Yogi Bear (2010)

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Henry J. Fromage (Six-pack)

Synopsis: A classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon is raped repeatedly until it bears no resemblance to its former self.

As I drove to the theater on Christmas Eve to do my critic’s duty and watch Yogi Bear, I found myself nodding off. Some good friends had come back into town the night before, and perhaps the celebration had gone a bit too far…

My heavy eyelids closed involuntarily and suddenly bright lights began flashing all around me and a whirlwind kicked up out of an unnaturally dark sky. I was cool with this because it seemed like the sort of excuse that could get me out of watching this movie, but my contentment quickly turned to confusion when three Christmas Yogis appeared.

A Toast

The first was the classic Yogi of the good ‘ol days, the Yogi of Christmas Past if you will. Upon seeing him I was instantly transported back to Saturday afternoons of watching him and BooBoo outsmarting the Ranger.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that this Yogi was wearing shackles, and had obviously been seriously abused by somebody with no regard for simple human decency.

What they had done to BooBoo was much, much more horrifying. *

I tried to comfort him…

Beer Two

…and then he was replaced by some sort of CGI abomination holding a six-pack. I figured I’d roll with this because nothing offering you beer could possibly mean you harm.

Right, Mr. Roethlisberger?

I was less sure of this when I found this Yogi of Christmas Present sitting on my chest and forcing a bottle between my teeth. A vision of him and a grotesque little BooBoo dancing to “I Like Big Butts” and making tired bean jokes filled my mind. As I was trying to find the right words to describe the opposite of funny…

Beer Three

…he pushed another bottle in my mouth. More visual gag jokes rushed in, some of which might have merited a chuckle if they weren’t immediately explained and then re-referenced minutes later just in case you missed them the first time. I found myself growing desperate.

Beer Four

Then a familiar face appeared. I thought Anna Faris might save me, but she just sat there making old noises and staring at me with dead eyes and her mouth hanging open.

Something’s not right here.

When she opened another beer and handed it to Present Yogi I started to scream.

Beer Five

The sound of my own terror couldn’t drown out the lazy plot swirling around me that seemed to have been lifted from every children’s movie ever made. I found myself hoping that the corrupt politician would somehow be able to close Jellystone Park and log it, and particularly that he would be able to eradicate the overly convenient endangered species that stood in his way.

God meant for you to be extinct.

Beer Six

As the Yogi of Christmas Future entered, wearing a reaper’s robe and counting an acceptable but really not even that great pile of money, I motioned to BooBoo with the last beer. It was obvious that he had reservations about what was happening. When Yogi started to talk about a sequel, BooBoo knew what he had to do.

!*!

I woke up on the side of the road. There was no beer on my breath, but the memory of what had happened was fresh on my mind. To help eradicate these swirling images I knew I’d need something stronger. Maybe lighter fluid…

Verdict

No. Spare yourself this soul-less garbage.

* Here’s a link to the original article, which is hilarious. Perhaps the Nicaraguan girl could see the future?

http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2010/12/yogi-bear-and-nixon-white-house.html

!*! I am nowhere near talented enough to have made that video. Thanks to Edmund Earle for your flash of genius and making it available on YouTube. He’s definitely worth following to see what he’ll come up with next.

Robogeisha (2009)

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By: Oberst von Berauscht (Five Beers)

RoboGeisha is the latest in a burgeoning trend of honesty in action film titles. Just as Snakes On A Plane promised carnivorous reptiles invading a passenger jet, and Shoot Em Up had people with guns shooting other people with guns, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a piece of unmitigated shit, this film delivers just what you’d expect. You have face-painted subservient female entertainers, and they are in fact cyborgs that fire shuriken out of their ass… And if you didn’t guess the part about the shuriken, that’s okay, but it does mean you need to get out more. Or that I need to get out more… what have I done with my life?

RoboGeisha is directed by Japanese auteur Noboru Iguchi, whose dazzling track-record includes such genre classics as Busty Costume Play Investigator, Enema Shame Zone 13, and Beautiful Girl on the Toilet 2: Secret Excrement. So the question must be asked: Why is one of Japan’s most expressionistic filmmakers creating a commercial action flick? And the answer can only be, “Because why the fuck not?”

The next David Lynch?

A Toast

Raise your glass and down a cool lager for this attempt to satirize RoboCop, Samurai films, and indeed even Kaiju monster movies all at once. When the humor hits, it hits hard. And by the time a pagoda sprouts robotic arms and sets out to destroy Tokyo, you'll be too busy smiling at the bleeding buildings to recognize what makes this movie truly laughable.

This…. is awesome

Beer Two

Like so many recent action films, this movie seems to be shot in extreme close-up vision. And while some critics might argue that it makes you feel like you are in on the action, in reality it is nothing more than a cinematographer’s trick to hide poor fight choreography. Normally in such an obviously low budget film I’d forgive cinematography problems, as technology doesn’t always favor fancy camera angles. But the fact is they had the money to afford CGI effects, so they probably could have found themselves a decent cameraman.

Beer Three

I hope the second beer you reach for is one of those newfangled Energy Drink Malt Beverages, because you’ll likely need it to stay conscious through the needlessly dramatic dialog. I don’t think Noboru Iguchi told the screenwriter that the movie was supposed to be a comedy. But then again, Noboru Iguchi wrote the damn thing… so I don’t really know what to say at this point. Just be ready to drink heavily through the exposition and stick around for this:

Beer Four

Drop a shot of whiskey into your glass to get through the CGI. For a movie that uses practical effects so often, you’d think they wouldn’t want to ruin it with crappy cartoons.

And you’d be wrong.

Beer Five

The fifth and final beer goes to the missed opportunities. The much promised Geisha cat-fight between the two sisters never comes to fruition. In fact, the trailer promised a battle between Geisha armies. This Never happens. (A commercial that is misleading… unpossible!) And really, how could they not have the Robot Pagoda fight a famous monster? Even if it wasn’t possible due to the expense of the Godzilla license, it seems they could at least put a guy in a turtle suit and called it Gamera.

I just threw up in my mouth a little…

Verdict

This movie is a beer short of a six-pack, and I’ll let you interpret that any way you wish.

True Grit (2010)

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A Toast

Oberst von Berauscht (A Toast) - Remakes are like meeting a long lost friend. They turn up when nobody expects them to, ask for your money, and hang around long enough for you to remember why they became “long lost” friends to begin with. By this time it is too late; your house is robbed by an army of hobos. When you come home, you find broken beer bottles in the bedroom, a used diaphragm in the sink, and somebody managed to shit in the fridge.

You really don’t want to open it…

So when I heard that the Coen brothers were remaking Henry Hathaway’s classic 1969 Western True Grit (starring John Wayne), I had ample reason for concern. After all, the Coens’ last attempt at a remake was The Ladykillers, a film that certainly ranks as one of their weakest, and pales next to the original film.

True Grit is based on the 1968 Novel of the same name, by writer Charles Portis. The story centers on the character of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a 14 year old girl who leaves home shortly after the shooting death of her father, ostensibly to settle some business in town. Instead of breaking into pieces, she is given instead to determination. Mattie asks around town, looking for the toughest Federal Marshal to help her hunt down her father’s slayer, a man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She is referred to Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a hard living man who, when not on the bottle, is a determined and deadly officer. On their journey, they forge an uneasy alliance with fortune seeking Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) in order to bring Chaney to justice.

True Grit is based on the 1968 Novel of the same name, by writer Charles Portis. The story centers on the character of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a 14 year old girl who leaves home shortly after the shooting death of her father, ostensibly to settle some business in town. Instead of breaking into pieces, she is given instead to determination. Mattie asks around town, looking for the toughest Federal Marshal to help her hunt down her father’s slayer, a man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She is referred to Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a hard living man who, when not on the bottle, is a determined and deadly officer. On their journey, they forge an uneasy alliance with fortune seeking Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) in order to bring Chaney to justice.

Always the method actor, Wayne insisted that the whiskey bottles be filled with real whiskey…

As with all remakes, I felt the need to see it, if only to vindicate my fears. When the trailer was released, however, I started to get this shivering sensation down my spine. Could this be a rare exception to the rule? Could this be… better than the original?

You’re goddamn right it is.

This is also easily one of the year’s best films. Not only that, but it is a fairly ordinary Western; one that is not overly artsy, or postmodern, or even “revisionist” in the classical sense. How did the Coen brothers manage this feat?

First off, the film is simply beautiful, from the opening shot of a dead body lying sadly in the falling snow as a rider takes off for the wilderness to the final image of Mattie silhouetted against the Great Plains, walking slowly away from the family plot. Every image in the film is constructed with artful simplicity. Cinematographer Roger Deakins has worked on many of the most beautifully shot films of the last 20 years, from The Shawshank Redemption and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, to No Country for Old Men and many others. He has an Oscar coming to him, and this just might be the film that he gets it.

Another thing that makes the film so strong, especially in comparison to the original, is the way the characters are constructed. The emotional center of the film is the character of Mattie Ross, as she is for all intents and purposes the main character. While Rooster is a fun character, this new adaptation shows that it is more important that he remain somewhat enigmatic to Mattie (and the audience as well). By showing too much of his background, you start to question how such a slovenly, drunken sot ever managed to remain a U.S. Marshal, or even managed to stay out of prison. It chips away at his believability.

Jeff Bridges’ performance as Rooster Cogburn is easily the most grizzled character to appear in film since Gabby Johnson.

Word of advice: if you’re a sidewinding, hornswaggling cracker-croaker, you’d be better served not stealing this man’s biscuit cutter.

Jeff Bridges ups the ante from his Oscar winning performance as “Bad” Blake character in last year’s Crazy Heart by playing a man so far removed from anything resembling refined that you’d almost believe he practiced for the role by going on an eighteen week moonshine bender in Bumfuck, Arkansas. This is truly a performance that needs to be seen to be believed.

Matt Damon steps into the shoes of Texas Ranger La Boeuf with confidence and bluster. In both films he is concerned mostly with the prize money due to him for capturing Chaney, but Damon transforms him from simply a fortune seeker to a complex character, desperately trying to prove he is as big as his ego.

Tom Chaney is presented here by Josh Brolin as a half-witted gunman, motivated by greed and overall lack of morals. His one intelligent trait is his propensity for joining up with other gunmen, knowing he is dangerously incompetent left to his own devices. That Brolin manages to convey all this with probably less than 15 minutes of time on camera is an accomplishment of its own.

Hailee Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross is also a role worth its weight in gold. Her Mattie is a harsh young woman, one who makes up for her lack of propriety with sharp wit, masterful business sense, and fearless resolve. In the original True Grit, you find it cute that Mattie wants to come along on the ride with the men. This Mattie is a different animal, so much so you almost wonder why Rooster and La Boeuf don’t immediately spot this and put her on point. This is Hailee’s first real break as an actor and I wish her all the best, because if this is just a sample of things to come I think we’ve got something rare heading our way in the near future. Hollywood needs actresses that aren’t afraid to also be an actor. Katherine Hepburn had the ability to break the glass ceiling, and I sense that kind of unrestrained energy from young Hailee.

Do I look intimidated?

Verdict

Watch it. Joel and Ethan Coen have made a classic Western even better by fine-tuning the flaws of the original and populating it with strong performers. This is one Western that neither you nor the academy can easily ignore.

Tron: Legacy (2010)

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Oberst von Berauscht (3 Beers)

Prelude to a Review

If you’ve never seen Tron, you’ll need to track it down. As of this writing, Disney has taken all versions of the movie out of print, presumably gearing up for the inevitable Supergroovalisticprofunkstication Edition™. For the purposes of this review, I’ll provide a short summary of the original film:

Tron is the story of Kevin Flynn, a brilliant software designer who is sucked into his computer one day, only to discover his creations facing off against each other in gladiatorial combat and the digital world run by the malevolent “Master Control Program” (who seeks to expand its power into the real world). Kevin soon finds himself forming a resistance force with Tron, a talented AI who helps him to take control of his system and save both virtual and actual reality.

A Toast

To the producers of Tron Legacy for committing to such a large investment for what is a sequel to a 28 year old film that was considered a disappointment in the box office. Since I first saw Tron some years ago, I have counted myself among the cult of fans anxious to see the next iteration. For its time, it was a groundbreaking visual film with an adventurous spirit akin to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and any number of other classic series. Like those franchises, the film drops you off into a world as you’ve never experienced it, where the rules are never fully explained and yet, do not demand an explanation.

Unlike say… this painting

In 1989 millionaire software developer Kevin Flynn disappeared without a trace, leaving the lion’s share of his company to his son. Years pass and Sam Flynn has grown up without a father. On the eve of his company’s release of a new operating system, Sam receives news from an old friend that Kevin may still be alive, and moreover may never have meant to leave. Sam soon finds himself in his father’s old office and with a few keystrokes finds himself transported to the digital universe of the first Tron. Programming has advanced considerably and the AI Kevin created in his own image to control this universe has turned against him once more. Oh, and somewhere in there you meet Techno-Bowie…

Much has been said of the special effects, which effectively immerse you in this techno-fantasy while still paying homage to the original. The film features dystopian themes and a fascist enemy hell bent on destroying everything it perceives as imperfect. Pretty heavy stuff for a PG rated film. But unlike another PG rated film this Christmas, this one handles the darker themes with taste, and even substance.

While some have criticized the film as being too much glitz and not enough story, I make the argument that, while certainly not high-brow material, the novel concept behind the Tron series is best appreciated for what it is: an exercise in action-adventure genre filmmaking (and far easier to appreciate than anything recent from the Michael Bay factory).

Everything this man touches turns to shit

Bonus points to Daft Punk’s score of the film, which envelops you further into the electronic universe. I’m not normally much for electronic music, but this just fits the film like a glove.

Beer Two

There are a few problems with Tron Legacy. First and foremost is in the exposition. It is understandable that many filmgoers who see it this season will not have seen the original first. However several key scenes grind to a halt to explain much of what was already made clear in Tron. In one particular scene at the beginning of the 3^rd act, when our heroes are supposed to be escaping, there is a good amount of time devoted to unnecessary monologue. Clearly either the director or the producers (or both) did not trust the audience enough to avoid this noticeable flaw.

Beer Three

While the pacing issues are forgivable to some extent, what is not is the near absence of the character Tron. The series is named after him and yet the screenwriters seem to have forgotten how important he was to the original film. Instead, the shoes of Tron are filled by Quorra, a female program played by Olivia Wilde. While I have no complaints of her performance, it is unforgivable that such a central character from the original film receives what amounts to a cameo appearance. I can understand the desire of the filmmakers to add a strong female character to the sequel. What happened to Yori from the first film? These questions deserve explanations.

Verdict

Watch it. It’s Bio-digital jazz, man…

Love and Other Drugs (2010)

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SG2 (Five Beers) - Based on Jamie Reidy memoir “Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman,” this movie is about a pharmaceuticals salesman who finds himself falling in love with a hard-to-get Parkinson’s patient. Go figure.

A Toast:

For the record, I never found Anne Hathaway attractive and usually when I exclaim this I am asked to “come out of the closet” by my peers. It’s not that she is an unattractive woman – but if you’re into ghost-white doe-eyed fish-lipped women, then by all means dig in! I realize I shouldn’t be judgmental – because I’m no looker. However, in recent years my standards for women have been falling at an alarming rate. There was a time I would not settle for a woman less attractive than Scarlett Johansson. However, with age I now find myself floating between college drop-outs and rural Andean women. If this trend continues, by age 40 I will be trawling the depths of the ocean for magical creatures. Keep this thought in mind when reading my toast.

Tom Hanks knows what I’m talking about!

I raise my first glass of beer to Anne Hathaway’s disrobed body which gets at least 10-15 minutes of show time. Gyllenhaal I could have seen a little less of… For a film whose underlying message was a PSA about Parkinson’s disease (PD), a disorder that impairs motor skills, cognitive processes, and other functions (thank you Wikipedia!), they went farther than it needed to go. One scene in particular shows Maggie (Anne Hathaway) experiencing a powerful orgasm and “Parking Out” simultaneously! And it was… AWESOME!

Beer Two

This second beer was needed upon realizing I had just paid to see a feature-length Pfizer commercial. The film follows Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a sales rep for Pfizer whose main goal is to sell Zoloft, an anti-depressant. While he competes against a sales rep for GlaxoSmithKline he repeats again and again the benefits of taking Zoloft over Prozac. It then morphs into a commercial about Viagra as the product becomes available. The film made efforts to describe the drugs through historical records such as news coverage from that period, but I wasn’t fooled. A scene where Jamie is told, “You’re my little blue pill” was enough to make me glad I had this beer handy.

Beer Three

I had to have another beer when I couldn’t stomach the comedic relief known as Josh Randall (Josh Gad), who is at best a failed Jonah Hill clone. Josh Randall is Jamie’s younger brother who is worth 35 million dollars as a result of his IPO. This third beer will help you survive his puns and bad jokes. This guy is not funny, just gross. In one scene he is caught masturbating to a video of Jamie and Maggie having sex. His reaction was also a bit overblown while complimenting the size of Jamie’s penis.

It’s a little more than infatuation.

Beer Four

The film is a mess. At first I believed the plot was about competing against another pharmaceutical company and winning, then it was about proving he wasn’t a scumbag, then it seemed to be about how old people are being bussed to Canada to buy their drug prescriptions for cheaper, but it comes back to the love and its complexities, and wait, a promotion to Chicago… it was a mess – but the lighting on Anne’s body came out pretty good. In addition to all this, they manage to make light of people struggling with PD by devoting 5 minutes of real life PD patients roasting themselves on a stage which made it seem like it was okay to use Parkinson’s disease as a joke. I may go to hell for this, but.... this movie was as messy as a stage 4 Parkinson’s patient trying to wipe his ass. Ah… I feel better.

Beer Five

Watching a grown woman cry over spilled vodka, I couldn’t help but laugh. This scene was supposed to be powerful but I think all the men in the theater were thinking the same thing, “What a waste of booze!”

There’s no crying over spilled milk but it’s perfectly acceptable if it’s vodka.

Verdict:

Don’t watch it. Although, if your girl’s been hankering to see Jake Gyllenhaal’s abs and you’d like a bit of T & A as well, this could work…

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

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By: Oberst von Berauscht (Six-pack)

A Toast:

Take your first beer, pour it in a fine pewter tankard, and drink a toast to independent cinema. The only good beer this film deserves is for the mere fact that it exists. Completed on a seemingly nonexistent budget, the plot involves nuclear scientist Joseph Javorsky (Ed Wood alumnus Tor Johnson) being transformed into a monster due to a nuclear test. (Of course the only actual physical change that occurs in Tor is his facial expression, and some gore effects based on a budget apparently high enough to afford glue and Rice Krispies.

The neck goes Snap, Crackle, and Pop

Beer Two

You’ll be downing the second beer the moment it becomes clear that this film has no actual dialog. All of it was dubbed in the studio well after filming, and since we never actually see lips move while actors are talking, it can be safely assumed there was no script either. There are scenes where entire conversations are held between people whose faces are never shown.

Beer Three

That is not to say the film is silent. In fact, The Beast boasts a narrator whose nonsensical ramblings boarder on sadistic. He takes every chance he can to comment on the events, often to no obvious purpose. Some of my favorite quotations: “Flag on the moon. How did it get there?”; “Boys from the city. Not yet caught by the whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.”; and the philosophical “Touch a button. Things happen. A scientist becomes a beast.”

Beer Four

Have a third beer to celebrate the stellar method performance of Tor Johnson. Just as Robert DeNiro has been known to study for months to enter the mind of his characters, even altering his physical appearance drastically, so did Tor spend tens of minutes preparing. All that work making his face look slightly different from the expression he used in Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Is not the same as

Beer Five

From stunning vistas, to rocky mesas, to bluffs, buttes, mountains, and the sun setting on the horizon, the cinematographer manages to accomplish the masterful task of rendering the American Southwest totally uninteresting. Lingering for minutes on end on ugly cars and shitty nonfactors, it is entirely possible the filmmaker was making a bold statement about the monotony of existence. It is equally possible the filmmaker simply had no script, no original ideas, and no concept of framing shots, but nonetheless rented a camera that weekend.

Six-Pack

The beginning of the film shows the beast entering a suburban home and murdering a naked woman in the shower, which would be fine, if the beast ever moved anywhere resembling a neighborhood, or even a home in the rest of the film.

Matt Forderer, 2002

This picture is relevant

In fact they go to great lengths to explain that the Beast’s killing ground was Yucca Flats, a nuclear testing ground in the middle of nowhere. A quick Google search revealed that the director shot the opening sequence after the rest of the movie. This marks a historical point in cinema, the first time a continuity error was added intentionally (presumably because the director had just seen Psycho, and wanted to reference it… poorly).

Verdict

About as watchable as ten tons of nuclear waste (and about as useful).