Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Obligatory DVD Release Post 11/30/2010

As I sat around yesterday hearing everyone discuss the possiblity of immense awfulness that may stem from the Spider-Man musical, "Turn Off the Dark," I found only one question burrowing into my mind: How the hell does anyone "Turn off" the dark? It's an obnoxiously self-aware, overtly faux artistic, title that I'm sure is wonderfully woven into the story in some ludicrous moment of self-awakening. However by that reasoning they might as well have just called the play: "Kick Dark's ASS!"

Not nearly as poetic, I admit, but at least it's a more sincere, and a less frail effort at being grandiose. If they're going to try and play against words why don't they go all out. Make the entire play that way. "Excuse me honey but will you place Bring In the Trash. Oh and while you're at why don't you Uncook the Dinner."

Title's like that make me sick.

New Releases:

 Knight and Day: "Hello I'm Mr. Smile von Machinegun and I'm here to rescue you from your current peril. Pay no attention to the fact that I've put you in said peril, and instead only concentrate on the vaguely nice things I'll do along the way. Things like drugging you to make sure you're there for a boring wedding or shooting your friendly ex because he's hamming up my escape plan. If you still have time to notice my incredibly awesome action stunts, you'll likely find that what you life really needs is a nutcase with good intentions. Now excuse me while I go put the beat down on Mr. Blatant Villain."

- P.S. The movie should have just stuck with the whole crazy agent on the run. Would have been way more fun.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: Admit it, when this movie came out you were hoping, just like me, that Eclipse meant a large fat guy was going to walk in front of Edward mid-sparkle. Is anyone fifteen pounds over weight even allowed near the set? I'm willing to bet if I walked there with all 185lbs of myself I'd be beaten back with sticks and spray on ab canisters. Now if you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "what the hell is he on about," I should note I couldn't care one bit about Twilight. I dedicated an entire post to the top 10 reasons I couldn't stand the original. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. Feel free too, as much and often as you please. I just ask that you don't parade the films around me, like I'm some sort of demon that can only be destroyed through the power of Edward's narcissism. Because we all know true love on comes from being ignored constantly.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Nic Cage, I just died in your arms tonight. It must have been something you screamed. I love the way your eyes explode into a sea of white insanity. The way your arms flail about the room nonsensically. When you go mental and start shooting fire out in random directions, you reach deep inside my soul, places nobody else can touch! Please Nic, don't you see how I feel about you. I don't care that you're a sorcerer, I'm part werewolf (hairy fat white guy joke) - we can work this out! No, don't go! Come back! Please! STELLA! Wait, whose Stella? Different movie? Ah crap, not again.This always happens when I get too emotionally invested.

Valhalla Rising: I'm very torn on whether or not I want to check this out. On the one hand, critics seem to love its dark atmospheric sentimentality, while lots of people I've read have called it boring with moments of gross indulgence. It's the kind of movie that I will most likely get caught up in the love it or hate it argument, which usually stems from my natural tendency towards apathy on things. So whether or not I'm going to see this is still way up in the air. Comments are there for you to make your plea.

Vampires Suck: It takes a true gift to make a film worse than a film series with a near infinite supply of online jokes at your command. Then again, that's what has made the Friedberg/Seltzer team so inexplicable. They've managed to spoof things everyone was waiting for a spoof of and not only screw it up entirely, but get consistently worse at it, and still manage to make money. This movie made $78m worldwide. $78M!! If the studio behind it had even the slightest semblance of humanity they would refund every viewer, enclosing an apology note into an envelope with each one. This movie is the shining example of what Hollywood has become too used to doing: selling concept over creation.

Other Releases: Going the Distance (two blocks down and take a left), Cairo Time (any relation to mambo time?), Waking Sleeping Beauty (hate to see sleeping beauty's drinking problem go on like this)

Other Goodies:

Michael Douglas Film Collection: A DVD collection of the films of Michael Douglas - score! Out of curiosity when I go to the store to pick it up am I required to show up in a trench coat with a shotgun and go mental on everyone? Or is that just an added bonus?

Meet John Doe: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Brennan, and directed by Frank Capra. How is it I haven't heard of this film!? Quick someone get my pants, to the bat cave! 


By now most of you are probably thinking - "Shouldn't Inception be out already, where's Inception. Did you just mention Inception. I thought I heard someone over there say Inception." - well that's because it comes out next week. So keep your shorts on fanboys and fangirls, it'll be here soon enough. For now your options are the aforementioned. Best of luck and, as always, happy DVD hunting.

10 better thoughts:

Ryan McNeil said...

Um, wow...talk about a week to rent something older!

Chase Kahn said...

Definitely going to check out "Valhalla Rising", which started streaming on Netflix today.

And once we find out that everyone in "Knight and Day" is after a damn battery, it pretty much loses me.

Castor said...

You know I'm totally seeing Twilight 3 (or 4? what is it now??). Review coming up soon!

Alex said...

You guys, Waking Sleeping Beauty is an excellent doc about Disney Animation Studios in the 80s and 90s and if you need something new to rent I recommend that one! It had a shitty release and no one saw it...

SugaryCynic said...

Man, not much going on this week. I read an article detailing the opening night of Turn Off The Dork, apparently it was riddled with technical issues, actors missing their cues, stage-hands screwing up, spiderman left dangling over the audience for around eight minutes or so and pulley doo-dads actually falling off and hitting the audience.

The ghost of Stan Lee is displeased with Spiderman: Turn Off The Light In The Kitchen! ...Except he's not a ghost. Still.

Univarn said...

@Mad I concur.

@Chase I'll read your review and see how it works out there. If it's very artsy odds are you'll like it long before me.

@Castor I'm pretty sure we're at 3. Thank you for taking that bullet for us.

@Alex If you say so I'll be sure to check it out. No promises on the liking it front though :) However those are the Disney films I grew up with so all is up in the air.

@Sugary haha, I'm pretty sure if Stan Lee watched it the out of body experience it induced felt ghost-like

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Ever considering catering? You could be the official caterer on set for the next Twilight movie and secretly add 200 grams of fat to every meal. You could single-handedly bring down the entire production!

Simon said...

Admit it, you laughed at the 'It's Raining Men' part. I see through your guise.

Univarn said...

@AlexJ I would be a caterer but I fear my efforts would end a bit like Charlie Chaplin's in Modern Times. With me wandering around lost in a sea of people trying to carry a plate.

@Simon If that's a Vampire's Suck reference then I'm missing it. If that movie ever found its way into my DVD player I'd have to set fire to it on principle

chris said...

Just finished Valhalla Rising tonight. There are better ways to spend your 93 minutes. It is atmospheric. It is dark. It is violent. But has a flip side of depressing, boring, and cold. I've seen the director's other work, know he has talent and all, but this one just didn't do it for me.

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