No Hate

Old Business -

The season premiere of FX's always outstanding Rescue Me has inspired me to resurrect the blog. I'm even feeling a bit generous. Let's see here. I, the Drax, do hereby absolve Denis Leary of all of his past transgressions. The following sins are forgiven...

Demolition Man, The Ref, Operation Dumbo Drop, Two If By Sea, and those Quaker State commercials.

Go in peace my son.

New Business -

A year ago, I first heard about Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain and immediately decided to make it one of my patented obsessions. Think somewhere around the magnitude of 28 Days Later or Solaris. Mark my words, it will be the best movie of the year. Count on it.

You heard it here first.

Drax out.

P.S. I'm sure the hate will be back in full swing once I see X-Men: The Last Stand. Catch the elegance behind that subtitle. I mean this one must be just epic. Right? I believe it's a half-hour shorter than X2. Didn't want to waste your time on plot or characters. Just pack in the mindless, overindulgent mutant battles, corny one-liners, and cursory fanboy references, and I'm sure it'll come out alright. No one likes Cyclops anyway. But give me more Storm please. Her accent is fantastic. Hurry, give her more screen time before she threatens not to be in the movie altogether. That would be tragic. God, I'm angry.

Hate

2006. Come now, there's still plenty to hate less than a month into the new year. Let's see what is bothering me lately.

Commander In Chief. Guess what? I hate it! Couldn't even watch 5 minutes of it. Total snoozefest. Apparently, officials in the Geena Davis Administration have embraced a policy of "phoning it in". Could the characters be more bland and cliched? Commander In Chief, I demand thee impeached!

The Machinist. Simply awful. A highly derivative mash-up of previous Christian Bale performances masqueradingas a fresh idea for a movie. Oh, I get it. His guilty conscience is causing him to waste away both physically and emotionally. Big fucking deal. Get over it. I liked this movie the first time when it was called American Psycho.

Land Of The Dead. I never thought it would come to this. The Dawn Of The Dead remake, at the time the worst affront to the legacy of George Romero, was better than this piece of shit. No semblance of a plot. Third rate satire. And Dialog that makes "God, I wish I knew how to quit you" look genius. Worst of all, the gore and violence were completely underwhelming. Was this even a movie? Seriously, it had less structure than a train wreck.

That's all for now. Eventually I'll see the gay cowboy movie, Spielbergo's "terrorists have feelings too" movie, and Terrence Malik's first bad movie. Till then...

Drax out.

P.S. Please do not misconstrue my "terrorists have feelings too" comment as a attempt to join the boorish chorus of conservative commentators who often object to slightest attempt to humanize terrorists. I went to college. I'm able think for myself. Blah, blah, blah. I was merely resenting the implication that we need a self-congratulatory Spielbergo rimjob to enlighten us to the fact that there is more than one side to the conflict in question.

Hate

Roger Ebert. The man has no shame. Here's what he had to say about Batman Begins:

"It's the best and darkest of the Batman pictures."

Wrong on both counts fucko. Now, I know Roger Ebert is getting pretty fucking old, and his memory may not be what it used to be. But you'd have to have goddamned Alzheimer's to take Christain and Liam over Michael and Jack. Plus, Basinger was way, way better than Mrs. Tom Cruise. And that's only the beginning. (cough) Batwing (cough) Jesus! Has the whole world gone mad? Dark? Not likely. Batman Returns takes that honor. What a dick.

Drax out.

P.S. The 3rd season finale of Nip/Tuck was pretty satisfying. I did predict the ending halfway into the first hour, but hey I watch a lot of fucking TV. Overall, the 3rd season was a bit weaker than the second, but that's only because the 2nd season was beyond brilliance. Here's looking towards 2007. In the meantime, bring on The Shield and Rescue Me!

No Hate

Nip/Tuck. Hooray for Tuesday. Only 3 new episodes left! What will I do when the season is over? Probably wait patiently for new episodes of FX's The Shield to start on January 10, 2006. Plug!

Drax out.

Hate, No Hate

X-Men 3. If you wander over to Apple's Quicktime site you may catch a glimpse of the new teaser trailer for the latest and probably last X-Men movie. I did. Still not having any part of it. Don't get me wrong; it's an effective presentation - one that would get just about anyone pretty goddamn excited about the movie. The action looks well rendered. There are plenty of new characters to chew on. And Brett Ratner & Co. appear to have given this third installment a far greater scope than Bryan Singer's two more economical ventures. But I digress. The Drax is not "just about anyone" and will not be won over by Brett Ratner eye candy. This movie has all the makings of an ostentatious, disjointed mess - heavy on action, little on substance. Now before you berate with comments like:

"Drax, it's a comic book movie. How much substance does it have to have?"

"Drax, you're no fun. You Nazi! That looks awesome."

"Drax, get your head out of your ass"

Let me just say that structure is important at some point. If I want a story imbued with mindless action briefly punctuated with witty character "showcase" moments, I'll rent Fantastic Four, again. Actually, let me clarify that last point. I have never rented Fantastic Four. I mean c'mon. Who doesn't think that this movie will merely be a series of "mutant X does something cool, Mutant Y does something cooler"? Jesus. Then in place of real characterization, the writers cough up some cheap, cop-out plot developments designed to compensate for lack of imagination. What if (shock) we hook up these two X-Men and kill some major characters in the process? Won't that blow your mind? Won't that make this movie an epic? Sadly not.

Drax out.

Oh I almost forgot. The No Hate. Check this out.

http://brawl-hall.com/vault/video570.htm

That's Siskel & Ebert and the Movies!

Hate

Chain Reaction. A poor man's The Fugitive through and through. Keanu Reeves as a machinist? Please.

Drax out.

Hate

Social Security. So I'm trying to replace my Social Security card and they say they won't take a birth certificate as proof of identity. They will, however, take a driver's license. Small problem here - my driver's license was stolen too. Jesus Christ. Oh, and fuck old people too.

Drax out.