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.

Don Jon

WORDS CAPS STUFF

"There's more to life than a happy ending."

Hello and welcome back. Before I talk about today's movie, I want to briefly talk about another movie I watched, Kill Your Darlings. This movie was about Allen Ginsberg and his crew and while I didn't take issue with any of that (though admittedly I found the whole movie kind of generally uninteresting) the casting made the movie a really uncomfortable experience for me. What do I mean? Well Daniel Radcliffe is portraying Allen Ginsberg, and I just got really weirded out when Harry Potter started kissing men. Especially when the man was the kid who went crazy at the end of Chronicle (who I think is Harry Osborn in the upcoming Spiderman movie). I'm not super into watching dude make-outs to begin with, but I particularly don't want to watch Harry Potter make out with a two-time supervillain, doing some crazy drugs, and then manically jerking off. I don't want to see like... any of that happening. I know I know, he's not always Harry Potter... but really he's always Harry Potter. Also did I mention the movie was pretty boring? Basically when some gross sex act wasn't being performed (get a bj from a girl in the stacks while you lock eyes with your best friend and are also committing a book crime) people were being super pretentious about writing. I didn't end up making it through the whole movie, I just got to a point where I felt like there was no point in continuing.

She's very convincing in this role, almost TOO CONVINCING.

But that isn't the subject of today's post, which does admittedly have to do with a lot of sex, it's just a lot less weird and no one gets murdered at any point, and they didn't let Michael C. Hall in on the proceedings which was probably for the best. Don Jon represents the first directorial outing for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote the screenplay. To add a third role, he also stars as the eponymous Don Jon. So more or less he everything'd this movie. Don Jon is a film about a guy, who would you guess it is named Jon, and his friends call him Don Jon, because he's so good at closing the deal with ladies inadeclub (I have a Sean Paul related speech impediment). Jon states early on that not much matters in life to him, except his boys, bangin' random ladies, his car, working out, his family, and of course, constantly watching internet porn on Pornhub. Yeah, that's right, its all about the pr0nzzzorrzzz or whatever I don't know. Anyway, Jon is doing great with that arrangement until he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) who if you haven't been paying attention to the media is so attractive that it will melt your face off. Jon immediately compromises everything about himself to attempt to snare this lady, and eventually he succeeds.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Is he... making the touchdown sign?

"Flesh to touch...Flesh to burn! Don't keep the Wicker Man waiting!"

Too true wicker man, too true! Welcome to the Thursday/Wednesday night if you really want it edition of the Tagline! As promised, today we're taking a wacky trip back to the early 70s, to experience this cult classic, considered by many to be the best movie of 1973. Not having seen many other movies that were released in 1973, I can't be sure if that is saying much or not. Maybe 1973 was a great year for movies let's see... okay there's no way The Wicker Man was the best movie of '73, it apparently WAS a pretty good year, and if nothing else The Exorcist came out in '73 and that was a much better horror movie. I'm getting sidetracked though so BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND which is The Wicker Man, a 1973 film often categorized as "Folk Horror" which was sort of a thing for a little while and then it really wasn't anymore. Starring television actor Edward Woodward as British police cop Neil Howie, The Wicker Man follows his journey to the Hebridean island of Summerisle after the reported disappearance of a young girl. What he discovers on the island is a community wary of outsiders, and devoted to pagan, Celtic practices, all the while attempting to divert his investigation, and claiming the girl, Rowan, never existed at all. Despite what a sane person who enjoyed living might choose to do, Sergeant Howie doggedly pursues the case, and his belligerent means of doing so ends pretty much how you would expect, except okay maybe you wouldn't predict he gets burned alive in a giant wicker man (spoiler alert).