoy these and pretend nothing else exists.

( Read more... )

Apparently Dave Willis does the same thing with his toys. Heeeee.

Oh, and y'all remember when I went crazy and decided to do a five-part review of "An American Carol". Well, a little while ago, Noel Murray from the Onion AV Club subjected herself to the commentary.

What's the most fascinating to me is that they had a liberal writer.

Friedman, whom Farley describes as "to the left of Castro," apparently signed onto this project because he likes to get paid to riff, and he can't stand Michael Moore. Referring to the public response to the movie, Friedman quips, "I said to my mom, 'I guess I'm the black sheep of the family now.' And she said, 'No, you do a lot of good things too."

One of the more offensive scenes in the movie is the slavery scene, IMO, because it implies that the bad part about slavery is that it's embarrassing to white people and not that it's THE CRUEL SUBJUGATION OF OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. This is not surprising.

And they thank David Alan Grier, whose presence they believe gave them "cover" in the plantation scene. Friedman: "Even Sinbad turned us down." Zucker: "And Frank Caliendo. Again." Friedman: "We were going to put him in blackface."

Shit, you guys. [facepalm!]

Anyway, read the whole thing. It's something.

[Mom decides to call me while watching Spider-Man 3, which she has not seen]

Mom: Blah blah blah ...

Me: Blah blah blah ...

Mom: [scream]

Me: What? What happened?

Mom: Where did the beam come from?

Me: The what?

Mom: Oh my God! What's happening?

Me: Oh, the movie ... Oh! You're talking about the crane!

Mom: Oh ... so the villain is The Crane?

Me: What? Mom, no. There's no villain named the crane. It's just a malfunction.

Mom: All these people are in trouble! It's like 9/11 or something ...

Me: Errr ...

Mom: Oh, this blonde ... she's toast. And then there's this guy just taking pictures! [sarcastic] That's very sensitive. Oh ... that's Topher Grace. So he's the bad guy, right?

Me: Yeah ...

(I should really visit her more often.)

But I think I need to see more Woody Allen films ...

This has been my life for the past two years. Except the actual attempts to kill myself part:

Hi again. I just wanted to tell you guys I'm glad some of you read and enjoyed my review. It was an interesting experiment to write for long hours when not at work. Difficult, but interesting. And I'd like to keep it up, if possible. (First NaNoWriMo, then I have an idea for starting a review series on this blog. Tentative title: "Is it Sexist?")

But anyhow, I wanted to share a few things I found during/recently related to the review.

- There is apparently a conservative commentator named Michael Malone.

- I really love Sarah Vowell's PopHistory, and hoped I was doing some PopLitCrit with what I did, albeit on a MUCH smaller scale. While wasting time writing the article I peeped out this awesome video. But I think this one is a little bit more relevant to our interests.

- I feel a little bad that while all of the Alastair Sim and George C. Scott Christmas Carols I've seen on my research, I have fond memories of A Muppet Christmas Carol. Norrie Epstein was really down on this movie in The Friendly Dickens. She called Michael Caine working with Kermit the Frog "depressing." I guess, but then again we ARE talking about the guy who passed up picking up his statue for Hannah & Her Sisters at the Oscars so he could be on the set of Jaws: The Revenge. The guy either doesn't have much pride or he loves to work no matter what.

Besides, A Muppet Christmas Carol is fascinating in that they REALLY seem to want to be as accurate to the spirit as possible. I mean, there's no Ignorance and Want and there are more jokes but ... sheesh, the songs are really "on" you know? This song actually really gets Scrooge's character. I mean, it talks about him being "mean" but it also gets that he's a bitter person because he's lonely, you know? And who would think of putting this in a comedy movie? It's like the religious/saccharine double-threat! ... But I admit I really like it and keep listening to it.

Not that it's all seriousness. Check this out.

- But I feel a little bad about inundating you with Christmas stuff on Halloween ... Eve. So have some Scary Silent Hill Nurses!