So I saw One Day the other night and, to be honest, am still kind of depressed about it.  Director Lone Scherfig has made my permanent watch list and I intend to be brutally honest with all her future projects until I get payback for the blatant and hamhanded manipulation of my emotions.  Go back to Denmark.

Anyway, it got me thinking about other movies that have depressed me over the years.  I kind of expanded to include comic books too, since the line between comics and movies is getting blurrier every year.  Here is the list I came up with.  Feel free to disagree with me and let me know what I missed.

10.  The death of Borimir, the Fellowship of the Ring.  I know he wasn’t a main character and traveled towards the dark side as the movie progressed, but he really redeemed himself in the last bit of the film and died a tragic, noble death.  He also had a nice bit of personality and charm when we wasn’t stalking Frodo, so I was sad to see him die (even though I knew it was coming).

9.  The death of of Superman.  OK, I have my issues with Superman (haw!).  However, he has always been a huge part of nerd culture and when DC wrote in his death at the hands of Doomsday it was a striking moment.  I do have a pristine copy of his death in the original poly sleeve, as well as an open copy I read a lot.  Of course, the problem with this death and most of the other comic book deaths I am going to list is you know there is no such thing as an actual permanent death and that the hero will return shortly, albeit often with a different alter ego.  Death in comics is more of a time out.  However, if you are the type who can immerse him or herself into a story and not let such things affect the mood (I am that way) you can really feel the punch when something terrible happens.

8.  E.T. the Extraterrestial dying.  Ok, I was young, but this one hurt.  Gentle visitor from another planet shows up.  His ride gets chased off by big guys with flashlights, and he gets hounded to death literally by scary government types after bonding with a kid about my age.

7.  Leaving Las Vegas.  I know.  Not really a nerd moment.  Still, pretty damned depressing.

6.  Joker killing Robin.  This one sucked, and it was one death that stuck.  It wasn’t even a clean, pleasant death.  Joker beat him with a crowbar and then blew him up.  The saddest part for me is they left his fate a cliffhanger and let the fans vote.  The slight majority of the fans voted thumbs down.  (Joker image courtesy of the DC comic book t shirt category)

5.  Bane breaking the Bat.  While Batman had experience minor defeats and setbacks in the past, never had he been outright defeated.  This moment was less about the physical damage done to Bruce Wayne and more about the destroying of Batman’s spirit (and, to be honest, ours).

4.  Death of Gandalf.  Yes, I knew ahead of time he came back thanks to having read the books about 100 times, but even so the scene of him falling off the bridge is pretty tear jerking.  I had a friend who was listening to the books on tape and when Gandalf died he pulled his car over and called me asking if it was true.  I did not spoil it for him.

3.  The death of Captain America.  Wow did this suck.  Captain America, champion and symbol of all that is good and noble about the USA, branded a traitor and dying to an assassins bullet.  Tony Stark, rot in hell.

2.  Roy Batty’s death at the end of Blade Runner.  Sure, he was sort of the bad guy, but such an engaging character with a massive thirst for life.  All the replicants were cool and in their own way more tolerable than most of the humans.  Rutger Hauer made the movie more than Harrison Ford in my opinion, and when he saved Deckards life as a last noble gesture before dying it really hit me.

1.  The death of Spock in the Wrath of Khan.  I will argue this to my grave as the saddest moment in nerd culture history, and am not ashamed to admit I cried like a little girl first time I saw it.  In fact, I tear up every time I see it or even think about it.  It wasn’t just the end of Spock (in a noble, tragic, and painful death scene) but the end of an era of adventure throughout space that gave me focus when I was getting my ass kicked in grade school for being a nerd.  All that seemed good and logical in the universe was summed up in one character for me and with his death the world seemed just a little more stale.  Yes, I know he came back and they threw a spoiler into the movie to make us think it was coming, but if you read my Star Trek movie retrospectives (I need to finish those, now that I think about it) you know I feel the movies shifted gears from the cool action characters we knew to a bunch of old men kind of bumbling across the universe.

You know, doing this list has actually helped me a lot with the one One Day depression.  I actually got choked up talking about a couple of these, and it put things into perspective for me.  I should have started a blot 20 years ago.  Would have saved me a fortune in therapy.

New movies coming out this weekend, and I think I will pick up the Star Trek movie thread again.  I have just been dreading doing Generations.  I have a show to do this weekend but will try to get something done.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  Thanks

So I did Captain America last week, and gave it a good review.  I stand by that, as it was a decent movie with a good story.  Generally enjoyable.  However, I was talking to a friend of mine last night about it and he raised a couple points that got me thinking about the problems with origin movies in general.

Really, it all boils down to the fact that origin stories are really cool, but very few directors seem comfortable letting the origin run the entirety of the movie.  In other words, about halfway through the movie they have introduced the superhero, told where he came from, explained his powers, and gotten his costume organized when suddenly the thought occurs to them “Oh, crap.  What are we doing to do to fill the last half of the movie?”

This is not every movie.  Thor more or less ignored the whole origin question entirely and just jumped into the action.  X Men First Class let the origin story travel through the entirely of the film with great results.  This was probably motivated by the fact that they had a dozen different characters to work with, but the net result was very pleasing.  However, when I think back to Captain America I realize that the part of the film I really enjoyed was the first half.  Once Steve Rogers got his team together and starting fighting as Captain America it kind of started to grind along.

I have been thinking about how to avoid this problem.  Wolverine Origins labored under this (and about 10 tons of other crap).  Even Batman Begins kind of had this going on.  Green Lantern ground it face first into the ground, with a massive villain pulled out of their ass with all the active malice of a natural disaster, like a tornado.  Even Iron Man kind of lagged after the suit was built.  Episodes I-III was nothing but a six hour origin story that only focused on Darth Vader.

So what is the solution?  Upon reflection I realized that the movies that do the origin story well (Spiderman, X Men, Kick Ass, Unbreakable, Hellboy, etc) all have one thing in common: they didn’t make the origin of a single hero the only thrust of the story.  In Spiderman, while we are watching Peter Parker figure out his new powers, we keep cutting back to Norman Osborne transforming into the Green Goblin.  X Men First Class had a dozen different characters developing.  Kick Ass was mostly about Kick Ass, but at the same time you see Hit Girl and Big Daddy doing their thing.  Unbreakable was more about Samuel Jackson’s character than that Bruce Willis, and that made the double origin story really cool.  In each case the really good origin movies presents the origin of their hero, but don’t make it the entirety of the script.  In other words, when they reach that halfway point and the story is in danger of lagging they have other elements to fall back on.

(Xavier Institute image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)

I don’t know if anyone from the movie industry reads this.  In fact, I doubt it sincerely.  However, I think that if by some weird coincidence one of my three readers is somehow involved in film production, or perhaps one day will end up working in film, try to remember what I just said.  I really think it’s worthwhile.

OK, I admit that I have been really looking forward to this movie, and that’s usually a precursor for me being bitterly disappointed when the suck seeps in.  However, Marvel managed to keep the suck at bay, and delivered a fun and entertaining origin movie (Capt America shield logo courtesy of the Marvel Comic t-shirt category).

That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its problems, which we will explore in excruciating detail shortly.  It just overall makes for a good flick.

Why do I like Captain America?  He was never one of the main hitters in the Marvel Pantheon (although I loved him in Marvel Zombies).  Nevertheless, I felt a real sadness when he died at the end of Civil War (bite me, Tony Stark) and am always glad to see him in a comic.  I think there are two main reasons.  The first is he is only a marginally improved human.  I love heroes who can be taken out by any lucky punk with a gun.  It makes their bravery and dedication that much more impressive and worthy of my admiration.  This is why Batman rules and Superman sucks.  The second reason is he represents all that is good and noble in the excellent men and women who serve in the military to defend us.  Sure, it’s easy to stand for truth, justice, and the American way when you are invulnerable to all but a very rare element (see my post on the Science and Stupidity of Kryptonite for more on this), but to stand firm against oppression and evil is a real task when all you have is a shield and a heavy punch (or, more accurately, some body armor and an M16).

Something else that really appealed to me about this movie is they set the whole thing in WWII and didn’t make the lame attempt to modernize it.  There is something really satisfying about a clear cut villain who is known by all to be demonstrably evil like Nazis.  Even in something like Tranformers it seemed that the Decepticons were not totally lacking in sympathy.  Sure, they wanted to enslave the human race, but they wanted to do it in order to rebuild their home world.  Who’s to day given the same choice we might not do the same (Avatar?).  Anyway, I like Nazis as villains.

The story.  I won’t go into too many details as I expect you all to see it.  Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a skinny kid who keeps getting rejected by the US Army during WWII.  He catches the eye of a government scientist (Stanley Tucci) who is impressed by his dedication and understanding of what it means to be bullied (cough cough topical reference cough cough).  He recruits Steve into a top secret project that apparently starts off by putting guys through Basic Training.  The Colonel in charge (Tommy Lee Jones, who did a great job) wants to boot him but the scientist is sold on him.  They stick Steve into a giant martini mixer and inject him with super steroids or something.  He comes out looking like Adonis and capable of kicking some serious ass.

Meanwhile, a Nazi officer (played brilliantly by the amazing Hugo Weaving, although what role has he not been brilliant in?) has found an ancient artifact (cough cough Indiana Jones cough cough) that he can use to power up all his super secret weapons with blue power (cough cough V cough cough.  Ok I’ll stop) that makes them almost as good as a regular rifle, but have the benefit of making the bodies disappear completely as a blatant tool to get rid of any inconvenient rated R mangled corpses and screaming wounded Americans.  His organization is called Hydra and he is indeed the infamous Red Skull (also looking very cool).

Anyway, there is some crap getting in the way of the actual story but eventually Capt. America and the Red Skull cross paths.  WWII meets super science hijinks ensues.  There’s a hot girl in there for no real reason (Hagley Atwell).  There are some actually funny moments that are accomplished without an annoying comic relief character (suck it, Michael Bey).  Once they get past all the war bonds selling stuff none of the story gets in the way of the story, if you know what I mean.  Stuff blows up.  Guys on both sides get killed.  The director managed to steer clear of the obvious cheesy ending trap.

First, as always, the stars.  Comic book movie.  Two stars.  Really decent story.  Two stars.  Hugo Weaving.  One star.  Tommy Lee Jones.  One star.  Not invulnerable hero.  One star.  Geeky kid turns into hero.  One star.  Nazis as enemies.  One star.  The Red Skull looks uber cool and  uber creepy.  One star.  Good acting all around.  One star.  Hagley Atwell was driving me nuts all the way through the movie.  One star.  Non-cheesy ending.  One star.  Minor love interest managed to not derail or dominate the story.  One star.  All the supporting characters were cool and added to the story.  One star.  They kept more or less true to the story (remember Dum Dum Dugan?).  One star.  The final Capt. America costume was cool, especially the shield.  One star.  Total: 17 stars.

Now the black holes.  I am going to have to give these guys a black hole for making what is essentially a two hour trailer for The Avengers.  One black hole.  The ever present Marvel spoiler, for which I had to sit through any number of credits (what exactly does a Best Boy do?  Sounds like the son of Best Buy.  Either that of some kind of sexual predator tag), was in fact an actual trailer for the Avengers.  Thanks a lot, guys.  One black hole.  While Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull, he really played up every corny evil super genius cliche in the book.  Execute henchmen who fail, faceless minions who look imposing as hell in their S&M helmets but can’t shoot straight, grandiose plan to conquer the planet by blowing stuff up (face it, Red Skull.  In order to really conquer a territory you need boots on the ground, not some super weapon), capture the plucky hero but don’t just put a bullet in him so you can explain your whole diabolical plan, etc.  Also, I think the movie would have benefited from more Red Skull screen time.  One black hole.  The whole villains-can-never-hit-a-hero-who-is-charging-directly-at-their-guns card got played so much I started to wonder if there were any other cards in the deck.  One black hole.  A lot of the action, especially towards the end, got kind of hokey.  One black hole.  There was a rescue mission early on that seemed to drag on for ever, as did the whole Capt. America as a vaudeville show to sell war bonds sequence.  One black hole.  A few story holes, including one big one towards the end.  One black hole.  As cool as the story was, pretty much all the characters seemed pretty two dimensional.  I think the movie could have done with a hair more character development (125 minutes.  They could have added 1o more without hurting the plot).  One black hole.  Total: eight black holes.

In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worthy category, I have a couple.  First of all, the Hydra salute was painfully stupid.  I understand the need to have a distinct salute that is derived from but not quite the same as the Nazi salute, but come on.  There is a reason most countries us a reasonably similar salute.  Also, while I am a fan of and support every reasonable attempt to include racial diversity in a movie cast, the fact is there were no African Americans who had a combat role during WWII (ironic, really, as 160,000 of them fought for the North in the Civil War).  I am just kind of a stickler for historical accuracy.  Additionally, why would you put all your best new technology, your prisoner, and yourself in a room with huge glass windows that can be easily zip lined to (or, for that matter, just put a sniper bullet through?)?  All the Nazis spoke perfect English, even the rank and file troops when they yelled “Hail Hydra”.  And finally, while I appreciated the eye candy that Hayley Atwell brought to the screen, in pretty much every scene with her in it I found myself asking “What function does her character actually serve?”  The romance was never developed enough to make it significant, and the purpose of most of the rest of her character kind of felt crow barred in.

However, a great film going experience all around.  Go see it in a theater to get max benefit and to support the kinds of movies we nerds like.  Not a real date flick, as I believe most girls will not really appreciate the comic book story and the female character is too underdeveloped to draw her in.  See it with your nerd friends.

Maybe there is a reason animals can’t really talk.

Check this out on my YouTube video review.

Before I start ripping into this execrable film, can I state that I for one am sick of Kevin James?  I can see him as possibly funny in stand up, but his film presence has just gotten overused and unpleasant.  He seems to always play the same role he pioneered in King of Queens: fat loser who through the machinations of fate has somehow managed to land one or more stunningly hot women.  I am not sure what dimension this is a viable possibility in, but for those of us who remain firmly ensconced in this reality it is actually a really annoying insult.  I don’t consider myself fat or a loser and I can’t pull that kind of action on my best day.  I’m stuck in the Bizarro world version where I get rejected constantly by the hot girls and seem to end up with the female Kevin James’s of the world.  Unfortunately, he seems patently unqualified for any other type of role (could you really see him as a villain of in a serious role?) so it looks like we will be inundated in future moronic rom-coms like this (mor-rom-coms?)

Which brings us to the Zookeeper.  Kevin James stars as a fat loser who works as a zookeeper and, for some ungodly reason, dates the stunning Leslie Bibb.  Her character, Stephanie, is in all regards a one dimensional, self centered, shallow bitch who rejects the most awkward marriage proposal of all time simply because he works as a zookeeper.  Apparently his lack of fitness or financial status are not really a concern.  Anyway, she crushes him in a manner so cruel that it is likely banned by Geneva convention.  Fast forward five years and he is now the lead zookeeper who works with the even more stunning Rosario Dawson, who is an “eagle enclosure expert” (does that seem a little specific to you?  How many jobs are there for such a person) with a heart of gold.  SPOILER ALERT: in a plot “twist” so cookie cutter I could smell ginger she turns out to be the girl he should have been into the whole time and ends the movie with.  I normally would hesitate to give away something that crucial to the story, but within the first 30 seconds of her being on the screen I said” Yep, she’s the one he’ll end up with.”

By the way, I would like to point out that I am totally into Rosario Dawson.  She is super hot and can actually act.  What she can’t do is find a movie script that doesn’t suck.  Before doing the Zookeeper, she has starred in any amount of crud.  Her best movie to date (IMO) would have to be Unstoppable.  She was in Death Proof, but as much as a fan of grind house theater as I am I can’t really see it as a vehicle (haw) for advancing your acting career.  Percy Jackson sucked, as did Sin City, Clerks II, the Adventures of Pluto Nash, Josie and the Pussycats, Kill Shot, Eagle Eye, and Seven Pounds.  When she was younger she did Kids, which is a good movie in the “looking for something to watch while killing yourself” category, but other than that she needs to find a new agent.  (Josie and the Pussycats image courtesy of the comic t shirt category)

Anyway, the guy states that he should leave working for the zoo in order to get a job that better appeals to the most shallow woman on the planet.  We also start getting subjected to some truly painful and hard to watch physical comedy.  At that point we find out that the animals can not only understand everything the humans are saying, but can speak perfect English too when they want to.  They decide they need to help Kevin ‘mate” with Stephanie and end up giving him dopey advice with dialog so cliche and hackneyed that it made me wish that  the animals only speak in barks and roars, as well as the humans in this flick.

So, romantic animal hijinks ensues.  Kevin James urinates into a potted plant at a fancy restaurant to “mark his territory” and doesn’t get arrested.  He more or less ruins his brother’s wedding and physically assaults the bride.  He ends up toe to toe with another ex boyfriend of Stephanie, played horribly by Joe Rogan.  I’ve seen Joe do some funny stuff, but the combination of his stiff delivery and the flaccid, depthless character he was handed made every scene with him in it feel like waiting on line at the DMV.  Kevin’s character does a Peter-Parker-in-Spiderman-3 transformation into a suave, sophisticated urbanite who sells exotic cars to the thousands of millionaire who reside in his city.  Stephanie plays the shallow, cultureless girlfriend to the hilt.  Somehow Ken Jeong managed to land a roll as the creepy reptile guy.  Is he going to have a bit part in every movie?  Eventually Kevin discovers he really loves Rosario Dawson but apparently forgets how to use a cell phone as the only way to intercept her on the way to her new job in Nairobi (no joke.  I guess they need an eagle cage there too) is a “hilarious” chase sequence in a stolen van.

Ok, the stars.  The animation for the animals was as good as you are likely to see.  One star.  There were a few funny moments.  One star.  Rosario Dawson was looking hot throughout the movie, and when she dressed up super hot.  One star.  While the animal dialog sucked, there were a couple voices that made me laugh (Adam Sandler and Sylvester Stallone, for the most part).  One star.  For the extremely brief amount of time he was on screen, Ken Jeong managed to amuse me and more or less stole every scene he was in.  Also he had a really cool car.  One star.  There was one scene where Kevin takes a gorilla out to TGI Fridays that was actually fun to watch, mainly because it was Kevin James cutting loose with a guy in a gorilla suit.  One star.  Total: six stars.

Now, like a tiger who has taken down an antelope and is ready to dig into the succulent entrails, I move to the black holes.  The animal dialog was as bad as human language can get.  Two black holes.  Painful to watch physical humor.  One black hole.  For some reason, the director of photography seemed to feel that Kevin James’s moon face was the most appealing thing in the movie and thus we are subjected to a lot of it.  Also, at one point we see him naked in a bathtub.  One black hole.  I’d like to give a black hole for every awkward moment that seemed to drag on forever (starting with the opening one), but will hold myself back.  Two black holes.  There was a completely irrelevant tangent that added nothing to the movie about Kevin’s character interacting with the high fashion world.  One black hole.  What extremely little character development the film had was extremely predictable.  One black hole.  In fact, the whole movie was excruciatingly predictable.  One black hole.  While pretty much all the animals except the gorilla annoyed me (there’s something you don’t say every day), the interaction between the two bears seemed to actually cause me physical pain.  One black hole.  Implied and described animal cruelty.  One black hole.  Joe Rogan bringing whatever momentum the film had to a screeching halt.  One black hole.  And two more black holes for just not being as much fun as it should have been.  Total: fourteen black holes.

So a total of eight black holes, a fairly miserable score but not as bad as the score I gave Green Lantern.  I can hear some of you asking if I might be being a little unfair to this film, critiquing it as an adult when it could possible just be a kids film.  Well, honestly that is one of the issues here.  This movie is a romantic comedy with talking animals.  It can’t really decide if it is going to be a kids film or an adult film.  Some of the dialog is too sophisticated and adult themed for kids, but some of it is just too dumb for grown ups.  It sits right in the middle, which means it will inevitably be relegated to the mediocrity archive of all time.  I’m actually curious as to where video shops (assuming any still exist) end up placing it. Honestly, don’t waste your time with this dog, unless you are one of those rare individuals who are enraptured by a Geico commercial.

I did experience something weird while watching this.  For the first time since I started these reviews I found myself wondering if I am really qualified to do them.  I am very rarely plagued by self doubt, but while I was praying for a film break or merciful death most of the audience was laughing their asses off.  I worried that maybe I am too out of touch with the general movie going audience, but I thought about it a lot on the way home and came to the conclusion that this is an example of cultural Darwinism.  If, for example, I were to open a retail shop that specialized in left handed scissors and the like, than I would not be surprised to find that most of my customers were left handed.  Likewise, if Hollywood sets out to create a film designed to appeal to the true idiots of our society, than I should not be surprised if I sit in a theater full of idiots.  I have found that when I go to the movies on $5 night the bar seems to be lowered considerably.  Odds are this movie will make a disappointingly large amount of money, leading us inevitably to the next bad rom-com staring Kevin James with yet another super hot girl.