Meet Our Guest Player: Edgar Zeiler

By Eric

The nominations are in! This week we are screening:

1) Bolt

Miley Shyrus playsh a lishping teenage girl whose shiteating dog thinksh it'sh a shuperhero.

Rhino provides some relief, however.

2) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Sean Connery playsh a lishping adventurer who teams up with an invisible man, a dracula, a terrorist, and a schizo to take down a messy and meandering plot.

"There are women who take it to the wire. That's what they are looking for, the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack."

3) Harry Brown

Oh shit! Michael Cain has a gun!

4) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Why was this not nominated for every Oscar?

Comics plus Michael Cera?!

5) Thunderball
The sequel to Pokemon: Arceus: The Jewel of Life

"I don't think there's anything particularly wrong in hitting a woman, though I don't recommend that you do it the same way that you hit a man."

6) Mission Impossible II

It is important to note that none of us have seen the first Mission Impossible. Someone has finally learned to underestimate this family properly.

We're hoping for some more Tom Cruise tongue-action-in-silhouette, as in Top Gun.

You may notice there are six movies, and Sally is never cool enough to compete. Who is the sixth entry? Why, Edgar of course! Here's his bio:

Guest contender:

Edgar (Ed-gah)

Likes: Movies. REALLY likes movies. You-should-be-concerned likes movies.
Dislikes: How few American movies have french subtitles.
Catchphrase: "To find a movie I have not seen... it would be difficult."

Gene went on a foreign exchange to Edgar's home in La Rochelle. He saw Paris, Versailles, and the Louvre. Now Edgar's in the U.S. and we're showing him Netflix movies. We might get away with this because Edgar is a skinny little French database of movie trivia and a sworn film buff.  Avoid movies with made-up American slang, hope your DVD has French subtitles (he hates dubbing), and you might just pick up Edgar's vote. As they say in France, Nu vu vwyon!

(Editor's note: they do not say this in France.) 

The Kids are Not All Right

posted by Beth

I won this round of the movie tournament with a piece of trash (Kick-Ass), so I'm trying hard to redeem myself by curating seven movies that don't make us feel like washing our brains with soap afterward. I haven't succeeded, but that's because I'd have to choose all Buster Keaton movies to fully satisfy that criterion. The curated list is:

1. Do the Right Thing  
2. Despicable Me
3. The Kids are All Right
4. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
5. Leon: The Professional
6. Tyson
7. Oceans (Disney's documentary)

We've seen the first four, and I have to say that The Kids are All Right is the worst of the bunch so far. And yes, that includes Despicable Me.

At first I thought, "Why are people so excited about this movie?" Four academy award nominations? Best Picture and Writing? Seriously? It has way too many plot threads that aren't tied up (Laser's destructive friendship, Paul's genuine feelings for Jules, anything about Paul's future at all, Joni's relationship with Paul, Joni's advances toward her guy friend, Joni's lusty girlfriend), incomplete character development and motivation, and the coup de grace: nothing happens. Nothing but a lot of graphic sex that does not advance the plot one iota.

At some point we need to have a discussion about whether any overly graphic sex scenes in cinematic history have ever advanced the plot one iota.

But then I figured it out! I figured out why people are eating their poop (to paraphrase Eric) over The Kids are All Right. Or more specifically, I figured out who is eating their poop, besides a certain Lhasa Apso named Bella: it's movie industry people. Movie industry people who love themselves and their lives, and think the whole world revolves around them. They think they're so hip, writing about a lesbian family fighting to stay intact; writing a "day in the life" script in which people are struggling to remember why they love the people they love; writing about rich people in L.A.; including organic farming somewhere in the plot, and then ironically including the over-saturation of contemporary foodie-ism in the plot. This thing was so inbred — so Santa Monica and Venice and Mar Vista — even the college-bound protagonist ended up going away to a California college. The rest of the country rolls its eyes when we see this highly-specific southern California version of White People Problems on screen. Which only goes to show you who populates the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

And we can talk about the lame title later. Or not.