A Movie a Day 2: Movie Harder

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The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1966-1976)
Episode: "Beneath the Frozen World" (1974)

Jacques Cousteau was, according to Wikipedia, a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author, researcher, porn star, car salesman, hamster, Lego enthusiast, and chap stick. He had this show where he went places. There's an episode titled "Beavers of the North Country," and another titled "Legend of Lake Titicaca," but I think we can all be adults about this and not make fun of that.

Hey, how do you circumcise a hillbilly? You kick his sister in the jaw.

Jokes are fun. We all like to laugh. It helps us to cope with a horrible world filled with death and poverty and Michael Bay movies. My favorite jokes are the ones about Helen Keller, like the one where she walks into a bar and

Wait a minute.

I just got a cease and desist letter from a feminist organization threatening to sue me for slander if I make one more misogynist joke. Which is BS, because I wasn't even going to make fun of the fact that Helen Keller was a woman. I'm sure that she was a very nice person, who knew her place in the kitchen and

I didn't really feel like watching a full movie today, so I watched this 50-minute documentary instead. As I've said before, I'm interested in any documentary about Antarctica that doesn't focus on penguins. This one focuses more on exploring the ice and the ocean underneath it, although one as*hole penguin shows up just to squawk and flap his arms at everyone.



It's narrated by Rod Serling, which makes it feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, French people are apparently not completely insane like German people, so there's none of the craziness like in the Werner Herzog documentary Encounters at the End of the World. Although I did spot some of the explorers smoking near fuel drums, which isn't very safe. You could lose all your cigarettes that way. Anyway, it's good, but I doubt that anyone without an interest in Antarctica would want to see it.

An Interview with Joe Johnston, Director of
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
by Adolf Hitler, Entertainment Weekly

Adolf Hitler: Congratulations on the new movie. It's doing great at the box office and critics seem to like it a lot.

Joe Johnston: Thanks, thanks. Feels good.

AH: So, this is the first comic book movie you've made since The Rocketeer. How did it feel to –

JJ: Hey, sorry to interrupt, but aren't you supposed to be dead?

AH: Let's talk about the movie.

JJ: You're dead.

AH: Mind your business, you stupid Jew.

JJ: I'm not Jewish. And I'm really not comfortable with comments like that.

AH: Were you a fan of the comics before Marvel hired you to make the film?

JJ: I'm not really into comics since they're for little girls, but yeah, I knew about them. I mean, Captain America is sort of this iconic figure who represents everything that's good about America, and –

AH: Heh.

JJ: I'm sorry?

AH: Nothing. Go on.

JJ: Everything that's good about America, and, you know, standing up for what's right and I liked that. I wanted to make a movie that could entertain people, and maybe inspire them.

AH: Cool, cool. I caught the movie the other day, and I really liked it. It was a little too long, but all of the actors were good, the action scenes were well-directed and edited, and there was a good balance of humor and seriousness. And it's frankly nice to see real adventure movies like this getting made these days, in a market that's saturated with gritty dramas like The Dark Knight that take themselves too seriously and just end up being depressing instead of entertaining.

JJ: Thanks. Glad you liked it.

AH: But to be honest with you, I was a little disappointed that Sam Jackson wasn't in it more. He my n***a.

JJ: What?

AH: Fo shizzle. I noticed that the film is not entirely historically accurate. Were you worried that audiences would reject this approach and want something more realistic?

JJ: Well, look, I'm making a piece of entertainment here, not a documentary.

AH: Right.

JJ: So if the screenwriters had stuff like laser weapons in the 1940s, I wasn't going to tell them we couldn't do that.

AH: What about the way that the movie portrays the Nazis as murderous psychopaths who want to take over the world? Science fiction technology is one thing, but that's rewriting history, isn't it?

JJ: I don't follow. That's what they were like.

AH. Oh, come on. Don't tell me you believe that liberal media myth.

JJ: What myth? They killed six million people and tried to take over the world.

AH: Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. Now I'm glad you're just making a piece of entertainment and not a documentary. Heh heh!

JJ: I'm not really sure what's going on here.

AH: Your publicist is waving at me, so I guess we have to wrap this up. Before we go, do you have anything to say to all the Marvel Comics fans?

JJ: This is the dumbest movie review ever written, I think.

AH: There you have it, folks. See you at the movies!

Reader Comments:

Rob from Portland wrote:
this movie sucked the chick never showed her boobs wtf

insaneclownposse420 from Tampa wrote:
icp 4 life b*****s

Jory from Oklahoma City wrote:
Why wasn't the Asian guy in this more? He was hot. It should have been Captain Asian America, am I right?

Roger Ebert from Chicago wrote:
I'm fat.

Terri Schiavo from Pennsylvania wrote:
...

Jen from Houston wrote:
whens the next twilight trailer coming out

Alien 3 (1992)

I had seen a few bits and pieces of Alien 3 over the years, but I never actually sat down and watched it. I knew that critics hated it, but the older I get, the less I trust critical consensus. After finally seeing it, I'll meet them halfway. Alien 3 is easily the worst of the series, but it's not bad. The biggest problem is the lazy script. It resorts to things like forced romances and attempted gang rape to generate drama, and when the screenwriters need something to happen, it just happens. For example, the characters set a trap to kill the alien, by spilling fuel everywhere so they can torch it. But the plan needs to fail, so an idiot who was smoking near the fuel just happens to drop his cigar. Also, the story is just a rehash of Alien, which is disappointing after getting a real progression with Aliens. There were plenty of problems with Alien Resurrection and Alien vs. Predator, but at least they tried something new.

So why do I say the movie isn't bad? The actors, particularly Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, and Charles Dance. They treat this sh***y material like it's Nobel Prize winning literature, and they make it all worthwhile. Good actors can save just about anything, and they save Alien 3. It's nothing I'll ever feel a need to see again, but it doesn't fully deserve the horrible reputation it has. Just a little of it.

Another week goes by. This was Week... 6? I think. Who cares. Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Escape from New York (1981), It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Scott of the Antarctic (1948), Demon Planet (1965), The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: Beneath the Frozen World (1974), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Alien 3 (1992).

I think I'm going to put A Movie a Day 2 to rest. It seems that a month and a half is about how long I can do these things before getting sick of them and wanting a break. A Movie a Day 3 may happen, but it won't start four days later like last time. You know the drill, if I watch a movie and have anything to say about it, I'll post in the "what movies have you seen recently?" topic.