I Love Damage Control Movies!

I've spent a good deal of this blog discussing movie in a general sort of way, and I've spent the rest of the blog discussing health. Today is a post written damn near at the speed of light. I'm not even taking my fingers off of the typewriter (or keyboard) wichiever term you pref3er. There's bound to be plenty of mistakes as I'm not using my backspace key. Anyway, the point is I'm trying to be as coherent as possible without actually doing much in the way of thinking or effort. I'm pumping this post out like a machine, seeing if I can do it on autopilot, using as little brain power as possible. The first four posts I wrote today were really good, I'm talking absolutely brilliant, some great critiques and thoughts, very clever I even used some puns, not that puns are terribly intellectual, but they do actually require some thought process. This post on the other hand requires no thought process whatsover. I'm not spell checking, editing, or really using many commas except maybe in this very sentence. The one thing I am doing is mentioning health links. Why? Because its my job, yeah I know. Pretty cool. So here they are: Life extension and Master Formula

There's always a few runaway documentaries every summer. In documentary terms, that's still only like $10 million dolllars, which is considered a bomb by the regular summer going rate, but still, it's good to see a dead genre get a little recognition every now and then.

And the ones I've seen this summer top all (even that fucking Penguins movie!). I call them fockumentaries because they are a little more about entertaining than informing, which is perfectly fine by me.

The first is called "Bigger, Faster, Stronger (the side effects of being American)" and its about steroids in the world of sports, professional wrestling, and weight lifting. I read a health blog or two every day, so I'm not unfamiliar with the back door processes of the steroids industry. The documentary is hilarious, as the documentarian is so closely involved with the subject he tirades, belittles, explores, and comments on. He was a juicer at one point. The film achieves genius as it makes you laugh while at the same time infuriating you.

The second film is called "My Winnepeg," and is sheer genius. Learn everything you could possibly want to know and more about the strangest, coldest town in the world. The narration is poetic, intensely sad, and painfully funny. The documentarian hires actors to portray scenes from his early life as he explain how it all relates to his freezing Canadian hometown. One particularly brutal, funny, and ironic scene plays out as the documentarian's real mother acts out a scene with a young actress pretending to be the documentarian's sister. The sister has hit a deer with her car, but the mother interprets the car accident as the side effect of careless love making. Bazaar, enthralling, and deeply Canadian.

The final film I have yet to see, but the trailer took my breath away. Vernor Herzog explores the majesty and community of Antarctica. The imagery is dazzling, alien, and the premise, "What weird sort of people hold congress at the south pole?" is too intriguing to pass up.

Finally, get your paleo diet on! It's good for your health!

The summer is sizzling with exciting blockbusters! Of course Iron Man was wonderful, but it seems week after week another spectacular movie comes out. I even enjoyed Speed Racer, which didn't do to well at the box office, but the movie itself was something new, stylistic, and fast as hell.

The Chronicles of Narnia were as epic, and momentous as ever. Tons of battles, at least three, and a giant, hungry, water Jesus at the end to save the day.

Then Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out. It harkened back to the classic adventure films of the 80's, the style was fun and the action didn't let up. The cast was witty, and Harrison Ford was as charming as ever.

I should also mention some of the smaller summer movies which have really been tickling my indy bone. Fall is a tale of a little girl learning about the wonders and perils of the world from an injured stuntman. It was exotic, a visual feast. And randomly, the director of the film was at the screening I went to. Real nice guy, The Fall was his labor of love.

Also, War Inc. was thoroughly enjoyable. Broad, yet pointed, very good political satire. And John Cusack never disappoints. But the real blossom of this movie was Hillary Duff, who is funny and sexy at the same time, a hard thing to do.

Finally, the real hero of the summer is the Damage Control Master Formula. It's a multivitamin. Scratch that. It's the best multivitamin. It'll help you with those washboard abs you've been working on to get ready for the beach.

Summer is here, and just in time!

This spring was a pretty awful season for movies, even by spring standards. Usually there's at least one good horror film, and something unusual that surprises people. This spring: nothing. The Bank Job was the best movie I've seen in the last couple months, and it doesn't hold water compared to any of the movies during I saw during Oscar season.

But forget the past, summer has arrived!

And with it the first big summer hit: Iron Man!

I saw Iron Man with my friends at the Cinerama Dome last night at the Arclight theater in Hollywood. The Arclight is perhaps the best theater in Hollywood, if not the world, and the cinerama dome is the best screen in that theater. It's huge, and the sound is glorious.

Iron Man was a delightful movie, everything you need in a popcorn chomper. Plenty of witty lines, at least three amazing costume reveals, and a killer soundtrack. The plot was ridiculous, didn't particularly go anywhere, and the villain was senseless, but that's small potatoes. Where Iron Man really pressed its name plate was with the quality acting. It's rare to see academy award winners in a super hero flick. In this one, all the main actors has an Oscar under their belt, or at least a few nominations. And they were older. So many super hero movies are filled with nifty twenty somethings. It's just hard to believe Louis Lane has been a successful reporter and raised a nine year old child when the actress playing her is 25! Thus, it was refreshing to see people in their late 30's and 40's playing characters that by all means should BE in their 40's. Thank you Favreu, you delivered the goods.

A couple other websites that deliver the goods are private eye and orthorexia.

After blogging about the non-Golden Globes last month, it's only fitting that I blog about The Academy Awards this month. It's funny, I always spend about a month preparing for the awards, trying to watch every nominated movie, brushing up on trivia, fashion, etc. for the big night. Then I usually go to a party and covet my inward superiority for being the most Oscar-literate while we all cheer on our favorites.

However, this year I was involved in other capers. I did end up at a wild party on Oscar night, and the Oscars were showing, but nobody was watching. The party was filled with musicians, and plebeites, and dancers, and epicureans, theater sorts all of them, and no one had a passing interest in the year's best movies save me. And of course, if it isn't live, it's dead, and me and everyone else could care less, so the charm of the Oscar was lost on me this year.

Anyway, about the actual awards, apparently they were predictable as ever this year. The only mild upset was Mary Cotillard beating Julie Christie for best actress, but other than that it was pretty much all preordained by the blogosphere weeks ahead of time.

John Stuart was amusing, by I continue to hold my opinion that he doesn't come close to Billy Crystal. John had a slew of political jokes and mildly irreverant-but-funny favoritism in his citation of the year's picks. But, the funniest moments were when he mocked the Oscars themselves, like his "approval" of the "This-is-how-we-vote-for-the-Oscars" montage, and his tribute to binoculars and periscopes.

All in all, I'm glad the films that won won (with the exception of Juno, boo!), but I hope next year is a bit more exciting of a ceremony.

What IS exciting is the bevy of links I'm about to toss your way. They're all health related! If you're looking for vitamin information, search no further than the damage control master formula.