Argo and The Sci-Fi Revolution

Where were you when the American hostages were taken in Iran? Well, we don't remember either and perhaps many of you hadn't been born yet. It was kind of a big deal. What we do remember very well is Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and how the end of the seventies gave birth to a science fiction revolution which had been prematurely aborted somewhere around 1973 and that's still going strong today. We do seem to recall the yellow ribbons and Ted Koppel on Nightline.    

We (well most of us) had never heard of Ayatollahs before 1979

Argo marks Ben Affleck's first major foray into directing and also gave him an opportunity to showcase and older, perhaps wiser version of his typical leading man role. It's hard not to recall Armageddon and Pearl Harbor and cringe at how stiff and silly he looked back then as leading man. And who can forget Ben-Lo (the brief pairing of Ben with Jennifer Lopez)? But remarkably this movie did help us forget the past - except for the past being featured in the plot. And what of that; did Ben get the story right? We think he did get it and even did so in a balanced fashion - providing lot's of interesting insights as well as both sides of of the story to some extent. Although as the movie progressed and the tension built up, the Revolutionary Guard become ever more two-dimensional bad guy villains.

This movie was interesting not merely because of the history it told - e.g. the 6 hostages who had escaped and who were spirited out of the country in a daring, yet secret CIA rescue - it was interesting in that it was Science Fiction that helped save those six diplomats. Imagine that.

Inside Argo (making the movie about pretending to make a movie)

So, the movie within a movie is a little like Inception of course but this is based on reality. Why did the Iranians let these guy go? Well, most of the movie gets wrapped around the clock-ticking tension as to whether or not they get on the plane before the revolutionaries get wise as to what's going on - but the pivotal scene of the movie is when the refugees break out their storyboards in Customs and begin explaining to the guards what the movie they're making is all about. And then, we begin to see the universal appeal of Science Fiction as a story-telling mechanism that transcends cultures. The guards while listening to the plot and looking at the drawings can't help but to identify with parts of the story and want to become a part of something a little bit larger than life and in doing so let the refugees escape (of course the guards did end up making history that but not the way they figured).

Ben made some very wise casting choices with Bryan (Breaking Bad) Cranston, John Goodman and Alan Arkin. These three actors may very be the best three character actors alive in Hollywood today - they each have the unique ability to take just about any material given to them and make it memorable. Last night night in the presidential debate we kept hearing about "Tumult in the Middle East" - we'll that's nothing new. However, telling the individual stories that occur within that tumult doesn't always happen and we're glad Ben took the time to tell this one.

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Prometheus, Unplugged

So, early this Summer while on a vacation we went to go see Prometheus. Lucky for us because the place we were visiting had it playing in 3-D IMAX with surround sound. We had been looking forward to the film for several reasons:

1. We're geeks.
2. We like just about everything Ridley Scott does, perhaps with the exception of Robin Hood. 
3. We liked the original Alien, as opposed to  most of the sequels. 
4. We like special effects. 

Anyway, it seemed as though Prometheus was going to to score big in all of these areas. We went - we saw - we said "Awesome." Now - there's been some criticism about the movie but we think most of that criticism derived from not having watched it in 3-D IMAX with surround sound. There were some weak areas to the plot and a lot of unanswered questions but then again, most science fiction classics aren't immediately appreciated or completely thorough.

  

3-D IMAX Rocks... 

The critics are so picky sometimes though (not that we ever are)  - OK there were some lame characters here and there - for example Geologist and the scientist boyfriend. And there were some holes in the plot, although we're kind of hoping there is a prequel to the prequel to iron those out. To get a comprehensive list of the perceived flaws of the film check out the following spoof trailer...

A bit too critical perhaps? Genius is subtle folks, deal with it.

We were impressed with much of the cast, especially Guy Pearce, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron. Without a doubt though Michael Fassbender stole much of the movie with his creepy yet fascinating portrayal of the science android David. The enigmatic Engineers are still a bit of a mystery though, we're not sure why they were so intent on reversing their science project on Earth. But overall this movie is more about atmosphere than specifics, which makes it a lot like the first Alien in our opinion and maybe even a little like John Carpenter's the Thing.

Another fun aspect of this film for us anyway was its innovative use of viral marketing with clips like the one below (which cannot be found int he movie itself but are still online and will of course be included with the DVD and Blu-ray release of the film)...

Move over Bill Gates - Peter Weyland has the biggest ego of them all.

We did notice a striking resemblance between the aliens (the engineer aliens anyway) in this film and the main character in the oddball movie 'Powder" from 1996. All in all we recommend seeing this film if you get a chance, maybe it will grow on you - but hopefully not in you.

This guy was way A Head of his time...

 

 

 

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You Say you want a Hairvolution, well you know...

Back to the Halloween madness and the scariest thing in Hollywood next to Mad Mel's talking Beaver, Nicholas Cage's Hair. We'll start this post with a tribute to the many manifestations of Mr. Cage's follicles...

Man of a thousand wigs?

So let's talk a little bit about the enigmatic Mr. Cage. First of all for those who don't know, Nick Cage isn't his real name. His actual name is Nicholas Kim Copolla and he is the nephew of acclaimed Godfather director Francis Ford Copolla. He has been married to some interesting people as well (3 so far) including the daughter of Elvis Presley - who oddly enough he has imitated in nearly a dozen movie roles over the years. He is one of Hollywood's most prolific actors with several dozen credits to his name. Yet despite making millions he somehow managed not to pay his taxes and has now joined the Wesley Snipes 'back taxes are eating my lunch' club.

Remember when the Japanese had money - Nick's got the fever x3

None of the previous exposition seems to answer the burning question - why does Nick seem compelled to do something crazy with his hair in nearly every movie he stars in? We're going to take a time warp back to the Age of Aquarius to try to understand his motivation...

The 1970's was like the Hair Club for everyone...

So maybe, Nick's inner Hippie just wants to be free to express itself through hair - long, short, receding, greasy, curly, straight, hair hair, or something like that. Although there is a darker theory, one that allows us to include this post as part of our Halloween 2012 marathon - Nicholas Cage is an American Vampire...

This explains a lot, the hair, his not being worried about taxes and his Elvis southern accent fetish.

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Rejected One Liners

What would Hollywood be without those ever-so-clever one liners that forever stick in minds - such phrases as:

• "Make my day"
• "I'll be back"
• "Kiss my Grits"
• "Yippe Cay Yah, M....."

Well, for every successful one liner, there are many, many also-rans - those quips that simply didn't make the grade. We searched through our extensive archives to find some of the one liners that got rejected along the way:

• From Prometheus - after the impromptu self C-section "Now that's what I call family planning!"

How to get "a Head" in Alien hunting... 

• From Last of the Mohicans - "Hey Hawkeye, those white chicks are High Maintenance."

• From Titanic "Can I get my ticket Refunded?" and "Hey, don't be too critical everything shrinks in near-freezing water."

• From the Terminator - "Follow me if you want to find a really great bargain at Target."

• From 300 - "Why did we leave all of our clothes back in Sparta, it's freakin' cold out here?"

• From Argo - "The Ayatollah don't like Pepsi Cola." 

• From Skyfall - "Q, where's my Ipad?"

 The most depressing Bond song ever - we just want to cry...

• From Looper - "This is how our self-employment gets terminated."

• From Total Recall (the remake) - "My wife looks great in her underworld."

• From Blade Runner - "All these memories will vanish like Prince after Purple rain."

• From Gladiator - "Unleash much unpleasantness." 

Why farmers shouldn't make movies 

• From the Unforgiven - "Hey Clint, why did you shoot that empty chair?"

• From Twilight (pick any) - "It's called Vampire Psoriasis, not sparkly skin."

• From The Godfather - "Fredo, why are you wearing Strawberry lip gloss?"

• From Contact: "I can't believe they called collect."

• From Silence of the Lambs - "I have binders full of women in my files Clarisse, binders full..."

• From Frankenstein - "Heineken good, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition good..."

• From Independence Day - "We know our virus will work, the mothership is running Windows 95."

The "Sweded" version of Independence Day...

• From Godzilla - "He was hatched at Fukishima just last year..."

• From Hamlet - "To be or not to be - is that a rhetorical question, cause I'm just not getting it Yorick, and BTW did you go a diet?"

• From Soylent Green - "Those weren't made by Keebler Elves, they are Keebler Elves!"

• From Planet of the Apes - "Get your hands on me, you damn sexy ape."

• From Miami Vice (the movie) - "Why are we even doing this without Phil Collins?"

• From  The Wizard of Oz - "Dorothy, let's play Twister, let's play Risk"

• From The Poseidon Adventure - "How did Shamu get on this boat anyway?"

• From the Marathon Man - "You haven't been flossing, have you?"

• From Midnight Cowboy - "Hey, I'm washing there - that's my machine."

• From ET - "ET, texting home, LoL #earth sucks"

• From the Dark Knight Rises - "I'm Scatman, Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop." 

• From the Mary Poppins - "Yes, children I'm getting high, but please don't follow my example."

• From Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid - "I think we should reconsider Gun  Control."

• From AI - "I'm David, not that Nazi android freak from Prometheus."

• From The Bridge on the River Kwai - "I'm never riding the subway again."

• From 1984 - "Now this is what I'd call Big Government."

• From the Shining - "Bedbugs, Bedbugs, Bedbugs."

• From Logan's Run - "What a drag it is getting old."

• From Bonnie & Clyde  - "Hey, you missed a spot."

• From Avatar - "It's clean coal and natural gas - it's good for your environment."

• From Rambo, First Blood - "All wanted was a slushy, a hot dog and some nachos, why did they have to push me."

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The Walking Dead - Season 3

Occasionally, on Raving Reviews we actually watch TV shows and movies and that aren't completely idiotic - one of our favorite of these shows is the Walking Dead. Walking Dead Season 3 began last week, just in time for our Halloween Meltdown. Why do we like the Walking Dead? Here's some of our rating criteria:

1. It's post-apocalyptic.
2. It happens down South instead of where we're living (makes it seem more realistic).
3. It has better than average quality Zombies.
4. It has an excellent cast of characters and even the stereotypical roles are well played by the ensemble cast.
5. We care about what happens to the characters, in other words it transcends the gratuitous Zombie killing that often is associated with the genre.

Just when you though it was safe to drive through Atlanta...

Now having said some nice things about the show; we do have a few issues with the Walking Dead; these include:

• Why doesn't AMC allow any other networks to make good television shows?
• How many times will they let Carl Junior go out and endanger the whole group before they realize he's just not worth it? (and isn't there a Hamburger joint call Carl Jr.?)
• Why don't the characters ever bathe?
• Why don't they all own Samurai swords by now?
• Why don't they find their own island - preferably in the Bahamas?
• Why do they let Ricks wife drive?
• Why does Hershel seem to confuse the flu with flesh easting insanity?

 

 Some criticism is warranted.

And we're not the only ones who have issues with the Walking Dead - it has become a cultural phenomenon and has inspired a number of interesting parodies.

 

This parody is kind of like Walking Dead meets Deliverance....

In previous posts we've tried to uncover why Zombies are so popular in our culture - what is about cannibal corpses that never gets old (besides the fact that they're dead)? Is it that by shooting zombies we can stare death in the face and keep on living, who knows. What we do know for sure is that Season 3 of the Walking Dead is shaping up to be more action packed than the first two seasons combined with lot's of new locations and characters and an endless supply of - Zombies...

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The Beaver - Too Right!

The next movie we're reviewing as part of the 2012 Halloween meltdown is "The Beaver." Wait you say - this movie has nothing to do with the spookiest time of the year - we beg to differ. This movie contains three elements that we are sure will terrify most sane people:

1. Mel Gibson
2. Australian-Speak
3. Beaver hand puppets

 Mel Gibson with his hand up a Beaver's bum...

Kudos to Jody for casting though - Mel Gibson was hands down (or up) the best choice in Hollywood for the role. Randy Quaid and Charlie Sheen no doubt would have turned in great performances but could never have mastered Australian English the way Mad Max can. The plot goes something like this - a fairly depressed middle-aged man on the verge of suicide runs across a hand puppet in the trash and it more or less possesses him. We were wondering if the story might actually be Mel Gibson's autobiography but the movie doesn't include any Russian girlfriends getting punched in the face.

Jody Foster felt compelled to tell this story - we're not sure why - about how mental illness and hand puppets don't mix. Wrapped in this sad personal tale (or tail) is the larger question of why Beavers are so misunderstood and maligned in our society. This movie is just one more blatant attempt at Beaver character assassination. Don't believe there is a plot to ruin the noble Beaver's reputation; well just think about this:

• Why are they the butt of so many adolescent jokes?
• Why do we tend to associate them with kids who have buck teeth and glasses?
• Why do they also seem so busy - are they on something?
• How come we only focus on the fact they cut down trees instead building up the watershed?

Why are they so busy, don't they take vacations - are they on speed?

Now take the Wolverine. Here's a creature not too distantly related to Beavers who gets associated with really cool superheros and Cold War freedom fighters. The Beaver in this movie is not only not cool, he's kind of like an evil spirit (and as we know there is nothing more disturbing than an Australian accent) which opens up whole new avenues to negatively label Beavers. He's funny and lovable at first, but then we're introduced to Darth Beaver who enjoys beating up Mel as regularly as Mel tends to beat up his ex-wives. There are other characters in the movie - Jody Foster just seems to be there in order to do on camera directing. The guy who played Chekov in Star Trek is there looking like he is 16 going on 32 playing a high school senior with some serious beaver-envy issues. The girl from Hunger Games is in this too  - at the high school graduation it seems as though she might pull out a bow and arrow and start shooting but she wimps out on that.

Overall the film is like watching a slow moving train wreck - but not a very interesting one and of course, the noble Beaver is the ultimate casualty here.

Ok - this clip is R-rated, but we show this here only to illustrate the infamous anti-beaver propaganda campaign now underway in our society...

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Season of the Witch & Nick Cage's Hair-volution

Well, it's almost Halloween so welcome to our Raving Reviews Halloween meltdown - actually it began yesterday with our post on "Apollo 18 - Moon Rocks Gone Wild." Anyway, about a year ago we made you a promise that we would review the Nicholas Cage film "Season of the Witch" and that we'd also try to determine what in the heck is going on with this guy's hair - so since we always keep our promises we've combined the two posts for you here today (legal fine print - there is no statute of limitations on promises).

I ain't afraid of no witch - Witch-busters !

Season of the Witch begins with a portfolio review of Nick Cage's Crusader battle performances on his Middle East "Kill the Infidels" Tour. Nick Cage plays a Knight who for some reason felt compelled to fight for the church to capture the holy land even though he doesn't seem too religious. His motivations escape us - perhaps he was just answering a want ad something like this:

"The Crusades - be all that God wants you to be - from the sun-drenched shores of Lebanon to the blood-drenched walls of Tyre. Fight to restore the Holy Land to mother church - and by the way you can keep all of the loot too..."

We'll never be sure why Nick signed up, but it seems as though the only joy he derives from the Crusades is on betting on how many Saracens he can kill with his drinking buddy, Ron "Quest for Fire" Perlman (publicity photo below).

Who wouldn't want to hang out with this dude?

So, after about 15 years of non-stop killing on their victory tour (these guys got around more than the Rolling Stones), Nick becomes disillusioned after having to hack up a city full of innocent women and children. Apparently, the betting with Ron and boozing in local Crusader taverns just looses its charm and he and Ron decide head back to merry old Europe (we're not sure exactly where in Europe they came from or where they were returning to). We do know however that nowhere in the movie did they visit New Orleans.

Redbone and the Witch Queen of New Orleans - yeah that's cool - but not part of the movie

Now Europe at the time was a quaint, charming vacation spot in the 1300's - filled with witches, demons, various fairy tale monsters and the ever-present Black Death. Nick and Ron needed a break so they head directly into the dark woods of what looks like Transylvania. Oh, we forgot to mention an important scene earlier on in the film where we were introduced to some dedicated witch hunters and typical village witches from what seemed to be the region that Nick and Ron would visit later. The scene was remarkable in that it dispelled an important myth about Witches - it seems as though they don't float after all. Although there is still some scientific controversy about that claim - the following video does seem to provide compelling evidence supporting the 'witches are made out of wood' theory.

King Arthur isn't as well known for his focus on STEM education in medieval Britain, but he was a science pioneer...

Nick and Ron manage to get conscripted into an important witch relocation mission. They're given a band of less than merry expendable sidekicks and a cute teen witch who looks a lot like Kristen Stewart after she dumped Robert Pattison (e.g. really guilty). Despite the fact that she can pick up big guys wearing armor with one had and seems fairly creepy, most of the group feels sorry for her - which is surprising considering the general attitude regarding witches in the region. She seems to have the unique talent for spreading plague to each town she visits which makes everyone look as though they've got fruit growing from their faces.

What would have people in the middle ages done with Emo Girls or Goths?, Hmmmm

So anyway - long story short - there's this book and it has power and the demon inside the girl wants it - and she kills everyone (except Nick and Ron and some teenager who looks like he should be in the Twilight series) and then these guys end up being exorcists and then the girl and the demon break up and she goes out with this teen and live happily ever after although Nick still seems miserable and Ron turns out to be dead after all - the end. Whew...

But then - wait - we found out she came back to 1971 - where George Romero made a movie about her - she looks a little older though. That movie is called Season of the Witch too (not 2). Only in this movie she tends to wear a ton of makeup and perhaps uses the blow-dryer a bit too much.

Well, this witch is having a bad hair day, reminds us of Nick Cage a little...

And it looks a though we've run out of time to address Nick Cage's hair - stay tuned we will keep our promise.

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Parabolic Activity – Apollo 18

So, we actually decided to watch cable last night and came across a relatively recent film that we had wanted to see yet somehow managed not to (at the theatre). Of course, we’re getting to the cinema more often these days as they’ve figured out how to make the world’s best (and messiest) funnel cakes there – but we digress. The film we’re reviewing today is Apollo 18, otherwise known as “How to go to the Moon without anyone really knowing about it.”

The moon - it's rocky, cold and filled with pesky spiders

Apollo 18 is a found footage movie – which is code for they were too cheap to hire a cinematographer. Of course, we were somewhat perplexed as to how most of the footage could have been found considering most of the film blew up with the hapless astronauts who obviously needed more practice with orbital docking – but we’ll get to that later.

The movie begins with an interesting premise – namely that it seemed odd that the Apollo program was cancelled before sending the last three scheduled missions. All rockets had already been built and delivered – if you ever happen to drive south on I-65 through Huntsville AL, you can see one of them at the rest stop there. So, with that rocket we’ve accounted for one cancelled mission anyway – an ignoble end to America’s most powerful rocket ever built. Why did Nixon cancel the Apollo program – the movie suggests a partial explanation in that Apollo 18 was used for a secret DoD mission. We have a few theories of our own as to why Nixon cancelled the program:

• He wanted to use the Apollo rockets to spy on the Democratic National Committee
• He wanted to use the rockets to drop bombs really, really fast on North Vietnam (catch them before they can move).
• He wanted to send hippies like John Lennon into lunar exile.
• He wanted to find new sources of minerals in order to bring back the gold standard.
• He wanted to use them as really large fireworks to impress the Chinese.

Perhaps we may never really know why he did it. But in the movie the idea goes something like this – the Ruskies (AKA Soviet Union) have managed to send up their own lunar mission which runs into some sort of strange phenomena and the US sends a team of sacrificial spacemen to film whatever is happening up there.

The moon is spooky enough w/o having Bjork associated with it…

Once on the moon, it’s poltergeist meets Apollo 13. We’ve got these weird moon critters who apparently have their own radio transmitters because they’re always on there making funny noises, we’ve got flying rocks which like to jump into spacesuits and our hero astronauts dropping things and generally trying to scare each other a lot. Funny, they forgot to bring the jumping cat with them and of course there is no attic or basement to go into so basically it’s all scary. Anyway, we view the movie as a a sort of training exercise of what not to do on moon missions.

The top 10 list of things not to do on the moon:

1. Agree to go on secret moon missions.
2. Drive a lunar rover without seat belts.
3. Listen to Space Oddity, Rocketman, Major Tom or anything by David Bowie / Ziggy Stardust while on the moon or in space.
4. Collect moon rocks that move on their own or otherwise seem to be alive.
5. Go down into a deep dark crater without a flashlight
6. Stand next to a deep dark moon crater (with your back turned towards it).
7. Bunk next to a guy who just said he had something crawling inside his helmet while he was moon-walking (and we don’t mean the Michael Jackson kind of moon walking).
8. Open the lunar module and let in the guy with visible moon spiders crawling in his helmet.
9. Follow mysterious footprints on the moon (in a place where no man has walked before).
10. Try to rendezvous two spacecraft traveling at 12,000 miles an hour in orbit without using the brakes.

So now we’ve discovered where the moon spiders came from…

We think these are great moon safety tips and are truly thankful to Apollo 18 for pointing them out. We had blast watching this – it was far out – the finale was explosive – cheap pun alert…

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The Abe Team

Four score and seven days ago a wave of movies was unleashed that shook this great nation to its core...
He's big, well pretty tall anyway. He's bad, killed more people than you can count, at least indirectly sort of. He's like 200 years old and he's back, with a vengeance, although actually he seemed like a mild mannered guy. He's Abe Lincoln and he's taking over Hollywood in 2012.

Last of the Mohicans meets the Civil War. An Irish Lincoln? No Comment

This year, Abraham Lincoln has been resurrected on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, when he declared the Emancipation Proclamation and boy does he means business. He's out there killing Vampires, hunting down Zombies, whipping them dirty rebs and even moderating presidential debates. He's a one man killin' machine; facing down our national demons one by one - many of them literally. We haven't had a chance to see all the movies yet - we missed the Vampire Killer one while on vacation and the new Stephen Spielberg film hasn't been released yet. 

I'm going to send your sparkly behinds back  to Hell!

We've heard rumors that Lincoln will also appear in these upcoming features:

• The Expendables 3 - As the"hatchet man," he'd take any crappy role for money
• The Terminator 5 - as the "Abenator" - he's back
• Friday the 13th (lost count) - as the Boy Scout Troop Leader - chopping wood and serial killers
• Taken 3 - Liam Neeson's replacement - killing everything in sight, no plot needed
• The A-Team - Bad Attitude "BA" Abe
• The Silence of the Lambs remake - Abenal the Cannibal - he'll eat your liver with a side of cornbread...
• The Avengers - Captain "Divided America" Abe 
• The Seven Samurai - Abeosan
• Star Wars - Abe Vader
• Twilight Mooning - Six-pack Abes
• Barney Miller - as Abe Vigoda, with a beard
• The Godfather - as Abe Vigoda, with a beard
• Scarface - "Say hello to my little ax"
• Two & Half Men - Charlie Sheen's even crazier uncle
• Abetar - need we say more...
• Braveheart 2 - Back from the Dead - as McAbe

Yes indeed, Abe's agent has been working overtime lately. One movie we did get a chance to see (because it was on Netflix already) was Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies.This was an Asylum feature - in other words it was made for cheap as a knock off of another movie - in this case the Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter movie we haven't seen yet. But even given its less than promising origins, this film was somewhat entertaining in its own deranged fashion.We got to meet Lincoln's harlot mistress and love child, young Teddy Roosevelt as a zombie fighting adolescent and plenty of distorted historical episodes. The zombie killing action was about average; although watching Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson fighting on the same side was kind of interesting, even though it looked throughout the film as though Stonewall's beard would either fall off or he'd drop dead suddenly from anorexia.

What's 6'4', wears a stovepipe hat and kicks Zombie ass?

There are parts to this 2012 Lincoln phenomenon we simply can't explain; such as:

1. Why are they picking all these foreign actors to play Lincoln?
2. Why do all actors who play Lincoln sound just like Hal Holbrook's impression of Mark Twain? (kind of like why do movie Nazis always speak British English).
3. Why didn't George Washington ever kill any Zombies or Vampires?

Perhaps we'll never explain it, but at least we can enjoy Lincoln's return to the limelight - although come to think of it, last time he was connected with the Theater, it didn't turn out so well.

Ok, this has nothing to do with Abe but it's a cool tune

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Photographing Fairies

Well, we really tried to come up with a better post title, but let's face it, this movie title simply can't be beaten. The movie we're talking about is called - yes - Photographing Fairies. And we found it on Netflix because just about the only movies they've got left in their library are obscure pics like this one from 1997. It stars a guy who seems to have a permanent sneer on his face (he could have been the British Elvis?) Toby Stephens. You might remember him from his villainous roles in the Bond flick, Die Another Day. He played the Korean guy who somehow turned himself into an Aryan supermodel. But enough about that. Hey speaking of Elvis, if you like great pizza you'll have to stop at the Velvet Elvis - located in the middle of nowhere Arizona - but we digress, back to the movie.

Here's the ultimate spoiler - the last scene of the movie where Toby meets his inner Fairy

One thing we can't fault this movie for is that it is indeed a story about a guy who photographs - yep you guessed it - fairies - and no this isn't about Gay Marriage. We're talking, honest God, winged mini-people flitting around in the English countryside just after World War 1. So anyway, this guy (the main character, we forgot his name because the fairies were more interesting) seems predisposed to pursuing strange hobbies after a career of photographing dead soldiers and a really bad vacation where he let his girlfriend fall into a bottomless crevasse somewhere at the top of Alps (we think we should have taken her to Florida instead).

At first he is skeptical, but then he convinced through a combination of photographic analysis and hallucinogenic drugs. The truth is out there - trust no one - he wants to believe, in fairies - Toby is the Fox Mulder of Fairies. But what are these little critters? Well, their FX budget seemed pretty limited - for example WWI ended being one scene with 4 dead guys and a bomb that dropped nearby. Anyway they didn't seem to have much more money for their computer graphics, so the winged tinker-bells looked a little bit like white smurfs or perhaps flying mini-zombies. We also get to meet Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Homes fame) as he seems to be Toby's go to expert on all things Fairy.

We have a theory about those wacky fairies - they're Extraterrestrials !

Ultimately though we learn very little about who or what these fairies really are from this movie and perhaps most disappointing of all, we don't even get to see any decent photographs of them. Right when we think we might get some pictures, Ben Kingsley, who sports a curly wig and the strangest workout clothes we've ever seen smashes up all the equipment before accidentally impaling himself on a tripod (luckily Toby insured all of the cameras). We're left with a tantalizing clue as something leaves Ben's mouth at the moment of his death, but it simply isn't clear whether its a Fairy escaping or terminally bad breath. Although they seem to be suggesting that the fairies are us - a disturbing conclusion considering the obvious innuendo we've been toying with throughout the post, we prefer our theory about British - ahem - all fairies.

The fairies of legend and the fairies at the heart of this relatively anemic plot are in fact an a capella group of extraterrestrials who look remarkably like Japanese teenage girls. Don't believe us, see the proof for yourself...

Actual Fairies captured in slow motion so we can see what they really look like

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