The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

You should watch this trailer.

Possibly the most meta film ever, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, is coming soon. Morgan Spurlock is one cheeky bastard.

I just don't buy indistructable heels

I've got a question for you.

Okay so I'm watching Surrogates because.... I don't know why, really. I knew it would be terrible, and it was. Maybe I watched it because I thought I'd fall asleep and I didn't want to miss something I cared about. I didn't fall asleep, though. I watched the whole thing. It was really really bad.

Periodically during the movie the Beefcake and I began naming other movies Bruce Willis was in that were better than this one. "Hi, I'm Bruce Willis. I was in Hudson Hawk." Like that.

Anyway, that's not my question.

So I'm watching this movie and although I don't like the stuff that's happening, I'm following. I buy the world of people using robots to conduct their day-to-day activities, I buy the science of it, I buy a gun that blasts through robots and fries the eyes of the people behind them. Here's what I don't buy. At one point a cop who is a robot jumps over a couple of cars and lands right on her high heel encased feet.

She jumps super high and lands on a tiny little heel and it doesn't break. And at that moment I threw up my hands. That is just ridiculous. I don't care if they're Clarks or Manolos, there is not a heel on Earth that can take that kind of punishment. Maybe if it's made of adamantium.

So here's my question. Why do you think that is? How is it that I, and no doubt many others, can accept the most ludicrous plot points only to get hung up on petty details? We do it all the time. Why?

Interview with Joshua Patterson, horror bloggy guy

Today's interview is with Joshua Patterson, who runs But The Third One Was Great, a blog dedicated to reviewing, summarizing, and poking fun at horror series. He is also currently embroiled in attempts to turn his blog into a book. If you've never read his blog, you're missing out. It's hilarious, and as someone who doesn't really watch a lot of horror movies, I love reading his reviews so I know what I need to know without actually having to subject myself to the film itself.

Now, without further ado:

ME: Why horror movies?

JOSH: I think something in my nature likes to root for the underdog, and honestly, is there a bigger underdog than horror films? It’s not that I don’t enjoy large-budget studio films. I do. But I have a much greater appreciation for someone who can take two million dollars (or less) and show me something I’ve never seen before.

How many do you think you've seen?

I’m sure it’s somewhere in the high hundreds, though I’d hesitate to say I’ve made it to the four-digit realm. Let’s go with: More than most people, less than the guy who writes Horror Movie a Day.

What was your motivation for starting the blog?

It was a lot of little things over a lot of years.

My first experience with direct-to-video sequels happened a bunch of years ago when I had an entire weekend to myself. I decided to rent part 2 through part 666 of the Children of the Corn series, just because I really wanted to know: Did the underwhelming, mostly forgettable original really NEED five more parts? (there are six now)

The answer was, no surprise, “It did not.” But I had heard good things about part 3, and as it turns out, they were true. It’s a really solid, freaky little flick, and it even has a pretty cool, if a little obvious, twist ending.

Though the other parts range from okay to awful, they do contain the first starring roles of Naomi Watts and Eva Mendes. So they were curiously satisfying from that perspective.

That stuck with me.

Then, a couple of Halloweens ago, some stores were blowing out copies of the Child’s Play movies. For reasons not worth getting into, I had only seen the third part. So I bought the whole series for less than $20.

Around that time, I also started noticing just how many horror flicks with so-so box office had direct-to-video 2s and 3s. “Pulse.” “Feast.” And “Wrong Turn,” which most horror fans didn’t like much at all, had a VERY well-reviewed part 2.

But finding information on these movies was just about impossible. I realized that if I wanted to know what happened in The Grudge 3, I was going to have to find out for myself.

And I figured: Well, as long as I’m scaling that mountain, perhaps I should make a few notes, and return with a field journal of sorts.

Who do you see picking up your book off the shelf when it’s finally published?

I’d give the painfully obvious answer “people like myself,” but that might limit my potential reader(s) to me, and me alone.

I think the kind of people who would enjoy my book fall into a few different categories:

1. Movie fans who are just plain curious what happens in Tremors 4 and Hellraiser 8.

2. Movie fans who enjoy a good laugh. Hint: If you’ve read and enjoyed Roger Ebert’s I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie or Your Movie Sucks, you’ll enjoy my book.

3. I also suspect, somewhere in my bones, that folks who enjoy Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax, or Cinematic Titanic would probably enjoy the book as well.

I have a sneaking suspicion that once the folks listed above get the book off the shelf, it will become something they need to pick up extra copies of to share with like-minded friends.

What’s your process like while you create the summaries? Do you watch the movie several times or go stream of consciousness?

Originally, I watched the movies with a notebook in hand and scribbled down the plot. Then I’d sit down and type up the plot, adding jokes, observations, and whatever else I could come up with.

Now I pull up the movie, and start typing on my laptop. I hit pause and rewind a LOT. Writing up a movie takes somewhere between six and eight hours depending on how long the movie is, how poorly it’s directed (I’ve watched the same scene seven or eight times attempting to figure out what happened, and sometimes I still don’t know) and how inspired I’m feeling on any one day.

My job would be a lot easier if I was just doing a straight review, or if I was just trying to be cruel to the films in question. But I’m trying to be both funny and educational, and that takes a lot more work than just calling a movie stupid.

How do you feel about the current state of the horror genre?

The horror genre suffers from the same problem most of the movie-making industry is suffering from: a lack of fresh content. Most of the big horror movies today are either sequels, remakes, or in some cases, remakes of sequels.

The only really successful “original” horror movie I can think of from last year was Paranormal Activity, which had probably the most brilliant marketing campaign since The Blair Witch Project.

This may point to another issue – in the rare instance that someone produces a really interesting, well-done horror film, the marketing just isn’t there. That might explain why something like Splice, which got excellent reviews, crashed and burned at the box office.

What’s your favorite all time number one ultimate horror film?

Probably The Evil Dead, though Dawn of the Dead would come in at a close second.

Original or Remake?

Original.

I'm actually a huge Romero nut. Dude made some great non-zombie flicks. Martin is outstanding, and Season of the Witch is a great idea that moves way too slowly.

Of all the villains, who scares you the most?

Though I’m generally entertained by them, I’m rarely “scared” by horror movies. Some part of my brain is constantly informing me that what I’m watching is just a lot of makeup. I’ll jump from time to time, but I haven’t had any nightmares as far as I can recall.

I will say that zombies in general are pretty freaky, only because once they get a decent foothold on the population, they’re completely relentless.

As a singular “villain,” though, I’d say The Thing (of John Carpenter’s The Thing) is probably the scariest creature I’ve encountered on-screen.

Who is the funniest?

I can’t say I go in for the quipping bad guy. Most of Freddy’s “jokes” are just weak puns, for example. But I will say that Chop Top in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 manages to be funny in deeply uncomfortable ways.

What is the most retarded thing you have seen a character do in a horror movie?

As a general note, I’ll never understand why people are constantly trying to revive and/or capture killers. Michael Myers falls into a coma, and they keep him on life support instead of in lockdown in a maximum security prison.

Jason is really, really dead, but the person who killed him has to dig him up just to make sure. At which point, he should burn the body, or toss a bunch of lit dynamite on him. But no…

Then there’s Ricky, from Silent Night, Deadly Night. The guy is dead. Very much dead. But they put a little brain-hat on him and revive his memories. Why?

I realize the answer is, “Because if that didn’t happen, there would be no movie,” but still…

Can you watch a horror film without critiquing it anymore?

Actually, it’s hard for me to watch just about any movie without taking it apart to see what works and what doesn’t.

Aside from the blog and the book, what are your personal projects? Or is that all encompassing?

But the Third One Was Great has taken up the majority of my writing time over the last year, but it’s far from the only thing I’m working on. Also somewhere at the forefront of my writing time:

Mercy – A novel I wrote a couple of years ago that I’ve been trying to sell. It’s got a plane crash, an uncharted island, a mom who just wants to get home to her kid, and a zombie apocalypse in it. I refer to it as a zombie novel for moms.

The Kids – My take on vampires, which is just different enough from anything I’ve read that I’m wary of stating the premise here.

I’m also working on a memoir of the process my wife and I had to go through when we adopted our daughter.

If you have any questions for Josh, leave them in the comments or hop over to his blog. It's awesome.

Teenagers love bad guys

Yesterday in class I taught about villains. I gave AFI's definition of a villain and their top 20 villains of all time. At first I was just going to go over the ones they knew - the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz, the Evil Queen from Snow White, Jaws, maybe Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, the Alien (my personal favorite). I was going to talk about why they're such an effective villain and how they play the part.

But when I skipped over Norman Bates they all cried foul. Who is Norman Bates? They all wanted to know.

So I slowed down and went through the list one by one and they were enraptured. I've never seen this class so interested in story elements as I did when I told them about the bad guys.

I ended up doing my one minute version of 2001, making them all giggle with my impression of Hal. A student who saw Fatal Attraction gave us all his summary of the plot which included the line "The bitch messed with his car. You believe that? Bitch just won't leave that nigga alone!" I felt like it was the best plot summary I'd ever heard.

I listened to them argue about whether or not the shark from Jaws was awesome or lame. It got pretty heated.

And when I got to Annie Wilkes from Misery, I had them. As soon as I described the way she took a sledge hammer to his knees, they all asked me to point out which movie on the list that was again so they could all go out and get it.

I had only made one class set of the sheet so I could take it up and use it with my other class, but I had to go make new copies because so many of my students wanted to keep it to know what movies those were that I talked about.

So it turned out to be a pretty cool day.

Never again, Promenade

Friday The Beefcake and I rolled down to Venice and had lunch, then drove up to Santa Monica to have dinner and Where the Wild Things Are on the Promenade. Big mistake.

The movie was perfectly awesome. There were tears, and The Beefcake and I spent a good deal of our post-movie time discussing the allegorical elements.

No, it was not a mistake to see this brilliant film. It was a mistake to go to the Promenade.

Over the past few years, I have only seen theater releases in two places: The Arclight and The Grove. For those of you who don't know LA, The Arclight is a theater where you have assigned seating and no commercials and generally there are very few kids in the audience. The Grove is part of an upscale outdoor shopping mall where you get the occasional kid in the theater, but usually they're accompanied by an adult, usually an LA resident, and generally the kids are few at night. These are also theaters frequented by Industry people, so there's a lot of respect for the art of film and people generally stay through the credits.

The Promenade is a major tourist attraction in Santa Monica. Lots of shops and restaurants, and it's within walking distance of several beach front hotels and the pier you see in every movie ever about LA. You know, the one with the ferris wheel.

The Promenade is a place where Daddy drops his kids off with a credit card and a pick-up time. We forgot all this before we went to see the movie. The kids movie. With oversize puppets.

There were children everywhere. Loud, unaccompanied children. After the previews started, a group of about 8 or 9 teenagers stomped in waving their bags and giggling and playing musical chairs across two rows for like ten minutes. Then they talked. They talked to each other for the entire first act.

I turned around and Teacher Glared. I shushed. They barely acknowledged my existence. Then about halfway through the film the kids in the back row decided it would be fun to push and tickle the kids in the row in front of them. The tickled and pushed kids giggled and pushed back.

This is what I wanted to say: "Hey, you see this big guy here next to me? In a minute I'm going to rip your trachea out of your neck and beat you to death with it, and he won't lift a finger to stop me."

This is what I said: "Shut the fuck up."

I combined it with Teacher Glare. Not a peep out of those kids after that. I can be very intimidating even without beaten-to-death-with-your-own-trachea fear.

Meanwhile, as I am becoming increasingly aggravated by the giggly children behind me, the cell phones pop out all over the theater.

Hey, people who like to look at their cell phones during the movie, stop it. It's not only annoying to the people directly around and behind you, it's also extremely aggravating to the people all the way at the back of the fucking theater who can see it but aren't close enough to say something to you about it.

So if the person in front of you is annoying you with their cell phone, they're probably annoying everyone behind you. Don't be afraid to say something. You have the support of the entire theater.

At one point a woman had some kind of exciting and funny text, so she passed her giant phone with the huge blue screen to her friend, who also read this hilarious text and then passed the giant blue screen to the person in front of them, who read it and passed it back, at which point the original lady read it some more then responded, then left her phone open while she waited for the next message. Altogether her phone was probably open and glowing for ten minutes. I was easily 15 rows behind her and 8 rows to her left but I saw all of this very clearly.

As she was doing this, some guy on our side of the theater kept opening his phone and texting every few seconds.

THIS IS ANNOYING. If it's that important to you, leave the theater. If you want to text and watch the movie, wait until it comes out on DVD and do it at home.

I will never, ever go to the Promenade for a movie again. Or if I do, I'm leaving with blood on my hands.

How much can we lie?

Ever since I heard a cool story at Alcatraz I've been working on researching a screenplay I want to write that takes place there. I bought a book on the island about Robert Stroud, the Birdman, the subject of the film Birdman of Alcatraz. I read the book, which was largely a scholarly examination of his life in as accurate detail as possible. Then I watched Birdman of Alcatraz.

In a college French class, I decided for my project I would research the Three Musketeers and see how close the novel came to depicting true events. Eh. Kind of close. Then I watched the Disney movie. That film couldn't have had more contempt for historical accuracy if it made the Musketeers Portuguese aliens living on Orion's belt. I'm not sure anyone involved with that film actually read the book.

The Three Musketeers was a much bigger violation, but Birdman of Alcatraz takes a lot of liberties with the truth in order to make the guy look like a hero. Did you know he was not only gay, but wrote kiddie and incest porn and passed it around to all the prisoners? Of course you can't have a gay would-be pedophile as your star in 1962 so you have to give the man a love story, created from a real relationship he had with a woman he manipulated to his own ends. In the film he seems quietly heroic, but in real life he was an asshole who felt like everybody on earth owed him because his daddy didn't love him.

And because this film made Stroud look like such a great guy unjustly treated by the evil inhuman prison system, people made a big hullaballoo about getting him out of prison. Because of this film, people wrote angry letters and he was very nearly released into our midst - a man who murdered two people and didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

We take liberties with history. Hell, I'm doing it right now in my current script. We have to be able to do it because nobody wants to watch a movie about a murderous pedophile who uses everyone who cares about him and stinks up his cell with bird poop. It's hard to root for that guy. So we change things. They didn't change the story too much in the film; the events are fairly accurate. But they changed the man's entire personality.

So I guess the question is, how much should we change things? Should we be able to change a man's entire character? Should we be able to make the impossible possible? What do you think?

Why I don't do horror

The other day when I was winding down the school year and showing movies a kid asked why I never bring scary movies. I pointed her to Shaun of the Dead and she gave me a disappointed look. "That's not scary," she said.

And okay, she has a point. Besides my undying love for zombies, I really don't enjoy horror movies at all. I'm too empathetic.

I think with horror movies if you have empathy, you enjoy the scares. If you can shut your empathy off, you enjoy the gore. When I watch a gory movie I am entirely too grossed out to enjoy it and it gives me bad dreams. I probably saw Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night Two like 15 years ago, but I still remember this one scene where this girl went to hide in a locker and Mary Lou squeezed the locker until it crushed the girl and flesh colored ooze came out. Despite the completely illogical appearance of the ooze, I still have icky feelings about that scene.

And torture porn REALLY grosses me out. All that Eli Roth stuff, I can't watch it. I'm too busy thinking about how painful it is to enjoy it. I'm not entirely sure what exactly you're supposed to enjoy there. Are you supposed to be scared for the person getting tortured? Because I am the first person to feel for the protagonist, but I'm too grossed out to even be scared.

I do like movies that use suspense instead of gore. I watched Jeepers Creepers the other night for the first time, and although the ending became sort of silly and the story could have used some work, there were moments when I was clutching my pillow yelling "Just drive the goddamn car, you fucking retard! GOOOOOOOOO!" because I was trying to get away from the scary flying man.

And then when they explained what he was I was like oh.

The point is, I can watch a movie that's actually scary. I cannot watch a movie that's disgusting.

The exception is most zombie movies.

Okay, so I still can't really watch Resident Evil because there's a definite gross-out factor there, and because any kind of laser cutting people into bits really disturbs me. My ex made me close my eyes for the first five minutes of Ghost Ship because everybody gets sliced in half with a thing. And Cube can go suck a dick. I have never gotten over that stupid fucking asshole of a movie. And I will never forgive it for the hurt it has caused me. But the point is, with most zombie movies it's the zombies getting the grossest hits and they're not human anymore, and also the blood usually looks really fake.

This one time a friend of mine asked me to read his screenplay and it was basically Hostel, only in his movie somebody slid down a slide of razor blades into a pool of alcohol. Why the fuck would anyone enjoy watching that? I almost retched while reading it. I like my scares without vomit, please.