"After Earth": A Movie That Scrambles My Feels

There are good movies, mediocre movies, and bad movies. But those labels are averages. A good scene, a bad scene...good acting, terrible writing...bad special effects, but an amazing story...there are all sorts of ways that a movie can average out to one of the three.

Some of my favorite scenes and characters come from terrible movies (Raul Julia in Street Fighter, 4 life). And there are parts of good movies that I absolutely can't stand. Anyone who's heard me talk about Thirteen Days knows I love it, knows I love the political intrigue, the drama, the stakes (the highest stakes EVER, arguably), but Kevin Costner's Boston accent sounds like he's playing a goat, particularly on the vowels. And that takes me out of the movie.

OITHER OF YOU GAWT A CAYN AWEE COULD CHEW?

My point is that usually, I evaluate a movie not just as the sum of its parts, but as a complex interplay of elements, and I'm quick to point out elements that I like over elements I don't, even when the overall film may be a bad one. And then, those various impulses somehow average out to my impression of a movie, although I give more weight to stuff like acting, writing, and production design. But I always at least give credit to elements that capture my attention, even if every other thing in a movie sucks hard.

After Earth seems on its surface like a movie I would like. And there were parts of it I did like. I summed it up to my roommate Adam when I told him, as we were watching the climax, that literally every part of this movie is cool except for Jaden Smith and the plot. And therein lies the rub, and the limits of my charity.

This Movie's Underrated: George Romero's "Day of the Dead"

Chances are that most of you have seen at least one type of zombie movie whether its tone tended towards actual horror, like 28 Days Later, comedy, like Shaun of the Dead, or ruining good things like World War Z. Given that variety, it's surprising that essentially the entire zombie genre as we know it today can be traced to one film: George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. This film established literally every rule about the modern conception of a zombie, as well as the modern conception of a zombie apocalypse: they shamble about, their heads are their only killing zone, they crave human flesh. Even the idea of a zombie as an exclusively undead creature (as opposed to voodoo zombies, which are basically brainwashed people) owes its existence to Night. Night's sequel, Dawn of the Dead, went even further, exploring the breakdown of society and government in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak, and codified basically all of the tropes you usually see in zombie apocalypse movies. Hence, it's easy to see why Night and Dawn are undisputed classics, even though the effects in Dawn have aged about as well as DOMA.

TOPICAL!

Help Me I Don't Even What Is This: “Full Metal Jacket”

Memorial Day just came and went, and usually I watch war movies to celebrate. But specifically war movies that convey the idea that war is hell, even if it is sometimes justified. In past years I've watched “Paths of Glory”, “A Bridge Too Far”, and “Saving Private Ryan”, but this year I thought I'd pop in a war movie that's constantly referenced and considered a “classic” but that I hadn't seen yet, and that's Full Metal Jacket.

So do the prostitutes, as the movie makes abundantly clear.

Iron Man 3: The Last Alien

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The Lords of Suck: Or How I Learned To Stop Watching and Walk Out of the Theater

I've never walked out of a movie before. Seriously, not once. Not during The Covenant, not during The Chronicles of Riddick, not even during Master of Disguise. Some of the bad movies I've seen, like The Covenant, are at least fun to make fun of. Plus, each movie had their redeeming qualities. And you've read on this blog before that I consider several movies to be underrated that others would write off immediately. At the very least, I consider them worthy of examination, if only to find out what went wrong.

Picture unrelated.

I'm not sure anything went wrong with Lords of Salem, the newest film by Rob Zombie. I'm sure everything went exactly according to the way he wanted it to go. But that's the biggest problem. And that's why I walked out.

THIS SUMMER...The Hamburglar has had ENOUGH