Finally, I make a promise I can keep.

It’s Oscar weekend, so we should be celebrating great movies and shining a spotlight on overlooked ones. Well I say screw that. Let’s celebrate movies that most people despise! Below is the Ebert and Roeper review of Freddy Got Fingered, and while I’m in a very small minority and happen to disagree with their assessment of Tom Green’s magnum opus, I can always appreciate a heavy dose of baffled disgust.

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I’ve seen quite a few movies in the past couple weeks, but haven’t had a chance to talk about them. So here’s a little recap of what I’ve been watching.

Revolutionary Road

American Beauty set in the ’50s, with more fighting, less plastic bags, and a bloody carpet. Seriously, Kate Winslet and Leo were happier at the end of Titanic, when he’s sinking to the bottom of the ocean, than they are through most of this movie. It’s a brutal watch, made even more difficult by the fact that this type of material has been mined before. It’s an acting clinic, nothing more, nothing less.

Slumdog Millionaire

I love a movie that can show me something I’ve never seen before. Slumdog Millionaire shows a side of the world you rarely get to see– the ghetto of India — and instead of exploiting it, uses it as a character that sets up this story of hope and romance. It’s about clinging to that small bright light in a room full of darkness, and it’s powerful.

Slumdog’s story is brilliantly framed by the ascending levels of the game show. The central question of the film is, how does a boy from the slums know all the answers to a trivia game show that requires a knowledge of a wide array of subjects? The story is told through his experiences finding out the answers. In the beginning of the film, it’s set up that perhaps his appearance on the show is written in the stars. It’s fate that each question relates to his troubled life, and he can trace the answer back to pivotal moments. I don’t want to ruin any surprises, but suffice to say this was one of my favorite movies from last year. If you haven’t seen Slumdog, find it. Especially during these slow few weeks of theatrical releases.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

That supposed “totally hot sex scene” between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Jo in a dark room? One of them touches the other’s elbow and they kiss. In the words of the immortal Gob Bluth, Come on! Coupled with this disappointment, I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the movie as a whole. Yes, Javier Bardem is charming, and the performances are fun to watch, but I never felt connected to the characters. There’s a narrator who fills in the gaps not covered by dialogue or action, but it only serves to push you away from the story rather than drawing you in. No one’s feelings are ever really at risk because everyone is so flippant. Even Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz as a bickering couple lacks fire because it’s stated time and again their relationship will never work. The biggest feeling I had coming away from this movie was indifference. I felt just like any of the characters in the movie.

The Curious Case of Ben Button

While watching Benjamin Button, I remember liking it. It’s not until it’s over that you start to get a creeping feeling that this may not be the Oscar powerhouse everyone’s making it out to be. It’s clearly a “This Is Your Life” type tale. We’re gonna watch Benjamin from birth to death and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. You can’t help but make similarities to Forrest Gump, (as many people have) which makes even more sense when you realize it was written by Eric Roth, the same guy who wrote Forrest. It seems like the natural way to tell this unique story, but also feels like we’re going through the motions at times until we reach the logical conclusion.

The real problem I had was that Benjamin Button, aside from his unique malady, is not a very interesting character. He observes a lot, never really taking much initiative in situations. He just happens upon things, which is what makes him curious, I guess. Despite this, it’s emotionally effective, because you know what will happen to him and can’t help but feel for him. There’s a heartbreaking shot near the end of the movie where Cate Blanchett is walking down the street with a baby Brad Pitt, whom she once loved and is now just a toddler. It sums up the whole movie in a single shot and is extremely effective.

Of course, the most important reason to see the movie are the special effects. Easily the most convincing aging effects I’ve ever seen on film. Somehow even a 90-year-old Brad Pitt looks better than a 29-Years-Young Nerd With Words. Usually when they put people in old person makeup, it looks completely phony. And that weird age-shaving trick they used in X3 to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan looks 20 years younger is employed with gusto here, making Brad Pitt look 16. The technology has been perfected, and it frightens me that they can just cut years off of anyone. Pretty soon they’ll just be propping up corpses of dead actors and reanimating them.

W.

W. is fascinating at times, but unfocused and incomplete, with no historical relevance/hindsight. Josh Brolin is fantastic and makes this movie infinitely watchable, but the film is marred any time Thandie Newton is on screen as Condoleeza Rice. It’s like she’s channeling Kristen Wiig. It’s cartoonish and embarrassing.

Ghost Town

Thumbs Down. Ricky Gervais takes his trademark endearing yet annoying character and drops the endearing part. Add to this the fact that stories with ghosts who talk to the living are played out, and you’ve got a wholly inconsequential movie.

Whew. Okay, I feel a little better now.

Aint It Cool News is reporting that Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined the cast of The Expendables written and directed by Sly Stallone. A team-up of Sly and Arnie has been a wet dream of action fans since the early ’80s, and although it sounds like Arnold’s role will be a glorified cameo, it really doesn’t matter. Having these two powerhouses finally together in any capacity is worth the price of admission. And even if you don’t think THAT’S worth the price of admission, maybe the rest of the cast will entice you. Because it looks like this–

Sylvester “Sly” Stallone
Jet “Mummy 3″ Li
Dolph “Drago” Lundgren
Mickey “The Ram” Rourke
Jason “The Nerd Loves You” Statham
Forest “Ghost Dog” Whitaker
Randy “Whatever” Couture
Freakin’ Arnold.

Are you KIDDING ME?? That’s an unbelievable list of action stars, and I even read a part was offered to Van Damme, but he turned it down. Yeah, smart move Jean Claude. Wouldn’t want to tarnish your legacy.

To coincide with this monumentous announcement, I’m going to start a new feature on the site where I go back and take a look at all of Schwarzenegger’s movies, starting with Hercules in New York all the way up to T3. I’ve wanted to do it for a while, but the undertaking is massive and will likely take months to get through all his movies. Luckily, I own about half of them. I’ll provide detailed reviews/favorite moments/unintentional comedy of each movie as I rewatch them. And in the end, I’ll give the ultimate ranking of Arnold movies, from worst to first.

Damn You, Remakes!

Can anyone else decipher if Joaquin Phoenix is seriously cracked out or if this is all just a ruse? Before seeing this segment, I heard rumblings about Phoenix faking his retirement for a mockumentary (Casey Affleck has been following him around with a camera). If that’s the case, then this is a pretty brave performance (on the condition that Letterman wasn’t in on it).

Then again, if the dude has just lost his mind/replaced it with drugs, this is an incredibly sad public document.

Then again, again, you can’t beat Letterman. “High praise coming from you.” “I’ll come to your house and chew gum.” Classic. What do you think? Insanity or Brilliance?

Stroke Brad Pitt’s Glourious Stache to see the teaser for Inglourious Bastards, complete with hilarious comedy from Adolf Hitler, aided by a drop-out in the music.

To say this is one of my most anticipated movies of 2009 is an understatement. Although it is weird to see Neal Schweiber from “Freaks and Geeks” and Ryan from “The Office” standing across from Brad Pitt, any movie with the line “Every soldier owes me 100 Nazi scalps, and I want my scalps!” is a winner in my book.

What do you think??

If clicking on the moustache doesn’t work, just go HERE.

I really wanted to like Fanboys. I did. I mean, this movie was made for people EXACTLY like me – obsessed, unapologetic Star Wars fans. It follows a group of four friends who, back in 1999, come up with a plan to sneak into Skywalker Ranch and steal a copy of The Phantom Menace so their friend can see it before he dies. I mean, come on! If I didn’t know better, I’d think I wrote this movie myself. Unfortunately, Fanboys was messier than Boba Fett’s trip to the Sarlacc Pit.

The movie’s turbulent history is well documented, having been cut, re-cut, re-shot, and re-cut again. Cameos and sound effects have been added to beef it up. It’s had cancer, it’s had its cancer go into remission, and it’s seen the cancer return. What comes out on the other end is a combination of 5 different cuts of a movie. It’s a big mess. In the end, the cancer storyline is in the movie, but just barely. It feels like an afterthought despite being the driving force of the action. And because of that, the character of Linus comes across as the worst cancer patient ever. It’s mentioned in the beginning of the movie (so they have a reason to go to Skywalker Ranch), then it’s ignored for an hour and only brought up at times when the film seems lost or requires poignancy. In its final form, it’s offensive how lightly they treat this dying kid, especially during a scene where ANOTHER character is complaining about how he doesn’t want to take over his dad’s car lot. Boo hoo, at least you’ll still be alive.

The other problem with this movie is that it’s a road trip film with no direction. Okay, we know the final destination, but the trek across country is so aimless, the characters actually take a detour to Iowa so they can make fun of Star Trek nerds. It’s preposterous and a waste of time. While I can appreciate a single scene showing the disdain between Star Wars and Trek fans, there’s no reason it should occupy 20 total minutes of the movie. Their stops are so arbitrary, I honestly forgot which character had cancer halfway through the movie.

Here’s a series of events to illustrate my point. Hutch’s (Dan Fogler) van breaks down for no reason, forcing them to enter a biker bar, which actually turns out to be a gay bar (surprise!), which they’re then forced to strip for no reason (haven’t we seen this before?), which gets broken up by Danny Trejo for no reason, who takes them out to the desert for no reason, and gets them high off peyote. In the morning they wake up, and Danny Trejo has fixed their van. For no reason. That’s about 10 minutes of the movie that A) feels rehashed from 10 other movies, B) does nothing to advance the characters, and C) has nothing to do with Star Wars. It takes away from the core of the movie and isn’t entertaining.

There are more strange occurrences in this movie, such as the cameos. Billy Dee Williams plays Judge Reinhold, which would have been funny if “Arrested Development” and the “Clerks” cartoon didn’t already nail that joke. Carrie Fischer plays the world’s worst doctor, letting Linus escape from her hospital moments after telling his friends he’s very sick and has to go home. Neither of them have any winks to the audience. They could have been played by anyone. Finally, Seth Rogen plays two characters, and it comes off as weird, confusing, and unnecessary.

I’ve gotten this far, and said nothing about the Star Wars aspect of the film. Despite all my problems, the movie is a love letter to the devoted fans of Star Wars. Lucas gave his approval and allowed them to use the actual sounds from the movie and shoot at Skywalker Ranch. The nerd-filled theater I was in chuckled at the numerous references, such as their van being named Slave 2, Hutch trying to use The Force to convince ladies to take their shirt off, references to Admiral Ackbar, Ray Park (Darth Maul) playing a Skywalker security guard, and a debate about Luke and Leia kissing. And, best of all, Kristen Bell in a gold bikini. It’s also filled with three Star Wars trivia scenes, where characters are asked questions about the saga in order to proceed on their journey. Unfortunately, it just feels like a reason for the nerds in the audience to answer the question before the character does (Duh, the answer’s Dantooine!). The references are comforting, some of them funny, but on the whole there are a lot of missed opportunities. Interesting parallels are introduced and dropped, such as the character who sees his father as Darth Vader, a storyline that’s never resolved. Again, maybe a product of the various cooks in this movie’s kitchen.

The central theme of the movie is one that’s close to my heart. Star Wars fans sharing their love of something that filled them with imagination as children. This movie doesn’t need excessive Star Wars/Star Trek debates. It doesn’t need gimmicky gay bar scenes. It needs its four main characters to bond over a common love. It needs them to give their friend one last great adventure. The best scene occurs after Linus has seen The Phantom Menace and says, “It was never about the movie. It was about us.” It’s something Fanboys should have taken to heart.

YouTube has made me angry, so I’m trying a new video service. And holy shit, does that audio sound horrible. I’m working on fixing it, sorry everyone.

Fixed. You win, YouTube.