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.

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.

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.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men Blues of Orange Past.

"His past. Our future."

Hello friends, neighbors and mutants from various eras that have time traveled to this moment so that they could read this post when it was first written! Today after an unexpected interruption in your movie commentary service, I will be offering my thoughts on the latest movie based on Marvel characters, though I am hesitant to say Marvel movie because really in this day and age that has a different meaning (and the production and distribution rights for X-Men movies are still both retained by 20th Century Fox). Anyway I am talking of course about X-Men: Days of Future Past, a film with a seriously huge cast, given that it takes place partially in two completely different time periods (or I guess three if you want to count the one at the end as a separate divergent timeline). This movie functions more or less as both a sequel to X-Men: First Class, and also to 2013's The Wolverine (in so much as this film also features Wolverine heavily). At the same time, this movie also functions as a sequel to X3, that blood soaked nightmare of movies past, because this franchise has steadfastly refused to actually just scrap everything and reboot. Somehow, despite the fumbling of X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this franchise has managed to cobble back together something representing a coherent plotline, and now, with Days of Future Past it has perhaps done something even greater (I will get to that before the end of this post). First, perhaps appropriately, a little history lesson. In the comics, the Days of Future Past story arc involved Kitty Pryde going back in time from the dystopic future of 2013 (and let's be honest, it really is dystopic isn't it) and back to what was then the present day, of 1980, to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and her recently reformed Brotherhood of Mutants. This action (the assassination) sparks off a chain of events that leads to the future Kitty came back from, where mutants are hunted and the human race is threatened with complete destruction at the hands of the man-made robotic Sentinels. The plot of the movie is very similar to this original storyline, with some substantial changes for badassitude. Instead of Kitty herself going back (Ellen Paige reprises her role from X3, thankfully we don't have to see too much of her, which might remind me of the terrible things that happened), in the movie Wolverine is sent, because he is the only one with a mind capable of withstanding the trip or something (because of his regeneration, see a montage of him being shot in the head over and over). His job is to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence Mystique that is) from assassinating Bolivar Trask (Who created the Sentinels so it's still pretty legit). Her assassinating him leads to his becoming a martyr, and catalyzes the creation of the Sentinels and ultimately the destruction of basically everyone, because after a while the Sentinels start getting less picky about who they're exploding. The other downside of the assassination involves the gummint capturing Mystique, and using her DNA to make the Sentinels better, and allow them to adapt to various mutant powers (we see them doing this to murder the X-Men at the beginning of the movie).

Divergent

Roofstander: The Movie.

"What Makes You Different, Makes You Dangerous."

Fortunately there is no chance of anyone or anything becoming dangerous in this movie, as there is nothing unique or different happening. Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Today I'm going to talk about the impossibly long-running film Divergent (it is STILL in theaters for some reason) Starring the always bland and uninteresting Shailene Woodley, who is attempting to assert herself on the big screen after her turn on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which I assume people must have watched because she is still working. Divergent is the latest in the string of adaptations of young adult novels with stubborn strong willed female protagonists who go against the establishment, in order to change their dystopic future society. If I sound so jaded that it even comes through in text, that's because I feel like we can probably explore some other narrative space at this point. I'm sure likable female protagonists can think of something ELSE to do, other than lead a future revolution. Divergent is the first book in a trilogy (all three of which are being filmed) taking place in a world that was almost totally annihilated. In order to organize the post-apocalyptic civilization, individuals are split into one of five factions. Erudites are the smarties, Dauntless are the soldiers, Amity are the happy fieldworkers, Candor are the lawyers, and Abnegation are the selfless public servants and leaders. Also there is a substantial body of factionless refuse that no one seems troubled about, but I guess it's a hard knock life in the future. Beatrice (Woodley) is about to turn 16, and so will soon take the aptitude test and choose what faction she belongs to. Her parents belong to Abnegation, and they are currently in some sort of cold war with Erudite, who as near as I can tell are a bunch of smug douchebags who think they should own the world. Tris ends up getting three different results when she takes her test, meaning that she is divergent. This is not good, and divergent people tend to get disappeared. Beatrice is warned not to tell anyone.

Cherry 2000

Sure is hot in the desert.

“She's blonde, beautiful and forever young.”

Hello and welcome back to The Tagline! I decided that I wanted to continue the new year with a further peek into the distant, misted past, when hairspray was as essential as water, and the future was definitely going to involve some sort of big desert and having sex with robots. Living in an area covered in forest and completely devoid of robots to bang, I don't mind telling you that I am still trying to cope with my bitter disappointment on the matter. I guess I shouldn't get too down, we could still get our deserty sexbot future! It might just be a while, but I suppose patience is a virtue just like they say. ANYWAY today I will be talking about a classic movie about a sexy lady in an american muscle car shooting guys with rockets in a desert while looking for the body of a robotic sex wife. You may or may not have guessed by now that I am talking about Cherry 2000, a cult film originally slated for release in 1985, Orion shelved this film for years basically because they didn't know how to market it, or what to really do with it. Having seen it a number of times, I can certainly understand their confusion and trepidation... I'm not sure how one would classify or explain Cherry 2000, especially in the 80s. The film features a dystopian future US, with a setting somewhere lost between cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic. The year is 2017, and in the wake of a number of economic disasters and civil uprisings, civilization exists in isolated clusters. One man, Sam Treadwell, is a business executive who lives with his limited edition gynoid, (the eponymous Cherry 2000 model) until she short circuits during some very soapy sex, because apparently advanced androids AREN'T WATERPROOF SOMEHOW. That leads to some gross questions about how he has sex with her and keeps her clean, but let's just... not think about that anymore.

Catching Fire

OH GOD SHE REALLY IS ON FIRE.

"Remember who the enemy is."

Welcome back, I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving if you live in the US and like to do that kind of thing. Otherwise I hope you had a nice Thursday I guess? As promised, today I will (belatedly) deliver my Thanksgiving gift of murder, though granted it is perhaps not as exciting because this installment doesn't involve the savage killing of small children. That's right, today I will be talking about the recently released Hunger Games: Catching Fire, sequel to 2012's Hunger Games film both of them adaptations of YA novels written by Suzanne Collins. To recap, see my review of the first Hunger Games here, go ahead, I'll wait for you, take your time. Okay, so after surviving the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta have to make a victory tour. The problem is that Katniss made a big show about how in love she was with Peeta, but they haven't exactly been honeymooning since they got back, and that makes President Snow (Donald Sutherland) really upset because they're his OTP, and he's hoping that if he ships them hard enough to Districts will stop rioting and he can prevent a revolution from toppling the Capitol (this revolution having been sparked by Katniss' defiant actions during her time in the Hunger Games arena). In an effort to remove what he sees as the root of his problems, Snow arranges a special 75th Hunger Games (which already would have been especially horrible as it was set to be the 3rd "Quarter Quell", special games every 25 years used to extra remind everyone of how whipped the capitol has them) where all the tributes will be the former victors of other Hunger Games. Katniss is understandably not thrilled at the prospect.

Dredd

Not a lot of deep thought happening here.

"Judgment is coming."

Hey folks! Welcome to another blood soaked installment of the Tagline! Today I'm going to talk about the 3D bloodbath sensation  Dredd, a 2012 adaptation of the prolific British Judge Dredd comics, first printed in the late 70s, and continuing through the present. Dredd stars Karl Urban as the eponymous Judge Dredd, (the last movie I saw him in was the new Star Trek, he was McCoy, wait scratch that I forgot about Red). He accompanies a prospective Judge named Anderson (played by Olivia Thirlby, the last movie I saw her in was Juno believe it or not. Pretty serious genre shift) who is undergoing a kind of trial by fire to decide if she's fit to be a judge. Apparently her test scores are pretty underwhelming, but she is a powerful psychic, and so the Hall of Justice decides that she's worth the trouble. During what is a routine investigation of a triple homicide, Dredd and Anderson run afoul of Ma Ma (Lena Headey, you know, Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones!) who controls the entire mega-block the murders take place in. She's in the process of distributing a new drug that will give her serious leverage and grow her little crime empire, but first she has to make sure one of her captured goons never gets to be interrogated by the judges. To achieve this end, she locks down the block and sends her thugs to wage war on the two trapped judges. Dredd takes it pretty personally, and what ensues could be delicately termed an orgy of gun violence.

The Hunger Games

I did not experience it again in IMAX.

"The Games Will Change Everyone"

Happy Tuesday everyone! I thought that with it recently out on DVD that it would be fun to talk about the dystopian action film The Hunger Games, based on the young adult novel of the same name. The film follows the life of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, you might remember her as Mystique in X-Men: First Class) who volunteers to partake in the games to take the place of her sister. The games are essentially the same scenario as the one played out in the Japanese film/book/manga franchise Battle Royale. For those who aren't familiar, a number of adolescents are pitted in a fight to the death until only one remains. In the case of the Hunger Games, one boy and one girl are chosen from each of 12 districts to participate in a televised bloodbath as a form of penance for when the districts rebelled against the tyrannical Capitol.

The Book of Eli

The future's so bright, I have radiation poisoning.

"Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it."

Welcome back to the tagline! Today I will as promised deliver another heaping dose of the post-apocalypse, this time talking about 2010's The Book of Eli. Set 30 years after a nuclear apocalypse, The Book of Eli follows the eponymous main character Eli (Denzel Washington), as he makes his way towards the west coast of the former U.S. in an attempt to deliver a book he has somewhere safe, after a voice told him to do so. This book is apparently of grave significance. He is not the only person who is aware of its apparent importance however, and he runs into trouble when Carnegie (Gary Oldman) becomes aware of the book and tries to take it by force.

The Postman

Apparently next year's really gonna suck.

"It is 2013. War has crippled the Earth. Technology has been erased. Our only hope is an unlikely hero."

Happy Thursday everyone! As promised today I will talk about the post-apocalyptic epic The Postman, and in the process probably get really angry as I talk about the variety of stupid reasons people hated it.

The Postman is a nearly three hour long movie, based on a David Brin novel of the same name, about a man traversing the wasteland left behind by the collapse of modern society (It is implied that it is a combination of nuclear war, plague, and social unrest brought on by a sect of hypersurvivalists known as Holnists). This man (Kevin Costner) is just trying to survive, and in the process he sets about a course of events that change the world. He does this by posing as a postman, for a fictitious reformed government that he makes up. By doing this he gives the people of the scattered remaining settlements hope and a banner to flock to, in opposition of the army of General Bethlehem (the Holnists I mentioned above, named after their philosophy's founder, a writer named Nathan Holn).