The Other Guys

Okay, this is not a comic-related post, but I pay the rent, so eat it!  Today I watched the movie The Other Guys for approximately the 80th time.  The Other Guys stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as two cops that are constantly in the shadows of guys like The Rock and Samuel Jackson.  

IMDB has this rated at a 6.6, yet I cannot stop watching it if it is on TV.  It was on one of the movie channels today, and I stopped and watched it.  No, really.  I did.  Michael Keaton is also in it as the captain.  He is so hilarious and criminally underused in movies.  There's a comic connection, I guess...Keaton played Batman.

What makes this movie for me is Wahlberg.  Everything he does, every line he has, just cracks me up.  He's the dumb guy (in the movie) who will kick your ass just for fun.  I am not going to go on and on about this movie, but it's awesome.  

Wahlberg and Ferrell

Star Wars News - Lucas to Retire

I see you sitting over there, thinking "George Lucas said he is retiring!  NO WAY!"

All right, you probably aren't sitting over there, and that is most certainly what you are not thinking.  I am sitting right here blogging on the subject, and my mind continues to wander off about the coffee I have yet to drink this morning. 

Boba Fett's Senior Picture

According to this link right here (click it!), George Lucas blames critics for his retirement.  You would think that after creating the Ewoks, he'd have developed a fairly thick skin.  Apparently not.  Lucas is responsible for bringing us cool characters like Boba Fett, the Darths Vader and Maul, Han Solo, and Slave Leia.

What about cool moments?  The space battle in A New Hope, Han SHOOTING FIRST, the destruction of the Death Star, almost all of Empire, the Tatooine rescue in Return of the Jedi, when they showed Ewoks dying, and the turn of Darth Vader as he rescues Luke.  Oh yeah, ANY TIME the Millinium Falcon is onscreen.

All of those moments above were awesome moments for a generation of nerds like me.  They were fun to watch way back in the day, and they are still fun to watch.  In the original trilogy, there were minor annoyances, like Luke whining about power converters, Luke whining a lot, Ewoks, Luke whining some more, dancing with Ewoks, and incestual kissing.  I still feel the amount of "awesome" outweighed the cheese.  At least Harrison Ford wasn't in a nuclear blast and thrown in a fridge about a million feet, only to walk out unscathed.  Different movie, I know.

In the prequels, something happened.  The visuals were amazing, the acting was horrible, and the cool moments were not at all outweighed by the awesome-factor.  Don't get me wrong, there were definitely some great moments, but as much as I wanted to like the prequels (and each film did get better, in my opinion), the amount of Jar Jar in Episode 1 really was difficult to come to terms with.  A team of counselors and all sorts of medication didn't help.  It wasn't until I saw a Salma Hayek nude scene did the world start feeling right again.

Back to Lucas retiring, I honestly feel like he had to have had a bunch of "yes men" surrounding him throughout the prequel era.  People who thought that a villain who was a Revolutionary War vet (I'm looking at you, Count Dooku) was a good idea.  People who told Lucas that wooden acting and forced dialogue really seemed to work.  People who told him that everything about Jar Jar was okee-day.

Sometimes people wish the Star Wars series was "darker' in tone.  In Episode 3, Anakin killing a slew of Jedi children is pretty freakin' dark.  The problem for me, is Anakin got more whiney as the prequels progressed.  Turn him to the dark side using his anger and hate, but don't turn him into a Sith badass through a mountain of crybaby dialogue.

Anyway, to George Lucas, I thank you for all the great Star Wars moments.  I also thank you for some of the excellence in regards to the expanded universe (comics, novels, video games).  You have to sign-off on those things, and some of it is truly incredible.  Timothy Zahn, anyone? 

As for me, I am going to watch the prequels again, but with the Rifftrax.

Comic Book Movies

Welcome back to the laziest blog poster ever.  I mean, no blog posts since October?  Let's just throw this out there...my resolution is to update this blog at least once in 2012.  Now I can't fail.

So I have been on a comic book movie spree lately.  This is a comic blog, so it would make sense that a nerd like me would watch comic book movies.  Having said that, one thing that irritates me is the elitist culture by some comic fans.  It's a lot of absolutes...

"GREEN LANTERN SUCKED"

"Nolan's Batman franchise is the measuring stick in which all comic films should be measured."

"Clooney's Batman was horrible!!!" 

Okay, I agree with that last one.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that the Nolan films are great, but other comic films out there are great, too, and nowhere near as dark or gravelly-voiced.  Take Captain America, for example.  How about Thor, Iron Man, or the Brandon Routh Superman until the plane saving scene was over with?  Oh yeah!  X-Men: First Class.  Awesome.  Even Wolverine's solo film is underrated, in my opinion.

See, I recently had a conversation with one of Nolan's cult members.  I do not lay blame or ill will towards Christopher Nolan, it isn't his fault that countless of basement-dwellers have chosen to latch onto him as a result of having nothing else to cling to.  I made the mistake of saying "Inception was just okay, for me."

A Nolan cultist loses their shit when something like this is said.  

"Dude, it was, like, a dream...(insert a hushed tone) within a dream."

I said, "Yeah, I get that, I just thought it was all a little squirrelly."  I was then given a look that implied that I did not have the mental capacity to "get" a mediocre film.

Star Trek and Star Wars fans have sometimes shared a rivalry I just fail to comprehend.  One thinks their chosen franchise is intensely superior to the other.  The fact here is, Star Trek IS superior, but that doesn't mean one can't enjoy Star Wars.  People should really lighten up and just enjoy things a little bit more, and perhaps redirect some of the insane fanboy rage into doing something positive, like volunteer in your community, or help mom vacuum the basement.  Every time I hear someone raging about anything at the comic shop, I want to spear tackle them into the Doctor Who display.

Enjoy life, and if there is something you do not enjoy, don't partake.  

Happy New Year!