Things are slowing down here at The Movie Advocate. When I started this site almost 6 months ago, my lofty goal was one post every other day. Miraculously, until last week I think there are only 3 or 4 times that I didn’t meet that goal. So what’s going on, you ask? Am I burning out and trickling into oblivion? Am I going the way of 99.9% of online blogs and become just one more skeleton in the elephant burial ground known as the internet?
Hell no, bitches, I’m goin’ to Thailand!
As you can see from the picture, the elephant that is The Movie Advocate is alive and well. And there is a magical man kick-flipping off of its tusks, so that's a good omen for the future, you know?
And while it’s true that The Movie Advocate will slow down a little while I’m gone (No, seriously, I'm going to Thailand), Justin “The Couchman Cometh” Couch has stepped up to the plate and will be bringing you weekly or bi-weekly stories over the course of the next month or so. As I understand it there will be an increase in interesting guest bloggers as well. I don’t yet know exactly what that entails, so I’ll be waiting with bated breath along with everyone else. Will Justin trash the car? Will I come home and find that he’s turned The Movie Advocate into a brothel like Tom Cruise in Risky Business? Stay tuned to find out!
Odds and ends before I go…
The A-Team
Don’t let anyone trick you into thinking that the A-Team might be good. I’ve been humbug-y this blockbuster season and have sat out poorly received movies like Clash of the Titians, Robin Hood, and Price of Persia. So I did my moviegoer’s duty and settled in for the A-Team. What a worthless piece of trash! There are no actual scenes in the movie, just montages. Every sequence splices together the A-Team planning their mission with the A-Team executing the mission with some other random military-ish people cleaning up after them and exclaiming how crazy and out of control the A-Team are. Rinse, wash, and repeat about 700 times over the course of two and a half hours and I guess you have a movie. Maybe in wasn’t actually two and a half hours, I can’t be sure. The A-Team themselves do more talking about how badass they are than actually showing how badass they are. Sharlto Copley, who was outstanding in District 9, is awful here as the supposed comic relief. Literally the funniest thing he does is make a not very funny Braveheart joke. Seriously, Braveheart? Come on. On the bright side, there is a scene where they escape a blown-up plane by parachuting in a tank, and then try to steer the tank by firing mortars at strategic angles. So it wasn’t a total loss.
Birthday Mini-Movie Fest
We did a little mini-movie fest for my birthday last week, consisting of Road Games, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Stormy Weather.
Road Games has quickly become one of my new favorites. I’ve watched it three times in the last four months. If you saw the Aussiesploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood, this is the best movie featured there I’ve seen yet. The plot is basically Rear Window set in moving vehicles. Where they go from there is uniformly great. Acting, direction, music, plotting, staging, cinematography, all 100% on. This is a stone classic, and you’d be a fool to miss it.
Stormy Weather was recommended by Justin, and if that recommendation is anything to go off of, you guys are going to have a great month while I’m away. Starring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Lena Horne, this 1943 musical is light on plot, but heavy on mind-blowing musical and dance numbers. As Justin pointed out, it’s remarkable for a movie from this time to have not a single white actor in a starring role. Instead, Stormy Weather highlights the best of African-American entertainers circa WWII. Solid gold cameo performances from Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and a pair of incredibly flexible gentlemen really push this over the edge into greatness. I have a feeling Justin may want to write about this one, so I won’t go too much deeper than that. Suffice to say, if I had the time or energy right now, Stormy Weather would be my 3rd installment in the “Watch THIS Instantly” series.
Concerning Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2… Well, I’m working on an actual review of that one, and hopefully I’ll have time for one more post before I depart.
The Watching Hour Preview
I’ve approached some friends and fellow Watching Hour-goers about keeping the Watching Hour Preview alive while I’m gone. If there’s nothing here at the Advocate, however, you can always click on over to the Starz Film Center website or the Watching Hour Facebook page for the up to date schedule and goings on.
Trailer Time!
These look good. Maybe there’s hope for the summer yet…
Q: Am I going to Thailand to hang out with my good friend Tony Jaa?
A: Of course, dummy. I didn’t write The Protector 2 for fun, did I?
I suppose I’ll probably say hi to Ed the Thai Piracy Advocate while I'm out there... You know... If I get around to it...
Adios! (How the hell to you say Adios in Thai!?)
Ben