If 2011 was the year of the sequel, 2012 is set to rival that moniker with additional superhero franchise installments. Most notably is the uber-anticipated Dark Knight Rises, followed at a distance by The Amazing Spiderman and The Avengers. I’m sure Hollywood is also destined to bombard us with a handful of underground super movies that follow us normal folk possessed by delusions of grandeur. Either way, viewers love superheroes.

Question 1: Are you a fan of the more mainstream superheroes or the underground players? 

Bill Coffin: Growing up amid the comic boom of the 1980s, seeing a film like Batman was a huge deal because the technical challenges to making a superhero movie that actually looked good remained substantial. In an era where you can capture even the most wild superhero action on screen, the visuals start to matter less, and once you’re over the novelty of seeing a guy like Hancock shoulder a freight train off the tracks, you do start to get more interested in why he would derail an entire train just to save some guy stuck on the tracks. So yeah, I’ve become more interested in the underground/non-heroes than the traditional heroes. I’ve had Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern and the last two X-Men movies in my possession for months and have yet to watch any of them.

Steve Barker: On screen I prefer the more underground characters. I have not enjoyed the majority of mainstream comic book movie adaptations and I was a big comic book reader as a kid. My favorite was Ghost Rider and the movie with Nic Cage was terrible. It was so bad I’m not even sure I could enjoy the comic books again if I tried. I was stunned when I saw a trailer for a sequel during the Super Bowl. One mainstream adaptation I loved that basically went unnoticed was Dolf Lundgren as the Punisher. That was one of the few times the violence in the comic was equal to the violence in the movie

Tim Adkins: I’ve been an Incredible Hulk fan since before I could speak English. Always dug the combination of righteous rage and brainy, tortured nomad. The two films that have been made thus far about the Hulk have been okay. But I think he’s an unusually challenging character to render for the big screen. Or the small screen. Which is to say that I lean toward the mainstream superheroes. Although I should state unequivocally that I believe the Scott Pilgrim flick to be the best accomplishment in translational storytelling of the last decade. What Edgar Wright and his team did in channeling the experience aesthetics of reading a comic book and using the Interwebs to tell a story via a motion picture was freakin’ brilliant.

Dustin Freeley: For the most part, I dig the more underground movies. I don’t dislike mainstream characters, but in recent years, most of these movies (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) have spent time and money on an origin story then bridge to sequels of sequels of sequels and tandem-hero movies (i.e. The Avengers). Watching Tony Stark trapped in a cave and manufacture the original iron suit was cool; watching him John Nash Flushing Meadows Park to defeat a Russian Mickey Rourke was a snippet within a two-hour commercial meant to remind us that Thor and Captain America were heading to theaters. I’d take Kick Ass, Scott Pilgrim, or Darkman over any of these films.

Jared Wade: Mainstream for sure. Other than Unbreakable (if you want to call that “underground”), all my favorite superhero flicks have been the big ones: the X-Men franchise, Watchmen, the original Superman franchise, Batman Returns, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Iron Man I & II. The smaller takes on the genre have been cute and all but I want massive explosions and space-age special effects. That takes a major,
Hollywood-infused budget.

Question 2: The Dark Knight Rises is clearly the most anticipated hero film of 2012. Can it possibly live up to the hype?  

Bill Coffin: Don’t know, don’t care. Christopher Nolan has earned my trust as a filmmaker, so I’ll certainly see it. It’ll be one of the first comic movies I’ve ever seen that retells a story from the print issues that I never actually read, so at least I won’t have that annoying nerd impulse to constantly cross-check what I’m seeing against what I’m remembering. That almost ruined Watchmen for me.

Steve Barker: It will not have a better performance than Heath Ledger as The Joker. It will still make a zillion dollars.

Tim Adkins: The kind of hype building around Dark Knight Rises really makes this a question of scale. What filmmakers do you trust to play at that level? Who has a track record of delivering a movie that will satisfy a) devoted, hypercritical cinephiles / fanboys b) the companies that need the franchise to generate ginormous revenues and c) casual moviegoers who just want to be part of a significant event? There’s at least one guy who can succeed in that space: Chris Nolan. As a “commercial artist”–with a dutiful emphasis on both words in that phrase–he’s almost without peer. So, short answer, yes.

Dustin Freeley: I dig Nolan and want to trust he will end this series well, and maybe it’ll end with a busted – but not deceased — Batman, which might be the best way to go in that it falls in line with sub-textual reminder that Bruce Wayne is human. At the same time, the wealth of mainstream actors rounding out a bloated cast of characters worries me. I know people love The Dark Knight, but aside from Ledger, there were a fair number of narrative flaws, a wasted Two Face, and a flat, nasally Batman. In the Val Kilmer and George Clooney incarnations, the extraneous villains and tertiary heroes were tasked with carrying the load to make up for the Bat-story, so the only thing I fear is this denouement following the same route. Can Hathaway’s Catwoman do anything that Pfeifer’s didn’t? Will a reportedly inaudible Bane resonate as a worthy adversary? And, why throw in Matthew Modine as the little known, political villain, Nixon? Nostradamus I am not, but this movie will certainly be the biggest of the summer and theaters will be continuously stocked with Batfans, but the third leg of a trilogy is often cursed. Even those we canonize veer into silliness. Ewoks, I’m looking in your general direction.

Jared Wade: Probably not. I’m frankly not a huge fan of the new Batman franchise. Both of the first two movies were pretty good, but outside of the historic awesomeness of the Joker in the second one, I haven’t particularly enjoyed any of the plot lines or characters.

Question 3: Spiderman is getting a reboot only a few years after Tobey Maguire grew out of his tights. Is this “Amazing” reboot necessary?

Bill Coffin: If there is a larger strategic purpose for rebooting the franchise other than to get away from admitting that Spider-Man 3 was ever made (which a Spider-Man 4 sequel would have done by dint of its name alone), then I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe it’s about getting somebody besides Tobey MacGuire in the role without having the awkwardness of admitting that your lead player is now a different guy. The only franchise to survive that transition is Police Academy, and look at the damage that has done to us as a culture. I’m just pissed that I’m going to have to watch Peter Parker’s origin story again. How many times do we need to see Uncle Ben get capped, anyway?

Steve Barker: Not necessary at all. I thought Tobey Maguire made a fine Peter Parker and the franchise should have a little time to rest. There should be at least a ten year gap between reboots. Remember all those awful Batman movies after Michal Keaton left? Yeah, me neither.

Tim Adkins: The problem with the Tobey Maguire version of Spiderman was that it wanted to be acceptable to children while playing to adults. And it ultimately failed. The first movie was an event. (Remember that $116 million opening weekend gross that exploded the threshold for box office success?) And that was enough. The second and third movies were mostly tasteless syrup. In a relatively short amount of time since the first Maguire film was released, two things have happened: 1) animation studios have locked the formula for making a kids movie that adults will enjoy; 2) superhero movies have been allowed to delve into the mature themes that the best comic books and graphic novels have always exploited. We may not need the Spiderman reboot, but reframing that character in a post-Dark Knight world–where adults will show up in the millions to see a thoughtful epic–is not a superfluous exercise. Maybe it’ll be cool.

Dustin Freeley: Necessary, like the Spiderman mythology needs to be avenged? No. Perhaps the only thing necessary is a better rendition of Venom. This is what really sank the third movie. The first film was visual masturbation; the second was carried by Alfred Molina; the third wasted the most popular character in Spiderman lore, and to imagine Topher Grace as the afflicted was the definition of poor casting. Likewise, Eric Foreman is no Eddie Brock. So, for this reason alone, I’ll bide my time through this origin story and assume that Parker needs to heed Uncle Ben’s oft-noted maxim, something about power, responsibility and rice.

Jared Wade: To me, Spiderman is the dumbest superhero. So no. No interest in seeing that little whiny, emo teenager reimagined yet again. Much more excited for the next Wolverine, even if it probably won’t be that good again.

So, in yet another film that has been “inspired by a true story” (OED definition: adj. vaguely related to something that happened to someone at some time, somewhere, while pondering something else), Universal Studios is releasing Big Miracle on February 7^th. Starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, Big Miracle relays the tale of three whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle and the political hurdles that everyone must jump to save them. While the film is most likely filled with hokum and contrived jokes to appeal to the youngins in the crowd, the odd derision of the Russians stands out the most. Admittedly, the events that inspired this movie took place in the eighties, but this film is a conglomerate of inspirational events and creative fiction, no? There’s probably no point ripping apart a February release that promotes global cooperation as opposed to promoting imperialism, but since the end of the Cold War (let’s say officially 1991, but you’re welcome to say 1989), there have been a wealth of films that still characterize the villains as Russian. For examples, see Salt, Miracle, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Warrior, Limitless, Iron Man 2, We Own The Night, Eastern Promises, Little Odessa, Training Day, Rounders, Air Force One, Mighty Ducks 2, Snatch, Punisher, 25^th Hour, and Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Each of these films – and those were just a sample — was released post-1991. What’s equally strange is that we technically “won” the Cold War, no? So, it got us all thinking about why the Russians, Russkies, Reds, and Commies are still ripe targets to vilify on the silver screen.

Question 1: The Cold War’s been over for years, so what’s the fascination with killing, catching, and / or beating Russians?

Bill Coffin: The Russians were our kind of bad guy. Our conflict with them was against the backdrop of nuclear, mutually-assured destruction, which boils down the “us vs. them” equation to a point where our sense of who the good guys and bad guys are therein aren’t too far off from where Hollywood would want them to be. The Cold War Russkies were like the Nazis in WWII movies; a bad guy for whom you had permission to dehumanize entirely. You can’t really do that with anybody else, especially in today’s world – because for every al-Qaeda commander we kill, 20 dirt farmers who lived next door also died in the airstrike, and we all know it. We like beating up on Russkies even now because it is a simpler conflict from what has turned out to be a simpler time. And we Americans, we dig on simple.

Tim Adkins: My cousin, who is known for being kinda pitiless, is finishing a double major at USC in Political Science and Russian. He is on his way to Moscow this spring to study and work there. A couple years ago, I asked him: “Why Russian?” He said, “Because they’re a mean people and that just makes sense to me.” Clearly, he has his own reasons for being fascinated with them, but I think his logic fits here. Whatever it is that makes Russians seem cold, emotionless or simply mean, also makes them easy to cast as villains. And it doesn’t hurt that American kids have had a century’s worth of social studies classes instructing us that the Russians are our enemies. So the short answer is: sustained indoctrination.

Steve Barker: Russians make great villains. They’re rough and tough and there’s still a little bit of mystery surrounding Russia. Who knows what’s going on over there? Especially in the 70s and 80s, they were engineering super humans to take over the world for all we knew. Plus, a Russian accent makes everything sound intimidating.

Dustin Freeley: Russia is just a large, enigmatic country, wrapped in a riddle and submerged in a bottle of Smirnoff. They’ve got major metropolises juxtaposed with scary, pejoratized landscapes like Siberia replete with Gulag camps. And, kind of like contemporary German villains goose-stepping like Hitler’s Nazi party, the prototypical, broad-shouldered visage of Stalin still resonates. Plus, their language naturally sounds harsh, and their alphabet is visually confusing. There’s a familiarity there to any other Germanic language, but there’s something discomforting about it, as if B’s mated with T’s and their incestuous offspring had a fling with an N when it was turned around.

Jared Wade: Soviets are the second best movie villain after Nazis. When you’re making a shallow story, you want an evil-doer who is entirely unsympathetic and 100% bad. Nobody  — outside of perhaps zombies — can beat the Nazis, but Ruskies were “at war” with America even longer, so the flick doesn’t have to be set in the 1940s.

Question 2: Who’s the best Russian villain?

Bill Coffin: Ivan Drago from Rocky IV has to be included somewhere, and if Jared Wade hasn’t already beaten me to this one, then he should be ashamed of himself, for as many times as I’ve heard him utter Drago’s iconic line, “If he dies, he dies,” which, as we all know, has kind of become the single greatest Russkie villain line of the entire 1980s. Drago is the perfect Russkie bad guy because he physically towers over Rocky, and still needs to cheat (use steroids, get government support) to beat him. The guy summed up everything that drove us nuts about the Soviets both on the battlefield, and in the Olympics. The irony on that is especially rich since, even though the Soviet Union is a far vaster country than ours geographically, during the course of our rivalry, we always had them outnumbered in terms of population, and by a wide margin. Doubly ironic: Sly juiced to get that big. Not sure if Lundgren ever did. By the way, Xenia Onatopp from Goldeneye (Georgian, sure, but still Russkie in movie terms) deserves some kind of mention for that sexy/creepy machine-gun orgasm she gave herself. Even the other characters in the movie were like, “WTF, Xenia, get a room.”

Tim Adkins: Obvious answers here: Ivan Drago. “I must break you.” Shoutout to Rade Serbedzia, though. You may know him as Boris the Blade from Snatch. Or Gredenko from 24. Or…every other Russian-ish villain from any movie or TV show made after 1990.

Steve Barker: Ivan Drago hands down. Every time I’m involved with some friendly competition, I tell my opponent, “You vill lose.” But there is no better line than “I must break you.”

Dustin Freeley: I’m pretty sure that if Dolph Lundgren or I— D—-, whose fictional biography is nearly as lengthy as Lundgren’s, is referenced more than four times concurrently, he becomes quasi-relevant again or becomes an irritating wraith like that clingy Bloody Mary from Paranormal Activity 3, and that’s not something anyone needs, so I’m going with Teddy KGB from Rounders. His portrayal of a poker-playing Russian boss is comically offensive, but kind of cult-canonical; I can’t play a game of cards without someone “laying down a monster,” “hanging around,” or “splashing the pot,” all accompanied by poor Russian accents. Plus, there’s something eerily fascinating about his sexualized penchant for Oreos. They are delicious.

Jared Wade: Gary Oldman in Air Force One. This movie is near the top of my “If I see it on TV, I’m watching it until the end” power rankings. And while it can be silly at times, Harrison Ford and, more so, Oldman lead to some great scenes. “Get off my plane” is tough to beat.

Question 3: If the Russians are finally obliterated, what group should become the common villain in American cinema? 

Bill Coffin: I don’t think any group necessarily should become the next go-to villain population, but my guess is that the English will become that group. Really, they have been in the background as a default bad guy for a long time now. Although it’s worth noting that usually it’s not The British or The English, as they were in The Patriotheart. More commonly, it’s that single mastermind bad guy who is so sophisticated, he’s suspect, so sly he’s smug, and inevitably…he sports a British accent. As a nation, we have this deeply ground suspicion of our national father-figure, and it’s why for every James Bond, we have a dozen or more villains who either are either crappy American actors putting on crappy American accents, or really good British actors playing non-British roles (Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter) but letting their British accent seep through and thereby lend a certain quality to their villainy that we Americans respond to strongly when we can’t figure out who else in the world we ought to be carpet bombing.

Tim Adkins: One thing that makes Russians so effective as American foils is that they’re pale-skinned, which reduces or eliminates a lot of xenophobic subtexts. They’re culturally neutral in precisely the right way. As such, I don’t think there’s any one group of people that can replace them. While machines and aliens have been easy enemies for similar, acultural reasons, the people who really make the best antagonists for Americans are other Americans. We’re just never gonna get over the Civil War. 

Steve Barker: Middle Easterners seem to have taken the Russian’s place in action movies, but until Middle Easterners learn how to play hockey, we should keep looking. I recently watched The Cold War on Ice about the 1972 8-game series between Canada and Russia and was close to tears by the end. And of course, Miracle is a great sports movie. I can’t see a great athletic rivalry involving the Middle East. It’s hard to imagine Emilio Estevez leading a gang of lovable misfits against an evil team of Middle Eastern hockey players. Luckily, American movie goers will never tire of the big scary, vodka drinking Russian whether there’s a war going on or not.

Dustin Freeley: Any exotic-looking group is bound to draw scrutiny, and magnify the whole “America is racist” thing. Sure, there are plenty of Middle-Eastern villains in television and cinema now, but the third act often reveals that many of them are funded by American government or American radicals, so why not just cut to the chase and start with Iowa.

Jared Wade: Should? Bankers. Will (and maybe have)? Dem damn Moooslims. Like the Nazis, terrorists as portrayed in crappy action movies, are pure evil. The more the hero kills, the more the audience will like the movie.

2011 came to and end, and now it’s time to recap those things we saw, those things we enjoyed, and those things we abhorred. In the next few weeks, there will plenty of dicussions and conjecture about what will win, who will win what, and who should have been given a chance to win something, but before that, here are some looks at our personal bests without the pressure of award ceremonies.

Question 1: Awards contention and all that aside, what is the best movie you’ve seen this year?

Bill Coffin: 13 Assassins, directed by Takeshi Miike. He’s known for his more blood-curdling projects like Ichi the Killer and Audition, which I also quite like, but this movie was something special. It is very much a spiritual successor to Akira Kurosawa’s classic, Seven Samurai. There are one or two traditional Miike moments in there that remind you just how thin the veneer of civilization can be, but for the most part, the movie is an incredible look at what happens when a warrior caste has no more wars to fight, yet one more cause to die for. God, I loved this movie.

Steve Barker: Beats Rhymes and Life the Travels of a Tribe Called Quest. I’m slightly biased on this one because I’m a huge Tribe fan, but I thought this was done really well with a perfect mix of interviews and live performances. It also explained why Tribe broke up, and most likely will never drop another album, a question I had been pondering since the 90s.

Dustin Freeley: Midnight in Paris. Sure, it’s a romantic comedy, and if it happens to take something home for Best Picture, it will be questioned as much as Shakespeare in Love’s upset over Saving Private Ryan, but it marks Woody Allen’s reemergence into quality cinema post 1999’s Sweet and Lowdown. Sure, Match Point was interesting, and Vicki Cristina Barcelona won an Oscar, but so did Mighty Aphrodite, not a film that’s being canonized any time soon. Here, Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams shine in their awkward, uberdisconnected engagement, Corey Stall is fabulously macho / slightly deranged as Ernest Hemingway, and Michael Sheen adds earnest, face-palmingly comical, condescending pomposity and pedantry as Paul.

Tim Adkins: The Interrupters was the most moving film I saw this year so that comes immediately to mind when thinking of choices for best flick. As for movies that gave me just about everything I wanted, The Debt tops that list. I avoided the big spoiler so I had a good in-theatre experience. Had I known the spoiler…maybe not as much. But with its pacing and Helen Mirren doing her badassed most, I’m sure it still would have been pretty solid.

Jared Wade: The Descendants. It was a small, unique story that showed a man in a scenario I’ve never before seen depicted on screen. How to handle learning about deception is difficult enough when it isn’t complicated by grief of and anger towards the near-dead. All this emotion, combined with a subplot that pits the common good vs. that of an individual fortune (the land-trust decision), would have made for an interesting flick no matter what. But director Alexander Payne’s real accomplishment was weaving all this heavy drama into a whimsical romp through Hawaii full of levity and flowered shirts.

Question 2: What’s the best performance of the year?

Bill Coffin: I think Steve Whitmire deserves a lot of credit for his turn as Kermit the Frog in The Muppets. I know that might seem like a strange choice, and perhaps one mired in nostalgia, but I don’t know anybody who went to see this movie and didn’t like it. (Those are somewhat salted results, as I can’t imagine anybody who isn’t a fan of the Muppets even seeing this movie in the first place, however.) But what really struck home for me was the bittersweetness of this film, and the notion that the Muppets realize they are yesterday’s news. There is a scene where Kermit sings about all of the Muppet friends he has lost track of, and how he failed to keep the gang together. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and with good reason: if Kermit the Frog can’t avoid living a life of regret, then what hope is there for the rest of us? This was a wonderful performance, delivered by a guy talking through a fancy sock on his hand.

Steve Barker: Rainn Wilson in Super. This movie proved that Wilson will have a career long after “The Office” goes off the air. The movie could have easily turned out hokey, but Wilson mixed loneliness, depression and humor so well that even though it was a pretty unbelievable plot it seemed realistic.

Dustin Freeley: Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Although the film wanes a bit with the introduction of Martha’s sister and brother-in-law, any scene with Olsen or John Hawkes as the focal point is hauntingly mesmerizing and convincing. Her expressions are subtle, and she acts with her eyes ever-so-much-more than the volume of her voice, something that is often lost in contemporary performances. More than likely, she won’t get any of the lauded nominations this year, but she certainly should never again be referred to as the “other Olsen sister.”

Tim Adkins: I’ll go with Carey Mulligan in Shame. For one, she owned that role to the extent that I didn’t recognize her at all. For two, she crushed a very dope cover of “New York, New York.” Thirdly, she was bold enough to go full bush. And lastly, her performance helped balance a film that could otherwise have been an elegant clinic by Michael Fassbender. Without her, it would have been like Kobe dropping 81. With her, it was like Pau Gasol helping the Lakers win two titles.

Jared Wade: Nothing stands out. The past few years have featured roles for the ages from Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) and Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine). This year, plenty of people performed well, but I’m having a hard time deciding which person to choose as “best” while grading on a curve. So I won’t.

Question 3: What film has been the most surprising or disappointing this year?

Bill Coffin: Mine isn’t for a particular film but for a category of film: superhero movies. I’m a lifelong comic book fan and you’d think a geek like me would have had a great year, but the truth is, I didn’t bother to see Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America or X-Men: First Class. I’ll eventually get to them, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy at least a few of those, but it’s saying a lot that what compelled me more this year was to watch deconstructions of the superhero genre (such as Defendor, Griff the Invisible and Super) rather than to watch celebrations of it. The superhero genre seems to have exhausted itself much as the zombie genre did a few years ago, which is a shame.

Steve Barker: Warrior. I had no interest in seeing this movie. I know virtually nothing about UFC and since I’d loved The Fighter so much the previous year, I figured this movie wasn’t worth my time. It wasn’t until a friend’s recommendation that I added it to my Netflix queue. I found myself emotionally invested in the characters and was happily surprised that the outcome wasn’t as predictable as your average “contender” type movie.

Dustin Freeley: I’m going to go with The Muppets here. Loved this film. Initially, I wondered if it was on account of nostalgia, but then I realized that the last few Muppet incarnations (Muppet Treasure Island and A Muppet Christmas Carol) stirred nothing in me but lamenting the loss of three total hours. Jason Segal and Amy Adams are superbly sweet and charming in this intelligent, tongue-in-cheek film about the Muppets’ attempt to save their old theater. Any statements made about society, culture, current film and media are there but subtle, so perhaps there’s some credence to what Eric Bolling suggests about The Muppet’s communist agenda, but who cares? Most importantly, the intent of The Muppets is to remind us that we all need a bit of fantasy in our reality, and it succeeds in doing just that.

Tim Adkins: Most Disappointing: Super 8. It was shot near where I grew up so I really wanted to like it. While I didn’t hate it, I found myself wanting them to hurry up and show me the damned monster. I would rather have watched Jaws for the 417th time.

Most Surprising: Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. Apart from the head-nodding trip down memory lane, it changed the way I think about Tribe and it helped me better understand why hip hop careers are often so short. How could any person who works in the most egotistical art form that exists hold any hope that their ego would not ultimately eclipse their art?

Jared Wade: The Adjustment Bureau is among the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I went in with low expectations, having embraced a preview-inspired tagline coined by someone I know: “The Matrix With Hats.” But it didn’t even hold up to these silly, faux-reality, chase-based thriller standards. Worse still, the first half-hour made it seem like it had potential. Then, of course, the rest of the movie happened. Apologies if you know what I’m talking about.

• “I cannot give that order.” “I am not going to repeat that order.” “I will not give that order.” “What the hell is wrong with you, man.” (Really, the entire exchange between Ed Harris and John Connor’s dad during the least sexy shower scene since Psycho.)
• “I’d take pleasure in gutting you … boy.”
• “Your ‘best’? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
• “You’ve been asked by an old friend … You’re being ordered by a superior officer … Now you’re being given your last chance by a man with a gun. Put the phone down.”
• “Hey man, you just fucked up your Ferrari.”
• “FBI … Freeze, sucker.”
• “I’m not a soldier, Major. The day we took hostages, we became mercenaries. And mercenaries get paid. I want MY FUCKING MONEY.”
• “How do ya like how that shit works?”

But one throwaway line somehow even trumps that. It’s just so simple and unnecessary that it’s genius.

It comes after all the Navy SEALs have had their shower accident and Mason (Sean Connery) has subsequently abandoned the mission. He is walking to the Alcatraz shore to swim back to the mainland. Goodspeed (Nic Cage) is following, pleading with Mason to stay and help him thwart the rogue commandos. And while Goodspeed is yelling at him from behind, Mason just keeps walking and says the best line in the movie.

In my other life, when I’m not writing about movies, I write about basketball. And one column I have contributed to frequently is an ESPN gimmick called “5 on 5” in which they ask five so-called NBA experts their opinions on five different questions. It is fun to write for and, apparently, fun to read because the editors have told me it is very popular.

So … we figured we would unscrupulously rip it off here and do something similar regarding movies. Pretty low-bottom move, but do I seem like the type of person who can come up with good ideas on his own?

For the first edition, we’re talking Eddie Murphy, who recently announced he would not be hosting the Oscars. This came on the heels of this year’s Academy Awards producer, Brett Ratner, using a gay slur, being caught on tape doing so and promptly resigning his post (likely at the suggestion of someone involved with the show, me reckons). I really had no idea Murphy had such solidarity with Ratner, but he did just star in the rotund director’s Tower Heist so perhaps he was only doing the whole thing as a solid for Bruce in the first place. And when the Rush Hour auteur dropped out, Eddie, who recently did this Rolling Stone Q&A, had no reason to stick around.

Really, who cares? It’s the Oscars and they’re always horrible. But it gives us a good chance to revisit some of Eddie’s work from back when he didn’t suck. So we gathered up five of our favorite Movies About Gladiators contributors and asked a few questions. Below are their responses.

Enjoy.

Question 1: What’s the best Eddie Murphy movie?

Steve Barker: Coming to America. Thanks to that movie there are a billion fantasy football teams named “Sexual Chocolate.” The barbershop scene is classic.

Bill Coffin: Fucking hell, this guy has 49 actor credits on IMDB and I still can’t settle on one? I’ll go with Harlem Nights, but mainly for Redd Foxx’s turn in it. That and the scene when Arsenio Hall is promptly shot.

Dustin Freeley: Going to go with Coming to America here. Perhaps the ensemble cast — featuring mostly prosthetically altered versions of Murphy but also Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, and Eriq LaSalle — puts this film in the lead; however, more importantly, it was his first venture into a multi-note, emotional character whose “royal penis is cleaned” before he relishes “a country so free, one can throw glass in the streets!”

Tim Adkins: There’s only one answer for this one: Coming to America. It’s as close to perfection as Eddie has ever flown.

Jared Wade: Trading Places. Eddie is relentless in this one, whether he is grifting as a paraplegic, threatening felons with his prowess as a karate man or trying to assimilate into the social stratosphere of Duke & Duke. And the craziest part is that his great performance is equaled by not just Dan Akroyd but by both Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy (as the Duke brothers). Plus, let’s not forget about the part when Jamie Lee Curtis shows her great … acting. Yeah, acting.

Question 2: What’s your favorite Eddie Murphy character?

Steve Barker: The best Eddie Murphy Character is Eddie Murphy. With Raw and Delirious he created two of the funniest hours of comedy in history. It’s a shame he gave it up. It has been out over twenty years and my friends and I still recite bits from it when we hang out.

Bill Coffin: Those barbershop guys from Coming to America. I could have watched those guys jawbone for 90 minutes, easy.

Dustin Freeley: For reasons opposite the answer to number one, I’m picking Mr. Robinson from SNL. He’s not multidimensional. He’s full-on satirically reverse-racist — and it’s genius. I bet Mr. Rogers doesn’t have a secret compartment to store weed in the bottom of his “outdoor” shoes.

Tim Adkins: I like the character he played that had beef with Rick James. That “cocaine is a helluva drug” bit. What? That was Eddie’s brother. Well, that was my single favorite performance from anyone in the Murphy family.

Jared Wade: Buckwheat. Rewatched these skits recently and they remain just as funny in 2011. The “Hey, Mr. Wheat” line right before he gets assassinated will never get not make me laugh, and the whole premise is genius, particularly the follow-up “America Mourns.” And “Buh Weet Sings” is among the most legendary sketches in SNL history. “Wookin’ Pa Nub” and all.

Question 3: Who would be the ideal host for the Oscars?

Steve Barker: I’ve never watched the Oscars in my life. Not sure how I feel about Billy Crystal. Ever since City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold, it’s been all down hill for him. I think Chris Rock would make a good host. He was great on the MTV awards in early 2000 when he said “Having Paula Abdul judge a singing contest is like having Christopher Reeve judge a dance contest.”

Bill Coffin: Chris Tucker pretending to be a cranked-up caricature of Eddie Murphy. Which he kind of does already.

Dustin Freeley: Chris Rock. He’s the better version of Eddie Murphy. His humor is crude enough to surpass the Metamucil jokes being prepared for Billy Crystal, and his jokes are often pithy enough to avoid verbose setups that end in predictable failure (see Franco in a dress from last year), something that would put the focus back on the awards and less on the inorganic spectacle of the past few years.

Tim Adkins: Depends on what you value. If you like someone good with a quip, Steve Martin. If you prefer hot chicks spilling out of their dresses, then go with Sofia Vergara. Personally, I’d choose Sofia.

Jared Wade: Somebody who is actually funny in the year in which we currently live would be nice. Let’s go with either Stephen Colbert or Aziz Ansari. Your call, Academy. But leave the guys who were funny thirty years ago in the 80s. Billy Crystal, too.

Some might suggest that a movie like The Usual Suspects is overrated and garners undue praise because its narrative is predicated on a lie, namely one that Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) weaves for the duration of the film. Perhaps the critics of this style are correct inasmuch as the final scene really amounts to a stylized “just kidding.” At the same time, what saves this film from ending up in the unwatchable pile is, first, the acting – by which Spacey became a household name and conjured no surprise when he took home a second Oscar only a few years later as Lester Burnam in American Beauty. Secondly, the movie doesn’t overtly establish its agenda as one that intends to fool the audience and reveal a twist at the end. The twist happens, but the film doesn’t begin as a whodunit. Rather, the arc of the film begins with a lone survivor whose physical disability keeps him from partaking in the heist but leaves him as the closest thing to a witness. In a sense, director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie present a heist-film-gone-awry. Moreover, they challenge the conventions of the first person narrator by exposing the narrative “I” for what it truly is: unreliable. In the way that Kint is trusted – by both U.S. Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) and the audience – it seems that viewers have blurred the lines between first person narrator and omniscient narrator – one that provides an objective voiceover of events in order to frame a story: think Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby or The Shawshank Redemption. Despite his obviously human existence in both films, his narration becomes unquestionably omniscient, when, realistically, the information he has can’t be obtained at his proximity from the action. The same could be said for Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) in Fried Green Tomatoes or the Stranger (Sam Neil) in The Big Lebowski. Admittedly, none of these characters has as large a role as Kint, but they still embody the role of first-person omniscient narrator.

That being said, imagine how successful The Usual Suspects would have been if Kint’s fabrication had been exposed in the previews. Granted, the preview might tip its hand a bit too much by showing Keyser Soze’s functional left hand, which in effect tries overly hard to convince the audience that Kint and Soze are not the same man, but what if the preview had intentionally showcased Kint’s ultimate walk from the police station that begins as a foot-dragging hobble and ends with an elegant gait and the cracking of knuckles that had been meticulously held frozen for a prolonged period of time. Would it have drawn the same viewership or acclaim? Would it have put Bryan Singer on the map or made Spacey a relevant actor in the late nineties and early aughts? For those who object to the narrative trickery in The Usual Suspects, I would recommend that you check out Richard Gere’s new film The Double – or at least watch the trailer.

Gere plays Paul Shepherdson (was Shepherd too obvious of a name?), a retired CIA operative who, in his prime, “was responsible for tracking down Soviet assassins.” However, there was one that got away: Casius, a cold-blooded, stealthy assassin whose trademark weapon is wire produced from his wristwatch. With this garret, he is able to quickly eliminate his target and then blend back into a crowd without needing to dispose of an incriminating weapon. And, in Shepherdson’s absence from the field, it seems that Casius has emerged from the depths of human camouflage, only to prompt Paul out of retirement and the introduction of Ben Geary (Topher Grace), a young FBI agent who “knows more about [Casius] than anyone” else in the FBI.

Thus, the audience has its tag team to root for. The problem that arises in the trailer is its display of Richard Gere subduing a presumed prisoner and then producing an identical garret from his watch, at which point the victim’s hoarse and shaky voice declares, “Casius.” This clip leads the audience to Geary’s dumbfounded “Oh. My. God” before revealing “the entire time, [Shepherd’s] been hunting himself,” just in case it wasn’t clear from the visual exposition during the trailer.

Of course, the entire trailer could be a red herring and a fabrication. Perhaps the true Casius is Geary, and perhaps Shepherd’s theory that “it would seem [you have found the real Casius]” is a clever way to insinuate to Geary that Paul is aware of the ruse and Ben’s cover is blown. This is all possible, but it seems rather silly, no? It just doesn’t seem plausible that someone would want to spend thirteen dollars solely to find out if Grace, in fact, plays the actual killer. Is it really worth that much money? Is it worth ninety minutes? (On a separate not, if this is the case, Grace needs to find a new agent. He played the double agent in Predators and was none too convincing in that either, but I digress.) If Shepherd happens to actually be the killer – as the trailer suggests – then the odds of someone paying the same thirteen dollars to find out what he or she already knows seems equally implausible and fiscally irresponsible.

In the end, showing your hand in poker draws a crowd. Doing the same in a movie trailer kills the luster and suspense.

Filmmakers are immune to the adage that those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. Therefore, this is happening: Universal hasn’t given up The Wolfman and intends to reboot the series and create a film, tentatively titled “Werewolf,” that has more in common with George Waggner’s original 1941 film The Wolf Man than the character’s most recent iteration.

There were a number of holes in last year’s version and a number of wasted moments that were masked with cheesy metaphors like saviors arriving on white horses. However, the proposal to release a newer new version of The Wolfman seems rather unnecessary, primarily because there is not enough material to release a “series.” Werewolves are not superheroes. They cannot control their rage and aggression. This is why they are hunted. If a werewolf were a benevolent creature who stopped grandmothers from being mugged and rescued chickens from rogue thieves, then a few flimsy storylines – or at least one regurgitated with new characters – might be fabricated. However, Werewolves suffer from bloodlust and are the very thieves raiding chicken coops and cattle ranches, so creating a more faithful rendition to the original would still lead to the same place.

Maybe they could squeeze a sequel out of it, and instead of having the movie end with a death-driven “blaaagh,” the protagonist will wake up in a barn in the presence of someone who has discovered his alternative identity, and this someone must be compassionately understanding and want to help our afflicted canine protagonist … during the next full moon … a month from then.

As I gather my Bible, Torah, Koran, copy of Watchmen, and print of Dali’s “St. John on the Cross,” I ready myself for the inevitable uber-undulating of the Earth that will occur around 6pm EST. As I’m preparing to barricade myself in an Astoria apartment with silver bullets, whittled crosses of what used to be a dining set, and a makeshift machete fashioned from a refrigerator fan, I wonder whether Harold Camping, the 89-year old radio broadcaster, Christian Evangelist and impetus of my paranoia was initially swayed by Michael Stipe, who initially prophesied the end of existence on the 1987 album Document when he proclaimed “it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, [and] an aeroplane.”

Perhaps he wasn’t far off inasmuch as Camping has declared that 6 pm on May 21 will bring “this tremendous earthquake that’s going to make the last earthquake in Japan seem like nothing in comparison. And the whole world will be alerted that Judgment Day has begun.”

These earthquakes will continue in succession as each time zone hits 6 pm, which means that at certain moments you will be able to see territories that have been divided by human mathematics shake, undulate, and rupture while you stand on the solid ground beneath your feet, thanking the heavens that you and your family were dedicated individuals who “have quit their jobs and left their families to get the message out” like those who are “passing out tracts and reading the Bible” because they “don’t see the need for one more dollar.”

Within those with such dedication, I see something noble in trying to save as many lives as possible, and those who don’t listen only have themselves to blame for not listening to Camping, who, with “no formal religious training” has only one time before made a prediction that didn’t come to fruition when he prophesied the end of the world in 1994, but he can’t truly be blamed for a math error that was caused by the denseness of Jeremiah, a rather intricate book in the Old Testament.  Besides, when publishing 1994?, he “put a big question mark after [the title], and in the book it also indicated that 2011 was also a good possibility,” so he was merely kindling fear, not necessarily mongering it.

This time around, the math has been meticulously reviewed and proves that “we know it is absolutely going to happen with no question at all.” After all, how could you doubt an equation that factors in the number of books in the Old Testament (46), the Deadly Sins (7), the Cardinal virtues (4), Jesus divided by pi, pi divided by Judas, the number of miracles performed (33) and is divided by the cosine of the Apocrypha (9). This time my friends, it is fool proof, not like the wealth of other biblical contradictions that condone and denounce slavery, homosexuality, masturbation, pre-marital sex, birth control, and capital punishment.

And, if there is any way to prepare for the beginning of the end of the world, it would be to refer to the most helpful tips provided to us by cinema:

As per 2012, a movie that missed the mark by a year but gets an honorable mention, we know that earthquakes and natural disasters chase cars and target specific people, so don’t try to run. It’s best just to stay in place as if you were evading a tyrannosaurus rex, one of those fictional monsters fabricated by opponents of intelligent design whose only evidence boils down to fossils.

When the earth similarly turns on us, we can always recall the wisdom of The Day After Tomorrow, in which we learn that large ships can navigate themselves through a narrow city covered in ice. But most importantly, wolves are survivors that are impervious to the elements, particularly when they hunger for blood from a perpetually brooding male figure that shows anger, frustration, sadness, and contempt all by crossing his arms and scowling.

We’ve also learned that it’s sometimes best to be rogue and worry about your own existence, but if you’re going to partner up with someone, it’s best to have an African-American in your corner. Morgan Freeman kept the heads of our country cool in Deep Impact, Denzel Washington became the preacher of a new civilization in The Book of Eli, and Will Smith saved the world from interplanetary annihilation in Independence Day and fought off a wealth of preternatural creatures in I am Legend. Lest we forget Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?

If perchance, a Will Smith-type figure is not around or has been melted by a fire-weilding angel, it might be best to locate a down-on-his luck, trying to atone for his transgressions blue collar worker like Randy Quaid in Independence Day or Bruce Willis in Armageddon. Self-sacrifice is often an admirable quality in someone that is not you.

With that, I bid you all adieu and hope to see you on the other side of the apocalypse.

So, this post could be a rant on how the value of children-aimed cinema has taken a dastardly turn, relying on bodily functions to kindle laughter, desensitizing younger viewers to vulgarities and decomposing all thought-provoking and intelligent humor into a – dare I say, literal – cesspool; however, Dane Cook’s success has already proved this point, so I’ll take my tangent in a different direction:

The commercial easter’s facade obscures the rise of the oligarch and the disenfranchisement of the proletariat.

All religious aspects of Easter aside, the symbol of the commercial Easter holiday is undoubtedly a tandem of colorful eggs and various versions of chocolate bunnies and bunnies hocking cream-filled eggs for Cadbury, a company without the need to change their ad campaign for two decades, declaring “Nobunny knows Easter better than Hersheys,” which is clever enough to substitute “bunny” for “body” as a form of subliminal advertising that makies “bunny” part of our holiday vernacular that posseses a sacrosanct connotation.

In turn, this gives the mammal power over all others who try to stand-in as the spokesperson for the holiday, an arrangement that is doubly confirmed during the “Cadbury auditions,” where a pig, a cat and a lion all try nobly to wear the bunny ears, but fail miserably. As cute as the commercial is, particularly the pig wearing bunny ears, there’s an agenda to all of this that glamorizes the beautifully soft, delicate bunny and villainizes the producer of the eggs that we covet and color each April: the chicken, a worker toiling behind the scenes whilst the holiday is emceed by a non-egg-laying mammal. In the end, this propaganda glamorizes the figurehead and taints the worker, leaving him undesirable.

Don’t believe me? When was the last time you sorted through an easter basket, bypassing the various branded eggs from Reeses, Snickers, Butterfinger and the like in order to eat all of the Peeps, those crusty, slightly amorphous, marshmallow filled, mutated jelly molds?

Hop does nothing to dispel this agenda, and, instead, reinforces it by exhibiting an Easter bunny that lives with his son in a statue on Easter Island, both reaping the benefits of being the symbol of a major holiday. Evidence of this can be seen not only in a glimpse of the son’s room which is replete with toys, posters, books, and musical instruments, but also in the scepter that the Easter Bunny holds, a traditional symbol of royalty and authority. In addition, the Easter Bunny’s son is named E.B, which portends that there is also a tradition of primogeniture in the works here, where class, status, and wealth are passed from the patriarch in the family to (most often) the first born son, allowing the inheritance to flow freely from one generation to another.

However, in order for this wealth to flow, the line must be untainted, which also presumes that the Easter Bunny must maintain complete control of his affairs, and those of his son, which is suggested by the egg-shaped globe within their home. While this might seem strangely cute to some, the truth is that the Easter Bunny has fabricated knowledge for his son to attain and has limited his growth by propagating false information, even in regards to Copernican theories.

In addition to confirming the oligarchic and dictatorial grasp that the Easter Bunny has on nature, Hop also further castigates the producers of the candy that the Easter Bunny is tasked with delivering once a year in order to stay in business. However, with his supply of bunny lackeys it seems more probable that he’s outsourcing his work and taking a cut of the proceeds. Regardless, when E.B ventures out on his own, causing his father to send out a search party, the factory staff is partially depleted, and Carlos, the lead chick, stages a coup, overthrowing the Easter Bunny and taking control of the factory. But, the problem here is fabricated, and the viewer is forced to side with the Easter Bunny, labeling Carlos and his ilk as “villain.”

It is apparent that the only contact the Easter Bunny has with his employees is on the observation deck, high above them, monitoring their every move as if he were the foreman overseeing the progress in an ant farm. What’s doubly offensive is that the Easter Bunny has put no work into producing the candy – much less laying the eggs – and his position is acquired through previous acts of primogeniture that might very well have gestated through the Great Chain of Being, a belief that royalty was appointed by God, and thereby an extension of God. (Please see King James I / VI’s Basilikon Doron.)

Perhaps Hop ends with a power sharing agreement between the two, and perhaps it ends with a banishing of Carlos from the Easter Island lair, relegating him to a symbol of the dangers of uprising, training future chick generations to know their place. If it is the former, perhaps Hop II will be an installment more analogous to the political climate of Zimbabwe. If it is the latter, then the iron grasp of the dictatorship will cease to loosen and all that is solid for the Peeps will melt in the air.

In the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley, I say to the chicks and their Peep brethren, “Let a great Assembly be of the fearless and the free”! Vive le Peep!

Two months ago, the Liberian Girl and I were lying in bed trying to fall asleep. The TV, which was trying to watch us, spit out a 60-second spot for a movie called Hanna. After the ad concluded, I mumbled something to the effect of:

“I may be half sleep, but I’m pretty sure I just saw a commercial that told me there was a movie where the Incredible Hulk was gonna teach the Lovely Bones how to be an assassin…”

The Liberian Girl lifted her head and nodded, “Well…that is kinda what just happened…so…when are you taking me to see it?”

Two weeks ago, the Liberian Girl and I saw a matinee screening of Limitless in Georgetown. It was a decent film built on an intriguing idea about drugs, brainpower and acts of extreme brilliance. While I had modest expectations for it, I was a bit worried by the collection of trailers that preceded the film: Fast Five; The Hangover, Part II; Scre4m; Arthur; Thor and X-Men: First Class. One, or some, of those films could be good. Hell, maybe all of them will be. But none of their trailers demonstrated much of an imagination. Each felt so much like a property. Almost like they were commercials for commercials. The meta was pretty uninspiring. Appropriate, I suppose, to set up a film adapted from a novel. As the opening credits for Limitless began rolling, I second-guessed that day’s movie choice. For just a moment. Thankfully, the intriguing premise we gambled on kinda delivered. At the very least, it didn’t feel like a waste of money. Or time. (Thank you, Bradley Cooper, for not making crap movies.)

Two days ago, the Liberian Girl and I bought tickets for a matinee screening of Hanna. In Georgetown. As we took our seats, I remembered the pack of trailers that set up the last movie we saw in that theater. And I grew very curious about what kind of preamble we might get this time. It was a bit more eclectic: The Conspirator; Crazy, Stupid, Love; Captain America; Anonymous and Fast Five. What that said about the anticipated audience for Hanna was anyone’s guess. Mine would be that some marketers believe there’s still room for acts of art to mingle with acts of commerce. Show business is ever the paradox.

Hanna, the main feature, was equal parts character study and semi-classic chase film. The titular character still wears a training bra when we meet her. She is also finishing training with her father to be capable of killing any creature or any combination of creatures. We know that her father did something, that the something involved the CIA and that he needed to hole up somewhere way off the grid to avoid CIA detection. That’s how Hanna and her Papa ended up living somewhere deep in the Arctic woods. Hella far from any kind of civilization, Papa (played by the first feature-length Incredible Hulk) raised Hanna (played by the Lovely Bones) with only the aid of his own warrior expertise and an encyclopedia. Consequently, when Hanna fully matures as a warrior, she is also ill-equipped socially for the modern world.

The chase begins after Hanna flips a switch daring the CIA to come and find her. (You may have seen that part in one of the ads for the film.) The pursuit dashes and dips through Northern Africa and Eastern Europe as a CIA agent and her flamboyant Neo-Nazi operatives inch closer and closer to Hanna. Along the way, Hanna befriends a civilian British family and has to deal with alien appliances like coffee makers and remote control TVs. Lurking at the end of the trail is Papa and…well…we don’t quite know what. I probably shouldn’t say any more for fear of spoiling it.

The quickie analysis is that Hanna is a really well made film. It’s got a solid cast. (In addition to the Hulk and the Lovely Bones, Cate Blanchett plays the CIA lead.) The script gives them plenty of room to explore and discover in the midst of the chase. It also has enough lightness and humor to offset the intensity of the 100-minute chase. The cinematography alternates appropriately between frenetic and patient. The Chemical Brothers score is pretty sick. But the smartest thing Hanna does is to resist the temptation to play up the sexuality of its teenaged female lead. She is presented instead as very icey, yet believably naive. While Hanna has been trained to do battle with the CIA’s best, she has no clue how to go about kissing a cute boy. (The Liberian Girl said he was cute. I wasn’t so sure.)

While watching the film, I found myself thinking, “There’s no way an American made this.” When I mentioned that notion to the Liberian Girl after the movie, she whipped out her Blackberry and quickly discovered that director Joe Wright is British while screenwriter Seth Lochhead is Canadian. We sat at the bar contemplating what that meant exactly. Neither of us was sure. Smart, mature American filmmakers aren’t extinct. Nor are their domestic audiences. After all, the auditorium we sat in for Hanna was at about 70% capacity. Still…something just felt weird about all of it.

Maybe the ultimate takeaway from seeing Hanna had something to do with the gross necessity of marketing. I kept thinking back to the contrasting sets of trailers–and the ad that inspired us to choose to see Hanna in the first place. I understand that studios (or the corporations that own them) need to make sure consumers are A) aware their films exist and B) sufficiently excited so as to go out and see them. But who decided it was a good idea to spend as much marketing a film as is spent to make the thing? I know that Fast Five is coming soon to a theater near me. I been knowing that, actually. And I suspect I’ll spend the next few weeks trying to escape that damn’d movie. (Although I may go see it with the homie if he buys enough bourbon to make it worth my while.) The way the average medium-to-large-budget film is marketed implies there is a fifth (ironically) silent P in the Marketing Mix: Pulverize. As in: “we need to pulverize the sensibilities of our potential consumers.” To what end, I’m not sure. I think I grew numb to all of it some time ago.

Post-Script: The screenplay for Hanna was selected as one of the best unproduced scripts of both 2006 and 2009. That’s a dubious distinction to earn once. Let alone twice. Why it took so long to get made, I don’t know. Go figure.