The movie is pretty good but I have one problem.  It turns out that the guy who runs Facebook (Matt Zinkleback or something like that) is a complete asshole.

Now I’ve been an avid Facebook user for years.  I’ve reconnected with old friends from high school and college.  I’ve cyber stalked hot chicks I met at the mall.  I’ve poked the shit out of some of my best friends to the point that they had to block me on their news page.

I did all this under the assumption that the guy who created the site and is making thousands of dollars (or more – numbers confuse me), was a good guy.  I believed he was the sort of guy who would accept my friend request if I’d ever sent him one because I knew who he was.

Instead, I discover he is a guy who screwed over his best friend for – get this – money!  Oh sure, he talks like a character from “The West Wing” (seasons 1-4) but all that clever wordsmithing can’t cover up his doucheness.

I’m thinking I don’t want to be a patron of a weasel like Frank Zappa (or whatever his name is).  I should throw my time and money behind companies that are run by guys who are clearly super nice individuals who would never let a ruthless desire to suceed get in the way of treating others with respect and dignity.

You know, guys like Steve Jobs.

So from now on, I’m off Facebook.  You ladies will have to find some other creepy guy to poke you because I’m going to some other social network site that isn’t run by a antisocial fuck.

I think I’ll spend all my time on Twitter.  I bet whoever invented Twitter is the exactly the kind of dude I’d want to be providing me with the free online social interaction I crave.

So I say thanks to The Social Network for opening my eyes.  From now on, I won’t patronize any company whose founder is shown to be an asshole on film.

I do have a job to do, however, and because of that, I will offer my reviews of a number of films currently in the theaters based entirely on their plot description from the IMDB.  I know that makes me sound like a lazy fuck but in the world of the highly educated, they call what I am doing “research.”

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil was way better than it had any right to be.  So good that it continues to spawn sequels that makes this the most successful series of films based on a video game.  As if that was some sort of challenge.

The hook for this installment is that the film is in 3D.  Who the fuck cares?  Milla Jovovich is smokin’ hot!

Recommended

Machete

If you do not watch and love this movie, you are a pussy.

Recommended

Takers

The IMDB description of this film literally uses the phrase “hard boiled cop.”  What is this - the 1940′s?  Strike one.

The film features Hayden Christensen.  I don’t know about you but I still haven’t forgiven him for killing all those kids at the Jedi academy.  What a douche.  Strike two.

Another featured actor is Matt Dillon.  Matt Dillon?  What is this – the 1980′s?  Strike three.

Not Recommended

The American

Something about an assassin and one last mission.  I’ve already lost interest.

Not Recommended

The Switch

Quick, name a good romantic comedy featuring Jennifer Aniston!

My point exactly.

Not Recommended

The Last Exorcism

I’m always a little suspicious of a film with the word “last” in the title.  It implies that there won’t be any more.  Yet way too many of these films inspire sequels.  I think it’s dishonest.  What if there is a sequel to this film?  You will walk out of the theater thinking “well – no more exorcisms ever” and then there will be a Last Exorcism 2 and won’t you be a little pissed off?

I know I will be.

Not Recommended

The Expendables

If you do not watch and love this movie, you are a pussy.

Recommended

Eat Pray Love

If you watch and/or love this movie, you are a pussy

Not Recommended

As the movie industry faces the deaths of great classic cinematographers like Conrad C. Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), it finds that the young filmmakers who might have replaced them are being killed off at an alarming rate due to the recent trend of “Found Footage” films.

“Take that Micah Sloat kid from Paranormal Activity,” says directing legend Martin Scorsese, “He really knew how to frame a shot to make the most of a creepy situation.  It wasn’t enough that he captured some weird ass shit – he captured it in a way that was artistic.  I really feel like he had a future in the industry.  Now… well… we all know what happened to him.”

Many industry insiders are now encouraging young filmmakers to avoid this sort of movie.  “Hudson Platt must’ve thought he’d hit a goldmine when J. J. Abrams asked him to film Cloverfield,” cinematography teacher Buddy Kraft told us, “now one of my most promising students is gone because he got mauled by – whatever the hell that Cloverfield monster was.”

When contacted for comment, Abrams said “The script for Cloverfield did not involve the death of a cinematographer.  Unfortunately, ‘Hud’ was trying to get a really good close up of the monster and tragedy struck.  We left the shot in because we knew he would have wanted it that way.”

Kraft continues “I’ve started telling everyone in my classes that if they get an offer for a ‘found footage’ film, they had better make sure they get every page of the script before they accept the job.  If they have a director telling them that the ending is still being scripted, I’d walk away.  I’ve never seen one of these films where the guy shooting the footage survived.”

Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption, almost every movie by the Coen Brothers) agrees.  “I think that young men and women in this industry will do better shooting garbage like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo than they will doing something like The Last Exorcism.  So what if the movie sucks? You get your work out there and you don’t end up like that poor kid standing in the corner at the end of The Blair Witch Project.”

I’m talking about internet film nerds.

You know the people I’m talking about, right? The people that go out to Ain’t it Cool News and prattle on endlessly about how awesome Fight Club is. The people who convinced the studio they had to bring Samuel L. Jackson back to the set to record a scene where he said “I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” The people who bitched about what a piece of shit Transformers 2 was as it went on to earn a bazillion dollars at the box office because it turned out that regular movie goers are fucking idiots.

The precious “buzz” they created around Scott Pilgrim couldn’t even propel it past Eat, Pray, Love.

In fact, if you look at how Scott Pilgrim did on it’s opening weekend, it is pretty much a reflection of a internet film nerd’s life.

Number one film for opening week? The Expendables.

Or, in other words, a film starring a bunch of guys who probably beat up nerds in High School.

Number two film? Eat, Pray, Love.

That would be a film starring Julia Roberts. She is the chick the guys in The Expendables banged after they got done beating up nerds.

And then you have Scott Pilgrim, getting his ass whupped by the jocks and the pretty girl he was secretly in love with.

Internet film geeks need to get it through their thick skulls that they have no power. They can love Kick Ass all they want but that won’t convince the average movie going public they should actually see it. In fact, it seems blatantly obvious that the best thing they could have done for Scott Pilgrim was to endlessly bitch about what an abject failure the film was.

So listen up film geeks – you need to remember this important rule. You have only the power to destroy. Use your power wisely or you will destroy that which you most love.

Aside from my own conflicted sexuality as I contemplate how much better this movie would have been if Leo had been naked, is my conflicted response to the film itself.

The movie seriously blew my mind.  I think it is the best pure Science Fiction film I’ve seen in years. I walked out of the theatre and I seriously told my wife “that was fucking amazing – I loved every minute of that film.  And I think that Leo…um…Marion Cotillard was totally fucking hot.”

But then I got to thinking about the film and I had to ask myself what the fuck had actually happened.  And seriously – what kind of pretentious filmmaker would decide to set almost their entire film inside a dream world where literally anything could happen?  It was like Nolan thought that he had creative control over what he put on the screen or something.

All those special effects with cities folding over on themselves were just there to trick me into thinking something relevant was taking place when instead, this was just a big budget special effects blockbuster that had the audacity to suggest it had some sort of deeper meaning.  What the fuck did Nolan think he was trying to do?

The next morning, though, after I spent the whole night dreaming about the film, I realized that it all made a lot of sense and the movie was one of the best films ever made.  Probably the best film ever made.  In fact, if it doesn’t win best picture, I’ll kill someone.

As I think about it now, though, I have to say that maybe Nolan overreached his grasp.  He is still a young filmmaker and he has no business taking on something this ambitious.  Oh yeah, he made a couple of decent “Batman” films but he doesn’t seem to have worked too hard on anything he’s made since Memento.

Maybe he should have directed a Bond film or something a little less challenging before he took on Inception.  Who does this guy think he is, Steven Fucking Spielberg?  Stanley Kubrick?  Martin Scorsese?

How dare he compare himself to Scorsese?  He’s not even fit to talk shot composition with Scorsese!  And Stanley Kubrick could fuck a mind better than Nolan will ever fuck anyone’s mind.  And when it comes to puplist, thoughtful filmmaking, I’ve thought a lot more when I’ve watched some of Spielberg’s films than I ever have watching a Nolan film.

The ego of a guy completely looking to create a place in film history is written over every frame of this movie.  It’s an ego project, pure and simple.

But holy shit what an ego project!  Man, if I was making an ego project, it wouldn’t be half as awesome as this movie!

So, in summary, Inception is a mind blowingly amazing film that I would watch again in a heartbeat.  As long as I didn’t have to pay for it because it is self indulgent garbage.

And seriously, Leo, call me.

No.

Unless you want to blame him for the fact were are getting a fucking Smurf movie next year, the only thing Avatar proved was that the movie going public will watch anything in 3D, even if it is just Dune with Aliens.

Hell, what am I saying?Everyone in Dune was an alien. I think. That movie didn’t make a whole lot of fucking sense.

If Clash of the Titans is any indication, the most lasting legacy of Avatar will be movie studios pumping a shit ton of money into shitty 3D. If you can count on one thing in Hollywood, it is that they will key in on the one element of a film that had nothing to do with its success and that is what they will try to emulate.

They look at Star Wars and figure it is popular because people like robots with British accents. They look at any movie starring Tom Cruise that actually made money and assume it was popular because of Cruise and not because the story was interesting. They look at The Lord of the Rings and figure it was popular because Orlando Bloom looks good in pointy ears.

So the odds are that the lasting legacy of Avatar will be shitty 3D and blue aliens.

Thanks a fucking lot Mr. Cameron.

Noah Ringer, who played Aang says “I thought that with all the physical stunts expected to play an airbender, I’d be completely wiped out. Just the opposite! I was able to take naps between takes and sometimes even while the camera was rolling! I practically slept through the entire film and I think that came out in my performance.”

Shyamalan himself said he would frequently nap during actual filming since his overall vision was so perfect, he didn’t need to actually watch the actors perform certain scenes. “I was as excited to see the premiere as anyone,” he admitted, “ because there were several scenes I never actually saw performed.”

“When we worked on Slumdog Millionaire,” Dev Patel remembered, “Danny Boyle would be grilling us on our characters, talking to us about motivation for particular scenes and we even had that tiring dance number during the credits. As an actor, that can be quite a strain.”

“But even with all the complex stunts and bending maneuvers,” he continued, “I never felt even the slightest bit of stress on the set. Does Prince Zuko have any motivation? We never talked about it. M. Night said he wanted my face to be a blank slate so the audience could project their own motivations.”

Apparently, when Nicola Peltz, who played Katara, tried to emote during a particular scene, Shyamalan halted filming and gave her a twenty minute lecture on how to act without showing any hint of interest in the character. The director of such emotionless films as The Happening and Lady in the Water would chastise her by saying “stop looking at me when I’m talking to you! Stop listening to what I’m saying! Look at the wall! Think about that stain on the wall! Don’t think about your lines or your relationship to other characters! The stain on the wall is all that is important! Stop looking at me!”

“It was an emotional moment,” Peltz admitted, “but once I internalized it, I was really able to let go of any sort of emotional attachment to the character. I would remind myself that it was just a paycheck and there was no reason to get so worked up.”

Shyamalan looks forward to the sequel to The Last Airbender where, he says, he hopes to help his actors give even less of a crap about the movie than they did about this one.

“Actors work so hard,” he said, “when they come to work for me, I want them to feel like it is a relaxing vacation and I want that relaxation to show on screen.”

But let me tell you right now that even if the studio had offered me a free night with Kristin Stewart, I would not have taken free tickets to Eclipse.  A guy has to have his standards.

While I can’t say for sure this is true, I have to say that Eclipse is one of the worst movies I haven’t seen this year.  Oh sure, I haven’t seen a lot of crappy films.  I didn’t get to Jonah Hex either, but I was almost tempted to see that one.  I don’t have any interest in Eclipse.

The plot of the film probably has something to do with some whiny teenaged girl being in love with a whiny vampire dude and a whiny werewolf dude and nobody is ever going to have sex with anyone.  Or maybe they will.  By the time it happens, I have a good feeling that I wouldn’t have given a shit.

Teenagers whine.  The best movies about teenagers poke fun at their incessant whining.  The Twilight films are in love with it.  The chick who is in love with the vampire or the werewolf or both (who the fuck cares) wants to become a vampire so she can be a whiny teenager forever.

Jesus.

That would be like spending eternity watching the same fucking episode of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

If you have a teenage girl with questionable taste, you are probably stuck going to this movie anyway.  You may discover that everything I’ve written about the plot is dead wrong.

But – and this is important – you will have seen the movie.  That means I win.

I don’t want to alarm any of my regular readers but I feel I need to tell you something.

Netflix is in league with the devil.  Stop laughing.  This is serious.

At once!

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Deadly sin #1:  Lust

Netflix features films that feature attractive women.  In some of these films, the women not only dress provocatively, they actually remove their clothing.  These acts do nothing but create lust within the minds of young men.  Those not driven wild with desire come to the faulty conclusion that they are gay and begin to enjoy the sights of the beautiful beautiful man flesh that pervades popular culture. Be it Daniel Craig’s six pack in Casino Royale or Kevin Costner’s bare ass in Dances with Wolves, these shots drive young men wild with desire.

Women, of course, are chaste and pure until marriage and are not affected by such things.

Deadly sin #2: Gluttony

How many people do you know who sit down in front of a movie with a bag of chips, a six pack of Mountain Dew and a bag of M & M’s?  And then they finish it all.  And get seconds.  Nobody eats rice cakes while watching Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Deadly Sin #3: Sloth

Now that you can stream a movie any time you want, there is no waiting for the next movie to come and therefore no reason to actually get up from your chair.

Deadly Sin #4:  Wrath

I don’t know about you, but I get pretty pissed off when I can’t stream the movie I wanted to see.

Deadly Sin #5:  Greed

Do you realize that Netflix and the movie studios are only streaming these movies so they can make a profit??????? I see by your face that this is a surprise.  By sitting on your couch and watching these movies, you are lining their pockets with gold.  And that is what Lucifer wants you to do.

No!  I’m not talking about the cat from Cinderella!  Focus!  Your soul is at stake here!

Deadly Sin #6:  Envy

Everyone who does not have streaming Netflix wants it.  This sort of covetous behavior will never do.

Deadly Sin #7:  Pride

Have you seen those movie actresses like Angelina Jolie strutting around wearing jewelry and make-up?  How about Daniel Craig showing off that six pack?  These are the acts of godless people!

No number of “Left Behind” films is going to save your soul if you continue to suckle on the teat of Netflix.  Not when they have titles like Dogma, Inherit the Wind, The Omen and Gigli.

Remember, if you sign up for Netflix, “Abandon hope all ye who enter” will be written on your next credit card statement.

Go with the mob.  At least your soul won’t be in danger.