The Kung Fu Kid (The Karate Kid Review)

Before the 2008 Olympics, my wife studied abroad in Beijing during the months in which the city frantically tried to make itself as presentable and pollutant-free as possible so that athletes would not, as many eventually still did, boycott the Olympics for the sake of their own health.  While she was there, I studied abroad in Sydney, which you would think would be close by.  Turns out it was something like a 12 hour flight straight north for me to get there, but I did get to visit during my Spring break.

I do not share the love of China that my wife has, even after visiting places like Wangfujing and The Forbidden City, and even after proclaiming my undying love for all things Jackie Chan, but there you have it.  China has captivated my wife, and really, it's not hard to see why.  So long as the Chinese keep producing insane martial arts experts who like to star in action films, I guess I don't mind them, either.

I'm sad to admit that I have never seen the original The Karate Kid, though I feel like I have, given its pervasiveness in today's culture.  There's the "wax on, wax off" reference in one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.  There's the "montage" song in Team America.  There's even Stan's dad Randy singing the "You're the Best Around" song during his fight with some other dad in South Park's brilliant episode concerning little league baseball.  It's just one of those movies where you know all about it without actually having to see it, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Star Wars: A New Hope.  "Wax on, wax off" seems almost as ubiquitous as "I'm not dead yet!" and "Use the force, Luke".

This was definitely a Drafthouse movie: the pre-game show was full of clips from the original Karate Kid as well as nearly a half-dozen clips of old Jackie Chan fight scenes, the only two of which I recognized were from The Legend of Drunken Master and the ridiculous mall scene from Police Story - you know, the one where Jackie jumps off the rail five stories up, grabs a pole, slides down it until it ends with a storey to go, and then freefalls down on top of a little vendor stand in a cloud of dust.  As icing on the ocular cake (sounds gross, eh?), a local martial arts studio did a demonstration at the front of the theater before the movie, so we all got to enjoy the sight of an eight-year-old boy swing nunchakus and a ten-year-old girl wailing on one of the adult male teachers.  I do love Alamo Drafhouse.

The new Karate Kid actually surprised me in a lot of ways.  For one, it's two-and-a-half hours long, quite the ambitious length for a family film.  What's truly surprising about that, though, is that it doesn't feel like it's two-and-a-half hours long.  The movie draws things out, sure, but it does it surprisingly well.  You spend a good chunk of time meeting Dre and his mom and establishing exactly why Dre grows to hate living in Beijing.  Then you spend an equally long time watching Dre train under the enigmatic Mr. Han, and then, finally, you get to the final tournament.  The buildup feels absolutely appropriate and very well-paced.

Another surprise came from a bit of pessimism on my part.  As you know, the movie is called The Karate Kid.  But it's based in China, which is patently NOT the birthplace of karate.  This would be akin to, say, calling Lord of the Rings science-fiction, or writing a movie about Shakespeare that has him being born somewhere in America rather than Stratford-upon-Avon.  My irritation upon hearing that the Karate Kid was to be based in China was considerable, partially because it's just wrong, but mostly because GoldenPigsy has instilled in me a considerable awareness of Hollywood's amazing ability to portray Asia as nothing but being full of acrobats who cry out "ching chow wai!", cannot pronounce their L's, and call their students "grasshopper".  Now, while the title is still annoying, the movie itself does make it very clear that the styles shown are kung fu, not karate (Dre actually argues with his mom about this because she calls it karate).  I suspect that the filmmakers were afraid to or legally could not call the movie The Kung Fu Kid because of its plot similarities to the original.  So, blame the lawyers for the continued dumbing of America with regard to Asia.

Actually, Pigsy, help me with this one: is calling it "kung fu" also slightly incorrect?  Kung fu is not an actual style but rather a sort of blanket term for several styles of martial arts... or am I just making that up?  Wushu more or less translates to "martial art", if I'm not mistaken, and kung fu is more the philosophy behind different types of martial arts... right?  Please tell me I'm right.  I'd love to be right on this.

Annoyances aside, I really enjoyed this movie.  There's nothing unexpected here - it's your standard "stand up to the schoolyard bullies" story, but it works, and along the way Dre - and through him, the audience - learn about respect, patience, and other virtues that help you become disciplined and wise.  All of the actors put in solid performances (even Jaden Smith, who has received considerable criticism from the yahoos on the message boards, though I can't figure out why - jealousy, perhaps, because Lord knows that I wish I could kick something being held over my head), and the soundtrack consistently matched the emotional feel of each scene.  The fights were pretty good, especially given that the fighters were almost exclusively somewhere between 12-16 years old, but there were a few random moments of wirework that threw off the realism just enough to shock you back into the theater and remind you that you were watching a movie and not, as it sometimes felt, standing in the movie's audience watching a real martial arts tournament unfold before you.

Easily recommended for anyone except Asian cinema aficionados, but be warned: if you take a child under the age of 12 to this movie, I can personally guarantee that s/he will spend the next several hours punching and kicking his/her way around town.  If the child is male, then increase the age range up to about 45 - higher, if he's in exceptional shape.

"The Untold Legend" (Robin Hood Review)

Robin Hood sounds like it has undergone lots of changes prior to its release this summer.  At one point, it was to be a character piece on the Sheriff of Nottingham, painting him in a more sympathetic light while showing Robin as a bit more of a villain.  At another point, Russell Crowe was reported to play both Robin AND the Sheriff.  At least seven different actresses have been attached to the role of Miriam, and about four different directors as well.

Given all this interesting buzz, the final product could be considered something of a letdown.  Robin Hood is a tale about how the legend came to be in the first place.  It is, essentially, a prequel to all the other Robin Hood films, even though Russell Crowe is now the oldest guy (at 45) to ever play the merry prince of thieves.  It has the good sense of NOT claiming to be historically accurate like King Arthur did.  I had to laugh at all the previews, though, where they claim that this is the "untold story" of Robin Hood.  I'm sure Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, and Cary Elwes (just to name a few) would disagree, but in a sense, this made me all the more curious to see the movie, so I guess their advertising worked, if only in a "let's see how bad this is" kind of way.

My wife summed Robin Hood up best when she said, "Basically, take everything you've ever known about Robin Hood and forget it, and you actually have a pretty enjoyable movie!"  I am inclined to agree.  Robin is a regular old archer in the service of King Richard during the crusades, but events that fall during their return to England force him and some buddies to take matters into their own hands and become more than simple soldiers.  Without giving away too much, it's almost like they wrote a script about Crusade-era England & France and THEN decided to change the names to make it a story about Robin Hood.

One problem with Robin Hood is that there's not really anything to help it stand out amongst other period pieces.  The plot twists and turns pretty well, and the portrayal of Prince John was especially interesting (though, as IGN's review of Robin Hood pointed out, it felt like he got more screen time than Robin himself), but in the end it's quite the forgettable movie.  It's the politics of Gladiator without the arena.

In fact, some of Professor Goodtime's friends have taken to calling this film Gladiator 2, but I disagree.  I think Kingdom of Heaven 2: Back in the Habit is more appropriate.  Ridley Scott is the director behind this movie.  His past credits include both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, and it shows.  In all seriousness, this could have been a sequel to Kingdom of Heaven.  It takes place towards the end of King Richard's crusades, and it uses the same crappy action camera that I positively despise - you know, the kind where action scenes look like they're shot by an extra with Parkinson's.  Everything is so shaky that you can't tell what's going on.  I think that it's supposed to represent the confusion that is a large melee battle, but to me it only represents a director's inability to figure out interesting choreography to display onscreen.  Don't see this film if you're expecting exciting, followable action.  You'll only be disappointed, just as you probably were in Kingdom of Heaven.

It's also worth noting that Robin Hood had a mammoth "What the hell!?" moment in the final battle.  I don't think I can say much more without giving it away, but when you see it, you'll know.  What. The. Hell.

I'd recommend a rental - like I said, it isn't actually a bad movie, just not a great one - but if you're looking for some good old "steal from the rich to give to the needy ("he takes a wee percentage" - "but I'm not greedy!") action, you had best stick with the historically-accurate classics: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Cattastrophy, or Redonkulous? (Shrek Forever After Review)

Soon after the third Shrek film was released, I heard that Dreamworks had already planned not only a fourth but also a fifth film for the series.  I don't recall the details, but the fifth was set to be the last, which seemed odd to me.  We Westerners love trilogies, so to end a series with five feels incomplete.  Perhaps the filmmakers hoped that perhaps they could come back to revisit the series, say, 10-20 years after the fifth film was released to make a sixth - and "final" - Shrek adventure, but that's purely a guess.

So you can understand my surprise when Shrek Forever After began its advertising campaign as the "final Shrek movie".  My guess is that Dreamworks saw how poorly Shrek the Third performed in theaters and guessed (rightly) that the series is getting tired.

The result is a film that manages to redeem the franchise by taking it back to what made it so good originally: the excellent characters.  While the first two films built the main characters up into the complex, highly lovable creatures that they are, the third cheapened them severely by throwing them into a lame storyline with even lamer jokes, none of which really had anything to do with the characters themselves.  Shrek the Third's plot revolved around securing Artie (King Arthur - what a plot twist!) as the new ruler after Fiona's father passes away.  This placed Shrek, Donkey, and Puss - the ones out to find Artie - squarely on the outside of the story.  They themselves don't have anything to do with Artie or his destiny.  They're just delivery boys, and the film suffered for it.  What we ended up with was an unfunny film featuring Shrek that doesn't actually have that much to do with him.

Honestly, Shrek Forever After should be the third and final Shrek film.  The ONLY things to carry over from Shrek the Third are that Fiona's father has passed (which is hardly even mentioned), and there are lots of babies running/flying around.  That's it.  Artie is nowhere to be seen, as if Dreamworks is hoping that you'll just forget that Shrek the Third ever happened.  I am pleased to say that Shrek Forever After makes forgetting Shrek the Third entirely possible.

The basic premise of this latest installment is that Shrek suffers through a mid-life crisis amongst the monotony of raising three children and dealing with his celebrity status.  He longs for just one day where he could be a solitary ogre again, battling angry pitchfork-wielding peasants and generally scaring the crap out of everyone.  When he encounters a seemingly random passer-by, he is given that chance in exchange for one day of his past.  The whole thing is a trap, however, and now Shrek must fight for his very existence alongside friends who, in this alternate universe, have never even met him.

The storyline is, obviously, It's a Wonderful Life without Christmas, Jimmy Stewart, or Zuzu's petals, but that's beside the point.  This has always been a series about the characters: principally, Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Puss-in-Boots.  These four - particularly Shrek and Fiona, both of whom seriously lacked their usual star power in their last outing - completely carry the movie, even when other characters feel overdone (Rumpelstiltskin, the villian) or underdone (the other ogres).  What would the others be like if Shrek wasn't there?  What would Fiona have done if no brave knight on a noble steed had come to rescue her?  These are the questions the movie answers.  It's nothing original - I mean, who hasn't wondered what the lives of their friends would be like if they'd never been born? - but it provides interesting insight into the four central characters as you see not only what Fiona, Donkey and Puss have become without the titular hero, but how Shrek deals with their transformations.

I still say that Shrek Forever After is nowhere near the level of Shrek 1 or 2, but it's overall a good film.  Rent it first, then see if you want to add it to your collection.  If nothing else, watch it to try to erase the painful memory of the one that came before it.  Don't bother with the 3D, though.  I still don't understand what the draw is, but it added nothing to the experience, same as always.

What in the Name of Outworld...

Recently, IGN.com pointed me in the direction of a strange video on YouTube concerning a Mortal Kombat movie.  This struck me as odd, since I figured the MK series all but finished after their latest videogame - Mortal Kombat: Armageddon - did everything it could to put an end to the increasingly insane storyline that is the Mortal Kombat universe.  The two movies that were made in 1995 and 1997 varied from mediocre adaptation (the first one) to holy-crap-why-are-my-eyes-disintegrating bad (the second one).  Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was so bad, in fact, that I had been sure that no one would ever attempt another.

Apparently I was wrong.

The video (watch it here) isn't so much a trailer as it is an opening sequence, where we see Jax - and who doesn't love Jax? - as a struggling cop in a nasty, beat-down city chatting with a mysterious hand-cuffed prisoner about some different serial killers running amuck.  Each killer - I'll let you find out who they are yourself - is a different character from the MK series reinvisioned in what most people are describing as a sort of Batman Begins take on the series.  You're treated to a brutal, if not terribly well-coordinated, fight scene, then a revelation of the identity of the prisoner with Jax before the video ends and you're left wondering "when can I see this in theaters?"

Come to find out, the video was made by director Kevin Tancharoen as a sort of bid for the opportunity to make the thing into a full-length film.  Judging from the seven minutes that I saw, I'm actually all for it.  Look no further than my 2010 movie preview to see that the theaters are being flooded with remakes and reboots right now, but for me at least, there's something different about the Mortal Kombat series.  I personally didn't grow up watching The Karate Kid or the A-Team TV series.  My generation played Mortal Kombat and watched Power Rangers (which I hear is coming back) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, also rumored to be rebooted in the next few years.

Reboots and remakes are complicated subjects for me.  On the one hand, they seem utterly unoriginal, since you're really just taking the same plot and putting a fresh coat of paint on it to make a few bucks (like what Avatar did with Disney's Pocahontas).  They feel as though inspired purely by greed and ease of accesibility.  "Hey, Remember [insert random 70s or 80s TV show, like Charlie's Angels and A-Team]?  People liked that.  I bet if we tweak it so that it's young and fresh and relatable to today's audience, they'll totally go for it!"  Sequels are just more of the same.  "Hey, Shrek did pretty good at the box office.  Let's make another one!"  You don't have to make up new characters, settings, or plots, and instantly you have thousands of fans familiar with the universe of your movie before it's even made, thereby making them more likely to go out and see it.  The skeptic in me really, really hates reboots, remakes, and sequels that aren't necessary to further the plot (good example of necessary sequels: the latter two Lord of the Rings films).

Weirdly, it's the writer in me who actually welcomes reboots and remakes.  I enjoy seeing what contemporary writers do with existing material: what audience do they target, how does that affect the feel of the film, how do the characters or settings change - and, if so, why?  How does modern technology change the special effects (see Clash of the Titans for your answer there)?  How abstract does the director get in his adaptation?  The list goes on.  I can't help it.  Reboots and remakes, though I find them morally unappealing, are simply irrisistable.  Guess I'm addicted.

We'll see what becomes of this Mortal Kombat video.  Warner Brothers apparently has the rights to another movie, and the director of this YouTube video is buddies with the screenwriter attached to WB's film, so maybe he'll get his wish.  I read some of Tancharoen's commentary on the YouTube short, and he sounds like he really has his act together on making a Mortal Kombat film that far surpasses the crap from the 1990s while maintaining the spirit of the games.  Were I Ed Boon, I'd pay this director much consideration.  Taking something as wildly violent and over-the-top as the Mortal Kombat universe and uppercutting it into the world of realism may actually boost the series into respectability, much as Christopher Nolan did with Batman.

Of course, the debate as to whether or not Mortal Kombat NEEDS a dose of realism is an entirely different beast, and right now, I just don't have the stomach for it.  I'm gonna go watch this video instead.

NOTE: Within minutes of writing this, I went on IGN and saw a trailer for a new Mortal Kombat game that looks like it's done in the 2D playing style of Marvel vs. Capcom with the 3D graphics of the past few MK games.  How's that for weird timing?  Oh wait, E3's going on.

Oh Noes! My Summer!

Thanks to a long and very uninteresting story that ends with me having been two hours short of officially graduating for some time now, I have enrolled in a summer school course that will last through the end of June.

Because of this, I'll be spending this month primarily reading a textbook, so you probably won't see any book reviews until July, with the exception of one book that I read recently that I just haven't reviewed quite yet.  I'm still pretty drained from The Knight and The Wizard, so I've been reading some books (In a Sunburnt Country, by Bill Bryson - known as Down Under internationally - and Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell) that are only considered fiction by people who don't believe in traveling or the human brain.  Both are excellent, by the way, but since they've nothing to do with sci-fi or fantasy, I don't feel the need to review them on this blog.

Anyway, my focus for the next month will be on the horde of movies I've yet to see/review; namely, Robin Hood, Shrek Forever After, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Splice, A-Team, The Karate Kid, Jonah Hex, Toy Story 3, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  I'll have my work cut out for me, it would seem.

Also, another quick update for my 2010 movie preview.  Red Dawn, which was set to come out November 24, has been pushed back because its studio, MGM, is, shall we say, having some technical difficulties at this time.  I haven't heard of a new release date yet, but I think we can safely say that it will be at least 2011 before we get to watch a group of American punks take on Communism.

Stay tuned.

2010 Movie Preview Update

After writing my 31-movie preview (here!), I decided to take it upon myself to go and see each and every movie on that list.  I still stand by that promise to myself, but I can already tell you that it will be impossible for me to see each of those 31 films in 2010, as one has already been pushed back to next year.  Also, when I mentioned this preview post to a friend of mine, he thought it stupid that I wrote a preview for the year's movies in May and that I should only write a "Summer preview", and then later a "Fall preview".  Perhaps he's right, but the great thing about this blog is that I can do whatever the hell I want and don't appreciate the criticism on something that is purely for my own (and hopefully your) entertainment.  If I stumble across any other movies coming out this year that look interesting to me, I'll let you know, don't worry.

For now, though, here are some changes:

-Twilight: Eclipse comes out June 30, not July 2.  Now you can sleep at night.

-Vanessa Hudgens' Beastly has been pushed back from July 30 to March 18, 2011.  Reports suggest that this is because the other major movie to come out July 30 is Charlie St. Cloud, starring the better half of the High School Musical duo, Zac Efron.  Funny how that kind of thing works out.

-I saw a poster for a movie called Alpha and Omega (currently slated for September 17, 2010) and almost previewed it here, but then I saw the trailer and want nothing to do with it.  I'll make up for it by seeing The Last Airbender about five times... per theater within twenty miles of my home.

Comedic Genius (UHF Retro-Review!)

A few weeks ago (I am seriously behind here), The Alamo Drafthouse held a special screening of what is perhaps the greatest movie to come out of 1989, Weird Al Yankovic's UHF (its only competitors were trifles like Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Little Mermaid, and When Harry Met Sally).  My buddy Professor Goodtime and I somehow managed to snatch up two tickets, which sold out so quickly (three minutes!) that Alamo  created a second showing of the event as a matinee.  It sold out almost as quickly.

Anyway, the event was at the excellent Paramount Theater in Austin, and was as thus:

-Pre-game show filled with Weird Al music videos, Al TV clips, Weird Al's television debut, and a fake trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story that looked to be in the same vein as Walk the Line and Ray
-A sing-along with Weird Al's top 5 most requested music videos (Eat It, Like a Surgeon, Amish Paradise, I'm Fat, and White n' Nerdy)
-Screening of UHF
-Q&A with the director of UHF/Weird Al's manager, Jay Levey... and Weird Al himself!!
-After-party at a nearby club with kareoke and Twinkie Wiener Sandwiches, Al's famous snack from the movie in which he sliced a Twinkie down the middle, put a hot dog wiener inside, sprayed cheese whiz on top, and dunked the whole thing in milk

Let me just start off by saying that there is no better way to see UHF than with a theater full of the most rabid Weird Al fans in Austin.  What made it even better, though, was that the Alamo Drafthouse guys who MC'd the event requested that we "treat it like a real movie" and not sit here and quote the whole thing, which was a huge relief.

What can I say, except that every bit was stinkin' hilarious?  The pre-game show was highlighted by some pretty amazing clips from Al TV (originally aired on MTV): specifically, two different clips where Weird Al took two interviews done by MTV of Eminem and Kevin Federline, respectively, and edited himself into them as if he were conducting the interview.  Go on YouTube and watch them.  Just type in "al tv interviews" and watch the first ones to come up.  You won't be disappointed, unless you actually think K-Fed and the guy named for candy-coated chocolate actually have talent outside of making trailer parks look like classy establishments.  The interviews are simply brilliant and show off Al's wit as compared to the, em, "turn of phrase" of Eminem and Federline.  Some of my other favorite clips involved Al carrying around a hand-held camera to different locations in which some kind of public sign was grammatically incorrect, such as in the first clip, where he stopped on the side of the road near a sign that said something like "Curves Ahead.  Drive Slow" and he pasted a little "-ly" on the end of the word "slow".  This spoke to the grammar Nazi in me, and I loved the man even more.

The sing-along was equally amazing, partially because the music videos were funny, but mostly because rarely have I felt as in my element as I did while sitting there yelling the lyrics to "White and Nerdy" with two-hundred similarly-minded individuals.  This crowd was perhaps best summed up by one slightly overweight, "I'm just starting to get into World of Warcraft" bearded, long-haired guy with glasses - probably a computer programmer - who came in a tee-shirt that had a picture of an octopus on it with ray guns grasped in every tentacle and eight "PEW"s written across the top.

UHF holds a special place in my heart primarily thanks to the band teacher at our school, whom I'll call Mr. Swift.  In 5th grade we were required to a take a trimester - that's right, we had trimesters - of art, one of band, and one of choir, and then choose one for the years after that, and two of my best friends - GoldenPigsy and our mad scientist friend we call Pilgrim - took band with this man straight through high school, so I heard plenty of stories.  Anyway, on days in which he didn't have anything for his class, or if he was absent or if they had just completed a concert the weekend before, he would play UHF.  Every time.  This wasn't the UHF that we all know and love, but a heavily-censored version (it was a conservative Christian school) so marred by Mr. Swift's increasingly wrinkled hands that the 97-minute feature could easily be viewed in a single 50-minute class session.  Anything that might be deemed inappropriate for children - ironic, I believe, since Weird Al's tastes seem perfect for them - was taken out.  Evidently we 5th graders could not be exposed to anything that might slip unnoticed into a PG-rated film.

So in actuality, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen the proper movie, but as soon as it started, everything came flooding back into my memory, like when I thought of Pocahontas and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest upon watching Avatar.  UHF's story serves mostly as a vehicle for the google of silly clips and scenes for which the movie is known.  George (Weird Al) is a creative genius with no outlet for his creativity.  He drifts from job to job until, out of the blue, his uncle gives him a run-down TV station to manage.  Over the course of the film, the station brings the community together in a celebration of local pride over the big, evil network station and its dastardly manager (played by Kevin McCarthy, who was known to burst out laughing after the conclusion of a scene because his character is just so gosh darn evil).  Interspersed between plot scenes are various commercials and clips for the different shows played on UHF channel 62: "Buddha Knows Best", "Druids on Parade", "Leave It to Bigfoot", "Strip Solitare", "Name That Stain", "The Young and the Dyslexic", and everyone's favorite, "Wheel of Fish".

UHF plays almost like a skit show like SNL, with a perfectly lovable underdog story threading between each scene to hold it together.  Every character is a standout in their own way, from Weird Al's scatterbrained fantasies, to Kevin McCarthy's outbursts at his son for not getting him a Rolex, to Michael Richards' spastic Stanley Spadowski, to Gedde Wantanabe's perfectly overdone martial arts master.  Even George's girlfriend, Teri (Victoria Jackson, an SNL cast member from 1986-1992) worked great in a strange, quiet nerd sort of way.  I can't think of any characters who aren't worth watching while they're on-screen.  There's so much personality in this cast that even the director, Jay Levey, entered the fray as a gun-toting Gandhi in the movie's trailer for Gandhi 2.

Even if you don't care for the movie, it's hard not to like Weird Al.  He's outlasted virtually everyone whom he's parodied.  He's funny without being offensive (except for those Al TV interviews, perhaps).  Anyone at any age can (and does) appreciate his humor.  All ages were represented at this event, without exception.  Weird Al is like the Disney of spoof comedy, but without the pretentious bureaucracy or the supremely retarded "Disney Vault".  Can you imagine a "Weird Al Vault", where you could only buy different CDs of his when he said you could?  There'd be riots in the streets, or at least on message boards, which is just as bad when you're a pasty white man like me.

Did you know that Al personally speaks with every artist whom he spoofs?  When he released Amish Paradise (a parody of Coolio's Gangsta Paradise), there was a miscommunication somewhere, and Coolio was not aware of the spoof until its release, and he was less than happy.  Ever since this little incident, Al has made sure that everyone is alright with his intentions before he acts on them.  But really, the spoofs are hardly ever any kind of attack on the original artist.  It's not like Amish Paradise makes fun of Coolio or anything; Weird Al simply took the style of the song and flipped it on its head for his own comedic purposes.  Like I said, he's brilliant and funny without being offensive.  Most of his songs deal with food, for goodness' sake.  That's only offensive if you're a head of cheese.

And he in person was excellent.  That wit is present in how he really is when he's just himself.  He has literally hundreds of Hawaiian shirts, not only in his massive closet at home but in storage as well.  He has a slight lisp when he speaks, which surprised me.  As the questions from the (I'm assuming) drunk audience grew more and more ridiculous, so did his answers.  He matched the questions blow for blow and always responded with the same level of sincerity as the question.  When asked how many Hawaiian shirts he has, he told us.  When asked if he'd write a parody for some obscure Alan Parsons Project song, he calmly replied that he's just waiting for it to get popular first.  When asked if he planned on writing more songs, he said that he had actually planned on retiring that night, but since the kid asked, Al decided that he would stay in the business and write more songs.  I want to be friends with this man.

Thanks for Keeping Austin Weird, Al.

A Throat-Rippin' Good Time (MacGruber Review)

If I haven't mentioned it before, here I shall again: I live in Austin, TX.  Possibly the single best reason to live here (if you don't like the concert scene) is a chain of movie theaters called Alamo Drafthouse.  These are movie theaters where each row of seats has before it a long counter, and you order excellent food that's brought right to your seat.  One of the best effects of having this kind of setup - for the audience at least - is that, if you aren't hungry, then no worries because you've just saved money: Drafthouse's tickets are cheaper than other theaters since they make most of their money from their delicious food and their large selection of beers.

The REAL reason to go to Alamo, though, is what I call their "pre-game show".  For every single movie, they collect all sorts of funny/cheesy/ancient clips from different shows or movies that have something to do with the movie that you're about to watch.  For Star Trek, they showed old, hilarious clips from the original TV show that included a fantastic montage of Dr. McCoy's "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [insert random noun, like escalator]!"  For Doom, we enjoyed watching video footage of a really terrible gamer attempting to play the latest Doom game.  For Harry Potter, we watched several clips of amateur magicians.

For MacGruber, we were graced with the showing of almost every single MacGruber skit ever shown.

MacGruber is based on a character developed for Saturday Night Live as a spoof of Richard Dean Anderson's popular mulleted MacGyver.  Each SNL episode to feature MacGruber contained three episodes roughly a minute in length each, spread throughout the hour.  Here's an introductory episode (sorry for the poor quality):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy_IxhLL5vQ

Each one began with a super-macho-kickass intro in the style of the Team America theme song, each time with different lyrics that set up the premise for the skit.  From there, MacGruber and two buddies - always a guy and a girl - find themselves trapped in a small room with a bomb that has "20 seconds left!!!", as the girl always screams.  MacGruber tells them, in a calm, confident manner, to pass him the various objects near them ("Vicki, throw me that rubber band!"  "You got it, MacGruber!!").  Soon, though, something goes wrong, like the skit in which MacGruber uses the collected items to make what looks like a Bloody Mary with a stick of celery in the middle, or the one in which he finds out that his estranged son (played by Shia LeBouf in a mullet wig) is gay, and general hilarity ensues until time runs out and, at the end of every single skit, the scene ends with a gigantic explosion.

Thanks to Alamo Drafthouse, we got to see practically every single episode, along with a ridiculous scene from a MacGyver episode in which he uses chocolate bars as a way of plugging up a sulfur leak.  I can't recommend this theater company enough.  The pre-game show provides you not only with some great entertainment but also some key background knowledge concerning the movie you're about to see.  On a few occasions, I've actually enjoyed Alamo's pre-game show more than the movie itself.

The fact that they could make a full-length movie off of something like the MacGruber skits is a testament to the writers, but in fact, the movie's actually pretty good.  This is a spoof and a glorious send-up to all of the macho-man movies starring big, muscley men like Ah-nuld and Stevan Segal as well as, obviously, the MacGyver TV series.  The plot is pleasantly basic - an evil mastermind (played by a pudgy Val Kilmer) hijacks some big missiles in Russia, so the US military brings MacGruber out of retirement to head a team of experts to take him down.

The movie's full of classic moments from your typical Rambo sort of film: the reluctant hero being pulled from a peaceful existence in some obscure South American village; the military general with complete faith in the hero from long ago (with sixteen purple hearts!); the young lieutenant who is skeptical of the hero; the dramatic return to civilization by the hero long-declared dead (one of the funniest scenes); the assembling of an impressive team of old friends who, when fully collected, walk together in a slow-mo shot in the manner of Armegeddon; the final, hesitant teammate who ends up being the most important; the continued trust in the hero by the general who should, by all accounts, put more than just three people on a mission that could potentially destroy the world; the "I'm going to tell you exactly how I'm going to kill you" scene; and even the overly-done tiger growl added to explosion sound-effects.  MacGruber knows its sources, and it exploits them to a degree to which most of today's cinematic spoofs can only dream.  Creators of Scary Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, and You Got Served, take note.

That being said, this movie is crude.  Just know that going in.  I haven't seen so many male butts on screen since Braveheart, and none of them had celery stalks sticking out of their cheeks.  This is very much an R-rated film.  I heard from a friend that she was at a movie where someone had taken his young son.  They walked out halfway through.  I was shocked that they'd even stayed that long.  But like I said, this is a crude, crude movie.  That's not to say that the jokes are cheap; in fact, some of the cleverest moments came from scenes of indescribable vulgarity, but that's just the flavor of the film.  It is what it is, and what it is is a film where throats are ripped out, sexual "services" are offered from one man to another, and the villan's name is "Dieter Von Cunth".  Yeah.

MacGruber as a character was just as he is in the SNL skits: cocky, confident, and utterly clueless.  He's narcissistic.  He dresses as though from the 80s.  He has a fantastic mullet.

He's the last person I would want on my team.

He has no friggen' idea how to make or disarm a bomb with common, everyday items.  Will Forte has this character down, and it shows.  Ryan Phillipe does a commendable job as the straight-man to MacGruber, and Kristin Wiig is similarly excellent as Vicki - straight out of the SNL skits!  The three of them made for a solid core to the movie, though Val Kilmer's portrayal of the villian was somewhat lacking.  I love Kilmer, but something felt a little off.  I don't think he cared that much about the role.  Then again, he wasn't given much.  Bit of comedic potential lost there, but oh well.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed the movie.  It's less offensive than anything made by Trey Stone and Matt Parker, but there were plenty of South Park-style moments where I kept thinking "I really should NOT be laughing at this."  And yet I did.  I did plenty often.  But if it makes you uncomfortable to know that this film contained the most absurd sex scene I've ever seen (in its own, special way), or that MacGruber waddles around with his pants around his ankles and a celery stick protruding from his arse (AND he eats it afterward without washing it first), then perhaps you should sit this one out and enjoy the slightly less-offensive skits on SNL.