A Review of "The Disaster Artist"

Holy crap. What a movie. I went into this, having been a fan of "movies about making movies", with Ed Wood being my favorite. This movie was no exception to a contender of my favorite. It was fun, humorous, human, spectacular, and most of all; it was entertaining like most movies today aren't.

For those who don't know, The Disaster Artist is a movie directed by James Franco based on the book out by Greg Sestero. Sestero is most famous for starring in The Room, the world's most notorious and fun-loving cult film. Often considered one of the worst movies ever made, The Room's theatrical run is only rivaled by that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, both of which have obtained this "cult status" and air all over the country at "midnight movie" screenings. The Room is a movie produced by, written by, directed by and starring Tommy Wiseau. It was until very recently that a lot about Tommy Wiseau was kept secret. Nobody knew how old he was, where he came from, or where his vast amounts of wealth had come from to fund the movie. Nowadays, The Room is one of the most recognizable movies on the internet. It has become memes, its clunky dialogue has become memes, its goofish acting has become memes; The Room was a movie made to be an internet trend. We'll do a review of The Room another time.

L: James Franco as Tommy Wiseau
R: The REAL Tommy Wiseau

The Disaster Artist is the story of Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), who befriends a foolish, difficult-to-understand man of undeterminable origins named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Both of them are in an acting class in San Francisco. They both make a pact over a humorous impromptu acting session in a diner to move to Los Angeles and get their acting careers up and running. Greg gets to join an acting agency and even meets a beautiful bartender who becomes his girlfriend, all while Tommy struggles to get anything up and running. When Greg's career stalls, he and Tommy deduce on the rooftop that they need to make their own movie. Tommy then spends the next several months writing the script of an all-American man who has it all, who gets betrayed by the world when his best friend sleeps with his fiancee. Tommy then somehow self-funds his project with Greg, The Room. They purchase cameras from a studio that rents them, Tommy hires an entire crew after they only introduce themselves, Tommy has the actresses auditioning for Lisa do stupid things in their interview, like ride horses and play saxophone.

As the shoot goes on, Tommy becomes increasingly enraged as he hears people on the set ridiculing his work and his methodology, which all leads to an explosion on set when a naked Tommy, ready to shoot his sex scene, criticizes Juliette Danielle's (Ari Graynor) skin for being "too ugly for Hollywood", which causes a lot of crew to intervene and a screaming match takes place. Tommy calms down and apologizes, but the cast and crew later become angry when Tommy doesn't pay for air-conditioning, leading to Carolyn Minnott (Jacki Weaver), who plays Lisa's mom Claudette in the movie, faints on set due to the hate. Against all odds, the movie is finished and a premiere is held at a small theater in LA. Tommy drives by with Greg in the car, sees that there isn't very many people out front, so he drives around the block...much to everyone's confusion. Tommy then pulls up again, gets out after some begrudging, and joins everyone in the theater for the premiere. The movie starts out as a serious drama but as the it wears on, people start inadvertently laughing at the movie more and more and more. Tommy becomes enraged and upset as the laughter becomes more uproarious and boisterous, and soon leaves the premiere in a huff. Greg, who was also laughing, joins him in the lobby and talks him into going back in, saying that he's getting a response to the movie like none they've ever seen before. They open the door to go back in and watch the audience cheer and rave like crazy as Johnny, played by Wiseau, kills himself in The Room's climactic ending. Tommy then returns to the front stage of the auditorium and exclaims that he hopes "everyone enjoyed his comedy film". The rest of the movie shows anecdotes about what the cast of The Room has been up to since th release of the heinous picture.

The movie felt very real. Not only because it was based around actual events that took place but because the emotions of wanting to succeed were greatly conveyed. There were some generally uncomfortable scenes due to the characters' desperation to succeed in Hollywood. There's a scene in a restaurant in Hollywood when Tommy gets to meet famous producer/director Judd Apatow (playing himself). Judd becomes violently angry at Tommy interrupting his dinner and lashes out at him, telling him that "he'll never become an actor in a million years, and not even after that". It is through this scene that Tommy becomes discouraged with his dream. Throughout the movie, it's normally Greg questioning his presence and whether or not anything he's doing is worth it, but here it's Tommy who decides to feel dismay and discouragement toward his dreams. Greg has to remind him to stick with it and it is here in this scene that the two conceive the idea to make their own movie. I feel like the desperation to be famous in real-life was quite the trial of struggle for Wiseau, as he just isn't as good looking as Sestero, which is another point of capture in the movie. There are scenes were Tommy feels jealous as we get the feeling Greg's acting career is taking off whereas his is not. The best part about all this is in real life, during this movie's promotion just prior to its release, James Franco was on Jimmy Kimmel and he brought the real Tommy Wiseau with him onto the show, who to my knowledge had never been on any talk show before. That, to me, was the "He made it" moment.

Tommy directing a scene? Or James Franco directing a scene?

James Franco fuckin' steals the show as Tommy Wiseau. You wouldn't think an actor like James Franco, known for making low-brow comedy flicks that don't have much thought behind the dialogue and scenarios, would be worth a consideration for Oscar gold, but this is it. This could be it. The genius behind it is that it feels like Franco didn't put much into his performance, but it still came out so genuine. It is very reminiscent of Martin Landau playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. You tend to forget that that isn't Tommy Wiseau on the screen. James Franco makes you think that that is Tommy Wiseau on the screen, from his laugh to his deadpan look to his slurred, Polish-like accent as he jovially teases someone or pushes them to be better performers. James's brother Dave plays Greg Sestero, and with James as Tommy, commands each scene they're in. The scene where Tommy is becoming verbally and emotionally abusive to the other members of cast & crew while he's trying to shoot his sex scene, you get to see Dave and James act out potentially violent confrontations between these two characters so well. Hey, even James Franco's good buddy Seth Rogen is in this movie, and he's actually doing what he did in Jobs; playing an intelligent character with intelligent, yet humorous dialogue. I have a love-hate relationship with Seth Rogen. I enjoy his dumbass characters but I also get annoyed with them to the point where I feel like he needs more characters like this.

I actually didn't know that the actor who plays Chris R., the character who holds Denny up for money in the movie, was played in this movie by Zac Efron. It was just one of those crazy celebrity cameos that took place. Plus, Bryan Cranston plays himself. He meets Greg Sestero in a diner and offers him a small role on Malcolm in the Middle as a lumberjack as long as he doesn't shave his beard. Greg takes this news to Tommy, who refuses to reschedule the shoot to allow Greg to keep his beard for the Malcolm shoot. Tommy demands that Greg chooses between The Room and his guest role on Malcolm in the Middle. The next shot is Greg getting his beard shaved on the set of The Room with a look of absolute despair. Heartbreaking stuff, but it shows Greg's commitment to Tommy, who gave him his first break by allowing him to star in this movie. Considering the scene where Tommy first gives Greg the script to read in the diner, Greg's face clearly demonstrates his disbelief in this project, though he saves face and tells Tommy that the script is good.

I like how a lot of Tommy's common phrases eventually became lines the script. There were parts in the movie where Tommy says "keep your <something> in your pocket", which is a notoriously goofy line that's said by Greg Sestero in the actual movie. You get to see at the end of the movie the cast of The Disaster Artist's version of The Room act their scenes side-by-side with actual footage from the original The Room. I hope on the Blu-ray there's an actual, shot-for-shot remake of The Room starring James Franco's cast. That'd be the funniest fuckin' thing on the planet, considering all the clips we were given in the end credits.

Tommy Wiseau posing with a poster for The Disaster Artist

The idea behind how The Room was made was so fascinating to me. I never understood because Tommy Wiseau played Johnny as such a kind, gentle soul on screen that you never would have guessed that he would be a tyrant behind the camera. This movie brings so much into light and it also brings The Room back into the mainstream. I was just watching a YouTube video last night after I got home from the movie and an ad had two guys trying to sell me something, but they were standing in front of a crummy green screen, one dressed as Mark and one dressed as Johnny, both tossing a football around. Several years ago, no one would've made an ad basing themselves off of characters from The Room. My only hope now is that Tommy Wiseau appears in dealership commercials or a Super Bowl ad. He and Greg Sestero both. I doubt the entire cast would want to have a reunion, considering the turmoil that went on behind the scenes, but who knows? Maybe they made up by now.

The Disaster Artist is the best movie of 2017, in my opinion. It was well-acted, well-directed, and a perfect addition to the "movies about making movies" genre. James Franco was phenomenal playing Tommy Wiseau, so much so to the point that you forget it isn't actually Tommy Wiseau up on the screen. The rest of the cast members look exactly like the cast of The Room that they're supposed to play, and scenarios that show how actual scenes were filmed were priceless. The infamous rooftop "I deed naht heet hurr" scene is depicted as being painfully awful to shoot, taking near-seventy takes for Wiseau to get the lines right. I enjoyed this movie start to finish, and I cannot wait for it to come out on Blu-ray so I can watch it again and again. I just may officially induct it into my own personal "Motion Picture Hall of Fame". It was that great. I recommend it, then if you haven't seen The Room before, go watch it after you watch this. The Room is one of those movies that you have to see to believe, and The Disaster Artist is the perfect movie about it. I laughed and got emotionally involved from beginning to end. Go see it. You'll love it.

From Filmmaking to Toymaking: The Downfall of "Return of the Jedi", Pt. 3

The final bit that changed with the alternate script and draft was the ending. It was to derive inspiration from a "Clint Eastwood spaghetti western", as Kurtz put it. More precisely:

"The discussed ending of the film that <I> favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns."

What we can pull from that, at least what I did, is that the ending was going to be a lot more bittersweet than the one that currently exists. Like we saw Luke Skywalker conquer Vader, defeat the Emperor, and rather than happily celebrate with his friends, he would've slapped on the Jedi robes and walked off into the sunset. This ending would've made a shit load more sense, considering where they took it with The Force Awakens. Instead, the ending of Return of the Jedi sees Luke reunite with his friends and party with them and the Ewoks and everybody's happy. It's only the fact now that between those movies that Luke decides to train some people, then one pupil ruins the whole thing for everybody, causing Luke to go into excile. Personally, I think it would've been neat to have Luke just immediately go into exile at the end of Jedi, considering the emotional shit that he just went through. I mean, he had a cyborg and an old wizard taunting him to turn angry for an entire final battle, when does the poor kid get a break? Considering Luke kinda came into Jabba's Palace as a loaner, it would make more sense for him to disappear as a loaner. Then when Force Awakens comes around...*gasp* Luke's still in exile, as he had vanished from sight after helping the rebels in Jedi only to now be called upon once again. I think the story of Force Awakens was written for this ending (and to rip off Star Wars, but that's beside the point). Luke Skywalker would've been a far more powerfully present character on screen if he were treated more as Clint Eastwood from the Dollar trilogy; somebody who shows up when called upon and commands the entire screen with his presence. Luke's still valiant as a regular ol' swashbuckling hero, but I think this idea of sending Luke off into the sunset without his friends at the end of Return of the Jedi would be more poignant and iconic. Instead, we have Ewoks...that is one massive one-eighty.

What about the Leia ending? There's potential that could of happened with that as well. In my view, it could've made The Force Awakens make a ton more sense too. Let's face it; the prequels kinda ripped a rug out from underneath the whole "princess/royalty" thing. I mean, even if Padme's a Queen by title, she's still an elected Queen...however that works. Even then, she was adopted by a senator from Coruscant, Bail Organa. Would she still carry her phony Princess title through the adoption? Maybe; an argument can be made for that. Still, if they really followed through on it, this is the ending that would've been a better story to run all the way into The Force Awakens. It could have eliminated the need for this superfluous good-guy faction in the Resistance, by replacing it with just the New Republic with Leia as its Queen. That way, The Force Awakens doesn't leave the Resistance to get all the spotlight and this so-called New Republic to get destroyed by a Starkiller Base super-laser attack after about one hundred and twenty seconds of screentime.

So take it as you read it. Gary Kurtz claims that we've missed out on a possibly more power ending to the fabled Star Wars original trilogy. If you ask me, I'm content with the one we have. It's still a childhood favorite, and there are redeeming things about it. Luke Skywalker is walking badass in the movie, and every scene he's in, Mark Hamill's surprisingly deadpan delivery works amazingly in sync with the flow of each scene. A lot of people say he's dry, but with him, it works. I can't explain it, it's just something I know. I know that when Hayden Christensen tried to replicate it for the prequel trilogy as Luke's father, it came off more boring and less inspired than Hamill's. Yet, it was basically the same style of delivery.

I hope you learned something, or at least gave it some thought. This version of Return of the Jedi is lost forever, nothing more than a few ideas that never came to fruition, but it's certainly interesting to think about. I find it fascinating to find out what some of my favorite movies could have been, and Star Wars is of no exception. Return of the Jedi is not a quality follow-up to The Empire Strikes Back, but it still does great in a few areas. The style is there, the settings are exotic, the special effects are superb. Just some story and character elements could maybe have used a second going over. But, it is what it is and it exists for a reason. The ending cap of the middle trilogy, in a saga originally conceived to be four trilogies of films, then three after the release of Star Wars, two after the release of Empire, and then none after Jedi. Until George decided in '94 to kickstart the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Well, thanks for reading. Again, I hope you at least enjoyed and learned a little something. I would say "May the force be with you", but that's just a tacky way to end it.

From Filmmaking to Toymaking: The Downfall of "Return of the Jedi", Pt. 2

Read "Part 1" Here

As production on the third and then-final Star Wars film was picking up steam, several things were in place that were eventually going to be dropped entirely, delayed for later films, or changed completely. Return of the Jedi, early on in production, was ultimately a very different movie, both artistically and thematically, then when production finished two years later. It would tell a very different story with a very different ending. Hell, it wasn't even called Return of the Jedi. It was originally going to be released as Revenge of the Jedi, but that title got changed right before release because Lucas felt that "Jedi do not take revenge". *Cough* Anakin killing the sand people *cough* *cough*. Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back and former producer of Return of the Jedi, outlines why things changed the way they did. Kurtz says:

“I could see where things were headed. The toy business began to drive the Lucasfilm empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films.”

Toys. Again, it all comes back to toys. Let's face it, the first Star Wars movie in '77 didn't have much in the way of tie-in toys. After all, kids literally bought empty cardboard boxes from Kenner because the movie did so well, that Kenner wasn't prepared for the movie's huge success with the lack of toy development they had made. So kids bought an empty cardboard box from Kenner promising them that they'd get free figures when they became available. How psycho is that?! That's like if Microsoft totally underestimated an Xbox launch, so to compensate, they made you pay $500 for an empty cardboard box that you then sat on for five months until you got the actual console shipped to you, if you even got it at all. Kids in '77 must've been desperate. So in '83, during the release of Return of the Jedi, I guess we can put together that Kurtz is suggesting that toys factored in to a lot of Lucas's decision making, the biggest one being cancelling Han Solo's untimely demise.

That's right, before he was due to die in The Force Awakens, Han Solo was slated to die in Return of the Jedi during a rebel raid on an Imperial compound. Harrison Ford was notoriously behind this idea way back then even, so this could have been a very real possibility. Gary Kurtz states that he "was never a fan of the Han Solo character", and thought too that Han should die "to give Jedi some grim moments". George Lucas stated in the documentary "Empire of Dreams" that Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill were the only ones to sign on for all three films. Harrison Ford signed on film-to-film, hoping that Han Solo would be killed off. In the original, much more poignant script, Han was to still be rescued by Luke and Leia at Jabba's palace, only to die about halfway through the movie in an Imperial raid. This was apparently dropped, against the wishes of both Gary Kurtz and Harrison Ford, when Lucas came to the decision to save him. There's even a rumor on the quote that Lucas used to back his decision, which was "You can't sell dead Han Solo action figures". So, take it however you want. Plenty of articles on this subject. Kurtz even goes on further to state:

“We had an outline and George changed everything in it. Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason [the change was made]." "The first film and 'Empire' were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing."

All of this seems to just further persuade the reader that Lucas is how people later on have made him out to be; a toymaker who just so happens to be in the filmmaking business. While it's not the worst thing in the world to have a merchandising plan in place for your movies to get non-moviegoers at toy stores and clothes stores into the theaters to see your movie, it does get to be a bit ridiculous to let the toymaking machine completely change how you want to tell your story. Apparently, that ideology must've changed somewhere down the road too, because The Force Awakens killed Han Solo off and they made Han Solo action figures for that movie. So...ha? Lucas has always notoriously been a person to let his personal beliefs influence how he makes his movies. His changing mentality throughout the years has also been a driving force for changing the original editions into the Special Editions and why those changes were awful...we've already talked about how much they sucked.

Part 3 coming soon...

From Filmmaking to Toymaking: The Downfall of "Return of the Jedi", Pt. 1

Now I know what you're thinking: "Cody, would you kindly do your blog a favor and just shut up about Star Wars?", to which the correct response is "I don't know enough about Harry Potter to sound intelligent, go write your own blog". Anywho, one thing this blog is heavy on is the criticism of George Lucas. Then again, the whole internet is heavy on that stuff, so I'm just hopping on the bandwagon.

What I thought I'd try my hand out at is an actual editorial. An informative piece of writing with my own opinions and thoughts. What I'm going to do is discuss the original outline of the third film in the original Star Wars trilogy, which we now know as Return of the Jedi. Jedi was the third film made, but it's the sixth film in terms of chronology. Return of the Jedi is famous to Star Wars fans for being the one that was pretty much two filler-plots thrown in a blender to make a movie. The first act was Luke Skywalker and his cohorts infiltrating Jabba the Hutt's Palace and stealing back Han Solo. The second and third acts became an excursion to destroy a second Death Star. There are some other underlying character arcs that intertwine this story, but ultimately the consensus among Star Wars fans is that Return of the Jedi is a weak follow-up to the glory that is The Empire Strikes Back and couldn't or didn't close the story out the proper way. There were cool parts with Luke/Vader II as well as the ground and space battles on/over Endor, but the rehashed Death Star plot, the overdone Jabba the Hutt-filler opening and the ridiculous inclusion of the Ewoks into the whole thing really leaves a sour taste in people's mouths. If somebody comes up to you and rips on Jar Jar Binks or Midichlorians, you just bring up the Ewoks and you've got 'em by the balls, because anybody who tries to defend the Ewoks is either a liar, an idiot, or someone who's never even heard of Star Wars. The movie is just too happy, even with Luke trying to get turned to the dark side. It's all euphoric and cutesy and its just not as good as Star Wars or Empire. So you could even make the argument that those who worship "the original trilogy" are fools because it isn't even solid. Boy, Star Wars movies just aren't that good when you really think about it, ehh? I kid, I kid. Well, I'm here to tell you that Return of the Jedi wasn't supposed to turn out like it was if the original producer had stuck around. That man is Gary Kurtz, and Kurtz in the recent years has come out to other bloggers and movie outlets stating that had he remained on board, Jedi would've turned out far differently and would've been a far more poignant piece of bittersweet art than the super-happy, glitzy conclusion we know.

L: Gary Kurtz, R: George Lucas

Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, the first two films in the saga out in 1977 and 1980, respectively, were two of the biggest films that Hollywood had ever seen at that time. Both movies were money-making machines and couldn't be stopped at the box office unless you drove two stakes through their hearts. Kids as much as adults were drawn to the adventures of farm boy Luke Skywalker, rogue Han Solo, galactic rebel princess Leia, bumbling droid sidekicks C-3PO and R2-D2 and the sinister Galactic Empire dark lord Darth Vader. Star Wars was a swashbuckling adventure of Luke being led by legendary Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi on a daring missing to rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Galactic Empire's sinister weapon, the Death Star, and then lead a rebel fighter assault on the Death Star and blow it up to save the galaxy. The Empire Strikes Back was a continuation of that adventure that saw a love story between Han Solo and Princess Leia blossom while Luke Skywalker sought out Jedi master Yoda on Dagobah to train him to be a Jedi Knight. The movie ends with the oh-so-iconic lightsaber duel between a young, inexperienced Luke and Darth Vader, with Vader defeating him and revealing to Luke that he's his father in probably the most iconic moment in Hollywood history. Empire ends with Han Solo, having been frozen in carbonite, being taken by bounty hunter Boba Fett to gangster Jabba the Hutt. Luke and Leia then hatch a plan to go and rescue Han from Jabba as newfound friend Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca fly away in the Millennium Falcon. Boom. Two movies that are just perfect soulmates of each other, developing new and exciting characters while also flawlessly creating and molding their arcs and behaviors in ways that people can really get behind. So when the third and final chapter was coming, people were ready to see what conclusion could possibly tie this whole thing all together...

Stay tuned for part 2 of "From Filmmaking to Toymaking: The Downfall of Return of the Jedi", where we let Gary Kurtz spill the beans on "what might've been" right here on Spoiler Alert!

A Review of "Friday the 13th" (2009)

Why should I only pick on Freddy? Why not Jason?

The remake of Friday the 13th was the second in the "Platinum Dunes remake trilogy". Beginning with 2004's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then this one, then A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unlike Nightmare though, Friday the 13th comes off as a very good remake and definitely pays homage to the atmosphere and 80's slasher goodness of the original franchise as well as takes liberties and makes changes that keep the viewer invested.

The movie starts off with a flashback that loosely remakes the ending of the original Friday the 13th, with a young disfigured boy named Jason Voorhees watching as a young camp counselor runs through the woods, being chased by his deranged mother, Pamela. The camp counselor cuts Pamela's head off, and then runs, screaming, into the night. The movie then flashes forward thirty years later. Five friends arrive at Camp Crystal Lake, looking for marijuana that's growing in the forest somewhere. In glorious fashion, and in the same manner as the previous films, the teens drink, do drugs, goof off and act like dipshits, have sex in tents and get picked off gruesomely by an adult Jason Voorhees, one by one. One of the girls, Whitney, is chased into an old cabin, where she sees Jason's decapitated mother's rotting corpse surrounded by candles. Jason bursts into the cabin and captures her, as she appears to look like his mother when she was young. Six weeks later, the runners-up to the Jersey Shore season four casting call arrive as seven more kids: Trent, Chewie, Bree, Jenna, Chelsea, Nolan, and Lawrence, arrive at Trent's dads summer cabin off the shore of Crystal Lake. With that, the seven friends each begin goofing off and acting like dipshits and...you know where this is going, don't you? Well, there's actually a main plot riddled underneath all the cheesy 80's slasher homages. You see, Whitney's brother Clay arrives in Crystal Lake searching for his sister, who was captured by Jason six weeks earlier. He goes to Trent's beach cabin to help look for her, and Jenna agrees to assist him in finding her.

Meanwhile, Jason kills some hillbilly idiot whose name I can't remember and finds his trademark hockey mask. He dumps the burlap sack, which pays homage to Friday the 13th Part 2 and locates the hockey mask that has been his staple for thirty years. With the hockey mask, Jason arrives at Trent's dad's summer cabin and dispatches of Trent and his friends one at a time in his usual gory fashion. It all comes down to Jason chasing Whitney and Clay into a dilapidated old barn. There, Whitney pretends to be Pamela before stabbing Jason brutally with his own machete. Clay dumps Jason's body in the river. The next morning, Clay and Whitney are looking for something to help them escape, sitting on the pier, when Jason rises out of the water....

The Friday the 13th remake does not disappoint. It can come off a little hokey and cheesy at times, but I mean, if you were expecting anything more, then you clearly never watched the original films. That's all they were, I mean these movies came out less than a year apart throughout the 80's. Hell, 1983 and 1987 are the only two years in the 80's without a Friday the 13th movie release. That close together and that frequently, the quality was sure to go down, but I mean, they thrived on it almost. These were just moreso expensive exploitation movies than high-art horror movies. Friday the 13th movies are notorious for their legendary ass-suckage, but it's a weird, notable kind of ass-suckage. I mean, the first one's alright, but they just get dumber and fucking dumber with each one. Most of them don't have great stories, all of them have ridiculous over-the-top characters that annoy the living shit out of you, and a lot of them have crazy kills that were too gruesome to be released, so they had to be cut down. Still, while all of them are pretty schlock, they each have their own memorable "moments". Each Friday the 13th film had memorable scenes and kills that kept bringing the viewer back. Really, if you just cut out all the major kills from the franchise and spooled them together into one film reel, you'd probably get about an hour long movie in and of itself. I'd call it the "Friday the 13th: Gorefest" edition.

The characters that aren't Clay and Whitney aren't very memorable. I mean, again, how can you expect them to be. They're Friday the 13th characters. They have no morals, no souls, and nothing to do except drink booze, consume narcotics and fuck each other like rabid beavers building a dam. I'm not kidding, there's a ridiculously long sex scene that shows the actors getting way too into it. While Friday the 13th was never a franchise of subtly, this one stands out in my mind. I mean they just go at it on and on. The guy even says things like "I'm going super nova" or "Your tits are fucking astounding" and the girl still decides to fuck his brains out. You can't call the scene dumb nor can you call it high art. It's a no-win situation defending it.

The kills are pretty great, as usual. The movie has big shoes to fill in terms of how it was going to depict Jason killing people. The machete through the head was a great kill, in the beginning. Jason running up to the girl and spinning his machete like a tae-kwon-do expert seemed a tad out-of-place for me. You never saw Jason being anything more than mildly mobile, and here he is jogging and spinning his machete like he's a fucking feudal Japanese samurai. I do also like the sleeping bag over the open camp fire that literally cooks the girl alive inside. You can tell being the twelfth damn movie in this franchise, they had to get pretty creative. It's reminiscent of the "Sleeping back whack-a-mole" death from Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.

While not "high art" by any means, Friday the 13th is a cliche 80's slasher movie, much like its predecessors, that came out in a different time altogether for a whole new audience to enjoy. It was the perfect homage to that simple time, when a horror movie could only spend nine months in production and nobody would care. It takes new concepts and new ideas, and then surrounds in the aura of a 1980's slasher movie made for the 21st century. Beyond its camp and cheesy acting, its characters aren't memorable at all (except maybe for Chewie) and its acting is on par with an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Still, it has some creative kills and you can get to see Jason in all three of his famous forms: Disfigured kid, sack over his head, and trademark hockey mask, all in one movie. Being so radically different from the original, it doesn't even feel like a remake. It's not one of those new releases that falls under more than one categorizations, it's clearly a reboot. With A Nightmare on Elm Street a year later in 2010, you couldn't really tell if it was a remake, a reboot or a re-imagining of the original film.

Still, I enjoy this remake very much. In my opinion, it's better than the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. It's dumb, fun popcorn entertainment, much like the eleven movies that came before it. It's just mindless violence and sex to stimulate the adolescent mind...or the adult mind, but lets face it, adolescents watch these movies way more than adults.

A Review of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)

Avast ye land lubbers. There's a floating block of feces off the port bow.

Was there really any call for remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street? Hollywood's full of a bunch of useless remakes nowadays. With the Death Wish remake on the horizon, one begs the question what constitutes the apparent "need" for a remake. Whether it be because times have changed and the story could use some updating, the special effects in the original were lame enough to want to stretch the horizons with these days' computer sciencey magic, or...the producer's just need to cash in on a well known title that basically replicates everything the original did. This...is where 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street comes in.

"How do I look?"

The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street does so much to try and change what the viewer remembers about the original movie in order to make it feel like it needed to be made. It makes enough changes to where you can differentiate between remake and original and compare and contrast the ideas behind each one. Then there are the things that are carried over from the original for no reason that have no bearing or meaning in the remake. Like...Freddy's finger gloves. In the original, you watch a charred hand build the glove and assemble it from various bits. You can guess that Freddy has some kind of tool-building experience and the first nightmare shows a boiler room, confirming this. In the remake, Freddy's just some perverted gardening child-molester who just so happens to have the glove...somehow.

The original movie originally had Freddy as a child molester, but changed it to a child murderer to avoid exploitation of recent child molestation cases that had been happening in California at about that time. The remake decided to restore that idea, which makes it just a teeny little bit uncomfortable. Especially where the plot takes it. It's not necessarily a bad change, because making him a child molester has better substance that a measly old child killer. Both seem to work, because a child killer means Freddy just kills at random, which would explain why he decided to target random kids on Elm Street. The remake's also works because having him target a specific group of kids for "getting him killed" is also a good twist. However, this change doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the title of the movie. In the original it made sense, the killings occurred on around Elm Street, and solely on or around Elm Street. With the remake, Nancy lives on Elm Street, sure, and gets stalked there a few times, but hardly any murders take place on Elm Street. I think maybe just Kris's murder...and that's it...

"You have something in your hair. Let me get it."

So, the movie opens in the Springwood Diner. There's a guy who demands for more coffee, but the waitress ignores him. The bitch. He walks through the back of the diner only to be slashed at by some burned weirdo in a fedora hat, tattered Christmas sweater and finger-knives. Later, we see him kill himself apparently on the influence of the burned man in his dream. Kris, the girl he was with, tells people that she thinks someone in his dream was forcing him to do it. Surprise, no one believes her. She begins suspecting that something is rotten in the state of Springwood, as at the dude's funeral, she sees a picture of him and her together when they were kids, which she didn't know they knew each other when they were kids. Interesting, but this begs the question: If dude's mother didn't give a shit about posting the pictures and reminding everyone that the kids knew each other in their youth, then was it really a huge point to keep such a secret from them? Jesse tries to console Kris at the funeral (i.e. pick up on her) but her and Nancy confirm that they're both seeing the same man in their dreams. Kris decides to go home, but Jesse joins her and consoles her that night. She has another nightmare where Freddy kills her and Jesse is pegged for the murder, having her blood splattered all over him. Jesse is put in a cell, and falls asleep himself. Their, Freddy kills him too. So, again, following the story scheme of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, the girl we're introduced to as the first main character dies, then we get a second and actual main character in Nancy.

Nancy's new actress...sucks. The acting in the movie is pretty dry from pretty much all parties. Nancy's a block of wood and her mother Gwen is the pallet she came on. A few of the kids try though, like Kris and Quentin. Kris sobs quite a bit and Quentin has really intense screaming matches with his father. The other kids are just...horrible. Hayden Christensen-style horrible. Nancy's the worst. Heather Langenkamp showed a lot of emotion and intensified horror during the entirety of the first movie. Rooney Mara just sort of injected herself with novacane and prozac and washed it down with a gallon of gin before each take. She was just bad. There were times she got a little intense and panicky, but most of it followed the same kind of formula: dry to the bone.

Jackie Earle Haley's reaction when he read the script

Jackie Earle Haley is the man who dons the fedora and sweater as the new Freddy Krueger. He's referred to in the remake as "Fred Krueger" as well, just as in the original. In the original, Freddy was a boiler room worker who also doubled as a homicidal child killer in his spare time. In the remake, Freddy was a gardener at a pre-shool where the main characters attended as children. He molested them all and then their parents found out about it, chased him into an abandoned steel mill, threw a gallon of gas through the window and burnt him alive. Years later, Freddy begins stalking them in their dreams. Where and when he got this power to return and start killing the kids in their dreams isn't explained at all. Another example of something from the original that just carries over into this one without any explanation. Sure, the original didn't get its explanation until like the third or fourth movie, but by then the franchise was so out-of-control that it was a pretty crazy, 80's-style explanation that "dream demons" came to Freddy at the time of his burning and granted him such powers. In the remake, he was just an ordinary guy who burned alive. Plus, it's a little like it's..not Freddy. Freddy was and always will be synonymous with Robert Englund, who made him a wise-cracking homicidal child killer. Robert Englund played Freddy in all of his on-screen appearances except for this one, so yeah...the role is basically his forever. Casting Jackie Earle Haley just made people know that it wasn't going to be Freddy, but some guy pretending to be Freddy. His voice? It's just his Rorschach voice from Watchmen. The way he says "Look at me!" near the end says so itself. What I did like about this Freddy was the realistic burn sars on his face. The other one was decent for it's time, but as it wore on it got to look more fake and rubbery. I guess latex technology just never improved. This Freddy looks like a guy who literally got set on fire.

There's a few scenes that either rip-off or pay homage to the original movie. The body bag scene in the hallway, the glove coming out of the bathtub water during Nancy's bath, Freddy's line "I'm your boyfriend now"; all of which serve to remind you that you are, in fact, watching the remake.  There's points where you forget this movie is a remake when it starts to stray from the original movie's material, then an homage like that comes through and you're snapped out of a daze like "Oh yeah, this is the remake".

Looks like a nu metal reverse album cover

The movie ends when Quentin and Nancy return to the pre-school years after it had shut down to face Freddy once and for all. They realize that Freddy had indeed molested them, and rather spend the rest of their lives fearing him and staying awake, they both decide to go to sleep to fight Freddy in the dream world. Freddy terrorizes them and does some rapey-style things to Nancy (except actually really anything). Quentin stabs Nancy while she's asleep with a syringe of adrenaline and wakes her up. With her hands on Freddy, she brings Freddy out of the dream world and into the real world with her. There, while he's mortal, Quentin and Nancy tag-team fight Krueger. The movie ends with Nancy slitting Krueger's throat and killing him...again. Then she sets the pre-school on fire and watches it burn to the ground, leaving the burnt-Krueger to burn alive again. It's not really a solid ending. Bring Krueger back to life just to kill him again. Wouldn't that send him back to the dream world? The Blu-ray ending is even worse. Krueger literally changes his appearance back to the way he was before he was burned, then the same ending happens then, with his skin still looking like he did, Nancy and Quentin burn the school down again. So instead of double-burning him, now they just burned him again. Lame-sauce. The ending-ending is where after killing Freddy, Nancy and her mother return home. Nancy says "Hey mom, thanks for just protecting me". Nancy's mom then goes to respond, but Freddy bursts out of a mirror, kills Nancy's mother, and sucks her back into the mirror, leaving Nancy to scream as the credits roll. Wow.

So, in a nutshell, was A Nightmare on Elm Street in need of a remake? Yes and no. Basically, the original is such a staple of the 1980's slasher horror movie renaissance that remaking it basically had no hope from the get-go. It's like remaking Back to the Future or The Godfather, you're just not going to beat what's already been done, and if your intention is not to beat it or change everything then there is no point of remaking it. (I'm looking at you, Gus Van Sant, with your shot-for-shot "must change nothing" attitude). The 2010 remake is okay. It's definitely not great, but it also takes a lot of liberties, way more than it needed to. There's a lot of material that's original, but it pulls you back in with its homages to the original. I enjoy it occasionally, but Wes Craven didn't so I guess it sucks. Na na na-na naaaa. Give it a go if you haven't, but don't expect to break new ground.

Sorry Freddy, but I liked Jason's remake a little better....

My Honest Reaction to "The Last Jedi" Trailer

By now, you're all probably wondering what my thoughts are on the latest trailer for the upcoming Star Wars adventure. It's episode number eight in the saga, titled "The Last Jedi". Of oourse by "you all", I mean my three-or-four faithful readers. You guys would each get a Prius if I could afford to just hand them out like compliments.

The trailer was...okay. I mean, I'm not one of the yuppies out there that cries at every Star Wars announcement anymore. Truth be told, I'm kind of tired of Star Wars being pumped into theaters every single year. I thought it'd be a good idea in the beginning, but then it happened and took it's toll. Wait, hang on, let's be clear, I need to put you in the right mindset. It's 2013, the last new Star Wars movie was eight years ago. Eight fucking years. That was Episode III. Sure, you had The Clone Wars movie in there somewhere, but who gives a flying Millennium Falcon about that movie or the TV series that mutated from it. Not I. If you do, that's fine. I'm not here to shit on it or you. I've kinda always had a love-hate relationship with all the tie-in garbage that's been rolled out in the past forty years, mostly because the expanded universe has turned these six simple movies into a universe of weird, sometimes redundant, ridiculously numerous levels of storytelling. I mean, how many adventures can one guy go on? When do Anakin or Obi-Wan just get to sit and chill on the couch with a case of beer or whatever alcohol space-monks drink and veg out from any adventures? You have adventures with Anakin at age 8, at age 9, at age 11, at age 13, at age 15...just shut the f-- I don't care! That's too much reading and life's too short to give a shit about every single detail--Okay I got way off track here. Backtracking!

It's 2013, Disney is in full-motion swing with Star Wars Episode VII coming out in two years. You're hyped. It's the newest Star Wars adventure I was going to get to see since junior high school. I was a super-senior in fucking college by the time Episode VII, the Force Awakens came out. That's a ten-year hiatus out of theaters. I've let you know about my opinions of The Force Awakens loosely (which you can view here) so we won't go into that. Once you watch The Force Awakens, you sort of have that olden-days mindset of "Okay, so now the movies are going to take two more years before they come out. I have to wait (x) days before the next Star Wars related thing is shoved into theaters". Except, I didn't. Rogue One was literally in theaters that very next year. The very next year after that, Episode VIII, now known as The Last Jedi is on its way. It's just about here and they just had their latest trailer for it. So...being a Star Wars fan practically out of the womb...why didn't I really react to it?

The trailer itself was alright, I mean it didn't feel like it was groundbreaking by any means. You saw funky-looking First Order walkers, you saw Rey doing some new force-things, you saw Mark Hamill finally act on the big screen for the first time since the Carter administration, you saw Porgs....whatever-the-fuck Porgs are...so why did I just not care? Rian Johnson keeps telling us or at least hinting to us that this one's going to be epic. That it's going to be one of the greatest Star Wars stories to ever come down the pike. Is my being-jaded toward everything Star Wars the reason for my blase reaction? There were even some things in it that made you think. Like Kylo Ren struggling to hit the button that'll shoot a laser into a ship that'll kill his mommy, Leia. Then in the very end, Rey is talking to Kylo all like "show me my place in all this" and Kylo extends his hand. For how much I can't stand the character of Rey, it'd be pretty badass if she turned to the dark side. Not gonna lie, that'll make me go "Woah". Of course, you can't have Rey turn to the dark side because 99% of the current Star Wars fan base is behind her and supporting her and loving her action figure so again Lucasfilm really has to make a call between merchandising and storytelling. Luckily Lucas isn't at the helm anymore or we would've already seen Rey kill everything that opposes the Resistance within the first five minutes...just to sell those fucking Rey action figures to the kiddies. You see Snoke in his true form, which makes him look like the bubblegum a sixth grader slaps under the desk at school. Also his line "Fulfill your destiny" is literally the most recycled line in the saga, so way to be original on that one. As I mentioned, Luke Skywalker is back in full-force. He looks like a grizzled hermit you'd find living under the bridge asking to give you a handjob in exchange for some heroin money. Plus, his robotic hand technology went backwards. In Return of the Jedi, his robotic hand was literally a human hand with cybernetic components inside. In The Last Jedi, it looks like a regular robotic hand. Some backtracking in tech there, Luke.

When you're playing limbo and you go back too far...

I just, I don't know. It looks like just another manufactured, pumped out Star Wars movie to me. It's hard for me to get crazy about all this, especially at this age. I mean, we've been given a teaser and a trailer, both that kind of show the same material, just the longer trailer being a little more elaborative. Whether Rian Johnson just hates the idea of trailers and doesn't want anything of any value to be seen, or he just doesn't know how to make trailers, its anyone's guess. I just hope they do something fresh, for goodness sake. Something crazy, something that'll shock everybody. Not change something, not that kind of shock. Lord knows Lucasfilm is really good about backtracking and changing history. I just want this one to stand out, some how. The Force Awakens was awesome on the first, midnight screening, pretty cool on the second 'middle-of-theatrical-run' screening, and just gets more dull each time you watch it. None of the imagery really stands out. Literally the only thing that's really memorable about VII, is BB-8. You think of VII, you think of BB-8. You also think of Rey, but that's only because of how shoved-down-your-throat she is. Finn gets no love and Poe may as well not even be there. When this new trilogy was announced, everyone was like "Aww yeah, a new trio of fresh faces!" Then one gets 80% of the character development and 75% of the screen time, while the other two split the rest.

Again, take my comments with a grain of salt. All this hype and building up of things and the constant "Hey we have a new Star Wars movie coming out this year is wearing me out." The love and hype for Star Wars was there in full when The Force Awakens came out, but only two years later with TWO Star Wars films to tie me over, the hype for The Last Jedi just isn't there for me. If you're hyped and excited, good for you. I hope you enjoy it. As for me, I have yet to decide if I want to spring for those midnight movie tickets, or just sit that out and wait for it on a Sunday matinee, or something.