This is too momentous for me to be restricted to 3 sentences.  Also, I already wrote it for my Facebook page.  So… Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

OK, so most of you know me as the biggest Iron Man nerd you’ve ever met. And it’s true. I am.
So Thursday night I queued up behind a group of failed hipsters rolling on extacy, rapping poorly and making asses of themselves, to see the midnight show of Iron Man 2. The failed hipsters were not in my theater, thankfully.

The first Iron Man film was about a man versus his legacy. Tony Stark, through a life changing series of events, realizes that everything he had stood and worked for had been to the detriment of the world. As a result, he makes it his personal mission to right the wrongs.
While Iron Man 2 continues this theme, it’s also about a man embracing his legacy in order to create his own. At the beginning he is fully committed to being everything to everyone: CEO, Iron Man, world protector, ladies man, socialite and mentor. This overwhelming need to please leads him to some extremely rash decisions which, in turn, lead him to be at loggerheads with the government. What follows is a story about a man coming to terms with his fallibility.

Once again, Robert Downey Jr positively shines as Tony Stark. He’s dynamic, cocksure, hilarious and bombastic all while being heart breakingly vulnerable just below the surface. I’ve said in the past that Robert Downey Jr. put in some of his best performances while he was neck deep in addiction, but between Iron Man and Iron Man 2, we’ve only seen the briefest glimmer of what a sober RDJ can do.

Particular credit is due to Gweneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. Her role as the Girl Friday to Tony Stark has GREATLY expanded. She takes on the new roles like a pro. This is hardly the actress who stumbled her way through A View From The Top. She keeps up with RDJ, and even surpasses him sometimes.

Don Cheadle, people. Don Cheadle. Anyone who was upset that they recast James Rhodes needs to STFU and bask in the Don Cheadle. Rhodey is stiff, conflicted, brutal and barely contained, and that’s how he should be.

Sam Rockwell is always amazing to watch. He plays Justin Hammer, the Dodge Reliant to Tony’s Chevy Corvette. He knows he’s good enough to get you from point A to point B, but no one seems to want to give him a spin. He’s Tony Stark without the charisma. But damn it if Sam Rockwell doesn’t bring his own magnetism to the role.

Rounding out the main cast are Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson with the two very least interesting characters in the film (at times even less interesting than S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Agent Coulson). Mickey Rourke spends the movie looking like he probably smells horrible and mumbling his lines in both English and Russian. But he serves his purpose as the hammer to Hammer. Scarlett Johansson spends the film looking hot while maintaining the same facial expression even after she reveals her dual, leather suit wearing identity. I wouldn’t get rid of her character, she was nice to look at, but I wouldn’t miss her if she wasn’t there.

The story keeps a steady pace, ramping up at all the right moments. There have been complaints that there wasn’t enough suit-time and too much senate hearing, C-SPAN time. Well, with a character like Tony Stark played by RDJ, you don’t even need the armor to make a great movie. The armor is the stripper at the party; it takes a good time and makes it a GREAT time!!

And ohhhh the armor. For an Iron Man nerd like me, there are enough armors to keep me buying action figures for years to come. There are no less than 13 different armored bipeds on screen throughout the film. THIRTEEN!!! Yes. Ohhh yes.

Now, that’s the good. On to the bad.

I mentioned before that Mickey Rourke plays the white version of Mush Mouth from Fat Albert’s gang. He’s also one of the more one dimensional villains in recent history. For someone who is supposed to be brilliant on par with Tony Stark, he’s awful stupid when it comes to his actions.

Minor Spoiler (but not THAT bad). When Tony does his target practice at the party, it seems a little… implausible that a crowd of bikini-clad bimbos would be cheering and giggling as glass rains down on their heads repeatedly.

I kind of wish that Justin Hammer wasn’t so cowed. I envisioned him as the evil billionaire counterpoint to Tony’s altruistic billionaire. But that’s just me. The character wasn’t bad, I just had a different vision.

All in all though, I’d give this film VERY high marks.

9.5/10 on the Digit is an Iron Man Nerd Scale
8/10 on the Subjective Film Rating Scale

Oh yes, and also, STAY THROUGH THE CREDITS!!!

1. Between The Losers, The A-Team and The Expendables, this summer is going to be chock full of unstoppable special ops team movies that are part action, part comedy, part sexy, and this one kicks it off just right.
2. The story is pretty boilerplate (the team is double crossed and they want revenge), but the characters make this the most fun, notably Chris Evans as Jensen, the wise cracking computer nerd who always seems to screw it up with the ladies.
3. That being said, MAJOR points are lost to Jason Patric’s character, the villainous Max, who is the movie villain equivalent of vanilla extract; an essential ingredient, but WAAAAAAY too over the top to be palatable.

Click on screen shot to view GIF in motion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve selected a few ripe ones to share here; for the rest, follow the link–

- “I gotta go wash my vagina.” (Nicole Ari Parker as Becky Barnett, Boogie Nights)

- “What are you looking at? Wipe that face off your head, bitch.” (Parker Posey as Darla Marks, Dazed and Confused)

- “How would you like to suck my balls, Mr. Garrison?” (Cartman, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut)

- “I have a part of you with me. You put your disease in me. It helps me. It makes me strong.” (Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Valens, Blue Velvet)

“I don’t want no white man looking at my Tampax!” (Jean Hill, Desperate Living)

1. 3o or so years in the future there has been some kind of cataclysmic event that left most everything dead and dry, including this movie.
2. Denzel Washington plays Mad Max (only he’s just slightly peeved), Mila Kunis plays the dog in A Boy and His Dog (only WAY hotter), Gary Oldman plays Dennis Hopper in Waterworld (only with a bad leg instead of a bad eye), and Tom Waits plays Tom Waits from Mystery Men (exactly).
3. Half a dozen actions scenes pepper this movie with just enough spice to make the slow dead parts just palatable enough to make me forget the assholes behind me after I told them to shut the fuck up.

Last year he wrote, directed and starred in a movie called Hell Ride.  That movie sucks.  BAAAAAD.  He got some A (bust mostly C) list talent to star in one of the most over-acted, over-stylized, poorly done pieces of shit I’ve ever seen.

But occasionally there’s a nugget of joy.  Not because it’s well done, but because it’s just SO VERY awful, it becomes awesome.

Witness: The Fire Scene

In lieu of doing the traditional 3 Sentence Movie Review of 2012, I’d like to do a list of potential alternate titles.

• John Cusack Surfs a Wave of Desrtuction
• Roland Emmerich Blows Up Famous Shit
• Speed
• OH, NUH-UH!
• Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Boats
• I Know Who’s Gonna Die
• Near Miss
• Luckiest Man Alive
• Tool – Ænema
• We’re Fucked

That being said, not a bad movie, over all.  It’s boilerplate characters and plot, but the shit blows up REAL nice.  I found myself tense and breathless, despite my logical mind knowing exactly what was going to happen.

1. I think it might have something to do with the director, but this was Tom Waits best performance to date.

2. It’s a tragedy that Heath Ledger died before his promise as an actor could be realized, but i think that using four separate actors to portray Tony actually worked better than if Heath would have played him all the way through.

3. The Gilliam Mindscapes that were glimpsed in movies like “Time Bandits”, “Brazil” and “12 Monkeys” (as well as much of Monty Python) are more fully realized to incredible, stunning effect in this movie than in any other film he’s done.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Renfield holds a plate of assorted insects.
Renfield:
Would you care for a hors d’oeuvre, Dr. Seward or a canape?

Doctor Jack Seward:
No, thank you, Mr. Renfield. How are you feeling tonight?

Renfield:
Far better than you, my lovesick doctor.

Doctor Jack Seward:
Is my personal life of interest to you?

Renfield:
Of course it is. All life interests me.

Doctor Jack Seward:
Your diet, Mr. Renfield, is disgusting.

Renfield:
Actually, they’re perfectly nutritious. You see… each life that I ingest gives back life to me.

Doctor Jack Seward:
The fly gives you life?

Renfield:
Certainly. But you might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks than to interest me in lesser carnivora.

Doctor Jack Seward:
I shall have to invent a new classification of a lunatic for you. What about spiders? Spiders eat the flies.

Renfield:
Yes, spiders eat them.

Doctor Jack Seward:
What about sparrows?

Renfield:
Oh, yes. Did you say sparrows?

Doctor Jack Seward:
Something larger perhaps?

Renfield:
Oh, yes. A kitten! I beg you. A little, sleek – a playful kitten.! Something I can teach! Something I can feed! No one would refuse me a kitten!

Doctor Jack Seward:
Wouldn’t you prefer a cat?

Renfield:
Oh, yes! A BIG cat! My salvation depends upon it!

Doctor Jack Seward:
Your salvation?

Renfield:
Yes! I need lives. I need lives for the master!

Doctor Jack Seward:
What? What master?

Renfield:
The master will come, and he has promised to make me immortal!

Doctor Jack Seward:
How?

Renfield suddenly attacks Seward and the guards rushed in to subdue him.

Renfield:
The blood is the life! The blood is the life!

Probably the worst tough-guy line ever.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I actually saw this flick.

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1. Take 28 Days Later, Event Horizon and Sunshine, mix em all together, and you get Pandorum; tense, jumpy, sinister, dark and action filled.
2. Ben Foster is exactly as awesome as I always knew he could be, given a meaty leading role.
3. The set design felt evil and foreboding, but at the same time it felt like if the lights were turned on everything would be just fine.

Note that this is the work of  “T. Jones and Killa,” the guys who did the NIN “Closer”/Star Trek mashup.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I quite enjoyed it. Nice sense of pacing and atmosphere…

Road to Moloch

FAILURE!!! REMOVED!!!

Here are my impressions so far:

Robert Downey JR proves, once again, that he IS Tony Stark, and makes even a congressional hearing riveting.

Don Cheadle will make a great replacement for Terrence Howard.

Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer is brilliant casting because he’s the only one who could pull off the evil Tony Stark persona and have it at RDJ’s level.

Scarlett Johansson looks fine in the few flashes you see of her.

Sam Jackson was born to play Nick Fury.

Mickey Rourke as Whiplash looks AWESOME!!

But the last couple seconds…  THAT makes it ALLLLLLL WORTH IT!!!

WAR MACHINE!!!

Which reminded me that after i saw PWBA I got kind of obsessed with it and found out all kinds of trivia, including the fact that Pee Wee’s girlfriend Dotty was played By Elizabeth Daily, aka E.G.Daily, who had a second career as a singer.

Like so…

The nerd in me is jumping for joy.  The nerd that IS me is merely pumping his fist in the air.  The transition from inner nerd to outer nerd gets toned down for the masses.

I’ve embedded the trailer here, but you should totally go to the website and watch it in HD+ Fullscreen.

End Of Line.

That’s still one of my all time favorite movies, and there are so many scenes that stand alone as genius that I can’t even list them all.

But the Tequila scene. Fuckin’ hell, how can you top that?

(extra points for anyone who can tell me what famous character was created and played on TV by the biker momma in this scene.

Click here to view the embedded video.

She mashes racism!!   (By throwing axes at a black guy.)
She bashes sexism!!  (By punching out Judy Tenuta.)

Also, she’s had ballet lessons.

So I did.

If you are going to see, if you are not going to see, or if you have never even heard of “Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen”, you gotta read this review.

I swear my eyes are wet from laughing so hard.

ron jeremy in a kids movie

Really, he was.

Look here.

However, a cartoonist named Dan Meth has put together a little short of possible childhood rehash films that’s just awesome.  I wanna see Alf.  Seriously.

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

On a side note, Dan Meth also created the Trilogy Meter, and the Futuristic Movie Timeline.

What'd you expect, another pretty face?

American actor David Carradine has been found dead in a Bangkok, Thailand, hotel, according to his personal manager, Chuck Binder.
David Carradine became famous in the 1970s after starring in the television series “Kung Fu.”

Binder said Thursday that the death is being investigated but could provide no other details.

Carradine’s death was “shocking and sad. He was full of life, always wanting to work … a great person,” Binder said, according to People magazine.

Carradine, who became famous in the 1970s when he starred as traveling Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine in the television series “Kung Fu,” was 72.

Modern audiences may best know him as “Bill” in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films. He earned a 2005 Golden Globe nomination for his role in the second movie in the two-part saga. iReport: Share memories of David Carradine

His career included more than 100 feature films, two dozen television movies and theater work, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Looks like he finally snatched the pebble…

EDIT:  Accorting to the Huffington Post, it was a suicide by hanging.  Yeesh.

Thanks to /Film for the tip.

You can see a list of the movie and TV sources used to create this trailer here under the spoiler tag.
Show ▼

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The rules are one shot, one plot. He got 16 valid entries, including mine entitled Death Be Not Kind.

Compared to all the rest, mine is short and simple, but I think it tells a lifetime’s worth of story both before and after it.

Now, if you could go to http://crookedlp.com/news/ , read all 16 entries, think about which one you like the best, then vote for mine at the bottom of the page!!!

The winner’s story will be made into a short film.

Thanks!

P.S. Vote for me!!

FISTS REPRESENT!!

It has become something of an internet sensation, as well as a regular media sensation as well.  This last sunday Family Guy even had a segment based around it where they had a single shot of a reel-to-reel tape recorder playing a huge portion of the rant as Peter Griffin responded like the fury was directed at him.  Good stuff that.

But the on-set freakout is nothing new.  And, in fact, there are some classic on-set freakouts that were even caught on video.

So here we go with my three favorite Hollywood meltdowns (well, 5 really, but 1 is a follow up to the first, and another is just another freakout on the same set with a different screamer.

Videos after the jump:

KLAUS KINSKI – FITZCARRALDO

This first one is from the set of the 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo directed by Werner Herzog.  The screamer is actor Klaus Kinski, who had a vicious reputation for being a rage maniac.  So here ya go, a classic German freakout.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This next video is the perfect follow up to the first.  See, the native tribesmen don’t quite understand Kinski, and they react according to their best instincts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It seems fitting that Klaus died of a heart attack in 1991.

LILY TOMLIN\DAVID O RUSSEL – I ♥ HUCKABEES

Apparently the set of 2004’s I ♥ Huckabees was a tense place to be from beginning to end.  David O Russel is one of those genius directors who has very few people skills and a very strange vision.  The result is a setting where people don’t understand his direction, and he doesn’t understand that they don’t understand.  He also has a temper on him:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, Lily Tomlin can dish it just as well as she can take it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

RIP TORN – MAIDSTONE

This one is my absolute favorite.  In this one a young Rip Torn physically attacks director/star Norman Mailer on the set of 1970’s Maidstone.  Apparently Rip Torn’s character is supposed to kill Norman Mailer’s character.  So Rip decides to improvise the scene with a hammer.  What follows is a bizarre brawl where Rip is trying to tell Norman he’s doing him a favor by kicking his ass.  Then along come Norman’s wife and kids, and it gets even crazier.  It’s a long one, but seriously, it’s worth it from start to finish.  Rip Torn is the one in the green shirt with the CRAZY eyes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But here he is in Vegas, this taken just last week.  You can see Mr. Affleck filming his documentary.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, catch up, dammit!  (and this link has a reference to the famous Crispin Glover appearance on Letterman years ago)

This is officially the coolest movie coming out in the next month.

Awesomeness.

Who doesn’t hate Nazis?!
Who doesn’t hate Zombies?!
But Nazi Zombies?? I LOVE Nazi Zombies!!
They’re just so fun to kill!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’re still editing it together, but just tonight CPAFinger put a trailer together.

Click here to view the embedded video.

BAM!!!

Like what Finger the Barbarian did with his posting of The American Astronaut clips (GOTTA get that movie!). I was so impressed with it that I did a little digging around and discovered that the genius behind TAA is a dude named Cory McAbee who is doing some really amazing stuff.

I want to see this, and I think you might like to see this.

The new Star Trek trailer hit today, and I’m going to say it. This looks AWESOME! As a Trek nerd from way way back, I welcome this new vision. Don’t get me wrong, Shatner is a god, and Stewart is a legend, but this looks like the first Star Trek to really vault into the modern age. Plus, c’mon, Simon Pegg as Scotty? Genius!

Now all I need is a cryo-sleep chamber so I can sleep until May 8th.

Live long and perspire.

The full trailer hit today!

I can’t wait.  The nerd tingle I’m getting is huge.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. The portrayal of W as a strong willed frat boy struggling to prove himself to daddy painted him as a more sympathetic character than I would have liked to see him, but I kind of hate the real guy.
2. Inspired performances across the board along with Oliver Stone’s almost light hearted directing made this as much a tragic comedy as it was a taught drama.
3. Because the final chapters of W’s presidency haven’t been written, the film lacked a coherent message, and the ending seemed arbitrary.

1. Not so much an indictment of faith or god(s) as it is taking the religions man has created to task by asking questions most people are too polite or timid to ask an adherant face to face.
2. Surprisingly, Bill Maher’s signature smarm only rears its head occasionally, but when it does it’s to great comedic effect.
3. The last few minutes of the film, when Maher delivers his final thesis statement, are earth-shatteringly awesome.

Overall, however, the scene is hilarious.

From John Landis’ Innocent Blood (1992)

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Witness the glory:

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WHICH… mothafucka stole his flow?

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Huge music/film/literary/performance art/dance/comedy/visual art lineup; extreme crowds; beer-guzzling morons; emo kids; anorexic goth chicks; clueless out-of-towners; deadheads that fell off the tour circuit in Seattle ca. 1973; old hippies; scores of effete snobs in one or more areas of the arts; at least a handful of guys/gals who are still at Woodstock/Monterey/Isle of Wight in their minds, keeping an eye out for Jimi Hendrix and Joanie Mitchell; arsty fartsies; a fantastic array of 20-somethings who made very bad tattoo decisions; some of the worst fashion choices you will ever see, anywhere; an eclectic variety of foods that will induce a three day purge-on-the-pot if you’re not careful; pale, wan vegan lesbians who are secretly bleeding to death under their hemp frocks; more dreadlocks than in the entire nation of Trinidad and Tobago; beings who are probably from this planet but could easily double as alien life forms; yuppies; yippies; mainstream families with strollers; pregnant soccer moms; enough Rockstar energy drink to get the entire population of Manhattan twitchy; a whole bunch of hip-hopsters, and – last but not least – a handful of pickpockets. All of it painted a metaphorical technicolor green under the bluest skies that Perry Como ever saw, in one of the rainiest cities in North America.

Seriously, though. If you’re thinking about going, The Stranger’s guide is better than Bumbershoot’s own, IMHO.

Addendum: Forgot to add one item to the list above: Assholes who think it’s cool to throw shit at the performer, from crayons to beer bottles.

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P.S. She’s not as cute as our 3 Year Old

Jackass.

Not so funny NOW, huh Spence?

I’d like to make a pencil disappear on him.