His Divine New Year Resolution

What could a Divine Shadow who’s already perfect choose to change about himself in the New Year? I’ll tell you what:

I will not be suckered into watching any shitty movies in 2005.

This seems easier said than done, considering how deceptive 2004 was. At least in 2003, it was easy to tell which movies were crappy and which ones weren’t. When a body can see that films Finding Nemo, Another Shitty Matrix Movie, Bruce Almighty, and Cheaper By The Dozen made the top 10 box office hits of 2003, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this year sucked in movies. I mean, seriously – Anger Management? Raise your hand if you want to see Jack Nicholson act like an angry bastard and Adam Sandler act like a retard in a movie like, oh yeah, EVERY OTHER MOVIE THEY’VE EVER DONE. Only a complete dickhead goes to see more than one Jack Nicholson film. Why not just watch As Good As It Gets over and over again – it’s the same shit, and it probably costs less to rent anyway.

Nevertheless, in 2004, I was hoodwinked by classy commercials and deceptive advertising. At least 2003 had the good sense to openly display that its movies would suck. I wasn’t so lucky in 2004. When I wasn’t being ambushed by a nude Will Smith scene in I Robot, a movie that was supposed to kick ass, I was scammed into seeing that terror called Hellboy. And while I did manage to side step silver screen land mines like 50 First Dates, Johnson Family Vacation, Stepford Wives, and White Chicks, I wasn’t able to save myself from being utterly gang raped by Hollywood shit. Out of all the movies I saw this year, I only stumbled across two gems:

1). The Butterfly Effect

2). Spiderman 2

Everything else sucked, except for Shaolin Soccer, but that one doesn’t count, because I saw it subtitled two years ago from a bootleg DVD from a friend of mine in Singapore.

Following are the movies that managed to not only scar my brain, but rob me of 2+ hours of my life that I can never have back that I was suckered into watching last year:

1). Hidalgo: This movie should have been renamed “A Jackass and His Horse.” Ever since Seabiscuit, every asshole in Hollywood thinks he can make a movie with a horse and it will be an instant success. Too bad people who actually have taste expect more from a movie. All you need to know is that this movie is about a lame white guy pretending to be a Native American riding through a desert on a horse for money, all the while pretending like it is really hard work, even though it is the dam animal doing most of the work. Insert sexual tension between the cowboy and an ugly middle eastern chick, and you pretty much have a clear picture of what Hidalgo is all about. This movie sucks and makes me wish that Viggo Mortensen had died out in Arabia.

2). Hellboy: This movie was so bad that I had to create an entire entry about how much it sucked. Since it got deleted in the haxx, here it is reproduced in full:

I almost feel sorry for the people who wrote the comic book. It doesn’t help that the asshole behind this abomination is Guillermo del Toro, the same guy who should be shot for propagating the “goth vampire” subculture with his stupid Blade movies. Someone needs to tell the movie industry that their basic formula for comic book movies isn’t working anymore.

His Divine Movie Axiom:
Lame storyline + famous actor + familiar comic book characters ≠ good movie.

It really doesn’t. The Hulk should have proven that, but it doesn’t stop there, and probably never will. If there were Oscars awarded for “Least Character Development and Depth”, “Least funny ‘witty’ comments”, “Most Superhero Cliches Ever” and “Most Material Pirated from The Cthulhu Mythos”, Hellboy would sweep. If H.P. Lovecraft isn’t rolling in his grave, Mike Mignola sure is. And I am not even sure if they are both dead yet.

When will the big movie execs get it through their thick skulls that you can’t replicate the success of X-Men and Spiderman (and even those weren’t very good) just by getting high profile actors to fill the shoes of comic book characters that should stay in comics and off the silver screen? Then again, the very fact that Hellboy is already slated for a sequel pretty much proves my point.

If you haven’t seen this monstrosity, don’t.

-His Divine Shadow

There are two scenes in the movie worth seeing – the part where the giant evil alien god wakes up, and the part where the giant evil alien god is defeated. Those scenes, comprising a total of 11 minutes, compose the only parts of this movie worth watching.

3). Laws of Attraction: I think I managed to sit through this movie for about 10 minutes before realizing I was 15 minutes away from a permaneant boredom-induced coma. I’d go on, but I think I just threw up a little in my mouth so moving on…

4). Shrek 2: I think that the axiom of modern video game applies to movies as well: slick graphics do not a good movie make. The “clever” plays and spoofs on movies, Disney cartoons, and nursery rhymes get old faster than white jokes at a Chris Rock show. I wish I could say that this is an isolated incident, but it happens all the time with Pixar. Get a clue boys, your shit ain’t funny. Monsters Inc wasn’t funny, Finding Nemo wasn’t funny, Toy Story was lame, Ice Age was a piece of shit and so is Shrek. I wish people would get their heads out of their asses and stop praising a movie just because it has neat graphics and famous voices.

5). Van Helsing: If fake Romanian accents, clichéd lame villains, bony chicks, and a predictable storyline does it for you, this movie will rawk your sox off. If you expect more from a movie, you are in the wrong place if you are in the theatre when this movie is playing. Hugh Jackman hit it off in X-Men and I can see that he is capitalizing on his one-hit wonder by choosing to star in every bullshit movie that come across his plate. Hopefully, he will learn his lesson before he goes down harder than Nicholas Cage in just about every movie he made after The Rock.

6). Harry Potter 3: Before I go on, I should mention that I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books, partially because I find them to be quite cute, but also cos I want to bone the author. There is nothing wrong with the story – there is everything wrong with expecting children to be good actors and believing that a 500+ page book can be condensed into a two-hour movie. The Lord of The Rings was 1008 pages long, and that book, minus a lot of important shit, had to be broken down into three 3 hour movies and even that wasn’t very good. All I know is when I saw this movie, I red thebook recently enough to know what was going on, but long ago enough to realize that no one who hasn’t red the book would know a dam thing.

7). Alien vs. Predator: If you hated Alien, you will hate this movie. If you hated Predator, you will hate this movie. If you loved Alien, you will hate this movie and if you loved Predator, you will hate this movie too. This movie just plain sucked. Not even alien battle scenes and gore could have saved this movie. Who am I kidding, not even a titty scene could have saved this movie.

So far, the only other movies I have wanted to see from 2004 are Dawn of the Dead, Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, Chronicles of Riddick, I Robot, The Village, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Blade Trinity, only because I am in the mood for one more disappointing goth film. Oh yeah, and after that tip about the Will Smith ass-flash, I’ll be dammed if I am going to see I Robot. I haven’t been so appalled since Kevin Bacon’s dick ruined the otherwise awesome beat-off film Wild Things with Neve Campbell and Denise Richards doing some pretty dammed wild thangs throughout the film. I am so sick of this shit. Here are some tips, Hollywood, if you don’t want movies to suck anymore:

1). Enough with the bullshit chick flicks. They are about as exciting and creative as Lifetime and Family Channel TV Specials. Seriously, when I really am bored enough to sit through one of these pieces of shit, I can tell exactly how it is going to run, like I wrote the motherfucker. Some of these chick flicks are so bad, even my own mother was traumatized by them, and this is someone who owns a copy of the Titanic. I don’t really have a problem with chick flicks, even though I don’t particularly care for them, but give your audience a little credit. Women should be pissed that Hollywood thinks they are stupid enough to fall for the same dogshit concepts over and over just with different faces and different titles.

2). Knock it off with the comic book movies. X-men was okay, Spiderman was okay, but I am afraid that everything else sucked. Did anyone even see any commercials for The Punisher? What about Daredevil? Probably not, since even the producers thought it would be a waste of money to sucker more people into seeing their bullshit adaptations after the grisly demise of The Hulk. If you saw any of these movies, I feel sorry for you.

3). Stop making stupid ass remakes. Cheaper By The Dozen sucked the first time it was made. So did Stepford Wives, Freaky Friday, Ocean’s Eleven, and every other lameass movie that people decided to bring back from the dead. Some people just don’t get that the reason why those movies are dead is because they sucked ass. And why does Steve Martin even continue making movies? I think that after Bringing Down The House, he would have realized that any further publicity from the films he is doing will come at the sacrifice of his dignity, which has steadily waned since Father of The Bride.

4). No more “trilogies.” If a movie can’t stand on its own, it’s better off not being made. Ever since Lord of The Rings and Star Wars, every single movie has bought into the trilogy hype from Spy Kids to American Pie. And speaking of over-hyped lame movies, am I the only one who notices that a new “collector’s edition” of the Star Wars Trilogy is being re-released on DVD every six months? I am so sick of this shit. Star Wars sucked when I saw it the first time on VHS – anyone who buys the Trilogy for any reason other than to auction it off on some poor sod on eBay has to be out of his mind.

5). Mike Meyers and Jim Carrey need to be banned from making movies again. Ever. I’m sorry, but where I am from, acting like the same old “look at me!” asshole in every movie is grounds for the death penalty, or at least it should be. I am sick of both of these actors pulling the same old bullshit and acting like attention starved jackasses by jumping up and down on screen, behaving like total schizophrenics, and traumatizing young children by defiling classics like The Cat in The Hat and that Lemony Snickets Movie with their annoying antics. Sorry, Carrey and Meyers, I like you in Liar Liar and Wayne’s World respectively, but that bullshit only works once. Get new material or get out.

6). Political documentaries need to stop. I personally blame Michael Moore for turning something as serious as politics into sensationalized bullshit drama to prop up pompous pricks into a new tax bracket and to get them more attention that they don’t deserve since they don’t do anything really constructive for our society. THe way I see it, the most constructive thing Moore could ever do for society is to donate his own bloated carcass to feed hungry kids in Africa after he kicks the bucket when he has a heart-a-stroke and no doctor wants to help him due to his constant bitching and public indictments. But I digress. Political commentators and their documentaries are useless, not to mention boring. No one should be praised or revered for being a professional bitch. And now that Moore has had his time in the spotlight, other assholes are jumping on the bandwagon faster than Martha Stewart on the Reality TV hype. If one more person asks me to see “Super Size Me” again, I am going to share my Super-Sized fist with their colon. No one cares about boring-ass movies that “make a point.” If I want to learn shit, I will pick up an encyclopaedia. If I want to be entertained, I will go to the movies. Documentaries have just as much business being in a movie theatre as eunuchs do in a titty bar.

7). No more holiday movies. Christmas movies are like racist jokes – they are the lowest common denominator of entertainment that only uncreative jackasses use when they can’t do any better. Holiday movies have built in audiences and are a sure thing, even when they suck royally. Elf is an excellent example. That movie made me wish I had never been born, and yet people saw it because it was Christmas-themed. By the way, am I the only one getting fucking pissed with the “saving Christmas” plot line? To hell with “saving Christmas”, I’d rather pay to see someone destroy Christmas. I am still waiting for a movie in which some pissed off Jew who is tired of lame Christmas specials kills Santa, takes his shop, and turns it into a new toy retailer like Toys ‘R’ Us. Sprinkle in a few mutant dinosaurs and killer robots and you’ve got an awesome movie. I rule.

8). Enough with the sequels: if the original was good, the sequel will probably suck. If the original was BAD, you can bet your ass you will not pull yourselves out of the red with another crappy movie with the same title. Why do people even bother? It’s like smoking a carton a day after going through lung cancer treatment. Take a hint assholes, no matter how many times you make Scary Movie, it will always be a piece of shit. It’s stupid and no one wants a part of this garbage.

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Now, if you will excuse me, I have to mentally prepare myself for the bullshit slated for 2005. Out of all my complaints, that last one worries me the most. So far, the line up for 2005 includes, Son Of The Mask, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, The Ring Two, xXx: State of the Union, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Indiana Jones 4, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Rush Hour 3, The Legend of Zorro, Underworld: Evolution, Big Momma’s House 2, Die Hard 4: Die Hardest, Jurassic Park IV, Mission: Impossible 3, and The Transporter 2. Am I the only one more than a little bit worried about this? This whole line up seemed to be almost a joke when I first red it.

But that is not all. Crappy remakes include The Pink Panther, Bewitched, crappy Pixar is bringing us, Wallace And Gromit: The Movie, and shitty adaptations that sound as appealing as a gang-rape in a prison shower for 2005 include The Fantastic Four, Curious George, Chicken Little, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I think I am going to be spending a lot of time going out next year, but it won’t be to the movies. I mean seriously, we started the decade with great movies like Memento, Spirited Away, Donnie Darko, and Gladiator. Are things really so bad that we have gone from creative movies to lame sequels made from movies that sucked in the first place? We, as Americans, shouldn’t have to put up with this shit.

-His Divine Shadow