"Do the Charlie Brown"

                In film, the wayward, stodgy protagonist finds his pragmatic, joyless existence upended by some sort of free spirited member of the opposite sex.  Typically, one learns from another; there is some sort of spat where one’s free spiritedness leads to let’s say a blown meeting for the other, or someone is entirely too doggedly dry for some sort of hot yoga convention, or a soufflé is horribly burned when a work associate is coming over, or Dharma gets AIDS, somehow.  Maybe Dharma gets AIDS from Greg’s stationary, somehow.  I don’t write television, but it could happen?  McWorld?  It’s a bit bleak, but people tend to enjoy that sort of relatable impact, a digestible form of current strife.  The horror of this befuddling modern world through the lens that is situational comedy is a fairly well-worn trope. Anyway, this is bullshit, utter rubbish as our compatriots across the pond would call it. 

                For my own tale, as convention would dictate, it was a mildly dreary afternoon, and I was feeling the intolerable weight of my, predictably, drab existence.  I had left the sterile confines of my one bedroom apartment with institutional décor of white walls and nothing and ventured into the hazy, confounding, pointless miasma of another work day.  The only fundamental shift really was from the white walls and institutional décor, nothing, of my one bedroom apartment to the white walls and institutional décor, nothing, of my office space.  Actually that’s inaccurate; there was also the ideological shift from being on the giving end to the receiving end of petulant phone calls.  Fortunately though, most of my telecom abusers are believers in the theory of word economy, which I am not.  When they limit it to merely, “Die cunt”, I imagine that they’re talking about radishes, exceptional radishes, the most marvelous radishes ever, the kind of radishes that a grown, vocally porcine man would scream about. 

              
          Needless to say, it was an excellent day for radishes. As my horticultural experience wound down, I made my way out of the building and on to the streets of my illusory and nebulously defined city.  Past the bank, the marijuana dispensary, and the animal clinic there is a small bar that I frequent.  It is a nice shift from the institutional décor of a sanitarium to the institutional décor of a small dive bar.  There are a jukebox and some pictures.  Normally, I slink in, think hellos to the patrons, and slump in a booth near the back.  As such, today was appropriately normal.  I sat with my tumbler of rail rye and my pint of domestic lager and watched a judge show, shown silently, and imagined what was being litigated.  It was usually, “Shuckie Duckie, Quack, Quack.” I would only do this for white plaintiffs though, as to free my inner monologue from accusations of racism from my superego. 

                As I was sitting, mired in deep thoughts of punitive damages and freedom, I was aurally accosted by a young woman.  This was not normal.  I have now surmised that she had mistaken my deliberate Old Hollywood style stoicism for crippling depression which she oddly reacted to with sympathy, women.  Visually, she was not unattractive.  There was a certain reddish discoloration to her skin that connoted girlishness to a modern person and bawdiness to 13^th century British authors.  Her facial features were those of a catalogue model for something practical like parkas or possibly dinettes, nothing gaudy, but pleasing on a Rockwell level or like the more restrained Playboy cartoons of the 70’s.  She stated that her name was Apple, and noting her severe lack of a British accent, I postulated that her parents had merely hated her due to some sort of prenatal transgression. 

                After a brief intermission of platitudes and exposition, she had a suggestion for me and improving my mood.  She said plainly, “You need to do the Charlie Brown.”  My first reaction was a slight, yet palpable, turgidity in my swimsuit area.  As it had only led me wrong a slim percentage of the time, I went with it.  The first step on this adventure was to get into my Ford Fiesta, which had been sold to me under the pretense that it was a Quince on wheels, without the transition into Hispanic womanhood.  As we entered the car, my heart sank slightly as I realized that “Charlie Brown” was not a euphemism for heterosexual sodomy or heroin.  No, the first step of the “Charlie Brown” was to drive forty five minutes into a pastoral hamlet outside of the city.  The second step was to meander through our bucolic confines to find a small hill. 

                It was with the third step that things grew odder.  As we sat and waited on this hill exchanging pleasantries and belying our trepidation related to accompanying a stranger to a small town on a whim on a Wednesday, I saw it.  I saw why she had brought me here. It was a Klan rally.  While I thought the synergy between unassuming attractive women leading strangers to kKan rallies was odd, it had worked in this case.  Noticing my obvious confusion, Apple reassured me that, no she was not a headhunter for the klan which was a mild relief.  What came next was slightly less relieving. 

                Apple, to this point an archetype  of improbable male fantasies related to the crushing skull drudgery of American male adulthood for the middle class non meth addicted segment of the country borne into reality, picked up a surprisingly large, softball size, rock.  She made the international sign for being quiet and then led me closer to the congregation of white supremacists.  Fortunately, our innate whiteness allowed us to blend in.  As we stood in the back of this mass of irked Caucasians, Apple began to motion.  She began to spin the rock as a softball pitcher would.  As her centrifuge of descent whirred, I was mildly distracted by licentious Sapphic thoughts that have mired the perception of women’s sports in this country.  As that second transitioned to the next, I was startled by the striking rapidity the rock had now taken when released.  I marveled at the wet damp thud that it made on the back of that Klansman’s head.  As the crowd noticed the crumpling of the Klansman, all eyes shifted back to us.  Apple then yelled out, “All I got was a rock!” We started running, really fucking fast.  My only thoughts at the time were that Apple had done this frequently enough to have a term for it and Sweet Jesus; I do not want to die. 

Party like it's 2005...kinda - AVX Retrospective.

As the leaves change, so to does the landscape of comic bookery.  It is inevitable.  Every year, every thing changes.  It is the mutability of the beast.  Before us, it transmutes into a chimera.  This sloughing beast has many names: New 52, Dark Reign, and now...um Marvel Now.  But6 how did we get here?  What was the impetus for this monumental return to a prior status quo?  Punching space gods in both the face and genitals; that's how.  But how does all of this interstellar nard punching make us feel?  Well, to answer that you can start your own blog I guess, and I'll read it fair, illusory reader.  Now though we will deal with how I feel.

It was okay I guess

I mean it didn't leave the typical flavor of carrion, from pummeled equine, that a lot of events give me.  Part of this was just due to the fact that it didn't really up my pull, as I was reading most of the books anyway.  The other part was that there was less truly ancillary filler. Granted, there was a lot of expounding on the meteoric crackle of fists between say The Thing and Namor, but there was less of say, Jackpot, fighting a Skrull that was a hodgepodge of B-list Spider Villains.  So, yes, that's a plus I guess.  Pretty much, these comic super events are typically a bloated mass of vestigial tales, bloat, and laconic droning.  This event at least stayed on topic for the most part with the tie-ins.  Sure, some of it was kind of filler, but it was competent filler usually, and it all dealt with the main conflict, more or less.  As for the plot, they probably could have tightened the thing up a scooch, as the most interesting concept, beloved X-men making the slow burn from magnanimous cyphers of an ill defined space god to fascistic, man thonged, tyrants was left on the side for more punching.  THe reason for this is that well after the X-Men made that full, inevitable, heel turn you knew where this was going.

 

  Sisqo saw all of this coming

 As for the events within, there have been some decent moments and interactions sure.  I do look forward to some of the new books coming out of this, but yeah pretty much this:  Charles Xavier died way more convincingly, given ephemerally, in Messiah Complex; the Phoenix lost way more meaningfully in um The Dark Phoenix Saga; The Thing punched Namor way harder in the 60's when men were men, and women knew their place.  I mean, yes, characters come from literally out of left field in the last issue, and I mean I almost called the resolution to it Spoiler it's just that they didn't say "Fine, More Mutants" but "More Mutants" and "No More Phoenix" as it's good to be the Deus Ex Machina.

We all would have preferred it ending with "Fine, More Maggot"...No?

You Should buy AVX Versus #6

It's got Squirrel Girl and Pixie, and Domino beats up Rulk.



So...

In summation, AVX was who we thought it was.  It was Avengers and X-men punching each other and eventually coming together to fight a common enemy, some of the X-men.  Wakanda got leveled; Hope knows Kung-Fu; Spider-Man can take a punch to the face; fine, More Mutants; Cyclops' arc has made him both more interesting over the years/ kind of a dick;  I guess as the heavy handed allegories for civil rights go, that makes Wolverine MLK Jr?   I don't even know any more.  So, in closing, it was better than last year's events, as Fear Itself was instantly retconned after publication/ inconsistent and Flahpoint, seriously what the fuck just happened?  Wait?  What?  Sot that's what you missed in AVX.   

No, Seriously, what the fuck?  I still don't, what?

Flute Loop-er - Movies Rock the Nation.

And we're back again with gloriously bare film critiques.  This past weekend, there was Looper.  It was a movie.  People really seem to enjoy it.  Personally though, the one thing I noted when the film was discussed was the parallels with the film Drive  that were being made.  Yes, both films shared a similar release schedule, both were pot boilers, as my grandmother may have called the, and most strikingly, neither film is the one advertised to you.

As Drive was advertised, and notably litigated against, it was to be a taught, um driving centric, action film.  That movie though, should have been given the far more accurate sobriquet of CurbStomp or Elevator Beatings or Ryan Gosling is Beat Takeshi in etc.  The same is true of Looper.  It is not so much a time faring action thriller in the form of a literal battle of one's self, but a well crafted meditation on causality, with time travel.  Unfortunately though, it is impossible really to discuss some of the movie's finer points without totally excavating the movies twists and finer points.  So, in brief, I cannot in good conscience tell you not to see the movie.  It's worth the movie dollar.  It has an interesting presence, solid performances, and it does some terribly nifty things with time travel in the first half.  However, here is what I can say negatively.  The second half features a plodding, languid pacing to it that I found to be wholly disengaging, as the eventual reveals (relating to the well everyt6hing is spoiler redacted) are ungodly predictable.  I mean I can't say who is doing what and how and why but you will know how it plays out when that starts.  One would not need to ruminate on narrative structure to figure out the whys and hows; it just is.  That's really it.  So, pretty much in summation: totally worth the money, has a great taut introduction, then proceeds to not simmer during the second half, nor boil over; it just is.  Then it ends, and you're like that was pretty cool I guess.  Not the movie I thought I was paying to see, but still a solid flick.  Also, you get used to the Joseph Gordon Levitt prosthetics, and they didn't really take me out of things.  So, yes, Looper pretty good; fire bad. 

And we're back... I guess. Short ass Movie Reviews.

After an interminable hiatus fueled by apathy, malaise, booze, outdoor activities, templar conspiracy, duck sauce, etc. I have returned to mildly amuse the majority Russian, odd, readership of this blog.  As such, on to the briefest movie reviews imaginable, but not really, of films in current release and those relegated to bargain theaters, due to my reticence to post. 

The Expendables 2
  It's a bunch of old dudes walking with guns.  I mean it's what you expect it is to the tee.  Whether it is winking satire of action genre tropes or not is entirely subjective.  But yes, every traditional action movie note is hit.  Not to give too much away, but the cues for plot development are all there.  When a character says he's two days from retirement, well you know what's coming next etc.  With that said though, the affability of the characters is there based on them playing to these archetypes, but they are archetypes that the actors themselves originated in some cases.  With that said though, the movie felt a touch rote at times.  However, that is not to dismiss the performance of one cast member in particular: Jean Claude "Mother Fucking Van Damage" Van Damme.  In my opinion, he steals the thing in every way imaginable.  But, I'm wildly biased as a fan of Van Damme.  Wildly I say. 

Dredd 3D
  First, I would like to thank the marketing genius behind the synergistic cross promotion of Dredd 3D and Les Miserables.  I know, personally, that before I watch an hour and change of 3D rendered testosterone I want to hear about how singing live on set freed up Wolverine to really get into the character of Jean Valjean.  Also, when we're recasting the X-Men franchise can we get a Wolverine that does slightly less musical theater?  While I like Hugh Jackman as an actor, sometimes dammit I don't want to think that "I'm the best there is at what I do...which is high kicks and harmonizing." 

Anyway, go see Dredd 3D.  It's pretty much The Raid: Redemption with Judge Dredd.  Which if you haven't seen The Raid, um you should, is a compliment.  But yeah, it's true to the characters, visually interesting, other movie poster platitudes, violent as hell, enjoyable popcorn cinema.  Dude keeps his helmet on as well.  Also, there is no Rob Schneider as comic relief.  It is not a patently ridiculous affair.  It's just a Judge Dredd movie.  That's a good thing.  Also, Karl Urban brings the detached, robotic, wry fury.  Olivia Thrilby works as Judge Anderson and could get it.  So, that's good.  All in all worth your movie dollar.  The 3D was totally worth the extra 4 dollars for all of the flying blood, sparkles. 

So, I saw a bunch of movies of dramatically varrying quality- Here we go (in Mario voice) mid summer wrap up is what we'll call it.

As the above overly literal title, if we can call it that, suggests I have seen a metric fuck ton of summer movies.  This due in part to the fact that it's something to do on Saturday in the early afternoon, for the most part.  Aside form having my Saturday morning's free typically, I blame the wildly vacillating quality of cartoons...fuck that's sad; I do consider myself a bit of a cinephile with far more pedestrian leaning  tastes which seem to grow more prosaic as I spiral aimlessly through the miasma of malaise that is adulthood.   With that little bit of good old fashioned fanboy self loathing, which is what I should probably call the site, covered let's get on to the talkies (in an approximation of chronological viewing order)

The Amazing Spider- Man

I had rather low expectations for this film when.  It seemed, as gleaned from trailers, to be a joyless reboot of the Spider-Man franchise.  I did not have much faith in the dude from Social Network.  I was leery of the Lizard as a movie carrying villain.  I did not know if the tonal shift would really work as there was something fitting about the anachronistic aw shucks-ery that seemed to permeate the pop art cum action franchise of Raimi.  I was mostly wrong though.  As you've already made your decision to see this movie, you oh fictional, illusory reader, I feel that my purple opining may be more irrelevant than usual.  By that same token, irrelevance is the crux of the genre fare vanity blog... back to the movie

It by and large worked.  Yes, you're watching a fair approximation of the first film.  Yes, Garfield is actually likable in the film and brings the snippy prankster Spider-Man that Maguire's rendition did not embody.  And that is at the heart, so to speak, of this mandated reboot, due to issues of rights.  The film is not the same pop art pastiche that Raimi provided.  IT does embody the slightly grittier space of Super Hero film making of a post Nolan Batman summer super hero blockbuster.  And it works, by and large.

THe reason that it works, frankly, is that there is simply a stronger supporting cast in it, and a more likable, in my opinion, Spider-Man.  Martin Sheen steals every scene he is in, and Sally Field reminds me that Smokey and the Bandit movies existed.  Emma Stone is a better Mary Jane as Gwen Stacy, she's sassier, than Kirsten Dunst.  (In doing so, she adds a much needed level of personality to the sainted and sullied comic psuedo heroine...all she ever really did was die and be perfect/ have bastards with Jack disease/ powers in an oft maligned story arc, rightly so).  Anyway, the film is geared toward the slightly more modern film goer, as the last franchise closed up shop not that long ago.  It is not "total ass".  The Lizard looks less silly in the film after a while.  His motivations in this modern world, and world of suspended disbelief does make his motivations shoddier.  He never seems fully justified in his motivations, and his plans are scurrilous at best.  He is merely the needed villain... He's serviceable I guess you'd say.  So the review is that it was a decent reboot of the franchise, and that's about it really.

Savages

I went to see this at the behest of a female associate.  I am not trying to absolve myself of seeing this film, merely providing contest.  Needless to say though, we did have something to talk about after the film.  On the one hand, you have Oliver Stone's return to the realm of madcap violence/ escapism.  On the other hand, you have a patently ridiculous affair, not an insult, that does not go far enough, insult.  In our desensitized times, I wonder if the film went far enough really, as per ultra violence.  Yes, there are some grizzly things unfolding on screen, but for a movie that was touted to me as a return to Natural Born Killers form, I felt that it did not go far enough with its frenetic descent into the blood letting.  Also, the dialogue is a bit corny in spots #wargasms. And that's really the issue with the film.  It is again serviceable.  The cast fully inhabits their scene devouring archetypes.  Taylor Kitsch is not immediately repellent to my, the target demographic.  Everyone is okay.  There was a bit much as per dude ass in the film.  Bottom line: enjoy it on the television.  While there are moments of mad spectacle, there are not adult theater prices worth.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's really good.  Sure, the myriad twists and turns are predictable to fans of the Bat.  No, nobody is going to top Heath Ledger for captivating menace.  THe set pieces may not be as crazy as DKR, but they're still at the top for the summer.  Anne Hathaway steals scenes.  Bale's Batman voice is still goofy.  Tom Hardy's Bane voice is also kinda goofy, think Bronson.  But at the end of the day it fits into the pre established franchise, obviously.  It's a fitting conclusion to the trilogy.  If you don't see it, the terrorists win (back in my day we called white people terrorists).  Personally, I found it to be less thematically ham fisted than Batman Begins, yet not as engaging as The Dark Knight, although much of that is attributable to Ledger, obviously.  The movie works; I did not think the first hour dragged, and some of the plot holes in the film will bother me, um, forever is the word.  Overall though, it's winning summer entertainment really.  Hence the shortness of the review; your mind is made up on the issue of being entertained.  Seriously though, go to the movies and see it.  It's worth the adult admission for the sheer spectacle of it all.

The Watch

As a fan of "The IT Crowd", and amateur Richard Ayoade impersonator, I was willing to forgo my initial apprehensions about the quality of this film.  Then, I read the myriad negative reviews of the film and tempered my expectations, as I have done with many a thing in life.  Then, I saw the movie.  It is a movie.  It has a beginning and ending and actors and a soundtrack, and I'm sure at some point a script.  At the same time though, it's kinda shitty really.  IT seems like everyone is on board for the proceedings, but at the same time it's just that the film isn't really doing anything new.  IT has some good moments, and they are all more or less in the trailer.  To that end, it is predictable to a fault, and it squanders a good cast.  Everyone is operating form a comfort zone of sorts, and things don't gel as well as you would expect them to.  It's not utterly humorless, but it is nothing that you haven't seen everyone else do better in another film really.  And that's about it really.  

You Gotta be Fresh - AVX so far

Earlier in the year, during one of my sporadic periods of updating this, I proclaimed that I was more interested in AVX than Before Watchmen, and I stand by that, mainly due to my Marvel Zombie-dom and my fetishistic need to complete story arcs.  While the Darwyn Cooke crafted Minutement piqued my interest in the store, I have kept to my resolve, for once, and have not given DC my money, yet.  During this same brief period of diligence, I made some claims as to what would happen, which I was totally wrong about.  This is mainly because I don't think any of us saw what was going to happen, which is a nice twist for a summer event.  At the same time though, I, as a reader and consumer, have a slight issue.  Not to belabor the point with purple prose, which I am loathe to admit that I do engage in (the most opulent of garrulousness calls to me), I'm kinda bummed out that the they've pretty much combined two of the more recent-ish summer events into one big ass summer event.

Okay, the Phoenix Five, Oceanic Six (I'm working on a Lost porn parody called Oceanic Dicks btw...well I have a treatment written), are fundamentally "The Worthy".  You take a group of characters; you jack them up and possess them; this time the twist is that they're feel that trying to save the world instead of destroy it.  More plainly stated though is the connection to House of M what with the "No More Avengers" tagline.  I find this one far easier to swallow as it is a plain allusion to one of the more "game changing" (I die a little bit every time I type it, or really half of these posts about comic books) events in the previous decade.   Anyway, my issue with the book is just that they're aping plot beats from last year's event, which I did not particularly care for, although I do loves me some Immomen and Fraction.  I like the talents on AVX, as there is less vitriol here than any comic book blog ever.  I'm looking forward to the Copiel art as I don't see enough of it for my tastes, and it makes the House of M connection, beyond the ads, Scarlet Witch, Pax-Whatever, even more salient.

So we'll see I guess.  As mentioned above, I'm going to give Marvel my monies until the end of this thing in September.  I'm curious to see what happens at the end of it after they kill Cyclops, they kind of have to, as it would in turn mirror the events of Civil War, as the losing general must die.  I'm hoping that this Phoenix Five bit is winkingly self-referential.  I'm hoping, in all honesty, that this loose bastard amalgamation (Hey, who wants a new issue of JLX?  Just me?  How's about Generation H for H.E.R.Oor whatever they called it) chimera of previous summer events leads to a legitimately refreshing Re:X:Genesis:Fatal:Blood:Attraction:Cutioner's:Future:X-Tinction:Complex-topia.  As I do enjoy comic books, they're a nice light read.  Granted they may be infuriating at times due to myriad inconsistencies which are discussed at length throughout the blogosphere.  That said, I don't know why Cyclops is wearing red BVDs over his outfit.  I am wondering how absolute power will corrupt and how absolutely.  Also, let's just hope that everything doesn't get retconned immediately after the event, like last year, I do enjoy Winter Soldier, so it's all good I guess.  So that's really it.  Overall, everything I said earlier was wrong; it happens.  The book overall is okay.  Some of the stuff in the AvX: Versus book is pretty fun.  Thank God that they didn't create a bunch of 3-4 issue ancillary titles that do not really serve the main book, as has been rampant in the past (Frontline: I'm looking squarely at you).  So as far as summer event books go, You've bought way worse imaginary reader.  I know it sounds like faint praise, but this is someone writing about comic books on the internet; anything short of excoriation or proclaiming that Creator X be ritually sacrificed/sodomized by the aforementioned chimeras should be considered the most gushing of praise.  So that's the verdict, main book pretty good.  Some of the tie-ins have been good, although I did think that Avengers #27 jumped around a bit, and I was confused as to how everyone ended up on Hala.  Although in fairness, I'm not even sure which Supremor it is or any of that as I thought he got murked (black people talk for killed) by the pan-dimensional, and not dead, Black Bolt with the 5 wives (I enjoy Fantastic Four, yet at times cannot cogently tell you what the hell has happened during Hickman's run.  Save the Willie Lumpkin issue (obviousness of twist/odd questions about playing God and morality raised/ illustrates the "why do people have cancer when you have a "God Mitten" thing floating around and routinely punk out a galactic force of nature, have a prison in a sub-dimmension/everything Reed Richards does and you've got cancer running around killing mailmen) it's been a solid read the entire time.  Massive digression aside it's fun stupid punching with massive stakes.  IT takes me back to my youth when fun stupid punching was the thing and it's got Gambit fighting Captain America (although in my youth I would have said Gambit would win, but everyone loved Gambit then.  Many of us still do.)  So there you have it. The most longwinded way to say that a comic summer event is pretty all right/ you're already buying it/ you've bought way worse. 

Quick pics: Cyclops dies.  The Blue team, realizing the error of their ways un/schis and reconvene in NY... probably not, Red Hulk dies, one of two things happen: Emma Frost realizes that Cyclops has gone too far militant and ends him 2) she gets in the way, he kills her, remorsefully sacs himself to put things right.  More mutants.  The Phoenix brings rebirth of...Maggot (A boy can dream)! But yeah, it's looking like the new new may be rooted in 2005 (more mutants).  But that's the nature of the medium: what's old is new again.  I mean there's only so many times that you can change the status quo in a certain direction, which both companies have had to do in the last two decades (Especially the New 52...which I guess more on that later).  Sometimes though, that big new direction is taking things back a couple of years.  It allows us older, wistful fans to reminisce while reading a new product, and it provides a jumping on point for the new..I can't say it with a straight face...there are no new readers coming in in droves.  Not due to the quality of the work, but kids don't fucking read anything.  I teach them; they don't.  I mean I guess if you relaunched X-Men as a monetized Twitter account you could get them in... maybe the children kids will get into it, but these helicopter parents and combining that with all of these new found concerns over violence in... it's just look people sometimes get back into the books after a hiatus; some kids are being brought in, but they'd rather watch Teen Mom  than Thundercats....it's a rambly pambly Friday... Anyway, a return to an entirely alien yet largely familiar (it's as non paradoxical as anything if you think about it) isn't really that bad of a thing.  It's how the medium works.  It's how it functions.  If anything, AVX is the beast in nature: it's a new, but familiar, story that has fooled you into thinking it's new, but has kept your interest by engaging you through the craft of those involved.  Finally, that's about it really. 

Oh no, Promotheus... Prometheus - reviewed (not by Jay Sherman)

As you, imaginary reader, may have noticed there has been a fair amount of controversy surrounding Ridley Scott's summer film Prometheus: based mainly on inanity and decision making.  Yes, while some may argue that the baffling at times idiocy of the film's principles as a wanton betrayal of the franchise (I guess?) I would argue that these forays into dullardry are at the crux of the franchise.  Before addressing that hyperbolic statement though, there must come an actual review of the film based solely on my experience in the theater.

I dug it.  It's an incredibly well shot film with the sort of breathtakingly shot vistas and Gieger-esque set design that you would expect.  However, Guy Pearce does look like a low rent Old Lo Pan in the make up they have him in.  By and large I enjoyed the creature design.  It was as pointedly, terrifyingly vaginal as anything else in the series and kept with the established aesthetic.  The performances were solid with Michael, if this was a regular conversation- you know Magneto? ohhh, Fassbender and Noomi, Swedish Dragon Tattoo... it's in my queue, Rappace being at the forefront of it.  Everyone else in the film brings the convincing acting (they sell those terrible decisions dammit), and Idris Elba talks like Cowboy Curtis but is still cool.  I would also recommend seeing the film in 3D as, for once, it was not an after thought.  While the technical elements, I felt, were all beyond satisfactory, we are left with the actual plot of the movie and it is a whole.  This is, obviously, where the contention arises. Fuckin' Spoilers ahead. 

So pretty much we were created by giant, irritable, space men who drink black shit fell in a river and spawned life.  They hung out on Earth, left a map to a bioweapons planet, and  decided to kill us about 2000 years ago.  I say to this, okay.  You see the thing for me, if you really do think about it is that the Alien films were originally envisioned, we're talking Starbeast here, as really good B-movies.  It just so happened that Alien happened to be an incredibly well done and atmospheric sci-fi monster picture.  Aliens peppered in action movie tropes and engaging characters, especially Bill Paxton.  However, the crux of Aliens is poor decision making: let's go round up the perfect killing machine for crowd control.  Alien 3 is itself just a poorly conceived film, in my opininon: let's say fuck the last movie that everyone liked and put her in spacejail with ROC and a single Alien.  Alien Resurrection, which I feel really gets shat on unnecessarily, is based around the incredibly ill  advised plan of growing mother frenching Xenemorphs for fiscal gain. 

Moreover, yes, the characters in Prometheus get into unbelievably dumb situations, like getting lost in a thoroughly mapped cave or trying to touch an unknown life form for shits and giggles and not knowing how to strafe and the rest.  And sure, it annoys me to know end when characters blithely talk about their faith in Christ in the face of resounding evidence to the counter.  And yes, the ham fisted inclusion of the debate reminded me that I was watching a big budget summer film (as you must repeat the thematic elements these days) However, these movies, and countless other genre films, are based around allegedly educated people doing the fucktardingest things imaginable.  I mean when you think Alien franchise you should be thinking A) vaginal imagery which belies concerns over fertility/ procreation (check) B) Horrible deaths (Check) C) Rock solid production values (Check) D) Protagonist succeeding in spite of the terrible decisions of everyone involved in the proceedings (check).  The thing is though, it's a movie made for today's all inclusive big budget explosion summer, which I enjoy the explosions of. As such, it must blatantly reiterate any higher concept beyond explosions, America, and valor/comradery/ whatever the end of Con-Air was about.  And I think that may be part of the issue.  The other part being that back in olden times we had to get our spoilers from our dickish friends that are incapable of not discussing a movie's ending in front of you because they feel that whatever pithy observation they feel they are making is more important than human decency.  As is to say, you can have a negative reaction to the film's content without seeing it in execution, which is a detriment to Prometheus as it beautifully tells a story that's kinda dumb at times.