The X Files --- More Squinting

Don't worry non X Files people, this blog should be interesting even to people who dont worship at the altar of X Files.

Alright guys, so its been a bit since The X Files: I Want to Believe broke my heart and then shat on the pieces. I now feel like I can discuss it a bit more. The main misstep with the movie was a real doozy: Scully and Mulder have been living together for 6 years and are now in a state of comfortable and boring cohabitation. There's actually a scene where Mulder tries to have sex with Scully, but she thwarts his advances. What?!? You guys took what was most interesting about their dynamic and made it incredibly boring! YOu reduced their crackling repartee to "Mulder, your beard is scratchy." SCRATCHY?!? Fuck you Scully. We have been waiting for fifteen years for them to fall in love, and then you make that happen off camera?!? And not just off camera, but the camera doesn't even show up till 6 years later? If the Iron Man movie had him working on his suit for most of the movie, and then right as he is about to complete, it cuts to a visibly older Tony Stark saying "Well I used to be iron man, but I quit. Now I just kinda... hang around." And then the rest of the movie is just Tony Stark attending functions and benefits. We would be so pissed! Thats essentially what Chris Carter did with the X Files. How awesome would it have been if they hadn't seen each other in 6 years, and they rediscover each other as we rediscover them? All of us together in this exciting reunion moment! Can you imagine how nervous Mulder would be after laying eyes on Scully again? The cynicism on his face melts away as he nervously stutters her name. Scully tries to hold onto her cold scientific exterior, but Mulder's boyish charm disarms her. She smiles. "Hey Fox." "You never called me that before." "Maybe its time for new beginnings." "Let's start slow, Scully." They giggle, shake it off and put on their professional faces. The new FBI head is now in the office. Mulder sneaks a look over at Scully, who is looking right at her new boss. Mulder looks away, just as Scully steals a glance at him. Oh. My. God. I am crying just thinking about it.

But that was not to be. Instead, we get "YOur beard is scratchy."

So now I have another possible solution. I have been watching episodes of the X files to wash the taste ou tof my mouth. I just finished watching the penultimate episode of season 6, the last good season, called Field Trip. Great episode. Mulder and Scully get trapped in a fungus thing underground, that makes them hallucinate and think they are outside, so they remain complacent and dont struggle as they are slowly digested. The whole episode is super well written, and actually very creepy. They keep escaping, only to find out that they haven't escaped at all, that the hallucinogen is just making them think they escaped. We see Mulder talking to Scully, who totally agrees with his theory. "that doesn't sound like you." Mulder escaped, only to find other inconsistencies in reality. It really is a very good episode, as our principals question reality at every turn. At the end, they do actually get rescued and the last scene is them laying in gurneys in the ambulance. After that exact shot, the X Files deteriorates. Season 7 sucks, as does 8, and 9, and the movie.

BUT... what if they never got out? What if they never escaped that fungus? What if everything since then has just been an awful hallucination? Seasons 7 through 9 never happened, the pretty bad new movie never happened. No DOggett, no psychic FBI agents, no Will Scully-Mulder, no fucking scratchy beards. It makes perfect sense! Why else would the writing deteriorate so abruptly! Why else would Mulder leave the X Files! Those two are still stuck in their, being slowly digested by the giant fungus! That's it! Its the only reasonable explanation. The fungus wants them to be complacent, so it makes them think they have been in comfortable mightaswellbemarital bliss.

Because I'll tell you this, the idea of their outsides being slowly digested by fungal secretions is a better reality than everything since season 6.

Abort!

I have seen some terrible movies. Truly horrendous terrible terrible movies.But, being a huge movie nerd, I pride myself on watching movies all the way through. No matter how bad it is, maybe the director pulled through and delivered a whopper of an ending that totally redeems everything. Every movie deserves to be watched all the way through.

I will never ever ever stop a movie or leave a theater before the movie is done. Well, almost never. Here is a list of movies that I couldn’t finish. Fuck what happens at the end. There is no way the guy who did the first 30 mins could do anything worthwhile. It would be akin to watching a monkey poop into its hand, but then using the poop to fingerpaint an exact replica of the Mona Lisa. Its just not going to happen. So here we go. (Oh, btw, this is the first in an ecentual series. I will cover 3 movies each article.)

Jury Duty
A movie called Jury Duty, I’m pretty sure, isn’t supposed to make you feel like you are actually performing jury duty, but this movie totally captured the feel of being sequestered with, of all people, Pauly Shore. Can you imagine the hell that would be? The only interesting way to play this out would have been if the other 11 jurors actually murdered Pauly Shore out of sheer annoyance, and then pretended that he was still alive by puppeteering his corpse. Sort of a Weekend at Bernie’s meets 12 Angry Men. Everyone else in the courtroom would totally know that they had murdered him, due to the obvious neckstab wound, but the would look the other way, cuz, fuck, its Pauly Shore. It’s the only murder a jury would never find anyone guilty for. Also, his name is Pauly?!? Ugh. Anyway, is the guy innocent? Is he guilty? I don’t give a fuck. Let me out of here. I totally read newspaper reports on the case. I am racist. I don’t believe justice is the best way to organize a society. Whatever it takes. Just let me out. Eject. 30 mins in. And I’ve sat through some shit, trust me. I watched Biodome all the way through.

Armageddon
Ok I know a lot of people who call this a great popcorn movie and all, and I am not being snobby here. But this movie was dumb and boring. Like, really dumb. I love these movies where they collect a group of totally out there characters for official government work via montage. One guy is in some kind of illegal motorcycle race. One guy is starting a fight at a bar. One guy is rappelling down the side of the Eiffel Tower. I know that’s not exactly what they were doing, but its how I remember it, and fuck me if I’m gonna look it up. I know it’s a dumb big Hollywood movie, but does it have to be this dumb? Is an oil rig team really the best fit for, you know, drilling IN FUCKING SPACE! I believe its easier to teach astronauts how to drill than it is to teach drillers how to be astronauts. Its like “We need someone to perform neurosurgery on this infant, but they need to be able to drive to the hospital themselves. So we got this cab driver, and we gave him a quick primer. Listen, he is the best driver in NYC! It sound scrazy, but we have to use him!” I’m just saying, you know, that the hard part about being in space is GETTING TO SPACE, and not whatever it is you do when you get there. Also, there is a scene towards the beginning where Bruce Willis finds Ben Affleck getting it on with his daughter on his oil rig and, in a hilarious scene, he chases him around shooting with a shotgun and TRIED TO SHOOT HIM. What if he hits? What if he manages to shoot Ben Affleck? Isnt that murder? And his motive of “He was having sex with my daughter Liv Tyler” isn’t really going to work, because the jury would be going “We wanna have sex with your daughter Liv Tyler too! We totally empathize with the deceased! Guilty!” And then you notice that one of the jurors is a dead Pauly Shore. And you realize that they are actually the same bad movie. Anyway, I stopped watching it before they even got to space. I imagine they were successful, and that the earth did not get destroyed. And that Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis shared some sort of moment where the latter gives Affleck his blessing or he proves to be worthy of something or something. I bet that’s exactly what happens. But I’m already gone. Which is saying something, trust me. I watched the Garbage Pail Kids movie all the way through.

Tideland
Oh man, this is definitely the saddest one on here. I love Terry Gilliam. I love Brazil and 12 Monkeys and Time Bandits and Baron Munchausen. I don’t really like The Fisher King, but to me that was his only misstep. And then Brothers Grimm came out. And it was unabashedly awful. Just terrible. Really. But I had heard of all the on set troubles, and I could see that the script he was given was awful, and how the studio fought him at every turn. But that just got more excited about Tideland. Terry Gilliam had himself written the script, talked about how much he likes this movie, and he stands by it. And how it was a return to his creepy dark humor thing that he did so well in Brazil. And then I watched it. And then I stopped watching it. It was unimaginably bleak. Apparently he had shot this movie while taking a break from editing Brothers Grimm because of studio intervention, and poured all his bitterness into this movies. And it shows. I guess a tussle with the Weinsteins will make you want to put a girl in a a trailer alone with the slowly decomposing body of her dead father. I guess. Yup, that’s the plot of this movie. The movie starts with her mom (Jennifer Tilly) being super mean to her, then OD’ing, and so she and her dad set her body on fire with cigarettes and shoes, because that’s what she loved best. And they show all of this. And the camera is what I call “Dirt cam”. Its unsteady and zooms right into their faces and then back out and right back into their arms. Puts you in the room right with them. Except I just wanted to get out. And its a Terry Gilliam movie!This movie made me feel dirty, like I had just rolled around in shit while people hurled obscenities at me. And then I look up, and one of the people yelling at me is my really cool uncle. Its clearly the one made with the most craft on this list, but that doesn’t mean I could watch the whole thing. I hope at some point to have the emotional fortitude to be able to sit through this thing. But its going to have be in an amazing week.

You guys have any similar stories?

I Want to Bereave

I come here not to praise The X Files, but to bury it.

Daayyyyaaam.

I have started this review so many times, and each time I haven't been able to get anything down. I don't know where to start, I don't know where to end, I don't know what to write. There is a scene, for instance, where Scully googles the words "Stem cell research", prints out some pages. Next scene, she is performing neurosurgery using the notes from her googling. That has to be the most successful googling experience in the history of the universe. Perhaps Chris Carter should have googled "How to direct a movie."

I have decided I cannot review this movie. Mulder and Scully are great in it. God bless them. But I cannot review this movie. There will be no more movies after this gets a critical and commercial hammering. So instead, consider this my eulogy for The X Files. And, as in a eulogy you don't talk about how a person died, but how they lived, I will spend some moments remembering my favorite moments of this amazing show. These are the five moments I will remember forever, that will remind me of how good the X Files was. I have some closure now. Some are scary, some funny, some sad and some all three at once. X Files magic. Here we go.

Rain King: Mulder and Scully swaying in unison at the reunion. Dancing perfectly in rhythm with each other without realizing it. How appropriate. The only dance they would ever share.

Home: The sound of Johnny Mathis singing "Wonderful Wonderful" coming in through the window of the sheriff's house just before... Probably one of the best horror movies of the last 20 years.

Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose: Everything everything everything. The whole episode. This is what I watched the day I found out Peter Boyle died. "I call 'em as I see 'em." "You know what i like." "Banana Cream Pie." "Auto erotic asphyxiation is a hell of a way to go."

Small Potatoes: A shape shifter disguised as Mulder trying to seduce Scully... and almost succeeding.

Max: Mulder holding down a seizing Max Fenig, preventing him from hurting himself. The scene perfectly captures Mulder's strength and compassion. The scene goes on for 30 seconds, but it seems like forever.

Ok, one more.

Emily: Scully deciding to let Emily go.


There are plenty plenty more, but I only want to think of five. The heroin addled woman is dead. But she will live on in these moments. I will remember her when she was happy, when she was smart and clever and loving. I will try to forget those heroin addicted years, when she puked in the bathroom, when she rambled on about crazy stuff, when she googled "stem cell research." Shudder.

I said I came here not to praise The X Files, but I guess I ended up doing exactly that. Makes it easier I think.

I Want to Believe

I don’t even know where to start. First of all, this is not the review of the movie. That will come tomorrow, after I watch the movie at midnight tonight. Yup, my first midnight opening viewing ever. I am not a nerd. I swear.


It’s going to be me, and the seven other people that know/give a shit that an X Files movie is coming out. And my Fox Mulder action figure. Yes, I have a Fox Mulder action figure.

I’m not helping my cause am I?

Before I begin, let me say that this has been, by far, my most anticipated movie of the summer. And the most dreaded. I knew Hellboy was gonna rock, I knew Batman was gonna rock, I knew WallE was gonan rock, but there is a chance that the X Files will not rock. In fact, there is a chance that it may sink like a rock. Oh lord how I hope it doesn’t. I don’t think I have the emotional maturity to deal with such an event. More than any other show, the X Files has let me down. I think anyone who has ever been an X Files fan can understand that.

The X Files was like the girlfriend you thought was gonna be the one. Things just kept getting better and better. She revealed herself to you in new and exciting ways and just when you thought things could never get any better, they did. Every week. And then you came home one day and found her injecting herself with heroin. And your world shattered. Is this really the same person you’ve known all these years? All those times you shared ice cream and drank from the same straw, was she injecting herself with heroin in the bathroom? Was she always an addict, or was this a recent development? You asked her. She never answered you. You moved out. You kind of kept in touch. And the one day, she dropped off the face of the earth. And you tried to forget her.

That was my first runaround with the X Files. I got so invested in the story, the long running arc. It built up perfectly, raised the stakes, kept giving you just enough reveals, and then… it just became undeniably awful. Like, unbearably awful. And the story never ended satisfactorily. And I just sort of… stopped watching the show. Unthinkable.

I think this experience is what soured me to long running arcy serieses. It perhaps explains my pseudoish hatred of Lost. I just don’t want to be hurt again. Its easier to not give a shit.

When I thought of X Files, I thought of the awesome individual episodes. Home. Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose. The arc sucked. I hated it. It was too convoluted and it made no sense. Then, 2 years ago, a friend of mine lent me season 1. And I started watching it again. And it reminded me of the awesome chemistry between Mulder and Scully. And how subtle the arc was when it started. A glimpse of a spaceship. Reports of an extraterrestrial life form running around in the jungle. Mulder always a step too late.

I bought season 2. And then I bought season 3. And then seasons 4 through 6. And I remember how good that fucking arc was. Mulder’s proof always just beyond his reach. Him needing some closure on finding his sister, or even just finding out what happened to her. Is she alive? Is she dead? He just wants to know, either way. The first time I watched the show, I was Fox Mulder. I wanted him to get the proof that he so desperately needed. The second time through, I was Scully. I related with her crisis of faith, with her cyncism in the face of Mulder’s almost fanatical belief in the weird. And then her abduction by aliens raises the stakes on her internal conflict. Duane Barry has to be one of the best two parters in tv history. And the structure of that episode perfectly mirrors the structure of the arc and the way it developed and became bigger. It starts with a bank robbery, and ends with a fucking ufo. And I realized, she wasn’t always on heroin. She was perfect. She just got hooked on heroin 6 years in.

I watched all the way through season 6, and I realized where they could have ended the arc satisfactorily. And that, if I squinted, if I ignored certain things, I could convince myself that the show ended with season 6. The alien conspiracy is broken up, and the world is safe. And the X Files ends on a high note, instead of running itself into the ground with T 1000 and psychic FBI agents and… oh lord.

But there was still this nagging feeling inside of me. I never really had the closure I wanted. My quest for X Files closure mirrors Mulder’s quest for proof, for finding out what happened to his sister. And then I heard they were making a movie. And then I saw that preview form Comic Con. And the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. And I felt exactly how Mulder must have felt anytime he got a call about a UFO sighting. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is when he finds his proof. And I know the movie is a one off, that it doesn't answer the specific arcy questions, but it doesn't matter. Its like the heroin lady called, and she promises she is clean, and she doesn’t wanna get back together with you, but she does want to meet up and talk, and explain herself. And I want so badly to have that closure, just like Mulder. Doesn’t matter if the sister is dead or alive, all it matters is that he, is that I, know.

Tonight I go to the UFO site. Tonight I find that closure. It may be good, it may be bad. But at least I’ll know. I am tired of squinting.

Dark Knight Review

First of, I was so excited about the movie I got there 90 mins before start time. It’s a particularly sad moment when you get there before the guy dressed in full Joker getup, make up and all. I was there BEFORE that guy. And before the guy dressed, ironically I imagine, as Robin. And the usher made an awkward meeting happen between Robin and a much older, shorter, balding Batman. They looked at each other as if gazing into a soul mirror. “What have we done?” The younger Robin staring at a possible future, the older Batman at his own misspent youth. They walked away from each other wordlessly.

The greatest thing of that ilk that I have seen was at Chicago’s Wizard World last year. I saw a really overweight Superman waiting for the elevator. Reality, turns out, was his Kryptonie. As were the stairs right next to the elevator, apparently.

Now onto Dark Knight. I saw a few 10 year olds or so go into this movie, and I got jealous of them. I wish I could have seen this movie when I was a kid. It would have destroyed me completely, and then rebuilt me again. It would have been my favorite movie of all time. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it as an adult. I did. I thought it was really really amazing. But if I had seen it at 10…

Ok, its gonna be hard for me to not gush over this film. I wanted to be contrarian. I wanted ot be the guy to not like it. I wanted to be like “Its not bad, but its overrated and flawed!”

Well, it isn’t overrated. It’s the best superhero movie I have ever seen.

Instead of just running through and gushing over the thing, I’m gonna just go over a few of the things I had concerns about prior to watching the movie.

1. The action scenes would be lame.
The action scenes in the first movie were really jittery, I couldn’t see what was going on. It might have had something to do with the fact that I watched it in Imax and it felt like I was literally sitting inside one of Morgan Freeman’s freckles. The action is shot better here, but its still not as good as the action in, say Spiderman 3, which is a terrible movie otherwise. Part of the problem is that Batman’s suit seems so hard to move around in, you can’t really have him doing acrobatic moves. The guys who gave him that outfit in the comic books could draw anything; they could have him fucking doing splits in a Kevlar onesy. But real life, of course, means you gotta abide by physics. So the action scenes weren’t amazing, but it’s a tribute to the movie that I would have been fine if there had been no action in it at all.

2. The movie would be too dark and take itself too seriously.
It isn’t, and it doesn’t. Despite all the reviews going on about how dark it was, I thought the movie was actually a lot of fun. It seemed to be having a good time. It is serious, of course, but there were funny moments in it and it had this buoyancy throughout that I didn’t feel Batman Begins had. They nail the tone.

3. The movie would be too long.
The 3 hours flew by. It was paced quickly. There was a lot of plot but it was handled remarkably efficiently for an almost 3 hour movie. Oh, I don’t know where to fit this in, but Gotham seemed to have a real personality. They really convey the sense of a once majestic city in ruins. And they really make you care about city’s fate, which is quite a feat. Its not a real place, but it certainly feels like one. I felt myself thinking “I think Batman really is the best hope that Gotham has of being restored to its former glory! Wait, or is it Harvey Dent?” Either way, I cared.

4. Joker would be too hammy.
He is not. Heath Ledger is amazing amazing amazing in this role. What if he hadn’t been? What if he sucked? It would have been most awkward. But he doesn’t suck. Its one of the best movie villains of all time. Heath Ledger is completely invisible in the role. All you see is this… creature on screen. His tongue flicks about, he has this herky jerky way of talking and walking, and his weird nasally whine as his voice. And it works. He is absolutely terrifying. There is one moment where he yells “Look at me!” that fucking rocked me to the bone. Wow. Terrifying. Joker’s entire “thing” is that he believes humans are vicious animals once society is stripped away, and he spends the whole movie trying to prove that. It’s a really well written character. Joker does not care about money or power, and that just makes him more terrifying and unique. Its rare to have a villain who is so absolutely and completely evil, that you still sort of… understand. (SPOILER in invisotext, highlight to read) And kind of want to win. I honestly got a little sad when the Joker’s final scheme does not work. It broke my heart. You could see, for a second, sadness on his face.(END SPOILER). He embarrasses Jack Nicholson’s performance. What a beautiful beautiful creation. I read somewhere that Heath Ledger hired a voice coach to learn to speak so that it seemed like he was a puppet. Just slightly off. And his whole performance captures that feel. At the end of the movie, Joker says “We will be fighting each other for a long time.” I imagine a universe where Ledger is still alive, and how exciting that line would have been. The theater would have erupted in applause. I would have smiled. Instead, I got a little choked up.I know people who knew him lost a lot lot lot more than future Batman/Joker movies, but, for me, that’s a pretty significant loss. Sad.

So that’s all. I loved it. I cant wait to watch it again. I wanna see it in Imax. I wanna see it on my tv screen. I wanna see it on an iPod. I wanna see it on a wrist watch. I just wish a ten year old Kumail could have seen it. He would have smiled ear to ear.

Hellboy 2 Review: SOME SPOILERS

So, for whatever reason, i have no objectivity when it comes to Hellboy. I love the first movie probably way more than I should. I've seen it almost twenty times. I have a Hellboy sized blindspot, and I acknowledge that. But I will try and be as objective as I can in reviewing Hellboy 2.

Hellboy 2 is the crowning cinematic, nay, cultural, achievement of humankind. When the earth is uninhabitable and destroyed, and alien travelers come to visit our ruins, I hope they find a dvd copy of Hellboy 2, for then they will know what a civilization we had. And they will cry. At the part where the elemental dies. And they will say "This race really did do a number on their planet, but the fact that they made Hellboy 2 makes up for all the evil and strife and pain that they put themselves through." And then they will find a copy of Biodome, and say "Hey this Pauly Shore guy is pretty funny." The aliens have a Pauly Shore sized blindspot, for some reason.

So, yeah, I'm being totally objective.

Here are three reasons why I love Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Hellboy is a great character.

To me, Hellboy is the most interesting superhero in comic books. He is a mess of contradictions. A Big muscular man who is just a little boy on the inside.A horrifying monster sent to destroy humanity, but ends up becoming a loving human being. He wants to be a cowboy and stand alone, but what he really wants is to be accepted by Liz, and by everyone else. He just wants to fit in. Unlike Spiderman, Hellboy can never take his mask off and know what it feels to be human, to not be stared at. That's why the scene in the Troll Market is so cool. For the first time in his life, he is out in the open, and no one is staring at him. And right after that scene, he is faced with the big decision. Does he side with humans, or with the monsters? Which brings us to:

The monsters are super fucking cool.

Del Toro's monsters don't feel just like monsters who have leapt into the frame; they feel like they have lived real lives. They have scars, and broken nails, and chipped tooths. The new Star Wars movies have these glossy shiny aliens, but the monsters here are messy and ugly. But I want to know what they were doing before the movie started. Fucking Cathedral Head! I would watch a whole movie about him. I wanna see him cramming for exams, I wanna see him at the grocery store getting milk. I wanna see him getting his head renovated. Do you think he decorates it for the holidays? I wanna see a plastic santa on his head. Oh, and that awesome elemental "monster" is great. I actually got a little teary eyed when Wink bites it. The monsters in this one are kind of the good guys. Del Toro manages to humanize a creature with a talking tumor.

Liz is a great character.

Her character in the first movie is tryign to figure out where she belongs, too. She looks human, but she knows that she is not. Does she stay with Hellboy, and embrace her monsterness, or does she leave BPRD and try and live a normal life? Her decision is made clear in the beautiful scene where she engulfs herself in flames to stand with Hellboy as cops point guns at him. Don't tell me to get away from the monster. I belong with him. Also, she looks pretty good. Selma Blair. Yeah, she's kind of attractive.

The movie is wonderful. The action is great, the monsters are great, the themes are developed and handled in a very satisfying way. Go see it. If you think it sucks, you need to get your head renovated.

A rant on Lost --- SPOILERS AHEAD

I made a huge mistake recently guys. I got myself into Lost. I had sidestepped the whole thing too. I watched the first season and was like “They don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. They are making it up as they go along.” And stopped watching it. And then my brother had seasons 2 and 3 on disc. “I should get into it.”

Big mistake.

I don’t like watching Lost. I just wanna know what the fuck is going on. I get no joy from it.

To me, watching Lost is exactly like a guy who comes up to me and is like “Betcha wanna know whats in this box, huh?” “Yes I do.” “I’ll tell you next week.” But stretched out over a period of six years. And he calls me every week and doesn’t tell me shit. And then some weeks he’ll call and its just some stupid story about before he ever got the box. And sometimes, strangely enough, a story that will happen after he loses the box. “How the fuck could you even know that?” “I’ll tell you next week.”

“Boy Sawyer and Kate are on the outs again huh?”
“FUCK THEM! WHATS IN THE BOX?”

Sometimes he’ll call and we’ll have this conversation::

LostMan: “Hey its green. Whatever’s in the box is green. I just looked.”
Me: “Awesome! Now I know something for sure! Its green!”
LostMan: “Its not green. It might be green. There’s a chance that it’s green. Green is a color that exists.”
Me: “Fuck you Lost.”

I am knee deep in Lost right now, and I can see why the whole country is gaga over it. But I still have a lot of problems with the way the show is written and the way the characters are handled. You can see the writers moving them around like puppets. When I watch the movies and tv shows I love, I usually think “Why is he doing that? Why would Mulder let him go?” etc. When I watch Lost I always think “Why are the writers making Jack do that? Why did the characters make Jin miss?” The characters exist just so the writers can move them around in favor of the plot. Why the fuck did Jin miss the explosives in the tent when the Others came to get the pregnant women at the end of Season 3? Jin is a badass kung fu mother fucking hitman. He doesn’t miss. Bernard should miss. He’s a fucking dentist.

Jin is just a “vessel” character, and they pour whatever personality they want into him. He hates his wife and is an asshole to her! No, he loves her, and understands! He’s a badass who can beat up 3 people! No, he can’t shoot a fucking knapsack from 10 feet away.

Why did Sayid fall in love with Shannon? Just so someone could be sad when she dies? What the hell do Sayid, an Iraqi torturor, and Shannon, a trixie, have in common?

Sayid: I am a torturer.
Shannon: I’ll tell you what torture is. Torture is finding out that MAC discontinued your shade of lipstick.
Sayid: Kiss me you fool.

Also, Sayid, we get it. You’re a torturer. You don’t need to bring it up at every possible turn.

Sayid: I am Sayid Jarrah. I am a torturer.
Sawyer: uhhh… We’re just going to collect mangoes dude.
Sayid: I could help you. I will use skills I learned. As a torturer.
Sawyer: Settle down Gunga Din.

Every single character on Lost has one, and exactly one, thing from their past that they need to reconcile. Sawyer killed a wrong man and wants revenge. Locke wants to deal with his daddy bullshit. Kate killed her daddy. Its all lazy paint by numbers characterization. Give them one flaw to make them interesting. You can see that Lost is written by a team in a conference room using venn diagrams and flow charts.

It also feels to me like they keep throwing crazy shit onto the wall to see what sticks. Did that bird whisper Hurley’s name? What? Really? Is this a conversation we are actually having? Describing the events of Lost to someone makes it sound like the worst show every made.

“So the hatch implodes and the island tells Locks that he needs to go rescue Mr. Eko from the polar bear cave, only to be killed later by the smoke monster, and Locke tries to repent but ends up in the cabin housed by the ghost of Jacob. He gets shot and left in a mass grave shortly thereafter, but its ok, cuz the island really likes him.”

What? How did we get here? How did we get to the point where “the island really likes him” is a fair explanation for… anything? And we’re buying it too! We’re like “Of course he’s ok. The island. Really. Likes. Him.”

We used to want real answers. Now we settle for that. They have won.

I think the last episode is just going to be the entire cast of Lost locking hands and line dancing as JJ Abrams quietly flips you off in the corner. And I mean, the entire cast. Boone is there, Shannon is there, the polar bear is there, the smoke monster. The fucking smoke monster… jeez… don’t get me started…

Wall E Review

The first third of this review will have no dialogue...






Kidding!

You know that feeling when you can tell everyone in the room is smiling? Its not that you can see their faces, but that somehow the power of all the smiles is changing the way the air feels, or something? That's how watching this movie was. You could tell everyone in the packed theater had a big grin on their face.

This movie will charm the fuck out of you. It's like a big charm sandwich with charm cheese, charm beef, and a drizzle of charm vinaigrette. In a good way. I'm sure a lot of work went into every single aspect of this film, but it seems effortless. Unlike Amelie, where you can feel the director trying to get us to react, Wall E seems to be just living his life, and a side effect of it just happens to be that his life charms us all to pieces. People were gasping in the theater right from the beginning. Gasps of charm. Like "Holy fucking shit I can't take this much charm" kind of gasps.

The problem with talking about this movie is that I don't know how much people know about it, so I wouldn't wanna give away some of the key plot points. Let's just say that it starts
off really small and then gets really big. Like, really big. But just go watch it, if you haven't already. And don't read anything more about it. Its the best reviewed movie of the year. That's all you need to know.

When we walked out of the movie, all of us had this big, goofy grin on our face. Like, a really uncool grin. I dare you to see this movie and walk out frowning. If you do, the child inside you is dead. You ended up suffocating it while watching Rock of Love. It happens. Go see all the Pixar movies. And Iron Giant. See that one as well. CPR that child back to life. And then make it watch Wall E. It'll have a goofy shit eating grin on its face. I swear it.