by Dale J. Nauertz

It was just announced (perhaps a month ago) that “Star Wars” is finally coming to Blu-Ray. As those who have listened to our podcast for more than five minutes probably know, I love “Star Wars”. It is, perhaps, the first piece of popular culture I ever loved. In theory the news that these films are finally making their debut in High Definition should make me excited. Instead, it merely pisses me off.

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Jones makes a guest appearance on the Out of Commission podcast over at Warpath TV. Listen in horror as Kaptain Carbon and Epileptic Peat try to convince Jones that “Piranha 3D” is a good movie and that Tom Cruise’s birthday isn’t worth celebrating. Jones gets his revenge by boring them to death with Star Wars trivia and reading a rejection letter to Epileptic Peat, Liam “Taken” Neeson style.

Listen: Out of Commission Episode 068
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Dale and Jones come to the defense of Mel Gibson, reflect on their childhood celebrity crushes, and discuss the possibility of 1990’s era Nicole Kidman showing up on Jones’ doorstep.

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Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz
PG-13 / 112 Minutes / 2010

If Woody Allen were into video games instead of old jazz music, “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is the kind of movie he would make. Now, I realize that Woody Allen isn’t the hippest filmmaker in the world (I doubt many of his fans are under the age of thirty) but I’ve always found him to be, surprisingly, one of the most experimental. Woody breaks the fourth wall more often than nearly any other filmmaker. He’s also integrated animation, toyed with genre conventions, tinkered with the very art of storytelling itself, and explored social taboos in a playful, lighthearted manner that nonetheless does not make light of them, more than any other filmmaker that comes readily to mind. Especially in his comedies, Woody Allen eschews the rules that constitute the so-called “reality” of other films but he does so in order to make cogent and well-thought-out points about the rules, relationships, phobias and psychology that govern our day-to-day existence. (It goes without saying that I am talking about his BEST movies. In films like “Deconstructing Harry”, “Celebrity” and “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” he’s simply going through the motions, using his often ingenious and revolutionary filmmaking style either to make the same damned points he’s been making for more than thirty years or to make points that no one not named Woody Allen could relate to.)

With “Scott Pilgrim”, Edgar Wright addresses the thorny relationship dilemmas that plague damned near everyone in the most irreverent and bizarre way possible. In short, he structures the quest of his nerdy hero (Michael Cera) to win the woman of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) like a video game. Namely the sort of old school game where you had to blow into the cartridge to get it to work properly (the only video games the film mentions by name are Tetris, Pac Man and Super Mario Brothers, and I think that’s intentional). After Scott and his dream woman (her name is actually Ramona Flowers) begin dating, he learns that he must defeat her seven evil exes in order to keep seeing her. Each of these exes appears in turn and Scott must vanquish each one in order to move to the next level…of his relationship.

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2010 / 95 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Gru, the main character of the new animated film “Despicable Me”, is the sort of guy who would have a hideout in a hollowed out volcano and would enthusiastically describe it as a “lair”. He’s the sort of guy who’s not happy unless he can get his hands on a space laser. He’s got an army of minions. He steals major landmarks (well, at least their smaller Las Vegas versions). He carries a freeze ray with him at all times and has a stuffed crocodile for a sofa. When he watches a Bond movie, he’s obviously rooting for Dr. No.

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2010 / 103 Minutes / G
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

It’s amazing to realize that it’s been fifteen years since Pixar released the original “Toy Story” and revolutionized animation. It seems like only yesterday that I was ponying up five bucks to see what all this “digital animation” hubbub was about. And while seeing it for the first time didn’t blow my brains out the back of my skull I was moderately impressed and definitely charmed. Last year I took another look at the film and, despite the dozens (seems like hundreds) of CGI cartoons that have arrived on the scene since, “Toy Story” still remains one of the field’s high water marks. Unlike so many of its imitators it not only boasts dazzling visuals but a great deal of hilarity and heart. The second “Toy Story” is somehow even better. When Jones and Ben kvetch in podcasts (as I’m sure they do) about the simpletons that prefer “Toy Story 2″ to Pixar masterpieces such as “Wall-E” and “UP”, I’m one of the simpletons about whom they are complaining. They can disagree all they want but, for me, “Toy Story 2″ ranks alongside such sequels as “The Empire Strikes Back” and, especially, “The Road Warrior” as the gold standard of what sequels can accomplish. It was the only sequel Pixar had made and it was a home run, a movie that was faster, funnier and even more powerfully poignant than the original. It and “UP” are the only two animated movies that have ever reduced me to tears.

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2010 / 109 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

It’s not often that the side character from one movie gets a movie of their own. Aside from “Get Him to the Greek” and “Evan Almighty”, in fact, no others come to mind. In “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, Russell Brand played pompous British rocker Aldous Snow. His main purpose in that film was to steal the hero’s girlfriend. But as an object of scorn he was just too bizarre and cool for even that film’s hero to completely hate. Brand stole nearly every scene in which he was featured in that film, so I suppose it was a natural progression for Snow (and Brand) to get his own film…although “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, despite being one of the finest American comedies of the past decade, did not exactly set the box office on fire so making a film revolving around one of its side characters and releasing it during summer blockbuster season seems a particularly brave/foolhardy enterprise.

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Jones, troubled by the origins of Matrix children for weeks on end, finally enlists the aid of Dale in his quest for answers. In their quest for the truth they contemplate the merits of a robotic Michael Caine, question the role of pets in the Matrix, and Dale inadvertently toys with Jones’ life through the power of laughter.

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2010 / 140 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” claims to be a “dark” version of the tale, unlike so many. It seems they think we still associate Robin Hood with green tights and a feathery cap, a’la Errol Flynn in 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood”. But this claim rings pretty hollow when you compare Scott’s latest film with the dueling Hoods of 1991. Both Kevin Costner’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and Patrick Bergin’s (remember him? Neither, it seems, does anyone else) simply titled “Robin Hood” boasted just as much grit and alleged darkness as this one. In fact, I’d argue that “Prince of Thieves” was darker than this film. For one thing, it had devil worshippers and an army of pagan Celts (who, as Alan Rickman helpfully pointed out, “drink the blood of the dead”). It also had an equally muddy and dirty production design…though I think the sun was visible more often than it is in Ridley’s version. On a side note, if you love the Robin Hood story and dislike the sun, then I would suggest seeking out Patrick Bergin’s “Robin Hood”, a film that was supposed to be shown in theaters but was beaten to the punch by Costner’s version and therefore premiered on Fox television. In that film, the whole of England was covered in darkness until evil was vanquished at the end, at which point the sun finally emerged from the clouds, basking everyone in its glory. Incidentally, Bergin makes a fine Robin Hood and the film, as a whole, is pretty decent. It’s got great villianous turns by Jereon Krabbe and Jurgen Prochnow and Uma Thurman makes for a lovely Maid Marian (although she convincingly disguises herself as a teenaged boy for a good portion of the film). In short (well, short-ish) any claims Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” makes toward pushing the grime and violence envelope of this story are about nineteen years too late. Scott’s film is, however, darker than “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” AND the Disney version in which Robin Hood was played by an animated fox.

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Dale and Jones go on a journey into the armpit of the midwest that is known as Chicago in the hopes of meeting (or at least glimpsing) some of their childhood heroes. Along the way they see the voice of Batman, shake hands with a walking carpet, and get the autograph of Abraham Lincoln’s biographer. They also manage to squeeze in some time to reflect on their love of all things Star Wars, warts and all.

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