Movies: The Men Who Stare at Goats

…directed by Grant Heslov, written by Peter Straughan (script) and Jon Runson (book), starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, & Kevin Spacey.  The Men Who Stare at Goats chronicles the efforts of a small-town reporter named Bob (McGregor) to uncover the story of the Army’s efforts at developing and using paranormal and psychic powers.  After an interview with a veteran of the Special Forces’ First Earth the Battalion and being cuckolded by his wife, Bob heads for Iraq to try his hand as a war correspondent.  There he runs into Lyn (Clooney), the Army’s former top psychic, who has his own mission in the desert.

We learn about the First Earth Battalion’s founder,   Lt. Colonel Bill Django (Bridges, reprising the Dude in some respects), who came back from Nam and conducted extensive research on all the New Age stuff you could hope for, and convinced his bosses at Fort Bragg to start the psychic/paranormal soldier program.  Django wants to train Jedi-knights – warrior monks of peace who can convince the enemy to move beyond conflict through reason and telepathic manipulation - and enlists Lyn and others in this pursuit.  They’re interested in remote viewing, precognition, phasing, and of course physical psychic manipulations (hence the goats).

Ups for Sad on Vacation

Mark V. checked in with a heads-up on a new website featuring some of his youtube sketch comedy goodness.  It is Sad On Vacation (sadonvacation.com).   They have three clips up so far and are ambitiously laying claim to a weekly update schedule.  That’s good enough for us.  We’ve been to a couple of shows written by and or featuring Mark, George and Co. up in Chi-town and their brand of comedy gets the official stamp of approval.  The clips include Developmentally Disabled James Bond, Hey Look at Me (much respect), and Brownie Gun.

Mark’s current show at the Annoyance Theater is Salem! the Musical (he’s directing).  Read this review of the show, then drop Mark a line and give him some schtick for his hilariously inane and self-important rationale for avoiding background research!  Not watching/reading The Crucible – what a tool…  But seriously.    Go see it next weekend if you’re in Chicago.

So check out our newest addition to the blogroll and bookmark it for the future.  Sad On Vacation.

Movies: Zombieland

…directed by Ruben Fleischer, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin.  Zombieland is a light-hearted buddy comedy about the eventual Zombie apocalypse that will consume us all.  It begins with the standard zombie premise with which we’ve grown accustomed – a horrible viral infection turns people into ravening beasts and all hell breaks loose.  We learn from our narrator Columbus (Eisenberg) the rules to surviving in Zombieland, including 1) cardio, 2) the double-tab, and 3) seatbelts.

Columbus, it turns out, is the kind of young guy with a lengthy list of phobias and a penchant for World of Warcraft.  This actually serves him well, because he’s so cautious and paranoid he’s managed to avoid most of the mistakes that seem to have befallen the rest of the populace.  When he meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson), he find a complete opposite in nearly every trait.  Tallahassee is fearless, somewhat careless, and an absolute zombie-crushing machine.  It’s your standard end-of-days odd couple, and fortunately for the viewer, the two actors have a good sense of timing and chemistry.

The two men soon meet up with a young woman called Witchita (Stone) and her twelve-year-old sister, Little Rock (Breslin).  These ladies eventually convince  the crew to head for L.A. (why anyone would want to go to an urban area in a true zombie infestation is beyond me).  

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

Movies: The Informant!

…directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Scott Burns from Kurt Eichenwald’s book, starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, and Joel McHale.

The Informant! has been marketed as Matt Damon clowning in the cornfields – a shrewd move on the part of Warner Brothers.  But anyone who knows how Steven Soderbergh works will realize it’s a little more complicated and darker than that.  The movie provides an ironic examination of a landmark price-fixing case from right here in  central Illinois.  Yes, everyone form around Beemsville remembers those strange days 15 years past, when good ol’ ADM found themselves with the hand in the lyceine-cookie jar.  And we also remember how those articles in the Decatur Herald & Review kept rolling out, each one making the government’s star witness Mark Whitacre seem stranger and more crooked.

Damon plays Whitacre in this film.  A goofy, somewhat vulnerable, and yes, likable Mark Whitacre.  Give Soderbergh credit: it’s the only way the movie could possibly work.  If the audience doesn’t connect with Damon in the first fifteen minutes, if we don’t begin to wonder what’s really ticking in the brilliant but flawed head, this becomes more  a curiosity rather than a story.  But Soderbergh and Damon are in top form, and like Special Agents Brian Shepherd (Bakula) Bob Herndon (McHale), we want to believe him.  We want him to help bring down the greedy arrogant corporate giant.

Video Rec: Son of Rambow

Son of Rambow written and directed by Garth Jennings, starring Bill Milner and Will Poulter.  SofR takes place in the early 1980s in a small town somewhere in England.  It details how Will (Milner), a 10 year old boy whose family holds to strict non-technological almost Amish-like beliefs, and Lee, a troublemaker being haphazardly raised by his older brother meet up, become pals, and decide to make a movie.  Will views a bootleg copy of Stallone’s infamous First Blood at Lee’s house (the first movie or television he’s ever seen) and comes up with his own story that incorporates elements of John Rambo’s exploits with his own creativity.

Will is the kind of kid who fills up notebooks with sketches, little animation cells, and the beginnings of stories, and he soon turns his mind to creating scenes for his movie.  Lee is the kind of kid who steals what he needs to film a scene and thinks it’s cool to goad Will into doing his own stunts.  Both of them are lonely for various reasons and both of them are fatherless – Will’s having died of an aneurysm and Lee’s having gone to the store and never come back.

They start to recruit other kids to help in the filming, including a tres popular French exchange student, and there’s a fair amount of early 80s pop cultural goodness.  Hilarious scenes of pre-teens and young teens obviously trying to incorporate what was happening in London at the time with their own sense of cool.  Of course Will and Lee end up at odds over the creative process and their friendship, and each of them has to confront the bigger issues of their situations.

SofR is nostalgic, strong on sentiment, and smartly done.  Writer/director Jennings was last seen presiding over A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and he’s clearly in his element here.  Hopefully we see more from him.  This is the kind of movie you may not have heard about, but it’s definitely worth adding to your queue or seeking out at your local video store.

Checking in with The Goon

A couple of years ago, I started reading Eric Powell’s The Goon, a noirish old timey zombie send-up featuring the hamfisted title character, his sidekick Frankie (“knife to the eye”), the Nameless Zombie Priest, and a memorable supporting cast of misfits.  I loved it.

Powell is one of those writer/artists with a firm grip of technique and  knowledge of comic book history.  You can see the influence of giants like Will Eisner and Jack Kirby without much effort.  You can also see the influence of more recent pros like Mike Mignola, Mike Oeming, and yes, Garth Ennis in his work.  The Goon has been with Dark Horse for several years now, usually published 4 to 5 times a year.  The book often includes smaller side side stories as well as a main feature that may or may not have anything to do with a longer narrative thread.  Following this recipe, Powell managed to build a devoted fan base and garner some awards (several Eisners included) over the past years.

Star Wars from the fans

Lucasfilm’s latest trip to the cash trough, The Clone Wars, has been pretty much panned by the jedi faithful.  Here at Beemsville, we didn’t pony up for the theatrical release but will likely attempt to watch the DVD at some point despite the bad reviews.  These days your options for some Star Wars goodness are limited.  You’re pretty much left with some video games (Lego Star Wars, The Force Unleashed), the Dark Horse comics (some are good, some are weak), and your own sense of nostalgia.  Of course you can also go comedy with the Family Guy and Robot Chicken send-ups, both of which we wholeheartedly endorse.

And if you want to stick with the comedy vibe, you can also go with the fans.  Check out Atom TV which has the 2008 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.  Atom TV airs on Comdey Central, which replays it a couple of times throughout the week.  And of course you can view the shorts via the interweb link above or the icon below.

We’ve been enjoying Star Wars fan films since a few years back when we saw ‘Troops’, a clever Cops/Stormtroopers mash-up.  The tradition continues with ‘Padme’ (Juneau send-up), ‘Chad Vader’ (Sith wannabe at the grocery), Ewok Grindhouse (self-explanatory), and more.  Good stuff for the Star Wars geek in all of us.

Tropic Thunder: F@$%ing Funny!

Kick the teens to the PG-13 sideshow and leave the kids at home! It’s R-rated comedy time! Yeah!

Ben Stiller don’t need your permission. Jack Black – he’s sick of toning it down to reach the wider audience. Robert Downey Jr. is channeling Lou Gosset Jr. and Bill Cosby (in full afro makeup) and Nick Nolte’s doing full out self parody. Also there’s retards. And explosions.

Tropic Thunder – Fuck Yeah!!!

No self-censorship in this post. We’re sick of self-censorship. So is Ben Stiller (and Jack Black and R. Downey Jr.). This shit as serious. As serious as Tom Cruise in a fat suit dancing around to hip-hop…

Bodyslam! What you should see in Chicago

Still playing at the Annoyance Theater on Chicago’s north side, it’s Bodyslam! The Rise and Fall of C.A.W.C. (Continental American Wrestling Association). We made the trip and saw the show, and were vastly entertained.

It’s not just the overt comedy of average dudes in spandex, preening and stomping and philosophizing about the fine art of the suplex or camel clutch, no–it’s also the odd subtle lines they throw in, the quirky off-the-wall asides and references, the songs and music… It is damned fine comedy. They have themselves an actual ring and some authentic costuming. The cast is talented, intense, and totally committed.