Before I get to the actual reviews, let me get something out of the way first. Shut up, Mark.

Moving on.

Half-assed entertainment reviews almost became a regular feature this summer, but somewhere along the way I lost interest. Today I'm interested in it, and I've been watching a lot of zombie movies lately, so… why not?

First on the agenda is George A. Romero's "Land of The Dead." The fourth movie in Romero's seminal zombie series, Land is simultaneously both the best and the worst. Romero became famous, or at least sort of famous, for his 1968 classic "Night of The Living Dead." The landmark original was stark in it's simplicity. Sparse sets, black and white film, unknown actors… this was much like a very good student film.

He followed up a decade later with "Dawn of The Dead," considered by some to be the best zombie movie ever. Again, Romero chose unknown actors but this time he brought more money and a few more skills to the table.

In 1985 (I think, I'm too lazy to look it up), he closed out his "trilogy" with "Day of The Dead." A lot of fans found this one disappointing. I'm not one of those fans. To date, this was Romero's most technically complex film.

Twenty years later, Romero finally returned to add another chapter to the genre he practically invented with this year's Land of The Dead. I was an excited little dork when this movie came to the theaters. On opening weekend, Sister and I scuttled off to the theater to see what Romero might do this time. (Shut up, Mark.)

I was stunningly disappointed.

The two common features of Romero's three previous films were (1) incisive social commentary that focuses on different personality types and how they react to eminent death or even a collapse of society and (2) a near-complete lack of professional filmmaking skills.

Romero's films kind of sucked. But I don't really think of him as a filmmaker. Instead I think of him as something of a satirist who happens to (badly) use movie cameras.

The central focus of the first film was isolation and paranoia. The second showcased denial and consumerism. And the third, laying a heavy foundation for Danny Boyle's excellent "28 Days Later," dealt with despair and powerlessness.

Land of The Dead takes this a step further and deals with class divisions in the post apocalyptic world. The first and most obvious division is among the living. The wealthy live in affluence, safely ensconced in Fiddler's Green, a luxury tower no one ever need leave. The poor, which is of course almost everyone else, live in squalor in the ruins of a fortified city.

The second division is between living and dead. Romero builds on the sympathy he created with Bub in Day and makes Land's most likable character a zombie, "Big Daddy." He also continues his themes from Day by making many of the living less likable than any of the zombies.

When watching Land, right from the beginning I was impressed with how skilled Romero had become in the technical aspects of filmmaking. There were one or two scenes that were very impressive. Apparently Romero spent the last twenty years learning how to really do this shit.

Unfortunately, he also spent the last twenty years neglecting the satire and commentary that made his movies cool in the first place.

Because of the movie's twin subcurrents of class struggle, there are two main plotlines. The first focuses on a "Robin Hood as a bastard" type who's butting heads with the upper class. This plotline is the really stupid one. John Leguizamo steals a very impressive armored vehicle and uses its massive weapons to hold the city for ransom. Ransom. Money has value in the city, where commerce has been reestablished. But what the hell is he going to do with cash out in the wasteland? Eat it? Burn it? Sew it into hundred dollar bill underwear? Ridiculous. This one massive plot hole taints everything in the movie with it's foolishness.

The second plotline is far more interesting, but considerably more subtle. Big Daddy ends up becoming something of a zombie Che Guevara as he leads "his people" against the oppressive living. Big Daddy is obviously the most naturally intelligent zombie Romero has ever featured. Finally angered into action by the violent smash-and-grab supply runs on the zombie infested suburbs, he channels his energy and emotion into something of a shuffling assault on the city.

Although Romero used name actors in his latest film, he's not quite able to wring notable performances out of any of them. It's particularly telling that the best acting was from Eugene Clark, the more-or-less unknown who played Big Daddy.

It's Big Daddy, and Clark's portrayal, that stuck with me after the first viewing. This idea of a zombie liberator is clever and fresh, and in the end is the movie's most redeeming aspect.

Next in the queue is the 1990 remake of "Night of The Living Dead." Tom Savini, the make up and effects wizard from Day and the original Dawn, tries his hand at directing by retelling his mentor's classic original.

And mostly does a pretty damn good job of it, too.

Savini stays faithful to the spirit of Romero's original, but makes a few fundamental changes that leave this feeling like a completely different movie.

As you might expect, Savini's version features vastly improved make up. Gone is the "put some gray powder on his face and call him a zombie" look from Romero's older works. The gore effects are delightfully understated, leaving the focus of this movie exactly where it should be: on the characters.

The male lead, Ben, is this time played masterfully by Tony Todd. Todd manages to perfectly capture the character in a way that seems lifted directly from the original classic. If you could say that Todd is a star (which I would seriously doubt), then you would have to concede that it was this movie that made him so. As a fan of the original, it's just delightful watching the way he breathes new life into his character.

With the exception of an ending that is very different, but no less sardonic, the biggest difference is how the female lead, Barbara, is presented. In the original there's a very long sequence where Barbara is nearly catatonic, motionless and silent, as Ben chatters away about their circumstances and busies himself with fortifying their appropriated farmhouse. Unlike the original, where Barbara never really shakes off this funk, the new version features a Barbara who awakens to discover her inner Schwarzenegger. It's this new "girls rule" Super Barbara that contributes most to the new ending.

All things considered, this remake was pretty good. It doesn't supplant the original, but it comes pretty close on a few points.

And last on our list is the Australian film "Undead." Here's a box of clothes pins. Put one on your nose and pass the box to the next person in line please. This movie is a real stinker.

Undead is not just a zombie movie. You could probably call it a zombie/alien horror/comedy. It's a movie that can't decide what it wants to be. I think perhaps the filmmakers were trying for something that felt like "Shaun of The Dead" with its perfect blend of horror and humor. Undead falls far short of this goal.

The scenes featuring zombies are lighthearted, silly, and even a bit reminiscent of John Woo's Hong Kong style action. These elements almost make this movie a parody. But then leaven that with scenes of deathly seriousness (no pun intended.) It feels like the filmmakers tried for both equally, but in the end they achieved neither.

And aliens? What the hell is that all about? I shouldn't pick on the creative minds behind this too much. They tried something new and bold with what is otherwise a very simplistic genre, and I should laud them for it. But I'm not going to because the end result was so damn clumsy.

Muddle this mess even further with dreadful overacting and gratuitous ultra-violence and you have a Picasso of a movie. The individual pieces are lovely, but the way they're assembled makes no sense at all.

However, I did end up watching this movie twice. The last three minutes are absolutely incredible. But in every respect, it feels like something from a different film. The ending is somber, creative, gritty, and even a little artistic. I watched the movie a second time, looking very closely for hidden brilliance. I didn't find any.

Perhaps the studio fired the filmmakers and hired someone else to finish the picture.

I might recommend you trick a gullible friend into renting this movie just so you can watch the last three minutes without paying for it, but unfortunately the ending won't make much sense unless you suffer through the rest of it. At least wait until it's off the New Release list, or pick a night you feel masochistic.
 

And in conclusion, I'll just add one more thing. Shut up, Mark.

Ever since he first saw the preview, The Kid has been all charged up to see Herbie Fully Loaded. For the past few days Girlfriend and I have been talking about taking him to see it. When she was at my office this afternoon, we made plans to take him this evening. So 5:30 rolled around and she swings by my office to pick me up… with her nieces. Not really part of the plan. One kid at the movies isn't a big deal. Three kids at the movies is something else entirely. Unusually, things worked out well enough that it's not worth talking about it anymore. So on with the review!

The movie previews made the new Herbie look cute, but not like anything actually interesting. It seemed like just about any other bland family movie targeting the elementary school demographic. And the previews were right on the money. The movie was exactly like that. You don't need a review. You've already seen this movie many times.

Instead of talking about the movie itself, I'm going to talk about the movie's two big stars: Lindsay Lohan's breasts.

The twins' already impressive presence is enhanced by the fact that they're the only real standouts in an otherwise mediocre movie. These two completely stole the show. They lit up the screen every time they were on camera. I swear, the theater actually seemed to brighten when the twins were visible.

Here are a few stills of the stars in action:

Here are the twins posing for a photo after graduating boobie college. I loved this part. It's so appropriate of Disney to showcase how important higher education is to young breasts.

Here are Lindsay Lohan's breasts suited up for racing. They really showed amazing composure in these scenes. It can't be easy for them to breathe while being smothered under that protective equipment.

And here we see two of the supporting actors taking the twins for a walk while enjoying a few tasty, refreshing, and gratuitously placed Pepsis.

In one of the more casual scenes, here we see the twins relaxed and natural.

Here we see Lindsay Lohan's breasts after washing Herbie. The twins really look like they're having a good time, don't they? Who says you can't have fun on the job?

Lindsay Lohan's breasts have also really ramped up their acting abilities for this movie. They heaved more convincingly than in their previous outings. Their jiggling seemed more accomplished, more stately even. These two young actresses are really maturing. If they keep improving like this, they have the potential to become the best in Hollywood.

In the spring of 2004, a Washington D.C. woman was briefly thrust into the spotlight because of the contents of her eponymous blog, The Washingtonienne. We later learned that the Washingtonienne is Jessica Cutler, a staff assistant in the office of Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio). Cutler's blog was the scandal of the moment because of her blunt descriptions of sexual exploits with Washington insiders. Her blog was only online for a few weeks before she was outed and fired, but D.C. was abuzz trying to figure out the identities of the men she identified only by initials. Cutler herself was never shy about her blog. She's never named names, but she continued to maintain that the events described in her blog are completely true. (Her blog disappeared during the scandal, but has been archived here.)

A year has passed and Cutler's 15 minutes are long over, but this month saw the release of her debut novel, simply titled The Washingtonienne. I can only assume that the long delay between scandal and novel is due to Ms. Cutler's complete and total lack of writing ability. When I'd first heard about a Washingtonienne novel in the works, I assumed there would be some kind of ghost writer involved. I believed there would have to be some anonymous wordsmith to make Cutler seem like a literary genius. I no longer believe this.

I loved Cutler's blog when it was a current event. How can you not love a blog that imparts such pearls of wisdom as "a man who tries to fuck you in the ass when you are sober does not love you?" I believed that I'd also enjoy her novel. I no longer believe this either.

The book isn't much of a novel. It's more like a memoir. In fact it's really not much more than an expanded version of the blog on which it's based. As far as blogs go, this book would make a very good one. As far as novels go, this book blows.

In her blog, Cutler came off as punkish and arrogant. A lot of us use our blogs to bitch about things, so in that context her arrogance seemed normal, even a little endearing. The expanded narrative in the book makes her seem like the most vacuous human to ever walk the Earth. Having read the blog, I already knew the basic framework of the story. The fact that I liked the story is why I bought the book. The story itself is interesting enough, but Cutler's character is absolutely repellent.

Here are a few quotes that define Jacqueline, Cutler's alter ego:

"I knew something about posing for pictures: I watched America's Next Top Model every week and I owned Zoolander on DVD."

"It was a petty, immature thing to do, but I was a petty, immature person."

"If I wanted to be pragmatic I would have just worked as a call girl."

"Like I would want to snuggle up to an arrogant douchebag who made $30K a year!"

"I had reservations about letting someone from work butt-fuck me, but if he was game, so was I."

"Women! I don't know how men put up with us. Oh, that's right: sex. Otherwise, what good were we?"

" 'It's time to start making big money in the private sector.' With these magic words, Dan suddenly became potential boyfriend material."

"Well, duh, I'm shallow. Look [at the 'Sunday Style' section of the New York Times]. This is the first and only section I read, and I don't even read it, I just look at the pictures."

"Like, duh, of course I was immature: I was half his age! That's why he was fucking me instead of his wife, remember?"

I could go on. And on, and on. Nearly every page brought a quote irritating enough for me to want to cite it. My copy is already dogeared from the dozens of notes I made on every little deplorable detail.

The first three-quarters of the book is almost completely devoted to liquor and sex. Normally these are two of my favorite topics, but they're presented without anything substantial in between. Because there's absolutely no focus on any character other than Jacqueline, I had a difficult time keeping everyone else straight. I could tell you all about a scene, but I couldn't tell you who was in that scene. All the characters were reduced to sets of lewd actions, each indistinguishable from the one before it.

Despite the fact that nearly every word of the 300 pages is devoted to Jacqueline, that character is also surprisingly one-dimensional. She's been distilled so thoroughly, there's nothing left but an appetite for attention that happens to have a name attached. Reading the first three-quarters of the book was unusually laborious given the subject matter. I slogged through it with my eye on the eventual payoff. I imagined a metamorphosis, a life-changing realization, some kind of moral, anything. None of these imaginings ever materialized.

There was one brief moment when Jacqueline and her new therapist seemed on the cusp of doing something that might be satisfying to read. But then the therapist diagnosed depression and proscribed Zoloft. New drugs, same problems. That final 75 pages was especially disappointing when compared to my expectations.

There's nothing to learn in this "novel." There is no greater truth, no wisdom, no insight. The book is basically one very long drunken weekend. In part of the conclusion Jacqueline says, "I was prepared to leave Washington the same way I came: alone, heartbroken, but determined to get the most out of life while I still had time." I would say she's gone full circle, but that's not really true. There's no sense of personal progress at all. In one of the more memorable put-downs a former lover tells her, "You're the same screwed-up train wreck you've always been. Good luck with all that. Just leave me out of it."

Amen, brother.

Update: Wonkette has a new tidbit about The Washingtonienne. As you might imagine, Cutler's getting sued. She was served papers at her book signing. Nice. That must be a publisher's wet dream.

Wonkette also has a link to download a PDF version of the lawsuit. There's some interesting information in there. For example, this book's publisher, Hyperion, is a division of Disney. Sweet! That kind of makes this book Disney porn, doesn't it?

Update 2: Hipster sex writer women dig me for my mad Washingtonienne-bashing skillz. I know this because Lusty Lady at The Village Voice e-mailed me a link to her new column about Jessica Cutler.

True, she probably just Technoratied me and sent a cut-and-paste e-mail, but still, it's The Village Voice. Cool.

Update 3: Lusty Lady's stopped by a few more times. (Yes, hi! I see you. Say hello or something, won't you?) She keeps coming back to this post, so I'm beginning to feel bad that there's nothing new to read. So here's a new link for you all: Lusty Lady interviews Jessica Cutler for Gothamist.

For months now, The Kid has been really charged up to see Robots. At first I thought the previews looked kinda cool… until I saw that Robin Williams was in it.

Robin Williams is one of my favorite dramatic actors. He has that weathered everyman face, and always has a hint of sadness in his eyes. He was moving in Good Will Hunting. Unnerving in One Hour Photo. Inspiring in Dead Poet's Society.

Robin Williams also happens to be one of my least favorite comedic actors. I'm just not a big fan of that free-form, one-outrageous-thing-after-another style of his. He's very funny, but he never stops. That's a little irritating. Maybe even a little creepy. After all, when he never stops playing the comedian, you really have no idea what he's like, now do you?

So anyway, I imagined that Robots would basically be "the new Robin Williams movie." I pictured him being… well, him.

I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. There was just enough Robin: not too little, not too much. But the movie wasn't really his movie.

He had a significant part, but it was much more an ensemble piece than I imagined. The voice acting was almost universally solid. Strangely, the one talent that seemed out of depth was Halle Berry. Maybe it was the script, or the director, but she seemed uninspired. Her part could have been played by pretty much anyone.

Another bright note is the animation was a bit more polished than I expected. There was one scene, shown partially in the previews, where Ewan McGregor and Robin Williams are traveling in a sphere. Parts of this sequence remind me of Minority Report. Although Robots was a little better, actually. The high-speed travel scenes in Minority Report were just fine, but Robots combined the feeling of speed and precision in just such a way that it actually made me lean back in my seat a bit. During that scene and a few others I actually felt a sense of wonder. It's rare that any movie, much less an animated movie, can make me feel that.

All of my expectations were wrong. Robots is surprisingly good.

20th Century Fox's Robots

Saturday night I went to the movies with Girlfriend and Sister. We got our popcorn and filed in to see Constantine. I gotta say, I was kinda impressed. If you don't want me to spoil it for you, stop reading here.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Frankly, the movie was better than I expected. But of course it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. (After all, things are seldom as good as one hopes.)

The movie is the latest big budget comic book adaptation. For the uninitiated, the comic series on which the film is based is called Hellblazer. The titular character, John Constantine, is played by Keanu Reeves. A friend of mine once said that Reeves "couldn't act his way out of a nutsack." I still have no idea what that's really supposed to mean. How does one act one's way out of a nutsack? Is that like pantomime (walking against the nutsack?) Is the nutsack metaphorical? And if so, a metaphor for what? Can you act your way into a nutsack? Is the nutsack punishment for bad acting?

But I digress.

John Constantine plays kinda of a supernatural gumshoe, like Humphrey Bogart meets The Exorcist. In that sense, Reeves's acting kinda works for him. The character is supposed to be jaded, so monotone and expressionless actually plays pretty well.

I dug the story well enough, but there are a few things that I really enjoyed. The first was the supporting actors. Gavin Rossdale put in a suprisingly good turn as the demon Balthazar. Tilda Swinton was a lovable/hateable archangel Gabriel. And Peter Stormare as Lucifer was completely cool.

Most movies featuring the Devil portray him/her as suave and likeable. (Think Pacino in Devil's Advocate, Hurley in Bedazzled, Byrne in End of Days.) Not this one. Stormare comes off as really skeezy. You wanna wash your hands after you see him.

I also really enjoyed one of the ideas presented. In one scene, there's a reference to Corinthians chapter 17. The Epistle to the Corinthians has only 16 chapters. Constantine says that "hell's library" has a more complete Bible than we do. Which brings to mind a question: what are books made of in a land of fire?

But I digress again.

I liked the idea that there is more than we know. I like anything that challenges an established idea, even if it's an idea I believe.

So anyway, I liked the movie. I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. And maybe I'll read some of the comics, after I've worked my way through Preacher.

So I bought a copy of Saw on DVD this week. Pretty cool movie. I'd definately recomend giving it a look-see.

Although I really liked the movie, there are a few things about it that don't really work. If you've not seen it, and don't want me spoiling it for you, you should stop reading here.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I totally dug the ending, but am I the only one who finds it a little hard to swallow? Neither of them noticed the "dead" guy breathing? The guy has at least two different cancers and he didn't have to cough for eight solid hours? This guy couldn't make Cary Elwes's tape without coughing. And how could the guy use that little electrocution remote control without the guys seeing him move?

If I were to describe Saw in one sentence, it'd be "It's a lot like Se7en, except here the focus is on the victims instead of the cops." If I had two sentences, I'd point out that Danny Glover is no Morgan Freeman. In fact, he's not even a very good Danny Glover. This is probably the worst performance of his career. I was all set to pronounce him a has-been, until I read somewhere or other that many of the scenes in the finished movie were one-take dress rehearsals. Time and budget constraints prevented the filmmakers from doing unlimited takes to get everything just right, so they went with what they had. Now that I know this, I've stopped laughing at Glover. But still, this should be a lesson for him (and all of us, for that matter): always give it your all, because you never know what's going to stick.