I Got Weekend Fat on Garbage Snack Movies

I watched a lot of "new" movies this week. I'm still finishing Desperate Housewives, but sometimes I need a break. I can only describe a few of these movies in the same vein as this girl describes trying the new Candy Corn Oreos. Garbage Snacks. Which might be my new favorite term EVER.

They fought someone who was trying to destroy something.

The Avengers:
Maybe I'm just late to the game on this, but I was bored. Which made me really disappointed. You guys KNOW how I love Superhero movies! What I learned in this movie was that I love the part of those movies when they are discovering their new powers, but when they already have them, it's kind of boring. Plus...what is Scarlett's power? Whoring around? And has Mark Ruffalo ever lost his temper a day in his life?  Anyway, I hung in there through the whole thing, but I'm not gonna lie, I checked out from time to time, and that's unusual. Feel free to talk me into watching a second time. I would be up for it, if you can convince me.

Strings Attached.

Jane Eyre:
One of the ways I love to connect with people is to watch the same movies. Last week, a friend of mine happened to have this recorded so I decided to watch "with" her, and sure enough the Chinese Internet Gods provided the movie! I've heard about Jane Eyre my entire life, but honestly, I just lumped her into that category of movie that I hate. I can see why Jane Eyre is considered a heroine of sorts. She pushes past a traumatic history and comes out on the other side. Her love runs deep. But this particular movie was hard to buy. The woman playing Jane looks like a child. And Michael Fassbender...does not. It held my interest, and was a pretty straightforward story. It lacks the cleverness of Austen's plots (yes, I just gave her credit), but I can see redeeming qualities. If any of you out there LOVE Jane Eyre, please, send me your explanation/defense of it. I need to be convinced.

What's your favorite meta movie?

The Cabin In The Woods:
Um. Ok. So...a meta "horror" movie. Love the concept. And I think I enjoyed the subtle (sometimes too subtle) shout outs to horror films and film-makers from the past. But....ugh! It's like, didn't Scream already meta the horror movie genre before meta was even a thing? With the exception the two teenage hunks (a Hemsworth brother and Jesse Williams!) the rest of what's good about this movie happens in the lab. The idea that you could manipulate a game-like horror movie, with the entire staff making bets on what will happen and celebrating accordingly is kind of fun. But at some point this movie goes beyond meta, beyond horror, and just gets so far over the top. I feel the same way about this that I felt about Black Swan. SO MUCH POTENTIAL. And yet, the overtness, the beating us over the head with the point kind of made it fall short for me.

A real human being...and a real hero?

Drive:
I have never been so conflicted over a movie before. I watched it twice this week and assigned it to several of my friends to watch so that I could decide whether or not I liked it through talking it out with them. Here's what's up. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan are amazing. Their chemistry is adorable/sexy in this movie. I thought this was going to be a movie about a man who drives a "get away" car, and that's how it starts. Gosling is perfect for that. His face is perfect for holding tension. But where the movie goes is surprising and a little frustrating. At times it felt like it was trying to be True Romance. It felt like it was trying to be 80's. It felt like it was trying. And maybe that's the thing that kept me from loving it. Critics have described it as a movie for hipsters, but who can even know...not like they would admit to liking it. And yet...even with my wavering opinion, I still think you should see it.

Have you seen any of these? What did you think? 

If I Could Be A Superhero, I'd Be Adele

Not only did Adele help you (and me, and everyone we know) through that last break up.... 
Not only has she repurposed plus size as sexy (I owe her personal thanks for that one).... 
Not only does she sing like an angel with an attitude....
But NOW Adele is also a Superhero. 


That might be slightly exaggerated. At the very least she is the catalyst of a recent medical miracle. Did you hear about this?  A 7 year old British girl was in a coma after suffering a rare brain hemorrhage. Her mother curled up beside her in the bed and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" came on the radio. The mom started singing and before long, the little girl was smiling. Now she's back in school and dance class. What the what!

It looks like she's an Angel, but this is really her Superhero cape...a nice soft sweater.

If this doesn't give Adele Superhero status, can we at least verb her name? 
Adele: 
Definition: To wake from a coma upon hearing Adele's music. 
Example Sentences:
"We were so glad she Adeled! It was really a miracle."
"The doctors said that short of Adeling, there was really no chance he would wake from the coma."
"The family gathered around and prayed for their mother to Adele."
"The people in rehab tried to Adele Lindsay Lohan out of her craziness."
(It's worth a try...)


So it needs a little refining, but if this kind of thing happens again, you mark my words, Adele is gonna verb. (And in a positive way, not the Urban Dictionary snarky way that pokes fun at her weight and her tendency to sing about fruitless behaviors.)


So maybe it's a coincidence, but you can bank on this: If one of my loved ones is EVER in a coma, I WILL bust out the Adele music so fast and sing at the top of my lungs with all the passion I can muster, "YOU HAVE MY HEART AND SOOOUUUL IN YOUR HANDS...." 


Cause you just never know...

My other super power is that I can burn rain.

The Commissioner Gordon Maneuver

POW! So much color. 

I love a good superhero movie. I have never been a comic book reader, but I know the movies I enjoy have a respectable and historical origin. One of my favorite series of superhero movies was the Batman movies of the 80's and 90's. You know the ones...Michael Keaton was Batman, Jack Nicholson was The Joker. There was enough cheese to honor the original TV show, with enough darkness to appeal to my adolescent melancholy. My brother loved them too, but since he is 5 years younger than me and a boy, I imagine it had more to do with car chases and guns.


When I was in high school and my brother was old enough to recognize actors and actresses, we heard about the game, 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. We never really knew the details of how to play it, and though I could make an educated guess, I can't say I ever really bothered to learn the rules. We had our own version of the game. We would name two random celebrities and connect them through movies. We would see who could connect them in the fewest "moves." In doing this, we learned perhaps one of the greatest connectors of all times. We called it, "The Commissioner Gordon Maneuver."

Holy Nipples Batman!

Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman and Robin were some of the most star studded movies of the decade. Now before you groan, I never said they were GOOD movies. I love them because they are fun, but there is no argument that Christopher Nolan's recent Batman franchise put these oldies to shame. Still, like I said, they were a fun middle ground between the cheese of the old TV show and the goth of the new Nolan movies, and they fit in perfectly with the excess and fun of that time period.


More to the point, almost every substantial star from that time was in at least one of those 4 movies. Just take a look: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Jerry Hall, Billy Dee Williams, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer, Nicole Kidman, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Drew Barrymore, Chris O'Donnell, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Uma Thurman, George Clooney, Alicia Silverstone, Elle Macpherson, Vivica A. Fox....and those are just the "main" characters. 

You look like an impostor...I thought Keaton was Batman!

The role of Batman and the villains changed from movie to movie, but one thing stayed the same was Commissioner Gordon, portrayed by Pat Hingle. My brother and I discovered that Commissioner Gordon was a surefire way to connect any two movie stars.


Want to connect Brittany Murphy and Diane Keaton?
1.Brittany Murphy and Alicia Silverstone in Clueless
2.Silverstone and Commissioner Gordon (we never called him Hingle) in Batman and Robin
3.Commissioner Gordon and Jack Nicholson in Batman
4.Nicholson and Keaton in Something's Gotta Give 
Boom.


Okay okay, so it's not always the most efficient way to get it done, especially in light of all the movies that have been made since we started playing the game 15 years ago!  But the maneuver can ALWAYS get it done. Upon reflection, it turns out that we could have just as easily used the "Alfred Maneuver," as Alfred is played by Michael Gough in all 4 Batman movies. But it doesn't sound as good. 


Of course there are other actors that this works with. Regina King, Kevin Bacon (the original connector), Clint Howard, and now with more epic trilogies in play, there are more simple helps like the "Snape Segue," or the "Jacob Junction." But as for me and my brother, we will always remember the Commissioner Gordon Maneuver as one of the defining tricks that helped us to grow into our obsession love for movie trivia.