Captain America

In the midst of a fairly dreary summer Captain America emerges as an unlikely hero. This summer has seemingly had the goal of redefining empty spectacle and while one could hardly accuse Captain America of modest introspective filmmaking, it does at least want you to care about the people who are caught up in all of the CGI-splosions and tell a complete story about them. It’s almost a little sad how gratifying that is.

Like Joe Johnson’s earlier film The Rocketeer, Captain America manages to capture the fun, and dare I say innocence of the pulp era, with its straightforward heroes, hissable villains and retro future designs. Though it may lack The Rocketeer’s aesthetics purity it remains a welcome reminder that the sight of a Nazi taking a hard left hook to the puss will never lose any of its inherent charm.

Chris Evans, continuing his trend of being unexpectantly talented (he was always better than the movies he was in, watch Push sometime). He manages to play both Steve Rogers and Captain America convinincingly. Showing how the latter grows from the former. He’s easily the most human superhero we’ve seen since Tobey Maguire put on the red and blue. His opposite Hugo Weaving gets to Hugo Weaving it up, which is never a bad thing. His Red Skull is the ultimate pulp villain, marshalling armies of black clad soldiers and masses of infernal devices. Here is a man who knows the value of an ominous insectile war ship that he can stand in front of and cackle while it hovers ominously in the background. Stanley Tucci also makes a nice addition and Tommy Lee Jones also stars in the Tommy Lee Jones role. Delivering what I can only describe as The Platonic Ideal of “Old Crusty Tommy Lee Jones” performances.

Joe Johnston builds a unique look for the film (real visual imagination being another rarity this summer). Unadorned period piece for most of the America set segments, a look of sinister retro evil for the more fantastic sequences. Also welcome is his sense of lucid action. It’s amazing how much better spectacle works when you can see it.

I don’t want to oversell things here. It’s not a perfect movie, somewhat over long, with a climax that comes about fifteen minutes too late, and features one battle aboard a sinister hovercraft too many. Though it says something that it may leave the viewer hungrier for some more period action than The Avenger’s movie it sets up. Still in a summer, neigh a movie year as dire as this one has been it is rewarding to see something that comes in and does its job with such straightforward determination. Like its hero Captain America is old fashioned, which is by no means a bad thing.

Jackass 3/2.5

Jackass 3 reaches a kind of frenzied gloried. Though I enjoyed (I suppose that is the word) the other two Jackass films to one degree or another, they have now been made completely redundant. One cannot imagine where they can go from here. Or perhaps one simply does not want to. There’s something hypnotic about watching Jackass 3. It is like watching civilization end. Hunter Thompson once marveled that Circus Circus was what we would be doing every Saturday Night if the Nazi’s won the war. Jackass 3 is how we would spend our evenings if the bomb went off and nobody bothered to rebuild.

It’s hard to pinpoint just what makes the experience of watching the crew (including Chris Pontius the pride of my hometown) do  horrifying things to one another so different this time out. I mean sure the depravity and brutality have been turned up a few notches, with even relatively innocent sketches like Knoxville trying to disprove Roger Miller’s Thesis about Roller Skating in a Buffalo herd drawing winces. But there’s something else going on here, When one of the film’s running gags is that the veteran camera man keeps throwing up, you know things have taken a turn.

Part of it is that they are no longer kids. It’s one thing to do this to yourself wired on testosterone and a headful of drugs, but as one reaches middle age and (supposed) sobriety the prospect must become less appealing. Before one particularly brutal stunt Steve-O moans “Why do I have to be Steve-O” with what sounds suspiciously like existential despair.

My thirst for things that make me despair for the future of the human race not yet slated I also watched Jackass 2.5. The .5 series is if anything worse than the main one. As it consists entirely of stunts that the crew believes that they did not pull off. The main difference is that while the stunts in the main film usually end with the ensemble chortling like a pack of hyenas over a kill the .5 series are more apt to end with them staring at the spectacle they just caused with horrible numb introspection. What could cause such horror and remorse in a group as hardened as the Jackass crew I shall leave to your imagination.

It’s hard to believe; even setting aside the death of cast member Ryan Dunn that there could be a follow up at this point. There’s nowhere else to go. Unless they’re willing to have Jackass 4 end with the cast participating in a literal reenactment of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. With the chorus of hooting and chattering as they use rocks to smash one of their fellow’s skull to bits. It is perhaps the logical endpoint of the series. 

Still Alive

So these guys over here are paying me to write about books. You guys should go check them out so they can keep doing that.

As a result it’s time for a little pow wow. Things That Don’t Suck is going to be changing a bit in the coming weeks. Not too much. But the fact is I’m now writing on a regular basis as freelance for two publications and am quite frankly looking for more. Between that, my two blogs, not to mention my own writing, somethings got to give, and unfortunately what’s going to give is Things That Don’t Suck.

Now don’t send the flowers yet. I’m not going anywhere. There’s a great community of readers here and over the years I think the site has developed a real voice, something I’m really proud of. I’m not going to abandon that. Nor is this going to be just some sad appendix that provides links to my free lance work (I hate it when that happens). Things That Don’t Suck will keep it’s own identity.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the new schedule for Things That Don’t Suck will be. It might be every other day, it might be bi-weekly, I don’t know we’ll see.

I started the daily posting schedule for two reasons. The first to teach myself discipline as a writer, has been achieved. The second, to compete in the brutal battle for traffic was rapidly beginning to not make blogging fun for me anymore. Basically what I’m planning to do is cut the filler posts. Write about what makes me passionate again, instead of trying to drag 500 words out of the corpse of Season Of The Witch. Like the man said “All Killer, No Filler.” It might be that this shift in priorities is the best thing to happen to Things That Don’t Suck.

I can promise you this though, as long as you’re interested in reading Things That Don’t Suck it’ll be here for you.

See you tomorrow. 

Summer Of Samurai: Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart In Peril

Lone Wolf And Cub Baby Cart In Peril is the fourth installment in The Lone Wolf And Cub Series, which remains for my money the greatest of the samurai series.

Noted badass Ogami Itto continues his trek across Japan leaving a venerable trail of corpses in his wake. You would think that people would eventually learn that the lifespan for someone sent to kill Ogami Itto is usually roughly the same as “Henchman for the Joker.” But Motherfuckers keep making the same mistake and Itto keeps cleaning them up.

This was the first of the Baby Cart films not be directed by Kenji Musumi and it shows. Unlike the previous three entries which went for epic storytelling Baby Cart In Peril is   lower key and more atmosphere heavy than other entries. Instead of a master plot it’s almost a series of vignettes. The action is also downscaled with the epic storytelling (until the last scene). But what the fight sequences lack in scale they make up for with innovation and superb choreography, and feature some of the best in the series, including a truly creepy fight sequence against some “living Buddha’s” that gets even the usually unflappable Ogami Itto a little freaked out.

The film follows Itto as he goes to kill a female assassin who is killing members of a samurai family in her own quest for revenge. The assassin has gruesome tattoos over her body and fights topless because hey this is exploitation cinema in the seventies that’s why.  But the film isn’t as plot driven as the others, Itto doesn’t so much relentlessly track her as remember two thirds of the way through the film “Oh yeah I have that thing I gotta do.” In the meantime he kills some of the monumentally foolish people sent to assassinate him, gets briefly separated from his child Daigoro and gets a rather unnecessary retcon to his back story.

This retcon introduces Gunbei the only man to ever defeat Ogami Itto in a duel, and one of the douchiest characters I’ve ever seen in a samurai film. How Douche? Upon meeting Daigoro in a temple he realizes that the child is not afraid of swords. His natural response? To take the child and leave him in a burning field, and then murder a Buddhist Priest who tries to protect. Once again this is done with absolutely no motivation. He’s just kind of pissed that the child isn’t scared of him.

This entry does have a couple of issues; there are a few sequences that have an unnecessary and cumbersome narrator. The retcon also is a bit strange, reducing Itto’s quest for vengeance from a battle against a mad system to the machinations of a single family for the humiliation of a single fighter and to top it all off the series continues its tradition of having the most rape happy villains this side of Dr. Light.

But setting all that aside, The Baby Cart series remains one of the toughest, coolest, and yes best Samuari series ever made. And thanks to its brisk pace, atmospheric style, and hardcore action Baby Cart In Peril remains one of its best entries. 

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Transferring a beloved TV show to the big screen is a tricky business. Particularly when one is translating the actual show, as opposed to some vague reimaging that trades on name recognition. Transferring a show that had one of the most distinctive yet mercurial identities of any television show in ever made is significantly trickier. Transferring a show that had just ended in spectacular, not to mention rather definitive fashion, well that’s just plain asking for it.

Yet somehow Cowboy Bebop The Movie ends up being the rarity of rarities. A film that not only manages to keep the tone of the series undiluted, but delivers an experience that was on par with the best of the television episodes.

For those unfamiliar with the series Cowboy Bebop follows a group of bounty hunters vagabonding through the galaxy, not so much working together but with parallel contempt. The series was remarkable for its groundbreaking style, slick animation, nearly fetishtic level of affection for and understanding of genre filmmaking (all of them. The greatest part of the show was week in week out you had no idea if you were getting hong kong action, spaghetti western, blacksploitation, space opera, kung fu, or even out and out horror) and for the way it neatly eschewed all the usual beats of the team based storytelling. You really have to witness the form of dysfunctional functionality that the core team possessed. Against all odds they didn’t grow into a working family unit, but manifested any affection for one another as extreme passive aggression at best.

Cowboy Bebop The Movie ups the stakes, putting the fate of an entire planet at stake, but otherwise makes no concessions to the theoretically larger audience, both the crew and style against all odds remain resolutely themselves.

The film takes place in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. What first appears to be a biological attack is revealed to be something entirely more sinister. The crew pursues the person behind the attack, complications ensue. This might sound like a fairly standard action plot but the way its handled makes it superior.

Like many of its episodes Knocking On Heaven’s Door is about a buried secret of the old world (IE our world) coming to get revenge on the new. It’s a device that’s been done before, both with in the series and without. But rarely so well. Vincent is a hollow monster. Following the last impulse he has as his own.

It’s a textbook example of great Bebop plotting, done with just enough depth to give it real poignancy, and leaving enough questions unanswered to leave a real sense of mystery to the proceedings. Coupled with a great sense of atmosphere (the world of Bebop is a kind of multi cultural mélange, this time pulling on Moroccan architecture and culture) and some of the best choreographed fight scenes you’ll see in animation or Live Action, Cowboy Bebop The Movie lives up to the standard of quality set by the series.  

Supernatural Season 1

I rarely watch TV shows. It’s not a snobbery or a stuck up thing, it’s just that like everyone else I have limited time and as a TV show represents potentially hundreds of hours of investment I had better be damn sure I’m going to like it, before investing that sort of mental real estate. But I was somewhat curious about Supernatural, the long running horror/cute but non threatening lead delivery system, series system that has been running for the past several years.

Turns out it wasn’t bad. True the show rarely delivers any actual scares and at times seems far more concerned with showcasing the abs of its leads than any of the ghosts or demons they’re happening to fight. But it’s a light well made series, that manages to be a fair amount of fun. It’s like watching two not unlikable guys fight their way through a forty five minute Roger Corman film every week.

The show follows two monster killing brothers who are on the trail of their missing father (Badass in retrospect Jeffery Dean Morgan). Along the way they stop in various small towns across the US and battle a varied assortment of ghosts, demons, pagan gods and other supernatural beings and get in the occasional bits of surprisingly chaste romance (One of the interesting subtle ways in which the show is female centric is just how seldom these one episode romances get beyond a peck on the cheek. The days when Tom Selleck or James Garner could leave behind a trail of illegitimate children in their wake are long gone.) Though the show does spend an awful lot of time on a subplot involving the younger sibling’s resentment at being pulled back into the world of monster hunting after an extended hiatus, it’s just the kind of thing that is more noticeable with episodes watched back to back rather then spaced out over the course of a television season.

As said the show is usually too art directed to be scary. But it is at least creative. Switching between old standards (Indian Burial Ground) and original monsters. The effects themselves are pretty decent (We’ve come a long way since the days of Buffy’s first season) and manage a couple of creepy moments.

It doesn’t break any new ground in the genre. But it’s obviously made by people with a real affection for the horror genre, if not understanding of it. Really the show is for the most part content to just be a fun run through monster of the week. The perfect thing to watch over some Chinese left overs coming home beat from work. 

Shame On A Blogger

Sorry for the soft weekend. I've been trying to wrap my head around the prospect of an Evil Dead remake.

It hasn't gone well...

Also part of the blame has to go to this, which is just hypnotic. I mean pairing something incongruously cute with something incongruously crude is the oldest trick in the internet books. But the lip sync here is incredible. You haven't heard the Old Dirty Bastard's flow until you've seen it come out of the mouth of a pink pony. 

NSFW