Live for nothing, or die for the 80's.

Rambo 2008 is a horrible movie that is completely awesome. It is a throwback to the 1980's low-story, high body-count flicks such as Stallone's own "Cobra" and the masterwork of the genre, "Commando". (Note: AFI did not place Commando on their list of top 100 films of all time, proving they are a terrorist organization run by Communist Nazis who kill whales for fun by shooting baby seals from a cannon at them.)

It's tough to review this movie because on the level of "art" and storycraft, we'd be lucky to test at a 3rd grade special-ed level (though it is surprisingly well-shot.) On the visceral level of watching scores of baddies dispatched in the most violent (and manly) ways possible, the movie is in fact rocket science. The "rocket" in question being one fired from one person into another person, blasting them to a million beautiful pieces. Therefore, I give this movie a unprecedented 9.0 and 2.5 out of 10.

Basically, all you need to know is that Rambo is living in Thailand, there are some fascist thugs up river in Burma raping women, killing children, eating non-dolphin safe tuna, and voting Republican (probably). Some do-gooder Christian Missionaries catch a ride on Rambo's boat, but end up getting captured by aforementioned thugs. It's unclear exactly why Rambo decides to go after them after playing reluctant hero for the first section of the movie. It was either due to an exchange with the cute blonde woman earlier in the movie where she laments people not helping other people, or the fact that there were some assholes up river that needed killing and Rambo was bored.

We are then treated to about an hour of feel-good carnage. The morals of the movie are so black and white, and the bad guys so one-dimensionally evil, I didn't feel bad cheering on their dismemberment with the rest of the theater. Ah, mob rule... The kills come via .50 machine gun, .50 sniper rifle (wielded by a mercenary bearing an eerie resemblance to Bear Grylls) knives, a large bomb, and of course bow-and-arrow. What is it about these action flicks that calls for bow-and-arrow deaths? (Think Hard Target, Predator, or... Deliverance, I guess.)

If you're in the mood for some nostalgic old-school action, I highly recommend Rambo 2008. Bring your kids so they can see a real American in action. Bring in a bag of nachos and dip them in the dialogue because it is dripping with cheese. Bring your girlfriend because you've been waiting to get revenge on her for making you watch "27 Dresses". This movie was entertaining and had a moral. The moral being: DON'T FUCK WITH RAMBO.

No More Beautiful Girl

For something in the vicinity of $3.00 American, the lovely heap of self destruction pictured here can be yours. Oh how tragic and wonderful this time of ours...

It was sunny in Mission/Pacific beach earlier this week before the rain came in. It looked very Summer-like, but felt somewhat January-ish. The main difference being a large drop-off in temperature and an equally large and possibly more noticeable drop-off of in the population of half-naked girls at the beach.

It's mostly local rule around the early months, with the latest generation of Skate-Slackers having more or less free run of the place alongside migrated vagrants and wandering Kerouac types who probably view visiting the city in the hot season incredibly pedestrian. A group of aforementioned Skate-Slackers sit outside the JBX (that's Jack-in-the-Box to you laypeople), where my friend Luis finishes eating and I try to figure out my new camera/phone/mp3 player. So far, I have figured out that I need to accessorize so as to fit in with the millions of people who obviously give a shit how up-to-date I am.

The skaters are probably at odds with the idea that with the throngs of hottie bikini girls will also come the hordes of tourist-barbarians to cast them from their kingdom. At least until it starts getting cold and we can do it all over again. Or maybe they don't think about it at all and won't until it's ten years later and they realize they spend too much time in analysis and don't skateboard nearly enough anymore. I think to myself that winter seems to have better sunsets than Summer anyway.

Seven-Leaf Cloverfield

I have braved the crowds of early audiences and returned with this review of the much anticipated Giant Monster flick "Cloverfield". The people in front of and behind us in line actually came to the theater to see the latest Uwe Boll movie(?) "In the Name of the King", but had exchanged their tickets after surviving its awfulness for a mere 20-minutes, average. Nobody warned them to avoid anything with Uwe Boll's name on it. The whole situation is quite tragic, really. Children could have walked into that auditorium. Thus, I propose implementation of the Uwe Boll scale of movie sucktitude. UB-1 being a shitty movie and UB-5 being either unedited footage of a rhino taking a dump or films actually directed by Uwe Boll.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to review "Cloverfield". On a scale of 1-10, I'll give it a 7. It had some good to absolutely brilliant moments, but I found the ending to be unsatisfactory and there were some elements that kept it from being great. The most glaring of which is that the entire movie is supposed to be edited footage from a camcorder retrieved from "the site formerly known as Central Park". This means headache or stomach turning camerawork, especially on the big screen.

They actually do a good job with the "Blair Witch" cinematography (Better than Blair Witch itself) and it provides for some very cool moments once the FX come in. Unfortunately this style of storytelling seems to sacrifice a lot the longer a movie goes on. Thankfully, the monster is big, but the movie is short (under 1 1/2 hours I think), so they seem to have understood they were pushing the limits of how much hand-held footage an audience is willing or able to sit through.

I think they could have cheated the footage more. It didn't have to be as jerky as it turned out. They could have used a little stabilization and given up some of the "realness". I mean, it's a 350-foot semi-humanoid monster attacking New York and we're already suspending disbelief with the idea that the person holding the camera wouldn't have just chucked it the second it slowed him down. Of course, he could have also used it as a weapon because the camera is apparently made out of fucking Adamantium and the re-forged Sword of the Norse God Odin. I'm serious. The camera was so tough they could have placed it on an RPG, fired it at the monster, and it would have probably killed the damn thing instantly.

Overall: Entertaining movie, possibly better as a rental for people who get motion sickness. Very good acting, with some unconvincing motivations. Cinematography is atrocious at times, with flashes of genius at others. There is a kick-ass song during the closing credits. There are no power rangers or "Zords" in this movie. Most people probably aren't expecting that, but I just wanted to cover all my bases.

"Wake up and smell the ashes..."

I feel like I've been in stasis for about four years, give or take. Like I drifted away from myself and ended up half-awake in a void where I could watch my own life in minute detail without exerting any actual control over it. And the honest truth is that I haven't really been able to tell if I was on the verge of slipping away or the edge of something more.

This isn't to say I'm out of touch with what I want to do, or even that I'm unaware of what I should do. Just that the doing of either has been difficult to impossible as of late. It could be laziness. I know at least some of it is. I should be creating. Movies, songs, stories, comic-books, and any other way humanly (or possibly inhumanly) to bring life to the characters and ideas that have been crowding around in my noisy, noisy, head since sometime in 1980.

But the void is warm, comfortable, and safe. It is devoid of ambition and therefore free of failure. You simply go about your business, waiting for the end of time and another Big Bang to send you on your random way. But this is the life of an asteroid, not a person. I have to leave it behind. I have to wake up. Wake up see if there's anything left. Or if there was anything there to begin with...