In lieu of anything interesting to write about

Here's a list of occupations Joe Johnston would be better suited to than filmmaking, in celebration of the recent casting announcement for upcoming bad movie Captain America:

• Garbage eater

Because I'd love to go to his place of employment just to watch him eat the garbage. I'd throw petty change at him and on a good day he'd eat a couple pennies and I can watch him shit blood later, because Joe Johnston doesn't deserve the dignity of a door on his doghouse. Speaking of which...

• Dog catcher

Because the dogs will outwit you, Joe Johnston. Make no mistake about it.

• That. Over there.

Frankly, I don't really remember a lot from The Wolfman, but a lot of the stuff that happened in it I'd like to wish on Joe Johnston now. I believe my ice distribution company could write off "ice water tester" on its taxes if we gave the job to Johnston and paid him in coupons for discounted ice.

• Sandwich

For eating.

• Tree

For processing carbon dioxide into oxygen.

That's all I can think of, and I don't think there's a lot of money to be made as a tree. Anyway, I hope to play catch-up with a lot of the movies I didn't get to see in theaters but are now available on DVD for the next few weeks. I'll also have a new entry in the Vampire Movies That Don't Suck As Much As Twilight series.

Joe Johnston Can Eat My Shit

Do you recognize this asshole? Probably not. I did give him a mustache.

Drawing a mustache on someone is a sign of disrespect.

You had two possible reactions. Either you shrugged in indifference, or you put your limited edition 1966 Counterculture Captain America figure through your monitor. Sorry about that. That man is Joe Johnston, a director who, if you were to objectify his filmography, would look like a sack of severed legs put through a continuous tumble dry for a week. If you still don't know who he is, his career includes such mind-numbing pile of animate, rotting banana peels as:

• Jumanji
• The Pagemaster
• Jurassic Park 3
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
• October Sky
• The Wolfman
• Hidalgo
  

If you just said "Hey, that's my favorite movie!", then you're probably standing in a mud hole that you think is a house right now. No, really. Look around. Is your big screen TV made of mud? Did you write that off as a small manufacturing error that didn't merit a return? I'll bet you did. Do you walk everywhere because your Lamborghini collapses under the pressure of your body every time you get in it? You live in a mud hole. You're probably right next to a Costco. They might hire you. Wash the mud off, first. Don't want to look crazy for a job interview.

Now, after you've done all that, you may want to consider that list again. Is something missing? You're right, The Rocketeer, which is a fucking awesome bit of post-propoganda action kitsch and a film I adored as a child. It's lite and flag-wavey, but is never burdened by its patriotism, which is handled with an energetic, pulpy touch. When I heard Joe Johnston was going to direct Captain America, I initially buried my fists in the nearest vagrant but quickly reconsidered. If he can retread the Rocketeer path and bring a good cast into the mix, he can pull it off, especially under the watchful eye of Marvel, who won't let a project languish in post-production and turn into something entirely different over years of editing. My spirits brightened, although I could name a dozen better candidates off the top of my head.

If The Wolfman proved anything to me, it's that Johnston can assemble a cast that should work (in theory, anyway; see Wolfman review for further analysis) and he proved me right. A list of actors up for the part of Captain America was released and John Krasinski was at the top of it. The fans, holy shit the fucking fans. They went buttfuck. They cursed everyone involved with the production, threatened boycotts, injected dopamine straight into their eyesockets and Marvel quickly issued a press release stating he was out of the running.

I don't know how many of you follow movie news, and I don't know how many of you remember when Heath Ledger was announced as the actor to play The Joker, but people lost their shit. In everyone's mind he was still the girly pretty boy from A Knight's Tale or the dude that fucked that kid from October Sky in that movie that we make jokes about. Now, imagine for a moment if Christopher Nolan, famous for not being a pussy, had buckled under fan pressure and cast Robin Williams. Or someone. Imagine what we would be denied if we second-guessed the production of a film, and imagine what a pussy the filmmakers and/or studio would have to be to dam up the natural flow of their film to please morons.

Just watch. Just watch the film fall out of Marvel's ass and just watch everyone stare in sarcastic shock because the filmmakers weren't doing what they wanted, but rather depositing the demands of the unwashed masses directly into an otherwise coherent project, forgoing cohesion and greatness for the warm blanket of familiarity and expectations met at eye-level.

This is not fucking possible. If people who read comics would sell their Oscar Mayer Weinermobile and go for a jog every now and then, they'd realize that the human frame cannot support that sort of musculature. A real woman does not look like this. Fantasy is great and all, but we have to remember the limitations of the real world, and we're casting an actor based on his skill first and his biceps second. Krasinski is tall and sleekly muscled, perfect for a character whose primary attribute is his speed. Imagine John Krasinski in the Captain America uniform. Strong jaw, mask distracts from the goofy nose. Pretty wholesome and all-American, isn't he? Now imagine him without it on, playing the goofy, nerdy Steve Rogers. Holy shit, isn't that perfect? And isn't this an origin story? Well butter my bread, I think we've found a Captain America.

John Krasinski is clearly (CLEARLY) the best choice for the role, but now that he's supposedly out of the running, we have actors like Mike Vogel, who will play the exact same version of the character that John Krasinski, but who will be (somehow) more marketable. Meanwhile, the studio throws Chris Evans onto the list in a retarded attempt to keep the fanboys from flipping over the Marvel headquarters. If you asked me a few hours ago, I would have said there was no way they'd give a role written for a pasty, skinny white guy to a pin-up like Chris Evans, but after I've been thinking about it there doesn't seem to be an end to Marvel and Joe Johnston's pussyness. I don't know who will get the role, but this film could have been great. It could have easily been the best of these Marvel films because the character lends himself so well to the long legacy of American action films and cartoon jingoism.

I suppose Krasinski got the worst of it, and will forever know that a role he would have been perfect for and that would have made him an international superstar was stolen by fanboy whining and arbitrarily given to someone else.

Madness: It's A Rule Now

The Crazies is probably the best movie that can be made out of the modern horror formula, you know, the one I keep talking about that's as stale as a brick that went through the wash but sat in the drier for days. Oh, you don't know the formula, liar? It's about a capable, resourceful man who has to take charge of a band of survivors when his hometown is overrun by a grotesque threat (it's almost always zombies). A second threat, almost always human, is introduced to up the stakes and answer the cynical modern horror audience's calls to see humanity played as a bunch of bloodthirsty opportunists. The hero and his love interest are the only ones to survive at the end, but the cynical end credits usually blow them up or sick a Rancor on them or something. The audience masturbates through the rest of the end credits.

Any regular readers (are you there?) know that I like genre films (stop reading at any time), and The Crazies is exactly that: a genre film polished to a mirror shine, then rubbed with diamond cream and vampire sparkles. I know I've spent the last month bitching about how boring modern horror is, and The Crazies represents everything that's boring and antiquated about the genre, but it does it with excitement, good characters and a reasonably involved story. Oh yeah, and some very pretty visuals. Really, way too pretty for this film. So pretty, in fact, that it makes me think this is just a genre effort from an extremely talented filmmaker who hopes to use a simple genre film to break out onto the mainstream. He goes through all the motions, but everything about this film is absolutely better than it has to be. The standard-issue jump scares are still there, but they're mostly there to make the film palatable to 14-year-olds giving each other awkward, raw handjobs in the back of the theater while the projectionist records it to splice into the second reel of Alice in Wonderland and make that film more nightmarish.

So yeah, the story fits straight into that mold like some sort of script girder. A sheriff, his wife, her secretary and the deputy are one of only a handful unaffected by a disease that makes the infected illogical, violent and veiny. The military shows up and starts killing everyone and our heroes try to escape.

I think the reason this film works so well is that, while it advertises itself as a horror film, has some jump scares and zombie-like things that vaguely define it as a horror film and otherwise fits into the mold of a horror film, it's really a thriller. It's a pretty straightforward thriller with people sewing each others' eyes shut instead of people frantically deleting files from a computer, and it's sort of cheating, although it's effective cheating. Like most thrillers, there's more emphasis on character and plot, but with the streamlined story of a horror film. Good for it, but now you're a dime-a-dozen thriller instead of a dime-a-dozen horror film...which actually leads to some interesting overlap in the horror-thriller venn diagram.

Let's start with the sheriff. He's a pretty standard protagonist for these sorts of films. First of all, he's a sheriff, which means he has a gun and can kill the bad guys by making their brains fall out. Second, he's a hard-driven man of principles and action, and presumably the only person in town with a Bowflex. Again, that's a pretty standard character description for the hero of a zombie movie, so let's discuss something that's pretty miraculous about the character, despite being something that we should expect of every movie. He's pretty realistic. Obviously he gets into some wacky situations, but the way he deals with them is at once realistic and totally understandable. Rarely does he get into a situation where he's engaging more than one crazy, and he's pretty excited to just run away screaming whenever he can. The one time he gets action hero 'roid rage is when he's watching his wife be tortured, and I'm pretty cool with him pulling a knife through his hand in that situation. He only seems relatively experienced with a gun, like a small-town sheriff who spends all his time getting cats out of trees would (unless he's an insane Western sheriff) and his gung-ho deputy is really just a lunatic. And the women aren't really that interesting, as usual. One of them is pregnant, which is as close as you can get to a personality trait with women, I think.

I really like the structure of the film, too. Most of the film is written around specific setpieces, and they're all pretty spectacular (although the one in the morgue isn't nearly as great as the others), with a special shout-out to the showstopping bedroom setpiece. And they're not necessarily action sequences! It's better to define them loosely as setpieces or conflicts and they're spread very well throughout the film. Like a conflict or [action] setpiece should, they're built from the bedrock of interesting characters and designed to get into their heads while keeping the film exciting and visually dynamic.

It's a great example of genre filmmaking, but I don't really want to see more films like it. I'm happy with The Crazies and now I want horror to move on. I know that won't happen, though, and thrillers in horror masks is about as good as we're going to get. It's a formula, and it's simple, and it's almost forgettable and it really isn't something that I thought about or reminisced about too much after I saw it. Also, it's sort of a lie. A good lie, but come on, it's lying through its teeth.

7/10

But I Don't Want To Go Among Dull People

Something has happened. I don't know if it really is the result of focus group evil or if it was truly an accident, but Alice in Wonderland is quite possibly the most vile formula picture I've seen in a theater. Top to bottom it's the safest possible picture that could have had $150 million dollars thrown its way. Let's go down the check list. Familiar source material that won't scare anyone? Check. Huge star? Check. Tiresome moral about being yourself? Check. Stock characters whose back stories were pasted into the script with stickers? Check. Epic battle finale? Check. Horrible love story jaw-droppingly crammed into the middle of the movie but not completed in a bizarre acknowledgment of the audience's horror? Check. 3D surcharge? Check.

Don't get me wrong, Tim Burton and I have a great relationship. Especially his early films. I love Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Ed Wood, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands are the classic pieces of Tim Burton style that he has now beaten to death, and even some of his more recent films, like Sweeney Todd (based on my favorite musical, so, you know) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I liked more than I probably should have. But the recurring theme in his career is his inability to choose a script. When he stumbles into a truly great script, like Ed Wood, and assembles a great cast, like Ed Wood, there's no stopping him. His weakest efforts have always been his weakest efforts because of their poor script. Batman and Batman Returns have more script issues than I can count on my molecules, not to mention the fact that they hollowed out a Michael Keaton-sized action figure (only slightly larger than a normal action figure) and stuffed Michael Keaton in it, making Batman a statue that waddled everywhere. Oh no, it's Batman! but we can finish counting the loot first. He's all the way on the other side of the room.

Anyway, yeah, scripts. The worst crime Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland commits is to try and expand characters that are not only iconic, but were written specifically to work in the context of one setting, one scene, one set of dialogue. The Mad Hatter is the perfect example. What Burton and Depp and the writers do to that character is unforgivable. A truly bizarre character is makeup-ed to meet a studio focus group's definition of "weird", has all the edges shaved off by a hack screenwriter and is then given a dash of Johnny Depp's signature mannerisms and sets it out on a warmer to be lazily chewed by cow people. Here's the background to the Mad Hatter: He was a happy little hatter, and then the Evil Red Queen killed all his friends and now he's mad. He doesn't do anything especially mad, he just mostly talks about being mad.

Oh yeah, and the fucking Red Queen. I don't know if the Mad Hatter really the worst thing about this film. It may be the way the film takes all the vaguely defined characters of the book and uses whatever characteristics they can extrapolate to put them in the most formulaic roles. The Red Queen seemed sort of evil, so we'll make her a tyrant that must be toppled. The Caterpillar had a hookah. I think that makes him wise. The Cheshire Cat could disappear. Make him a superhero with the power to evaporate. The Doormouse had a sword, so she'll be an action hero. I could do this for all the characters. So I will. Alice is a young lady in late-Victorian England, so we'll make her stand up to the aristocracy and be herself and do absolutely mad things like wonder what it would be like to fly or become head of a trading company in an afternoon. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were argumentative weirdos, so let's make them comic relief bullshit. The White Queen is a benevolent ruler, presumably based on her name and nothing else. And Crispin Glover, oh my beloved Crispin Glover, is delegated to the most awful of villains, the Queen's right hand who has no mercy for the allegedly charming creatures of Wonderland.

How can Hollywood have no idea how to use Crispin Glover? While their target audience was people who wear shirts that say things like "normal people scare me" or call the "cool kids" (a mythical band of travelers I've never been able to find) sheep, they tried to net fans of the truly bizarre by casting Crispin Glover, and this isn't the first time that's happened. What will it take to get him another Willard?

Its use of 3D is probably more effective and coherent than it was in Avatar, but not by much. Coraline is still the all-time champion of the technology, and Alice in Wonderland's superiority to previous applications of the technology is simply a matter of money and time for R&D, not any major artistic achievement, and if there's anything we can give Alice in Wonderland credit for it's for having a lot of money behind it. Still, it's Tim Burton's ugliest film, looking not unlike a five-year-old's vomit after eating a box of crayons with that unmistakable CGI sheen rubbed on it (still, it's nowhere near as ugly as last year's A Christmas Carol). It's such a stark contrast to the gobstopping but gaudy beauty of Avatar that really shows that where Burton's talents and eye end, Cameron's stretch far beyond.

Its desire to puke all over the legacy of Lewis Carroll's books is sometimes admirable, and Tim Burton being a studio puppet is sometimes fascinating, and Johnny Depp turning himself into a saleable commodity is sometimes sad, but mostly I wanted to be one of the people in my sold-out audience smart enough to walk out of this film. I didn't because I wanted to see it through the end, but then something happened that was so nightmarish and unwatchable I had to cover my eyes. And the audience loved it. If you end up being dragged to this movie, try and figure out what it is. It's my gift to you, a small human kindness to make the experience endurable, but I hope to God you don't have to go through what I did.

1/10

Little Golden Men (Part 2)

Best Picture is pretty exciting this year. There's a film that's leading (The Hurt Locker), a good possible upset (Avatar) and I have a horse in the race with a marginal chance of spoiling (Inglourious Basterds). So that'll be fun. Unfortunately I'm going to have to sit through everyone going through the motions, with Mo'Nique, Christoph Waltz, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Bridges and Kathryn Bigelow walk up and give rambling speeches like they split an economy-sized bag of barbiturates in the bathroom before the ceremony. Like I did with nominations, I'll probably play it pretty safe.

Best Picture

Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Will Win: Avatar
Possible Spoiler: The Hurt Locker

I'm saying Avatar will win even though The Hurt Locker is the safer bet. I mostly want Avatar to win so that the Best Picture - Best Director rift will become a family rift.

Best Director

Should Win: Quentin Tarantino
Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow
Possible Spoiler: James Cameron

Don't get me wrong, Kathryn Bigelow made an excellent film that was exceptionally well-made in all respects and that I really enjoyed. It's one of the best war films we've had in years, and certainly the best film about our occupation of Iraq, but Quentin Tarantino did something bold, original and not just a little bit mad with his own war film. He used the language of cinema to create something unique and magnificent. I could pick out pretty much any scene from his film and make it an argument in his favor, but watch this scene and tell me he doesn't deserve it.

Best Actor

Should Win: Jeff Bridges
Will Win: Jeff Bridges
Possible Spoiler: Jeremy Renner

Jeff Bridges has this in the bag, and while I haven't seen his film, he is one of my favorite actors to come out of the 80s who should have won for The Big Lebowski a decade ago. Jeremy Renner might get in if the Academy goes Hurt Locker crazy, which is pretty likely.

Best Actress

Should Win: Anyone but Sandra Bullock
Will Win: Sandra Bullock
Possible Spoiler: If anyone else wins, Sandra Bullock's mind-control Gestopo will erase everyone's memories and say that she won.

I hate Sandra Bullock.

Best Supporting Actor

Should Win: Christoph Waltz
Will Win: Christoph Waltz
Possible Spoiler: Christopher Plummer

Christopher Plummer is a fine actor and a respected actor. I wouldn't mind seeing him win an Oscar, but I don't think even the Academy will play politics over what may be the best performance of the year. This is a category that, recently, has been used to reward truly great actors who do truly great work, no politics attached. This category has been a refreshing source of justice for the past two years and I hope that trend continues.

Best Supporting Actress

Should Win: N/A
Will Win: Mo'Nique
Possible Spoiler: Either of the chicks from Up in the Air

Haven't seen any of these films, but Mo'Nique has this in the bag as I understand it. The Academy could give it to one of the chicks from Up in the Air if they want to give more than a screenplay mention to that film, but I really doubt it. Hey, speaking of which...

Best Original Screenplay

Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Will Win: Inglourious Basterds
Possible Spoiler: The Hurt Locker

Even the dumbfuck Academy knows that Tarantino's screenplays are one of the greatest things about American cinema in the past twenty years. He deserves a second Oscar. Too bad no one recognizes his directing.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Should Win: In the Loop
Will Win: Up in the Air
Possible Spoiler: Precious

In the Loop deserves this. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to give it to this film. I suppose the nomination is enough and that most people just haven't seen it, but if something gets nominated and you're an Academy voter, wouldn't you want to go see it?

Best Cinematography

Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Will Win: Avatar
Possible Spoiler: The Hurt Locker

This one will line up with Best Picture, so we'll know who wins Best Picture at this stage, unless they go with one of the other films, which I don't think they will. Hurt Locker or Avatar.

Best Editing

Should Win: Sally Menke
Will Win: Bob Murawski & Chris Innis
Possible Spoiler: Joe Klotz

Again, Tarantino and Menke constructed an editor's showcase with Basterds, but Hurt Locker will win because...I don't know. Everyone is stupid but me.

Best Original Score

Should Win: Michael Giacchino
Will Win: Michael Giacchino
Possible Spoiler: Michael Giacchino, for the love of god.

Please give this award to Pixar and especially to Michael Giacchino. Hey, way to snub Ratatouille two years ago, assholes.

Best Visual Effects

Should Win: District 9
Will Win: Avatar
Possible Spoiler: District 9

I don't think of Avatar as having "visual effects" per se, but rather being an animated film with live-action sequences. A lot of visual effects is how it's integrated into the whole film, and an animated film doesn't really have to bother with that. District 9 created some marvelously emotive characters on a shoestring budget and integrated them perfectly into the landscape of the film.

Animated Film

Should Win: Up
Will Win: Up
Possible Spoiler: Fantastic Mr. Fox

So many good animated films were released this year that I really just love the hell out of this category right now.

Art Direction: Avatar
Costume Design: The Young Victoria
Makeup: Star Trek
Original Song: The Weary Kind
Sound Mixing: Avatar
Sound Editing: Avatar
Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon
Documentary: The Cove
Documentary, Short Subject: The Last Truck
Live Action Short: The Door
Animated Short: A Matter of Loaf and Death

IT IS MY BIRTHDAY.

I'm twenty today, which is okay. I don't have any sort of attachment to being a teenager, but I am attached to the curve upon which you're graded simply for being a teenager. This blog is going to be much less impressive when it's run by some guy in his twenties rather than a fresh-faced and optimistic teenager.

There are small things that will have to change about me now. As the title suggests, quotations from The Office are going to be a satisfactory replacement for a real sense of humor, I can no longer smoke clove cigarettes, I have to start looking for someone to marry or at least pretend to look until I get a chick pregnant and I have to discover a philosopher, change my lifestyle drastically and then give up when I can't maintain the changes after four months or so. As a placeholder until I find some really awesome Assyrian philosophies, I'll invite you all to celebrate my birthday. We'll meet in the catacombs beneath Paris, I'll encourage a dress code of black robes and solemn stares, I'll serve loaves of bread with candelabras stuffed into them and I'll fill a pail with water which we can take turns drinking out of.

The only thing I think I'll really miss about being a teenager is the lax expectations. As I said before, having an occasionally interesting thought is far more important when you're less than twenty years out of the womb. I'm going to be expected to do something really interesting or be looked upon as a failure, so suggestions are welcome.