Jane Eyre

Just let the sad sink in.

"Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.”"
Hello Friends, it is that time again! Today I am going to discuss one of my favorite pastimes. See sometimes in the summertime, I like to watch morose movies about English moors and brood about them. Okay, so I like to do it even when it isn't summer, but in this particular case it was summer. The nearby art cinema a town over was showing Jane Eyre, probably my favorite work of gothic fiction, and I had nothing to occupy me for the afternoon (a state so long past that I can't even remember how it felt). Obviously Jane Eyre has been adapted numerous times, but I'm talking about the 2011 film, direct by Cary Fukunaga, probably best known now for True Detective. This film starred Mia Wasikowska, whose name I will literally never spell right on the first try, as Jane Eyre, and Michael Fassbender as Rochester. I haven't been shy about my feelings for Wasikowska, and the types of characters she gravitates towards, but I'll make a rare exception for Bronte, and maybe Crimson Peak when it comes out. Not for another goddamned Alice in Wonderland movie though. Fuck that. Enough about her though, let's talk about Jane Eyre. I'll give you a brief intro if you haven't read it first, and we can go from there. Jane Eyre is a novel written by Chalotte Bronte, about an orphan who experiences a typically miserable and dreary childhood in the late 18th century, being sent to Lowood school for girls, which is bleak and awful, are you sensing a theme. She eventually leaves to become a governess at the home of the eccentric and secretive Mr. Rochester.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Pink Hotel.

""

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Tagline. The week is new, and at last we can almost see the ground, emerging from the hellish permafrost that I feel has engulfed us for an eternity. I know that February is the shortest month out of the year, but I swear it dragged on for months. Enough about that though, let's focus on what's going on inside of movie theaters specifically. today I will be talking the recent effort from that most...I don't know what word I'm searching for, but it falls somewhere between pretentious and whimsical, of directors, Wes Anderson. I am talking of course about The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that was recently nominated for nine Oscars (four of which it won, although best picture eluded it). I wouldn't take it too hard though Wes, this is the same academy that last year nominated Gravity for best picture, which I feel the need to reiterate, I FUCKING HATE. I'm not sure this is a body you can trust, though I guess it's better than the AACTA, which actually AWARDED best picture to Gravity. That's awful, but don't worry, that's enough about that garbage. Instead we will talk about The Grand Budapest, a film starring Ralph Fiennes as Monsieur Gustave H, the concierge at the Grand Budapest. This story is a framing story, within another framing device, being a story that an author is telling, about a story he was told by the owner of the Grand Budapest to him in the 60s, about when the OWNER was a young lobby boy in the late 30s.

Taken 2

Badideas.com

"They want revenge, They chose the wrong guy."

Now there is a true Tagline. Hi folks, welcome to the Tagline, where I needed to take a break to actually watch some damned movies so I could go back to REVIEWING those same damned movies. Today I'm going to do what I do best, and talk about a movie where a guy kills a whole bunch of other guys. Think back a ways, to 2008, and you'll remember Taken, a film where Liam Neeson plays former CIA operative turned private security Bryan Mills. One fine day his daughter goes on an unsupervised trip to godless and lawless Europe (France specifically) where she is abducted by sex traffickers. That probably seemed like a great idea to them, but Bryan happened to be on the phone with her when it happened, and despite the taunts of her kidnapper (who only says "good luck") he DOES in fact have good luck. See sometimes you kidnap a girl and her father is a professional murder man. As a no frills action/vigilante revenge fantasy movie, Taken was wildly successful, grossing well over 200 million worldwide on its 25 million dollar budget. As such, they could hardly be expected to risk making a sequel (or two actually). Taken 2 brings us back into the world of Bryan Mills, trying to be a less shitty dad while still doing security on the side. This film opens as Albanian mobsters, relatives and associates of the MANY people Mills killed in the first film, commend what's left of their friends and family to the earth, and swear revenge on the man who put them there. Now, if you've seen the first movie, this probably instantly strikes you as a not awesome idea on their part, but hey, they're used to having it good and probably don't know any better. But they're going to learn.

Left Behind

ARE YOU READY?!

"The End Begins."

Hi friends, welcome back to a brand new year at The Tagline. I thought that we should start of this new year on the right note, and so to that end I figured we could do our favorite thing, and talk about some ridiculous Nicholas Cage related antics. So today its all Rapture, all the time. That's right, it's time for you to join me and get Left Behind. Now it's possible that you're not familiar with this particular franchise, possibly because you are not an insane person, or at any rate that you have a life. That's a credit to you as a person, but let me fill you in on the gritty details. So the Left Behind series was a group of 13 novels, written from the perspective of dispensational Christians, specifically those who believe that in the End Times, before all the bad shit happens, that true believers will literally be raised up into the air to meet Jesus, for a kind of pre-judgement meet and greet in heaven. After that happens, those left behind will be treated to a variable period of death and misery (in this case seven years, led by the anti-christ) before Jesus comes back to regulate. Are you guys still with me? Okay. So these books are about that, the first one is also CALLED Left Behind, and they have also made a trilogy of movies about this, prior to this Nicholas Cage led endeavor. They specifically deal with a group of individuals who are left behind, that become born-again Christians and fight against the anti-christ. The original movies starred Kirk Cameron, who as you may or may not be aware is an extra-chunky nutbar. At some point I hope to be able to review the third movie in the original series, World at War, because it is one of the more ridiculous films I've ever watched. Long story short, this Left Behind franchise is prolific if nothing else, and somehow that prompted a movie that Nicholas Cage agreed to be in, because he seems to be willing to star in literally anything.

The Santa Clause

hoo ho hooo.

"You've Never Seen Santa Quite Like This Before."

I wish I STILL hadn't seen Santa like this, but alas, no such luck. Welcome to the Tagline everyone, and Merry Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas, well don't worry, by the time I'm finished with this review no one will be celebrating. Grinch that I am, I thought I'd spread my holiday cheer by reviewing this ridiculous Kirk Cameron movie about how we need to all buy into the holy godliness of like hot cocoa or something, but my dreams for the world's misery were dashed because the stupid movie is still in a theater somewhere, and therefore not available on DVD. Bitter as this disappointment was to me, Christmas wasn't quite ruined yet. No there was still hope, as I channel surfed and fell right into a movie from Christmas past. This is 1994's The Santa Clause, a movie concept based almost entirely around a pun about contract law. If that sounds offensive, well I haven't even gotten to the part where it stars Tim Allen yet. That's right, fresh off the set of Home Improvement, and ready to ham it up in a Santa suit.  Merry Christmas folks.

Batman Returns

Those poor penguins.

"The Bat, the Cat, the Penguin"

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Tonight I thought I would warm up for the big day by doing a Christmasy movie, and what says 'tis the season more than an army of subterranean penguins rising to the surface to murder all the firstborn children? Nothing, that's what, so I'm going to be following up on my earlier post covering Batman and talking tonight about Batman Returns (which for all you folks wondering, IS also on Netflix, for your viewing pleasure). This movie was the tumultuously produced sequel to the 1989 film, and was very nearly nothing at all like it ended up being, for a variety of reasons. For starters, Tim Burton, cinematic genious and master of the new and inventive (I'm being sarcastic!) was very hesitant to make another Batman, having been dissatisfied with the results of his first outing. He said he would only return if the movie offered something "new and exciting", though that didn't seem to be an issue when he made the Corpse Bride. OTHERWISE he said it was "a most dumbfounded idea." which is funny because that's not what that word means. There's a Princess Bride joke in there but I can't be bothered to make it, I'm sure you can all do it for yourselves. Anyway, despite his lukewarm feelings on the matter, after directing Edward Scissorhands, Burton came around, once he was given more creative control, which allowed him to make this movie feel a lot like Edward Scissorhands. As much as I think Tim Burton is a tool who basically hasn't made a movie OTHER than Edward Scissorhands since like 1993 (when he made The Nightmare Before Christmas) Batman Returns is probably one of the most original and excellent things he has ever done. Maybe not as profound as he might like to think (wow really the real villains are corporations?) but still great. It almost wasn't great though. It was almost about Penguin and Catwoman searching for a buried treasure or some bullshit like that. That sounds like some Adam West-era garbage. Also they considered the Penguin trying to make Gotham colder (a thing they actually DID in Batman & Robin god help us) but Tim Burton correctly demanded a rewrite with a plot that was less stupid, so I am at least grateful for that.

Mockingjay: Part 1

Get ready for more dead children.

"The courage of one will change the world."

Hello all, welcome back to the Tagline! Today is finally that magic day, the day I will be reviewing the Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1:The Almost End: Subtitles Forever. No but seriously what the fuck we get it, maybe consider a bit more of concise of a title? At any rate, Mockingjay picks up right after the conclusion of Catching Fire (check out my thoughts on that one over here) with Katniss coming around inside a bunker beneath the bombed out ruins of District 13. Naturally the first thing she does is freak out, because she recalls that during the final fateful moments of the Quarter Quell, Peeta was left behind, as the District 13 rebels extracted Katniss, who is valuable to them above all others as a symbol and inciter of revolution. Katniss of course is a wreck of human being, having been now in not one but two hunger games, and separated from the only person that allowed her to hold herself together through it all. That said, the leader of District 13, President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore in one of her less insane recent roles, I mean compared to Carrie's crazy mom for instance) doesn't have time for any of that nonsense, and so together with Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman, this movie together with its part 2 were his final performances) and so go to considerable lengths to motivate Katniss.

Big Hero 6

If this were Star Wars it would be Big Hero
5, because droids don't have souls or rights.

*fist bump* "balalala"

Hello all, welcome back to The Tagline! Where sometimes we don't have taglines at all because poster makers can't even be bothered to half-ass their job. Instead they like... quarter ass their job. If you guys are wondering "From the makers of Wreck-It Ralph" is not a tagline! Do you even need a tagline anymore... I don't know did we ever? It's just sad, because it gives me one fewer thing to taunt for being terrible. Regardless, today is a brand new day and we'll be talking about a brand new movie! While I visited the NYC, and before I succumbed to the inevitable sickness that overtakes me as soon as I return, I went to the movies with my friends to go see Big Hero 6, because it looked fun and I like movies about robots fighting bad guys. Even robots that look like fat marshmallows! Who am I kidding, ESPECIALLY robots that look like fat marshmallows. So Big Hero 6 was a no-brainer for me, and I have to say I was not disappointed. So here's a little background. In this confusing post-comic future we live in, where Disney owns Marvel, the lines blur and even as people complain about the movies being full of nothing but sequels and remakes, the possibilities to me seem to be expanding. This is the case with Big Hero 6, a movie made by Disney, based on a Marvel comic of the same name (albeit pretty loosely). The movie focuses on Hiro, a 14-year old super genius who uses his talents mostly to hustle people out of their money in robot fights. Tadashi, his older brother, is concerned that Hiro is wasting his talents, and so helps to convince him to apply to the robotics program at his university. Hiro comes around to the idea pretty quickly, and submits an innovative microbot system as his application project to the university. This is great but certain events (that I don't want to spoil too much) derail his attempts to enroll and Hiro's bots end up being lost/destroyed. Hiro ends up befriending the medical robot his brother created, Baymax, and then accidentally discovers that his microbots still exist, and are being mass produced towards some nefarious end by a mysterious man in a kabuki mask.

Batman (1989)

Classic.

"..."

It's that time again! Welcome back to The Tagline, where movies are queen and I'm also a queen and we're all queens I guess. I don't know look... it's been a long week okay guys? Don't worry about that stuff though with queens, because really what it's all about today? Is fucking bats. Listen, I know it's an upsetting subject no one wants to talk about, but bats are all around us. Flying around at night? Those aren't just weird night birds, those are fucking bats okay? That guy driving the weird car he parked in the middle of traffic? Bat. The weird airplane shooting missiles at parade floats? Also a bat. That's right, those the Batmans are all around us, and we don't even notice it all the time! Recent years have been good to the Dark Knight, but it wasn't always that way. I can direct you to my grisly review of Joel Schumacher's war crime Batman & Robin. Then again, Batman Begins wasn't the first good Batman that ever happened either. There were some very different, but still good times with the Batman under the direction of Tim Burton believe it or not. I know I find it tough to believe too. Even more surprising is that neither of the Batman movies directed by Burton feature like... a Riddler played by Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter as... Poison Ivy? Catwoman? I don't know I'm gonna try to put it out of my mind. At any rate, today I want to talk about the very first Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the Bat, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. This movie just recently found its way to Netflix, and so naturally I wanted to check it out and see how it stood up after all these years.

Anaconda

Is this The Nightman Cometh?

"When You Can't Breathe You Can't Scream"

Hello everyone, it is that time again! Welcome back to more from The Tagline, where terrible movies I saw that one time are king! Recently (last Thursday actually) there was a live Rifftrax presentation of the fantastically not good snake movie Anaconda. This reminded me that Anaconda was a movie that happened, for better or worse. So today I figured I'd share that recollection with you, and review ANACONDA, the least scary movie involving snakes ever made. Starring Jennifer Lopez as a documentary maker named Terri Florez who is attempting to locate the elusive Shirishamas tribe in the Amazon. This is also a region of the world where enormous, 70 mile long snakes who are all powerfule burst through boats and try to kill Danny Trejo (not before he shoots himself though!). For those wondering, the longest verified Anacondas range around the 25 ft marker, but firsthand reports have reached such outlandish numbers as 145 ft. This movie capitalizes on that absurdity, and so JLo ventures out into the jungle, along with Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer (the queen of B-horror T&A) and that foppish british guy from The Mummy. Oh also there's some other guy but he gets stung by a deadly wasp and is basically not in most of the movie. This crew of mostly incompetents ventures into the Amazon aboard a ship captain by the second most obviously untrustworthy person in this film. After a short trip down the amazon into a massive rainstorm, the group meets the FIRST most untrustworthy person in the movie, Jon Voight's character Paul Serone, a man who is perpetually saying vaguely threatening things and leering at everyone. He may as well be wearing a high collared cape and be cackling while he ties maidens to train tracks. I assume the movie taking place in the jungle is the only reason he was NOT tying people to train tracks.

Nightcrawler

Red car seems like kind of an eyegrabber.

"The City Shines Brightest at Night"

Hello all, welcome to a new month with the Tagline! Today I said I'd finally put down the horror for a few minutes, but that doesn't mean that I promised not to horrify you. As such, we will be looking straight into crazy land and talking about Nightcrawler today, a movie featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a nobody lowlife living in LA, stealing fencing and copper pipes to try and turn a buck, when he stumbles over a new means of generating income: taking photos and video of dying people at crime scenes and selling them to TV stations. That is the setup that leads us into this film, as much about the darker side of life as it is about the darker side of human impulse. Nightcrawler follows Lou as he uses his spooky wacko personality and singular drive to go from street level no one to slightly higher street level no one. After witnessing some guys (mostly Bill Paxton) filming a fiery car crash, Lou gets it into his head that he could make some serious scratch by doing the same thing, and so steals a bike and sells it so he can buy a handheld camera and start filming crime and accidents. Naturally this starts out kind of rough, because it's a rough job that requires you to be a heartless shithead, but eventually Lou starts to find his footing, and becomes singularly obsessed with obtaining success as a crime scene photographer, freelance of course. This isn't really a one man job though and so using all of his bullshit spinning powers Lou hires the desperate loser/near hobo Rick to be his navigator and extremely underpaid assistant on his nightly prowls for shocking happenings worthy of the news.

John Wick

Gonna be a looot of gun pointin!

"Don't Set Him Off!"

Hello friends, welcome back to The Tagline. Today we're taking a brief break from the frightfest to talk about Keanu murdering dude, because that's what I decided to spend my Saturday afternoon watching. This particular movie is perhaps a return to form for Reeves, who spent a healthy amount of time as an action star before kind of falling off the edge of the world (though I recently reviewed Man of Tai Chi, which Reeves directed and also starred in as the primary antagonist) and now he seems to slowly be coming back into focus (I mean he's been in a steady clip of movies I just mostly didn't care about them, and I didn't care about HIS role in 47 Ronin). Reeves stars as the eponymous John Wick, a man who we're introduced to at a very vulnerable moment, as his wife has just passed away from cancer. He receives as a post mortem gift from his wife, an adorable little puppy named Daisy, and bonds with the little monster while going about the process of grieving his wife. This portion of the movie lasts just long enough that you start to wonder if you're in the right movie theater, or whether there was another Keanu Reeves movie playing right next door about a sad guy bonding with a puppy. Just around that point though, Theon Greyjoy shows up and murders John Wick's puppy and steals his '69 Mustang (okay so obviously it's not Theon Greyjoy, it's Alfie Allen playing the son of a Russian crime boss names Iosef but I found his character more or less the same). Iosef tries to sell the stolen car to Aurelio (John Leguizamo), and much like Theon might, he gets bitch slapped for doing something dumb and is sent out of the shop. Iosef's father, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist, probably most famous for portraying Michael Blomkvist in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies, the Swedish ones) calls up Aurelio asking why he did such a thing, and Aurelio explains how catastrophically Iosef has fucked up. Viggo responds simply by going "oh..." 

Zombieland

It isn't like that at all.

"Nut up or shut up."

I honestly can't believe this, but I guess I really never reviewed one of my favorite zombie movies! Anyway, welcome back to The Tagline! Congrats you've survived another week. Unless you work weekends, in which case congrats, the worst part of your week is just beginning! So... sorry for that I guess! Today I'm going to reach back into the past to talk about Zombieland, a 2009 horror/comedy film set in a zombie apocalypse wasteland, starring Jessie Eisenberg as the fearful shut-in Columbus, who meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) a badass zombie killer who begrudgingly lets the meek Columbus tag along with him. The two are first conned and then later also join up with Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and Wichita (Emma Stone, I'm still not over Spider Man 2) who are travelling to some amusement park because why not I guess pretend an amusement park won't be full of zombies, not like there's anything better to do right? Everyone needs to have a goal in life after all. Tallahassee's is to find a Twinkie before the last of them expire. The problem is it seems like all he can manage to find are snowballs, and I mean, who wants to eat that shit? Just not tasty, unpleasant texture combination, ugh the worst. This movie isn't about Twinkies though... well I guess it kind of is, but mostly it is about surviving in the very worst situation imaginable. Zombieland is full of those runner-type zombies, and you guys know how I feel about that shit.

Life After Beth

She seems like a nice girl right?

"Til Undeath do Us Part."

Hello friends, welcome back to the Tagline! Today I'm keeping the spook rolling with a movie about zombies why not, in this case Life After Beth, starring Aubrey Plaza (you know) as Beth, the recently deceased girlfriend of Zach (Dane DeHaan) who is deeply distraught about it. Beth went hiking alone and died from a snakebite I guess, so that's all very sudden and tragic, except then after spiraling into a weird depression and hanging around her parents' house for a while, Zach notices Beth wandering around inside. This discovery leaves Zach understandably upset, and after some more stalking and almost breaking & entering Zach finally gets Beth's dad Maury (John C. Reilly) to explain what's going on, as best as he understands it. Which is to say he has no idea what's going on, just that Beth rose from the dead and showed up at their house, and doesn't remember dying. This is all very exciting for Zach, who was deeply distraught about Beth's dying, but it is clear from the get go that something isn't quite right with Beth, who seems constantly confused and thinks that she has a big test coming up or something. It isn't long before she begins to visibly decompose, become freakishly strong, and starts experiencing insane mood swings and tries to eat Zach. Those are all totally reasonable reactions to rising from the dead I guess, even if you don't know that's what happened.

Dracula: Untold

Anyone who says that's not a cool poster is lying.

"Every Bloodline Has a Beginning"

It's that time again my children of the night, time for The Tagline: Untold. Today as promised we will be travelling to Transylvania, where there are lots of spooky mountains and forests and it appears to be a creepy twilight almost all the time. This spookiness is obviously the perfect place for an awesome castle, and also VAMPIRES. So by that rationale was Dracula: Untold made, a story about the man who became the monster, or something. Dracula Untold stars Luke Evans (who you probably recognize best as Bard the Bowman in the Hobbit movies) as Vlad, the infamous impaler. After being sent away as a hostage and soldier for the Turks, Vlad returns home to take his place as the prince of Transylvania, has a wife who has a bad habit of being drained by vampires in film (Sarah Gadon, also see The Moth Diaries for her turn with Lesbian Dracula) a son and a host of loyal retainers who are certain to be dead in the following hour and a half. Things are going hunky dory until envoys arrive from the Ottoman Empire. The sultan, Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper you know Tony Stark's dad), demands in addition to his usual tribute of lots of ducats (10,000 ducats to be precise) that he be given 1000 boys to train as soldiers for his Janissary battalions. This is the same thing Vlad's dad did to him, and it looks like he's about to go for it and acquiesce, until the Turkish officer taking away Vlad's own son get's kinda lippy at him. Then in the space of I'd say ten seconds Vlad takes the guys sword and then kills all six of the Turkish soldiers with it. We must remember that at this point in the story he is just a man. A very scary man.

Galaxy Quest

Never give up, never surrender.

"The show has been cancelled... But the adventure is just beginning."

Hello all, welcome to the encore edition of this week's Tagline, where I actually post a second time in the week and don't just disappear into the internet for five days like a deadbeat! It's more Netflix today as I wait for the weekend and the coming of Drakul to kick off this most spooky of months, before I go into full spook mode for the duration. We aren't quite there though, so here's another Netflix revelation, Galaxy Quest was put up with the last batch of new arrivals and I knew immediately that I had to review it. Really how could I NOT?! So today we venture into the world of parody, though in this case it is an exceptional parody that becomes so well regarded that it becomes a sort of weird meta-commentary on the original work. So, for the unfamiliar Galaxy Quest is a 1999 movie that parodies not just Star Trek, but also the fandom and professional lives of the TOS main cast, mainly that they became the prototype for the modern idea OF fandom, and conventions held by fans featuring them as guests. Galaxy Quest stars Tim Allen (yeah you heard me Tim the tool man Taylor so what) as Jason Nesmith, who portrayed Commander Peter Quincy Taggart who commanded the starship Protector in the Galaxy Quest television show (which is imaginary and like Star Trek more or less). Alongside him is Gwen DeMarco (played by Sigourney Weaver) who played Lt. Tawny Madison, a character whose principal responsibility on the show seemed to be to repeat the computer, Alexander Dane (played by Alan Rickman) who portrayed the alien Dr. Lazarus (the Spock stand-in) Fred Kwan (portrayed by Tony Shalhoub) who played Tech Sgt. Chen, and Tommy Webber, who played child prodigy pilot Lt. Laredo. Also their guest appearances seem to be facilitated by Sam Rockwell's character Guy, who was a crew extra that died in the first five minutes of one of the show's episodes (so the equivalent of a Star Trek "red shirt").

Repo Men

Certainly looks edgy right?

"For a price, any organ in your body can be replaced. But it can also be repossessed."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline, where it's all pulp sci-fi all the time apparently. Today I am going to be talking about Repo Men, a movie that is not Repo: The Genetic Opera. Are they similar? I don't know, I haven't seen that, because I didn't want to so sue me. This movie has Jude Law in it, so that instantly made it more interesting to me, also it looked pretty violent. I was not disappointed in THAT regard for sure. Repo Men is another science fiction story set in a dystopic future where artificial organ technology has advanced wildly, so that virtually any organ can be replaced. The caveat is that distribution of these organs is controlled by a company that charges astronomical prices for them, because its the shitty future, and people often are coerced into getting these organs because otherwise they'll die. Then again, the average person can't pay 750,000 dollars for a new heart, and so they end up going into delinquency and then it gets kicked over to collections. As you've probably deduced, that's where the repo comes in, If someone misses enough payments, the property gets repossessed. Out of their chest cavity. You might have guessed that having a guy stun you and literally carve your heart out often results in a distinct case of death. They have that whole Temple of doom thing going on, ripping the heart right from your chest, only with less lava I suppose.

Snowpiercer

Captain America: The SUPER Winter Soldier

"Fight your way to the front."
Hello friends, I've delayed the inevitable crapocalypse to bring you more good movies today, although in doing so I have ushered in the actual apocalypse, because today's movie is all about the world after we fuck up the environment in a new, unexpected way. Normally it is in an effort to annihilate one another that humanity ushers in an ice age and then is nearly wiped out entirely, but in Snowpiercer, today's feature presentation, it is in an effort to repair the environmental damage mankind has already caused that they usher in the end of life as we know it. The basic premise is that in 2014 scientists engineer some chemical or particle that will allow them to cool off the Earth, and thus counteract the ecological devastation mankind has wrought. Well they're right, and the particle lowers temperatures. As you might guess from the title, the particle lowers those temperatures waaay wayyy down, and soon everything is trapped in a frosty ice age, and everyone is dead. Almost everyone that is. A small population is sustained on the Snowpiercer, a 100ish car long train that is run by a perpetual motion engine, and that travels in an unending circuit around the frozen world. Some people are lucky and live up front, where its a nonstop masque of the red death style party/orgy while others in the tail live in the most abject and miserable kind of squallor imaginable. The whole operation is overseen by Wilford, the enigmatic and reclusive overseer, who watches the engine and ensures its continued function. This system, as you can no doubt imagine, isn't super great for the people at the back of the train, who live in cramped conditions and survive off of disgusting protein bricks, that I won't tell you what they are because THAT'S HALF THE FUN MAN COME ON.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Horseape Gun: The Movie.

"One last chance for peace."

I mean, they say that but really was there EVER a chance for peace, for anyone? I sincerely doubt it, if people were looking for peace they'd probably have fewer tanks. Anyway welcome back to The Tagline! As promised, today is honorary emotional about primates day, and I will be talking about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the sequel to the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which you can read more about here. If you recall (or just read that link) Rise of the Planet of the Apes covers how the apes become super smart, and makes you really depressed in the process. This movie details the growth of the fledgling ape civilization, even as human society is crumbling in the wake of a devastating virus (the same one that made the apes so damned smart). Before I actually talk in earnest about the movie, I first need to quibble about the notion that a very small population of super-intelligent apes would proliferate and survive in the wild, as a species. incidental illness alone would make them genetically unviable as a population, and machine guns killing them by the hundreds would definitely make their dominance super unlikely. YES in a movie about super smart apes my problem is that I find the number of apes and their opposition to make dominance an unlikely outcome. Otherwise I am totally on board with these apes learning to talk and building a community based on mutual trust. Well, for the most part that's true.

Aeon Flux

I know I personally keep my gun in that
spot on your back you can never scratch.

"The Perfect World Meets The Perfect Assassin."

Hello everyone, after a brief hiatus welcome back to THE TAGLINE. I'm sure you were all terribly distraught in my absence, but rest assured, I'm back to give you the thrilling movie commentary that you have craved over the long hours of this past week, and to provide the cutting insight that makes your day bearable, because I'm sure my contribution to your afternoon is THAT ESSENTIAL. Unfortunately for you its all garbage in here today, as I threatened last week I'm going to be talking about Aeon Flux, a movie so spectacularly bad in such a specific and peculiar way that it almost defies belief. The movie doesn't really have to do with the original animation at all, or anything that makes sense, but because it bears a passing similarity I will talk about it briefly anyway. Aeon Flux was initially a six part short animation aired on MTV. Later it was given five more short episodes, and eventually in 1995 a full season of 10 half-hour episodes was aired. The show was the product of Peter Chung, whose bizarre art style is immediately recognizable (if you have ever seen Reign: The Conqueror that was also him). Chung, having previously worked on, if you will believe this, Rugrats, was frustrated with that shows character limitations, and so Aeon Flux was his outlet presumably for those impulses. As a result, Aeon Flux focuses on a character of the same name, who is basically a fetish dominatrix scarecrow skeleton, who is also a secret agent in a bizarre future dystopia. There's this whole thing with two cities and her sexy antagonistic relationship with Trevor Goodchild but I won't go into that because LITERALLY NONE OF THAT IS IN THIS MOVIE. It is important also to mention that there's a hyper amount of violence in the original animation, and a healthy dose of fetishy sex stuff. Now that I've established what the original animation was about, let me attempt to elucidate what happened in the movie, and I say attempt because even after seeing it a total of three times I'm still not entirely sure.