Spam! It can be comedy gold.

I’ve been getting some amazing spam mail lately. One email was sent from ‘ransom2’, which sounds like a very believable name, because you never know when that next ransom will come. FEDEX EXPRESS DELIVERY wants me to know that my ATM Master Card worth 3,5 million dollars is ready, which is really reassuring, especially on a Monday morning. Green Card Program USA has an Easy Immigration Package to Australia for me, while Mr. Kazuhiko Okuda (Head of Internal Audit Group, Deputy President, Executive Officer and Director of Mizuho Trust & Banking Co., Ltd), Japan, has a very lucrative business proposal, involving money transfers. The competition is tight as a dolphin’s rectum, but the obvious winner has to be Mr. Hussein Razmani. He is an attorney, and needs my help with transferring 7,8 million dollars from one account to another. It’s cool, if I help him, he’ll give me a cool 40-percent cut. Seems legit. 

- Vuk, RR

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‘Man, I’m not gonna let you poison me’

Fact: I don’t like drinking games. Even more so, I hate reading about drinking games. I just think they suck. They force you to drink because, haha, drinking is funny, well, duh! And drunk people are so funny and fun! I’m no teetotaller, but goddammit it’s so annoying to see all these posts about drinking games, and to see characters in sitcoms being portrayed as wacky and funny when they’re tipsy or fully drunk.

Reading between the lines: drinking games and booze and all that shit is socially acceptable because it’s legal. More importantly, it’s profitable. After drinking, you’ll get a hangover (the size of which you can brag about) and you’ll need some paracetamol, which you’ll get at a pharmacy and thus give money to the pharmaceutical industry. Everyone’s happy - the alcohol and tobacco lobby and the pharmaceutical lobby as well. You don’t see cannabis portrayed this way, because it’s still mostly illegal, has no powerful lobby behind it, and thus will make you, like, stupid n’ stuff. And people partying sober, well, that’s just impossible. So, in the public’s eye, drinking equals fun, moderation is for losers and you are the best, most entertaining and outgoing you you can be when you’re drunk. 

I wrote this rant because I just saw a post entitled ‘The Big Bang Theory Drinking Game’, as Facebook shoved an advertisement for ‘The Big Bang Theory Memes’ in my news feed. It has a dozen rules. A game like that should be simple, for example, if the laugh track is aggressive and too frequent, you drink. By the end of an episode, you’ll be unconscious. 

Quick Recap: Community, Season 4, Episode 1

New season, first episode, didn’t like it. I wasn’t losing my mind over Dan Harmon getting fired because I was getting tired of Inspector Spacetime and The Dreamatorium; I felt the show was getting too cutesy and close to full retard mode with Troy and Abed. So, I wasn’t pessimistic about the new season, but the first episode did not deliver. There is a certain level of humor, a standard that Community has set for itself, and this was below that standard, it was like a skit about Community that was featured on an award show. But hey, I’m gonna watch it till the very end. 

P.S. Maybe this is the darkest possible timeline. 

Quick Review: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2

The Dark Knight Returns: Part 2 is officially one of the best Batman movies ever made. Much like Part 1, it does justice to its source material, Frank Miller’s game-changing four-episode mini series about a veteran 55-year-old Batman coming out of retirement in a bleak future spawned from the eighties. Changes were made from the comic book, so there is no inner monologue, which has been compensated by added dialogue, while some scenes are better played out in animation than they were as panels on pages. Certain details were omitted, but the Joker is presented as psychotic as he was in the original story, Superman is a good soldier of a Reagan-like US president, and Carrie Kelley takes her role as the new Robin seriously. Batman is equally bitter and idealistic, even without the inner monologue, and the epic fight between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel is as good as, if not better than the comic book version. Fans of the original story will be pleased, casual Batman fans will be entertained, and fans of quality movies will be pleasantly surprised. TDKR: Part 2 features more action, violence and blood than any other Batman title, animated or live action, and has kept its essence of a satirical and twisted take on the human condition and the vigilante who kept on believing he can fix people. To quote Abed from Community: ‘This is definitely the darkest timeline’, but there is a light at the end of the Batcave.

★★★★☆ (That’s four out of five, yo. Would have been a full five if it wasn’t for some smaller flaws with the voice acting, although the choice of actors was excellent.)

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via Rotten Tomatoes

Quick Review: Dredd

Dredd is a great action film. Simple storyline, plenty of fighting, shooting, stuff blowing up. More like the comic book that the previous Dredd film, this one has plenty of gore as well, and at times it seems the director really enjoyed showcasing various ways of dying in a violent and disgusting manner. Dredd doesn’t take his helmet off, nor should he. The bad guys are bad, disposable, easy to kill, there’s plenty of ammo and explosives, the rookie gets the usual guilt trip, the main guy is merciless, there are no slow scenes or emotional monologues, so it’s safe to say that Dredd delivers the goods, if you’re looking for some pure, fun action.

3 out of 5 stars, easily. 

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via RottenTomatoes

Quick Review: Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas conveys a universal message of oneness between the lives of different people, who are connected through reincarnation, destiny and chance. It emphasizes the importance of being guided by love and tolerance, of rebelling against oppressors and the eternal importance of truth. Those are all noble ideas, but the film itself is awful. Incredibly boring, pseudo-intellectual, full of plot holes, and at times, just plain stupid. From the 19th century story, through the past century and ours, across a dystopian future to a final, post-apocalyptic world, the Wachowskis have made an overblown effort that has left me feeling sad and disappointed, because it stole three hours of my life only to present a spiritual message and values I had already been accustomed to. Those values, of love through rebellion and connection through reincarnation have been around in pop culture for decades, since the rise of New Age philosophies. The novel it was based upon could have been written twenty years ago - at least, and this movie should have been made fifteen years ago. The only interesting thing about it is how many roles Tom Hanks can play - he is truly a masterful actor. Even when movies have an idealistic premise such as this one, they still have to fulfill their essential duty of being entertaining, and Cloud Atlas is not entertaining. And it didn’t make me dwell upon any new metaphysical questions. It was exhausting, and unsatisfying.

Grade: 1.5 out of 5, I guess. Noble message, terrible delivery. 

Vuk Oreb, Rad Recorder (via RottenTomatoes).

Dear Internet, Bill Murray had a career before he met Wes Anderson.

What About Bob? Groundhog Day. Ghostbusters, two movies. Scrooged. Kingpin. Osmosis Jones. But! Those are just comedies, nah, that’s just bullshit. Real movies are intellectual dramedies with quirky characters that mumble, not laid-back comedies like Scrooged. Well, fuck that. I love Bill Murray, and maybe I’m such a hipster that I liked him before he was cool, and I mean trendy cool; well, I liked him when he was cool cool. Cool. 

Quick Review: The Man With the Iron Fists

Kung-Fu movies are meant to be fun, and The Man With the Iron Fists Delivers. RZA knows his stuff, so when you combine his Kung-Fu training, Wu-Tang experience, and a partnership with Quentin Tarantino, you get one amazing, action packed film. It’s suited for a particular target audience though, which means it’s tailored to people who grew up with classic Chinese/Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies, and if you also love the Wu-Tang Clan, this movie delivers the goods. It’s unlike the current crop of Chinese fantasy martial arts spectacles; it’s gritty, comedic, bloody and over-the-top.

Every character is a perfect cliche inspired by Kung-Fu classics, from Crowe’s dubious knife expert, Lucy Lui’s Madame Blossom, Batista’s Brass Body, down to RZA’s Blacksmith. Not one boring minute, and definitely worth watching again. Those who criticize this movie and call it a failure are not its target audience, and would probably be better off watching something that has been approved by festivals and art-houses, or partake in the latest Wes Anderson effort. But if you like simple movies that kick a whole lot of ass, this is the real deal.

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via Rotten Tomatoes

Quick Review: That’s My Boy!

Adam Sandler is trying to pass the torch to Andy Samberg, but the problem is, is there any fire left on the torch? Whatever the case may be, That’s My Boy is the dumbest Sandler movie I have seen thus far, but I haven’t seen Jack and Jill yet, so I still love his work. As dumb and vulgar as it is, at least it doesn’t feel forced. MacFarlane’s Ted is equally obnoxious and laced with a Massachusetts background, but it feels way more unnatural than this over-the-top politically incorrect stoner slacker film. If you love Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, and have zero expectations, than this movie doesn’t fail. There have been some truly terrible comedies in 2012, like American Pie Reunion or The Watch, and this really is better. One thing is for sure - it’s awesome to be friends with Adam Sandler, because he will make sure you have an acting career, as the entire roster of his allies featured in this film will surely confirm. Also, the product placement here is crazy, everything is Budweiser, Busch, New Era and Carrhart, which means that even if the film failed at the box office, nobody involved left empty handed. So, when it comes to the stupidest of comedies, you can rely on Sandler to deliver, and that’s why this film deserves a three out of five rating.

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms (2006)

Mike Mignola provided the story, the character design is equal to his comic book series, all the voices were done by the same actors that portrayed these characters in feature films, so this will definitely be a great cartoon, right? Wrong! The story is full of plot-holes and seems nonsensical, the animation is lazy, and the action scenes could have been done better - if not for the aforementioned lazy animation. There’s another Hellboy Animated feature, Blood and Iron, but after watching this one, Blood and Iron will be skipped. What a waste of time.

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via RootenTomatoes

Quick Review: The Campaign

The Campaign is a decent political satire, with Ferrell and Galifianakis doing a great job as the douche congressman and his fish-out-water naive good guy opponent, both running for office in the same district in North Carolina. To paraphrase the great Stewart Griffin, friends become enemies, enemies become friends, leaving everyone richer for the experience, as the film follows a predictable pattern that is even reminiscent of Trading Places - two rivals who don’t even know each other, manipulated by two filthy rich bastard brothers, played by Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow.

Jay Roach directed this, so those predictable elements go extreme in the best possible way, but this also means the story is a bit naive and cliched at times. And yes, Galifianakis cries in this film as well, within the first ten minutes.

Rating: 3/5

Posted at RottenTomatoes

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder

Quick Review: Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (Starring Ice-T as Ice-T in an Ice-T production, directed by Ice-T, narrated to sleep by Ice-T)

The Art of Rap is basically a documentary about Ice-T talking to veteran MC’s about writing lyrics, just talking and spitting rhymes. And it’s incredibly boring, like a long mandatory lecture about music history, from the viewpoint of the people who were actually making history happen, but they overemphasize every single detail about the creative process, their own importance, and constantly keep kissing each other’s asses.

The format is like this: Ice-T talks about himself and the omnipotent power of Hip Hop, about himself some more, then we see a couple of urban landscapes, Ice-T walking in slow motion across some city, then Ice-T talks to a rapper, he calls the rapper the greatest at something and the innovator of something else, the rapper agrees, usually followed by an extra long verse; repeat cycle. Most protagonists seem to be totally out of touch with reality, Ice-T included, and the weirdest part of this documentary are Eminem’s eyes. If you follow modern Hip Hop, not the mainstream/singles charts/MTV heavy rotation shit, but if you’re in the know about today’s leaders and innovators, then don’t watch this.

Rating: 2/5 (maybe, it’s unbearably boring, and you keep waiting for KRS One to show up and bore you even more - he delivers)

Posted at RottenTomatoes

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder