The Lunatic Fringe: Greatest Movie Ever?

Citizen Kane is apparently not the greatest movie ever anymore. But was it in the first place?

Movie Review: Les Misérables (2012)

I've made no secret that there were two major releases coming out on Christmas Day of 2012 that I was immensely excited for. One was Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino's slavery revenge action epic, and the other was the first big budget cinematic adaptation Les Misérables, one of the most beloved stage musicals in history. To my dismay, only one of them met my admittedly lofty expectations. And while I'd love to talk about THAT one, you hardly need my input to tell you to see a Quentin Tarantino movie. But I will anyway: GO SEE DJANGO UNCHAINED.

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

NOTE: Due to the release of this movie things are getting really crazy at work (the work that pays, that is). So I'm not sure when I'll have the video review of it done. Just in case it doesn't come soon, here's the written version.

Stephanie Meyer Isn't Through with Us Yet

On the eve of the release of the final Twilight film, just as thinking people everywhere are rejoicing at the news that we will never have to suffer through another one, a new trailer comes along to say "not so fast."



Yes, for those who had forgotten, Stephanie Meyer did in fact write something non-Twilight related: The Host (Not to be confused with the Korean monster movie). The story concerns a post-apocalyptic world where the human race has been possessed by body snatching aliens called "Souls" (gee, how long did it take you to think of that name, Stephanie?) Possessed humans are identifiable by their glowing iris's, because we all know how Stephanie Meyer loves her superhumans with weird eyes. Saoirse Ronan plays the heroine Melanie, one of the last remaining unpossessed humans, who is captured and possessed, but for some reason (if she's anything like Bella "you can't read my mind" Swan, those reasons will go unexplained) she alone is able to put up any kind of resistance.

I will admit, the premise is vaguely interesting. The basic idea is these two beings, one human the other alien, fighting each other inside the same body, and eventually finding some empathy towards one another through contact with each others memories & emotions.

Of course, being a Stephanie Meyer book there are two love interests, the twist apparently being one is in love with Melanie, while the other falls in love with "Wanderer" (the alien). This is of course downplayed in this trailer, the thinking supposedly being that Meyer's readers will show up no matter what, and making this seem as little like Twilight as possible will hopefully lure in any curious sci-fi fans.

The big tragedy here is the director of this project is Andrew Niccol, the man behind Gattaca who you'll remember me expressing a certain amount of admiration for in my review of In Time. He does have writing duties as well so maybe he was able to hammer out a decent script from Meyer's childish drivel*. But having talented directors didn't help the Twilight saga, and anyone who's seen S1m0ne knows Niccol isn't immune to failure. We'll see.

At any rate this is unlikely to be the second Twilight franchise they're doubtlessly hoping it will be. Meyer has yet to pen the promised sequel to The Host, and Taylor Lautner's failure at launching an action career indicates even the Twihards won't mindlessly follow anyone associated with Twilight wherever the go. I predict this one will quietly underperform and we'll never hear from Stephanie Meyer again...God willing.

*In the interest of fairness, I have not actually read The Host, I'm merely assuming it's childish drivel. Tried to read Twilight once, didn't make it past the first chapter before I quit in disgust.

The Best of 2012 is Yet to Come

2012 has been a pretty good year so far. Despite normally reliable stalwarts like Pixar and Christopher Nolan not bringing their A-game and an overall rather shitty summer, the normally unimpressive fall & spring have yielded one surprising gem after another: Cabin in the Woods, Chronicle, Dredd, Looper, ParaNorman, Beasts of the Southern Wilds, Argo, Seven Psychopaths, Skyfall, Cloud Atlas; and even the summer didn't feel so drab as long as Avengers & Ted stuck around for us to see over and over again.

And what's even better is that some of the most promising films of the year are still to come. Most of the country has yet to see Spielberg's reportedly awesome Lincoln,  the spectacular-looking Life of Pi is still to come, and this December will bring a trinity of movies that promises to make this the best Christmas in forever. Peter Jackson returning to Middle-Earth, Quentin Tarantino making a goddamn slavery revenge western, and most importantly: LES. FUCKING. MIZ.



As I may have mentioned a few dozen time, I'm a complete sucker for musicals, so naturally I would love Les Misérables. It's one of the most enduring and beloved musicals in all of theater. So believe me when I say that every trailer I see for this movie makes me jump up and down like a little girl.

Interesting to note that up until this particular trailer, we had yet to hear Russell Crowe's singing voice as the villain Inspector Javert. He was a point of apprehension among some of my Les Miz loving friends, as unlike Hugh Jackman he has no Broadway musical experience (though he has cut and albulm or two apparently, I've never heard them), and the fact that he was appearing only visually in most of the advertising suggested perhaps they weren't exactly proud of voice. This is the first trailer to feature said voice and...yes, it's not exactly great. Though I think is may be less of a problem than it has been in the past when musical movies have cast actors with no theater background who can barely sing. The big innovation that's being touted with this particular film is the method of recording the actors actually singing onset as opposed to lip-synching. This not only allows their acting to feel less wooden and deliberate, but also gives the singing a sort of raw emotional quality. Anne Hathaway's delivery of the famous "I Dreamed a Dream" has been featured prominently in all the trailers, and is very much NOT polished studio singing. Anne deliberately avoided giving, as she put it, "the pretty version" in order to give something more emotionally realistic. So basically, this seems to be a production where it won't matter so much if the actors can't sing particularly well, or if they're occasionally offkey because that's part of the point. 

SEE GLEE?! THIS IS WHAT A "REALISTIC MUSICAL" LOOKS LIKE!!

Movie Review: Skyfall

The James Bond franchise has been an omnipresent part of Western culture for longer than most people alive today remember. My parents were toddlers when Dr. No came out in 1962. And 50 years later it’s still going, and for all we know will still be going 50 years and six Bonds from now. Sure it’s frequently stumbled or grown irrelevant from time to time, but it’s always been there, which isn’t something you can say about many pop culture phenomena.

Movie Review: Seven Psychopaths

It often irks me how eager people are to use the term “ripoff” when it comes to movies. Any sci-fi horror film about monsters picking people off in a confined area is an Alien ripoff, any action film where the hero picks off the bad guys in a confined space is a Die Hard ripoff, etc. Hell, any film that just involves treasure hunting is automatically an Indiana Jones wannabe, as if Steven Spielberg invented the genre or something. And by the same token, it kind’ve bothers me that whenever a director makes a career out of crime films with witty dialogue, dark humor, and infrequent bursts of ultraviolence, then they are inevitably compared to Quentin Tarantino: Guy Ritchie is the British Tarantino, Joe Carnahan is less famous Tarantino, Troy Duffy is shitty Tarantino, you get the idea. So while I’m loathe to oversimplify Seven Psychopaths director Martin McDonagh as the Irish Tarantino, it is probably the most succinct way of describing him.

The Lunatic Fringe: Mars Attacks!

Happy Halloween! Let's talk classic Tim Burton...and how there is no such thing.

Movie Madhouse: Cloud Atlas

Best movie of the year? Maybe. You should see it nonetheless.

The Geek Chorus #6: Why Batman Must Never Kill

This is an issue that's been stewing in my head for sometime. It's was almost brought to fruition by that trailer for that horrible Batman fan film Suffocator of Sins, but the internet more than did my job for me on pointing out what a blight on humanity that was. I thought perhaps I had worried over nothing. Perhaps everyone already knew what I had to say and there was really no need to add my voice to the pile. But recently I met someone. Very briefly, we never got as far as exchanging names. He had just come from seeing The Dark Knight Rises at the theater where I work, and we were discussing the various Robins from the comics. To my shock, he cited Jason Todd of all people as his favorite Robin.

Movie Review: God Bless America

Today's film poses me an interesting dilemma to which I'm not sure I have an answer: To what extent is indulgence and emotional catharsis in film an good thing?

Movie Madhouse: Taken 2

Back for a pointless, ever-so-slightly xenophobic sequel, Liam Neeson is...the Taken guy.

Movie Madhouse: Dredd & Looper

Dystopian futures, badass gunmen, and heaps of ultraviolence. That's my kinda weekend at the movies.

The Lunatic Fringe: Judge Dredd

Charged with the crime of liking Batman & Robin, Joshua the Anarchist has been declared insane and committed to Arkham Asylum. Locked away in a padded cell, he will endure movie after movie as doctors attempt to "treat" him. He may not have gone in a madman, but he soon will be.

This episode, Josh will give his deranged take on the 1995 Judge Dredd movie.

Things are Changing on the Lunatic Fringe

Teaser for the next episode.

Movie Madhouse (The Series Formerly Known as Anarchy at the Movies): Resident Evil: Retribution

So yeah, I haven't been updating the blog like I should. Sorry about that. Anarchy at the Movies has a new name now. Enjoy.

Movie Review: The Expendables 2

The ultimate selling point of The Expendables franchise has largely been similar to The Avengers. Certainly they could not be more different in overall tone, and there is no continuity experiment at work. But at their most basic, they are both ensemble films offering the previously unheard of opportunity to see all your favorite childhood heroes teaming up in the same movie. For Avengers it was the comic book characters they grew up reading. For Expendables it's the action stars of the movies of their teens. But there is a reason why Avengers worked and the Expendables films absolutely do not. Comic book superheroes, whether because of their adaptability, their universal themes of teamwork and altruism, or their fantastical detachment from reality that keeps them from being anchored to one setting or time period, have a timeless quality to them. The Avengers was about characters that have been enjoyed by generation after generation of readers. It was a movie that touched that small shred of childhood innocence every jaded adult still has and taught us to cheer and have fun again. The Expendables, by contrast, is anchored unshakably to one long dead era in action filmmaking.

Joshua the Anarchist is Now on the Agony Booth

Last night, The Lunatic Fringe officially made it's debut on the website The Agony Booth. You can check it out here.  I'm honored to be part of this site, there are so many talented reviewers there. I look forward to working with them.

Walter Hill Made Another Movie

So I'm reluctantly sitting down to watch The Expendables 2, when a trailer for ANOTHER generic-looking Sylvester Stallone action movie appears. Between this and Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand, I guess these guys really are pretending their careers aren't over. So I'm watching this trailer, generic set-up, vaguely racist joke, blah blah...and then at about 1:08, with just four words they suddenly have my attention: "From director Walter Hill".

Movie Review: Total Recall (2012)

If there's one question science fiction cinema loves asking over and over to the point that it ceases to mean anything, it's this: "What is reality?" The limitless possibilities of the genre provide plenty of opportunity to explore the unreliability of human senses, creating false worlds and illusionary scenarios within each other to make the audience question their own memory and perception. How can you ever truly be certain that the life you know is real?

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

View the video version here.

Well, this brings back memories. Those of you who have followed me for a while may remember that 2008’s The Dark Knight was the first movie I ever reviewed. For those that don’t, please don’t bother bother looking it up, it’s not very good. I was very green at the time, and though I still am, I’ve changed considerably. I’ve grown out of my blind loyalty to the works of Christopher Nolan, & while he’s still one of my favorite filmmakers, I’ve developed a frustrating love/hate relationship with his Batman films. If you’ve seen my video “In Defense of Joel Schumacher” you know that while I consider both films to be very good, I also have serious problems with his approach. Let’s be very clear here: Nolan is not now, nor has he ever been, a good fit for this franchise. It simply does not mesh well with his sensibilities. Despite people’s assertion to the contrary, Batman is not a realistic character, and therefore he cannot comfortably inhabit the kind of pseudorealistic world Nolan has placed him in. Bale’s infamous voice, the horrible overdesigned costume and the resulting awkward fight scenes caused by Batman’s immobility, these are all symptoms of Nolan’s complete inability to accept the franchise on its own terms. His bizarre definition of what is & isn’t realistic still baffles me. Every film has at least one sci-fi macguffin: the magic water evaporator, the cell phone sonar nonsense, etc, and in films of his own creation he’s asked us to accept steampunk matter duplicators and mind-reading technology with little to no explanation, but apparently Batman is so outlandish that he needs to spend half a movie explaining his damn gadgets one by one. HOW DOES YOUR MIND WORK, NOLAN YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD?!

The Geek Chorus #5: The Uncomfortable Truth About Bat-Nipples

I want to thank all of you who watched & commented on my video A Defense of Joel Schumacher. I'm quite proud of it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the overall positive reaction I received. It seems people are ready to move on and stop anchoring Mr. Schumacher's entire career to one blunder. Many people also came out as fans of the film, admitting to enjoying it for it goofiness, and that thrills me.

A lot was left out of the script, mostly for being tangential musings of different aspects of the film. I originally had a whole paragraph on Poison Ivy and a lot more to say about Batgirl. However, there was one point I left out because it was honestly such a touchy subject it would've dominated the video, and potentially made it twice as long. It's a rather uncomfortable undercurrent to the entire outrage over the film, an elephant in the room no one really wants to address. I touched on it briefly, alluding to the "slightly homophobic" hate Schumacher had received over the years, but I downplayed it because I had no time to go into detail, and offhandedly accusing Batman & Robin haters of being bigots would have been absolutely the wrong approach.

Nonetheless, it's something I feel MUST be discussed at some point, if for no other reason than to just get it out in the open. I'm not here to accuse anyone of anything, only to address the more troubling subtext to how many people seem to respond to Joel Schumacher & his work.

So let's talk about Bat-Nipples.

Movie review: Rock of Ages

It appears Hollywood has finally found my Achilles' Heel. My kryptonite. My color yellow. My Aphrodite's Law (Look it up). I've mentioned in the past that I have weakness for musicals, that putting almost any movie to song can potentially earn it a pass from me. It's a gaping hole in my critical spectrum. Add to that an affection for 80's rock (but then who doesn't have one of those) ans you've got a movie I might very well be powerless.

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-man

View the video version here.

It has not been a good time to be a Spider-man fan for quite some time now. Between the comics going quite literally to hell, and Greg Weisman's excellent Spider-man TV series being replaced with a godawful Frankenstein cobbled together from various popular cartoon styles, it seems like there's nowhere left in the world where Spider-man doesn't suck.

So one would hope that The Amazing Spider-man could've been just the thing to change that trend. Sure, it's a corporately mandated cynical cash-in designed to retain the character rights from Marvel lest something as awesome as Spider-man joining the Avengers materialize, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It worked wonders for 20th Century Fox's new X-men film after all. Unfortunately, sometimes first instincts are completely right, and The Amazing Spider-man is every bit as stale, soulless, and uninspired as feared.

Movie Review: Brave

View the video version here.

If nothing else, Brave will stand as a fine example of Pixar’s willingness to try something new, or at least new to them. Once thought of as the male alternative to Disney Animation, due to their lineup of films about more generally boyish subjects, Brave finds them taking on the more traditional fairytale princess formula. It’s an unexpected & exciting move for Pixar, and under the direction of Brenda Chapman, who brought us the excellent Prince of Egypt, it had all the makings of a classic. Which is why it’s a shame it’s not a lot better. Not that it’s bad, far from it. Pixar doesn’t do BAD movies. All the same this is as perilously close to “mediocre” they’ve come since A Bug’s Life.

America to Once Again Miss the Point of Judge Dredd

I'm fond of saying that the 1995 Stallone vehicle Judge Dredd is proof that Americans are idiots, because it completely fails to grasp that the British comic it was adapting was a parody of American action films. From the looks of it, this new version hasn't learned that lesson either.

Anarchy at the Movies: Snow White & the Huntsman/Prometheus

Been falling behind lately. Here's a twofer to make up for it.

Movie Review: Prometheus

(Author's Note: My new job has me quite busy, and while it does allow me the ability to see many more new releases than I did when I was broke with nothing but time on my hands, it also makes it harder to get these made in a timely fashion. That's why I release these as written reviews ahead of time, just so you guys have SOMETHING.)

When the fuck did it become so hard for Ridley Scott to find decent writers? Seriously, since when does a guy with this kind clout end of with such shitty scripts to work with? Between this & Robin Hood, I'm beginning to think the guy doesn't even read his own movies anymore and just focuses on making them look pretty.

You see, like everything else Scott's made in the last few years, Prometheus is an absolutely gorgeous film. Beautiful set pieces, breathtaking cinematography, truly immersive especially in 3D...all of which fails to conceal the fact that the movie is just not very good. It doesn't really work as a prequel to Alien (oh yeah, spoiler alert, Prometheus is a prequel to Alien) in fact at times it feels more like a remake; a dumber yet paradoxically more ambitious remake but a remake nonetheless.

Anarchy at the Movies: Men in Black 3

You won't need a neuralyzer to forget this one.

Movie Review: Men in Black 3

At one point in his career Will Smith was releasing yearly summer blockbuster hits with such reliability that he earned the nickname “Mr. July”. These days though, that title seems less accurate. Think about it, his last summer action release was Hancock: FOUR YEARS ago. While still able to turn a profit with his mere presence, the man hasn’t really been a ubiquitous summer star since I, Robot.

So it’s perfectly natural that Smith would want to make something to remind people of his career's glory days and perhaps reclaim his crown. But making a sequel to one of his old hits ten years after the fact strikes me as pretty desperate. I mean what’s next? Bad Boys 3? Wild Wild West 2? Independence Day 2? (Ok, actually that last one might kinda rock) And worse still, he didn’t even bother to release a single for the soundtrack this time. I mean come on dude, I know you haven’t made an album in seven years, but honestly! It used to be even when Will Smith made a bad movie you still got a kick-ass music video to go with it. Instead we get...Pitbull. Ugh.

Top 15 Batman: The Brave & the Bold episodes

A few months ago one of my favorite cartoons of the last decade aired its very last episode. Batman: The Brave and the Bold was the best small screen adaption of everybody's favorite Caped Crusader since Batman: The Animated Series, in that they were both extraordinary good at being what they were trying to be, even if they were trying to be very different things. BTAS, which introduced what must constitute at least half the fanbase by now to the character, drew most of it inspiration from Bronze Age Batman, the era of Dennis O'neil and Neal Adams. BTBATB, on the other hand, is clearly a product of the Silver Age and the works of Dick Sprang. Wildly creative and oftentimes hilarious, this show was the very definition of Saturday morning fun done well. So as a demonstration of my love for this show, I've decided to memorialize it with a list of my top fifteen favorite episodes (because I couldn't bring myself to trim it down to ten).

Anarchy at the Movies: Marvel's The Avengers

The prophecies were true.

Anarchy at the Movies: Cabin in the Woods

Nothing puts a smile on my face like a stoner killing zombies with his bong.

The Lunatic Fringe: A Defense of Joel Schumacher

Josh takes on the infamous Batman & Robi--WHAT?! HE'S DEFENDING IT?!

Rewriting the prequels

So a few days ago, I left a comment on this article from Cracked.com about missing opportunities in fiction. The article mentioned, among other things, the Star Wars prequels and made a suggestion as to how they could be improved. Now like the entire population of the planet (and 30% of Mars) I too have had my own little "what if the prequels were good" fan fiction fantasy, and figured I'd take that opportunity to post it in a comment. Said comment has gotten some really great feedback, so I figured I'd re-post it here:

From where I stand, Anakin's fall to the Dark Side needed to mirror Luke's near-fall to the Dark Side in the original trilogy. The seeds of that arc are there (losing his hand, killing Dooku, etc), but there's no real focus on them and they carry no real weight. The Dooku death scene should have been at the end of Episode II or III to, and it needed to be treated with a lot more gravitas. The whole point of finale of Return of the Jedi was that if Luke killed Vader, that was it. Game over. He's on the Dark Side. No going back. Revenge of the Sith needed a similar scene where Anakin is tempted and, unlike Luke, gives in.

Personally, I'd have done it like this: first we relocate and expand on Darth Maul's role. He's already visually the most memorable thing in these films, so let's make make him an actual character rather than just a disposable hitman. He'd be the main villain of either the second or third film. He's cold, ruthless, and fanatically devoted to Palpatine. And he has one goal: to force Anakin to kill him. This was his mission given by Palpatine. He must pursue and hound Anakin, attack and kill his loved ones, assault everything he cares about, until Anakin's rage is so great that he takes his vengeance. He'd essentially be Legato from Trigun, a villain whose aim is to die just to torment his nemesis that much more.

So Maul appears in film 2 out of nowhere. He's deadly, mysterious, and no one in the Jedi Order can seem to stop him. He attacks the main characters one by one, killing one or more of them. Have a likable but dispensable supporting character set up from the first film for Maul to kill, someone that we can afford to lose but would mourn their death. Maul fights Obi-Wan to a stand still, and, in the final straw, tortures and nearly kills Padme with Force lightning. In a rage, Anakin engages him, barely in control, as Maul taunts him, daring him, even begging him to kill him. Perhaps this is the fight, where Anakin loses his hand. And at long last, Anakin cannot take it anymore and screaming in rage, kills Maul, who meets his death with a sadistic smile. He has won. Anakin's soul belongs to Palpatine now. He is a Sith.

That's his actual fall. The third film would be Anakin accepting his role as Vader. After all, a good man doesn't just flip a switch and become evil overnight. Perhaps he goes into self-imposed exile, haunted by what he did, wrestling with the blackness in his soul. He's eventually approached by Palpatine, who forces him to see the reality of what he has become. He has taken a life in anger and he can never come back from that. He is no longer a Jedi.

And from there it can more or less structurally play out like Revenge of the Sith. Anakin wipes out the Jedi, confronts Obi-Wan, they fight, Anakin get's burned, etc.

Hope you enjoyed that. And yes, I realize the irony in writing about this when I just recently berated my readers for not getting off the Prequel hate bandwagon, but hey, I never said the films weren't a missed opportunity.

Anarchy at the Movies: John Carter

A movie about 50 years overdue...and it shows.

Next Time on the Lunatic Fringe...

A new episode of the Lunatic Fringe should be completed in a few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this trailer.

The Geek Chorus #4: In Which I Defend Power Girl's Cleavage (While Trying Not to Sound like a Pervert)

DC Comics has gotten a lot of flack recently for their treatment of female characters, most of it very much deserved. The behavior of fan favorite characters like Starfire, Catwoman, & Harley Quinn since in relaunch last year have been more than just contrary to their previously established personalities, it's been outright degrading. These story decisions have resulted in considerable backlash from the online community, so it's understandable that the leadership of DC Comics would want to do something nominally pro-feminist to counter this and repair damage to their reputation. However, in the image above is their idea of making amends, they've clearly missed the point.

The Reviewaverse Saga Ep. 6

The 6th part of one of the most ambitious projects to be attempted by a reviewer is done...and I make a cameo! Seriously, this video is frellin' gorgeous, take a look.

The Geek Chorus #3: Confessions of an Ex-Prequels Fan

It's Friday. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace has been 3D-ified & re-released. It's been almost 13 years since this film first came out. And in that time, from the looks of things, not a single goddamned thing has changed. The fans are still angry and bitter, still hurling insult after insult at George Lucas & his creations. After more than a decade, it seems they can still find more things they hate about the prequels and are determined to let the entire world know. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few people light aflame a few more effigies of Jar Jar Binks to mark the occasion. I once rode the very same bandwagon for many a year. But at this point in my life, I'm starting to wonder why. I've been in a generous mindset lately, striving to, in the immortal words of Abed from Community, "like liking things." In the spirit of that, I'd like to share with you my experience with these three movies, because frankly, they don't quite match those of your typical Star Wars fan.

"The Death & Return of Superman" Breakdown

So I've been hard at work writing the new Lunatic Fringe episode (I might take a day next weekend to review Ghost Rider 2, but aside from that finishing this is my goal for the month), when I come across this little video that's been circling the web. And since it is tangentially related to the last movie I reviewed, I figure than enough of an excuse for me to rant about it.

See, the screenwriter of Chronicle was Max Landis, the son of John Landis. Apparently Max is a comic book fan (seeing as he wrote Chronicle, that's not surprising). He is such a comic book fan in fact, that he apparently got angry enough about a comic to make a 15 minute short film about how much he hates a comic book. The object of his disdain is the 90's publicity stunt known as The Death of Superman and it's follow-up The Return of Superman, as well as that weird stuff that happened in between. Certainly not masterpieces, but considering some of the shit that the industry pulled during the 90's, The Death of Superman was one of the relatively less crappy in my opinion

Landis however, does not agree, and is willing to devote a significant amount of his time and resources to letting the world know. The video is overall pretty hilarious and well put together. However, Landis has billed this thing as "somewhat-mostly-accurate educational parody film" and it's that educational part I have beef with. All comedy aside, Landis does have an actual point to make, and the problem is that point is completely asinine. I probably should just ignore it and get on with my life, but it's been stuck in my head for the past few days, and honestly I just need to vent my thoughts so I can get back to work. So join me in this minute to minute breakdown of the entire film after the jump.

Anarchy at the Movies: Chronicle

The found footage movie for people who hate found footage movies.

Anarchy at the Movies: Top 10 Best Films of 2011

Josh finally lists his top 10 movies of 2011.

And Not a Single Fuck was Given that Day

Hat-tip: Cinema Blend

So, apparently J.J. Abrams has finally elected to get off his ass and make the damn Star Trek sequel. Hear that, JJ? That's the sound of no one caring. It never ceases to amuse me how, despite the ludicrously high praise the first film received and the disturbing number of fans defending it as "just what was needed to bring the franchise back", the hype for a follow-up to this now 3-year old film has been virtually nonexistent. "Mild curiosity" seems a overly generous way to describe the fans reactions every time a casting rumor or story clue is released. Sorry defenders but this movie most certainly did not "bring the franchise back". Your argument is invalid.

In fact, the emotion I'm most sensing from the fans with regard to this film is fear; fear that they'll be stupid enough the make Khan Noonien Singh the villain. Fortunately that seems not to be the case at the point, meaning the internet community can return to their default state of complete apathy on the subject. Honestly, the only thing that has me the slightest bit interested it finding out who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing. The common belief is that he's playing a villain, but he hardly seems the Khan type, nor does he seem a likely choice to play a Klingon baddie. I could easily see him as a Romulan commander (an actual Romulan, not those tattooed thugs from the last one that might as well have been Klingons), but they already did the Romulans. It'd be amusing to see him play Q, or Trelane if they wanna stick with TOS characters, but that seems unlikely. The old "crew jerked around by a playful, omnipotent asshole" is not a very cinematic plot. Though if they are insisting on sticking to TOS characters, the question must be asked: Why? They've already said "fuck off" to the continuity, there's no reason the Borg can't show up a century early now.

Crossover with Diamanda Hagan

I did a crossover video with Diamanda Hagan! We reviewed the dark Horse comics adaption "Virus".