December Movie Preview

Internet!! Hello and happy it’s not Thanksgiving anymore. That’s right, we made it. We battled that little baby Time for a whole 11 months, and now it stands before us old and decrepit and miserable for 1 more month. But don’t worry Time take some of yourself and look around you at this last month, this last somewhat wonderful month of movies!! In fact, let’s all do that, with a little number that goes something… like this.

December Movie Preview 2015

December 4th –

Krampus – A movie about evil Santa coming around at Christmas and killing a bunch of snot nosed jerks, that will somehow not be at all as good as a movie based on that idea should be. I mean I can think of individuals in my life who I would LOVE to see get a visit from the old Kramper Damper, but this movie will just be bad. Save yourself some ten dollars, and in no way watch it.

Macbeth – Michael Fassbender and Marion Cottilard play Macbeth and Mrs. Macbeth. What more could you possibly need to know about this movie?? It’s gonna be great. But it is also gonna be rated R… cause it’s Macbeth. So not for the kids all you snooty parents who want to take your kids to Shakespeare. Also (and brace yourself for this shocker) it’s not exactly playing in a lot of theaters so… good luck finding one near you. I traded four score and seven thistles to a guy and it STILL wasn’t enough to cover my gas expenses to get to the nearest Macbeth enabled theater. Course the thistle market has been down this year… Dang communists.

COMMUNISTS!!!!

 

December 11th

In the Heart of the Sea – I’m VERY excited for this movie. It’s got Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland (Spiderman/boy/he better not screw this up), Cillian Murphy and Bendan Gleeson. AND Ben Whishaw (Q/the only mildly lighthearted parts of James Bond movies these days) as Herman Melville. I literally don’t know what else I could ask for in a movie except for maybe a giant whale.

“He had to say Giant Whale didn’t he?”

 

Nothing else of note comes out this week. Go watch In the Heart of the Sea. Or… I don’t know, hold your friends and loved ones close because sweet juniper buries and berries the weekend after this is —

December 18th

STAR WARS: THE FORCE FRIKKIN AWAKENS

And thus I am feed with what is probably the single greatest and most terrible decision I have ever faced. I HATE crowds… and I love Star Wars. How much does it cost to rent out a theater?? Oh wait, some crazy person already did that. For seriously though. Someone bought all of the tickets to a showing just so he could watch it in peace. And I consider that a VERY valid route to success.

On a more film related note, let’s be realistic. This will probably be a good movie. That’s what JJ Abrams does best. Good movies. He hasn’t really made a great movie yet (though I loved Star Trek Into Darkness, which Star Trek fans hated because… Picard??? Maybe???) He makes good movies, and he’s VERY good at making movies that appeal to your nostalgia factor. Even Super 8 (not that good a movie) was LOADED with weird 80’s kid movie nostalgia. So that’s what I’m expecting here: a good Star Wars movie that reminds me of my Han Solo action figure filled childhood. I’m not expecting a great movie that changes my life and threatens the Dark Knight on it’s ‘Ultimate Micah Movie’ pedestal. I will be very surprised if this is a bad movie because… well frankly there’s no way Harrison Ford would have even vaguely sort of agreed to do it if there wasn’t something there. I mean that dude hates Star Wars. So that’s it: it’ll be good. And Star Wars. And I am 1000 percent down with that.

Also out this week: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (AKA We Had to Release This Sometime, So Why Not Hope Some Drunk Star Wars Fans Accidentally By the Wrong Tickets.) Also: who keeps making these movies??? And how? Who is signing the giant check for Alvin and the Chipmunks 4??? And can we kill them?

Oh and also Sisters, a movie starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two women who I think are hilarious, and wonderful, and Queens of modern comedy… and the movie does not look good. I’m sorry Tina and Amy… but it does not look good. Someone say I’m wrong here, I want this movie to be great but, have you seen the trailers?? At any point during the trailer did you do anything but moderately smirk to yourself?? Any comedy trailer is supposed to be 3 minutes long and should have at least two laugh out loud moments (saving your best moments for the movie, but as a comedy movie you should have some comedy to spare.) I got nothing from the Sisters trailer. And I hated myself just a little bit for not caring about this movie.

Could you PLEASE be good??

 

December 25th –

I spent longer then I should have on Star Wars (a sentence that could realistically be my epitaph) so let’s some up some of the incredibly depressing movies that are being released on Christmas shall we??

Concussion – Will Smith stars as a doctor who discovers the horrible, life ruining effects of the repeated concussions suffered by many NFL players.

Joy – Something something Jennifer Lawrence, something something, a woman fights for what’s hers in a world dominated by men and cattle… or something.

Point Break – Not really a depressing movie so much as a depressing reminder that someone looked at a movie starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze that came out in 1991 and thought we needed a remake.

The Hateful Eight – Quentin Tarentino gets a bunch of people together and murders them in a cabin. It’s basically the weird ADD child of Django Unchained and Agatha Christies’ And Then There Were None… but also real violent.

Revenant – Leonardo Decaprio stars as a man whose son is brutally murdered and who himself is brutally mostly murdered and he seeks revenge on said murderer and mostly murderer.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

So to some up we have:  Child murder/revenge, Woman struggling to make it in mans world, crappy 90’s remake, Quentin Tarentino in the Woods, and NFL concussions.

Merry Christmas???

So there you go guys, December. And 16 days to Star Wars… just in case you were wondering.

Shakespeare: The Top 5

A lot of people think that running a blog like this is easy. “Oh Micah,” they say snidely. “Running a blog like that is easy!” Well surprisingly repetitive naysayers of the internet allow me to express briefly (and with a musical flair) the truth of the matter.

It isn’t.

Especially not having to write a “top five” Shakespeare article because some guy I don’t know asked me to do it (thanks Craig.) So take that Internet doubters, put that in your pope and smoke it…. wait, what?

Number 5: Twelfth Night

Tough battle here between Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing for the fifth spot on the list. In the end I gave it to twelfth night for a couple reasons not the least of which being that it’s probably the Shakespeare comedy that I would most like to be in. Plus the triumvirate of Sir Toby Belch, Andrew Agucheek (another butt joke from Shakespeare? I think so.) and Feste are hard to beat humor wise. Feste is the one I’ve seen screwed up the most but Ben Kingsley (coming soon to an Iron Man 3 near you soon) wrote the book on how to play this character in a SUPER old school version of Twelfth night starring him and an incredibly young Helen Bonham Carter (Editor’s Note: Don’t ask me how Ben Kingsley wrote the book on how to play a character by being in a MOVIE. Micah is the Emeril of mixing metaphors.)

Feste as he should be (Tiny accordion not required.)

Sure it’s another somewhat cliche’ “mistaken identity that would never actually happen” play but there are some absolutely hilarious scenes in this play that are well worth having to tie your common sense up in the next room.

 

Number 4: A Comedy of Errors

The very top of the Shakespearean comedy, A Comedy of Errors tops Twelfth Night because it (for the most part) just keeps the humor coming from start to finish. (Except that is for a fifteen minute opening monologue which is probably the longest, most boring opening to a comedy ever.) The play has a great mixture of really funny dialogue and some great physical comedy. It also leaves a lot of room for actors to get into their parts and just have fun with them (and no I’m not biased just because I was in this play with an awesome cast and had a blast. Shut up.)

Seriously though, that opening monologue should just be included in the program you give to the audience at the beginning of the play. Or maybe just run across the screen at the beginning like Star Wars except WAYYYY longer. You may want to pass out coffee and biscuits and just give the audience a pamphlet, it would probably save time.

All right now on to the big boys. The top three are about 4 bajillion times better then the rest of these plays. I’m sorry, it’s just the truth.

 Number 3: Othello

Okay, so, Othello is a great play. But not because of Othello. Or Desdimona. Or even really any of the characters or plotlines. EXCEPT for Iago. Iago is to Othello what the Joker is to the Dark Knight. In fact the two have a CREEPY amount of things in common. They both have ambiguous motives, both switch motives in the middle of their respective roles, both manipulate people, both think what they’re doing is completely normal and even a little bit hilarious, and you could take the whole monologue the Joker gives about being an agent of chaos, copy and paste it into Iago’s lines and it would totally work.

Okay… hang on… Sorry… little bit of a nerd-out there… I’m okay. All right… phew…

Sure he’s an evil psychopath but you’ve got to admit; that’s a kickin’ sash.

Iago done right is mesmerizing (see Kenneth Branaugh’s Othello) without a good Iago I’ll be the first to admit that the play is blasse’ and a bit uninteresting from there on out. It’s still a decent play it just lacks anything to make it really stick out other then abject depression and a hilarious amount of racism.

Number 2: Henry the 5th

Okay I’m the first in line when it comes to admitting that most of Shakespeare’s histories are prime examples of “Shakespeare had to pay bills too” but Henry the 5th is the exception. Even the NARRATOR in Henry the 5th has some epic lines, and he’s the NARRATOR! He’s just there to tell you who Bernard the 22nd is related to. Henry himself is probably one of the best written leaders in the whole realm of fiction. He struggles with doubts and fears privately but when the time comes to rally the troops he presents a strong front and delivers the single most kick butt pre fight speech in history (And I’ll stand by that.) Sure the play occasionally talks itself a bit to death including a hilariously boring conversation where a bunch of french people sit around and compare horses (the ancient equivalent of hicks talking about trucks) but when Henry the 5th gets it right it hits you straight in the tear-box.

Number 1: Hamlet

What? Where else did you think we were gonna end up? As You Like It? Hamlet is probably the greatest play ever written, starring one of the best characters written, Hamlet strikes such a great balance between humor, tragedy, and deep philosophy that not even Shakespeare could top it. Hamlet is a character audiences identify with struggling with something so fundamental to ourselves that we can’t help but be brought along for the journey (and no it’s not the whole murder thing, it’s MUCH bigger then that). People (me included) have written whole papers on why Hamlet is awesome and I PROMISE I could go on and on and on about this play (I literally did the whole thing myself…. twice.) But seeing as this is a pop culture blog and I already went crazy with the whole Iago vs. The Joker thing, I will stop here and simply say: this play rocks.

Why yes there is a version of Hamlet that stars Doctor Who and Captain Piccard. All they needed was Darth Vader as Polonius and the entire world would have exploded.

 An honorable mention:

Macbeth: I was threatened that if Macbeth was on the bottom 5 listing I would meet with great bodily harm so I was glad that it hadn’t been on there anyway. It also (as you may have notice) is not on the top 5, here’s why: it suffers from something I like to call “Les Mis Syndrome”… though to be entirely accurate I guess you could say Les Mis has “Macbeth Syndrome” but since when has historical accuracy been something that I let bother me? A play with Les Mis syndrome is a sad sad tearful deathful event with NO comic relief. That’s what Macbeth is, it’s all death and death and blood and Scotsman who are NEVER played with Scottish accents (such a waste.) The only “comic relief” in the play is a scene with a drunk butler and someone knocking at the door, and the Butler pretends he’s the Devil… yeah… it’s about as funny as it sounds. I like Macbeth, but it’s not top five material.

So there you have it Internet! My top five and bottom 5 of Shakespeare!! Check back Thursday as I get back into that whole “this century” thing I do and (hopefully) review Iron Man 3!!!