From The Archives: Some Thoughts On The Trailer For G-FORCE (2009).

 

 

 

Wrote this routine three years ago, still enjoy it, hope you will too.

 

 

There is something very wrong with me.

 

 

I saw the G-Force trailer for the first time the other day, and have been obsessed with this movie ever since. It opens tomorrow. I live in fear that the demons that drive me will drive me to the theater and force me to spend precious money on opening-weekend admission tickets.  Take a look:

 

 

 

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G-Force is about a team of specially trained guinea pigs who work as covert operatives for the government. They can talk and they like to have adventures and also, to fart.

 

 

This is a high-concept so incredibly shitty that I am entirely drawn to it.  It appeals to the most childish and irresponsible side of my imbecilic nature. 

 

 

Smarty-pants comedians always bring this up, but movies like this truly ARE why the terrorists hate us.  Only in America could many millions of dollars be directed not towards curing cancer or feeding our homeless, but in animating, producing, and marketing [everywhere] a movie about farting guinea pigs.

 

 

Well, the terrorists are dicks, and they’re always pissed off about something anyway, so screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.  Bring on the farting guinea pigs! As long as you know, they don’t make me think about those sick or poor people.

 

 

The terrorists also hate this movie because somewhat insanely, this premise isn’t too far from reality. Periodically, the eagle-eyed news reader will notice various articles that mention various U.S. military attempts to use animals in warfare. I’m sure that real-world verity was on the minds of the makers of this movie!

 

 

Here are some reasons to rejoice in the impending arrival of G-Force:

 

 

1. Besides guinea pigs, it stars Zach Galifianakis!  Yay!  You fell in love with him after The Hangover, America – now watch a brilliantly original stand-up comedian stumble sleepily through a loosely-scripted, massively-budgeted Hollywood monolith.  (In all honesty, this IS something I would like to watch.)  Also, Zach Galifianakis kind of looks like a chinchilla already, so I guess it’s appropriate casting.

 

 

Other talented people who will get a paycheck out of G-Force: Will Arnett, Steve Buscemi, Jon Favreau, Tracy Morgan, Bill Nighy, Sam Rockwell, Loudon Wainwright III (Undeclared fans represent!).  Whatever keeps people like these working can’t be an entirely bad thing.  Hopefully the G-Force money allows them the freedom to do other, more interesting things – particularly Buscemi and Favreau, who are directors who have made movies (Trees Lounge; Made) that have inspired me in the past.

 

 

2. Featuring the voice of Penélope Cruz!  Yay!  Of the diverse possible reasons to like Penélope Cruz, I would have ranked her phonetic aptitude and her comedic timing close to the bottom of the list, but okay, maybe she’s been waiting for this exact movie to display those deeply-buried talents.

 

 

3. Also featuring the voice of Tracy Morgan!  Yay!  This is a win-win for comedy fans and for film producers, because if Tracy shows up, you get the benefit of his unhinged delivery, and if he gets distracted and wanders away from the ADR studio, you can hire underground rapper Kool Keith to do the voice and still advertise with the bigger star’s name. 

 

 

Seriously, if you closed your eyes, could you entirely tell whether you were listening to Tracy or to Keith?  Two different talents, one similar voice.

 

 

4. Directed by Hoyt Yeatman!  Yay!  Another visual effects supervisor getting a shot at directing a feature film!  Why take a chance on one of the thousand directors in Hollywood who have been studying cinematic storytelling for decades when you can get an ace VFX guy?  At least the guinea pigs will look believable!  (Until 3 months from now, when the outdated CG will look archaic and clumsy.)

 

 

5. Screenplay by “The Wibberleys”! Yay!  Even the credits are adorable!  Actually, a quick IMDB search for The Wibberleys reveals that they are a married couple who have provided the scripts for some of the most awful big-budget sequels of the past decade.  I don’t enjoy criticizing fellow writers, but the fact remains, they’re hacks.  Is it a criticism if it’s a fact?  Like “that mud is dirty” or “that fart smells bad”?

 

 

I bring up farts, of course, because farts are a major selling point in the G-Force trailer. I’m as immature as the next guy, but when I calm down for a minute I like to picture the writing session that birthed such moments:

 

 

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“EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – DAY…

 

The G-Force are riding at super-speed in a space-age exercise ball. One of the guinea pigs lets out a thunderous FART that would shock even Carlos Mencia.

 

GUINEA PIG #1
Yuck! Disgusting!

 

GUINEA PIG #2
Roll down the window!

 

TRACY MORGAN GUINEA PIG
These things don’t have windows!”

 

 

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Dang!  Look at that expert screenplay construction.  Take that, Charlie Kaufman!

 

 

Please note:  The Wibberleys are Writer’s Guild members who command multiple-figure salaries, and I am not.  Who you gonna listen to?

 

 

Sometimes life is so ridiculous that a sane man’s only recourse is to take a break from the fight and just enjoy the senselessness of it all.

 

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 @jonnyabomb

Now on DVD: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (US, 2011).

David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens with an intense, aggressive, dynamic, pansexual, twisted credit sequence.  It’s a series of appealingly grotesque images; inky silhouette figures mixing and morphing and blending into each other, scored to the wild industrial howl of Karen O and Trent Reznor’s urgent cover version of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”  Check it out:

This credit sequence is disturbing and exciting and in my opinion the only thing to match it in the nearly-three-hour film that follows is Rooney Mara’s ferocious, revelatory performance.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on a lengthy novel by Swedish muckraker-turned-fictioneer Stieg Larsson, who famously died before seeing the international phenomenon that became his posthumously-released trilogy of mysteries featuring the now-famous team of disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and disturbed hacker prodigy Lisbeth Salander.  The books were turned into a successful series of films in Larsson’s native Sweden, with the role of Lisbeth Salander going to a woman named Noomi Rapace who will soon be seen in the lead role in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.  I haven’t seen any of the Swedish Salander films, but I’ve read the first book, and that’s where I was coming from when I saw the high-profile American version last winter.  I was excited when I heard David Fincher was directing from a Steven Zaillian script, although I had a nagging sense of disappointment that such a uniquely talented director was covering such well-trod ground.  And I don’t like it when my misgivings are proved correct.

To be fair to Fincher’s movie, the problems I have with Dragon Tattoo the movie are the same problems I have with Dragon Tattoo the book.   So we’re not here all day, I’ll just list the prime notions of debate:

1)  There’s not enough story here to justify the movie’s length.  The book is 480 pages.  The movie is 158 minutes, well over two-and-a-half hours.  There’s not quite as much Swedish politics and magazine publishing day-to-day and white-collar crime and expansive geneology in the movie as in the book, but there’s still plenty more than any one movie needs.  Good drama is about incident, not details, and with respect, Larsson’s work was far stronger on the latter than the former.  Which ties into the second point.

2)  There’s plenty of atmosphere, but not that much mystery.  This is a testament to the cinematic mastery of Fincher.  The man is incapable of shooting a movie that looks and feels anything less than impeccable, precisely-mounted, and absorbing.  He makes movies that look better than most movies, yet his images have texture and mood and momentum, all of which make his films feel weightier and realer than just a moving coffee table book of pretty photography.  But all the grace in the world can’t lift a story that is lacking.  Dragon Tattoo is a mystery at its core — Blomkvist and Salander are hired to investigate a decades-old cold case involving the disappearance of the niece, Harriet, of the mega-wealthy Henrik Vanger (played by the formidable Christopher Plummer.)  It’s an Agatha Christie whodunit, a parlor mystery.  But rarely in a film of this pedigree (and length) is the list of suspects so limited.  Was it Henrik’s nephew, Harriet’s brother Martin (Stellan Skarsgard)?  Was it Dirch Frode, Henrik’s attorney (Steven Berkhoff)?  Was it Henrik himself?  It’s fairly obvious in the book and it’s very obvious in the movie.  Casting, baby, casting.  Anyone who’s seen a few movies before will quickly pick out the bad guy — which isn’t necessarily a problem, if the story hadn’t spent so much time building to the monumental — and in fact, anti-climactic — reveal.

3)  It’s ironic that Daniel Craig plays the role of Blomkvist, since, like James Bond, Blomkvist manages to bed just about every female character in the story.  (The movie actually does the service of removing one of the love affairs from the novel.)  In the book, since Blomkvist is a crusading journalist like Larsson was in real life, this romantic track record reads like wish fulfillment on the part of the author.  In the movie, it’s troubling in a different way.

As in the novel, Blomkvist and Salander become romantically involved.  In both the novel and the film, this feels false.  Salander is a troubled victim of sexual abuses whose mutable sexuality sees her at an early point in the story having a fling with another young woman.  The fact that Salander isn’t resolutely a lesbian does make her interesting, but the fact that she quickly hooks up with the traditional male hero figure makes her far less so.  As dreamy as Daniel Craig may be, and as altruistic and intelligent as Blomkvist is meant to be, it’s difficult to buy this man in particular, let alone any man, as the type to attract Lisbeth Salander.

Salander is by far the most intriguing element Larsson’s novel has to recommend it, and she’s by far the strongest part of Fincher’s movie.  Rooney Mara had a small but pivotal role in Fincher’s The Social Network, but here she tears into the central protagonist role with a nearly-animalistic fury.  It was one of the oddest, most bruising, most unpredictable female performances to come out of any movie last year, and it should have been more widely recognized and rewarded.  The most thrilling and violently compelling scenes of the movie are when Mara, as Salander, avenges herself and her gender against a patrician society full of debased pigs in jackets and ties.  Blomkvist is comparatively a good guy, but he feels like a civilian when she’s more of a symbol.  It’s a little like how Wonder Woman used to date regular dudes without superpowers and it didn’t feel right.  It’s a little worse than that, actually.

The romance angle in Dragon Tattoo quite frankly isn’t worthy of the Salander character.  At best, it plays more like Chasing Amy (where a straight man “converts” a gay woman), really, and I expect more nuance out of David Fincher than I do of Kevin Smith.  At worst, it lazily discards all the character work that would make the story original.  The final scene of the Dragon Tattoo movie, which I have little trouble spoiling as it spoils the movie all by itself, shows Lisbeth Salander, awesomely vicious warrior of the internet age, excitedly buying a gift for Blomkvist.  She goes to give it to him, but instead spots him reconnecting with his longtime paramour, Erika Berger (Robin Wright).  Upset by the sight, Salander spitefully tosses the present in the trash, like a jilted schoolgirl, without ever confronting Blomkvist about the betrayal.  It’s an egregious end, considering how the fierceness of this character has until this development been the best and (frankly) the most active part of the movie.  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is much too well-made a movie to have that flawed an ending.

Bottom line:  Good character, good screenwriting, great acting, great direction, bad story.  The last undoes the rest.  To make a great movie, as Fincher has done before and will do again, you need all of the elements working in concert.  A false note played that loud spoils the entire symphony.

 

Agree?  Disagree?  Let’s hear it, below or on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

Laughing At You, Not With You: The Trailer for THE INTOUCHABLES.

That’s The INtouchables, not The Untouchables.  The Untouchables is a good movie which I’d have no problem watching again anytime.  Let’s have one excellent moment together before the darkness descends.

That was nice.  Now back to The Intouchables.

Here’s how IMDb describes The Intouchables:

After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caretaker.

Here’s how the otherwise terrific IFC Center described The Intouchables when it played there this spring:

A phenomenon in France, where it shattered box-office records to become the second most successful film of all time, The Intouchables tells the true story of the unlikely friendship between a handicapped white millionaire (François Cluzet) and his unconventional Senegalese caretaker (breakout star Omar Sy). A Weinstein Company release.

And here are trailers:

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Now I’m going to make fun of this, and I don’t think I care who it offends.

The reason I say that is because the only people who I care about offending are the same exact ones who would be offended by the very idea of this movie.  Maybe it’s not my place to advocate for the groups who are diminished by a movie like this one, but remember what Edmund Burke said – “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  In other words, if I’m not able to make fun of a movie released in 2012 where a rich white guy hires a poor black guy to be his manservant and we’re expected to see it as uplifting just because he’s in a wheelchair, then we all lose.

How patronizing, facile, clumsy, calculated, shallow, insincere, maudlin, ignorant, superficial, saccharine, simplistic, etc., etc., infinity, can one trailer be?  You might be able to get away with this shit in Europe, but don’t go bringing it to my country and expect me to receive it with a gentle kiss on both cheeks.  To be fair to the filmmakers, I’ve not seen the entire movie.  But to be fair to myself, I ain’t never gonna.

I saw the trailer at the front of a DVD I watched recently, and my hatred immediately ignited as soon as the following exchange transpired:

“These street guys have no pity.”

“That’s what I want… no pity.”

Holy shit, dude.  Not “Hey, you’re wrong about those ‘street guys’, and you shouldn’t generalize, my privileged racist friend”, but “You’re totally right about those black guys — I mean, street guys – and that’s the kind of cruelty I need!”

It’d be a lot easier to take if there weren’t an adorable lil’ Hitler joke a minute later.

Or how about the way that the white guy becomes a quadriplegic from a hang-gliding accident, and instead of learning his lesson from it, just straps himself to the black guy so he can go hang-gliding again, with cruddy Snow Patrol or whatever that song is soaring on the soundtrack with the wings of a moronic eagle.

I hope there’s a scene where the “street guy” reintroduces the wheelchair guy to the pleasures of the flesh and the herb:

I thought so.

How sweet. Hey, I didn’t know this was a bittersweet comedy about how a lowly thug teaches a self-defeating rich man how to love life again by helping him to smoke weed with Asian hookers. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have been so nasty.

Let’s take a look at some production stills and see if we can’t predict exactly what happens in this movie…

“This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy.”

“Well, Wheelchair Guy, I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change.”

“You‘re the man now, dog!”

And of couse there’s a scene where the Senegalese guy helps the wheelchair guy win a race against two people on Segways.  The fucking French.

“You’re gonna eat lightnin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder, Wheelchair Guy!”

Nineteen-million French people can’t be wrong, huh?

Honestly it’s not as much the French who are annoying me here.  They don’t know any better.  They don’t have the history with racism, both onscreen and off, that our country has.  Even beyond the repulsiveness of this premise (it’s Finding Forrester meets Awakenings! The Blind Side meets The Christopher Reeve Story!) in the context of everything that has happened in real life in America from slavery to Rush Limbaugh, the lame conventions of modern cinema are strong with this one.  We should be beyond this shit by now.  It’s just as offensive to have a magical minority character who brings joy to the wealthy whiteys as it would be to have a stereotypically villainous minority character.  It’s a bad joke if you’re awake, but I’m sure it could appear sweet and affecting if you’re not keyed into this stuff.  That’s why I’m disappointed in Harvey Weinstein, a savvy businessman who should have more of a social conscience — The Weinstein Company picked up The Intouchables for distribution in the States and bought the rights to a remake.  With any luck, Meryl Streep and Tyler Perry can star in a Garry Marshall film and everyone involved can make a bundle off everybody in America who never actually met anyone of another ethnicity.  See, if you actually have a diverse social circle than you know that we’re all just people.  Nobody has mystical abilities, and no one’s problems are solved by anything so easy as a kite ride.  It’s either ignorant or consciously exploitative to sell a movie like this — now which kind of wrong do you want to be?

Maybe I’m the asshole, but I don’t take The Intouchables any more seriously than I take this:

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According to the Wikipedia entry on The Intouchables, a Nina Simone song was appropriated for the movie’s soundtrack.  That’s a bit of blasphemy.  Nina Simone would have fucking HATED this movie on sight.  I super-promise it.

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If I’m wrong, enlighten me.  But if I’ve got a point, then please hate thoughtfully.  I’m findable on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

Eagerly-Awaited Movies Of The Future: ANCHORMAN 2 (2013).

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It’s an easy comparison to make, but it’s an accurate comparison to make:  This is The Avengers of modern comedy.  It’s gonna be hard to wait for it.  It’s gonna be hard to imagine it’ll be anything other than great.

I also can’t entirely explain it, but the Anchorman 2 trailer and poster somehow totally remind me of NBC’s promos for Smash.  But all that does is make it funnier.

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More acute observations can be found on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

Happy Thoughts: My May 2012 @WarnerArchive Order.

 

 

At the last minute, I hopped on this limited-time-only sale from the great Warner Archive service, which makes older movies available to order.  It’s a great, fun way to catch up on (or discover) titles which fall outside of the quote-unquote canon.  I’ve got a growing stack of Warner Archive titles, and that continues today.

As an excuse to post some beautiful old-fashioned movie poster art, I’ll share the four titles I ordered today, and include the brief descriptions of the movies, which should make it immediately clear why I had to have them in my library.

 

FLAREUP (1969)

Raquel Welch stars as an exotic dancer stalked from Las Vegas to Los Angeles by the psychopathic ex-husband (Luke Askew) of her friend, who blames her for the break-up of their marriage.

HICKEY & BOGGS (1972)

Bill Cosby and Robert Culp (“I Spy”) are united again as private eyes in this Walter Hill-scripted “film noir.” Searching for a missing girl, they find themselves involved with vicious criminals and precipitating a string of deaths.

 

 

THE STONE KILLER (1973)

A new breed of anti-hero appeared in 1970s cinema. Obsession, violence and instability characterized these protagonists, regardless of what side of the law they were on. “Stone Killer” is underworld argot for these particularly cold-blooded and ruthless characters and New York detective Torrey (Charles Bronson) is just such a man.

 

 

VIGILANTE FORCE (1976)

In this fast-paced adventure, an embittered Vietnam veteran (Kris Kristofferson) is hired by the residents of a small California town, who are weary of the disruption caused by unruly oil workers. The vet brings in other workers who do the job, then take over the town themselves…

 

 

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You’ll hear about these movies from me again, somewhere down the line.  Count on it.

In the meanwhile: @jonnyabomb

Live on @Twitter: WILD HOGS (2007).

The following is what happened when I had to watch Wild Hogs, the movie where four middle-aged movie stars start a motorcycle gang in the interest of wacky slapstick comedy. This one ain’t headed for the Criterion Collection, amigos.

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Okay guys, here goes: WILD HOGS. Somebody teamed up Tim Allen, John Travolta, and Martin Lawrence, and somebody else is making me watch it.

In case you were worried I was doing this voluntarily, be reassured (and empathetic) — this is a MST3K, prisoner-on-the-shuttle scenario.

Movie opens with “Gimme Some Lovin” by the Spencer Davis Group. You heard this tune in The Blues Brothers, the one time it was used well, and as a result it’s appeared in every mediocre movie trailer since.

When you hear “Gimme Some Lovin”, it’s standard movie code for “get ready for a real good time!” It rarely works out that way.

Here, watch the first scene along with me, if you’re up to it — but before we do, let’s have a friendly wager: Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. Which one of these actors will be the first to fall off his motorcycle?

Got your pick? OK…

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If you guessed it would be the one with the most respected acting career (and most likely the most gifted of the bunch), you were right: H. Macy is the one who eats street.

From Mamet to the Coens to P.T. Anderson to this…

Humble prediction: I will get to see the other three fall off motorcycles at some point in this motion picture.

L. to r.: Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you the most.

Would you like to guess each character’s career (before they give them up to become bikers, of course)?

First up: Tim Allen.

Plays a dentist.

Next…

Martin Lawrence: Aspiring writer. Don’t laugh.

Well, not until the part when he gets a side gig as a plumber and the first poo joke happens.

Macy’s job: Something with computers. It doesn’t matter what, right? He’s a nerd! LOL!

Travolta does something with business. He’s rich but losing it all. Good time for a mid-life crisis purchase.

(Or for Scientology!)

((Or for movies about Scientology?))

In the meantime, Macy just took his second motorcycle-based pratfall in less than seven minutes.

Starting to get the sense that Macy’s primary character description is “the clumsy one.” #whydoesthismovieneedmartinthen

In Wild Hogs, Tichina Arnold plays Martin Lawrence’s wife. In other words, this movie takes place in an alternate reality where Martin married Pam, not Gina.

It should come as little surprise that the soundtrack features “Slow Ride” by Foghat. #predictable

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And also, of course, “Who Do You Love” — but the George Thorogood version, naturally, not the Bo Diddley.

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Actually, I can save time and tell you right now that this movie has exactly the generic old-white-guy road-movie soundtrack you entirely expect it will.

First gay-panic joke in what will no doubt be a string: Macy rides on back of Travolta’s bike, inexplicably sniffing his neck.

Travolta’s response: “If you ever lay your head on my back again when you’re riding bitch, I’ll throw you into traffic.” #dothprotesttoomuch

Travolta referenced The Wild Bunch and my heart leapt for a second — “Can I watch it? Can I? Can I?” — then crashed back to reality.

A better movie, by a degree of billions.

Second gay-panic joke: Travolta wants to take a manly trip, “like in Deliverance”, and the other guys think he’s crazy, because butt sex.

Travolta’s dream vacation (allegedly).

;

Soon enough, all four guys gather around the campfire, where Macy moderates a debate over which of the other three has made the worst movies.

“I made The Santa Clause 3!”

“I made Bad Boys 2!”

“I made Battlefield Earth!”

“Shit, you win.”

Advantage (by a hairpiece): Travolta.

“Kneel before Terl!”

Gay-panic joke number three: Macy burns down the camping tent so they all have to share a sleeping bag. Macy nuzzles up to Travolta again.

Gay-panic joke #4: This dialogue: “My ass is sore. Woody rode us so hard yesterday. The human body wasn’t made to straddle something so big for so long.”

John C. McGinley has been better in better.

Gay-panic joke #5: A highway cop (John C. McGinley) finds the guys in the sleeping bag. Looks at first like he’s disgusted but — suprise — in fact he’s turned on.

(What does this movie have against talented character actors who use middle initials?)

((Oh, and against gay people?))

(((And why is Travolta’s character the ringleader in the majority of the anti-gay jokes, huh?)))

Question: Does Tarantino ever look at what Travolta has primarily been up to since the resurrection and think, “What have I done?!?”

Actually, shit: Since Pulp Fiction, Travolta’s got Face/Off, Get Shorty, and a tiny part in The Thin Red Line. That’s all that’s been inarguably worthwhile. All else has been simply tragic.

If you were hoping fora scene where the guys strip down and go skinny-dipping, great luck! And look, here comes another gay-panic joke…

#6: Travolta, last to strip: “Fine. I will get naked with my gay friends, and if any of them look at my junk, I will kill them.”

#7: When Travolta gets a look at Macy’s naked butt, he yells “Ew!” Meanwhile, even Martin’s able to take it in stride. #strange

“That collection of man-tits you ordered, ma’am.”

#8 The guys are still naked when John C. McGinley returns, nude himself & ready to party. Way they react, you’d think he was Henry Lee Lucas.

When I started in on this movie, I figured it would be bad, and I was right, but I didn’t reckon on all the homophobia. #wildhogs

I’m getting depressed. How about a scene where the guys walk into a biker bar and the music stops?

Maybe even a good old-fashioned record scratch?

Oh, here’s one. Right on time! #predictable

What was the name of Barbarino’s gang in Welcome Back Kotter? The Sweathogs? #justsaying #regression

Tim Allen. John Travolta. Martin Lawrence. William H. Macy.

If the Wild Hogs are a gang, they’re a gang (Martin aside) heavily inspired by the look of “Little Steven” Van Zandt.

Hey, now here come Ray Liotta, Kevin Durand, and M.C. Gainey, in a vain attempt to energize the movie. A fool’s errand, but at least a few cool actors made a little money.

Bon Jovi on the soundtrack. Awful. Inevitable. #whitepeoplemadethismovie

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Now “Highway To Hell”. Which I will link to, as it is at least a good song, if forever overused.

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Actually, I think AC/DC belongs to Iron Man now. You want to take from Iron Man without asking? He’s got a Hulk, you know.

Gay panic joke #9…

Liotta: “Those bikers got BALLS.”

Durand: “I’m gonna put ‘em in my mouth and chew on ‘em.”

Liotta: “You’re gonna put WHAT in your mouth?”

Best part of the movie by far.

One thing I did not expect from this movie was a cowboy Kyle Gass singing Ginuwine:

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FYI: KG returns again later on, to sing a Pussycat Dolls song and then this one, which I Googled and found to be amazing within or without context:

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[Looks like all the Kyle Gass Wild Hogs clips are on YouTube. PLEASE stick to those. Stay on the path! Beware the moors!]

Kyle Gass is shouldering a lot of the comedic weight of this movie. It doesn’t seem fair, but it does make me miss Tenacious D.

Marisa Tomei is in this movie. The same year she was in Wild Hogs, she was in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. It must be weird to be an actor.

If anyone’s still reading, let me please recommend Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead – an insanely underrated movie and Sidney Lumet’s last.

Anyway, let’s stop talking about great movies and get back to Wild Hogs. Where were we? Oh, right, the fair.

Martin did not respect MC Gainey’s battle-rap skills.

Basically, if you need to see Martin Lawrence squirt mustard at M.C. Gainey then kick him in the nuts, know that there is a movie to serve that need.

Peter Fonda showed up at the very end of Wild Hogs for a cameo. You can almost literally watch him pick up the paycheck/ watch the dreams of hippies die.

I’d like to write more about how symbolic casting can be misappropriated until it means nothing, but I’m running out of time and energy.

Say something nice about Wild Hogs, Jonny:

At least H. Macy, not Travolta, is the one to end up with Tomei. Then again, there are weird reasons for it.

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Anything nice to say, in conclusion?

When I got today’s assignment, I thought it was OLD DOGS. So at least it wasn’t that. #wildhogs

Could I personally improve Wild Hogs?

Easily. Add three words… “ALBERT NOBBS in: WILD HOGS.”

Then there is the revelation, at story’s end, that Peter Fonda is Ray Liotta’s character’s father. That is certainly a biker movie I might watch.

In the end, what is there to say about Wild Hogs?

Well in the end, there is a Bon Jovi song.

So fuck that movie.

#wildhogs

Find me on Twitter, where this kind of thing happens all the time: @jonnyabomb

Special Report: What Is INSEPARABLE?

While I was compiling my most recent Unfortunate Movie Posters column, I spotted something intriguingly weird.  Let’s take a look at the posters for a movie called Inseparable.  This movie was made in China and released there on May 4th.  There is as yet no American release date.  That’s not the odd part.

Okay, so it’s a superhero movie — apparently a lighthearted one at that.  Aside from the cameo from the fish from the Faith No More “Epic” video, there’s nothing particularly unusual about a comical costumed-hero movie from the Asian film industry. 

It happens.

But not usually like this.  Watch as this guy is joined by a partner-in-crimefighting…   

Does the profile of the caped gentleman on the left look familiar?  Squint. 

Still hard to tell?  Here, let’s open it up…

Well there’s the name and a closer look, but can we get a picture without the mask?

BAM!  Kevin Spacey!

Wait — what?

That is indeed esteemed actor Kevin Spacey, American star of  movies as uniquely American as The Ref, Seven, The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, American Beauty, Horrible Bosses, Casino Jack, and Margin Call, and he is indeed up there wearing a cape in a Chinese-only movie. 

And he will be joined by Peter Stormare, man of a thousand accents.  You know Peter Stormare from his villainous roles in movies such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Constantine, and Lockout, and I can pretty much guarantee you sight-unseen that he plays a villain here too.

What else do we know about the story of Inseparable?  Well, according to the internet, the official site is coming soon, but the placeholder does offer us this image:

So it looks like Kevin Spacey makes some friends while he’s over there!

And, instead of having to battle one, he gets the chance to be a superhero:

This article at The Playlist sheds a little more light, explaining that Inseparable is about a suicidal young businessman who is saved and befriended by a mysterious American (who favors 1980s LL Cool J tracksuits) — they find purpose in life by making costumes and heading out to the streets together to fight crime.  The girl pictured above, it turns out, is the young man’s wife, a reporter who apparently gets her own costume eventually.  The Playlist links to another article that explains how the film was financed and made in China but shot partly in English, which is slightly reminiscent of how most of the ”spaghetti” Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s were produced.    

I think it’s great, by the way.  I’m all for it.

It’s now a  badly-kept secret that American movie stars often collect major paychecks for appearing in commercials in the Asian marketplace, far away from the judgment of American audiences.  (It’s famously a running joke in Lost In Translation.)  That’s not what this is.  At a reported budget of $4-6 million, this is a relatively modest production, but it’s a notable development.  The foreign market is exceedingly and ever-increasingly important to Hollywood.  Have you noticed that the huge Hollywood summer movies have been premiering overseas even before we get them here?  The Avengers is a colossal hit here in America, but would you believe that the rest of the world actually got to see it a week before we did?!?  It’s a noticeable development.

We can interpret this mounting trend in two different ways.   One, it’s an alarming portent of how Hollywood, in a pursuit of foreign audiences (and revenue) will continue to forgo character and nuance for spectacle and costumes, since action scenes, giant robots, and explosions are always the easiest story elements to translate. 

All that’s true, but I prefer the more optimistic interpretation, which is that dropping American stars into Chinese films (to take the example on the table) is a fun and fresh way to create a multicultural mash-up.  We’ve already seen Kevin Spacey interact onscreen with just about every name actor we could possibly think of — maybe pairing up such a recognizable and reliable talent with some foreign faces will produce some refreshing results.

At the very least, maybe all this multinational branding experimentation will one day bring us an actually awesome new Godzilla movie.

More mysteries of life solved daily on Twitter: @jonnyabomb