As Above, So Below

They really need to clean up Paris.

"The only way out is down."

Too true guys, too true. So welcome back to a new week of The Tagline! Today it's going to be some more horror, as I dip back into that much maligned genre, the found footage horror movie. Today's offering is As Above, So Below, a film about a group of people who descend into the catacombs beneath Paris in search of the Philosopher's Stone. As we all know from watching the first Harry Potter movie, The Philosopher's Stone was the end goal of all alchemy, and it was rumored that Nicholas Flamel succeeded in its creation, achieving immortality along with his wife. For anyone sort of curious, Flamel's reputation as an alchemist was extremely posthumous. He lived in the late 14th and early 15th century, and accounts of his alchemy legend originate more than 200 years later. At any rate, in this movie he really IS an alchemist, and the main character, a woman named Scarlet, finds evidence in Iran of where the philosopher's stone might be. Why is there something in Iran written in Aramaic that tells the location of Nicholas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone? I have no idea, but it did so yeah, Scarlet follows this evidence to Paris. There she realizes that the evidence points to a secret chamber somewhere beneath Paris, deep in the catacombs that crisscross the city's below. While attempting to determine the location of this chamber, a mysterious individual suggests they consult with an amateur catacomb delver named Papillon, and then disappears of course. Papillon and his hipster friends lead Scarlet, her documentary camera guy, and her reluctant ex-boyfriend into the necropolis, Where shit promptly starts to get weird.

The Grandmaster

In the rain, kung-fu rain.

"In Martial Arts there is no right or wrong, only the last man standing."

I think you're thinking of Wrestlemania there, but okay, you write the taglines and I just read them. Hello friends! It's that time again, and today we'll be making the trip to the far east once again, as I scrutinize a big Hollywood stab at kung-fu. In this particular instance I'm talking about The Grandmaster, the latest in a long line of adaptations about Ip Man, the master of Wing Chun who has been sensationally popular in cinema (at least in part because he was the teacher of Bruce Lee). This particular film focuses on different aspects of Ip Man's life than previous films, being a bit more reflective and philosophical. I'd actually seen Ip Man, which mostly focuses on him fighting the invading Japanese, and like so many movies takes a lot of liberties for the sake of dramatic effect. The Grandmaster does that too, but the focus is completely different. This film is almost biographical in format, following Ip Man from young life briefly, until the point when he succeeds his mentor as a grandmaster of Wing Chun in is own right. Along the way obviously people fight each other, and pit their varied styles of kung fu against one another in typical fashion, as an attempt to prove supremacy.

I, Frankenstein

I, Frankenfurter.

"In the battle between good and evil, an immortal holds the key."

Hello friends, welcome to Tagline's Terrible Tuesday, the second Tuesday out of the month where without fail I will deliver to you a movie that is a pile of hot garbage. With that end in mind, today I will be talking about I, Frankenstein, possibly one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen, and a true enigma of film making. I, Frankenstein is at its core, several positions displaced from even a mediocre movie. It is a cinematic train wreck, in which there are no survivors, only a twisted amalgam of blood, fire and metal, amidst moody camera filters and a world submerged in an endless night. Starring Aaron Eckhart as the I, Frankenstein (and with a face only marginally less fucked up than the end of The Dark Knight) a monster stitched together from much shorter men than I remember in the book, and not possessing a soul. After being rejected by his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the monster kills Frankenstein's wife, is pursued by the doctor to the arctic, and watches as the dipshit freezes to death (this is the stuff that happens in the novel). After all this stuff, which is covered in a voiced over montage lasting roughly 30 seconds, the bullshit story of THIS movie starts, leaving behind a book that I think everyone can agree is a better narrative than this steaming heap. Let's go a little bit deeper shall we? Get your shovels folks.

Year in Review: The Worst of 2014

Hi everyone, welcome to part two of my year in review, where I look back at the ways in which I have wasted my precious free time, and consider which films were less of a waste or, in the case of today's post, the biggest wastes of all. It was somewhat challenging for this list to not just become a litany of young adult book adaptations that I found terrible, but I managed to inject at least some variety. The Mortal Instruments ducked the headsman's axe narrowly by coming out in 2013, even though I didn't watch it until 2014. Still not everyone was so lucky. Without further delay let's dive right into this.

The Tagline's Worst 5 of 2014:

Year in Review: Top 5 of 2014

Hi folks! I thought that this week I would take a break from reviewing films to instead review my year at the movies, and to recount some of my favorite and LEAST favorite movies I saw this year that actually came out this year. I figured I would start off with my favorites first, and we can work our way from there to the shittiest movies I saw this year. I will give a short synopsis of each, and also link the full article if you want to compare my recollection now with my thoughts then. Maybe I've since changed my mind? Really who knows, I'm essentially delirious all the time. At any rate, bear in mind that I'm not saying these were the best movies that came out, just the ones I SAW, so don't suggest movies I didn't see. Also I saw lots of other good movies, but I liked these best. So shut up and enjoy the list. Without further ado I give you:

2014: The Top 5 Tagline Movies

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 Interview

I mean they ARE kind of ignorant.

"Please do not believe these ignorant dishonorable Americans!"

Hi folks, welcome back to The Tagline. Today I want to close out the year by reviewing the Interview, which as you may or may not know is a dire threat to North Korea. Despite all the wacky hemming and hawing, Sony eventually gave us all the chance to watch this no doubt silly and inconsequential movie, despite the threats of vague entities on the internet. I mean, the president said we should keep going to the movies, so I guess that makes it essential right? DO YOUR AMERICAN DUTY AND WATCH THIS GOOFY SETH ROGEN/JAMES FRANCO MOVIE. The Interview if you somehow don't know, is a movie co-directed and written by Seth Rogen, and starring him and James Franco (this is the same full team responsible for This is the End) as a TV host, David Skylark (Franco) and his producer, Aaron Rapaport (Rogen). Skylark's show is a garbage program that does stupid things, like most "entertainment news" programs on real television. After some douche Aaron graduated with takes a cheap shot at his show, He urges Dave to do something more serious. This is when he gets the idea to interview Kim Jong-Un (the supreme leader of North Korea), who is a big fan of his show according to his Wikipedia page. This request to conduct an interview is approved, after Aaron takes a trip into the mountains of China and gets accosted by men who jump out of a helicopter. Around this time, Dave and Aaron are approached by Agent Lacey (Lizzie Caplan) who wants them to help the CIA assassinate Kim, in order to facilitate a coup d'etat. They agree, mainly because they have no choice, but also because Dave makes decisions with his penis.