P.S. I’m not going to add the trailer here because, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have watched the film (much less voted it Movie of the Week) if I had seen the trailer first.

I have a new hobby.

You see, I fixed up my bicycle over the weekend and have been taking it on voyages around the neighborhood. It was in a sad condition last year when I discovered it in storage — though by ‘in storage’ I really mean ‘outside, mostly unprotected from the elements’ — where it had been for around 3 years. I found it at the perfect time, though, as I have recently become determined to do more, you know? And bicycling definitely involves a lot of doing.

So, I fixed up my poor bike. In the beginning it was definitely off the chain — which those of you who have ridden a bike before know is terrible — but a little grease on the rusted gears, a new chain, some air in the tires and a quick tetanus shot was all it took to be back in riding form. (I’m kidding about the tetanus shot; my booster from 6 months ago is still protecting me!) I won’t lie and say it’s as good as new, but it gets the job done. I will, however, lie and say that riding around Dallas these past few days makes me basically the same physical specimen as (pre-scandal) Lance Armstrong. Except, you know, I don’t need a ton of steroids to be this good.

Now the hard part is fitting this hobby into my life. As I understand it, normally people use bicycles to run errands / travel in a purposeful fashion, but I’m in Dallas so that’s pretty much off the table. This means I must ride when I am not otherwise preoccupied — either late at night or early in the morning, both of which are usually pretty dark. The idea of riding near Dallas drivers zooming through the dark scares me.

You know what else scares me? Riding near Dallas drivers zooming through in the daylight. I have extrapolated from people’s driving tendencies during my daily commute that roughly 90% of DFW residents are psychopaths (and I’m being overly generous in this estimation). Full blown Charles Manson psychopaths; no hyperbole. These people are unwell, and by my own odds I’m probably one of them.

Oh well, when life gives you psychopaths, make psychopath-aide! Badum-ching!

Okay friends, that’s my cue to shut up. Go out and get a new hobby (or reconnect with a old one) and let me know how it goes!

-Alex

P.S. According to the National Safety Council and this interesting infographic, the average human is more likely to die walking than cycling. Everybody go get a bike before it’s too late!

He prepares to end it all, but at the last minute he has a wake-up call and decides to combat the rudeness in the world around him by killing the spoiled 16-year-old reality star on his TV. You read that correctly: the movies, television and news around him have become too “cruel and vicious” and only reward the “meanest and the loudest,” so he’s going to go out and kill strangers. Appropriate solution, dude.

Meanwhile, Roxy is a foul-mouthed teenager who feels alienated from the world around her. She’s different, you know? She has strong opinions on high-fives and Diablo Cody (negative) and France and Alice Cooper (positive). Also, don’t fucking call her Juno. On top of that she’s rather morbid, so when Frank pops into the neighborhood and murders Chloe the reality TV star she gets all chipper and excited and convinces Frank to continue righting the world, one bullet at a time.

So they join up — the semi-original odd couple — and travel across the country killing rude strangers and jerks loosely based on real celebrities. But wait, the disclaimer at the end of the film states that “All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental”,^* so don’t get any ideas that conservative TV host Michael Fuller is based on Bill O’Reilly or that the fake TV show American Superstarz and its judges are based on American Idol! Seriously, don’t get that idea. It’s not nice, and you know what happens to people that aren’t nice (hint: a pair of psychopaths shoot them).

After an endless venting of blood and monologues (there are more than Shakespeare), we finally reach the climax. Frank and Roxy storm the American Superstarz live finale, AK-47 in hand, and blast all the jerks to kingdom come in a premeditated act of suicide by police. It’s totally romantic, like a post-modern Bonnie and Clyde.

Long story short, this is Idiocracy with more blood and violence less subtlety. The main thesis of this movie is completely fatalistic: “The culture’s gone to hell and there’s nothing we can say or do to fix it, so lets just parody it and vent our frustrations in the least constructive way possible.” Blood and violence; bread and circuses.

“I’m screwed up,” you say. “I have to take care of all the adults in my life,” you whine. “My daddy left us,” you moan. Whatever, Charlie Bartlett, your excuses ain’t gonna count for nothin’ in the big house.

Yeah, that’s right, you’re going to jail Charlie Bartlett. You think you could sell a full pharmacy-equivalent of illegally obtained prescription medication to minors and have a happy ending? No chance! Perhaps you’ve heard of this little thing called the War on Drugs? Yeah, well, you’re just a statistic now.

I see on your record that you instigated some protests over a few surveillance cameras in the student lounge? Don’t try that here Charlie Bartlett, the guards don’t take too kindly to demonstrators. Also, here there are cameras in the toilet, so maybe you should’ve accepted that mild privacy loss for what it was: lenient. I mean seriously, what kind of public school has an anything-goes, no-supervision student lounge anyway? You were damn lucky, Charlie Bartlett, and you tore it all up just because of a few cameras? Jesus.

Speaking of which, you seem to get the full name treatment all the time, Charlie Bartlett. Do you think there’s some subtle hostility in that? I’m only asking because the one other guy that I hear called by his full name more often than you is Jesus Christ, and most of the time people aren’t saying it out of respect.

One last thing: from the looks of it your family has a horrible choice in lawyers. Your father, for instance, is in jail. How can a multimillionaire go to prison for tax evasion in this day and age? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Hell, bankers can launder money for certified terrorists and get off with even less than a slap on the wrist! What I’m saying is that you have a dumb father, Charlie Bartlett, and the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Not that the best lawyer could get you out of this. No sir, you’re in it for the long haul. Judges don’t take kindly to drug dealers with a history of violent crime — don’t think we’ve forgotten about you assaulting your principal outside his house — and every prosecutor in the tri-state area is itching to have Charlie Bartlett’s mugshot in his resume. Plus, your name is in the title of the screenplay. It’s not entirely fair, but you were doomed from the start. How else do you explain that when Murphy Bivens videotaped himself beating up half the student body and gave out copies to the whole school you were the one who took the fall?

On the bright side, at least you’ve proven to be an able drug smuggler, Charlie Bartlett. That’s a talent that will prove to be as popular in prison as it was in public school. Just don’t cut off their supply; inmates falling from their high won’t be as forgiving as those high school kids.

Well, that’s all I have to say to you Charlie Bartlett. Your exploits in drug dealing aren’t going to end in a feisty discussion with the principal or an expulsion, and no narcissistic excuses are going to save your Richie Rich ass. No, this time you’re going to the big house, big time. Welcome to the real world.

No, it’s not the quality of the musicianship or the way the band takes on many different forms throughout the night, changing size and composition and moving to John Darnielle solo and back again. That is certainly something to notice, but it’s not what I’m talking about.

It’s not the intense fans, either (the quote in the title above was actually shouted at the band by a fan in the audience on Tuesday). Many bands have a deeply interested core fan base, though other band’s fans are not shouting along to lines such as “Hail Satan” or “I hope we both die!”

It’s also not the wonderfully expressive lyrics — alternatively poetic and forceful — or the devious way in which the dark tales about people facing raw, difficult situations and emotions are commonly paired with upbeat, buoyant rhythms. These are other things that are very important and unique, but they’re not the ultimate takeaway.

The detail I now present as key is that the band is positively giddy while performing on stage every single night. I’ve seen them several times and it’s unvarying. John Darnielle’s enthusiasm while delivering his musical narratives (and associated hilarious witticisms in-between) is wonderfully invigorating. Whether he’s playing a half-empty concert hall or a packed festival main stage, his passion for performing and the force of his personality is contagious.

And that, friends, is the one thing I’m sure you’ll notice when you see the Mountain Goats live. Check them out when you get the chance — you won’t regret it.

Image credit: Matt H. Wade

A run for president has all of the same problems as being a celebrity (including a lack of privacy and everybody trying to backseat-drive your life) plus a smaller paycheck, required pandering and much, much more responsibility. The vetting process for the highest office in the land should certainly be difficult, but these days anyone who plots a run for President is an idiot — and doubly so if he expects to win!

Every four years an array of driven, accomplished people (well, usually) trip over each other in their race to Iowa and New Hampshire on a quest to the White House. This always results in one winner and a dazzling amount of shameful, humiliating pandering. The candidates pander to voters in places far removed from the power centers in the major cities in peculiar ways: eating lots of corndogs, kissing many a baby, acting folksy and otherwise doing their best to stroke the egos of normally inconsequential flyover states. As a nation we’ve decided that in these ways we must knock each successful suitor down a peg or two before we give them their piece of cheese at the end of the rat maze.

At the same time us voters demand silly, scripted actions from those we might entrust with the nuclear football, the donors who power a candidate’s campaign are even worse. Having amassed enough wealth that they can literally throw millions toward a particular candidate or issue, these individuals feel even more entitled and knowledgable than the average voter. They ask silly questions and are unrelenting with their advice and scorn. If a candidate doesn’t allow these life-giving donors to backseat drive the campaign or if they sense that their contender is losing they will jump with their bags of money to another horse, figuratively speaking, leaving behind the burning wreckage of a campaign. Voters may choose the office-holder, but the elite among us appear to have veto power over a candidacy.

Meanwhile, the media also has a hunger for information and, more importantly, a narrative (they do need to fill 24-hours of coverage for Pete’s sake). This means they can quickly become fickle and edgy if deprived of action and movement in the race. They’re going to find a story one way or another — it doesn’t matter whether said story is perceived or material, partisan or objective, gossip- or policy-based. This means privacy cannot be taken for granted, a sad state of affairs for someone who is constantly forced to pander to disparate groups across the nation for both votes and money. A camera in the right place can really ruin a campaign’s vibe or even cripple an otherwise powerful candidate.

But the most important component of the pain and humiliation that is the modern campaign for the presidency is the very real possibility of winning. The winner does get his very own airplane and has a theme song played every time he enters a room, but imagine the campaign state of affairs protracted over not a few months but 4-8 years! Add in a Congress that is vying for attention and needs its massive ego rubbed in order to pass a bill, an opposition party that will say or do anything to tear down the winner, and the fact that the office of Presidency is a magnet for the violence of mentally unstable individuals and you can sense the magnitude of what a candidate is sacrificing to have all that power. Plus, we totally stopped adding faces to Mt. Rushmore decades ago.

So we may call the President the most powerful person in the free world, but I think we should perhaps be calling him the idiot-in-chief.

A Jonah Hill-fronted comedy comes with a large set of expectations. There’s going to be lots of low-brow sex jokes, profanity, drug humor and self-deprecation. 21 Jump Street embodies this, but manages to build higher expectations early on with some solid pacing and unusually self-aware prodding at its roots in 80s TV (think: Hot Fuzz). These expectations, once built, are hard to live up to.

The movie focuses on Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum), who are both graduates of the same high school and find themselves at the same police academy after graduation. Embracing the most basic trope of a buddy-cop-comedy, these two become best pals despite — and because! — they are total opposites: Schmidt is a nerdy do-gooder while Jenko is a blockhead jock. Even working together they very quickly prove to be over their heads simply patrolling a suburban park and are reassigned to an undercover unit. As undercover cops they are sent back to high school in order to infiltrate an active drug ring. As you would expect, absurdity ensues.

This silly adventure has its funny moments, but those expectations I mentioned earlier only hold up until about half-way through. At that point, the story derails and spirals out of control — our comedy assumes a mediocrity oh-so-common today (See: This Means War). Also, the penis jokes and general low-brow sex humor accelerate and multiply in an attempt to make up for the (relative) lack of such jokes during the first hour. They even manage to take the play-on-tropes humor too far. These forces, I’m sorry to say, converge and sap the enjoyment away. It limps to a landing exactly where you’d expect it, in the exact way you’d expect.

Chart of average penis jokes in 21 Jump Street vs. other Jonah Hill films

In the end, the brief moments of hilarious self-conscious and self-referential humor are a slap in the face considering all of the typical jokes everywhere else. You get your cheap laughs all right, but try not think about it too much as you exit the theater else you’re gonna have a sad time.

SO, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are acquaintances that keep bumping into each other all the time (It’s a modern day When Harry Met Sally!). She’s a totally legitimate doctor that lives with her fav doctor roommates, played by Mindy Kaling and Greta Gerwig (OMG GRETA GERWIG MARRY ME, PLEASE), and they are living the sweet life just hanging around and syncing their periods (Natalie Portman’s is on shuffle!), and making homemade potpourri while talking about how they never get laid. (HIGH FIVE, GIRLFRIEND!!)

Ashton Kutcher has an “industry” job, meaning he works as a production assistant on a TV show that is NOT High School Musical. (JK it totally is.) Kutcher has big dreams of… wanting to be a writer on High School Musical 8 (or the equivalent), but his boss is a very mean lady who says he can’t write an episode because that’s not his job, and then she disrobes and lights him on fire while dancing around his charred, screeching body. (FACTUAL.)

Kutcher is a weeping willow in disguise as a human because his girlfriend left him eight months ago and now he has nothing left but his friend Ludacris (Confidential to movie studios: Stop. Letting. Him. Act.) and his hornball dad. Unfortunately for Kutcher, Daddy McHornypants (Kevin Kline, just being himself) decided that the love of his life is none other than Kutcher’s ex girlfriend. The one he was pining over. Thankfully, Ludacris is around to ease the tension (NOT REALLY. Kids: don’t befriend Ludacris. He is emotionally draining).

Because the best cure for a broken heart is a hookup, Kutcher indiscriminately calls every woman in his phonebook, and somehow wakes up nude and intoxicated in the lady doctor’s den. STOP FANNING YOURSELVES, WOMEN. No sexytimes were had. Just, as it turns out, Kutcher likes to disrobe himself and force groups of random women to stare in astonishment at his nakedness.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Portman and Kutcher become lovers and decide to “keep it casual.” No strings in this movie! Absolutely no strings.

GIFTS!

Kutcher realizes that he doesn’t want Portman to see the other dude because he likes her, so he decides to tell Portman that he wants to be exclusive in every indirect way he can possibly find (Gifts! As every non-mistress knows, giving gifts = love). Later, Kutcher decides to tell Portman, and Portman blows a fuse and is all like “NO I WILL HURT YOU” and then leaves him alone. Good job not hurting him! HIGH FIVE, GIRLFRIEND.

Kutcher ends up having to go to the hospital, because Kevin Kline had too much Purple Drank (This is not a joke. Seriously.), and Kutcher’s ex girlfriend (the one who is with Kline now) decides that she is sick of Kline’s aging and leaves to go to a party.

Later, Portman goes to a wedding, where she discovers how completely unhappy she is (as women at weddings are wont to do), and then comes back for Kutcher. BIG LOVE CONFESSION HAPPY ENDING TIME.

Eh… I need a beer.

Every ten to twenty years They Live‘s blunt message about the failures of self-interested capitalism becomes widely fashionable, and there’s no denying that hating on greedy executives with golden parachutes is in vogue right now. That said, imagining your terrible boss as a ghoulish alien from the planet Rand is powerfully cathartic whether during a boom or a bust, and in this regard They Live delivers. It’s a populist manifesto full of action and shootouts and light on poignant messaging. We are talking about John Carpenter, after all.

Alternating between bizarre hobo utopia and violent sci-fi dystopia, with a major filling of conspiracy theory theater as well, They Live offers up epic one-liners [spoiler] and is a fantastically absurd adventure full of half-baked characters and plot holes by the bucketful, but also wit and sass and imagination. Also, the longest and most pointless fight [spoiler] ever presented on screen — all fought over a pair of sunglasses. So, just know what you’re getting into: in the end, we’re shooting less for the list of best movies than for the list of best bad movies with this one.

Definitely watch this meme-tastic adventure — it’s even on YouTube. Just do it.

What happens when you gather an assortment of adrenaline junkies and tired stereotypes in the middle of Oklahoma during a tornado apocalypse? Death, destruction, and science to be sure, but also a full 113 minute film about the worst carpool ever, featuring a few paper cuts and science-y bluster! You know, realism.

We open in Oklahoma, 1969, where young Jo and her unnamed parents are hiding in their storm shelter from an F5 tornado as it growls outside like some modern interpretation of the big bad wolf. Her father is sucked up into the tumultuous vortex and young Jo promises to nurture a massive death-wish until she avenges him by eliminating tornadoes — er, increasing the average warning time to, say, 20 minutes.

Note: Jo’s father is literally the only person who will die on screen this whole time, so you might as well cry now, if you’re feeling it.

Flash forward to the present (by which I mean 1996). In the middle of nowhere, a ragtag gang of wise-cracking humanitarian storm chasers (including Philip Seymour Hoffman as the cheerful pothead Dusty and Alan Ruck as the superfluous navigator) are fixing up their Doppler radars and otherwise having a grand ol’ time horsing around. Enter Bill (Bill Paxton) and his new fiancée Melissa (Jami Gertz), dropping by to ambush a grown-up Jo (Helen Hunt) with a friendly divorce paper signing.

Bill is all about business, as he has become boring and domesticated since he left the storm chasing business to become an uptight TV weatherman in the city. Jo, meanwhile, is flighty, scattered and exudes a tomboy spunk, and we can all immediately tell the second-most important thing to her after tornado chasing is hookin’ back up with Bill! Needless to say, Bill and Jo’s constant flirtation bothers fiancée Melissa, but she’s a psychiatrist and therefore a complete wimp who gives him room to grow and space to connect with his feelings.

They stick around the camp long enough to explain how they all want to improve tornado warning times using DOROTHY: a giant trashcan full of tiny and expensive sensors designed to be sucked up into then monitor a tornado. It’s Bill’s invention and a very original design for the only non-Ph.D in the gang. Soon, however, there’s a tornado warning and they all rush to a truck stop where they find Jonas (Cary Elwes), a veritable Judas of the storm chasing world who has totally sold out his values to follow the somehow numerous and lucrative meteorological corporate sponsorships. “He’s in it for the money, not the science” as Bill says. What a stooge! Oh, and he always steals Bill’s ideas as he has no talent or brains to call his own, just money for improving tornado knowledge! (His fleet of black minivans is totally ballin’, however.)

Note: It’s amazing how all of these characters are supposedly from Oklahoma, yet the only two with noticeable accents are Melissa and Jonas. Read however you’d like into this observation.

Fully back in the storm chasing game, Bill whispers to some cumulus clouds and gets actionable intelligence that a tornado is totally going down across the county. They kick off and find not one but two tornadoes and nearly die twice — in a ditch and on a bridge, respectively. Fortunately the storm god smiles down on Bill, or possibly just pities him; I can’t really tell which, because he’s both the best and the stupidest meteorologist ever.

He’s not a very good boyfriend, either, as by this point he and Jo are constantly imagining one another naked and the awkwardness with Melissa nearby is palpable. Just to make things really clear to her, however, he breaks rule #5 of courting a woman and takes her on a date to meet his ex-wife’s aunt (well, technically his current wife as the paperwork isn’t filed yet). Don’t get me wrong, Aunt Meg is cool, but it’s a definite no-no (as is having your friends tell your fiancée about your first date with your current wife. Especially when it involves gratuitous nudity, drunkenness, and near-suicide. Yeesh.)

The team gets wind of another tornado and runs off, but not before imparting the dangerous, solemn nature of the F5 tornado. Not even these grizzled veteran storm chasers will dare joke about it. They’re really, really dangerous, ya’hear? Definitely wouldn’t want to run into one with nowhere to hide (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). On this chase, Bill and Jo are only nearly crushed by a falling electric pole, electrocuted by falling power lines, and sucked up into a tornado, but at least they have success to show for it! Yes, that’s right, they make valuable progress by arguing about their relationship, with both admitting their undying love for one another. Oh, and Melissa hears! What, you want to hear about DOROTHY? Well, okay: the sensors won’t fly and it’s destroyed — a complete failure.

Note: The continuity errors during this third tornado chase could only have been caused by a phantom updraft or mysterious reflections of Venus off the overabundant Oklahoma swamp gas.

So, the gang decides to take the night off and go to the drive-in theater but boy did they pick the wrong night. A wild tornado appears and kicks their assess. (Well, actually it just gives them a few papercuts — REALISM!) Melissa finally takes this near-death experience and her fiancé’s constant fawning over his ex-er, current wife as a sign to get the hell out, and does so in the calmest, most reasonable way possible. Boring!

Once she’s gone, they notice that the storm is heading toward Aunt Meg’s house so they rush there, save her life and, more importantly, get a eureka moment for fixing their failure of a tornado-studying garbage-can. The secret: put wind chimes on the sensors! (See kids, this is the kind of thinking that a Ph.D in meteorology requires!)

Anyway, they fix the machine and head off to chase a tornado, but this one is an F5! Whoa, didn’t see that one coming! They fail on their first attempt — if you believe it they are both saved and, subsequently, nearly killed by a flying tanker truck full of gasoline — and just manage to get back in the chase when they see corporate stooge Jonas get picked up and exploded by the twister — victory for the proletariat! Unmoved, they drive on and manage to corner the mile-wide tornado in a corn field and finally get their scientific instruments airborne!

After that it’s only a matter of outrunning the tornado then tying themselves to a rusty pipe and riding out the tornado spinning right over them. Easy-peasy. They argue a bit then make out into the credits and live happily ever after until one of them is impaled…or exploded…or squished…during another chase. THE END.

So, there you have it. This bumpy roller coaster ride’s dramatic special effects (good for the time, and they actually have aged well) are balanced out by the brain-meltingly thin plot and trope-ful characters. This movie stands for all of eternity as the noblest tribute to the science of meteorology ever to grace the silver screen, or at least until The Day After Tomorrow.