While the cat's away....

With Eric MIA for the next week and without a new podcast for the week I felt like I owed you, the rabid fanbase, a bit more effort on the blog for the coming week. So I have vowed to post at least one new blog everyday this week. You should be warned the last time I made a vow it was that I'd watch all three Lord of the Rings movies in one day and I still have yet to do it, and it was five years ago that I made that vow. Still, we're off to a good start!

THE TOP FIVE MADE-UP MOVIES FROM "SEINFELD"

Any fan of "Seinfeld" is well versed in the made-up movies from the show. Some of the all time great scenes centered on these fictional works of cinema such as Kramer taking over for the Moviefone guy ("You've selected 'Brown-Eyed Girl'?...Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see!") or when George's dad freaks out when hearing Jerry and another character discuss a movie ("It has nothing to do with the plot!" "Still I like to go in fresh!"). I thought it was time we discuss which of these movies would be the ones I'd most want to see if they existed. Let's count 'em down...

5. "Blimp"

This is about the Hindeburg explosion and is from the seldom seen "Puerto Rican Day" episode where George yells out "That's gotta hurt!" during the climatic scene. He gets such a great reaction he goes to a second showing to try out the line again, but due to the presence of a guy with a laser pointer it falls flat.

I feel like while this wouldn't be an Oscar winner or turn into one of my favorites, it would still be worth watching. I mean could it be any worse than "Poseidon"?

Comedic factor on the show = 6

Desire to see it if it were real = 6

4. "Sack Lunch"

The plot points of this film are not known, but the movie poster shows a family stuck in a lunch sack. Elaine wonders was the family shrunk down to fit in the sack or is it some sort of giant sack. I can't help you with this but I loved how the involvement of this movie in the episode was how everyone Elaine knew wanted to see "The English Patient" while she wanted to see this movie which looked like crap. I hate when people get all into an artsy movie and then make you feel bad for just wanting to see something fun. If this episode was about "Babel" and "Mr. Woodcock" then I would be suing Larry David right now saying he stole it from my life.

Comedic factor on the show = 7

Desire to see it if it were real = 6

3. Agent Zero/Firestorm/Death Blow

These three movies were like the spaghetti westerns (is it still ok to use that term?) that Clint Eastwood starred in where I feel they were connected despite not having the same characters. They were all action films referenced throughout the series. "Agent Zero" was one of the films Kramer offers up when he is pretending to be Moviefone. "Firestorm" starred Harrison Ford and is the movie George's dad wants "to go in fresh!" for. "Death Blow" is the movie Jerry bootlegs and turns him into a legend on the street.

Three great titles for action movies, although "Firestorm" loses points because it eventually was used in real life in a movie starring former NFL Defensive End Howie Long, or as the women know him, the guy with the very ambiguous relationship to Teri Hatcher in those old Radio Shack commercials.

Comedic factor on the show = 7.5

Desire to see if it were real = 7

2. "Rochelle, Rochelle"

The hands down favorite to take the number one spot on the list, the tale of a "young girl's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk" was by far the most referenced movie of the series. The characters saw it in the theaters, George later rented it on VHS, and even later Jerry dated the understudy to Bette Middler from the Broadway rendition of the story. And the movie was always described as having "a lot of nudity" which is always a crowd pleaser here at Really Reel Reviews.

Comedic Factor on the show = 8

Desire to see if it were real = 9

1. "Chunnel"

Boom! I don't know how this movie hasn't been made in real life. I mean the pieces are all there, even the supposed plot of the movie on the show sounds great. According to the "Seinfeld" fictional films wikipedia, it was about the President of the United States' daughter being trapped between England and France. And you know there was some former FBI agent on board going to sightsee in Europe after being let go by the very government he swore to protect and now they need him again! Oh man, that movie would rock! This was another movie in the Moviefone episode and the tagline is "Chunnel" 32 Miles of Hell. AWESOME.

Comedic factor on the show = 7.5

Desire to see if it were real = 10

So those are my five, as always if you disagree or have comments please email us or you can save it for the next podcast we do.

The New Saturday Morning Cartoon

Getting old sucks. It becomes a lot more “I’m too tired” and less “oh cool, sounds fun!” Getting old sucks. Slowly going from “I think I did something to my back” to just “Hold on, my backs f*d” – and I’m only 26! But the main reason getting old sucks is because my Saturday mornings are a lot more “Beverly Hills: 90210” reruns and HGTV instead of "X-Men" or "Woody Woodpecker"…hell, I even used to get down with "Eek! The Cat".
I miss my cartoons. Nothing beat getting up early, grabbing some Kix – kid tested, mother approved – and watching my favorite characters on television. But now what? I can’t get into any of today’s cartoons. There’s either a seizure or a restraining order waiting for me on the other end of that half hour. So what do I do when I want my animated fix?
That’s why I’m going to rundown the top 5 animated movies for adults. So many people are quick to dismiss animated films as if they cannot be serious. But that is not the case. In fact, many animated films are very serious and use animation as the vehicle to visually present many complex ideas, theories and concepts. From science fiction to documentaries, animation allows the filmmaker to express the otherwise imperceiveable. This list will definitely need to be expanded as I have not even tapped the great keg of animated feature films, but of the many I have seen here are 5 that you probably have missed, but should see (in chronological order)…

5. Ghost in the Shell, 1995 Japan (not subtitled) - This is a beautiful film that is enjoyable and captivating for the entirety of its 82minute runtime. I will say that the voice talent is absolutely terrible. I wish I could blame it on good acting that was trying to capture the mechanical qualities of some of its characters, but honestly it’s just bad. However, that can’t be held against the movie since I watched the American version and this is originally a Japanese flick. A lot of The Matrix elements could be said to be taken from this film. I say watch and decide for yourself. Either way, I’m sure you will appreciate both films for their own originality and visual lure.

4. Waking Life, 2001 USA – As I’ve mentioned, animation is no longer just a child’s medium. Some films on this list prove that with violence and presentation of futuristic landscapes and technologies. Waking Life, however, focuses on the cerebral, the surreal, and the subconscious. This film utilizes rotoscoping which is the process of filming a live action movie and animating over it. If you’ve seen the Charles Schwab “talk to chuck” commercials you know what I’m talking about. However, this film was done well before that art was perfected so excuse the “jumpiness” and enjoy the journey!

3. Renaissance, 2006 France (not subtitled) –
Another visually striking film, Renaissance is mostly in black and white. This plot is a little convoluted at times, but at least the voice talents are superb, and the aesthetics will hold you long enough while you sort out the story. The English version features Daniel Craig as Paris police captain, Karas.

2. A Scanner Darkly, 2006 USA
– This is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel by the same name. If you’ve ever read a PKD novel or enjoyed any movies inspired by his novels (Total Recall, Minority Report, Blade Runner) I say you give this one a shot. It will not please everyone; I’m a huge PKD fan and I wasn’t sure what to make of this movie the first time through. But it is visually stunning and presents us with a much more dismal future than we’re used to in other futuristic animated films. The cast is also an added bonus: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harreslon, and Wynona Ryder.

1. Waltz with Bashir, 2008 Israel (subtitled)
The music and scenery are absolutely breathtaking. Visually this is an absolutely beautiful film which serves it well because you are safely held at a distance from the atrocities of war while the director ventures into a world of memory and the abstract. I will say that I do not know the history of the Lebanon war too well, but this movie did seem to be a little one-sided. Being a personal documentary, I’m not sure we can fault the filmmaker for this. This film was the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award and after watching it I am confident you will understand why.

I hope you check out all or at least some of these. In the meantime be sure to check out this upcoming filmmaker, Ben Levin. He is totally hilarious and his Election Time PSAs are hilarious regardless of your political affiliation.

Is "The Happening" the worst movie of all-time?

When M. Night Shyamalan came out with his latest film called "The Happening" I was rather intrigued. I know his movies since "The Sixth Sense" have all fallen kind of flat, even though I thought "Signs" was pretty good and I liked "Unbreakable". Still every time he comes out with something new the trailers completely suck me in and I can't wait to see the movie.

Well I was a little bit late to the dance on this flick, and when my friends saw it opening weekend and told me it was the worst movie they'd ever seen I was not as eager to shell out $12 to see it. So I did the next best thing, I made my friend Mike tell me the whole movie, and it sounded like the worst movie I'd ever heard of.

But it would be unfair to M. Night to simply give his movie such a title without viewing it myself and that is what I plan to do right now. It was on HBO last night, I DVR-ed it and am going to watch it and keep a running diary throughout the movie and let's just see at the end if this will hold onto the belt in the World's Worst Movie championship! (Spoiler alert: It's a running diary of the whole movie, I'm gonna discuss plot points, twists and the end so if you wanna see it at some point don't read this. But let's face it, if you're trying to guard yourself from having "The Happening" ruined for you then I think you have some more serious issues to focus on.)

0:02 - I'm so excited for Marky Mark, I can't wait to see him try to pull off being a simple science teacher. By the way, poor hiring background checks at this high school that would hire Wahlberg after he fingered Reese Witherspoon on a ferris wheel when she was 16.

0:03 - The credits are white text against a back drop of white clouds making reading it like taking an eye exam, not a good sign for where we're headed.

0:08 - A bunch of people just mysteriously killed themselves in New York City. I didn't know Knicks fans had come that far!

0:09 - Wahlberg just told a high school boy he had a perfect face, I told you they should have done that background check.

0:12 - Ferris Bueller's best friend Cameron playing the principal, it's going to be tough to beat that for best cameo. Also they think it was a terrorist attack in New York and Wahlberg goes "Central Park? That's kinda odd." Yeah Mark, it's odd terrorists would target a highly populated area in NYC for an attack.

0:14 - Painful scene of John Leguizamo and Wahlberg talking to let us know that Wahlberg's wife might be leaving him. I have a hunch this "happening" might bring them closer together. Wahlberg's wife played by Zooey Deschanel keeps getting cell calls from a "Joey", possible male lover but I'm hoping for Joey Potter from "Dawson's Creek".

0:20 - People start killing themselves in Philadelphia, which is fitting because it's like a Baby New York.

0:23 - The train Wahlberg got on with his wife and Leguizamo just stopped in a random PA town. I like how the train randomly stops, all the conductors are just talking and no one besides Wahlberg goes up to them to see what's going on. Wahlberg also just said "We're in a small town, nothing will happen to us here." Awesome.

0:27 - Some random woman gets a video on her phone from a zoo where a man goes into a lion's den and lets lions rip off his arms. M. Night is really letting loose with the R rating here. The news says it's no longer likely a terrorist attack and shows a map of it only hitting the northeast with the town Wahlberg's in being the center. Way to jinx yourself Mark, maybe next he'll say "I bet if this was a movie it'd be a sure-fire hit!"

0:29 - The classic random guy says "If we stay here we're all gonna die". Everyone leaves, Leguizamo heads to Jersey to get his wife, Wahlberg and his wife take his kid and go off with a family.

0:31 - They get to the family's house which is right near two gigantic stacks from a power plant. A more effective way to establish the theme might have been to have a sky writer spell out "Man is ruining the environment". The family keeps a greenhouse and says plants can release chemicals and are affected by humans. See where we're heading here?

0:36 - Uh-oh Leguizamo gets to Jersey but it's "happened" there too and they drive right into a tree. He survives then slits his wrists with the broken windshield. M Night is really going gruesome with these deaths.

0:41 - Wow, this is really falling apart. A woman is talking to her daughter who is in Jersey and Wahlberg has her ask if it's infected. The woman asks and she says everyone's dead outside. Wahlberg semi reacts, five seconds pass, the woman then says honey you're talking funny and THEN Wahlberg goes "What do you mean everyone's dead?" Again, at least 5 seconds had passed after she said everyone was dead and she had gone on to a new topic before Wahlberg asked that. I mean he had to have missed his cue there right? Please? Think about if someone said to you we're out of mayo and you waited five seconds and waited for them to start another conversation before saying "What do you mean we're out of mayo?" People don't act like this M. Night!

0:45 - Halfway done. This movie is bad. It's clearly plants doing this, we get it. I'll recycle my cans now M. Night, mission accomplished. Wahlberg's wife admits to having dessert with Joey, that's it. And it's not Joey Potter, it's a dude. Swing and a miss.

0:48 - People start shooting themselves and Wahlberg's wife goes "We can't just stand here as uninvolved observers!" which is interesting because I think if I heard people blowing their brains out my first statement would not be nearly as well thought out and would be closer to "Holy f*cking sh*t!!! Oh f*ck, oh f*ck. Run! F*ck them, save yourself. I think I sh*t my pants. Run!"

0:51 - They just tried to out run wind. You've got to be kidding. It didn't work. Sadly, it also didn't kill them.

0:54 - They are now in an abandoned house and Wahlberg is talking to a house plant as if he's a hostage negotiator, it turns out to be plastic. I really think I could do every drug on the planet in a hour and this movie would still seem ludicrous to me. But what a hour that would be, huh?

0:57 - So it appears it kills people only in large groups, so they try to keep their group small to survive. Also, a man just turned on a lawnmower and laid down in front of it as it ran him over. Fun!

1:02 - Remember that Bruce Willis movie "The Kid"? Well the kid from that movie just took a shotgun blast to the chest and his friend took one in the head. Walhberg says "I want out of this nightmare" I concur.

1:06 - Wahlberg and Co. come to a rundown old house and the old woman living there offers them dinner. She doesn't know what's "happened". This woman's got some pain behind her eyes.

1:14 - Well it got the old woman, she was a loon anyway. She had this weird doll sleeping in a bed. Never trust anyone over 12 who has dolls. She slammed her head against the house then into a window.

1:20 - Wahlberg is in one house, his wife is in another. They can hear each other through a pipe somehow. He says it's not right and if they're gonna die they will die together and goes outside to see her and she comes outside too. I have nothing funny here, it's just so sad.

1:23 - It didn't kill them. Hooray. Fast forward to some time after, the news thinks it's a warning for people to treat the planet better. Also, Wahlberg's wife is now preggers.

1:26 - It starts "happening" in Paris. The end?

Well that might very well have been the worst movie ever. I understand the theme of how terrible we treat this planet, but the dialogue and acting were simply atrocious. I did enjoy one part, when Mark Wahlberg says to himself "Be scientific douchebag."

I don't like to label things as best ever or worst ever often, but I am having a difficult time coming up with something that would top this piece of crap. Feel free to email if you can think of a worse movie.

After watching this, if the Sox lose to the Yankees as well tonight then I am laying in front of a moving lawnmower after the game.

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Keepin' It Really Reel Award - July '09

Really Reel Reviews started as a simple idea that we hoped would pass the time for us and occasionally bring us some amusement. The venture has lasted a little over two months, but it has been exhausting. We have been tiring ourselves by watching movies, going through drafts for various blog entries, and arguing tons of topics and points for podcasts, many of which we never discuss on air. Mix that with family, work, and a recession and you’ve got a recipe for burnout – not to mention I’ve just started my PGA season on Tiger Woods golf! When can a guy get a break? So here we are. Let’s take a knee and grab some water and reflect on the summer of movies since its end is just over one month away…
Most of the blockbusters have already come and gone. When you listen to our podcasts there are only a few movies we strongly recommend, and only one of the much anticipated summer releases do we outright encourage seeing in theaters– STAR TREK. Admittedly, our reason for wanting to see Star Trek and wanting it to succeed was more for J.J. Abrams, not the Star Trek franchise, and that is why Abrams is July’s recipient of the Keepin’ it Really Reel Award.
I never saw Felicity, never saw much of Alias, but I did see the pilot of LOST and that was all she wrote. JJ Abrams directed the pilot of LOST (in addition to his writing and producing responsibilities), and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing something special. The way he handles chaos and presents it intricately, but clearly (which ends up being important to the theme of the show) is unlike anything I had ever seen…until I saw the bridge scene in Mission: Impossible III. But all the explosions, time traveling, and intricate action sequences aren’t what make Abrams amazing.What separates Abrams from McG and Michael Bay is the same thing that makes Star Trek better than Terminator Salvation and Transformers – it’s the story. Yes, the actual story.

Story is an ancient term some of you may not remember, but it is very important to Abrams and what he does. From Felicity to Sydney Bristow to the entire ensemble of LOST; characters are what drives Abrams’ work. Even in "MI3", Abrams’ directorial debut, characters that we had known for two previous movies seemed to have newfound depth to them. I mean, everyone looks better compared to John Woo’s doves and motorcycle ballets, but "MI3" made a legitimate stance as story based action movie. And that’s exactly why the franchise, for the first time in its brief history, will use a director for more than one movie.

I could go on and on about Abrams, but what really makes him deserving of this month’s award is his own words at the TED speaker series. There he talks about his passion for story and mystery. He also mentions why many sequels fail – because they “rip off” the wrong elements of the original movie. I highly recommend listening to that portion of the clip. Abrams Keeps it Really Reel by injecting our otherwise dull, lackluster, and cookie-cutter summer with some life, energy, and ingenuity.
Allow yourself to actually watch some of Abrams’ work and forget about the vehicle he uses to set up his plot; forget the plane crash, the time travel, the black hole, and allow yourself to get to know the doctor or the con man, the aspiring starship captain, or the secret agent and I guarantee you will be amazed. Thank you, J.J. Abrams for your many stories that go beyond the common ploys and tricks of cinema and TV. And we’re all looking forward to 2010 when Destiny is Found! (Lost fans, you can now go change your shorts.)