Over-Thinking Harold and Kumar 2

Last Friday I caught H&K2 with Steve and Addy, and it was very funny. I definitely laughed a lot.

H&K2 escaped the typical problems that sequels commonly face: repetitious jokes, desperate attempts to recapture the magic, ridiculous catch-phrases.

But what H&K2 was missing that H&K1 had down was elegance and growth. H&K1 was a journey of personal discovery. A step towards adulthood and the reminder that adulthood need not be torturous. That we can have our cake and eat it to- we just have to make our own damn cake. H&K2 did not have that growth, probably because the characters had literally just finished their growth.

H&K1 had a more humorous and complex view of race then H&K2 and really explored that theme. H&K2 was a more political film that spent less time touching on racial stereotypes and more time touching on Republican bashing and Kumar’s penis.

H&K2 fell into the greatest trap of movies of its kind; confusing gross with funny. The spunk in the face. The pot bag with a vagina. I could go on at length. I guess they felt that they needed to “push the envelope”, which is fine, but behind the envelope there needs to be a purpose.

H&K1 was incredibly well crafted. Roldy and Kumar, thwarted at every turn, forced to face the stereo types of race, the challenges of being in-between adulthood and childhood, and familial pressures figure some shit out. Every line had punch. Every scene was memorable. It was just elegant.

I liked H&K2, but it could never be my favorite movie. It lacked in the meticulous design and elegant planning that characterized H&K1. It was less anecdotal and more political. Less funny and grosser. The characters failed to learn or grow. In a word it was stagnant.

But it was still funny.

Being kinda disappointed in The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass was visually interesting and did not feel rushed, as I have heard people complain. The little girl was cute and the basic premise really very interesting.

But there was something sour and bitter in the movie. It isn’t simply that it was anti-religious, but that it was vague about the problems between the shady religious group and the regular people, causing it to look like the knee-jerk reaction of a person who believes that religious people are foolish and grasping.

That being said, there were neat effects and was over all satisfactory for a bland little family film for angry atheists. (Wait, that didn’t sound as positive as I meant it to. Oh well.)

(Lengthy parenthetical sidenote: I’m tired of atheists and liberals behaving as though anyone who is conservative or religious is an idiot. I’m sure that they’re tired of conservatives and religious people acting holier than thou, but that is neither here nor there. This film was blatantly anti-religious, rather than anti-corrupt power. And that made me kind of sad. I know that it is based on books that are also anti-religious, but I totally don’t care.)

I enjoyed the strong female figures. I enjoyed polar bear warrior fighting. I enjoyed looking at animals. I didn't enjoy the cliff-hanger ending (no doubt never to be resolved). I didn't enjoy the lack of character development. I didn't like the lack of development about the history of the culture or dust. I think that this movie could have been more, could have been better, but I don't know that I could ever have loved it.

And that is all she wrote.

[What] The [hell is] Happening

This morning I caught the $6 matinee of The Happening, and I have not yet figured out how to get those $6 back.

Specific complaints about The Happening:
1. Nobody gave a good performance. If Mark Wahlberg had performed this poorly in his first film he'd be in New Mexico doing whip-its in the employee lounge at Target. A good director should be able to coax a good performance out of a potato.

2. The dialogue was so incredibly poorly written. Not only where the actors forced to say stupid shit (ex. At one point Marky decides that they must run faster than wind. Good luck, Tiger, that should be cake.) they also spoke in an incredibly unnatural fashion (cute on West Wing, as West Wing is clever, not cute here.)

3. The music was awful. Both intrusive, and also not good.

4. The wind blowing the trees thing. So cheesy B movie.

5. The incredibly not awesome scene with Marky's high school class. Did any of these people ever attend a high school? Just curious.

6. The lack of funny. The hallmark of a great suspense/monster movie is occasional breaks of wry humor. (Additionally, where were the sub-villians, the yucky (or irritating) people that cuase mini-struggles that Marky should have faced. The ones you kind of hope would kill themselves with their own tie, etc. Creepy old dame does not count.)

7. The treatment of the whole plant scenario. I do not need to know why the scary thing occurs. Frankenstein made a monster and it is OK if I'm fuzzy on how he connected the nerves. Furthermore, how much better would the movie have been if while Marky was blundering through building evidence and creating and discarding hypotheses, we were learning of their validity with cut scenes from news or scientists? Half the fun of suspense movies is knowing something just before the lead finds out.

8. The whole bee thing. You can have bees or you can have trees, but you don't need both. Well shit, why don't you throw in some seas, knees, and keys.

9. Marky as the flawed hero. In order to be a flawed hero, you need to be a hero.

10. Copying one of the worst concepts in the remake of The War of the Worlds by using the plot device of the super religious hermit lady. Why include needless details like this? Something that the most recent remake of I am Legend did really well was bringing the danger to a psychological level. They didn't really even need monsters, they had Will Smith, alone in the world that he destroyed with no hope of ever seeing his family again. In this same way they could have had Marky and his wife and the kid struggling through a world where they would need to protect themselves from themselves.

11. When people don't like to talk about their feelings, they don't spend lots of time talking about how they don't like to talk about feelings. You get me?

12. Lost potential. This movie could have been good, it could have been fantastic. But it wasn't. I've found a lot of criticisms of Shyamalan's work to usually be weak and prejudiced. But this time have at him; this movie was just junk. There was not one remdeamable thing in this film, other than the most basic premise of a land-based red tide causing people to kill themselves. I love Mark Wahlberg, I love Zooey Deschanel, I love these sorts of apocolyptic horror/thrillers. This movie should have been Quiana-nip. I am disgusted.

I should have seen Kung Fu Panda, or The Hulk. Or stayed home and had a nap or mopped.