It's been a while since I've done a post about bad movies and this is a special edition.
I first heard about "The Room" when reading an article about the movie in "Entertainment Weekly." In it they were talking about how it's become the new "so bad it's good" film and a Hollywood insider joke. After reading about it and hearing it supposedly referenced in television and film I had to watch it. If I was in LA, I would have simply gone down and watched it, but alas I had to wait for it to hit DVD. Fast forward to the other day when I was able to get this movie on Netflix.
This... movie... was... EPIC!!! I honestly haven't seen a movie SO bad, but SO awesome in a long time. Where do I start? This film fails on every level... writing, acting, directing, score/music etc. (almost all done by Tommy Wiseau.)
For instance, I give you the flower shop scene. (staring Tommy Wiseau)
The movie in a nutshell is about Johnny, a banker who takes care of his friends. His girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. Sounds simple enough that a soap opera could make a decent story arch out of. Well... not here and mixed in with that simple plot are little scenes that make no sense at all and do nothing to help push the story along.
For instance, I give you all of the football scenes in the movie.
Honestly this isn't one of those movies where you're 30 minutes or halfway through the film and you think that it THEN goes downhill, it is one of those movies that goes downhill at the opening scene.
It is a beautiful crash and burn that I honestly would LOVE to see in a theater with a "Rocky Horror" type crowd, throwing footballs, wearing wigs and watching Tommy Wiseau cock his head back and laugh after he says EVERY line.
It would be REAL easy to jump on the bandwagon and talk about how much the "Twilight" saga sucks and who knows... I may, but I'm at least going to start off on some other films. Vampire films are all different because they don't all subscribe to the same mythology. (like lumbering or running zombies) Some films have vampires that hate crosses, some can't withstand silver and some sparkle like Adam Lambert & Ziggy Stardust when they get in the sun. (crap... I've already started talking about Twilight)
Where to start...
Well... for some reason people in Germany and the Ukraine visit my blog, so I'll start off with a movie directed by a German that was most likely shot in the Ukraine.
Bloodrayne
Uwe Boll, hate him or really hate him, has made a name for himself by making films out of video games, using loopholes in German tax laws to finance his films and being just a plain old douche bag. But, with his "Ed Wood" like film making he has made a career out of bad cinema.
"Bloodrayne" is one of those movies that when reading the cast list you think, "WOW this should be pretty decent." Wrong... wrong... oh so wrong. I remember when this movie came out, it was one of the 1st times I saw a review in EW get an "F." I for one couldn't believe that Ben Kingsley would be in a vampire movie and one that would get such a horrible review. Just a few years prior he was in "Sexy Beast" playing one of the most menacing assholes in history... how could this be? Well... it be and he be not the only one. Granted Michael Madson has never had an amazing career, but he's worked with Tarentino on a few films, so you'd think he wouldn't be down for a movie like this. Michelle Rodriguez had all that hype from "Girl Fight" and was building a solid resume, why this project? And Kristanna Loken just did "Terminator 3," shouldn't her clout go up just a little? (despite her acting) I do not have answers for any of these questions.
The story, if you can really follow it is as follows. Rayne is a half vampire half human who's father is technically the "king" of vampires. (Ben Kinglsley) He raped her mom and killed her. About twenty years have passed and she want's to get her Inigo Montoya on. She links up with some vampire hunters and there's something about a secret thing that can do something crazy. (i.e. vampire body parts of the original vampire)
Wait a second... I thought I saw this movie before with Wesley Snipes? Oh... this isn't "Blade"? Oh... my bad... continue.
Michael Madson's Mullet is EPIC!!!
^^^Ok, so that part where it says "she lusts," it is honestly the most over the top gratuitous sex scene I've scene I've seen in a long time. Not to ruin any plot points, but then again there isn't much of one, the vampire hunters throw her into jail and for no reason what so ever she just jumps this guy and takes her top off. It's ment to be hot, but actually looks more like a broke ass porn on Cinemax that takes place in a medieval prison/dungeon. I honestly started laughing my ass off and my wife just said, "WHAT?!"
From the horrible dialog, fake looking swords, almost non-existent plot, Michelle Rodriguez slipping in and out of an accent and Michael Madson's mullet, it's one of those films that seems to have had GREAT ambitions, but failed at everything. Oh... I can't forget resident cool guy Billy Zane. (do you REALLY think he'd be Zoolander's wing man? Billy Zane is only Billy Zane's wing man)
Well, if this movie wasn't sh!tty enough there was a straight to DVD sequel and a 3rd one that was filmed at the same time as "Blubberella."
Dracula: 2000
The title in itself says it all. Dracula... IN THE FUTURE!!! Well, it's not really the future, but it was 2000 and they wanted to revamp, no pun, the whole take on Dracula. (so it ended up with a B-list title)
Full disclosure, I ONLY saw this move because my co-worker at Hollywood Video said Vitamin C was naked in it. (anybody remember her?) In all honesty I hardly remember much of this movie. I even forgot or knew that Gerard Butler was in it as Dracula, but I will say he does have one great line. "I don't drink... coffee." And homie bangs Vitamin C on the ceiling, straight Lionel Ritchie style. How baller is that?! Flying sex!
Gerard Butler's hair is also EPIC!!!
I actually had a movie pass that I used for my friend Carlos and I to go see it and I remember when it was over I could only think, "damn... a free movie and I saw that sh!t?" Now, although I can't really remember much of the movie I mostly just remember the AMOUNT of disappointment I had after watching it and my co-worker saying it was such a cool vampire movie. I will most likely have to cop this joint again to fully enjoy it. (or not)
Finally to add to this trio of bad hair vampire movies...
Vampire in Brooklyn
In the early to mid-90s in Olympia there was a $1 theater that would show all sorts of movies and they didn't care how old you were if you wanted to go see an R rated film. This theater is where I saw "Pulp Fiction" and "Heat" when they came out. Growing up, half the time my parents would want to go see one movie that I could care less about, so I'd check something else out that I was mildly interested in. Enter "Vampire from Brooklyn."
Eddie Murphy... the most EPIC hair of all!!! Jerry curl mullet!!!
I honestly can just imagine the pitch in the studio office. "Well... Coppola did 'Dracula,' so to get the black demo, lets redo it with Eddie Murphy! First he was looking for a bride in Queens... now he'll be looking for a bride in Brooklyn!" High fives all around guys... high fives.
The thing is, that pretty much sums up the whole movie. But, it's modern... as in the 90s and like many Eddie Murphy movies made after "Coming to America" he dons all sorts of make up to play different characters. What does this mean... well see for yourself because the whole thing is up on youtube. (see below)
A lot of people argue that if this was released now it would have been a lot more successful. I'm not sure. Although Eddie Murphy was in slump at the time, pre "Nutty Professor," the film as a whole couldn't find it's niche. It wanted to be a horror, it wanted to be a comedy, but couldn't find it's footing in either. You ended up with an hour and a half of "meh."
What's really lame is that Wes Craven did the last two movies I mentioned. Honestly fam... I know you can do good stuff, but those were pretty lame homie. Been caught slippin' I guess.
And what do ya know... I didn't even go on a rant about "Twilight."
Here we are once again with another installment of crap cinema. These are a couple films that I've enjoyed in the past, but honestly are some bad films.
Let's start off with "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin." I saw this movie in the theater when it came out. It was originally in 3D, before the over the top fad of 3D dominated everything in theaters. Then 3D was such a rare treat that when they'd show some wack John Wayne movie like "Hondo" on TV in 3D everybody would run out to where ever they were selling the glasses and buy them up. So, here I am... about 4 or 5 and waiting in the snow outside the movie theater to see this movie. I remember they actually had someone tell us that the print of the film was delivered late and they were putting the reels together as we stood in line. (no time to make sure all of the reels were there or if it was put together properly... there were people waiting)
I remember we went inside and got our glasses. (which were closer to the popular 3D glasses they use now instead of the classic red and blue joints from back in the day) The movie started and honestly all I remember was that it was a complete and TOTAL rip off of "Star Wars." Even at such a young age I was sitting there thinking, "so... he's Han, he's Obiwan, he's Luke... that's a lightsaber etc." And after that... that was it. I totally forgot the name of the movie and a majority of the storyline. I always remembered seeing this 3D sci-fi movie, but couldn't remember the name of it and no one I knew had any idea of what I was talking about. (except my dad) So... now that we are now in this beautiful digital age of search engines, forums & youtube, I simply typed in "Star Wars rip off cartoon 3D" and BLAM there it is. "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin."
From simply looking the film up on youtube, it looks like you can watch the whole movie in several parts. I've just thrown a few up so you can check some of it out. If you remember "Fire & Ice," "Heavy Metal," "Wizards" or "The Lord of the Rings" animated films, you'll see a similar style.
It isn't hard to believe that this film is pretty rare. About a year or two ago I was able to get a copy from Netflix and watch it, but upon looking for it again, they don't have a copy. (probably because someone "lost" the few copies they had or it just got damaged) And by the way... when I did get that copy a year or two ago, I didn't even make it through the film. I ended up passing out after 30-40 minutes only to wake up 5 minutes before the credits rolled and the "Obiwan" character is telling Orin that the "notcopywritten force" was in him.
(Review from Netflix by someone who worked on the film)
"Yeah, I was a production assistant on this movie for 3 years. I am also the voice of "Boro" the Mandroid in the swamp sequence. "I get his arm!" This was one of the first post-TRON movies to use computer generated ships. We had plotters drawing each ship on paper for both left and right eye views. Given the limits of computing power of the time, this took forever! The story was a rip-off of every Sci-Fi film out there but the 3D was cool to see in animation. If anyone has those glasses that you use for some T.V. shows that give you a faux 3D feel they work quite well for alot of the movie. The quality of the animation shifted so much because we did some of it better to get investors in the film....As production went along money dried up, quality suffered and re-takes didn't happen as it had to get out to theaters. Oh well! Good film though, nice to see if finally on DVD in widescreen instead of the dreadful VHS pan and scan!!!!"
On to the next one. This film has been a guilty pleasure forever. I am talking of none other than "Ice Pirates."
Like "Starchaser" this story begins with waiting in a long line outside only to have someone say that there was something wrong with the print and they couldn't show the film. I honestly don't know how or when I ended up seeing it. Most likely I ended up seeing it on video, but I do know it was a staple on TBS alongside "Beastmaster" that I watched on the regular. So bad... but so good.
Brief synopsis... the universe is running out of water, so it becomes the next big currency... space & pirates are involved. What more do you need? Robots, space herpes... this is a craptastic popcorn movie for a Saturday night.
In fact...
A week ago I was with my wife at a Big Lots and I just happened to walk by there DVDs and see this staring me in the face with Robert Ulrich's pretty eyes. No words were spoken, I simply grabbed it and made a B-line to my wife. Upon showing it to her she simply uttered, "YES!" with the same amount of excitement I had when discovering it. (and that's why I love her)
1st off I originally put up a post about "dope wack movie experiences" and I was talking about dope bad movies. Well, I was looking at the traffic and found a ton of porn sites were referring this in their search engine. I guess when you type in your search engine "dope movies to wack off to" you would come across my page. So, for those of you that stumbled across my page and the closest thing to porn you found was me talking about "Manos: Hands of Fate," sorry.
Like I mentioned last go round, Netflix is great for watching bad film, especially when browsing their streaming selection. Granted there are a lot of good movies available for streaming, but there are a WHOLE lot of bad ones that they were able to get rights to for very little money. Due to this advantage, Kath and I recently went on a 3 day binge of wack movies, one worse than the next. (and not all were streaming for the record)
We eased our way into it with "Krull."
Because "Spaceship Mountain & Magic Ninja Star" is too long of a title.
Now, as a kid I remember thinking this movie was so bada$$ and honestly it was one of those films that was just better in memory much like, "Labyrinth" or the "A-Team" series. Honestly, this isn't a bad film and it's actually a step above "Beastmaster," but it doesn't mean it's a good film. Of the three movies we watched, it was damn near "Citizen Kane" though.
Here's the story... a prince and princess of two families of woe decide to get married. An alien monster king and his spaceship mountain decide to crash the party and kidnap the princess. The prince wakes up and a wise man tells him he is the chosen one and must find a magic ninja star/switchblade to get the girl back. He decides to go on a quest to find so said item and does within the first 15-20 minutes of the film. (a quest that can fill WHOLE movies) Awesome, he's got the bada$$ ninja star, now he can use it to get everybody out of a sticky situation throughout the quest. Wrong. The wise man said he can ONLY use it at the end of the movie. Thanks Obi-buzz Killnoby. The rest of the film is filler as they are joined with people on their quest that fill their need when needed. Finally they get to the spaceship mountain and he gets to finally use the bada$$ ninja star that's on all of the movie art. Does bada$$ery follow? (spoiler alert) Well, kind of, but the thing is, it's not what kills the evil alien king... it's the love that only a cheesy prince and princess have that kills him. So... why did he even get the ninja star/switch blade in the first place and you tickle our balls waiting to use it? I digress...
Up next... "Flash Gordon"
This was one of those movies that I would stumble across on TBS all the time and would watch bits and pieces of it till I would get board or the next set of commercials would drop. Where do I start with this one. It's one of those movies that you look back and think, "epic fail." It's 1980, so it's post "Star Wars" and therefore studios and sci-fi movies KNEW they needed to step their game up. Dino De Laurentiis was involved in the production, so you know there's some serious dough involved, but ultimately despite the cast of well know actors mixed with the wack ones, you'd think it could carry itself. Nope. Ultimately the thing that most people remember from the movie is the theme song Queen wrote.
Max Von Sydow got the ill bead work.
When we got the movie in the mail I remember telling Kath that I couldn't remember if I ever watched it all the way through or not. Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't ever watch it all the way through and it honestly was pretty hard to watch all the way though. One thing Kath kept saying throughout the film was that there was amazing bead work on all of the costumes. Well that makes up for the horrible acting, script, special effects etc. Oh... and in a way like in "Krull" love saves the day, but instead it's more the "human spirit" that always gives Flash, his lady and the nutty professor sidekick the upper hand. (forget those lazers)
1980 and you can see the friggin' strings. Dino... step your game up.
Best quote: "No, not the bore worms!" What are the bore worms? You only know they're bad, but you never see them and know they were used on Ming's daughter after he said they could be used to interrogate her.
Finally to cap it all off, we ended with "Xanadu." Yes, THAT "Xanadu." Craptastic!!!
I'm not a huge fan of musicals, despite being heavily involved in theater in high school. BUT, I can appreciate a good musical like "Chicago," "Phantom of the Opera" or "Miss Siagon." Xanadu is not like these though.
The only thing I really knew about this movie were roller skates and Olivia Newton-John. Didn't miss much. Here's the basic story. A painter can't make it on his own, so he gets his old job with a record company back painting record covers. (boo friggin' hoo... he's at least doing something he enjoys... a$$hole) And the best part is his boss doesn't REALLY bust his balls, but he always freaks out on his boss at every moment being totally insubordinate and never getting fired. In fact he fires himself when he has one of his little tantrums in front of his boss later on in the film. Anyway... the story... or what story there is. He's a painter, Olivia Newton-John comes out of a street painting and inspires him. (spoiler alert: because she's a Greek muse... DAH-DA-DAAAAAAAHHHH) He meets and becomes friends with Gene Kelly and for some reason when just meeting this guy he wants to invest all of his money into starting a night club, despite the painter having no money and he, Gene Kelly, being 30 years out of touch. Sounds like a smashing success! (cough... I mean Xanadu)
The real problem with the film isn't just the story, although MANY musicals suffer from bad story lines, it's everything in general. The story, the production value, the acting... everything. Now, most musicals use the music to propel the storyline, but in "Xanadu" the music is just inserted and at points totally unneeded. Also, there's an entire animated sequence that comes out of nowhere and makes you wonder if you're "trippin' balls man." My wife, in fact when this sequence started said, "are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
Gene Kelly, in one of his last performances, seems almost annoyed by the film and you can see him in the scenes with a plastered on smile that you would have when you don't have anything nice to say. You want to roll your eyes for him as each scene he has with the male lead makes you go, "you're Gene effin' Kelly!" I will say in true Gene Kelly fashion, "Xanadu" uses the music and dance sequences to fill in plot inconsistencies or baffle the audience in general. (hey, sorry... even my wife who loves Gene Kelly will admit this)
This movie was by far the worst of the three films we watched and honestly was the hardest to get through. (and Flash Gordon was almost unbearable at moments) We did actually have to hit the fast forward button a few times to get through this one. (ouch)
Despite all three of these films being almost unbearable, it all boils down to what I said in the last post about wack movies, it's the experience. You have more fun enjoying the experience of watching wack movies than the actual film itself. That being said I still haven't seen "Ishtar."
I love film. I've always loved movies... watching them, discussing them, studying directors work... the whole thing. At one time I actually worked at a movie theater and a video store at the same time. (that was a trip) I studied film in college and my roommate was a film major, so we had a lot of discussions and got downright snobby. Truth be told there was actually one time when we were watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and while Leatherface is chasing the girl in the thicket/field there is this beautiful dolly shot. I remember sitting there watching this very intense horror film and both of us going, "WOAH... look at that shot." HAHA
Much like how I was with a LOT of my music when I was younger, I was rather snobby and didn't want to lower my standards to watch lower cinema. (i.e. a ton of movies) As I've gotten older I've eased up on the attitude and learned to enjoy myself. I honestly dig watching a real bad movie and kicking back a couple beers. Films like "Plan 9," "Manos: Hands of Fate," and "Troll 2" have blessed my DVD player and made for a great evening. Now, for the most part, watching a bad movie is usually best if you're watching it at home on DVD and with Netflix, you can either stream or get movies in the mail and not feel like you're shelling out cash on a sh!tty movie when instead you could rent "Inception." Also, you usually don't want to pay full price for a movie in the theater if you think or know it's going to be bad. BUT, if everybody is in on it, it can be like a glorified version of getting some friends to come through and watch it on your TV.
Once, in college, when I was at my snobby peak, my roommate had me go with him to watch "Showgirls" at the Capitol Theater in Olympia with live commentary from one of the writers for "The Stranger." At first I was holding back because I didn't want to go to a theater to see a really bad, shitty, underage jerk-off movie, but I had one of those moments and thought, "what the phawk." The best part of the movie was that it was trying so hard to be sexy and it was so UN-sexy, it was actually not arousing in any way shape or form. Instead is was just flat out funny. It was honestly one of the best movie experiences I have ever had and was so happy I went and saw that in a theater. (pseudo midnight movie/grindhouse style)
Although I've enjoyed watching bad movies with friends or my wife at home there REALLY isn't anything like going to a theater and fully experiencing the film with an audience. This is where films like "Grindhouse" aka "Planet Terror" & "Death Proof" or "Mechete" do real well. I'm sorry to say that I didn't get to check "Mechete" in the theater and instead saw it on bootleg, BUT while finishing up principle recording of "Basement Sessions" I DID see "Grindhouse" with my man Corey aka Just Be and it was so friggin' dope.
There is no doubt a time and a place for bad cinema. A little over a month ago I was down visiting the in-laws and Kath was going to go out for the night with her cousin. What was I to do... enter "Resident Evil: Afterlife" w/o 3-D. I had movie passes and was down to see it by myself, but at the last moment I ended up going with... I guess you'd say cousin in-law Dan. HAHA Now, up until that moment I had not seen ANY of the prior "Resident Evil" movies in full, but knew that a zombie apocalypse movie should be a good time. We rolled up to the theater that shockingly was still playing the movie after it had been out for longer than it's shelf life and used passes instead of paying. (the ultimate laugh) We get into the theater and there are only 4 other people. I honestly thought there would be us two, but alas there would be a couple other people there to enjoy what most likely was going to be a bad movie.
This was one of those movies that was an obviously trying to cash in on something as soon as they could. 1st off, it's a movie based on a video game, 2nd zombies are vogue and 3rd and most important, it's in 3-D. Now we did not get to see the film in 3-D and despite how the previews say that it was shot using the same process that James Cameron used there were your typical wack 3-D type effects, like they throw knives at the screen etc. The print itself also was past it's expiration date and in true grindhouse/midnight movie fashion it had started to fade and turn colors when some reels would start.
Now, that trailer doesn't look to bad and it seems pretty decent. Unfortunately the BIG problem this movie has is simply... it tries too hard and doesn't know what kind of a movie it wants to be. It starts off wrapping up what was at the end of the 3rd movie, but honestly when watching the 3rd film you didn't need another installment to know for sure if Alice would seek revenge on the corporation that turned her into what she became in the 2nd and 3rd installment. So, for the 1st 20-30 minutes of the film it's wrapping up this storyline in a really bad "Matrix/Blade" rip off. Once it's over, the film finally can catch it's breath and shift into what it's supposed to be about and it does for the next half of the film. We go from techno horror sci-fi to "Dawn of the Dead" rip off in the process of 40 minutes. As our heroes finally decide that their prison is too much of a prison and in this case they really are in a prison, it then turns back into a techno sci-fi horror again.
But that's not the fun part. The best part of this movie was the simple fact that the story couldn't find itself, the action was over the top and unexplained and dialogue was horrible. Honestly my favorite part of the movie was when we are being shown what's in the prison and we are taken into the basement. "When we got here... there was no one left, until we found that." You then see a prison cell straight out of "Silence of the Lambs" and a shadowy figure locked inside. As the person comes closer to the light you realize that the person in prison is the guy from "Prison Break." HAHA When the audience was introduced to him I actually said out loud in the theater, "Heeeeyyyyy PRISON BREAK!!!" HAHA (Poor guy is typecast in movies too.) He then says he knows how to get out, but must be let free to help them. When they finally free him, he just so happens to be one of the main character's, who happens to have amnesia, brother. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at how ridiculous the whole thing was and it was damn fun.
Honestly, it was a pretty bad film, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Enough that I may just watch it again or cop it on DVD to add to the collection. Not because I think it should sit next to my "proper" films, but because it can sit amongst my guilty pleasures.
Resident Evil: Afterlife 2/5 for the movie as it self, but 4/5 for the experience.
Alright, let me start this off with saying I dig the Harry Potter franchise. I will admit, when the books were blowing up I thought it was stupid and didn't understand the whole thing behind it. (much like the Twilight hype)
Although I saw the 1st two films in the theater, I honestly didn't really like the series until the 3rd installment. The 1st two films suffered from UBER Chris Columbus family itis and honestly that was the main demographic for the early books and films. But, like many franchise films, after the basic characters are developed, the later films can just kick it in 5th gear and drive. (much like many of the comic book films... X-Men, Batman, Ironman etc.) This is what was able to happen by the time "The Prisoner of Azkaban" hit. The characters were pretty well developed and the ultimate storyline throughout the books were set in motion.
Sit, and enjoy the ride.
"Prisoner of Azkaban," "Goblet of Fire" & "Order of the Phoenix" all kept everything in motion as Harry dealt with the problems given to him in each installment. By the time "The Half Blood Prince" was finally released, after about 6 months to a year after it was finished, the films took a different tone. Not on action, but on moving pawn pieces. Granted you had your splashes of action here and there, but the focus was more on drama and setting everything up for the ultimate showdown. (which will be the final and 8th film)
Enter "The Deathly Hallows" (part 1) Granted the last book has a lot to cover and from where we leave off after the last film, the crew has to really get down to brass tacks if they're really going to wrap it up. So, what to we do with SO much stuff to cover? If we have one movie that's about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it's too short to really cover what's in the book and if we split it into two films... well, much like the two Matrix sequels it feels really disjointed. The only time I've seen a film/series that did this and it worked well was with the Kill Bill films. Between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 you had two completely different films, styles and tones that ultimately would have made one real disjointed movie if it was released as one. So, that's the elephant in the room with the latest Harry Potter book. What do we do? We break it up.
The result is a film that finds our heroes on the run and trying to discover how to defeat "you know who." It starts off with a great pace, but then loses steam after they narrowly escape those who are chasing them. The majority of the rest of the film then is mostly dialogue with little action as they are dealing with inner conflicts within their circle and trying to figure out how "you know who" can finally be destroyed. When looking at the bigger picture, I understand that the film maker is trying to put our heroes at their lowest lows before wrapping up the 3rd act in "The Deathly Hallows (part 2)" BUT, with this film it does not translate like "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Two Towers" where you can look back and argue that it's the best film in the series.
Now does that mean that this film is a complete let down? No. Although I didn't like the pace of the film and thought it lost steam after the one hour mark I understand where this film sits and how it plays in the ultimate storyline. This may end up being one of those films that later on when everything is said and done, I'll probably dig it more, but I don't know and can't say at the moment. I will say that when watching this in the theater I honestly wanted them to wrap it up and I haven't felt like that in a movie theater in a long time. Maybe it is because this film is all build up with no release and therefore the audience, i.e. me, feels cheated. The payoff that we want we don't get for another half year, so the 2 1/2 hours we spent in the theater was all just to prep up for the summer. It reminds me of when I went to see "The Fellowship of the Ring." There was a middle-aged couple sitting in front of me and when the credits rolled the husband turned to the wife and said, "3 and 1/2 hours and that's it?!" "There's 2 more movies," the wife replied. "DAMNIT!!!"
