"That's it! You cocky cock! You'll pay for your crimes against humanity!" -OR- "She geeks, she geeks. She has the capacity to geek."

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010. Three Stars.

BACKSTORY!!! I like a lot of the stuff that Oni Press publishes, so even though it looked like it could be obnoxious, I decided to give a book called "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" a shot (yes the backwards-facing quotation mark on the cover irks me, but I'm like that!). AND I LOVED IT. The art style is amazing. It's really fun. And really funny. All the characters are dorks and like music (who does that sound like??). And the main character has to fight his girlfriend's seven evil ex-boyfriends, and all the battles are like video games. OH MAN! I'd alternate in between spazzing out about it and forcing it on anyone I could to read it! That was back in 2004; for the past six years I'd been impatiently waiting for all six volumes to come out (they ended up being released pretty much one volume a year; the final volume came out in July).

FAN BOY ALERT!!! If you know me, you know I never shut up about this. But I think this is still so unbelievably cool: So, before Volume 3 came out, I happened to be on the internet the same time Bryan Lee O'Malley was on it, asking fans for photos to use on billboards in the book. I exuberantly sent at least 15. Check out Chapter 15, 14th page: IT'S ME!!!

THE MOVIE!!! Firstly, I knew Bryan Lee O'Malley was involved in writing the screen play, and I'm a big fan of Edgar Wright, but I had serious doubts as to whether this comic that became so near and dear to my heart could successfully be adapted to movie form. I didn't wanna see any trailers, I didn't wanna see any clips, I didn't even wanna talk about it, so that I'd have zero expectations for this movie. Because if I let myself, I would totally nerd out and get really excited for it, inevitably getting my expectations too high, then be inherently disappointed when I finally did see it.

But, my super friend Alex got a few of us sneak preview passes to see it last night! So I finally let myself watch the official trailer on the website yesterday. And, it didn't look half bad!

The movie had me at the 16-bit Universal Studio logo. Mamma Jamma.

I can't believe Michael Cera pulled off being Scott Pilgrim. He was good! And Ann from "Arrested Development" was one of the evil exes! Reunited!

All the actors in this were superb. This review would be even longer if I wrote about every single one of them, so I won't. But I have to say that the girl that played Knives Chau was exceptional. I was very impressed with her performance!

I just absolutely love Aubrey Plaza, and I'm so happy she's in this movie. She's a perfect Julie. Uncanny in appearance, and she nailed the character.

Also, Jason Schwartzman is the perfect Gideon. I had my doubts about Kieran Culkin as Wallace (I thought he looked too slobby when I saw the trailer), but he ended up being perfect too. I can't remember if I saw Superman Returns or not (must not have made a good impression on me if I did...), so I was always like "Oh Brandon Routh's playing Superman, so he must just be another boring Hollywood actor." But then I saw this, and I was intrigued... His being Todd in this movie has sealed the deal on my small infatuation with him!!

Why didn't they have the real Comeau play Comeau? Nelson Franklin did just fine, but, there's a real Comeau so how cool would that have been?

Thomas Jane is the Vegan Police!!!

I liked the comic book-y graphics they added; I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, but it ended up looking decent and fun. Really appreciated how they incorporated some of the text from the book, especially the names/descriptions/ratings boxes. And there was a good ratio of real-life scenes to fastly-cut-fantastical scenes.

Hey, is that Gideon the cat on Scott's mug in the first scene?

I have lots of little details I'd really like to talk about, but I think I have to stop here. But maybe someday, if you see the movie, we will talk about it!

Because I'm such a fan of the comic and already knew the story, I knew what was going to happen in the movie and I knew what kinds of things to expect. So I can't say if it was good or not, or even if the story was cohesive or if the pacing was effective. But I can definitely say I really really enjoyed it. They did a really good job of taking a six-year labor of love and adapting it to a 1 hour and 45 minutes movie.

If you've never read the book and know nothing about this, and you see this movie, please tell me what you think?

I want to watch it again right now.

BTW, at the end of the screening, Edgar Wright, Anna Kendrick, Michael Cera, and Jason Schwartzman came out and took questions about the movie. They talked about behind-the-scenes stuff, and Edgar talked about how they did the music stuff for the movie, and such. Cool!!


Hee hee hee.

Also, read the book some time! scottpilgrim.com




Can I please be a "Music Supervisor" for movies?????

"Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

Harvey, 1950. Three Stars.

I've wanted to see this movie ever since hearing Weird Al's "Harvey The Wonder Hamster" when Alapalooza came out in 1993. I grew up with Weird Al's song-based hilarity (even though Al TV always managed to escape my youngster radar, I don't know how!!). But Alapalooza, along with the film Jurassic Park*, went hand-in-hand in creating my pre-teen, 5th-grade world, so as weird as it sounds, it was kind of a seminal part of my life. Explains a lot, eh? :D

Somehow, Harvey the Wonder Hamster got me hipped to this movie Harvey. I knew it wasn't hamster-related, but maybe the grown-ups in my life were like "Oh yeah, Harvey. He's an invisible 6-foot rabbit." Anyways, this Weird Al song had somehow led me to knowledge about this movie starring a guy who had an invisible giant rabbit friend. And I thought it sounded great, so I wanted to see it.

Last week I was flipping through the TV guide and I saw that it was on HBO. So I set up a DVR recording for it and watched it. It got four stars so, because of that and because I had heard about it for over half of my life, I thought this movie was gonna be killer. And, I liked it. I wasn't head-over-heels about it, but it was very well-done, and pretty enjoyable. I think it has a really nice and unique point-of-view, and maybe it was, like, super-duper uproarious back in it's day. But, I liked it and I'm really happy that I saw it. If you get a chance to see it, I recommend checking it out.

Everyone in this was great, especially Jimmy Stewart. Also I really liked the script lettering used in the beginning credits.

I didn't know this: it was based on Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and I was glad to see that she co-wrote the screen play. I'd love to see this on stage. This movie adaptation felt like a movie and was pretty open, rather than just feeling like something that was created for stage, so it'd be interesting to see how it's played out in its original state on stage.

I found out that Harvey was re-done for TV in 1972. It seems like the only real notable thing about it was that it was Madeline Kahn's TV debut (and third film). I love her!! Also Jimmy Stewart continued to play Elwood P. Dowd on stage (and in this '72 re-do). I guess if you're awesome at something, stick to it.

"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it. "

*I was in a public school academic enrichment program in 5th grade, you Quincy kids will remember it as "E.L.C." That's right, I was a "labbie"!! (And to this day I still get shit from people like TIM about it, haha!) One day a week me and a few other kids in my class would take a bus to another school and meet up with other kids and learn rad stuff. Like how to use computers, paint watercolor landscapes, do word problems (they sucked but they were way less sucky than doing regular math problems), and do calligraphy... Basically a bunch of interesting and creative things that most public schools usually aren't able to offer. It also taught us responsibilities by giving us responsibilities around the classroom (but apparently didn't teach me how to use a thesaurus to not use the same word twice in a sentence, ha!). And we did a few big projects, like we learned how to write giant multi-paged reports! And I did mine on my young love: basketball! With a diorama of offensive and defensive positions! And I wrote letters to my favorite basketball-related peeps about basketball, and Jim Calhoun wrote back to me! And so did Red Auerbach, on official Celtics stationery! So cool! ANYWAYS, for one of our projects we were split in to groups and had to figure out how to solve the world over-population problem if it ever happened. The group with the best solution got to go see Jurassic Park. My group's underwater biodome KICKED ASS and we won!! So, not only was Jurassic Park a flippin' cool-ass movie, but I got to see it for free as a result of an academic achievement. And that's one of the reasons Jurassic Park means a lot to me. And also we got pizza after the movie. I love pizza! Double score!!!!

"Well, there was a lot of crying, so, I believe everybody had a good time." -OR- "She thought I was wonderful. She was the first woman I ever fooled."

Heaven Can Wait, 1943. Three and a Half Stars.

I found myself looking through the TV guide for movies, as I so often do, and came across this one: A playboy recollects his life to the gatekeeper of Hades. And it was from the 40's. Sounded interesting, so I set up a recording for it.

I don't really have much to say, except, it was pretty good! Well at least I enjoyed it! It wasn't as "naughty" as I expected, but that's fine: The story told is from the Victorian era, so there was a big importance in "preserving decency" and "the family honor" and all that. So I thought it was fitting that Van Cleve's "affairs" were only alluded to.

I don't think he deserved Martha though, but at least he wasn't a completely selfish person that he was before he met her...

I really liked "His Excellency" and the "waiting room" to Hell. I can't help being fascinated by the extravagant sets mostly found in this period of films.

Also, someone cross-stitched the credits at the beginning... Or someone painted them to look cross-stitched. Either way, a lot of talent and time went in to that!

This movie is based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. I'd like to check it out some time. It's too bad this movie didn't keep the Birthday title; the story was strongly focused on the passage of Van Cleve's birthdays in order to mark the events of his life, so it makes much more sense than "Heaven Can Wait" (which was an entirely different play that inspired a movie in the 40's and it's remakes/re-imaginings in the 70's and 00's).

"Oh, that's pretty, Mr. Grimsby." "Yeah, it's a bit mild. I think I ought to tear her dress off her other shoulder."

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 1947. Three Stars.

I remember reading the book in high school, and I liked it, even though I thought it was pretty sad. Part of the reason I liked it (and part of the reason I was actually frustrated while reading it) was because, sadly, I could relate to Walter Mitty. I don't remember the details about the story, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as fun as this movie.

I was expecting a kind of dark flick. But it was actually really funny and enjoyable! Both the characters and fantasies were played with satirical and fantastical intent, which made it all fun. Danny Kaye's little reactions to things were priceless. And, Mitty turned out to be a hero and taking control of his life, which this sap loves.

This is the first time I've ever seen Danny Kaye in something, I think. Strange, huh? He was great! At first I got him confused with Donald O'Connor (who was always my favorite actor from Singin' in the Rain!*

Also, Boris Karloff is in this! Most excellent!

I really like the opening credits, with the "credits" on panes of glass that swing open. I'd like to know how they did that. And I loved that dog, "Queenie". What a good actor, behaving then barking on cue! One of my favorite parts, though, is the fantasy number where Mitty's a hat designer. It's funny and unique and racy. It was weird, though, to see only like two "musical" numbers (rather than this being either a total musical or a straight-ahead non-musical venture).

"Your small minds are musclebound with suspicion. That's because the only exercise you ever get is jumping to conclusions."


...OH NO there's a Secret Life of Walter Mitty re-make scheduled to come out this year? Starring Mike Myers as Walter Mitty?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sounds awful!!


* My gramma and my dad used to make me and my sibs watch musicals when I was little. My gramma would have us watch stuff like Lil' Abner and Bye Bye Birdie (which is another favorite of mine). And to this day, I've only seen the first half of The Sound of Music, because it used to come on two VHS tapes, and my gramma made us go to bed after the first tape (no complaints from me though, it was boring!). My dad had us watch stuff like West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He also introduced us to movies like Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, River's Edge (which I got to stay up late on a school night to watch!), and Blue Velvet (which I think he showed us by accident!). My mom, on the other hand, introduced us to B-grade sci-fi/horror flicks, and she used to watch "MST3K" with me back in the day. I partly give my family credit for my eclectic taste in movies!

“Don’t you watch the news?” “I hate that fuckin’ show.” -OR- “I was gonna get some.” “I kind of doubt it.”

Idle Hands. Two and a Half Stars.

HA HA HA! Brilliantly horrible. ...Or, horribly brilliant?

I recommend it!

“I killed a swan yesterday. ...Took a shit on it.”

"The Mighty Boosh", 2004–2007 (so far?). Four Stars.

They started airing episodes on Adult Swim. My friend Aimee mentioned how much she loves the show and that she thought I’d like it too. I hate when people tell me that they think I’ll like something! It makes me instantly hate it. But I started watching.

And! I love it!!

I can’t believe no one had love enough to introduce me to this sooner!

After seeing some third season episodes on TV, Tim and I immediately rented all the Boosh DVDs. I like all three series that’ve come out. I like that each season’s different from one another. I like how silly-insane it is!

One of my absolute faves is “Nanageddon” (where this title quote’s from). Holy crap.

“Did you drop any Weather Report?”

“Get stuffed.”

“Fair enough.”

…Okay I’m also obsessed with Old Gregg! And Kirk!

I don’t really want to talk about this any more, because if you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t want to ruin it for you. I probably already have by gushing about it. But still check it out sometime if you like comedy and electro music and fabulously badly-good costumes.

"What did you expect?" "They used to dance."

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, 2008. Three and a Half Stars.

This was better than the first one. And there's so much brutality!

Perhaps this is a better story?? Or maybe I'd just seen too many versions of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" as a kid. (Fun fact: As a kid, I saw a version of this on TV, and I didn't know what the heck a "Turkish Delight" was. I thought it involved turkey. I thought that it must've been the worst candy in the world!)

The mouse? Surprisingly not annoying! Because usually cutesy live-action animal secondary characters are.

It must be sad to be a kid who has lived a full life of magic and fantasy, only to turn back into a kid again. And also to be part of two completely different worlds: I have a difficult enough time feeling like I have a place to belong to, and I live in only one reality!

"I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to — I want to smell dark matter!..."

"...Do you see the absurdity of what I am? ...I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!"
— Brother Cavil

"Battlestar Galactica", 2004–2009. Five Stars.

YES FIVE STARS! ITS MY HIGHEST RANKING!! This was such a stupendous series. There is so much to say. But I will only say a few important things.

Yeah I'm in to Science Fiction, which is why I started watching it. Interestingly, I'd never seen any of the original series (neither '78 nor '80), and I kind of refused to watch "Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries" because I thought it looked dumb. But when they made it into a TV series, I decided to give it a shot. AND I LOVED IT!! Robots! Apocalyptic themes! Space travel!

But wait, there's more! There's also amazing acting! Drama! Mind-blowing character development! Heavy religious and philosophical themes! I consider this more of a drama/thriller than a straight-up sci-fi show.

After the first or second season, I did go back and watch The Miniseries. And yup, it was good!

I LOVE HOW THE SERIES ENDED. I won't mention anything because I don't want to spoil it, but if you want to fight about it in real life, just name the time and the place!!

There was a separate miniseries called "Razor", which was pretty intense. Though it was a little difficult to watch at some parts, I dug it.

I haven't watched this; I'm generally not a fan of webisode "extras" that go along with TV series. Has anyone seen 'em though? Recommend watching them?

All of the actors are PHENOMENAL, and it would take up too much of my time and patience to write all about it here. But I want to mention, the one actor I'm most impressed with is Tricia Helfer, who plays the Six models. She's pretty darn hot, and it's no surprise to me that she was a model. But I am surprised that she was relatively new to acting when she started the show. She did an AWESOME job playing the different Six Cylons, which had the most significant and varied personalities and looks, most notably "Caprica Six" (both the version that Baltar sees and the real life one, who are both so different), and the abused & raped victim-turned-warrior "Gina Inviere" found on Battlestar Pegasus. Lately I've been noticing her on some other shows too, like "Burn Notice" and "Chuck". I hope she keeps up the good work!

I recommend this show. It might be a good idea to start with the Miniseries first, then watch Season 1. And if you're not feeling it after Season 1, then you can choose to stop watching if you want. But I suggest watching all of the seasons before you come to a conclusion.

So, there's going to be a movie called "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan". It's about everything that happened, but from the Cylon point of view. I'll check it out, it could be pretty interesting!

I am, however, not really looking forward to "Caprica", which is supposedly a new TV series happening later this year. It deals with the Adama family and happenings on Caprica 50 years before "BSG." So it'll deal with topics like the development of the Cylons and how the war came about and such. This could be a terrible, terrible spin-off, but I'm still probably going to give it a chance.

"The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, Hallelujah!"

The Dead Zone, 1983. Three and a Half Stars.

An 80's sci-fi movie starring Christopher Walken? Yep, my kind of movie!!

It's cool that everyone believes him. One of the most frustrating things in movies is when no one believes the main character.

His house reminds me of my great aunt's and gramma's house: It feels familiar and cozy, and it's decked out in the style of my childhood (I was born in 1982).

Martin Sheen is awesome. Baby shield!!!

I checked out some of the "making of" features after the movie. The Look of Dead Zone: "sparkling." It sure is!! If this was filmed in Ontario, then I belong in Canada. It's pretty and cozy. I like wearing cold weather clothing.

"In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon."

Watchmen, 2009. Three Stars.

I'm personally giving this movie Three Stars because I really liked it. But, it's not a very good movie!

I love the comic book, and it was so cool seeing the characters come to life and the story unfold on the big screen. There's so much that happens in the comic book, however, and it was a good move to not include every single thing in the movie, and instead focus on the larger overall themes. That being said... the pacing was so slow at some points and so fast in others, that the things that were supposed to have a big impact on the audience (like, Holy Shit The Comedian! and, Oh, THAT'S why Bubastis exists!) ended up coming up short.

The beginning of the movie was well-done: Totally dug the snapshot-ish narrative of the history of the Minutemen and what happened to the superheroes, it was fun and effective.

The ending has been changed, but it's just a different means to the same end. I thought it was pretty interesting and okay. Plus, the movie couldn't handle including the original ending.

I didn't like some of the casting. Matthew Goode was good as Veidt, but he lacked the "god-like" physique which added to his "superhuman-ness" in the comic. I GUESS Malin Akerman did a great job because Laurie Juspeczyk is a pretty vapid and one-dimensional character, but she sounded like Drew Barrymore and it was annoying.

Who's actually great in this? Patrick Wilson is perfect as Dan Dreiberg (and he's wicked cute!!). Jackie Earle Haley is everything I could have hoped for in a Rorschach. And I gotta say, it was SO COOL seeing Doc Manhattan! Way to go, Billy Crudup! The blue wang didn't freak me out as much as it did everyone else in the cinema. Everyone else in it was pretty decent too. Jeffrey Dean Morgan looked just like The Comedian.

So like I said, I liked it. If you're a fan of the comic book, you'll probably like it more than dislike it. If you're not familiar with anything about it, you'll most likely leave the cinema confused, dissatisfied, and tired.

**UPDATE 3/18/09**

There is something important that I forgot to mention. The soundtrack SUCKS. Cheesy, dumb, uninspired. The music during the awkward sex scene would've been HILARIOUS, only if the movie had that fun self-awareness to pull it off. But it didn't! Totally sucks!

(If memory serves correctly, I don't think I minded the song used in the opening credits though. Eh.)

"Isn't that kind of insulting?" "I guess it's supposed to be. I mean, we're trying to get rid of them."

The Gate, 1987. Two Stars.

This seems like a movie you love if you grow up with it (like The Peanut Butter Soution and The Worst Witch... actually those movies totally rule!), but I didn't grow up with it, so, as an adult, I thought it was dumb and boring. But there's this one part that almost made me cry! The look young Stephen Dorff has on his face toward the end of the movie, when his friend falls down the stairs into hell... you can tell there's a moment of sheer panic; of, "I'm way too young for this shit." Haha!

"You're in love. Have a beer." OR, "I'm not a baby. I'm a tumor."

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2008. Four Stars.

Such a gooooooood movie!!! And I totally agree with my friend Alex: Ron Perlman doesn't play "Hellboy;" Ron Perlman IS Hellboy!

I'm totally okay with the story line in the movies being different from the comic book. It's actually a necessity. And for some reason I'm okay with Hellboy and Liz having pyro demon twins.

The ONLY bothersome thing in this movie is Hellboy as a little kid, it looked too weird!

"Snow cone?" "Yuck." "No, no, no, don't worry. It's lemon."

Monsters, Inc., 2001. Four Stars.

Tim warned me that this was the only movie in a long time to make him cry. Since I HATE SPOILERS, I wouldn't let him tell me why! I wasn't really interested in seeing it because I thought a kids movie about monsters would be stupid and boring.

But he finally got me to watch it, and, IT'S AMAZING!! Super funny, and a fun, imaginative story. Plus the animation is stuuuuunning.

So, I'd noticed a few tender, heart-warming scenes throughout the movie, but nothing that would make me cry (and I'm very sensitive), let along world-weary (haha!) Tim. But at the very end, when they fix Boo's door, and Sulley pokes his head through, and she goes, "Kitty!," that's when I cried my eyes out. Holy shit.

"I blame the fish-people."

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2007. Two and a Half Stars.

Meh, kind of stopped caring about this franchise after the first movie. But whatever, it was entertaining.

I did like the whole "Island of Jack Sparrows" thing, and having to flip the boat upside down.

Kiera Knightley is pretty bad ass, per usual. And you can never go wrong with Bill Nighy!

I played a Dancing Pirate Girl in the Wollaston Elementary School's 5th grade rendition of "Peter Pan," and we danced to "A Pirate's Life For Me." It's a fun song to dance to, but pretty dumb to make a movie about!

"I love you!... I mean, I think we should hang out socially... I have a new ping pong table."

Evan Almighty, 2007. Three Stars.

Yeah, this movie wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be! Though I need to mention that I saw this on an 8-hour flight from Chicago to Hololulu, so I'm keeping in mind that viewing conditions weren't the best, and it was also edited.

But, I dunno, it was funny! Definitely geared toward little kids, so some of the gags were obvious and kept repeating themselves, but there were some genuinely comedic things happening in this flick. I laughed more than I expected to. Me and the 10-year-old girl sitting in front of me were having a ball watching it, haha!

And the story was, like, better than I'd expected. It was heart-warming and, like, actually made sense. And the bad guy got his in the end. And I liked the message from God:

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

...Awwwwww!