The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Directed by: Drew Goddard

Starring: Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Kristen Connolly

Hey, neat poster. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the movie, but it’s pretty neat nonetheless. Now, for those of you who are going to scream at me about the “spoilers” I put in the next paragraph here: There are going to be “spoilers” in the next paragraph here.

The Cabin in the Woods is about a group of scientists or something who are responsible for gathering a generic slasher movie cast once a year to a cabin (in the woods) so they can orchestrate a generic slasher movie there. They do this to appease Cthulu or something, who I guess is a big fan of Halloween. I put “spoilers” in quotes in the last paragraph because you learn this information basically immediately, and it is not a big reveal at the end of a normal horror movie or anything.

Really, the problem with trying to do a tongue-in-cheek version of a slasher movie within this other movie is that they spend the whole film deriding the exact same dumb tricks they use at the end when it’s supposed to actually be scary. It’s a self-hating horror movie, and it feels like they just made a normal slasher movie and covered it with a grimy layer of smug satisfaction. If you think the idea of a movie telling you that horror movies are goofy is a hilarious and new idea, then you might as well see this movie. It’s not like you have anything better to do with your time.

The Dark Knight XXX: A Porn Parody (2012)

The Dark Knight XXX: A Porn Parody (2012)

Directed by: Axel Braun

Starring: Giovanni Francesco, Aiden Ashley, Andy San Dimas

Thanks to this site and the fact that reviewing porn parodies drives my visitor numbers way up, I find myself watching a lot of these fucking things nowadays. Sometimes it’s fine (so long as I don’t try to watch 12 straight hours of them in a row again) and sometimes… well, sometimes it’s horrifying.

Batman quit his job as Batman for a couple reasons. One, the Joker found out Batgirl’s secret identity and raped her, then shot her in the back, crippling her. And two, he caught Nightwing banging Poison Ivy, and really everybody should know what an extremely bad idea that is. Anyway, Catwoman convinces him to return and save his ex-wife from Bane, but it turns out to be a trap and Batman gets stabbed and his back broken. Oh, also there was a completely unconnected scene where Zatanna gives John Constantine a blowjob. For some bizarre reason.

So yeah, they made another Batman porn parody and chose The Killing Joke and Knightfall as their source material. If you aren’t a comic book nerd, those are two really grim stories about people getting physically and semi-permanently crippled… and then you add in sex, apparently. I think Axel Braun has gone mad with power, guys. Maybe he should lay off of the porn parodies for a while.

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld

Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin

Men in Black 3 was released and all the critical reviews are in: Better than Men in Black 2! That’s… that’s all anyone will say about it. I mean, it’s TRUE, but still. C’mon guys, there must’ve been SOMETHING else interesting about this movie? I mean, it’s… Men in Black… some more…

Secret Agent Will Smith must go back in time to stop Jermaine from Flight of the Conchords from killing Tommy Lee Jones at the launch of the Apollo 11 mission. Then he… no, actually, that’s pretty much the whole thing. Huh. Good work, me.

The movie was kinda funny, and it was pretty weird to see Jemaine Clement as an alien biker villain. Josh Brolin does a fantastic Tommy Lee Jones impression, but whether that’s worth watching a whole other movie where Will Smith says “DAY-UM!” a lot, I’ll leave that up to you.

Brave (2012)

Brave (2012)

Directed by: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson

Finally got around to seeing the latest Pixar movie and… well… it was fine, but it sure seems like the golden age of Pixar is at an end. The realization that this movie was pretty much directly between Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon really drove home how even the good movies (in comparison to the Cars franchise, of course) are second-rate fare. It’s too bad, but that’s just the way of things.

The princess of a Scottish kingdom doesn’t want to have to marry any of the suitors available to her, so she goes to a witch to get her mom to change her mind about it. Of course, the magic cake accidentally turns her mom and three younger brothers into bears, and she has to figure out a way to remove the curse before Billy Connolly figures out that his wife is literally a bear.

Yeah, it was a fine movie. Had pretty much the same moral as Tangled in the set design for How to Train Your Dragon, but with the much better Billy Connolly in the big Scotsman role. Not a whole hell of a lot else to say about it.

Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)

Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)

Directed by: Kurt Neumann

Starring: Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Johnny Sheffield

So back… a thousand years ago when jungle adventure movies were extremely popular, they made about a hundred Tarzan movies. Here’s… one of them! Completely at random! This is maybe the only time I haven’t tried to go through the whole library of a series chronologically. Hopefully this means I’m cured enough to re-integrate with the rest of the insane people at the asylum instead of staying in this tiny box.

Tarzan is hanging out at his jungle home with his son named Boy and his pet/sidekick chimp named Cheetah. Just in case you weren’t aware that Tarzan is a dumb guy. Jane comes to visit with a platoon of British explorers, and they ask for Tarzan’s help in finding a lost tribe of Amazon women, led by the scary gypsy lady from The Wolf Man. The explorers steal some statuary, and the Amazons are going to sacrifice Boy to their heathen gods as repayment unless Tarzan can get off his dad-body-ass and do something about it.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Amazons in this film. Fortunately, there is a fucking monkey and he’s goddamn hilarious. That little fucker has his own story arc, where he learns how to fish with a fishing pole but is bad at it, then continues stealing lit sticks of dynamite from the brits until he throws one of them in the water and invents dynamite fishing. That chimp came so close to blowing himself up like five times in this film, and if that isn’t a reason to watch something then I guess I don’t know anything about anything.