in defense of the prequels.

before i get to the nerd heresy that is the purpose of this post, i've got a brief review of "Public Enemies" to throw out there. (just in case anyone still reads this little sounding board i like to occasionally nerd out on) so if you aren't familiar with Mr. Michael Mann, he's a madman, and one of the best directors in the game today. his films offer complete immersion, super stylized cinematography, and the best gun battles in hollywood. he directed thief, manhunter, last of the mohicans, heat, the insider, ali, collateral and miami vice. so now comes public enemies, starring johnny depp, christian bale and marion cotillard, among others, as the primary figures in john dillinger's one year crime spree across the midwest from 1933-34 that famously ended in a hail of gunfire outside of a movie theater in chicago. the film is not exactly what i expected, the trailer having me expecting an action based shoot-em-up gangster flick a la the untouchables. public enemies is not that film at all. it is extremely artistic and beautifully made, with terrific shots, set design, camera angles and of course, acting. it's not so much a gangster movie as it is a biopic of the last year of dillinger's life and a love story, a surprisingly touching one at that. depp and cotillard are terrific, bale is solid, and the supporting cast is very good. film making 10/10, acting 9/10, plot 8/10, script 7/10, for a final grade of 8.5. something tells me this film is only going to grow on me on re-watching. if you're an adult with a mind that wants more out of films than silly jokes, shit blowing up and pretty people, go see Public Enemies.. you won't regret it. [p.s. this movie made me sad b/c it demonstrated how amazing an actor johnny depp is, and how much of a fucking tragedy it is that he wastes his time wearing clown makeup and appearing in clown ass disney movies and everything tim burton even farts on. the guy really should be up there with Leo competing for the incredible dramatic roles that are out there, instead he's playing a pirate caricature and singing while cutting throats. come on john. you've been donnie brasco, you've been john dillinger, give us something memorable... before its too late and you've become gary oldman.]

now, the heart of the matter. defending the seemingly un-defendable, the three star wars prequels. i think the problem with the prequels first and foremost, is people's ridiculously high opinion of episodes IV-VI, and thus the expectation that the first three chapters are going to be just as good as the unrealistic opinion of the last three. the star wars films can be ranked in this way: 1. The Empire Strikes Back (9.2), 2. A New Hope (8.7), 3. Revenge of the Sith (8.1), 4. Return of the Jedi (7.1), 5. Attack of the Clones (7), 6. The Phantom Menace (6). It is my opinion that there are in fact 3 good star wars movies, but they aren't the ones that you may be thinking. III, IV and V are all excellent, I, II and VI are all merely average to above-average. the mistaken belief that all of the prequels are shit and all of the original trilogy are golden is ridiculous and the source of all of this nerd propaganda. a new hope and empire strikes back are both outstanding. truly, like on an all-time level. return of the jedi is not. return of the jedi is a two hour toy commercial, with new characters, aliens, creatures and spaceships introduced every 35 seconds without any explanation whatsoever (hm, sounds kind of like phantom menace and attack of the clones to me). yes, the giant space battle is awesome, but we're also forced to sit through mark hamill's empty emotionless acting (hamill was ok as a whiney teen, not as a confident man), the ewoks, and like i said, the introduction of all sorts of new characters for no purpose other than to sell action figures. is anyone expected to believe that midgets wearing carpet and bear masks are taking on the galactic military with rocks, sticks and logs? i mean come on george, that's the dumbest thing to happen in any of the star wars films. in ROTJ, you can see the problem developing that would plague the first two prequels. Lucas' focus gets too macro and grandiose, and he loses focus on what made people love star wars in the first place, the characters. he forgets that trees even exist while shooting the whole fucking forest. for that reason, ROTJ gets a 7.1, and is only slightly better than attack of the clones, the 2nd best of the prequel films. attack of the clones has its problems (jar-jar, the less than compelling "love story" between anakin and padme), but it also has an awesome battle scene, and a badass jedi fight between anakin-obi wan-yoda and count dooku. really, the problems with Episode II are the stupid, stupid dialogue, emotionless acting and reliance on effects and cgi. revenge of the sith is fucking good. i don't care what anyone says, it's actually somewhat compelling, has some awesome (awesome) fight scenes, and really brings everything full circle, who wouldn't like that? i've said repeatedly that if George Lucas put 30% of the work into story and characters that he did into sets, effects and creatures, the prequels would be 3 of the top 10 films of all time, and Revenge of the Sith is the only one where it comes together. Empire Strikes Back is the best... i've talked about that already (see the top 20 list), A New Hope is 2nd, just purely for what it brought to film and the movies, it really changed everything (a great sense of adventure, a quest, classic good vs. evil, great characters. so really, there ARE in fact two trilogies that are separated by quality. and that's III, IV and V vs. I, II and VI. there is really only one BAD star wars movie. and that's a phantom menace. i give it a 6 and that's being generous. the only things that save it are the always awesome liam neeson, darth maul, absolutely gorgeous CGI (the pod-racing scene looks amazing) and effects and a solid performance out of natalie portman. on the other side is the shitty acting out of everyone else, (including you little boy), the infamous jar-jar (who really was just playing the C3PO part, but it didn't work), and just a dumb story that isn't at all compelling. so the next time you're hating on star wars, don't just blindly split it into the originals vs. the new guys. look into return of the jedi again, it isn't really very good by the standards of a new hope and empire strikes back. there ARE three good star wars movies, but they aren't the ones you think. i'll argue this shit with any nerd anywhere.

nerd hypocrisy, annoyances.

before we get going, i just had an observation about something that's going on with my life. i get annoyed by things. i mean, really, really annoyed by things. like, annoyed to the point that if i didn't have people to rant to about it i might go postal because i'm utterly out of my wits regarding the general idiocy of people and the nonsense they're up to. i have ridiculous bouts of road rage, and don't even want to know what kind of old man i'm going to be. i'm pretty damn grouchy already, let alone when i'm 70, all 70 year olds are grumpy.. what are 70 year olds like when they were grouchy as hell at age 25? anyway, the point of this rant was that there's this character i see at the rec literally every time i go, and he is fucking infuriating. i literally have to try my hardest not to strangle him. does this happen to anyone else or is this unique to me? he's this smallish (probably 5'8 or so) persian looking fellow who somehow is there literally EVERY SINGLE time i'm there, he wears a white polo with the collar popped (he must have 15 of them) and doesn't do anything but walk around aimlessly. i just look at his stupid face with incredulity.. utterly astounded at whatever the hell he's up to. i mean honestly, a white polo at the gym, with the collar popped. i just want to grab him and find out what the hell he's up to. and maybe hold him under water for 5 minutes or so, just until he stops thrashing.

first... one general complaint about the world and the way it is. true or false, when you are sitting inside of your car, you are required by law to be wearing a seatbelt? (true) True or false, your car weighs between 1,200 and 2,000 pounds? (unless you're an SUV/pickup driving asshole, also true) True or false, riding a motorcycle offers significantly less protection than does riding inside of a car? So ok. with these basic facts laid down, why in the name of everything holy are you allowed to ride motorcycles without helmets if i have to wear a seatbelt under threat of ticket? i drove from the 419 to the 513 today, spending significant time on I-75, and was (once again) blown away by the ridiculousness of the current state of affairs. if the justification for requiring seatbelts is safety, then how in the hell are you allowed to ride a motorcycle period, let alone without a helmet? it makes no fucking sense. unless you're wearing iron man's suit, if you get into a wreck on a motorcycle, you're getting fucked up (ask roethlisberger), but you are nevertheless still permitted to do it. meanwhile, i can't run an errand down the street without worrying about whether or not i'm going to get ticketed by johnny law, despite the fact that i'm sitting inside of a 1200 pound metal beast and haven't been involved in a wreck in a decade. what the fuck? if that situation makes sense to you, contact mr. bernard madoff regarding some incredibly valuable commodities.

now. onto the subject of nerd hypocrisy. those nerds are a fickle bunch, they really are, and there's really no predicting what they're going to love and what they're going to hate. lets take two films that came out this summer, both nerd-centric in aim and scope. i'm talking about star trek and terminator: salvation. both solid films.. is star trek better? absolutely, but it's not out of this world better or anything. as i've said before, i give terminator a 7.9 and star trek an 8.8. read the reviews online... everyone's acting like star trek is the essence of christ himself devoted to celluloid, and that terminator is the largest pile of shit since gigli. why is this you ask? well. several reasons. first, the dude who directed terminator is named McG. yes, you read that right. his name is joe mcginty nichol, and he goes by mcg. like mclovin, only not as cool. clown? absolutely, but is that REALLY a reason to hate somebody and just rip everything they do to shit without even going in with an open mind? i mean, the guy who we elected president's name is Barack Obama. if that's not fucking clown by mid-american standards, i don't know what is. coupled with this McG hatred is christian bale backlash. once the nerd god who could do no wrong, the dark knight has been showing a few chinks in his armor as of late. first with the mom/sister assault thing, then the infamous "are you professional or not?!" outburst of the spring. it's too the point where i've actually heard people rip his performance of bruce wayne/batman (particularly the "batman voice", completely ignoring the fact that he just stole that from Michael Keaton). you don't believe me that terminator is actually decent? just look at the worldwide box office. terminator has made twice as much money overseas as it has domestically. think about it, in europe they actually like people with weird names like mcg. that should tell you that the movie is actually pretty damn good. so while terminator is experiencing a perfect nerd storm of sorts destined to cause a nerd backlash, star trek is directed by the new nerd wunderkid of the moment, jj "i had a bad acid trip and helped think up lost" abrams. like i said before, star trek IS better than terminator, it's just not 10X better. and i'm ok with nerds ripping it, i'm just not ok with HOW they're ripping it. nerds go find criticisms that are present in every fucking work of fiction and run wild with them when they want to deadpan something. look, we're talking about a movie that's set in 2018, when robots have wiped out most of humanity and north america is a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland. sorry if everything doesn't make perfect logical sense. let's talk about some widely beloved movies and some plotholes. the dark knight and star trek. first, in the dark knight.. how in the fuck does the joker accomplish his ridiculously intricate criminal conspiracy? apparently all he ever did personally was look menacing and carry around a potato peeler, putting smiles on faces and such. but we're somehow supposed to believe this whackjob is single-handedly bringing gotham to its knees? how about some exposition there chris? next, star trek. lets talk about the ridiculous shit that happens in star trek. first, people re-enter vulcan's atmosphere wearing only space-suits. did you hear about what happened to the space shuttle a few years back when it was missing some tiles? you can't just fly any old device into a planet's atmosphere... it will burn the fuck up. you'd have to be using some sort of heat shield, a cone or something if you will. second... ships fly through BLACK HOLES multiple times in the film. maybe jj or someone should have read a physics book. black holes destroy matter at the atomic level, even light cannot escape, but somehow eric bana's ship is just chilling amongst an open singularity and he's BROADCASTING OUT of it? and the enterprise manages to escape when glass is cracking and shit? if fanboys think that's ok, but the fact that there was a plothole or two in terminator, maybe they should have watched nova in their youth. i'm not even going to address the shit about time travel, the fact that that shit is ridiculous isn't even worth mentioning.
- Now, don't get me wrong, i enjoy all of these films, my point is simply that EVERY film set in the future or involving super heroes (batman is realistic? really? let me tell you what would happen if batman really existed - he'd get shot 35 times with an AK on the third night he was out and fucking die. no ninja can dodge bullets) is going to have ridiculous plot holes that strain credibility because THAT SHIT ISN'T REAL. so to rip one work to hell while giving another one a free pass is just absurd. how do you look yourself in the mirror fanboys? shame on you.