Cinema Fistfight
Welcome, fight fans, to another thrilling, trilling episode of Movie Fistfight. I’m your host, Dr. Jaeger S. Meistersen. Let’s begin, shall we?
Memorial Day weekend left me with a fair bit of extra time on my hands, so like the silly bitch you all know me to be, I decided to spend my excess mornings at the movies. Specifically Iron Man on Sunday morning and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Saturday. There was also Lost Colony on Monday afternoon, which was a SciFi Channel original with Adrian Paul on the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, because after all, who doesn’t want to see the Highlander beat up Viking ghosts…so we’re just not going to touch that shit. Besides, I’ve got more than enough material between Indiana Jones and Iron Man to start a feudal war.
Iron Man…let’s start by getting this shit out of the way. I liked it. Everybody told me it would be awesome, so I went in with reservations and heavily on guard for it to not live up to the hype…because nothing ever does. This one did. Despite my years of reading comic books, I admit that I never gave a damn about Iron Man, his origins, his back story, his villains, his friends, his loves…didn’t he die once? Didn’t care about that, either. Though I did always like War Machine, but that’s just another strike against the book as a whole.
Let me digress for a moment, here. Superhero comics are supposed to be about heroes of a super nature doing super and/or heroic shit. Often they have a cohort, best friend or buddy…the generic term for this is a sidekick. Robin. Kid Flash. Second Robin. Bucky. Third Robin. Arthur the Bunny Guy. Future Girl-Robin. Usually kids, invalids, animals and retards in short-shorts. Here’s a tip, folks. If you want people to care about your superhero who has a garishly-colored metal suit with jet boots, who flies around and goes, “Ooh! Look! I have laser-hands!” You should not pair him with a sidekick who is three inches taller, colored gray and dark gray, with a biggER metal suit with missiles on his shoulders and gatling guns on his wrists. One is not meant to be LOOMED OVER by one’s sidekick, because it makes the hero look like a chump asshole.
THAT SAID! This movie made me INTERESTED in the character of Tony Stark. It made me pay attention to where he came from, who he knows, how he relates to those people. And it did it in the best way possible! By bringing a billionaire down to my level! You’ve got this smooth-talking guy with more money than the Vatican and he goes to the parties and he does the nasty with supermodels (I’m getting to the part where he’s on my level…definitely not there, yet), but when he’s left to his own devices…all he wants to do is lock himself in the basement, forget to eat for a week and work on cars or play with his toys.
I chalk a lot of this up to the directing talents of Jon Favreau, writer of Swingers, director of Made, producer of The Big Empty, and most famous of all for playing Gutter in PCU. Between him and like FOUR writers, we found a movie about a guy we didn’t care about BEFORE the movie…basically a guy we couldn’t POSSIBLY care about…and started caring about him. Besides which, it looks freaking AWESOME.
So Iron Man gets my full support…and made a wonderful job of washing the poo-riffic taste of Indiana Jones out of my mouth.
Okay, feckers. Get your fightin’ faces on and dust off them ol’ whuppin’ sticks, because I’m about to talk a little shit about some Indiana Jones, and I’m pretty sure that it’s not entirely possible to do that on American soil without endearing myself to a few ass whippings.
In defense of myself, I don’t disagree with a movie, by and large, when it goes over the top. I did, after all, spend Monday afternoon watching the Highlander fight Viking ghosts. And I expect a certain onslaught of over-the-topness in any Indiana Jones movie…or Alan Quartermain…Sky Captain…the Mummy…King Kong…National Treasure…pretty much anything that has that Adventure Pulp feel to it. I expect rolling boulders, lost tribes, Atlantean artifacts, magic, holy relics, Five HUNDRED year old dart-shooting spring-loaded floor traps powered by nothing but ropes and pulleys which have somehow miraculously not rotted to dust and thousand-year-old dead languages that only one person happens to be able to sight-read SO WELL that the English translations come out in rhyming iambic pentameter verses. Seventy foot gorillas, unstoppable hordes of Nazis, man-eating tigers in the desert, lions in the jungle, cheetas on the mountains. I’m willing to let a lot of shit slide, when it comes to Adventure Pulp.
That is, however, all PRIOR to the introduction of Shia Fucking LeBouf unto my merry prancing plain of happy ignorance. Because as much as I let slide for Indiana Jones, I don’t let ANYTHING slide when it’s on screen with Shia Fucking LeBouf. And even less so when he’s playing the male Mary Sue from Hell.
Mutt Williams? Mutt fucking Williams? Like we’re not going to remember that classic Sean Connery line, “But Junior…Indy was the dog’s name,” then put two and two together and realize that Mutt Williams is just a stupid play on the name Indiana Jones. Like we’re going to buy that baby-faced pansy is a tough rocking Outsiders-reject, just because you slap a jacket on him and plant him on a motorcycle.
And nothing. NOTHING. NO. THING. Is going to make me buy him brachiating through the trees, going from vine to vine like George of the Fucking Jungle, not only keeping up with rhesus monkeys, but outrunning a FUCKING CAR! ON VINES! The only thing that could have been more insulting is if someone locked himself in a refrigerator and survived, not only a nuclear blast, but being thrown like ten miles through the air on a blast wave and coming down so hard it should have powdered every bone in his body…then surviving by opening the refrigerator from the inside, which everybody knows was physically impossible back in the 50’s…not that that happened, or anything.
Other than that, there was a lame plot line involving Russians (who are not as sinister, nor as interesting as Nazis on their BEST day), Cate Blanchet looking like a mutated freak-monster composed solely of five foot nine of pure cheekbones, old guys conveniently forgetting how old they are, double-double-double-double agents and psychic saucer men.
That’s all the shit that was THERE, but wasn’t very GOOD. But there was a lot missing. I distinctly noted the conspicuous absence of a waterslide. Goonies had a water slide. National Treasure had a water slide. At least one of the other Indy movies had a water slide. The Mummy managed at least one water slide somewhere. Both Quartermains had water slides. Fucking…SAHARA managed to have a waterslide, and it was a movie about a DESERT! Oh, there was a waterfall, but it’s not the same thing.
Another conspicuous absence - Religion. The other three Indiana Jones movies have been, in order, about a Hebrew Box, Hindu Stones, and the Sippy-Cup of Jesus Christ. All religious artifacts and relics. Every one of them. This one came down to the Crystal Skull-which is CLASSIC religious relic/artifact territory, well documented in historical notes from other archaeologists and grave-robbers, referencing real things found by real people and sitting in real museums. Except this one was like TEN TIMES the size of anything real, had absolutely NOTHING to do with the real thing, and didn’t sort of glibly refer back to the concept that some abstract universal super-being deity creature might exist…oh HELL no. It was just Aliens, fucking with us. Was there something WRONG with the god angle? Was there some REASON to divert from the religious direction things had been moving in?
Another piece of my childhood has been soundly dragged into the street, beaten silly and urinated upon. Thanks Hollywood! And a special thanks to George Lucas for sticking his filthy Bad Idea Fingers back into yet another perfectly un-detroyed project. Say, George, care to rape my family dog while you’re at it? Set fire to the neighborhood where I grew up? Maybe bulldoze a few of the schools I attended or shoot a few of the kids I grew up with?
So come on, bitches. Come try to defend that masterpiece to me. You tell me that you could find ten redeeming minutes in that movie. Defend it. Talk back to me. I double dog dare you.
Memorial Day weekend left me with a fair bit of extra time on my hands, so like the silly bitch you all know me to be, I decided to spend my excess mornings at the movies. Specifically Iron Man on Sunday morning and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Saturday. There was also Lost Colony on Monday afternoon, which was a SciFi Channel original with Adrian Paul on the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, because after all, who doesn’t want to see the Highlander beat up Viking ghosts…so we’re just not going to touch that shit. Besides, I’ve got more than enough material between Indiana Jones and Iron Man to start a feudal war.
Iron Man…let’s start by getting this shit out of the way. I liked it. Everybody told me it would be awesome, so I went in with reservations and heavily on guard for it to not live up to the hype…because nothing ever does. This one did. Despite my years of reading comic books, I admit that I never gave a damn about Iron Man, his origins, his back story, his villains, his friends, his loves…didn’t he die once? Didn’t care about that, either. Though I did always like War Machine, but that’s just another strike against the book as a whole.
Let me digress for a moment, here. Superhero comics are supposed to be about heroes of a super nature doing super and/or heroic shit. Often they have a cohort, best friend or buddy…the generic term for this is a sidekick. Robin. Kid Flash. Second Robin. Bucky. Third Robin. Arthur the Bunny Guy. Future Girl-Robin. Usually kids, invalids, animals and retards in short-shorts. Here’s a tip, folks. If you want people to care about your superhero who has a garishly-colored metal suit with jet boots, who flies around and goes, “Ooh! Look! I have laser-hands!” You should not pair him with a sidekick who is three inches taller, colored gray and dark gray, with a biggER metal suit with missiles on his shoulders and gatling guns on his wrists. One is not meant to be LOOMED OVER by one’s sidekick, because it makes the hero look like a chump asshole.
THAT SAID! This movie made me INTERESTED in the character of Tony Stark. It made me pay attention to where he came from, who he knows, how he relates to those people. And it did it in the best way possible! By bringing a billionaire down to my level! You’ve got this smooth-talking guy with more money than the Vatican and he goes to the parties and he does the nasty with supermodels (I’m getting to the part where he’s on my level…definitely not there, yet), but when he’s left to his own devices…all he wants to do is lock himself in the basement, forget to eat for a week and work on cars or play with his toys.
I chalk a lot of this up to the directing talents of Jon Favreau, writer of Swingers, director of Made, producer of The Big Empty, and most famous of all for playing Gutter in PCU. Between him and like FOUR writers, we found a movie about a guy we didn’t care about BEFORE the movie…basically a guy we couldn’t POSSIBLY care about…and started caring about him. Besides which, it looks freaking AWESOME.
So Iron Man gets my full support…and made a wonderful job of washing the poo-riffic taste of Indiana Jones out of my mouth.
Okay, feckers. Get your fightin’ faces on and dust off them ol’ whuppin’ sticks, because I’m about to talk a little shit about some Indiana Jones, and I’m pretty sure that it’s not entirely possible to do that on American soil without endearing myself to a few ass whippings.
In defense of myself, I don’t disagree with a movie, by and large, when it goes over the top. I did, after all, spend Monday afternoon watching the Highlander fight Viking ghosts. And I expect a certain onslaught of over-the-topness in any Indiana Jones movie…or Alan Quartermain…Sky Captain…the Mummy…King Kong…National Treasure…pretty much anything that has that Adventure Pulp feel to it. I expect rolling boulders, lost tribes, Atlantean artifacts, magic, holy relics, Five HUNDRED year old dart-shooting spring-loaded floor traps powered by nothing but ropes and pulleys which have somehow miraculously not rotted to dust and thousand-year-old dead languages that only one person happens to be able to sight-read SO WELL that the English translations come out in rhyming iambic pentameter verses. Seventy foot gorillas, unstoppable hordes of Nazis, man-eating tigers in the desert, lions in the jungle, cheetas on the mountains. I’m willing to let a lot of shit slide, when it comes to Adventure Pulp.
That is, however, all PRIOR to the introduction of Shia Fucking LeBouf unto my merry prancing plain of happy ignorance. Because as much as I let slide for Indiana Jones, I don’t let ANYTHING slide when it’s on screen with Shia Fucking LeBouf. And even less so when he’s playing the male Mary Sue from Hell.
Mutt Williams? Mutt fucking Williams? Like we’re not going to remember that classic Sean Connery line, “But Junior…Indy was the dog’s name,” then put two and two together and realize that Mutt Williams is just a stupid play on the name Indiana Jones. Like we’re going to buy that baby-faced pansy is a tough rocking Outsiders-reject, just because you slap a jacket on him and plant him on a motorcycle.
And nothing. NOTHING. NO. THING. Is going to make me buy him brachiating through the trees, going from vine to vine like George of the Fucking Jungle, not only keeping up with rhesus monkeys, but outrunning a FUCKING CAR! ON VINES! The only thing that could have been more insulting is if someone locked himself in a refrigerator and survived, not only a nuclear blast, but being thrown like ten miles through the air on a blast wave and coming down so hard it should have powdered every bone in his body…then surviving by opening the refrigerator from the inside, which everybody knows was physically impossible back in the 50’s…not that that happened, or anything.
Other than that, there was a lame plot line involving Russians (who are not as sinister, nor as interesting as Nazis on their BEST day), Cate Blanchet looking like a mutated freak-monster composed solely of five foot nine of pure cheekbones, old guys conveniently forgetting how old they are, double-double-double-double agents and psychic saucer men.
That’s all the shit that was THERE, but wasn’t very GOOD. But there was a lot missing. I distinctly noted the conspicuous absence of a waterslide. Goonies had a water slide. National Treasure had a water slide. At least one of the other Indy movies had a water slide. The Mummy managed at least one water slide somewhere. Both Quartermains had water slides. Fucking…SAHARA managed to have a waterslide, and it was a movie about a DESERT! Oh, there was a waterfall, but it’s not the same thing.
Another conspicuous absence - Religion. The other three Indiana Jones movies have been, in order, about a Hebrew Box, Hindu Stones, and the Sippy-Cup of Jesus Christ. All religious artifacts and relics. Every one of them. This one came down to the Crystal Skull-which is CLASSIC religious relic/artifact territory, well documented in historical notes from other archaeologists and grave-robbers, referencing real things found by real people and sitting in real museums. Except this one was like TEN TIMES the size of anything real, had absolutely NOTHING to do with the real thing, and didn’t sort of glibly refer back to the concept that some abstract universal super-being deity creature might exist…oh HELL no. It was just Aliens, fucking with us. Was there something WRONG with the god angle? Was there some REASON to divert from the religious direction things had been moving in?
Another piece of my childhood has been soundly dragged into the street, beaten silly and urinated upon. Thanks Hollywood! And a special thanks to George Lucas for sticking his filthy Bad Idea Fingers back into yet another perfectly un-detroyed project. Say, George, care to rape my family dog while you’re at it? Set fire to the neighborhood where I grew up? Maybe bulldoze a few of the schools I attended or shoot a few of the kids I grew up with?
So come on, bitches. Come try to defend that masterpiece to me. You tell me that you could find ten redeeming minutes in that movie. Defend it. Talk back to me. I double dog dare you.