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?!