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The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

This is the video we produced for the Pimp My TV contest at Alamo Drafthouse.  Watch it and hit me with some feedback – BUT MOST OF ALL remember to go to FILMMAKINGFRENZY.COM on Feb 20th and vote for us!

Thanks, y’all.

1. I hate things like this and think self-evaluation is for the weak.  But I’m doing this to avoid writing my movie and it won’t be very introspective.

2. I always wanted to be a calf-roper but ain’t never had the coordination.

3. I CAN talk “proper” English but think people who do are fake because we’re all from somewhere and each area has its own brand of lingo.

4. If I had to take only one dvd with me it would be Lonesome Dove

5. My girlfriend is pregnant.  I’m not really scared unless I think of the possibility of it being a girl.  How in hell does one raise a girl?

6. I want to breed American Bison someday.

7. I want to learn how to break horses.

8. I tend to cry in guy movies but hardly ever in movies you’re supposed to cry in.

9. I’ve loved a handful of gals but been in love exactly once.  Will be in love with her forever.  Couldn’t change it if I tried.  Had my heart broke just the once, too.  Same girl.

10. I wish I was any count at riding a bucking machine.

11. Thanks to Jason I’m beginning to dig more rap.

12. I hate working out and generally refuse to – but I’m probably gonna have to play a roll soon where I’ll have to be in a lot better shape. Fuck.

13. I have a phobia of snakes.

14. I’m even more afraid of needles.

15. I LOVE the Dolph Lundgren version of “Punisher” and loathe Tom Jane’s rape of the concept.

16. I hate-hate-HATE “Citizen Kane”.

17. I used to like Star Trek TNG until I finally got to watch ST: TOS and found out TNG is a fucking abomination.

18. I love God but tend to attempt to experience the underside of the human experience as much as possible because it’s more interesting.  I wanna go to Heaven but think a life w/o sin is a life not lived.

19. I want to build a house with my own hands.

20. I want to make the western that reminds the world that it is THE American Genre and that Visual Storytelling belongs to the cowboy and the horse.

21. When I move back out to the country I’ll miss the taco-stand Tacos Austin has to offer.

22. I want to open a REAL steakhouse in Austin since they don’t fucking have one.

23. I’ve always thought of myself as being particularly lazy but find little quit in me compared to those around me and have also been informed that I’m the friend who can be counted on for help.

24. Since I’ve moved to Austin I’ve been legitimately sick on average of once every 3-4 weeks and never the same type ailment twice in a row.

25. I think part of me wants to turn into an alcoholic.

There’s been a lot of net speculation for the 3rd Batman flick.  I’ve stayed away from it til now.  This is what it needs to be.

Dark Knight was fucking amazing.  Of course.  Everyone assumes Riddler is next and that Catwoman is a possibility.  These sound good to me but the villain in the next movie HAS to be Batman.  We got zero hero character development in DK – that’s cool because what we needed was to see Jokers, Harvey Dents, James Gordons and Gothams progressions as individuals.  Now we need to see how those effect Bruce Wayne.

Riddler would be a very fitting vehicle for this.  And I think what would be even more perfect is if Joker is in league with him.  We should never see Joker, though.  He and E. Nygma (or whatever Goyer and the Nolans come up with – honestly they could call him Shirley and I wouldn’t give a fuck) should conspire through letters or email or messenger pigeons injected with methamphetamine or something.  And I could see Selina Kyle getting thrown in the mix a little but maybe she should really be saved for later down the line.  (And she should NEVER be called Catwoman.  She should be a female cat burglar named Selina Kyle and that’s it.)

But, as I said, the criminal element should be a vessel – an object for Wayne to fixate on(yes i said ‘on’ at the end of a sentence, fuck you).  The story needs to be Wayne losing himself.  He becomes one self-destructive motherfucker.  Bruce Wayne starts to exist less and less and he increasingly slips into being The Batman – becoming the shadows.

Thomas Wayne’s little boy died many years ago in that alley when Joe Cool fired two shots from a cheap revolver.  How could he remember what he was?  How could we possibly expect him to?  Revenge/justice/whatever – he built himself into a tool – in both the positive and negative senses of the word.

Now his 2 major rays of light for ever finding who he was again are gone – Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent.  These are also great fuel for wallowing in self-destruction… (hmmm maybe I’m making this a little too much about me…)

anyways – Bruce Wayne lost everything he loved in the world once when he was a little kid.  When that happened he ceased to exist and eventually invented Batman.  Now it has happened again.  How does he go further than bottom?  That’s what we need to see.  At the beginning of Number 3 Alfred needs to be overseeing the final reconstruction on Wayne Manor.  Bruce needs to blow him off any time he brings up the subject.  Bruce needs to be more and more often leaving his WayneCorp responsibilities to some young consultant who contradicts Lucius Fox at every step.  This could be where Riddler comes in.  Edward Nygma/Nashton/Shirley could be the consultant with Wayne’s confidence.  It could be, as many have theorised, the Mr. Reese (“Mysteries”) character from DK.  The problem there being that Warner Brothers is sure to want Riddler to be played by a name – which either means they recast or WB will put Joshua Harto in a headliner role before the next flick.  I’m sure Nolan will do something before then so there will be ample opportunity.

Bruce feels guilty for surviving and this should manifest in him seeing Alfred as a sort of mirror and resenting him for surviving too.  Wayne Manor is the same thing.  It and Alfred are the only relics from his life prior to the murders.  So he refuses to pay the reconstruction any mind.

Lucius Fox will realize that he is being asked to neglect his managerial responsibilties to the detriment of the company in favor of building shit for Batman like whatever the new Batmobile will be.

So Bruce will start seeing interpersonal pushback in his two most trusted relationships.

Then, the Riddler comes into play.  And this is how that should go down:  Some big, violent crime is perpetrated – then the next morning an anonymous riddle is published in  the Gotham Times claiming responsisblity – this should be just like the Zodiac letters back in the day.  And of course Goyer and the Nolan bros should put a lot of work into coming up with some really ingenius fucking riddle material.  That should go w/o saying but I said it anyways.

Then Bruce tunnelvisions on the Riddler case, setting our narrative into motion.

Through the duration Bruce puts more and more of his energy into breaking the case.  He gravitates more towards Gordon and the underworld and alienates Alfred and Lucius, going to them only when he requires their services.

The Riddler, with help from Joker, should monitor and evaluate Batman’s methods of investigating the crimes and the series riddles hitting the front page.

The public is already against The Batman for supposedly killing Harvey Dent.  The riddles should serve to increase the fervor of Gotham against their Knight.  This will add to the confusion in Wayne/Batman’s head.

I want this to explore the evolution of the meaning of the “Mask”.  It should ask as many questions as it answers.

This is where the conflict will be found.  It’s Bruce Wayne having to deal with what Batman has become to himself – the sort of Frankenstein’s monster he’s created or whatever.  He’ll have to learn, in his lonesome world, how to put Batman in his place and BE Bruce Wayne.  Of course that means he’ll have to find the who/what of Bruce Wayne as well as The Bat.  If Dark Knight was about the outside (upper and lower) limitations of the collective character of Batman and Bruce this one needs to get to a definition between the seperate personalities.

And then he can pull Riddlers brains out through his nose or whatever the next level is that (I hope) Christopher Nolan is able to push the PG-13 rating to.

"I love you, Sonny Corleone!" Why wasn't that a 70s T-shirt slogan?

I was tellin folks at work how much dinglefritz looks like the aliens from John Carpenter's "They Live"

this is a promo for the actual show:

But Voyager sucks rocks through a straw.  So does most of Next Generation.  DS9 at least tried to get back to the true sci-fi stuff every once in a while.  What I’ve seen of the last season of Enterprise did as well.

So this is my review of the full trailer for the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie.  Watch before reading.  The trailer is currently attached to Quantum of Solace which is one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen.

But this is about new Trek.  Fuck all else.

I’ve seen a lot of rumblings on the interwebs saying Abrams doesn’t get Trek and blah blah blah.  The main guy I read saying this was Devin over at Chud.com. I dig homeboy most of the time and he even says several things in his article which make him seem like we’d normally be on the same side of a Trek-related squab.  That ain’t exactly how it is this time ’round.

Here’s my mostly Play-by-Play of the trailer:

00:06

I do have to partially agree with Devin’s “meh” response to the opening sequence w/ lil Kirk driving the ‘Vette.  While I think the gist of the scene is something we can get behind the concept should have been bigger and, far more importantly, it should have been at least a little bit original.  Yes James Kirk must have been a hoodlum when he was a sprout in Iowa but seeing him do that Thelma and Louise bullshit is fucking boring when we’ve seen him outfight Romulans and outwit super intelligences and singlehandedly shatter countless diplomatic boundaries.

00:39

“My name is James Tiberius Kirk” — corny? of course.  But fuck you all I cheered like a retard getting that Powerwhateverthefuck on Guitar Hero.

00:46

The next bit – the Top Gun piece – is pretty silly too but it gives a good look at a Starship in a way we ain’t really seen before.  And I think that’s Captain Pike giving the guidance counselor speech – which is cool.  Good trailer material.  But the bike sounds gay.  Why must motors of the future whistle?

01:03

Vulcan looks badass and fuck anyone who doesn’t want to see Spock as a kid.  Of course if they’re putting Spock as a kid as occurring at the same time that Kirk is a kid then something is very wrong.  Spock was always the senior by more than several years.  But I don’t think Abrams has made that mistake I just wanted to throw it out there.

01:09

The new version of the transportation tech seems pointless.  If its fast and never really featured its cool but you can’t make Beaming cooler with swirly shit.  Besides, it looks like a laser toilet.

01:13

Can somebody tell me why Kirk is in black and not gold?  Does it have something to do with the rumored time-change story arch?  It fuckin better.  Command Gold or Dress Greens are the only options for a Starfleet Captain.

01:14-01:19

We’re getting some cool shots of Starships – I wonder if one of them is the USS Farragut where Lt. James Kirk was stationed while Chris Pike commanded Spock on the Enterprise.

01:20

Silly shot of Eric Bana as der villain…

01:29

We do get a quick shot of Bruce Greenwood as Pike here – I wonder how that’s gonna end…  It would be so cool to see Pike hand Kirk the reigns.  And I just realized that Pike is in Gold with Kirk in that background – hmmm – maybe away-mission duds?

01:30

Then there’s a cool shot of somebody – presumably Kirk – delivering a vergasa punch…

01:30+

Then some sexy, shirtless bits of the Captain and Uhura – very nice.  I would totally geek if they bone but there really are no grounds for it in the mythology.

01:31

I love Scotty.

I love Simon Pegg.

I love Simon Pegg as Scotty.

01:33

Swordfight?  What the fuck?  I’m a little queasy at the moment….

01:35

John Cho lookin like he gets to put some actual work in on the mufucker.  I like it.  I was afraid he was gonna be straight-up comic relief.  His casting is still lazy and racist, though.

01:36

So we see the villain escaping from a Romulan prison…  Please God tell me this isn’t Cape Fear in space.  It is, isn’t it?  Does Eric Bana time travel to hang on the underside of the Corvette and Jimmy Kirk is really driving like that so Bana eats it in the canyon?  That could maybe excuse the first scene.  Maybe.

01:35-01:38

Karl Urban as Bones.  Bones is my 2nd fave character in TOS behind Mr. Scott.  Urban does seems to have DeForest Kelley’s rythm down, I think.  But once again he’s playing a part I should have had.

01:38

Finally – Captain James T. Kirk in his gold uni.  Too bad he’s saying a cheesy ass line like “Buckle Up”.  I’m betting this is from the last scene of the flick.  It seems like it might be meant to hearken back to the silly epilogue scenes that buttoned up the old episodes.

01:40

Spock choking Kirk has me very interested.

01:41

Uhura behind that submarine glass navigation thingy is cool.  That does some little work to thwarting Devin’s Air Force theory.

01:43

Is that the Slave 1?  Did Eric Bana go to George Lucas’ yard sale and trade a Warbird for the Slave 1?  Is it because the lasers whistle?  Again with the damned whistling tech…

01:44

Kirk seems to be brandishing a Klingon disruptor – interesting.

01:44+

I swear I’ve seen the USS Kelvin somewhere before but can’t find it mentioned online except for this movie…  Maybe it was an earlier image release.

01:47

The corny-ass line required for such trailers.  Bana: “The wait is over” — Obviously it’s meant to have a double-meaning, but the 2nd doesn’t fucking pan since 21 seconds later we’re told we have to wait til fucking MAY!  Bastards…

But that last little bit proves the trailer ultimately accomplished its goal.  I can’t wait for this shit. I want it now.

Now for some more general bits. – returning to Chud-Devin’s statement that “JJ Abrams doesn’t quite get Star Trek” – I don’t really see how he can say that.  Yes, I’m very vocal about hating the casting of Kirk, Sulu and Bones.  But this trailer does seem to get the characters – and that’s better than a lot of Trek flicks have done.  “Generations” – anyone?  Yes I would rather see a sci-fi movie than a revenge story – But it’s more important to me that they get our heroes right.  Kirk, Spock and Bones seem to be somewhat adversarial in this and that’s how it should be.  They are the administration of the crew.  They engage in debates where the outcome means life or death for hundreds of crew and quite often millions of civilians.  They’re fights are big and tense – and they’re still all best friends at the end of the day.  That’s TOS Trek.

Maybe we’ll get some real sci-fi high concept stuff on the next trip.

And, with that — See ya’s!!!

P.S.  You should all get out to your local video purchasing outlet and pick up Dance of the Dead.  It was my favorite at SXSW and I was crazy happy to see that Sam Raimi’s Ghosthouse company picked them up for a DVD distribution deal.  I look forward to whatever those kids put out next.