So my plan last week was to fire up the way-back machine and do my thing with Peter Travers’ zero-star review of Bad Boys II, arguably the second greatest Henry Rollins movie of all time. I ran into a slight hitch when I realized that, for a movie he considers to be in the category of all time worst movies, Peter really didn’t have that much to say about it. Not that I have anything against recycling jokes, as my running commentary on the awkward sexual tension of his Watchmen review should indicate, but there wasn’t much for me to talk about except  the irony of the most bombastic film-reviewer of all time hating a movie for being too bombastic.

So this week I’m delving into his review of I Love You, Man, the Rudd and Segal buddy movie that came out last week. Nobody’s ever accused me of punctuality.

You know the drills. Words after the jump:

Here’s the thing about comedies: Even when the script is freighted with formula, the right actors can keep it afloat, even airborne.

Apparently even writers for major entertainment publications are allowed to mix metaphors now. I’d probably be less bitter if I had a similarly cushy job, but I don’t, so I’m not.

In a down market for giggles (Miss March? Please!), Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are howlingly funny.

Quick, somebody get Geithner on the line. Giggles need a bailout!

They have skills.

True story. Peter Travers once saw the two of them build a campfire out of all the excess money they made by doing the exact same movie every six months.

They can get laughs without the sitcom pimping.

Is there a pimp sitcom out there I don’t know about? If not, Fox needs to get on that right away.

By the way, Jason Segel stars in the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” Just saying.

It’s a rare gift, staying hilarious and recognizably human.

Yes, rare is the gift that allows these two humans to continue to be recognized as humans while being hilarious. Personally, I’m hilarious, but I tend to look more like a North American Grizzly when I do it.

Their presence and ace comic timing kick the movie up a notch.

You know what? I totally missed that fact that Peter Travers decided to open with a lightning round. In a five-line dual-knob slob-off, Peter travers has managed to say absolutely nothing of value, which I guess is a win for him.

Director John Hamburg (Along Came Polly), who teamed on the script with Seinfeld writer Larry Levin, hangs the plot on a flimsy premise: A dude with no dude friends needs a dude to be best man at his wedding.

Look, I use dude to open pretty much every third sentence I say. I’m tired of my lifestyle being mercilessly persecuted by these out of touch wind bags who don’t understand my cultural upbringing, man.

Never mind that the needy dude, tightly wound L.A. realtor Peter Klaven (Rudd), has a brother, Robbie (Andy Samberg), who could easily do the job.

This is what passes for analysis in a Peter Travers movie. Christ, he’s the kind of guy who watches Law & Order and feels smart for guessing that the wife did it, isn’t he?

That would leave no reason to get Peter out on man dates.

Two things: First, whoever it was that came up with the term “man date” and chuckled about the fact that it sounds like another word, despite the lack of any kind of related double entendre, should be deported to Slovakia. Second, does he seem a little too insistant that Peter go on these man dates, or am I really just reading way too much into this?

That’s right, Peter’s fiancée, Zooey (a sparky Rashida Jones) — whose girl network is so in the loop they know precisely the first time Peter went oral on Zooey (“Lock that tongue down, girl”) — encourages the poor schnook to go out and find a best buddy.

A Google Image search for Schnook, which apparently means a stupid or gullible person, similar to a “dolt.” It takes mere seconds to google a word to find out if it sucks, by the way.

After several disastrous tries, including a gay close encounter, the search ends with Sydney Fife (Segel). Sydney is Peter’s polar opposite, a likable slob who holes up in a Venice Beach man cave stuffed with porn and video games

Let’s see: gay close encounter…pole…slob…holes…man cave…stuffed…porn.

Sydney has a comfort level inside his own skin that Peter never dreamed possible.

Jesus Christ. Peter Travers is actually writing I Love You, Man slash fiction.

Without ever infringing on Brokeback territory, Sydney is man enough to make Zooey jealous.

Just a little late there, buddy. I think you’ve already “infringed” all over Brokeback’s “territory.”

And that’s it. That’s all. It’s the variations that Rudd and Segel spin on this theme that make the movie hugely enjoyable.

Right, because that line couldn’t be used whenever these guys do the exact same thing every six months.

There’s no one better than Rudd at putting an affable face on awkwardness.

Woody Allen is so pissed off right now.

it’s always Peter who drops the ball.

Yes, it is always Peter who drops the ball. It’s nice when he writes my side for me.

Cool is always just out of Peter’s reach

I’m just going to pop out and grab a coffee. Anyone else want one?

It’s a passion for Rush (the band puts in a surprise appearance) that bonds Peter and Sydney.

Surprise? Well, not any more. Way to drop the ball Peter.

Segel has a ball playing the other side of the inhibited musician he wrote for himself in the underrated Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Well, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and imbd all have Forgetting Sarah Marshall rated pretty highly. I guess that’s good for a movie that sucked, but remind me again what “underrated” means?

He also lets you in on the loneliness that’s eating at this free spirit.

Yet another sneak peek at Peter’s upcoming romance novel, Travers of the Night.

Jaime Pressly is terrific as Zooey’s BFF. Her battles with Jon Favreau, excellent as her blowhard husband, have genuine comic bite.

Honestly, I don’t know what “genuine comic bite” means, so I’m just going to let it be.

The movie goes soft in its final stages

Lest anyone think I’m out to paint Peter Travers as some kind of sexual deviant, bear in mind that he actually wrote that.

“Sweet, sweet hangin’,” says Peter of knowing Sydney. The same goes for the movie.

That’s it? Honestly, if Rolling Stone gave me any money at all, I’d be willing to invest the minute and a half it would take to come up with a better ending line than that.

Quick programming note: At some point in the next month or so, I’m hoping to spin this feature off into its own website at www.ihatepetertravers.com (it currently redirects to a listing of posts tagged “I Hate Peter Travers”).  I’m looking for writers who can do posts in this same vein (hopefully directed at a wider range of bad critics) as well as people who are interested in doing actual movie reviews. If there’s anyone out there with an interest in getting in on the groundfloor of this non-lucrative enterprise, drop me an email at jon@seitzwrites.com.

Well, I promised you two editions as atonement (punishment?) for my laziness, so here you go. I started this one after I finished Milk yesterday, but I only finished it today. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen Watchmen already, so we’ll see if that has any influence on how hard I rip into Peter Travers’ braindead bastard child of a review.

If anyone’s actually curious about the movie, it’s good, but that’s all I’ll give it. It’s not the great masterpiece that everyone hoped it’ll be. If I were ranking it on a totem pole of other comic book movies (and really, that’s all it is), tt’s probably on par with first two Spiderman movies. There are some big flaws in the filmmaking, but there’s a good chance that if you like the book that you won’t be too dissapointed by the result.

But if you’re like me, you probably don’t want to read the reviews until you’ve seen the movie. In that case, don’t go read Peter Travers’ review here, and don’t continue on past the jump for my comedic stylings:

Listen up, “Watchmen” virgins. I don’t care if you know squat about the orgasmically received 1987 graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons: It’s time to bust your cherry.

Look, we all know what he was going for here, but considering that the midnight showing I went to had no fewer than six people dressed as Rorschach, and a guy who literally “blue” himself to look like Dr. Manhattan to do backflips in front of the screen before the movie, “virgins” might not have been the ideal word to describe people who haven’t read the book. Furthermore, implying that the comic book brought people to orgasm is just gross. Besides, having an orgasm while reading a comic book does not mean that you have, in fact, busted your cherry.

Congratulations though. Two sentences in, this review already contains as much awkward, misplaced sexual tension as a junior high dance.

With its alternate universe of vigilante superheroes and power-crazed U.S. politicians heading for nuclear disaster, Watchmen took comic books to the next level as literature.

Fact: I enjoyed Watchmen the comic book. Another fact: the “next level” of literature above comic books is Stephen King.

Even if you don’t see Snyder’s version, which has its problems, it won’t kill you to peek at the comic book that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof called “the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.”

There has to be someone else you could have cited here besides the one of the guys who created one of the most unneccesarily convoluted television series that I’ve never seen. Besides, what are the chances that the kind of person who would be influenced by what the co-creator of “Lost” has to say would not have already read the book?

As for you Watchmen junkies, enough with tearing down the movie before you even see it.

Yes. How dare you pass judgment on an adaptation of something that you love so much that the only rational comparison is to that of a smack addict.

Moore, soured by the Hollywood mangling of From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta, has removed his good name from the credits. In the process, he has inadvertently inspired a band of rabid loyalists ready to shoot Snyder on sight.

Nothing like some unnecessary hyperbole to keep a Peter Travers’ review moving right along.

Sheesh. Whether the movie soars or tanks, it won’t make the comic book extinct. Get a grip.

And whether or not a bunch of fanboys love or hate the movie, it won’t make the movie extinct, or your review good.

Caught between the rock of fanboy adulation and the hard place of newbie indifference, the R-rated, nearly-three-hour movie version of Watchmen is a cinematic piñata getting whacked from every side.

Current awkward misplaced sexual tension level: Watching History of Violence with your grandparents.

One look at mutant physicist Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), standing 200 feet, glowing with blue light and flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener, and you’ll think you’re in for the colossus of campfests.

Correction: Canteen Boy.

Or glom onto Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the vigilante in a white mask who shows a face of ever-changing ink blots, and you’ll think a popcorn night at the movies has morphed into a Rorschach test administered by a lethally sadistic shrink.

I’ll leave “glom” alone becuase it’s actually a cool word used correctly, if awkwardly. But don’t you think that comparing a character called Rorschach to an actual Rorschach test is just a little obvious and lazy?

What’s the truth? A little of both, I’m afraid. Moore recalled his four years of toil on the 12-issue DC Comics series as “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos.”

What?

That description also fits watching the movie, which stumbles and sometimes falls on its top-heavy ambitions.

No. I don’t think that description fits watching the movie at all. When I watched the movie, I sat in my seat and enjoyed a bucket of popcorn. No Rhinos. But I suppose “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos” is still better than “flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener.”

Snyder, a director of TV ads (yikes!) who made his feature debut with a rockin’ 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead

So he gets a “yikes!” becuase he had to work his way up to being a major film director. I might as well start referring to Peter Travers as a “writer of obituaries who made his film reviewing debut with People magazine.”

Snyder sums it up in a yowsa opening that merges Vietnam, moonwalks, you name it, into a visionary time capsule.

Yowsa? YOWSA!

Plot point coming: Since 1977, masked heroes have been banned from doing their thing. Except for Dr. Manhattan, rendered übermensch in a lab accident, they have no superpowers, just a jones to fight in drag.

More strangely sexual writing coming: nobody in the film even remotely dresses in drag, but apparently Peter Travers has a bit of a mask fetish.

Wilson (Angels in America) gained a few pounds but otherwise suggests nothing less than an Adonis in a role that cried out for, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Correction: Peter Travers has a fat guys in masks fetish.

He’s all limp-dick with Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a.k.a. Laurie Jupiter, until cracking heads makes him rock-hard.

If that weren’t an accurate description of what happens in the movie, I’d be much more creeped out. Let see how this goes…

Laurie had been getting it on with Dr. Manhattan, a.k.a. Jon Osterman, but his interests had turned to physics and Mars despite his giant blue penis.

…and we’re now at greco-roman wrestling awkward…

What’s a girl to do, especially one with a mom (Carla Gugino, perfecto!), the original Silk Spectre, who may have been raped by the Comedian?

…clown-rape awkward…

For Laurie, it’s out with the Doc and in with the hottie spandex (hello, Killer Barbie), just the thingie to put new hoot into Nite Owl II.

…and we’re at defcon 1:  Olympic Gymnastics awkward.

Even in the time of a popular new leader, Watchmen tells us to be on guard about our alleged protectors.

No, it really doesn’t, but I assume that people saying things like this is why Alan Moore is completely insane.

Moore worried about winding up with “a big, messy, steaming bowl of semiotic spaghetti.”

Here are some other insane Alan Moore quotes, courtesy of wikiquote.

And if you have to go back to the comic to learn that the freaks in Watchmen are not only for geeks, maybe that’s not so bad. Just sayin’.

It takes balls to write a movie review that basically keeps telling you to go read the book. It’s really just the laziest tactic possible. I shouldn’t be surprised, but that’s just the way it goes for me.

Apologies to my tens of fans who have been left with next to nothing to read for the past week or two. I’ve hit a bad run of Writer’s Block and have been unfairly ignoring the website for a while. But I’ll make it up to y’all with a daily double of IHPT fun.

First up on the chopping block is Milk, which nabbed a couple of Oscars (including a completely bullshit win for Sean Penn. That Oscar belonged to Mickey Rourke.) and has been pretty well received. I, of course, haven’t seen it, but Peter Travers gave it four stars, so you know it must be good.

You can hit up the original review here, and my opinions below:

Maybe you don’t know a damn thing about gay activist Harvey Milk.

Well, that was a harsh opening. Did somebody piss in Peter’s Fruit Loops?

Maybe you ought to know that President-elect Barack Obama isn’t the only community organizer who went on to make a difference.

Maybe. I mean, I certainly couldn’t have gotten that idea from him being on roughly every third cover of Rolling Stone for the past two years, right? But on another note, has Obama actually made a difference yet? Especially considering that this review was published November 27?
Maybe thoughtful filmmaking, no matter how incendiary and intimate, isn’t worth squat at an infantilized multiplex.

Yes, I suppose people don’t like to be talked-down to, like when they read a review that opens with “Maybe you don’t know a damn thing about gay activist Harvey Milk.” I find it funny how people get all up in arms about movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Paul Blart making hundreds of millions of dollars because they’re poor little “thoughtful” movie could only make $42 million. There’s probably some kind of moral lesson about our society there, if we really see a $22 million profit as a bad thing.

Stop me now.

Oh Peter, if only…

There’s really no maybe about Milk, directed with a poet’s eye by Gus Van Sant from a richly detailed script by Big Love writer Dustin Lance Black.

What, exactly, does “no maybe” acually mean? Is he saying that there are no questions asked about it, or that everything in it is purely black and white? An interesting idea. I’m also comletely lost on what an “poet’s eye” has to do with directing. I suppose the sound mixing was also done with a dancer’s ear.

It’s a total triumph, brimming with humor, heart, sexual heat, political provocation and a crying need to stir things up, just like Harvey did. If there’s a better movie around this year, with more bristling purpose, I sure as hell haven’t seen it.

If there is a more shameless lumping together of worthless platitudes in the hopes that one of them will make it to the poster/trailer around this year, I sure as hell haven’t seen it.

San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be voted into office in America, was shot dead in 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, in City Hall. Dan White, a troubled politico who had served with Harvey on the city’s board of supervisors, pumped five bullets into Harvey. The crusader for gay rights in San Francisco, and the nation, was 48.

So, you’ve already established that we don’t know a damn thing about Harvey Milk, as though it were unforgivable crime of ignorance, and then you give us his life story in three sentences. Can we at least get a spoiler alert?

That Harvey’s questing spirit not only lives but soars in this movie is a gift from Sean Penn, who plays him for real instead of for show.

No, he doesn’t play him for real. Sean Penn took this role because he was paid to do it, and he knew that it would get him an Oscar during a political year. It’s a movie. A piece of pop culture entertainment. Acting in a $20 million production can only be seen as doing something for show. The only way I’ve seen Penn actually stand up for Gay Rights is by him telling people to see his movie.

Penn uses makeup to lengthen his nose and look more like Harvey. He adopts a New York accent to get Harvey’s inflections.

No way. An actor actually made an effort to look and sound like the character he was playing? AMAZING!

But the physical transformation is nothing compared to the way Penn gets at the core of the man, finding the source of his joy and pain.

Okay…yeah…pursuit with certain anti-discrimination statutes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I’m just going to leave this one alone.

He disappears into Harvey with the artistry of an acting virtuoso.

You’re really not going to make this one easy on me are you?

There’s one word for Penn’s performance: phenomenal.

Or, you know, the 112 words you used praising Penn before the word phenomenal, which was the same word you used to describe Penn’s Oscar opponent Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon.

If you want to hate on this movie, bring it on.

I’m starting to get a little confused here. Why is he being so defensive of a movie that got everywhelmingly positive reviews? (for the sake of clarification, I’m hating only on Peter Travers’ review, not on the movie itself. I would have seen it if I wasn’t broke and single without a lot of movie-going friends)

To those who say Milk is hagiography, I say Harvey is my kind of saint: a New York Jew with a screwed-up past, a lively sex life and a goal to bring the gay movement out of the shadows even if he had to be a media whore to do it.

A Gay Jewish Saint? Well, now I’ve heard everything. And I’m absolutely not surprised that Peter Travers’ sees a media whore as his kind of saint. That one was more obvious than Clay Aiken.

Milk begins with Harvey’s 1972 arrival in San Francisco with his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco, warmly funny and touching). That’s right, Spicoli macks on the son of the Green Goblin.

Quick vote: Does Peter Travers seem to enjoy that image just a little too much?

Milk is entertaining and playfully erotic in ways that reflect life instead of political agenda.

Is there actually a way that playful eroticism can reflect political agenda? Oh wait…

But Josh Brolin is simply astounding as Dan White, revealing the inner torment of a man at odds with his own emotions. Sporting the calendar-ready look of a good Catholic husband and father, Dan is both repulsed by and attracted to Harvey and his gay agenda.

What? You promised that there were no maybes. Now there’s a character with inner turmoil and questionable motives. I’ll just go see Blart. There’s a movie with no maybes.

Penn makes Harvey so vivid and spoiling to be heard that you want to introduce him to people. John McCain, meet a real maverick.

Again, this review came out on November 28. Was there really any need for a John McCain dig?
And that’s it for Milk. I’ll finally be breaking out of the Oscar movie mold with another edition of IHPT later tonight. Stay tuned.

Apparently there haven’t been too many big releases lately, so I’m going back a little ways to bring you this week’s installment of “I Hate Peter Travers.” For once, I’m also going to do a movie that not only did I see, but also enjoyed.

Tropic Thunder was actually one of my favorite movies of last year. I went into it with fairly low expectations, and came out more than pleased. The whole concept sounded dumb from the start, and I pretty much expected that Robert Downey Jr.’s “blackface” role was going to be the best part, but I also figured that it wasn’t going to stay funny for long.

But this isn’t about me, it’s about our friend Peter Travers. Here’s the review. Hilarity, or at least an attempt at it, will follow after the jump.

Think of all the ways you can hurt yourself laughing, as in fall down, split your sides, bust a gut, blow your mind. You get it all in Tropic Thunder, a knockout of a comedy that keeps you laughing constantly.

Honestly, this ought to stand alone. Someday, Peter Travers will die, and I can only hope that this will be read at his funeral. But I’m actually worried about him. I mean,  I understand that people use these phrases to describe our appreciation of comedy, but I didn’t think anyone took them seriously until now. And “blow your mind”? I thought that simply referred to the amount of illicit substances one would need to have coursing through their veins to ever agree with Peter Travers.

It’s also killer smart, lacing combustible action with explosive gags.

Hey Barack Obama, I voted for you and applied for a job with your transition team. Is there something you can do about this? Can I at least be secretary of media, charged with assuring the children of this fine nation that just because Rolling Stone gives this man money, you should never, ever mix metaphors (I use that term loosely, considering that Peter still hasn’t mastered analogies) like this?

But seriously, think about this sentence. I actually get “killer smart,” assuming that “killer” was the only modifier available for smart. But let’s talk about “combustible.” This word would imply that the action is simply able to explode. Combustible is actually a fairly boring and pedestrian word, all things considered. On the other hand, “explosive gags”  is a very specific statement. Since I saw this movie, I can attest that there was, in fact, one explosive gag early on. It involved Ben Stiller losing his hands. After that, I think all of the “gags” revolved around RDJ’s makeup and cocaine.

Stiller took flak for the other three movies he’s directed: 1994′s Reality Bites was allegedly too soft, 1996′s The Cable Guy too dark, 2001′s Zoolander too airy-fairy.

What’s that sound? Why, it’s time for Peter Travers to prove that he knows how to use imdb.

Confession: I liked them all.

Someday, humanity will recognize the amazing archival power of the internet. Peter Travers spent half of his Zoolander review talking about 9/11, then gives the movie some pretty meaningless praise. The Cable Guy review (which doesn’t actually carry a Peter Travers byline, but reads like his work) is actually a pretty negative review. And Peter didn’t review Reality Bites.

Try to picture Apocalypse Now as conceived by Borat. The man from Kazakhstan doesn’t appear in Tropic Thunder, but damn near everyone else does.

Okay, I understand the need for comparisons when writing reviews. It’s usually the easiest way to make your audience picture something that you’re writing about, and it’s one of the few techniques that actually works well in most situations. But this is just an abyssmal failure. I can understand the Apocalypse Now reference, in that it’s a Vietnam movie and there are similar plot elements, but there is almost no connection between Borat and Tropic Thunder, which is made all the more clear by the fact that Peter Travers says there’s no connection right afterwards.

But even if you allow that Borat was a funny movie and Apocalypse Now was a vietnam movie, equalling a funny Vietnam movie, the styles of comedy are comepletely different.

And whoever the guy is who plays the short, fat, bald, f-bomb-dropping studio chief, Les Grossman, has a big future. Spoiler alert: It’s Tom Cruise

I clearly am not an expert on comedy, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule that says that if your joke needs an explanation, it probably isn’t funny. Especially if your delivery sounds like an overexcited first grader who can’t wait to be the first one to answer the question.

Stiller excels as Tugg Speedman, a muscled superstar who has sequelized his franchise as the brawny Scorcher more often than Stallone has dragged Rambo back to the box-office well...Taking the role of the Rambo-esque John “Four Leaf” Tayback in Tropic Thunder — the name of the film within the film — can be Tugg’s ticket to legit

I’m just confused by these Rambo references. Couldn’t he have just as easily used Rocky or William Shatner for the first one, rather than setting up this weird parallel of Rambo being both a symbol of hollywood’s failures and as a role that could be considered legit?

We even see a trailer for a Fatties flick featuring Black demonstrating a Kama Sutra of flatulence positions.

I’ve finally found a proper description for Peter Travers writing.

This is Black’s zaniest performance since School of Rock, and he makes Jeff’s turn as a gunnery sarge look convincing as well. Nice touch.

Back to the archives. School of Rock came out in 2003. Since then, Black starred in Nacho Libre, where Peter Travers said he was “filled to bursting with comic helium” and “willing to use everything from indecent exposure to an outrageous Mexican accent to get a laugh.”  He also starred in Be Kind Rewind, in which Peter Traver said he “indulges in facial contortions that would shame a caffeinated cartoon” (side hate: That Be Kind Rewind review contains this gem “Without turning Luddite (named after the 1811 British social movement that opposed all technological progress), Gondry is taking measure of what we’ve lost in the name of progress.” My brain literally stopped working for a few seconds when I read that.) I’m not saying those roles were more zany than School of Rock, but being zany is what Jack Black is known for. There’s no reason to talk about it anymore.

That, and THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE WAS THAT THE ACTORS WEREN’T CONVINCING IN THEIR ROLES.

Downey has a ball with the role, and his explanation to Stiller about the dangers of going “full retard” if you want to win an Oscar belongs in a comedy time capsule.

Today, I actually agree with a Peter Travers on a point. That was one of the single funniest parts of the movie, and is pretty much the sinlge most memorable thing about it. Irony will implode if Downey wins the Oscar this year.

Downey is so off-the-charts hilarious that you want to stand up and cheer.

And I’m back to hating. Nobody stands up to cheer in a movie unless it’s Rocky IV. What world does this man live in where these strange behaviors are acceptable?

The low-comic ensemble acting in Tropic Thunder is of the highest caliber.

I’m lost. I think this is a compliment, albeit a very backhanded one, but what does he mean by “low-comic”? He just spent all of the review talking about how smart and funny everyone is, and they’re low-comic? Yeah, there was some kind of cheap humor in the movie, but it was a pretty intelligent film too.

Is it too much? Sometimes. Tropic Thunder can be silly, shallow and way too inside.

I’m going to have to start tracking weird sexual undertones in these reviews. I would have thought that the literal meanings of “shallow” and “way too inside” should prevent them from being used side by side, but then I don’t work for Rolling Stone

Plus, there is a shrewd method to Stiller’s madness. He knows firsthand that Hollywood is a microcosm for a world that has swallowed its own marketing strategy.

Hollywood is not a microcosm for anything, and only someone who spends their life reviewing movies and writing about how you could hurt yourself laughing would ever think that. Not to mention the fact that Peter Travers swallows marketing campaigns like Linda Lovelace.

Yet he’s caught up, as we are, in the fantasies it’s selling. We enter this bizarro fun house giggling at the clowns on view, but we exit — and here’s the wow factor — laughing at ourselves.

Is anyone else insulted that Peter Travers tries to speak for “us”?  I think I’ve hammered the point home by now that Peter Travers is delusionally caught up in Marketing, so I’ll leave that side alone. I don’t think this movie was supposed to reflect on any normal person. It’s making fun of Hollywood, actors, acting and ever other aspect of the movie business. Explain to me why someone is supposed to laugh at themselves after watching this film? I’m waiting.

(Bear in mind, the only movies here that I’ve seen were The Wrestler, The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder. Everything else is based on my assumptions on how the academy will vote, what I’ve heard from others, or just arbitrary decisions. My picks are in bold.)

Best Picture – I’ve gotta say, I’m not too impressed with this crop of nominees. The only one I really want to see is Frost/Nixon, but this pretty much follows the standard formula for best picture nominees. It’s a veritable Breakfast Club of film selections.

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - This is the obligatory big name/big budget selection (which I thought would have gone to The Dark Knight).  I’ve heard mixed things about it, and I honestly spent about a week thinking that it had won the Golden Globe. I think it could win on an argument of cinematography/technology–in other words the best made movie–but I don’t know if that’s enough to beat the others.
• Frost/Nixon – This is the obligatory political movie. As a history nerd, this is the only one of the bunch I really have any interest in seeing. There could be some Bush-backlash votes for it, or votes for its character-driven nature, but I don’t think that’s going to push it into the win.
• Milk – This is the obligatory issues movie. It’s also my pick for the winner. Whereas Frost/Nixon might benefit from Bush-backlash, Milk could get the Obama-bump, as well as the much more powerful Prop 8 backlash. I think the voters are going to try to send a message by voting for it, and it’ll probably win on that strength.
• The Reader – This is the obligatory historical pick. I honestly know next to nothing about this movie, but I feel like it was more a prestige pick than anything else. I think that with the strong “personalities” of the other movies, this is going to be seen as more of “just another WWII movie,” and will probably finish pretty low in the final polling.
• Slumdog Millionaire – This is the obligatory indie pick, which did actually win the Golden Globe (an award voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press, I should add). It’ll get a lot of votes, and probably could have won in another year, but I just don’t see it happening here.

Best Director – Not surprisingly, the directors of the best picture nominees all got nominated. But, I don’t think the votes are going to come down the same way. I think I might have picked this analogy up from The (aforementioned) Movie Blog, but the coach of the year doesn’t always win the super bowl.

• David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Remember when I said that Benjamin Button might win on the basis of being the best made movie? Consider this a consolation prize.
• Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
• Gus Van Sant, Milk – He’s got a pretty good shot too, but I think that the same people that pick Milk for best picture are going to attribute it more to Sean Penn than Van Sant.
• Stephen Daldry, The Reader
• Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor – This is really a two horse race between Penn and Rourke. Fortunately, both of these guys are big enough assholes that it won’t come down to a popularity contest.

• Richard Jenkins, The Visitor – I’ve never even heard of this movie, or this actor. Good for him though. Moving on…
• Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon – There’s usually a boost for playing historical figures, especially someone like Nixon, but there’s also a downside of having a definite reference point to compare the actor too. This raises questions about what merits you’re supposed to base your vote on, and when Rourke and Penn are both nominated, why bother thinking that much?
• Sean Penn, Milk -  See the other guy for my rationale.
• Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – When you’re Brad Pitt, just getting nominated is a pretty good feeling. I feel like most of the praise he got was based on the technology used to change his age, so probably no statue.
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler – Rourke is going to beat Penn. And he had damn-well better thank Darren Aronofsky, because this whole movie was owned by Rourke. Again, there’s some bias in that this is the only performance I’ve seen, but I still feel as if a lot of the praise for Penn is coming off the Prop 8 thing, which probably won’t overcome the real-life comparisons and high praise handed to Mickey Rourke.

Best Actress – I always feel kind of bad about the Best Actress category. There really just aren’t that many good lead actress roles out there, so it always comes across feeling like more of a “best supporting” category.

• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married – She’s been getting a lot of buzz, but I don’t think the academy is going to be ready to hand a statue to the star of The Princess Diaries just yet. Give her another good role or two.
• Angelina Jolie, Changeling – Call me shallow, but I really just don’t think of her as being that good of an actress. Props for the nomination, but it’s not happening.
• Melissa Leo, Frozen River – Again, no clue about the movie or actress. Moving on…
• Meryl Streep, Doubt – It’s another tribute to the lack of quality female lead roles that Meryl Streep seems to get nominated every year (She’s already won a supporting and a lead, and been nominated a total of 15 times including this year). I don’t mean that as a knock against her in any way, as she could very well win the award this year too. But, she did also appear in Momma Mia! this year.
• Kate Winslet, The Reader – Speaking of multiple nominations, Winslet has six nominations (including this one) without a win. If you break this down to Winslet vs. Streep, which some voters may well do (though Hathaway could be in the mix), the tiebreaker may well be that Winslet was also in Revolutionary Road. She needs to thank somebody for not making her run against herself.

Best Supporting Actor – You know, I’m still not sure how you define “supporting Actor,” but I’ve gotta say, this is probably the most interesting category of the bunch.

• Josh Brolin, Milk – I haven’t heard too much about Brolin in this movie. But given everything I’ve been saying about Prop 8, I don’t see it happening.
• Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder – I want to see him win if only for the acceptance speech, but I think that getting nominated for a role where you’re essentially in blackface is good enough.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt – Here’s my runner-up pick. I think Hoffman’s one of the best actors out there, but I think he’s already set his own bar a little too high. However, I’m a bit curious why he’s in this category, considering that every piece of footage from Doubt that I’ve seen has him in it, but so be it.
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight – You know, I wasn’t going to pick Ledger at first. It seemed a little too trendy, and a little too reliant of the whole “being dead” thing. But looking at the other nominees, I really think he’s the only one who deserves it. He brought a whole new light to the character and blah blah blah, but it really was a great performance.
• Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road – I don’t know who this guy is. Good for him all the same, but moving on…

Best Supporting Actress – I’m making a fully arbitrary pick here. I don’t have much in the way of justifications or thoughts about this category, but I kept it in for the sake of not seeming sexist.

• Amy Adams, Doubt
• Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Viola Davis, Doubt
• Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler – She was good, but not that good. Plus, she has weird nipples (So much for not seeming sexist).

So yeah, those are my picks for some of the major categories. I thought about giving my thoughts for the screenplays, until I realized that without seeing the movies themselves, or god forbid, reading the screenplays, there really wasn’t any point (plus, I’m lazy). I’ll probably be wrong on most of them, but that’s the fun of the Oscars, right?

Hit the comments if you want to argue with me.

It’s time for another installment of “I Hate Peter Travers.” After going through The Wrestler last week. I kind of wanted to do a movie that I’d actually seen for a change. Unfortunately, I don’t get out to the movies that often, so no luck there. However, given that Peter Travers has done me the favor of never writing anything about a movie that you couldn’t pick up from the press releases, I don’t think I should have any problem mocking his reviews of movies I haven’t seen yet.

So this week, I’m going after his review of Slumdog Millionaire. The movie has already gotten rave reviews from the three people I know who’ve seen it, along with an Oscar nod for Best Picture, it seems timely enough. Feel free to read the review, or just follow the jump to see me take sections of it out of context for comedic purposes.

What I feel for this movie isn’t just admiration, it’s mad love.

For those of you who elected not to read the actual review, this is the first line. Normally I’d expect some statement declaring his admiration before a statement that qualifies said undeclared admiration.

And I couldn’t be more surprised. The plot reeks of uplift: An illiterate slum kid from Mumbai goes on the local TV version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and comes off like a brainiac.

Oh yes, Peter Travers is so credible because he hates overly sappy movies too. Because there’s nothing more uplifting than illiterate slum kids. God they’re just so precocious. They’re all like that Dakota Fanning, except for the crushing poverty, fighting to survive every day and, you know, not being able to read.

Who wants to see that? Final answer: You do.

Ah. I see what you did there Peter. Rather than stick to your typical rhetorical questions, you made a topical joke involving the game show on which the movie is based. Good for you. bom bom bom bom wooooo.

Slumdog Millionaire has the goods to bust out as a scrappy contender in the Oscar race.

Since I assume that most people don’t follow Peter Travers with the same Crusader’s zeal that I do, I should take a moment to explain that Peter Travers loves to prognosticate the Oscars. Granted, he was right this time, but a broken clock is still pretty damn useless. This was one of the easiest Oscar picks to make. The Academy loves to grab an indie movie to make themselves seem relevant, and the buzz has big so big that I didn’t even have to see the movie to tell that it would make it.

Aside from the Oscar comment, is anyone else picking up some weird sexual undertones to this whole thing? “Mad love”? “goods to bust out”? I’m curious to see how far he goes with this.

It’s modern India standing in for a world in full economic spin. It’s an explosion of color and light with the darkness ever ready to invade. It’s a family film of shocking brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse, a fantasy of wealth fueled by crushing poverty.

Hey, it’s the obligatory line of random sentences!  Time for the lightning round (damn, these game show jokes are easy):

It’s modern India standing in for a world in full economic spin.

I have to imagine that Peter Travers didn’t realize that America’s not looking so hot right now either. I assume that this line could have applied regardless of where the movie was set, because, as he says, the world is in full economic spin right now. I’m just glad he didn’t use that R word. Thanks Pete.

It’s an explosion of color and light with the darkness ever ready to invade.

Since Peter Travers is incapable of actually talking about the themes of a movie, he simply makes veiled references to relevance, hidden under what sounds like a jackass describing exactly what passes in front of his eyes without ever taxing his brain.

It’s a family film of shocking brutality, a romance haunted by sexual abuse, a fantasy of wealth fueled by crushing poverty.

This could almost qualify for further breakdown, except for that the fact that these are three of the most vapid, empty phrases with which any human being could possibly describe anything, so I’m not even going to bother. Yes, we get it. You found some complicated paradoxes within a film. Keep on patting yourself on the back for DOING THE EXACT SAME THING THAT THE TITLE OF THE GODDAMN MOVIE DID.

You won’t find many fairy tales that open with a graphic torture scene.

Stop…just stop. Just stop treating us like idiots. Stop pretending that you understand anything. Stop pointing out obvious paradoxes. Stop branding a film as a fairly tale because you can’t understand even the most basic premise of story telling.

Presumably this is not the way Regis Philbin ran things when the show hit America in 1999.

You son of a bitch. I can’t handle your cheap humor anymore. I’m just disgusted. I need a shower.

Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if that were the natural order of things.

Wait…maybe I’m wrong about all of this. This could be the beginning of a somewhat intelligent thought. I mean, film has always been a medium defined by the struggle between artistic vision and studio commerce. Personally, I’ve always found this to be one of the most engrossing aspects about it. I want to see where he’s going with this before I pass any judgment.

Sweet.

I..I’m just at a loss for words here. I may have to go break something. Where’s my fubar?

The no-bull honesty of Slumdog Millionaire hits you hard. It’s the real deal. No cheating.

Oh thank god it’s over. I always find it interesting how the synonyms and metaphors just dry up by the closing of the review. After weaving the same two concepts around for this entire duration of this travesty, we’re stuck with more repetitions of the same game-show jokes and worthless tropes about honesty and paradox. God I hate you Peter Travers.

]]> http://www.seitzwrites.com/2009/01/23/i-hate-peter-travers-review-of-slumdog-millionaire/feed/ 1 http://www.seitzwrites.com/2009/01/16/i-hate-peter-travers-review-of-the-wrestler/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-hate-peter-travers-review-of-the-wrestler http://www.seitzwrites.com/2009/01/16/i-hate-peter-travers-review-of-the-wrestler/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:43:11 +0000 Seitz http://www.seitzwrites.com/?p=179

I hinted at my dislike for both Peter Travers and the concept of reviews in previous posts, but I want to expand on the former, and maybe clarify the latter.

(First of all, I want to say that I don’t really hate Peter Travers the man. He’s probably an okay guy in person, and I’m sure talking to him would be pretty interesting. My hatred for Peter Travers is purely abstract. I don’t wish any ill will on him, his career, or his family. He’s successful at what he does and he fits his niche, so I wish him a long and successful career that I will try to undermine at every opportunity. It’s like Batman and the Joker, except I’m more like one of those cast-off DC characters that shows up every now and then to fail miserably.)

So, that out of the way, I hate Peter Travers. If you’re not aware, he’s the movie reviewer for Rolling Stone. He’s also hack and a whore who can’t go two sentences without throwing out some overly bombastic turn of phrase that no normal human being would ever consider writing, solely for the purpose of seeing his name come up in a movie trailer.

In fact, before I started this website I was seriously thinking about writing a blog titled “I hate Peter Travers” where I’d just rip apart bad movie reviews. Think Fire Joe Morgan, but not about sports. I would have been fair and hated on all offenders, but “I hate Peter Travers” just has a certain ring to it.

I never got around to starting that site (though I did register www.ihatepetertravers.com, just in case), but I think I can make “I Hate Peter Travers” a regular feature on this site. Take a look at his review for Wrestler. (I’ll overlook him leaving “the” off the title, but I challenge you to read that whole thing and tell me that you learned anything about the movie from it.) Seriously, I’ll wait.

How to describe Mickey Rourke’s raw, elemental tour de force as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler?

Here are the search results for “Peter Travers “Tour De Force”“, confined to the Rolling Stone website. You’ll notice that there are over 100 hits. Even if you account for repeats, that’s still probably around 75-80 uses of the phrase, which, according to dictionary.com means “an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; stroke of genius.”

Think of a stick of dynamite with the fuse lit and ready to blow. Rourke gets everything right about this battler who’s not ready to go over the hill — his pain, his battered body and his grieving heart.

I don’t even know what that means. Are we supposed to be terrified of Mickey Rourke? perplexed by the relative calm, knowing full well that mass destruction is imminent? Should we run away? These are the kind of things I think of when I think of a lit stick of dynamite. How can you possibly go from a perfectly apt description of destruction and demolition to an old washed up wrestler with emotional issues? Shouldn’t that be more like a stick of dynamite with no fuse? Seemingly destructive, but not really a threat?

The scenes in which Ram works out the choreography of a wrestling match with his brothers in the game are funny as hell, and hell to watch when the wrestlers bleed for real.

Using the word “for real” while discussing a work of fiction is kind of a contradiction, isn’t it? I haven’t seen this movie, so maybe somebody can answer this for me (and since nobody’s going to answer, I’ll just direct these questions to the wall above my desk). Is the wrestler not a feature film, but instead a documentary? Did they not have a choreographer on set, and instead let the actors, in character, choreograph their own fights? Were there no special effects, requiring these actors, in character as wrestlers, to in fact bleed their own blood? No, no, and no? So was Peter Travers just making another empty point because he’s in love with his own writing? Alright then, moving on.

Can Ram climb back to the top? Well, Rourke sure can. With movies as bad as Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man, it’s no wonder Rourke switched careers and went into boxing for a fair share of the 1990s.

And here, Peter Travers makes an effort to provide some relevancy to this review. Disregarding, of course, the fact that every feature written about this movie so far has focused on all of these details. Never mind that there’s no mention of Rumble Fish, Diner, Barfly or any of the other roles that made Rourke famous. Nope, we’re supposed to know that Rourke was a big name, but not that it was Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man that sank him.

He inched back with a pow supporting role in 2005′s Sin City, but the star spot in The Wrestler makes Rourke the year’s comeback kid.

I don’t want this to get lost in the rest of this. Peter Travers just used the word “pow” as an adjective. Apparently dictionary.com says this is acceptable to mean “exciting or appealing,” but seitzwrites.com says that the word “pow” sounds goddamn ridiculous. Regardless, it doesn’t even describe Rourke’s role as Marv in Sin City, where he was onscreen for most of the film and, in the opinion of many, carried the movie. In fact, no less a source than Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers wrote that “Mickey Rourke gives a sensational comeback performance as Marv, an ex-con with a Frankenstein jaw line who wakes up next to a dead hooker (Jaime King) and vows revenge. [...] All three of the overlapping stories involve voice-overs, but Rourke puts real heat into his as Marv searches for ‘a soul to send screaming into hell.’” Yep. That sounds like a “pow supporting role” to me.

Rourke doesn’t make a single false move in this movie. His boxing training gave him a new respect for wrestling, and his dedication shows in the ring. You may flinch, but you won’t look away.

This is a series of three loosely related sentences. Taken individually, they make great pull quotes. Strung together with no attempt at transition, they sound stilted. This, however, is an integral part of every Peter Travers review. After meandering around the plot for a bit, he takes a second to make sure that the marketing department for the movie, should they choose, has a number of quotes that they can splash on the screen without putting in the extra …’s that make people suspicious. See, Peter Travers sucks because he cares.

But let’s look at these alone:

Rourke doesn’t make a single false move in this movie.

So wait, you’re telling me that there isn’t a single scene in this movie of him flubbing a line, tripping on his feet, or accidentally cutting a fart? BRILLIANT! I think every movie should adopt this strategy. In fact, I think we should have special people on set to make sure this doesn’t happen. There can be one guy there to direct all of the actors and scenes and make sure they get all the right footage. We’ll call him a “director.” Then, and stay with me here, I know this is revolutionary, you can have another guy to edit all of the footage and and make sure that no “false moves” make it in to the final product. I’m thinking that he can be the “editor.” Now I know what you’re thinking. What if “director” misses something and the “editor” doesn’t have good footage to work with? Well, in that case, they’ll call everyone back for more filming, or “reshoots” to get the right footage. Man, I should work in Hollywood.

His boxing training gave him a new respect for wrestling,

By this logic, my journalism training gave me more respect for movie making, my history classes gave me more respect for English, and my guitar playing gave me more respect for tuba playing.

and his dedication shows in the ring.

Yes, one would almost think that Rourke were trained in the art of showing emotion and dedication, some form of “acting” (which probably gives him an appreciation for dancing). I’m starting to actually think that Peter Travers doesn’t realize that this is a movie.

You may flinch, but you won’t look away.

And another meaningless phrase that sounds good in big type, written solely because Peter Travers loves the sound of his own words. But I gotta admit, even I want to blow this line up and put it at the top of my page.

You watch The Wrestler (with a superb title song from Bruce Springsteen) in a state of pure exhilaration. A great actor in a great movie will do that to you.

Sweet mercy, we’re at the end. By the way, this is what that sentence would look like with out the parenthetical Boss-slobbing:

You watch The Wrestler in a state of pure exhilaration. A great actor in a great movie will do that to you.

Without the Springsteen quote in parentheses (Which, first of all, is illogical in it’s placement. You’re not watching the title song, and I hope the song doesn’t play for the entire length of the movie. Second, he’s merely acknowledging that there is a song by Springsteen in the movie, and that it is apparently “superb.” He just decided to toss it into the second-to-last sentence, rather than trying to, you know, write it into his review.) this is an example of another Peter Travers hallmark: telling you what you should feel. I was always under the impression that a review was supposed to discuss the reviewer’s feelings, not those of the poor, unenlightened souls that make up the imaginary audience in his mind. Worry not children, Uncle Peter will tell you what to think. I’ve gotta say though, I’m impressed with the restraint in that last sentence. Just great? not transcendent, masterful, or brilliant?  I’m guessing that he just ran out of synonyms in the thesaurus at this point, and decided to go out on a weak note.

Wow. This was much easier than actually reviewing the movie (which I still haven’t seen) would have been. As long as he keeps writing this stuff, I’ll keep breaking it down.

I first saw this over at Metalsucks, where Corey Mitchell called it his sight unseen nominee for best metal DVD for 2009. I’m inclined to agree with him, but I guess we’ll both find out for sure whenever it gets released (Amazon has a book of the same name slated to come on out March 12, 2009. Let’s hope the DVD will follow shortly after.)  Apparently, the movie has been screening at festivals, been nominated for a couple of awards and generated some positive press, but like I said, I only heard about it a few days ago.

Watching the trailer, I honestly thought that this was another Spinal Tap-esque mockumentary at first (I mean, one of the guys is named Robb Reiner, and Anvil is already such a great fake band name), but a quick wikipedia search revealed that no, Anvil is a real band (and I’ve been worried that my site looks bad), and they’ve apparently been pretty productive while languishing in obscurity.

I love music–metal in particular–and I’ve been playing guitar for years, so you can imagine why I’d be interested in seeing a movie about underdogs chasing a dream as rock stars. There are so many bands that fell by the wayside over the years, but it looks like the guys in Anvil are legitimately making a run at relevance in this movie (of course, being Canadian, their only real competition in their homeland is Rush). I’m also glad to see movies about unheralded bands being made. The world really doesn’t need another Some Kind of Monster (There’s a reason why the movie was called Rocky and not Apollo, if you get what I mean).

When I heard about Anvil though, I started to get curious about why there aren’t more good rock movies. This is Spinal Tap and “Metalocalypse” are the only two that come to mind, the former for the same reasons listed in the last paragraph and the latter because it so easily mocks everything about metal and stardom. The thing is, every band out there seems to claim that their lives were no different from Spinal Tap, so I guess maybe filmmakers just don’t see a reason to make them. I think I was trying to hint at this in my “Legend of Master Legend” post, but a lot of rock bands exist in near-fictional worlds or arrested development anyway. We expect them to play music and entertain us, but there are very few bands I would actually want to watch in a film context.

(I hate to keep harping on Metallica, but that movie almost ruined the band for me as much as St. Anger did. I don’t want to watch anybody go through real therapy. I’d much rather watch fictional therapy, where all you have to do is have Robin Williams repeat “it’s not you’re fault” until Matt Damon cries and everything is fine. I don’t want to see a band that writes songs like ‘Seek and Destroy,’ ‘Fight Fire with Fire’ and ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ suddenly start taking themselves so seriously once they get to their 40s. The only good part of that was seeing Dave Mustaine cry. He has to be the only person who makes Lars Ulrich sound reasonable.)

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. There are, of course exceptions to bands I’d want to see onscreen. Chief among them is Every Time I Die and their “Documentary” DVD Shit Happens. Those guys don’t take themselves seriously at all.

The other movie I really want to see made some day would be an adaptation of Henry Rollins’ Get in the Van. That would be the anti-Spinal Tap. Instead of getting lost behind stage, they’d get beaten by a bunch of skinheads behind stage. Or instead of having Stonehenge be too small, they have the show broken up by police. And instead of talking about amplifiers going to 11, Henry would just talk about how much he hates everyone.

But maybe I’m the only one who wants to see that one…