First Class Goes Back to School or, A Pun Should Never be a Headline

I hate it when reviews have some awful pun in the headline based around the title to a movie. More on that later.

At this point you can probably tell I am a rather harsh critic when it comes to movies. The statement “I just watch movies for entertainment, I don’t want to have to think about it” seriously bugs me. Like thinking is somehow a chore. A burden. I’m sorry you can’t be troubled to expand your mind beyond the boundaries  that you hide behind. There’s powerful stuff out there, and it can change you, if you let it.

That said, there are several types of movie genres that I am a sucker for. I don’t care who is starring, who wrote/directed it, or what the overlying premise is, but if you have any of these things (or, god[s] willing, some combination of them) I will go see it: Robots, zombies, post-apocalypse wastelands, cowboys, aliens, super heroes, space pirates, regular pirates or giant monsters rampaging nearby metropolises (metropoli?). Sometimes (most times?) these movies are terrible. I don’t care. I want to watch gigantic robots level a city as they pummel each other through buildings causing chaos and mayhem. I don’t care if the actors might as well be puppets. I don’t care if the dialog is cringe-worthy. That robot just threw that other robot through three buildings, and it was awesome. I’m a hypocrite. Whatever. But I will never go see Sex in the City 2.

What I did go see was X-Men: First Class. And overall it was pretty good. A bit campy, and definitely over the top in several areas (apparently flight is totally possible as long as you scream loud enough), but overall a positive endeavor, and way better than the last two installments of the X-Men franchise, X3 and Wolverine.

The movie shows the founding of the X-Men, from the discovery of mutants to the formation of the well known superhero-squad clad in yellow tights. We meet several of the “senior” mutants from the original series, such as a young Magneto and Professor X, and learn the motivation behind their future rivalry. There’s stuff about Nazis, communists, nuclear war etc but I won’t talk too much about plots.

Instead, I’m going to talk about the actors. The X-men series has, for the most part, done the right of hiring actors based on their quality and not their popularity, and First Class is no different. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are both skilled actors, and it shows in their performances. The surprise for me was Kevin Bacon. The man’s German is pretty good, and he can really pull off the creep villain thing.

I did have a problem with some of it. Namely the X-Men that went by the name Banshee, who looked like Ron Weasley in spandex, but rather than being a lanky wizard with serious inadequacy issues, his power revolved around his ability to produce super-sonic sound by screaming really loud, and using that to propel him soaring though the air. Yeah, that’s right. Screaming=flight. Good to know.

Now, Banshee has been a character in the X-Men universe for a long time, and my problem isn’t that he existed in the comics, but why put him in the movie? He had no major role, except apparently to force the audience to suspend even more disbelief. In fact, this was the general rule for most of the supporting cast. Apparently, the creative forces behind this movie really had to scrape the mutant barrel to come up with the other characters. There were only a couple that played any sort of pivotal role, with the rest standing around in the background as if to say “See, look at how many mutants there are! What a rich universe this is! Care about us!” But I didn’t. My bad.

Overall, First Class is pretty good. Not great, and realize it’s a comic book movie based on super mutants. That can fly by screaming. But whatever, and least it’s not just pop culture garbage spewed out by Hollywood in a cheap and obvious way to make a buck. Right?

…right?

Oh well…

-End Transmission

Vice can be a good thing…

I have always been a fan of alternative journalism. The large, clunky mainstream media outlets bored me. Or outraged me. I hope I don’t need to go into how ridiculous these sources of information are. They’re awful, and between their manipulation of information to sway the masses, and corporate money in politics, I can’t really decide which is worse. Probably because they’re intertwined in a “Let’s **** over the American people” orgy so twisted and grotesque it would put the acts of Caligula‘s court to shame.

But there is good journalism. Journalism that tells a story, untarnished by the need of ratings, presented to instruct, not convert. It’s hard to come by, but it’s out there. Or rather, it’s right here. In this Problem.

A few months ago a friend of mine sent me a link via my book’s face: the Vice Guide to Travel: North Korea. Which is what it’s title suggests: a comprehensive look at the tourist experience in one of the most isolated and extreme countries in the world, North Korea. Descriptors like “mind-blowing” and “jaw-dropping” come to mind, but just watch it for yourself. I can’t say I enjoyed it. I don’t think anyone can enjoy it, or rather, I don’t think we are meant to. It puts forth an experience like watching the twilight zone. It’s unsettling, but intriguing.

The episode documents the tiny country that, for more than half a century now, has lived completely cutoff from the rest of the world. Two Vice employees manage to arrange a tour, which apparently can be bought in China. With them they take a tiny digital camera, claiming it doesn’t have video capabilities. It does, and the footage they brought back is astounding. One of the marked points of the episode is the limits the two ‘tourists’ are put under. Only seeing what the government shows them, the journalists only view a perfect society, clearly fabricated to quell rumors amongst foreigners. Once in a while they catch glimpse of what lurks below, the poverty, the brain washing, the complete lack of freedom. Here’s an odd fact i found out: the people of North Korea don’t know that members of other countries don’t like them. They love their country and Dear Leader, so doesn’t everybody? If they only knew…

But North Korea is not the only topic of investigation. A little bit about the series:

The Vice Guide to Travel is a ‘travel’ show in a very broad sense of the word. Yes, the hosts do travel to distant, exotic lands, but usually the kind that no one would ever pick out for their vacation. North Korea is just one of a slew of such destinations. Chernobyl’s radioactive animals, a Pakistani gun market, Beirut’s fanatic boy scouts are all spotlighted in different episodes, with the Vice hosts taking an up close, in the lion’s mouth approach to shedding light on these extreme, and sometimes terrifying, situations.

Not all of the features are negative, however. In one, the Vice guide accompanies his parents to Hajj in Mecca, the world’s largest annual pilgrimage. He documents the rituals while performing them himself, and captures the awe and sheer size of a major part of a culture widely misunderstood in the West.

This is the world we live in, as told by the unconventional, but strikingly honest perspective of the people over at Vice. No agendas, no message. Except maybe that we should spend a little more time with our eyes open. I can get behind that. The other “News” is the Problem.

-Huston

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Apparently, there’s this thing called blogging…

Greetings. Welcome to my blog, Huston has a Problem. (<- fancy bold font)

For those that don’t know, which is everyone save for a handful of people, this is a resurrection of an Op-ed column that I wrote for my high school newspaper, many years ago. Back then it mostly focused on whatever topic I felt like ranting about in a generally uninformed, juvenile manner.

This is doubtful to change.

What is different is the content, which is to say that this will be primarily focused as a review platform for movies, tv, music etc. I’m sure the odd news story will creep onto the page every now and then, but such quality of content I leave to other, more suitable sources.

So, where shall I begin? Movies. More specifically, the last movie I saw in theaters: Your Highness.

© 2011 - Universal Pictures

It was bad. Really bad. Bad writing, bad jokes, bad acting, bad sets, effects, music. Everything was bad.

But it also made me laugh.

Granted, I went in with terribly low expectations, already convinced that I was not going to enjoy the film. No, it’s not a film. It’s a movie. There is a difference. And Your Highness knows this, and does not try for anything outside of it’s brand of disgusting shock humor. It accepts the fact that it will not have any shred of value, and decides to run naked in the opposite direction screaming obscenities, like that elderly relative with dementia that your mother always told you to be nice to.

I suppose if the movie does have any charm, it’s that it knows exactly what it is, exactly why you came to see it, and exactly how to make you regret that decision.

Oddly enough, for all it’s lack of substance it has some pretty serious actors. I mean, I wasn’t surprised to see Danny McBride in a movie like this, but James Franco? Natalie Portman? Zooey Deschanel?! Also, Damian Lewis from Band of Brothers, one of my favorite miniseries (granted the only one I’ve watched all the way through), in one of the supporting roles. I suppose a paycheck is a paycheck, and judging by the quality (or lack thereof) of everything else in the movie these actors were well payed.

I would take a moment to talk about plot, themes, poignant moments, but there really isn’t any point. It’s garbage, at times funny garbage, but like someone somewhere sometimes says: “You can paint your s*** all the colors of the rainbow, doesn’t mean it’ll smell good.” To be honest, I just made that up, but I feel I’ve heard something like it before…

Okay, to wrap up my reviews I will be giving the subject some completely arbitrary rating, and make suggestions for possible fans.

The judgement for Your Highness is as follows:

1.5 gold fish out of the moon. It was what I expected, which was bad and kind of funny.

People who might like it: Anyone who refers to their best friends as “bros,” anyone who has said “I don’t watch movies to think,” anyone who thought to themselves “You know, I’d like the Scary Movie franchise if it were just more perverted and less intellectual.”

People who should probably never see it:My parents, your parents, decent people from good homes, anyone with taste. If you know who Charlie Kaufman is. You don’t even have to like his movies, just as long as you know he exists. Although you should like his movies. They’re brilliant. Seriously, go watch Adaptation right now.

So, this concludes my first blog. I welcome criticism, and I’m totally open to any comment. Just let me know what you think here: http://www.eyedonntkare.com/

-Huston

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