Movie Review: Terminator Genisys

         Arnold Schwarzenegger is old but not obsolete. That's the subliminal tagline we get from the latest addition to the Terminator franchise. Unfortunately, we might not be able to say the same for the franchise itself. Terminator Genisys is fun, action-packed, and everything you'd want from a summer action movie. But it doesn't live up to the standard set by James Cameron's original creation, let alone T2. Nor does it add to the storyline. Still, I can't help being a little anxious for the next sequel to come out. That's probably because this movie failed to explain pretty much everything.

                                                   
                                                        

         The best part about a time travel movie franchise is that every sequel can also be a reboot. Terminator Genisys definitely gives that vibe. T5, if you want to call it that, presupposes the film that started it all and brings us to an alternate past retooled by an alternate future. It's pretty exciting at first, and the premise is revealed gradually enough to keep the mood suspenseful. Soon enough it becomes evident that the film makers made no effort to explain how we arrived at this presupposed, alternate future-past. We're just supposed to shut up and enjoy the ride, I guess.

         Complaints aside, Genisys has all the hallmarks of a great summer blockbuster and a terrific all-around movie. The action sequences are intense, the pacing is good, and the plot twists kept me guessing even despite the tremendous John Connor spoiler given by the movie trailer. But the film just doesn't have the same feeling without juggernaut director James Cameron at the helm.

         For one thing, the acting is bad. John Connor (Jason Clarke) doesn't make for a believable military man, let alone a war hero. The war wounds on his face are a realistic touch and it's nice having a principal character who doesn't look like an underwear model, but he just doesn't come across as a battle-hardened, military tactician. For that matter, neither do any of the non-Schwarzenegger characters. Emilia Clarke's portrayal of Sarah Connor as a woman who's spent her life tortured with a detailed, first-hand awareness of her bleak future pales in comparison to T2's Linda Hamilton. And Jai Courtney's Kyle Reese is just so-so.

         Mainly, there's a sense of desperation that comes across in the other movies, which is essential to the feel of the franchise. The character interplay in Genisys is snarky and often light-hearted. You don't get the feeling that these people are fighting for their lives, much less championing the survival of humanity.

         If it seems like I'm a little ambivalent toward the movie, it's because I am. The action was great, but the acting was bad. The story was unpredictable but also, as far as I know, there may not have been a plot. That is to say, I enjoyed the movie, but I wasn't impressed. Probably the worst thing about hoping for it to tie together in the next sequel is that they haven't even announced one as of now, even though Genisys is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. So us diehard Terminator fans are just going to have to hope that some genius writers with a grasp of concepts like quantum physics and the fourth dimensional continuum can tie this all up in a neat little package for us. I'm not holding my breath. 

Movie Review: The Last Supper.

         The Last Supper (1995) is a parody on morals wrapped in an ideological argument between right and left. Coming out on the independent market before the term "indie" had been officially coined, the film never stood a chance. Without a romance plot, action sequences, or laugh-out-loud comedy writing to bring the audience to sensory overload-gasm there wasn't much to help this character-driven dark comedy come to light at the time it was released. Still, it deserves its due. With a thoughtful soundtrack containing original songs by Mark Mothersbaugh, a cast that includes pre-Something About Mary Cameron Diaz, and the versatile Ron Perlman as the would-be villain, this movie has all the acting power and subject matter of what probably would have been an indie heavyweight in the post-millennium film market. It was just missing a couple of things.  

         The first thing it was missing was money. But that's the easy answer. There have been plenty of movies that became cult classics after they were box-office duds, like Donnie Darko which grossed just over $100,000 in its debut, and Terry Gilliam's dystopian classic,  Brazil. What those landmark films had that The Last Supper blew over was a thorough fleshing out of its central themes. 

         At the heart of Last Supper is a stereotype versus stereotype hyperbole. Five far left grad students are involved in the near accidental murder of a right wing lunatic. Then the question is asked: what if you murdered a person and the world was a better place for it. The answer is, you'd be a murderer. Pretty soon, their righteousness turns into blood lust and the adverse effects manifest themselves in a variety of ways.

         The issues introduced by the movie are as pertinent today as they've ever been. The characters talk amongst themselves about the inability of the left to galvanize and the right's understanding of politics as a team sport. They conclude that the right wing is the party of action while the left is the party of endless and inconsequential conversation. The string of murders they commit with each person they kill embodying one issue that separates the right from the left along clear political lines, makes them feel like people of action. unfortunately, that action is murder.

         All of these themes might have made for great cinema if the feeling if the characters hadn't been so starkly drawn. Three out of the five leading characters border cartoonish two-dimensionality, with only two of them undergoing character arcs that drive the plot forward.

         While the tone of the movie is ambivalent between dramatic and comedic without ever completely arriving at something that could be called dramedy, there are some laugh-out-loud funny moments and there are some symbolic elements that give depth for the movie watcher who like to have stuff to pay attention to. For instance, each character is named for an apostle which, along with the title, foreshadow a tale fraught with morality and death. Along that vein, the would-be villain, a well-kept, well-spoken version of Rush Limbaugh, has the name Arbuthnot. For all the biblical scholars out there, if you know that God's name in the book of "Exodus" is "I am what I am," meaning that the villain could be named for the antithesis of that which would mean he is what he is not.

         In the end, they meet their nemesis and come to a point of catharsis. I enjoyed the movie immensely despite the pitfalls i mentioned earlier. I can understand why it raked in less than half a million dollars in revenue and why it probably skipped the major box offices all together. All the same, I love the satire in it and the arguments that it brings to mind. It makes my list of underrated films of all time. 

Movie Review: Jurassic World

         The latest addition to the Jurassic movie franchise hit the box offices with stellar numbers and lackluster reviews. Fans and critics agree across the board that the movie is good fun with steady pacing and it breaks the (not very high) bar set by the two previous Jurassic sequels. But with two and a half dimensions of character and plot, Jurassic World falls short of the cinematic heights achieved by its 1993 progenitor. 

         Perhaps the movie could have been better if the writers had put as much thought into the plot and development as they with the character interplay. At the level of character dialogue, the script has some very humanistic moments that the audience can relate to: like the romantic awkwardness between techie-nerd coworkers and the effect of modern day nuclear family dynamics on children. But that doesn't make up for the way the plot serves itself up on a platter. 

         In the first fifteen minutes of the movie, we already know which dinosaur is going to escape and how it will be dealt with,  who the villain is and what will become of him, and we already know how the protagonist interplay is going to go down even before the two protagonists meet on screen for the first time. 

         Regardless of lazy plot and character development, the movie is fun. The action sequences are well spaced out, and there are plenty of nods back to the original film for all the nostalgics out there. Even the plot themes smack of Jurassic Park's handling of gender issues, parental readiness, and corporate greed. All good reasons for parents from generations X and Y to introduce their children to the franchise. The body count may be a little high for a family flick. But if you, like many generation X and Y parents, watch Game of Thrones with your kids, then they can definitely handle the mild gore in Jurassic World.  

Breakup Letter from a Stalker

      Dear June:

         I never thought this day would come. I know it's naive of me to think anything could last forever. But I guess when you're young, you just hope. I suppose we're lucky it even lasted this long. Now it seems like we might have a great deal in common. Like, if we stuck with it, we could even have a future. It's for all these reasons that I have to let you know:

         I'm stalking another woman.                   

          I know we've only just met, but I've known you for a long time. I went to all your field hockey games and swim meets when we were in high school, I joined Model U.N. just so I could sit across from you in class; I even took up jogging just so I could follow you in the mornings from a steady 100 yards away.

         I've been very committed to this relationship from the get-go. I've sorted through your belongings and dug through your garbage. I even stole an entire load of your dirty laundry once when you were away for a week. I needed something to keep me company and I didn't have a valid passport to follow you to Europe with.  

         In the beginning, it was all so exciting. I used to follow your every move, like that song from The Police: every step you took, every move you made, I was watching you. Then I felt like every love song was written by a stalker for his secret crush (let's face it, a lot of them are written that way). 

         Now it's been a long time and a bumpy ride for both of us. I've made my sacrifices just like any devoted stalker should. After high school, I got accepted into M.I.T., but I knew you'd want to pursue your degree in liberal studies at Berkeley. That meant we'd have to move, but that's what relationships are all about. Luckily, I found a place right across the way from you. It felt like we were meant to be.

         Then last week I found out the horrible truth: you've known about me all along. 

         You bragged about me to your friends. You taunted them with glamorous stories about having your own personal stalker just so they'd feel bad that no man would go out of his way to get a secret glimpse at their naked bodies. I always kind of felt like you were really showy when you were having sex. Like you were putting on a show for the window looking outward. But I just thought it was my prayers being answered. Now I know the truth.

         Now I know all those dramatic hair-tosses in the shower, all those nights dancing in your underwear, all the lingerie you modeled for the mirror were really being modeled for me. I couldn't be more disgusted. I've been living a lie!!

         I feel it's only right to tell you I've found someone new. Someone special. Somebody who wouldn't give me the time of day if I was the last man on Earth. She's a waitress down at the pizza place I follow you to sometimes. I've introduced myself to her on three consecutive occasions and she still doesn't remember my name. I think this is the real thing.

         She's already put a restraining order on me, and her boyfriend beat me up the other night after he caught me watching them have sex. Now you know why I won't be stalking you anymore. But you'll always be my first; nobody can take that away from us. And I just know you'll find somebody else. Or anyway, he'll find you.

         XOXO

Reviewing Mad Max: Fury Road

         For the generation of moviegoers who are unfamiliar with George Miller's post-apocalyptic masterpiece, Mad Max: Fury Road is a rip roaring, stylistic treat on wheels that doesn't stop until the very last face-ripping explosion.

         I was pleasantly surprised that they weren't retooling the franchise for the new generation and instead, added a new chapter to the ongoing saga. And who better to reintroduce Mad Max to the new generation than the old man, George Miller himself? Nobody, that's who.

         Now, to be honest, I'm not much of an action-film guy myself. I've boycotted all of the Transformer movies and I won't be watching Furious 7 without somebody putting a gun to my head. But give me X-Men or Guardians of the Galaxy; give me anything where action meets plot and tie it all together with a unifying theme and I'll be all over it. Fury Road has all of those things!

         For the action movie fanatic, it's two hours and change of virtually uninterrupted action sequence with visually stunning effects and some of the hottest girls on film. And for those of us who like to think during an action flick, it's got some serious underlying social criticism.  

         First, the most important things in the world are gas, water, and women. This should sound pretty familiar. If you're a Mad Max fan, the water and gas thing is a bit of a re-visitation albeit realistic in that commodified resources are pretty much the stuff that modern wars are made of. And if you don't think women are a commodity in this day and age, you need to take a look around. Really, people are a commodity and everyone is for sale if you really want to dissect it, and the movie touches on that aspect as well. 

         And how does is touch on that aspect, you ask? Well, there's something very biblical about what's going on in the movie. It's true the films antagonist, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), chases after his wives through the whole movie, which has stirred up controversy among men's groups because of... honestly, who cares why? But the movie is clear in showing the importance of Joe's wives as baby-making machines, serving the utilitarian purpose of propagating new generations of loyal followers.

         Immortan Joe (Byrne) is more than your run-of-the-mill psychotic super villain. He's a patriarch and spiritual leader who manages all the resources in an otherwise lifeless wasteland, who also purports himself to be some sort of connection to the great beyond. All of the sudden it makes sense that his followers would willingly blow themselves up to carry out his will, and why the only women who survive in the post-apocalyptic future are the ones you want to see naked. After all, if you were Immortan Joe, wouldn't you choose nothing but the best?

         If there's one objection I have, it's that Tom Hardy might be a little too sexy to pass as a post-apocalyptic road warrior. Maybe they could've given chapped lips or just given the part to Joaquin Phoenix. But Hardy holds his own as an action hero, even if Max is more of a narrative character in this movie. Charlize Theron on the other hand, who has shown us these kinds of acting chops in Monster, gets her fair share of ass-kick as the heroine of the movie and held it down in what turned out to be the lead protagonist role. As hot as we all know she is in reality, they ugly her up just enough to make her a believable Furiosa, and her bionic hand gave her that extra Mad Max edge.

         Try and guess who gets their face ripped off at the end. You might be surprised.

          

Giant Gerald (enter Barbara DeMolde)

         The bar was popular enough to begin with and so was Gerald. Now, whenever good old happy-go-lucky Gerald was tending, getting a drink could turn into something of a competition. Smiling women of all shapes, ages, and sizes would step on each others toes to get within breathing distance of the old favorite who had become a new novelty. All except one bitter, sour puss.

         Barbara DeMolde was a beaming vision of feminine flawlessness in her prime, which at the time of Gerald the bartender, was going on ten years passed. The blond-haired, french-tip manicured, epitome of lust had long since gained forty some odd pounds and grown completely loathsome to the world around her. A classic drunk, she was limited to three cocktails by the management of all the bars she frequented. This only added to the fits and temper tantrums she was known to throw. Ten years after anybody would have given a shit, she was still programmed on getting her way. Barbara never got her way anymore. She was angry, haggard, and kept bad hygiene to boot.

         Where to begin with Barbara. First of all, her name was not DeMolde. It was Bates. DeMolde was the name she took later on in life from a man whom she did not marry. Until then, she was known as Barbie to the people in her world. The abbreviated version of her name was bestowed by her first boyfriend and the first to ever fall in love with her. If asked, she would have confessed her love for him as well. In truth, she did not know what that was, love. In her life, there would be many more. Though none of them would endure quite as long or quite as much as he did.

         Donald Lutz was a senior at Barbie's high school when she was a sophomore and his seniority and high reputation earned her a certain prestige to which she became accustomed all too fast. Regarded as a slut for all the wrong reasons, namely her flashy good looks, Donald's presence banished those demons from her life before they could manifest themselves negatively. Back then she was nothing more than an early bloomer with a flair for style.

         He came from money and lavished her with gifts, both practical and exotic. Dresses, perms, manicures; her painted fingernail became a magic wand for favors, fabric, and destinations. Her classmates despised her all the more, but it was a respectful hatred. The type of contempt held by the poor for the world of aristocracy, save for a small group of insecure girls who praised her like a pagan deity. Barbie would have had to care more to care less about the lot of them. As long as she got her way, everything was roses.

        When Donald went away to college the following year, Barbie followed. The notion was met with no argument from her parents. They were far too busy squabbling over extramarital affairs and economic turbulence to fulfill anything that resembled parenting duties. Marrying off their pretty, young tax deduction to a high bidder was the very best hope they could have for her future. She showed limited promise as a student.

         But the fairytale would not continue. College proved to be very demanding. Donald and Barbie shared their living situation with a multitude of roommates. Being a couple, the affordability of dorm room living was not an option. Nor could Barbie find work at the still young age of sixteen. Donald was working to pay rent for two and the demand on his time left him unable to give her the attention she was used to. Also unaccustomed was she to the bombardment of flattery and social invitations that would be extended to a young, jaunty, and immature beauty with nothing but spare time on her hands. She developed quickly as an attention whore and as a nymphomaniac.

        At the end of one semester, Barbie had had sex with all three of Donald's roommates, participated in two fraternity orgies, and was well known by the bi-curious population of the nearby sororities. Popularity became a drug for her and she was hailed as a sex queen among those in the know. Donald, faithful as ever, came home one day came home one day with a doctor's prescription for antibiotics. Donald had chlamydia. That was the end of Barbie Bates' free ride.

         Vegas was her next stop and stripping was her first gig. At age seventeen, she had little trouble attaining false identification. Barbie made more money before she turned 25 then poor Donald could have ever hoped to facilitate. In addition there were boyfriends, for lack of a better term. They were handsome, charming, exciting, and each of them had a function: one for the rent, one for the bills, another for clothes... the list goes on.

         She was a hard worker, of course, and she loved what she did. Ever the center of attention, her teenage dreams we being fulfilled and lived out to their maximum potential. Dreams of having the spotlight shone on her night after night, performing for drooling, gasping fans despite all lack of talent and ingenuity. People worked for years aspiring to frequent the clubs where Barbie danced. They worked tirelessly to create a lifestyle that would permit habitual time in the "champagne room" with, and occasional taking home of the goddess who treaded in stiletto-healed pedestals. They all scrimped and saved for a portion of what had been freely doled out on her plate like so much government cheese.

         When she turned twenty-seven, Barbie Bates made a business minded decision to marry for money. Her devastating good looks would not last forever. Decidedly, she began laying down the groundwork for the next twenty or so years of her life. It was literally the smartest idea she ever had. The target was Harvey Demolde.

         Good old Harvey was a middle-aged man with a stoutness to him. Not unattractive, he was a regular patron of Barbara's and would bring flowers to her at work, usually accompanied by a greeting card dedication with a small, albeit extravagant gift enclosed; a piece of jewelry here, a high-stakes casino chip there...  One night, the greeting card held a pair of keys inside. One was to a condominium in Manhattan Beach and the other belonged to a brand new European sports car that was housed within the garage of the condo.

         Close but no cigar, she thought. Barbie was well used to being showered with ridiculously expensive and unusual gifts. Once, a man bought her a koala. It was turned over to the zoo after some deliberation over how she might be able to profit from it.

         A new address and expensive mode of transportation did not an engagement ring make. I was time to speed things up. Barbie stopped altogether taking her birth control pills, moved into her miniature castle in Manhattan Beach, and with a warriors temperament, fucked old Harvey's brains out. Her birth control pill, she replaced with a daily regimented pregnancy test. She hadn't the patience to wait for her period to be late. Discontinuation of the pill would throw her monthly cycle off anyhow.

         Not the brightest star in the sky, Barbara neglected ever to ask Harvey about his marital status. Harvey DeMolde was money married to money. He and his wife both kept affairs in order to stay sane, they hated each other so. Theirs was a marriage merger. The end of the world and all of humanity would have to pass before they would ever dream of breaking their business deal. Barbie found all of that our the hard way. One morning, the pregnancy test came up pink. That was the beginning of the end for Barbie the illustrious sex goddess, and the beginning of Barbara that stupid, crazy bitch from hell.

       

The Scarcely Told Legend of Giant Gerald (A Tall Tale)

    Giant Gerald was born Gerald Robert Letrowski to the Flying Letrowskis out of Hoboken, New Jersey. While they did work for a circus at one point, cultivating a husband and wife trapeze duo was the mere aspiration of a couple who made their living on the side show of an Atlantic Coast traveling carnival. They were Jenna, the bearded lady, and Jerome, the half-man, half-horse. While Jerome’s penis did not take up half of his body, it was rumored to have been transplanted from a Kentucky derby stud. Jenna, on the other hand, was highly attractive, and did little more for her part of the show than sit idly next to her husband while donning a cosmetic beard fashioned from dyed sheep’s wool. Where they wound up is where our story takes place.

            Being born at the healthy weight of nine pounds and three ounces was not the reason behind Gerald’s nickname. Nor did he grow to be very large in stature. Giant Gerald did not, in fact, know about his ridiculously large penis until he had reached his mid-twenties, when the rumor caught up with him. However let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

            The name actually spawned from an incident during a home-coming party at the start of Gerald’s junior year in high school. Late that night, when many of the guess had departed, young Gerry found himself stumbling drunk into a vacant bedroom and ready to be deflowered by a lovely, young, popular cheerleader by the name of Melinka. Within a few clumsy minutes they were disrobed and ready to party. Melinka let out a mighty shriek and began to bleed, allowing her to confirm the lie she had told earlier – saying that she was a virgin.

            She spoon-fed this story to every new romantic encounter, and nothing could have been further from the truth. As a matter of fact, Gerald was the second gentleman to penetrate her that evening. He went on, oblivious and somewhat traumatized, thinking that sex was not really something for women to enjoy.

            The story spread throughout poor Gerry’s high school with a sonic boom, without every reaching his ears, in the way etiquette dictates that nobody is to tell a morbidly obese woman that she has a weight problem, even if that woman keeps a spandex-based wardrobe. Young Gerald thought thought it normal to struggle daily whit the cumbersome chore of hiding his bulge. After all, does not every man keep his penis folded beneath his ass if not propped to one side over his pelvis?

            His friends called him G.G. for short without ever explaining why. Nor did he inquire. He took the nickname as a satire regarding his relatively small stature, though he was not particularly tiny in comparison with the rest of the students in his graduating class. At 5’ 9” and 144 lbs., he was neither here nor there. All the while, his friends refused to let him in on the joke, mainly for the sake of their own insecurities.

            What a splendid homage, he thought, to be tagged with such a wonderfully satirical nickname. This attitude he kept of noticing only the shiny side of life did him well all through high school and up to adulthood. Bright-eyed, young Gerry had no formal skills, experience, or higher education to speak of. Only a hearty smile, and a willingness to take on the world with it.

            This, coupled with other preceding events, landed him a comfortable job as a bartender when he turned twenty-five. Gerald made more money behind that bar than many of his former fellow students who went on to college and subsequent professional careers. His nights were high-paced and his regulars were absolutely head-over heels in love with his dopey, happy-go-lucky attitude. They called him Woody sometimes in reference to the barkeep on an old 1980’s hit sitcom series. Having never achieved success in concealing his bulge, the surrounding staff had a good chuckle at this.  It embarrassed him, actually, his bulge, and he cared not to speak about it.

            At night’s end, he was permitted by management to pour a few cocktails for the closing staff. He did this liberally but with a sense of caution. Sometimes he would simply bring in a bottle of his own to avoid confusion altogether with revenue coming in from clientele. Nobody would have ever accused Gerald of stealing and that was one reason why.

            So beloved was our young bartending protagonist, and he would have been popular regardless of the following incident. Nonetheless, it did not hurt him any.

            One night, while chatting away with the closing staff, Gerald was asked out rightly.

            “Why do you think you need to stuff your pants?”

            The closing staff on this night consisted of three young and slender cocktail waitresses. Most of the staff were female on the front side of the establishment. The cooks in the back of the house, as is the norm, were mostly male and of Hispanic origin. The doors were closed, and they, along with any remaining clientele, had long since gone home. The waitresses, nowadays called servers, were Daisy, Fay, and Sue. They all sat, anxiously, and awaited a response.

            He took this at first as though someone had pointed out an obvious handicap: with abashment, and to a lesser extent, offense. Utterly speechless, his face began to warm up, particularly at the ears and forehead, causing them to turn a cherry shade of red. He wished he could have died right then and there.

            “I just…” Gerald started, after an intensely long pause. Sue was the girl bold and tipsy enough to ask. She was relatively new on the staff. Daisy and Fay dared not to break the silence and risk taking momentum out of the situation. It had been a question on all their minds ever since the day they met him and the only discernible fault Gerry had.

            “Wasn’t that something guys did in the seventies?” Sue continued, as though they were discussing hair styles. Her valley girl, bubble gum way of talking was beginning to sound like fingernails scratching on chalkboard to him.

            “You’d probably get more girls if you didn’t try to go all porn star all the time, you know?”

          Sue was a nice enough girl. Only honest to a flaw. She didn't know any better. Nobody did. Gerald was chaste and had been ever since his episode in high school. As a result, he had become a compulsive masturbator and housed a veritable library of pornography in his apartment. Some of the men in the films had equipment comparable to his. Lesser sizes he attributed to the porn industry’s commitment to boosting the male ego. Another reinforcement on the idea that sex was not for women to enjoy.

            “It’s tough,” he went on. “I don’t know what else to do with it.”

            The women glanced at one another in perplexity.

            “Do me a favor,” said Daisy. “Open your pants.”

            Gerald, modest as he was, refused at first. Two shots of Irish whiskey and one Irish car bomb later, he unleashed what later became known as ‘the fury’. With this unveiling and the consequent reaction came a sudden pondering in retrospect to his old nickname. The order of events replayed over and over in his head, and caused him to feel extremely foolish.

            This feeling of being left out of his own cosmic joke was short-lived, however. Throughout the ensuing weeks, one by one, the female servers would report for a shift with a bit of a limp in their step. Another sonic boom radiated from the now legendary grin of Mr. Giant Gerald Letrowski. Incidentally, he began purchasing his trousers two sizes larger, and it made a world of difference for his general appearance.