Movie Review: Birdman

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh wait…it actually is a bird. Image via Indiewire

“This place smells like balls…how did we get here?”

If you were going into Birdman expecting to find the beginning of the next big franchise, then you might want to look elsewhere.

Birdman might be the strangest film of 2014. It is also one of the most ambitious; one that is chock full of ideas. A lot of it hits, and when it misses, it really couldn’t give a shit if you liked it or not. Birdman is the other big gimmick film of 2014 (the other being Boyhood). It needs the gimmick to survive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The gimmick in question, a never ending tracking shot, helps the film transcend its concept, which is actually pretty great to begin with.

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Ten Worst Date Movies Of All Time

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Sugar and spice and everything we both want each other dead. Image via New York Daily News

Taking somebody out on a date to the movies is a tradition as old as love itself. Or, I guess whenever the first Nickelodeon opened up.

Gone Girl is still on my mind, and it will be for some time. This twisted tale of toxic love would probably make an awkward date movie [Full disclosure: I did not see this on the date]. People have even written about this in depth.

This inspired me to go back and think about movies that could ruin a budding romance. These movies might make you feel uncomfortable, or, you know, doubting that any relationship could ever work. Here is a list of the the ten worst movies to ever watch on a date.

Note: These are not bad movies (okay, one of them is), they just aren’t ideal to watch on a date. Also, some minor spoilers ahead.

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Mulaney, Gone Girl, Public Figures

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In this episode of the podcast, I remain hopeful about the future of Mulaney, praise Gone Girl, and defend Lena Dunham. Still not sponsored by Stamps.com

Note: I accidentally attached the wrong episode before. It’s been fixed.

If Tyler Perry Got To Name Gone Girl

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Tyler Perry actually plays every single character in this film. Image via The Daily Beast

In an odd twist of fate, Tyler Perry, known best for donning drag and putting his name all over everything, is one of the stars of Gone Girl.

Now, I wouldn’t say that I dislike Tyler Perry’s work, I will just say that it is not for me. I will say, though, that I have always had a lot of respect for him. Anybody who refuses to take the traditional Hollywood route and instead builds a production empire in Atlanta deserves some praise for originality. To top it all off, he is fantastic in Gone Girl as an expert criminal defense lawyer. He delivers legal jargon in a way that is both entertaining and even kind of funny. He’s the kind of guy who will tell you exactly when you’r being an idiot. I sense an Oscar nomination on the horizon.

This is one of Tyler Perry’s only Hollywood roles (he also has a cameo in Star Trek). This got me thinking as to what would have happened if David Fincher surrendered some creative control to Mr. Perry. Here is a list of possible titles that we could have seen had Gone Girl been an actual Tyler Perry movie (Note: this list contains SPOILERS for Gone Girl…so if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve been warned):

Did you skip this intro? Because SPOILER ALERT starting right now.

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Movie Review: Gone Girl

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“You like fiction?!” Image via CBS News

How does one review a film in which describing any single action from it has the potential to ruin the whole story? Easy, we start with a joke:

“The secret to a happy marriage remains a secret.”

Gone Girl is basically what would happen if a Henny Youngman joke was turned into a psychological thriller. With its opening frame, it promises to crack this marriage thing open once and for all and boy, does it deliver on that promise.

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Trailer Park: Inherent Vice

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Screen shot 2014-09-29 at 9.14.52 PM

The trailer for Inherent Vice, the latest Paul Thomas Anderson joint, was just released. Let’s see if it meets all of the criteria on the PTA checklist:

  • Southern California? Check
  • Ambient score? Check
  • Insanely detailed period piece details? Check
  • Promise of random, brutal violence? Check

Okay, now we’re talking.

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As Saturday Night Live Turns 40, Things Are Looking Up

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Image via NBC.com

Saturday Night Live is a New York institution. You can complain all you want about its current quality, but it’s not going anywhere.

SNL also holds a unique place in the world of comedy in that it is more like a sports team than a television show. Like any team, it depends on the efforts of everybody involved, as opposed to just one person. Despite this, it is devastating whenever a power player leaves. To me, Bill Hader leaving SNL was just as big a loss as Derek Jeter leaving the Yankees. By the way, did you know Jeter is leaving the Yankees? They should do a few stories about it on the news.

Anyway, like any good New York team, be it the Giants or the Knicks, SNL went through a bit of a rough patch. Every year seems to be a rebuilding year for SNL, but this year Lorne Michaels really seems to be taking it seriously. Multiple people were fired and Weekend Update replaced an anchor. Based on the season premiere, hosted by Chris Pratt, these gambles will pay off in a big way.

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Ten Movie Themed College Courses That Should Exist

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Scandinavian Studies 101 (Left) and American History From WWII-Present (Right). Image via Hollywood Reporter

Earlier today, news got out that a new course is being taught at University of Baltimore which centers around Marvel movies. It was hailed as the first of its kind, unless you count the Marvel class taught by my friend (Professor of Comics on the podcast) at Syracuse last year. I get it, once Upstate New York gets a show as good as The Wire made about it, then people will remember it exists.

As somebody who mainly occupied the communications and liberal arts buildings, I have taken some odd college courses. I once took a philosophy class where two people argued whether or not a cat had a tail or not for 45 minutes. For some reason, I never dropped it.

Besides that, I typically liked the classes that some might consider “BS.” I liked to learn about history and even write an essay. One of the best classes I took in college was about horror movies. Now, I’m a horror convert.

Making a class about blockbusters might seem odd, but Marvel has such a big impact on modern movies that it’s about time we got past the spandex and Stan Lee cameos and tried to figure it all out. This inspired me. I decided to think about some other film-related courses I would like colleges to adopt.

So without further adieu, here are some movie themed college courses that should exist:

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Kevin Smith’s Glory Days: Ranking the Films of the View Askewniverse

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Just another day at the mall. Image via DVD Active

So, I saw Tusk, Kevin Smith’s latest film, the other day. Needless to say, I was not a big fan.

Sure, it showed that Kevin Smith is still a deeply ambitious director. Yet, it lacked everything that once made him one of my heroes. This inspired me to go back and take another look at the View Askewniverse. This is the name of Kevin Smith’s earlier films that all took place in the same New Jersey town, making him the John Hughes of the Garden State. All of the film’s contained interlocking and recurring characters.

For the most part, each View Askew film could be viewed individually without knowing the joke and still be enjoyable. The references to his other films served as a nice bonus for dedicated fans. This is the opposite of Tusk, which seemed like it was made for dedicated Smodcast fans.

Here is a look back and official ranking of the films that made up the View Askewniverse. With this, I hope to go back to a simpler time in Smith’s career, and also answer the question as to why he has become such a cult icon:

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