Every so often, a comedy comes along that stirs things up. It is a comedy that is so profoundly funny and witty and original that people can scarcely believe their eyes. It shatters comedic box office records (not that the records are laughable, but they are records for comedies), and forever changes the landscape of comedy as Hollywood knows it.


Tropic Thunder is not that movie. The last movie to do that was 40-Year-Old Virgin and, as far as we know, it could be that long before another movie comes along that is as likable as Steve Carell's first foray into leading man territory. (Never mind that Carell, aside from The Office, has not led any comedies to success since then, either.)

This is not to say that Tropic Thunder is not worth its weight in salt, especially in the current landscape of comedies, which, unless you count "The Happening" as a comedy, has been rather bleak. On the contrary, I enjoyed Tropic Thunder very much. It grew on me as I was sitting in the theater. Like a good meal, it started slow, then started to barrel along as the soup, salad, and finally, the main course arrived, steaming hot and full of savory flavors. By the time Jack Black was shoving fistfuls of heroin into people's faces, they could have had Matthew McConaughey show up at the end as some kind of Deus Ex Machina to save the day and I still would have bought it.

To extend the dinner metaphor, Tom Cruise shows up to sprinkle his special brand of humor over the whole shebang like a good paprika spice. I'm convinced that this is what Tom Cruise should spend the rest of his career doing; showing up as strong, interesting supporting characters instead of playing flavorless lead characters. He danced a fine line when he played Vincent in Collateral, but he's almost always been much more riveting in these supporting roles.

Anyways, to go back to the nuclear wasteland that is Hollywood comedy, I will now turn your attention to the John Cockcroft and Ernest Rutherford of this phenomenon: Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedburg. The genre of "terrible spoof" has been around for alot longer than they have. This can be evidenced as early as "Ricky I", a movie that came to my attention only recently through the Angry Video Game Nerd. I will only go so far right now as to say that "Disaster Movie"'s title all too easily lend itself its own review. Next time, I will elaborate on why these two filmmakers prove that hard work does not always equal inspired work.

If You're Good at Something, Never Do It for Free

Now that "The Dark Knight" has permeated our culture to such an extent that it is now (and has remained so for 10 days) #1 on the IMDB Top 250, there really isn't much that I can say that hasn't already been heard in one form or another. It's broken just about every record in the book, including, biggest midnight opening, biggest opening day, biggest IMAX premiere, biggest opening weekend, fastest movie to reach $200 million and $300 million, and it is posed to break the $400, $500 and $600 million dollar speed records. Yes, $600 million dollars. That is the domestic record currently held by "King of the World" Titanic. I have only found one person who does not like the movie, and I will withhold that person's name to save them potential lifelong scorn, though they probably don't care.

Oh, I thought the movie was, for lack of a better word, flawless. But enough about that.

I just got back from Comic-Con this weekend. For anyone who does not know what Comic-Con (aka "The Con", aka "GeekFest 2008", aka "Nerd-o-rama") is, it is basically the most intense pop-culture event of the year. The biggest of its kind in the United States (if not the world), the Con plays host to 120,000 people annually. Everything from comics, to anime, to TV, to action figures, to video games, to movies are represented in one form or another. People are beginning to complain that it has "strayed from what Comic-Con used to be", but so have alot of things. That doesn't mean it's gotten worse. I wouldn't know, because this is only my second year, but I like it just the way it is.

In any case, it was pretty awesome. I saw Samuel Jackson, Gerard Butler, Jeremy Piven, Jet Li, Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jamie King, Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, and Thomas Jane, just to name a few celebs. For the most part, the previews of the upcoming movies were pretty awesome. I don't know if the Quantum of Solace trailer debuted here, but this is the first place I saw it, and the action looks just as kick-ass as it was in Casino Royale. On a positive note, I didn't see any poker scenes in the trailer. A pleasant surprise was the "Drag Me to Hell" presentation. Good ol' Sam Raimi is getting back to his roots with this horror movie about a girl who gets a curse put on her because she denied someone a bank loan. Yea, that sounds like Sam Raimi to me.

Lorenzo's Brief Movie Reviews, Vol. 1

This is another first in a series. I will simply write brief reviews of movies I have either seen recently or am thinking about. They will be good movies, bad movies, whatever kind of movies I feel like reviewing. Oh, and no rating system of letters, numbers or anything else. So, without further ado, here it goes.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Dame Judi Dench plays an obsessive, raving psychotic who gives out heaping doses of guilt to young, lonely Cate Blanchetts rather than dangerous assignments to Pierce Brosnans/
Daniel Craigs. It's an incredibly depressing movie, along the lines of "Changing Lanes" (or "Oedipus Rex" for the more culturally inclined crowd) where you can see things going from bad to worse, but none of the characters involved can. Besides that, or maybe because of it, the movie is extremely good and immensely watchable from beginning to end.

IN BRUGES
Ralph Fiennes plays a deranged, raving psychotic who is involved with a depressed Colin Farrell and an existential Brendan Gleeson. Again, a bit of a downer, but this one will actually make you laugh before and between those depressing moments. If you like the hitman genre, then see this movie. It is a very good example of it and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

LABYRINTH
Wow. What can I say that hasn't already been said? If you haven't seen this 1986 Jim Henson fantasy film, then you should. Not because it's a good movie, because it's not. You need to see it because it's hilarious (both intentionally and unintentionally) and frightening all at once. You see more David Bowie than you ever wanted to in 5 lifetimes and just enough swamp belching and farting for a 90 minute period. One word of warning, though; don't watch it alone and/or while taking mushrooms.

Well, hopefully this list will expand upon the next edition, but I have to get this posted by 10:00 PM or else someone will throttle me in my sleep.

Until next time, remember, everything happens for a reason.

Zombies

Besides being a clever tie-in to the title of this blog, zombies represent a very real threat and must be addressed before they are allowed to become the dominant species on this planet.

There have been many manuscripts written on general guidelines in combating the zombie threat. This series will be about the defensibility of specific cities. I will start with cities that I know, and move on from there to a variety of cities around the world. I will start off with my hometown of Lake Oswego, OR.

DEFENSIBILITY: This area has a number of factors to take into consideration. Surrounding landscape, scale of urban development and geographic location are just a few things to take into consideration when planning a proper defense against the walking dead. Lake Oswego's most obvious feature is its man made lake. Normally, a body of water is a good defensive landmark to have, but only when it borders the populated area. This lake is not only in the center of the city, but the land around it goes up, effectively forming a bowl from which a hungry army of zombies will easily be able to pick their prey. Another unfavorable aspect of the lake is that it is connected to the Willamette river, whose banks are quite heavily populated. The likelihood of freshly risen ghouls pouring into the river's waters are more than likely. On a positive note, the lake is somewhat protected by dams and high rock faces at the entrance. In terms of the kinds of structures built in Lake Oswego, prospects are not so good. As a fairly high income city, most buildings were built for comfort and show, not necessarily with security in mind.

RESOURCES: Unfortunately, Lake Oswego will not receive a high ranking in this area, either. The town was built up around its once fertile iron deposits. This, however, is the towns only natural resource. The lake is not only man made, but it doesn't have any major inlets, only an outlet into the aforementioned Willamette river. Thus, its capabilities of providing fresh water are quite low. Of course, the town is in the Pacific Northwest, so rainfall is abundant for a good portion of the year.

OFFENSIVE CAPABILITIES: Lake Oswego has a relatively conservative population and, again, is located in the Pacific Northwest, so gun ownership will be high. The cover provided by the forested landscape lend well to a guerilla style war that could be waged against invading zombies.

LIKELIHOOD OF SURVIVAL: Being a town of only 36,000, many personal relationships will have already been established prior to any fortifications and evacuations that might occur. This bodes well for the inevitable crowds of people that will find themselves together, either in boarded up houses or on the run. Also, the town is about 90% demographically homogeneous. If history has taught us one thing, it's that a person will get along better with someone who is more similar to them then less similar. Overall, Lake Oswego should not be a place to set up for any sort of long term survival. However, the high gun ownership and the potential for a cooperative attack effort could prove effective against a smaller invading horde.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: Los Angeles, CA

Until next time, stay safe, and remember, everything happens for a reason.

Movies.suck

Well, folks, this is the end of an era. Actually, it's the end of several eras. I'll start with Stan Winston.


STAN WINSTON (1946-2008)
Yes, Stan Winston was extremely well known and recognized for basically breathing life into classics such as the Terminator movies, Jurassic Park, Alien, Predator, Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns. I'm going to talk about some of his lesser-known fare (most of which I would not have known about until now without wikipedia). His first major work was for a TV movie called "Gargoyles", which I found out from YouTube has a scene dubbed one of the worst in movie history. "Worst Sexual Intervention Involving a Gargoyle". Yeah. But the thing won an Emmy, so I guess it must have been, like, the least shitty movie in a list of shitty 70's TV movies. And it had good makeup effects.

Surprisingly, he hasn't done any work for Star Wars except for one thing; the Star Wars Holiday Special. Now, if you are any sort of fan of Star Wars, I'm sure you've heard of this infamous wretch, but there's nothing like seeing it first-hand, which I have. The only possible way I can describe it is thusly: a drug-addled trip to Kashyyyk, the Wookiee home planet, which looks less like the lush jungle planet we saw in Episode III and more like Hunter S. Thompson's living room. But, again, aside from the bizarre looking baby Wookiee, Winston did his job fairly well.

The last one I'm going to mention is Pumpkinhead. This was Winston's directorial debut, and from what I can tell, it was not half bad. It doesn't look half good, but it did win him the Best First Time Director at the Paris Film Festival and it spawned 3 sequels, titled "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings", "Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes", and "Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud". I'd like to think the climax of the last one involved a deadly game of Family Feud.

There's a lot more I could say about Stan Winston. Like I said, the man was a pioneer in the field of practical special effects and practically a legend in his own right. Yeah, he made some questionable career choices, but you've got to break a few eggs before you can make an omelet.

The next era that has come to an end is that of Movies.com.

MOVIES.COM
While not quite as ground-breaking or innovative as Stan Winston, this was still my go-to website for most movie news. However, it was recently bought out by Fandango and has essentially become Fandango.com. I'm not kidding, it's a carbon copy save for a little movie news bar on the side that I haven't seen updated since the website relaunched. Seriously, why not just make one fucking website? If I wanted to buy movie tickets, I would go to Fandango or, more likely, movietickets.com. When I want watered-down, yet mostly informative, news about the goings-on of Hollywood, I go to movies.com. But not anymore. Now, I have to rely on Ain't It Cool News. Admittedly, it's got a lot of good stuff and the reporters are very thorough, but there's a lot of bullshit you've got to wade through to get to the meat and bones.

Well, that's about all I've got for this post. Hopefully, I'll do one tonight, as well.

Until next time, stay safe and remember, everything happens for a reason.

An Introduction

Hello to anyone (and at this point "anyone" heretofore probably means "no one") who is reading this blog. I have to get going soon, so this will have to be brief. My name is Lorenzo Nardini. I am a film student in the greater Los Angeles area and, as such, I tend to drown myself in media. Not just movies, but video games, television, books, magazines, and the occasional sales brochure (roughly from most drown-y to least drown-y). So, since that's about all I think about, that's what I'm going to write about here. I know there are probably about 15,238,164 blogs already posting about this type of thing, but I don't really care. My guess is few people will end up reading this anyways. And if this blog does, by some miracle, become a worldwide phenomenon, then I'll just have to step up my game.

Well, so far, this is feeling a lot like Live Journal. For some reason, though, it has an air of maturity that Live Journal doesn't. I don't know. We'll just have to see how this all turns out. Expect my first real post to be in the next day or two (if not before tomorrow).

Well, my phone is ringing, so I have to get going. Until next time, stay safe. And remember, everything happens for a reason.

This has been Lorenzo, reporting from "Zo"llywood.