Rancid Monke

I bought an Apple TV a few months ago, mostly so I could rent movies off of iTunes and play them in glorious 1080P on my computer monitor (I spent an entire 8 hours taking Apple product sales courses at work recently, some nights I still wake up screaming about the virtues of the new Lightning connector).

Having exhausted my credit card and re-watched my meagre collection of purchased items for the fourth time I decided to spend Saturday night checking out the movie trailers. This really illustrated two useful things to me.

#1 I need to find a girlfriend…or at the very least I need to stalk Anna Kendrick all the harder.

#2 Filmed entertainment in the modern era is pretty godawful.

Let’s have a look at a few of the gems I managed to dig up.

3G – You really need to watch this trailer. I wouldn’t wish a viewing of the movie on anyone but I think the trailer is something that needs to be experienced to be believed. At first it seems like some sort of disaster horror movie, then there is a completely out of place minute or two that seems straight out of a particularly pornish foreign soap opera before just going bat shit insane and making what I assume was the protagonist from the first two thirds of the trailer run around looking evil in heavy mascara.

I fucking dare you to watch it and try to make any sort of sense out of it. Check out the poster too, it is just as schizophrenic as the entire thing looks like it should be for a romantic comedy except the evil eyed chick hiding in the logo. I don’t think this movie has decided what it wants to be when it grows up.

By the way, 3G refers to the 3G cell service most of our smart phones use. It is as generic and confusing as calling your movie HDMI or George Foreman Grill.

World War Z – I actually read the World War Z novel so it is pretty clear to me that this movie really shares nothing with it’s literary fore bearer other than a name and “ARGHH! Zombies!”

Being from the modern era of zombie movie, the rotting corpses of the recently risen are all olympic sprinters barely hindered by rigour mortis, missing limbs, spotty motor function or even common sense. They also seem to have gained a sort of disturbing hive mind as several scenes in the trailer seem to depict the zombies coordinating to climb on or over their undead brethren to achieve goals. They display more teamwork as corpses than most companies can get out of live employees no matter the bonus pay structure.

Silver Circle – I have seen better animation in a PS2 game and the entire plot seems to be based on a group of armed rebels trying to return us all to the silver standard by casting coins. If any of that turns your crank than you are probably the exact target audience for Silver Circle…that isn’t something to be proud of.

The Frankenstein Theory – A found footage horror movie. This time instead of witches or trolls or Justin Bieber they picked Frankenstein’s monster…I imagine because that was where the dart managed to hit the board during the cocaine fuelled pitch meeting.

Found footage style movies are insanely predictable so expect 45 minutes of pointless build up with them filming every minor annoyance on the journey (Oh no, the car broke down. Let’s film 20 excruciating minutes of repairing it and call that plot development). Follow that up with some shaking footage of running that will probably make you want to heave and that green night vision crap that makes everything look like Oregon Trail on an Apple 2 before topping it off with some completely out of place CGI of the actual scary shit. Then the camera will fall over sideways and slowly fade to black as the last member of the film crew dies excruciatingly.

The Collection – Serial killer in a mask plans elaborate traps to kill people? Why does that sound familiar…Ahh, from the writers of Saw 4,5,6 and 7. Well I am glad to see they are stretching themselves artistically. I would try to explain the plot that I was able to gather from the trailer but I have pretty much hit all the key points already. For bonus points they decided to make the last scene of the trailer that old faithful cliche of “Oh my God, the killer has snuck up right behind you, why won’t you turn around you big dumbass!!!”

Dark Skies – The trailer starts with a mother talking to her son on the phone, telling him to come home. Apparently he tells his mother he is playing Modern Warfare and can’t come home right now, she rolls her eyes and looks to her husband for support to which he quips “That is what save buttons are for pal.”

The kid is clearly playing a multiplayer game so either they want the father to look clueless or the writer is just an oblivious dickhead, either way I have lost all sympathy for both of these characters and I think they deserve whatever the ominous music is foreshadowing throughout the scene. Honestly, any movie that reminds me of having to do tech support for my luddite parents in the first 5 minutes deserves to end the careers of all the people involved.

The highlight of the trailer is of course watching Keri Russell violently bash her head repeatedly into a patio window which seems an apt metaphor for her ridiculous attempts to have a relevant career. The trailer ends with the killer/ominous threat sneaking up behind her while she stares off in the wrong direction. Sounds like I could make a trailer watching drinking game out of that, although my liver might not survive it.

Jack the Giant Slayer – The only reason this peaked my interest is because it is oddly foreshadowed in the comic series Fables. Jack of the Fables goes to Hollywood and finances 3 huge major motion pictures in order to gain the sort of fame that allows him to become immortal according to the story logic of the series. I certainly hope I wasn’t the only Fables fan slightly creeped out when I saw this trailer.

The Last Exorcism Part 2 – I didn’t bother to watch the trailer, I was just struck by stupidity of making a sequel to a film called The Last Exorcism. Doesn’t that make the title of the first movie just blatant false advertising? Someone in Hollywood needs a good punch in the head for this.

Fast and the Furious 6 – There is going to be a sixth film in the Fast and the Furious franchise. I blame you for that, dear reader, because I have never once seen one of these movies. Not even a censored version on a late night cable channel.

Until next time, good people of the internet.

Rancid Monke