A Thor Thubject

When you are a Broke Nerd, such as myself, you begin to plan out your entertainment months.  This is in part because I need to know when we will need my mother in law to watch the baby if we go out as well as being able to afford it after the bills have been paid and the food purchased.

As far as movies are concerned, the most likely scenario is that it sits in theaters for so long, that it’s on DVD or instant streaming by the time I get around to seeing it.

This whole process still feels pretty foreign to me since I used to be the guy who had to be in the theater for the midnight showing only so that I can see it again later that night after work.  Of course, this doesn’t happen any more.  Ever.

Nowadays, I have to be judicious in my choice of movies to watch in theaters, the last movie I had seen was “Red State” in March, but before that, it was “Tron Legacy” in January.  As a movie geek, this drives me crazy, but I really have no choice.

Marvel movies are something of an event for me and I do everything in my power to be able to see them in the theater and thankfully, the stars aligned and I was able to see the latest in the line of “Avengers” set up movies, “Thor”.

THOR

“Thor” as a movie seems like it really shouldn’t work.  It goes between the mythical world of Asgard and Earth, it has larger than life characters, and it  does  the whole “fish out of water” story that we’ve seen hundreds of times, but despite all of these factors working against it, it turned out to be a mighty entertaining movie.  Warning…spoilers ahead!

“Thor” starts, in earnest, very similar to “The Fellowship of the Ring” as it allows a lot of exposition in a short time frame.  I quite like this device as it was visually entertaining, got some action out there, and it introduces us to the true heart of the film, Odin.

It is soon after that we meet Odin’s two sons, Thor and Loki.  Immediately we get a sense of what the relationship is like between the two as Thor is the favorite and Loki desperately wanting his father’s approval.

After screwing the pooch pretty badly and thrusting the kingdom of Asgard into war, Thor gets stripped of his birthright and sent to the Earth realm in banishment.   

Odin adds insult to injury by taking the source of Thor’s power, the hammer Mjolnir, and sending it to Earth with the caveat that only one worthy of the power can wield it, making it all the more frustrating when Thor goes to retrieve it from the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and he can’t lift it.

Thor’s time on Earth includes many of the same “fish out of water” jokes as any other, thankfully it doesn't build the entire premise around how wacky it is that the guy is out of his element.  In fact, Thor gets comfortable enough to cook and teach the kind folks who have taken him in, the science behind his magic.

Back on Asgard, Loki discovers something about himself that is too much of a spoiler for me to give up and the information makes him freak out, causing his father to fall into a coma.  This part kind of didn’t make much sense for obvious reasons when you see the movie (size matters), but I’ll allow it as it helped set up the actions that allowed Thor to prove himself worthy of his position of Thunder God.

The only gripes I really had with this movie seem to stem from the fact that it wasn’t longer.  The scenes on Asgard are all quite beautiful beyond description, and are all more entertaining than most of what occurs on Earth.  I feel that there should have been more time dedicated to the budding romance between Natalie Portman’s character and Thor. 

In the same topic of the story needing to be broadened, the sudden appearance of Hawkeye seemed odd and tacked on, and I’m reasonably sure that it was.  

In conclusion, I really enjoyed “Thor” as a fun fantasy/action movie and pretty well done as far as introducing him into the world populated with more realistic super heroes.  It isn’t as good as some of those other super hero movies, as “Iron Man”, and “The Incredible Hulk” are better, but it is better than “Iron Man 2”.

3/5 Mythological Figures

One Little Spark

My earliest memory, and I mean EARLIEST, is of Walt Disney World.  I was four years old when my parents brought me to "The Vacation Capitol of the World" and believe it or not, there was only two parks back then.  Most people would expect that those memories would mostly consist of the Magic Kingdom, but the only things I remember of that park was the Haunted Mansion and the Main Street Electrical Parade.

My memories were of EPCOT Center.

I remember nearly everything  of my time in EPCOT from the Mickey Mouse comic book I got from The Universe of Energy to the Communicore.

My favorite attraction in EPCOT was Journey Into Imagination. When some people think of the Mad Tea Party and Dumbo when thinking of Disney World, I thought of Journey Into Imagination.  Specifically, I thought of a duo who was special to me, Figment and the Dreamfinder.

For those of you too young to know who that is, the Dreamfinder was the guide through our imagination and the creator of Figment, a tiny purple dragon who and, truly he was the heart of the attraction.  To me, Disney World was represented by the footage of the duo touring Future World, and especially the shot of them going through the Rainbow Tunnel in the aforementioned Imageworks.

I've always been of the opinion that the Dreamfinder should have a triumphant return ever since he was removed in the late 90's.

Fast forward to the present, and the grossly overpriced D23 Official Fan Club of Disney had an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Walt Disney World.  Part of this shin dig was a concert by Disney Legend, Mr. Richard Sherman.  Richard Sherman is responsible, with his brother, for writing many of the most memorable songs you have ever heard, including, "It's A Small World", "Zuckerman's Famous Pig", and a score of others.  With that said, it reportedly came as a shock to Disney management (some of who had never heard of this character), when Dreamfinder (played by the original actor who portrayed him in 1982) got a reception akin to a rock star when he made a surprise appearance to sing the iconic song, "One Little Spark".

Just watch this video and tell me that Dreamfinder isn't still a loved and viable character (at the 1 minute mark):

Insane, right?

Now i know that our pleas are probably going to go on deaf ears, but I still have hope that we will see Dreamfinder once more.  I mean, it is how we got the new TRON movie, by audience reaction.

So please, help this broke nerd relieve his earliest and most fond childhood memories by tweeting @WaltDisneyWorld telling them how much we want to see the Dreamfinder again and use hashtag #TeamDreamfinder .  Our collective imaginations might be enough spark this wish of mine.
 

I Have Gas

I have news for you.  Gas prices are going up.  Oh, you already knew that?  Then I suppose it isn't news, but Fox News sure thinks it is.

I was recently in the break room eating my lunch when the TV nearest to me flashed and a title card warning me of a "News Alert" appeared.  I wondered what had happened that warranted an alert of such magnitude when it just turned out to be another one of those stories that do every day telling us what we already painfully know: Gas prices are going up.

I understand why they would want to report on this, but why treat the situation as if it has never happened before and we all should be shocked by this information? 

I couldn't hear what she was saying, but the anchor had a smile on the whole time she was talking about this.  This isn't good news, so I hesitate to imagine what she was thinking while she was reporting on this terrible news.

Then they cut to some "expert" in the field, like they always do.   Do these experts EVER say anything that is different for the reasons behind the gas prices?  Do they ever accurately predict what will happen with the situation other than a vague, "It's going to get worse?"  Why are these talking heads necessary to explain to me something I already know?  It's as if they hired an expert guest to explain to me that the sun had come up and this is why and now I'll speculate if it will do it again tomorrow. (Spoiler: It will)

The whole time this is going on, there is freshly shot footage of people filling up their cars at the gas station.  Now, I did notice that a lot of people shake the pump before finishing up and that is news to me, but I know that the process for fueling my vehicle is.  Why waste money shooting other people doing it and then looping the same thirty seconds of footage over and over?  I know you have more.  I know over the years that there are entire vaults with nothing but footage of people shaking their dribbling gas nozzles into their tanks, so why not use that footage?  In fact, I would like to see this footage and I hope it dates back to the late 70's with people shaking their nozzles into a nice 70's Mustang and shaking their heads because they have to pay for gas that was a whopping $1.05.

I know this is a little off topic.  I'm broke and gas has a lot to do with it, but I just wanted to get this observation off my chest.

I get it news people, gas is expensive.  Leave it alone and report on something that we can do about it.

Watch this spot and hopefully, I can write my impressions of the Gears 3 Beta and the new Foo Fighters Track Pack 4 for Rock Band 3.

The Red State of Things

Working in a video store at the age of 15 is most likely the greatest thing ever.

A friend of my uncle has asked me to help work at the store and I jumped at the chance.  At this stage in my life, I loved to watch movies, but it reached fever pitch quickly as I was able to watch a few movies every time I worked.  It was bliss.

This is where I was introduced to Kevin Smith.

My uncle had convinced his friend to carry Kevin Smith's Mallrats.  Now this was a big thing because the owner never got anything that he had never heard of before and even them, he would only get one copy of even the biggest blockbuster movies.  My Unca (yes, this is what I call my Uncle) spoke highly of this movie and gave it his stamp of approval by calling it, "This generations Porky's."

So, on a slow Wednesday night, I popped the VHS (remember those?) into the the player and watched what became my favorite comedy of all time.

Leave me alone, I was only 15.

The best thing about Mallrats was that it reminded me of me and my friends...except the part where they had girlfriends and saw boobies in real life.  It also made me believe, for the first time ever, that I could make a movie.

So, you could say that Mallrats of all movies, inspired me to be a writer.

I bring all of this up because I had the fantastic privilege of seeing my favorite filmmaker in person to screen his upcoming cinematic departure, Red State.

Now, being a Broke Nerd, one of the ways that I attempt to be able to get the things I want is by entering contests and this was no different.  I sent a text to a code that was given on Twitter to try to get free tickets to the closest show to me in New Orleans.

I lost, but a week later the same code sent a text message to my phone telling me that I could get the $60 tickets at half price if I used a, rather obvious sounding, discount code.

I still felt that it was going to be too much, as I keep making a point to explain, I'm a broke nerd; however, the boss saw the hope in my eye as I explained to her that I would be able to see the flick and Kevin Smith talk with it for only $30 and my wife agreed as long as I could get a ride from Jayzus.

Jayzus, whose blog is available here, is a name that you may hear a lot of in this blog since he is my best good friend and writing partner.  We met forever ago when I was working at Sicily's.  He was brought in from the D'Iberville store (I think) and all I knew before he got there was that he was also a musician (which is what the blog I linked to was about) and that one of our co workers thought he was hot.

We became fast friends as our level of nerdom was evenly matched and so it came as no surprise that he was fine with giving me a ride to NOLA.

So after all of this build up, we had a pretty uneventful trip there, but it was kind of strange getting into the New Orleans area at about the same time that Kevin Smith tweeted that he had entered LA.

We stood in line outside the theater and I noticed that the crowd's demographic was all over the place.  There were kids who weren't even thought of when Clerks came out and older couples on dates.

Now this is the first time I had ever been to a movie with a Q &A with someone famous, but I was well aware of Kevin Smith's shows as I had seen all of them on DVD or Netflix and love the way he can weave a story.

He came out and explained an encounter that he had with the inspiration for the film we were about to watch, the Westboro Baptist Church and his buddy Malcolm.  Now I'm not going to spoil the story, but I can say that it was a greak ice breaker before the marathon of a movie he showed us...



RED STATE

Kevin Smith says that if you took his name off of his newest movie, Red State, that you would have no way of knowing that he made it and if someone had told you that it was his, you wouldn't believe it.

This is not true.

Kevin Smith has a very distinct voice when making a motion picture and I could definitely hear it when I watch this movie.

Without giving too much away that hasn't already been given away, Red State has been marketed to us as a horror movie from the first mention, to the SMODcasts that preceded it and followed it's making to the end.  This wasn't a horror movie at all, really.  I mean, there are some tense moments and Jayzus knows that I don't want to ever be in the situation that these folks were in, but this was more a straight action movie with frequent uncomfortable sequences.

This is one of those movies that start out in a bad situation and things begin to escalate to the point where you have no idea how it's going to end and how the "good guys" are going to get out of the situation.  The twist here being that I'm not quite sure if there really was any "good guys" though and this dynamic works because I could totally see something like this really happening and no one would be good or bad, but varying shades of grey.

A lot of people in the critic community have been giving this movie a lot of crap and I'm not sure why.  I can't help but feel that if Kevin's name wasn't on this movie, there would be a little more praise for it.

I'm not going to lie, I was entertained by this whole affair.

The acting was superb, especially by Michael Parks.  His performance seemed sincere and he was unsettling as hell because of it.  The script was well written and has all kinds of twists, turns, and surprises, one of which literally had me sit up in my seat and exclaim, "HOLY SHIT!"

The direction was the best yet for Smith and I HAVE to mention the sound design as it seems like a character on it's own.

For those out there who will suggest that I would like everything Smith makes, that is simply not true as I thought Cop Out wasn't that good.  It wasn't terrible, but not good either.  It just felt wrong.

So to summarize my feelings on Red State I thought that it was a very entertaining way to spend a few hours in a theater and I can;t wait to be able to watch it when it gets on Netflix.

Four Fundamentalists out of Five

***Tell me your thoughts!  Do you want more reviews with a personal touch or do you want me to just review the damn thing?  SOUND OFF