WANTED: Movie Review

Wanted
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Any movie that involves a man impaling the skull of another man with the barrel of a gun, and then continuing to run and shoot other men through the skull of said head, automatically deserves three stars.
But it does make you ask an extremely important question.
How exactly does one get to the point in his or her life where they find themselves impaling and then desecrating newly aquainted corpses just so that they can continue killing more and more individuals?

Well, in Timur Bekmambetov's latest opus Wanted, the audience's suspension of disbelief is thankfully distracted enough by the undeniable entertainment value of extreme bloodshed, at least until the audience leaves the theatre and then immediately starts to converse about the practical applications of flipping cars.

Wanted follows Wesley Gibson as he is pulled away from his miserable nine-to-five office job after discovering his father was one of the world's greatest assassin's. For some reason I can't explain, only he can avenge his father's death by using his assassin powers, which I also cannot explain.

What I'm trying to say here is that Wanted is basically just Harry Potter. Except only if you were to give Harry Potter a suit and tie, take away his glasses, give him a gun, and then tell him he could still do magic but now doesn't have to use his wand anymore.
There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but the concept has an effective story-book charm to it. It's as though Wanted is a Roald Dahl novel for the Fight Club generation.

Those who are already aquainted with Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's work, including Nightwatch and Daywatch, should have a vague idea of what they are in for. This is a visionary director who has an emphasis on the vision. He excells in working with extremes, especially with action. As a result, he is capable of capturing vividly imaginative escapades on camera.
Luckily, for a foreign audience, that can often be enough to justify a boxoffice smash. However, in my experience, it seems that English speaking audiences are a bit more grounded at least when it comes to character development, or at least inciting action.

Wanted gets away with a lot of shiny trappings. Bullets curve with pin-point precision, cars flip easily and skillfully, people heal without a scratch, time moves in slow-motion, people like James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie walk around partially naked, people literally jump between buildings, people almost fly, sniper bullets are practically exchanged from different states. Everything happens, and it is smart enough to go so far beyond the point of any reason that the viewer has no choice but to sit back and go along with it.

It's great fun, but it has problems. Wanted still manages to be a tad too long. There are some strange pacing problems, and there are these all too frequent "white blood-cell bath's" that conveniently heal our hero after every scuffle. It ruins the sense of risk and takes away the tension by saying "there's nothing a hot bath can't clear up!"

It's more designed as a video-game than a movie. There are distinct bosses, training missions, and numerous weapons. Not to mention, the re-heal in a tub of wax option is simply just too convenient in the hands of a film narrative rather than in the control pad of a joystick.

When it comes down to it, the only major qualms I have with Wanted are in it's advertising, which with it's shirtless Jame McAvoy and scary-eyebrowed Anjelina Jolie, seemed to spell out to me: "Date Movie!"
Shortly after the numerous head-shot's, hand stabbing, and teeth scattering, I began to question my choice in viewing content for the evening.

Is this really the perfect summer movie?
No. Not really. Maybe not at all. But it sure is being sold like one.

Unlike Shoot 'Em Up, a film that had no qualms about embracing it's unbridled lack of morals, Wanted seems to glaze it's faults with a heavy gloss of CGI and mass-marketing-appeal.
I'm not sure if I really like that.
Shoot 'Em Up was classy enough to own up to the fact that it was in no way classy. It shamelessly combined every guilty pleasure imaginable, yet retained a distinct charm within it's quirky characters. Although the gunfights were similar in their lack of realism, they still required a thought proccess to execute, as opposed to the somewhat unlikable characters in Wanted, who execute by means of magic bullets.

Wanted is a fun, at times incredibly entertaining, action flick with an addictive attitude and a flair for being visually immersive. It is certainly worth the price of viewing, if only for saying "Wow, that was rediculous." But it lacks the quirky attributes of a carrot-addicted gun-toting veteran, specifically played by Clive Owen.
So I'm just going to say it.
If you can't watch both, watch Shoot 'Em Up instead.

Hot Potato

This is Fountain Valley, AZ, where I'm at a family reunion.

That in the distance is the worlds-biggest fountain. It's visible from my Aunt's house and apparently it erupts every hour.
That's just long enough for you to forget it exists, look out the window, and say, "Oh, yeah... the world's biggest fountain... Huh."



It's glorious.

Another thing that is also glorious, is a potato cannon.



My cousins decided to build one today. I decided to watch them.
Trust me, the idea is much more brilliant if you don't ask why.

The only problem was that the dang thing wouldn't launch.
So the two hours they spent making a potato cannon ended up as two hours making a potato-jamming-tube-hole.

But remember, these are people somewhat distantly related or married to people I am related to. They're not going to give up easy.

Not one's to be deterred, they filled the loading chamber with numerous gases and flammable substances. This included additives such as WD-40, Head and Shoulders Hair Spray, and insect repellent.
None of it worked.

But then they came across a winning combination, Propane and Pure Oxygen.
They filled the chamber and quickly closed it off.

Suddenly the potato cannon had turned into a scientific experiment, the kind from a bad science fiction movie where the idea is "just so crazy it just might work." My cousin's instruments were a rake, to hold the cannon steady, and a shovel, to hit the ignition switch.

We knew that we were only a few moments away from being both internet hero's and Darwin Award champions.

I watched as they stood a solid five feet away from the massive weapon before hitting it without a warning.

The next thing I knew, I was crouched behind a car holding my ears. The sound was similar to a mortar explosion mixed with a T-Rex-tornado-train. For a split second I felt the ground shake and my heart momentarily stop beating.

Looking back up, I noticed everyone else was in a similar situation, but thankfully unharmed.

Meanwhile, the potato cannon was a smoking wreck.
The gaseous cocktail had apparently exploded outward through the casing. This was signified by the shattered remains at the bottom of the cannon and the very end of the barrel.



It was truly amazing.

Somewhere, down the valley, I'm certain the sound of the explosion is still making it's way past houses.

The potato, on the other hand, was no where to be found. The consensus was that it was vaporized.

Frankly, I like to think it soared into the distance and now is clogging the world's biggest fountain, miles away.

Arizona

I'm in Arizona at a family reunion, if you're wondering.



When I drive I take pictures of myself pretending not to pay attention to me taking pictures of myself.



It's often harder than it sounds.



That's what 95% of the drive looked like coming out here.



That's the other 5%.

It's actually pretty wonderful at times.
Then at other times it's just incredibly boring.
And then it's a little bit of both.

Saucey.

Oh. And here's my little awkward moment for the night.

Before the show Beth and I got dinner at a sweet Mexican place.
She ordered the Enchilada's with green salsa.
Myself, being unable to make hard choices like this one, decided to say, "I'll have the same."
The waiter, who seemed to mostly speak Spanish, asked something along the lines of whether I would like the "red salsa or the green salsa."
This somehow confused me. Again, being faced with small insignificant decisions is a huge obstacle to me.
So I said, "Yes."
Realizing that this answer made absolutely no sense in regards to an either/or question, I was responded to with extremely confused looks from both the waiter and Beth.

Not one to be corrected, I handed the menu back to the waiter who shuffled away.

He gave me the red salsa.

And I loved every bite of it.

Eef, Phalanstery Modules, and Loving The Unknown

Last night I got to see Eef Barzelay perform live down at the Spaceland, in Silverlake, LA.

It's not often that you get to see a performer who actually sounds and entertains better in person than they do pre-recorded, but honestly, Eef is exactly that. The deft command of both his gifted back-up artists and over his audience is really rather extraordinary.

There's a strangely affecting balance he hits within his performance, one that mixes troubling self-reflection with that of the playful rock-and-roll persona. The frequent out-bursts of skilled strumming and fingerpicking, accompanied by high-kick jumps and melodic vibrato singing, somehow seem truly necessary in delivering his desired tone. He sounds like a hopeful romantic, even when he's singing about the bleaching of various body-parts, all the while providing an original out-look on the society he finds on the brink of the apocalypse.

It's amazing stuff.



But just before the performance I saw something just as amazing, if not incredibly impractical.

A Phalanstery Module.



It was designed by comic-book artist Jimenez Lai mainly to demonstrate living on all dimensions in a zero-gravity environment by having architecture on all surfaces and constantly rotating.

Beth and I saw it while wandering about before the performance.

And I basically discovered I want to live inside of it.



But I don't want to live inside of a zero-gravity environment. I just want to live in a small apartment that constantly rotates extremely slowly.
I want to wake up each morning confused and on the floor, but at least have a separate, equally strange explanation, and then get into the habbit of constantly picking up fallen vases, paintings, furniture, and basically everything not nailed down.

Was That An Earthquake, or Just My Heart Pounding?

No, it was definitely an earthquake.

Anthony, Jon and I were playing videogames when we felt and heard what seemed like the world's biggest dumptruck was driving through a Crate and Barrel next door. Being used to heavy traffic, having grown up in DC, I continued watching the game. That was until the entire apartment building began to slightly sway. Then I realized it was actually an earthquake.

Jon had recently been in a motorcycle accident and has since been recovering from a broken shoulder, a fractured wrist, bruised ribs, and some seriously beat-up legs.

Bravely, I shoved him aside, considering him as a necessary sacrifice to the earthquake gods. He's an invalid anyways and would have only slowed down Anthony's, and more importantly, MY, escape.

Luckily, however, Jon managed to make his way down the flight of stairs. I reminded both of them not to use the elevator, because A: it would be unsafe, and also B: we don't have an elevator.

By the time we reached the street I expected us to be the only survivors. But miraculously it seems no one at all, in all of California, was harmed. Thanks to me.

But what, just what could have been the cause of all this destruction?

Iron Man Riding The Panda

I laughed with this. Mostly because of Robert Downey Jr.