Babeled

1.  Jar Jar:   Misa thinks yousa movie sucked because yousa tried to sell too many floppy-eared dolls.

2.  Midichlorians:  Swell idea, George.  Let’s take the mystical force that fascinated everyone and try to make it sound like the side effect of too much fiber in your diet.  “Sorry boss, I can’t come to work today. I’ve got Midichlorians.” 

3.  Merchandising:  I believe the Great Mel Brooks said it best.

4.  Ashoka:  As if a Gungan with bad grammar didn’t piss you off, we’re going to combine all that is unholy about Binks with the annoying teeny-bopper qualities of Miley Cyrus and form the ultimate gay character.  “Skyguy” and “Artooie” are the two worst quotes I have heard in the entire saga to date.

5.  Too much CGI:  The puppets and stop motion of the original trilogy were both amazing and lifelike.  The CGI of the prequels was worse than the pilot episode of Babylon 5.  

6.  Jedi Death Montage:  The entire 3^rd movie should have been about Vader (not Anakin) systematically hunting down and exterminating the Jedi.  Instead we wasted two hours of Hayden Christensen’s whimpering, disgraceful performance only to be disappointed by a one minute “execute order 66″ quickie Jedi death montage.

7.  “Roger-Roger”:   Come on!  They’re fricken Battle Droids, not Oompa Lumpas!  He could have made a better machine of death and destruction by dubbing in Robin Williams going “Nanu-Nanu.” 

8.  Re-re-re-release:  Re-meh-meh, Re-meh-meh-member when you made one movie only once?  Now we have THX mastered, Special Edition, box set, director’s cut, and Caffeine Free Diet Star Wars.

9.  Greedo Shoots First:  All of a sudden, after 25 years, this highly trained, dangerous bounty hunter misses from point blank range?  My 5 year old second cousin could have hit Han Solo from that range if you gave him a wiffle bat, blind folded him, and spun him around 5 times.

10.  “Nooooooooo”:  Now that is great writing, George!  How about next time we have the Dark Lord of the Sith raise his fists in anger and shout “Stellaaaaaa!”

~Man Overboard

Popularity: 17% [?]

A few years ago, “Beerfest” hit the cinema world as one of the funnier comedies to come around in sometime. The group, Broken Lizard (Super Troopers, Club Dread), made this beer themed comedy and, as is usually the case, it did not disappoint. The premise of the movie is simple: The U.S. needs to beat the Germans at a beer drinking contest.

Jan (Paul Soter) and Todd Wolfhouse (Eric Stolhanske) play brothers that travel to Germany and mistakenly discover the wonderful event, known as “Beerfest”. After their guide is shot for revealing the location of this event, they get their butts kicked in beer drinking games against the Germans. Following their embarrassing loss, Jan and Todd also find out that they are related to Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen and he tells them that their great grandmother, Gam Gam, is a thieving whore, who stole the family recipe for the “greatest beer in all the world”. Adding insult to injury, Jan and Todd are chased out of “Beerfest” and they vow to come back to win against the Germans the following year. Returning to the states, the Wolfhouse brothers quickly organize a U.S. team compiled of their friends Landfill (Kevin Heffernan), Fink (Steve Lemme), and Badrinath (Jay Chandrasekhar). The following year the U.S. team returns to “Beerfest” and if it weren’t for Fink, the Germans would have won the day . . . again.

One of the games at “Beerfest” requires five players on each team to stand on one side of a table and basically compete to see who could drink the fastest. There are a total of five glasses for each team and the last glass is known as “das boot”. The game goes as follows: Each beer has to be drank, without spilling a drop, in sequential order. However, “das boot” is by far the most challenging to drink and it is left for last. What makes “das boot” so difficult is that it’s shape causes air to get inside the glass and causes the beer to rush out of the glass, resulting in spilling the beer and thusly losing the game. Thanks to a flushing urinal and Fink, Jan and Todd’s Jewish friend, the U.S. team realizes that in order to drink “das boot” without spilling a drop, they need to turn “das boot” before the air can cause the beer to rush out. However, Team USA loses to the Germans, due to foul play on the Germans part. Team USA challenges the Germans to a rematch, but this time every glass shall be “das boot”. The Germans happily accept and the glasses are filled.

Eye of the Jew

Upon lining up on each side of the table, the U.S. team puts their best drinker, Landfill, at the end of the table. The Germans begin to make fun of Fink and throw his yarmulke on the floor, causing him to get so angry that his eye is filled with the Star of David. Quickly realizing that Fink has the “eye of the Jew”, the team puts him at the end of the table to be the anchor for they know what the “eye of the Jew” is capable of. The game starts with the German team and the U.S. team going beer for beer, until each team gets to their anchor. Whereupon an inspired Fink defeats the best German drinker by picking up “das boot” and downing the entire beer in seconds. The scene is hilarious as I personally understand how effective the “eye of the Jew” can really be.

The “eye of the Jew” has no doubt been around for centuries and it is the reason that Judaism still exists today. Inspired by fear and anger, every Jew is capable of harnessing this super power to go against all odds and surprise all. Whether it is digitally killing and maiming people in Call of Duty 4 or making a touchdown catch or protecting their sovereignty, the “eye of the Jew” plays an important role in giving Jews all around the world the ability to win.

Popularity: 15% [?]

About six months ago, I stumbled across one of those comedy’s that don’t come around too often and when they do, you have no choice but to watch it. The name of this clever comedy is “Idiocracy” and it is written and directed by none other than comedic genius, Mike Judge. In case you don’t know, Mike Judge is the genius that thought of the masterpiece, “Office Space”, as well as the controversial TV show, “Beavis and Butt-head”. As usual, Judge has wowed audiences as he has given us a movie that shows how stupid our society is becoming.

The movie starts off in present day and we meet Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), who has just been asked by the Army to participate in an experiment where they will freeze him for a year. Due to his average IQ and overall “Average Joe” personality, Bauers is the perfect choice for this experiment because he simply doesn’t matter. Rita (Maya Rudolph) is a prostitute, who owing the “pimp hand” some moolah, decides to participate in the same experiment so she can pay her PIMP, Upgrayedd. However, before either them really realize they’re in way over their heads, their time capsules are shut, and they awaken roughly 500 years into the future.

Naturally, their time capsules open after a beer bottle causes a giant trash avalanche. After multiple mishaps and humorous situations, involving a hospital and a court of law, Joe ends up in prison. On his way into prison he escapes by telling the guard that he’s in the wrong line. Running from the law, Joe quickly finds a friend in Frito (Dax Shepard), his former defense attorney who aided in his prosecution. Joe trying to get back to his own time asks Frito if there is a Time Machine and Frito says “yes”. During Joe’s quest to the Time Machine (located in a huge Costco), he becomes a U.S. Cabinet member for he has been deemed “The Smartest Man in the Entire World”. He quickly blames our failing agriculture on the fact that water has been replaced by BRAWNDO: Thirst Mutilator because “it has electrolytes” and “that’s what plants crave”. After convincing everyone that plants need water and not electrolytes, Joe is proclaimed a hero and becomes the President. Eventually, Joe did make it to the Costco and found the Time Machine, only to discover that it was an amusement park ride.

“Idiocracy” illustrates that over the few hundred years our society will become completely dumbed down. In Judge’s futuristic comedy, people have lost the ability to use the english language, the #1 show is “Ow! My Balls!”, and everyones diet includes BRAWNDO. (Does it sound that far fetched?) Adding to the overall stupidity, all citizens have a barcode to identify themselves as well as pay for things. Adding insult to injury, former heavyweight champion of the World, President Camacho is in charge of the Free World. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the greatest movie ever, but it’s damn funny. Judge does a brilliant job showing us what the future may hold for society if corrective measures aren’t taken. I strongly recommend that you sit your arse down and check out this flick. I give it 3½ stars of David.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Yes thats right folks! After months of reading the blog site by The Movie Whore and learning much about the legendary Bruce Campbell, I finally sat my arse down and watched “Army of Darkness”. Actually I lucked out, upon sitting down on my couch after a hard days work and flipping through the channels, I stumbled across the movie. What are the chances? Anyway I must say that the movie was far better than I could have expected.

I like bad movies! You can pretty much throw anything at me and I’ll watch it. I am also a sucker for action packed movies, such as “The Rock” and “Independence Day”. Regardless, as a kid, I always stayed away from scary movies or movies that sounded scary. I attribute this fear to my ignorance of movies with scary titles, such as “The Evil Dead” or “Army of Darkness”.

As far as Bruce Campbell goes, I really had never known who this guy was until The Dudes Dad referenced him in his earlier blogs. As for the movie, “Army of Darkness”, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The movie had a good enough story with the main character, Ash, defying all odds to find a way back to his own world. Armed with a shotgun and a chainsaw in place of his right hand, Ash kicks demon butt and recovers the Book of the Dead. He then leads the humans from a medieval time against an army of skeleton warriors equipped with magic. Don’t get me wrong, the special effects weren’t the greatest nor was the acting overall, but the thing that made me a fan was hands down the one-liners and zingers Campbell said. I found out afterwards that “Army of Darkness” is considered the 3rd installment of the “The Evil Dead” series. The “Evil Dead” movies are without a doubt next on my list to watch.

Most people probably have seen this movie, but if you are as lame as me and have not seen it yet. Watch it! If you have a sense of humor and enjoy action movies then I highly suggest you see this movie.

Image Used In This Post

Army of Darkness image courtesy of Flickr user Simon Zirkunow published under the CC license.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The last time I went to Atlantic City I lost 100 bucks and promised myself I’d never go back. After watching this movie it was almost impossible to resist the urge to try my hand once again at the tables of luck.

Tables of luck? Not if you are a boy genius at MIT who just happens to have the uncanny ability to count cards like a robot.

Thats the premise of 21, an all around fun movie that is based on the true life of Kevin Lewis. The movie is a loose adaptation of the book Bringing Down The House. By loose I mean the addition of typical Hollywood twists, turns, and amped up drama between the characters.

Here’s the gist of the plot: Boy with no money excels at academics, goes to MIT, gets accepted to Harvard Med but doesn’t have the $300 grand to afford tuition. Coincidentally, at this exact time of crisis he stumbles upon a secret card counting group of genius math students led by a rouge professor. After a few days of resisting the inevitable, his need for money convinces him that this is what he has to do. With just a little training he becomes the star of the group, and before too long he’s taking Vegas for thousands a night. As one could expect, the risks of gambling catch up and all hell begins to break loose by the second half of the film.

The highlights of this movie are the performances by Kevin Spacey (the professor) and Laurence Fishburne (the king of Vegas security). Both actors bring extra gravity to a film that might otherwise have floated into the air with its lack of depth.

If you are looking for a no-brainer fun time at the movies, look no further than 21. It is thoroughly enjoyable.

Grade: B+

Official Trailer for 21

Image Used in this Post

21 image courtesy of Moviecritic.

Popularity: 10% [?]