This Ticket limits our liability. Read It.

 By reading the enclosed, Reader (hereby referred to as Reader) agrees to imdemnify Batman (hereby referred to as Writer) from the following:

 Resolved: that these are not movie reviews, and therefore Writer reserves all rights to spoil every plot turn, line of dialog, and gratuitous Matthew McConaughey casting that he sees fit, not only with the movie in question, but with any movie he has seen, heard about it, or simply made up, even if Reader really, really was going to see that one, but couldn't figure out how the Netflix queue works.

 Resolved: that these are not reviews, Reader will not hold Writer responsible if Writer does not convey if a movie is Good (hereby defined as Good) or Bad (hereby also defined as Good). This is largely because Writer isn't sure either.

I think I mentioned how certain great films ruin cinema forever, and it occurs to me that Evil Dead 2 is one such example.  Not that people copied the frenetic style and non-stop gag after gag pace; not even Mr. Sam Raimi could do that.  No, they always copy the stupid parts, and in this case, it was Mr. Raimi’s willingness to admit that The Evil Dead, while pretty good, just needed a quick do-over.  And with the extra fifty bucks some idiot gave him, he may have called it a sequel, but in making it, he just strapped a camera to a 2X4 and remade 1 as the masterpiece we know as 2.   Thus the requel was born.  And no, I’m not sure if anyone has come up with that port-manteau before, and you know I’m not going to check, in case it was copyrighted by the people who are bringing you the remake of Citizen Kane, written, directed and starring Ms. Gwyneth Paltrow, told in chronological order, from one perspective.  And no that isn’t a real thing; I send it thusly into the zeitgeist so that it might become one.  Future you, you’re welcome.  Also, don’t cross the street on October 11, 2035.  Or you’ll get bitten by a zombie Gwenyth Paltrow.

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I’ve been doing internet dating lately, and I’ve found, through repeated rolls of eyes and various ‘Oh my God.  Look at the laundromat over there, how long has that been there?  Isn’t it interesting how things…exist in space!’, that there is nothing – nothing except for one thing – more boring than talking about internet dating.  Nevertheless, we are here to talk about the Mr. Ryan Gosling Œuvre and the happy coincedence that both Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love came out in the same week in the distributor unfriendly UK.  Strangely the orphan of the English speaking world (every other country in the world has seen Midnight in Paris except the one where the language originated), films come out here in the most ad hoc way imaginable link.  I think it has something to do with the metric system.  Lucky me, we won’t get Thor 2  until 2013.  Unlucky me, Thor 3 will come out the same day.  I won’t be able to understand a bit of it, since the original comes out in 2023, just in time for the actual Thor to revisit the earth and set all the movie schedules right again.  But you know I was just lulling you into a false sense of irony, and at any moment I’m going to talk about how films starring Ryan Gosling are somehow very much like my meeting strangers for drinks and trying to figure out if I’m uncomfortable or extremely uncomfortable.  Don’t want to talk about internet dating?  Fine, I’m on this diet right now…

I thought that might shut you up. (more…)

Don’t you love (and read) lists?  There they are, just to be wrong and get all worked up about.  If we see movies to get anxious and get relieved (it’s like massage, only dirty), we buy newspapers and read blogs so we can get angry and foam about how wrong they are (as opposed to say, the occasional reporting of an actual event.  Sorry, including the occasional reporting of an actual event), only to feel relieved at the end at our righteousosity.  When they contradict us, facts are dangerous enough, but opinions, well…those are serious.  

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