Granite State: Walt Goes Off to Die, Then Goes Off to Kill People

Granite State was Breaking Bad's line-up behind the eight ball.  Walter White is now on his way back to New Mexico for his final showdown with Jack and Todd, and the lives of Brock, Jesse, and the rest of the White family hang in the balance.

Last night's episode was by far the bleakest and slowest paced of any of the new season.  Walt's cancer appears to be back with a vengeance, and as he wastes away on a cot in a cabin in New Hampshire, he realizes that unless he can get his money to his family, all of his crimes have been for nothing.  But his family wants nothing to do with him, and, for a minute, Walt gives up, calling the police to give away his position.

But everything that appears in Breaking Bad is guaranteed to reappear, even if it takes whole seasons for that to happen (see: ricin, the bear with the missing eye, Ted Benecke, etc), and, true to form, Gretchen and Elliot made a final appearance in tonight's show.  Elliot's underestimation of Walt was the inciting action for the entire story, and, though we haven't seen the Schwartz family for four seasons, was partially the fuel for Walt's hubris and need to prove himself by cooking blue sky meth.  To see Elliot once again dismiss him on television was the motivation Walt needed to return to New Mexico; Walt has always been underestimated, always suspected of being incapable of properly caring for his family, and his pride requires him to upend these assumptions in the final days of his life.

So what is the unfinished business Walt still has in ABQ?  Since Saul has disappeared into hiding for good, Walt's left with no hit men, and will have to take on Jack and Todd himself.  We know from the flash-forwards at the beginning and midpoint of season 5 that Walt goes back to Albuquerque with a gun, a car, and some ricin.  We assume the gun is to kill Jack and Todd, and hopefully to free Jesse.  Brock, now an orphan, deserves some restoration at the hands of the man who nearly killed him.  We'll hope that one of Walt's final acts will be to reunite Brock and Jesse for good.  And of course, Walt has to get his money back and return it to his family, or find some other way of providing for them.  Then, seeing as Walt has no one left to surreptitiously kill, perhaps the vial of ricin is for his own suicide.

Walter, after all, owes his family a complete and final exit from their lives.  Before he does, though, he-- and the audience-- need some assurance that they will get the money Walt has called "their birthright," even if Walt Jr. and Holly have both rejected him as their father.  Gustavo Fring's monologue at the beginning of season three, that a man should provide for his family, regardless of whether he is respected or loved by them, seems apt in the final moments of the show.  This is the driving ethic behind all of Walt's actions thus far, and will be the morality at play in next weeks' season finale.

Argento's Dracula Looks Like It Was Shot in My Backyard

And edited on my laptop, no less.

Well, dang. I was pretty excited about the idea of a Dario Argento Dracula. I've always had a soft spot for the Coppola Dracula adaptation and the idea of an equally stylish, excessive, and, yes, violent director taking on the Dracula legend sounded like it could have some real promise. And with Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing? And not Keanu Reeves as Guy Who Gets Eaten By Sexy Vampies #1? Oh yes.

Mr. Reeves, looking confused or mildly disquieted at the sight of vampires.

Unfortunately, the trailer's live, and it's a letdown. The visual affects are on par with Birdemic and the announcement that the whole bloody affair is going to be in 3-D doesn't portend good things. Bad production values, anemic-looking acting, and a bird that looks like it was made with ClipArt mean that we will be holding out for better things from Carrie instead. Don't let us down, Kimberly Peirce.

Say It Ain't So, Jim

James Wan is done with horror, so he says. Understandable, seeing as Saw turns ten next year and Wan has directed pretty much nothing but horror ever since. Still, it seems a shame to watch him hang up his horror hat after 2013, wherein he turned in both his strongest film (The Conjuring) and his weakest (Insidious 2) in one hectic summer. The good news is that he's stayingi in the directing chair, where it'll be fun to watch him turn his prowess towards other genres and (hopefully one day?) applying his micro-budget auteur touch towards films outside of his comfort zones.

The bad news is that he's directing Fast and Furious 7 next, because as we are fond of saying on this site, even badasses gotta eat, too. We can only hope for a creepy doll in the driver's seat.

Look out, Vin Diesel!

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Well, Now We Know What Walt's Giant Gun Is For

Killing Nazis and saving Jesse, amiright?

What else are guns good for?

Seriously, though -- we know that Walt is going to end up in New Jersey, and he's not coming back until he comes to get his ricin cigarette and his machine gun. What happens to Skyler, Holly, Marie, and Walt Jr. is anyone's guess. Frankly, I wouldn't put it past Marie to use that mysterious untraceable poison against Skyler in revenge for Hank, but maybe I'm being melodramatic. And after such an unrelentingly grim episode (probably the darkest in the whole series). it's pretty clear that the Breaking Bad team is actually going to let Mr. White try to redeem himself.

Walt tried very, very hard to save the day in "Ozymandias" on a few occasions - And it was awful watching a monster like Walt realize that he just had enough human left in him to get his heart broken. He tried, and failed, to save Hank from execution and he tried, and succeeded, to free Skyler from the police by pretending to be even more of a manipulative monster than he really is. After sacrificing himself for his wife and son, and leaving Holly Jr. in the fire engine, it looks like Walt's finally learned how to be a real man from his brother-in-law. Too bad it's too late to save himself and his family.

It looks, then, that in these last two shows, Walt is going to return to ABQ once more to save Jesse from Todd. He'll be taking his ricin with him, too, so I'll  bet he takes Marie's advice and kills himself after the mission. What will happen to Skyler and Marie? I can't say for sure, but I worry that Marie is just enough of a loose cannon to take some serious revenge against her sister. She loves the kids too much to hurt them, but I worry that the blood isn't done flowing after Hank.

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"Derek" makes Louise too sad to function

I’m not a Ricky Gervais fan.  I find his standup more painful than funny, and while I realize that’s the point, it’s not the sort of comedy I enjoy watching.  Because of this, I wasn’t planning to watch Derek, Gervais’s new series about a middle-aged bachelor who’s possibly autistic and works in a nursing home.

Then I saw the poster.

LOOK AT IT.  LOOK AT IT AND FEEL THINGS.

Oh my goodness.  What is it about this poster?  Derek, the title character of this series, is a kind, hardworking, socially incompetent, loving, and everything you need to know about him can probably be gleaned from this poster.  He is awkward.  He wears Fair Isle sweaters.  His jaw protrudes.  He lives a simple, unrewarded life that is entirely characterized by his loving devotion to the elderly patients residing in his retirement home.  Are you still looking at this poster?  The way you feel right now is the way you’ll feel while watching the show: inexplicably, excruciatingly sad but still weirdly intrigued.

I have a tendency to get sucked into comedy shows I don’t find particularly funny, such as Parks and Recreation, simply because I’m enthralled by the characters.  This is why I watched the first three episodes of Derek.  Derek’s moral code is simple: be kind, because it’s more important to be kind than to be clever or good-looking, and the other lonely, odd people he works with are surprisingly supportive of his worldview.  His coworkers, who are more aware of the “smallness” of their lives and seem to feel the loneliness of their occupation more deeply than Derek, treat him with kindness, and speak with admiration of his character.  In the world of television, where everyone is sexy, and success is defined by style and money, this dynamic of homely people loving and caring for homely people is oddly subversive and unfamiliar, and was enough to hold my attention.

Surprisingly, given the show’s writer and star, Derek does tend toward schmaltz, which grows tiresome and overblown.  The supporting casts’ laudatory speeches about Derek tend toward hagiography.  A lot of characters deliver lines that are variations of “Derek is the best human I have ever met in my life.”  The show’s soundtrack is a loose collection of songs composed for Piano for Elevators (citation needed), and it wafts over montages of old people doing sad, old people things, like playing cards, napping, and having their hair brushed.  Yes, nursing homes can be sad, lonely places, but these scenes of sad music and mundane living excessively highlight the saintliness of the cast.  Derek borders on an updated version of the “noble savage” archetype; his mental handicap gives him an innocence and kindness that is ennobling, but vaguely condescending.

That said, I’m recommending Derek with reservation.  It’s an interesting, well-done character study, though not particularly funny and not particularly subtle.  Basically, if you want to wallow in unspeakable, inarticulable sadness for seven hours, then we have the pick for you.

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J.J. Abrams' New Project is... A Book?

A book? Really, a book? That trailer was for a book?

Not pictured: books.

I mean, that's cool and everything. I don't have anything against books. I love books -- good ones, at least, and I don't have any reason yet to think that J. J. Abrams can write a really good book. No one goes to see Star Trek for the dialogue. And what's with making a trailer for a literary project? I know it's a growing phenomenon and everything, but who and what exactly are you supposed to show in a book trailer? Who was that guy stumbling around in the surf? J.J. Abrams?

Granted, the last time we got a super mysterious Abrams trailer, it turned out to be Cloverfield, so maybe Abrams just gets off on letdowns.

If you want to read Abrams' book, here's the news about it. We'll hold out for Star Wars. 

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Fear and Loathing and Pirates of the Caribbean

Well, it looks like gun-shy Disney is the first to shy away from the Cinemapocalypse of 2015. Since there are over 20 movies coming out in 2015 with a budget of over $200 mil., it's fixing to be a bloodbath between the major studios, and Disney's been the first to blink. The fifth Pirates, then, will be joining us in 2016.

The official reason for the delay is "issues with the script." I'm inclined to guess that other issues include "issues with Jerry Bruckheimer," "issues with Johnny Depp," "issues with The Lone Ranger," "issues that the American public won't watch quirky Depp performances indefinitely," and "issues that they've already reduced the budget of Pirates 5 after Lone Ranger tanked."

I refer all curious Disney executives who are inexplicably on this blog to check out this handy little chart I made about Pirates movies and their success.

Or you could bank on this never getting old, as you're inclined to do.

Nicolas Cage is Going To Be In a Remake of Left Behind

I repeat: Nicolas Cage is going to be in a remake of Left Behind.

Details here. I am starting to suspect that Mr. Cage is playing an extended practical joke on the nation by playing the most ridiculous parts he can find. I can't wait to see him when the horse-sized locusts of Revelation ch. 9 show up. "NOT THE HORSE SIZED LOCUSTS! NOT THE HORSE SIZED LOCUSTS! AHHHHHHHH!"

He's slated for the lead... in the book that character's an airline pilot, but keep your fingers crossed that in the movie it's Jesus.

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Louise is just not that stressed out over last night's Breaking Bad

This is my face during the last three minutes of last night's Breaking Bad episode:

And this is me about five minutes later:

Yup.  As soon as the Breaking Bad shootout-a-thon faded to black, the yellow lab and I were able sleep comfortably, with no nightmares about Jesse or Hank getting killed by a bunch of white supremacists.  Why?  Because this is Breaking Bad we're talking about, and this show is too well-written for my two favorite characters to die this anticlimactically.

Allow me to explain.  In the final moments of last night's episode, Walt gives Uncle Jack and Todd the coordinates for his hidden money, all in an attempt to kill Jesse, but calls the hit off at the last minute when Jesse has arrived with the DEA. Jack and his trusty gang of white supremacists all show up anyway, because no one tells the white supremacists what to do, I guess, and a massive shootout between them, Hank, and Gomez ensues.

Sure, Hank and Gomez are outnumbered.  But a showdown between Hank and Walt has been foreshadowed since Breaking Bad's pilot episode, and Uncle Jack has only been a character for a handful of episodes.  Likewise, Jesse's power over Walt has been steadily increasing for five seasons; even last night, it was Jesse, not the DEA, who brilliantly engineered the sting that forced Walt to give his position away.  With the possible exception of Skyler, Hank and Jesse are more ruined by Walt's duplicity than any other characters in the show, and they will deserve a final confrontation with him, not just the goons he's hired.  Both of them will survive this firefight, perhaps saved by the tribal police, as was teased in this episode, and Jesse will hang on to the final episode of the series.

For me, the biggest takeaway from the firefight is that Jesse is ready to die.  As soon as the shootout begins, Jesse considers giving himself up, because he knows Jack and Todd have come for him.  Some have speculated the season finale is named Felina for the Marty Robbins's song "El Paso," in which a man who has murdered dies for a woman he loves named Felina.  Call me conspiratorial, but with Brock and Andrea returning in this episode, I strongly suspect Jesse will make it to the season finale to protect and die for them.

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What's going to depress the hell out of us when Breaking Bad ends?

It might be True Detective, a forthcoming HBO series starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey.

You can watch the trailer here.  I've been really impressed by McConaughey's performances in Bernie, Killer Joe, and Mud-- basically everything he's done since he stopped picking movies with names like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past-- and if The Wolf of Wall Street's trailer is any indication he's got another great movie coming out this Oscar season.  I've got a lot of faith in HBO and Detective's two lead actors, so this is a new series I'm really looking forward to.

If nothing else, watch it to see McConaughey's orchestral quality humming.

It's All Fun and Games Until Redneck Skinheads Start Firing Semiautomatic Handguns

Well, it looks like we got our answer to the question about whether or not Walt actually cares about Jesse -- "yes, but not as much as he loves himself."

Last night was mostly a slow burner with the notable exception of the last psychotic thirty seconds, but among the many standout scenes was Walt wrestling with himself as he finally orders the hit on Jesse. He's at pains to make sure that Jesse's death will be quick and easy - but of course, he's not at pains enough to call the whole thing off, even as Todd and co. demand their price. Heisenberg will cook again - maybe. Everything's up for grabs after the end, including who will be joining us for the next episode.

Maybe we'll also have fewer long shots of bald men glowering at each other in the desert.

Jesse and Hank, meanwhile, was Heisenberging for the force of good last night all over the place. True to Saul's warnings, Jesse's pretty bright when you put him in a bind, and with the help of Hank he's able to a) dodge Todd's first attempted hit and b) actually get Walt to give away the money and get himself arrested in the desert. I had mixed feelings, actually, watching Walt get handcuffed in the desert. On one hand it was satisfying to watch Hank finally beat Walt and read him his Miranda rights, but on the other hand, it would have been profoundly disappointing to watch Walt spend his life in prison. I want him to burn out a bit more spectacularly than that.

Also, there's no way you can fire that many bullets and have everyone walk away. Who's it gonna be who dies first? Hank? Gomez? Todd? Todd's Nazi uncle? Even Jesse?

I'm going to be out of town next weekend so if anyone ruins the ending of Ozymandias, I will murder you in your beds. Sleep tight.

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OH COME ON

Really? REALLY?

There's talks for a sequel to World War Z?

Apparently, there are rumbles that World War Z will become a trilogy. We're not gonna get our hopes up but maybe this time they will try adapting the actual book. And if they try that, we are holding out for a twelve hour Ken Burns style PBS miniseries with low production values, faked reenactments of historical moments in the Zombie War, talking heads and history professors giving interviews, long pan shots of photographs, and a multi-tape VHS release.

Like this, but make every other soldier a zombie. Yes. Yeeeeeeeeessssssss...

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Deep Fried Molestation: Beth Hated Compliance

Compliance is about a nineteen-year-old fast food worker who is sexually abused under her manager's supervision because a guy who calls the restaraunt gets his kicks by pretending to be a police officer and urging the manager and other employees to perform a body-cavity-search-and-then-some on said fast-food worker. It is based on a true story.

You will not like Compliance at all. That is the kindest thing I can say about it.

The good news about Compliance is that it isn’t exploitative. It doesn’t enjoy or expect you to get any pleasure at all out of the sustained sexual humiliation of its starlet Dreama Walker, a grueling ordeal which takes up the majority of the film’s running time. The bad news about Compliance, then, is twofold: first, it is about the sustained sexual humiliation of Dreama Walker, and second, it is not a movie you will get any pleasure out of. In other words, this isn’t exactly a film you recommend to friends and loved ones..

That’s not to say that I would never recommend difficult movies to friends and families. I can think of dozens of once-is-enough movies I’ve passed on to others over the years, and the plain truth is that Compliance just isn’t one of those movies. Alongside the squirm-inducing imagery of Walker’s torment, this movie also features fatally inept plotting, character motivations that strain credulity, and general left-footedness in scripting and staging the events. It's impossible to make the arch of this story suspenseful or interesting. As soon as the mysterious voice on the phone starts suggesting that the manager (Ann Dowd) personally strip search her own employee instead of taking the girl to a police station, we know that this man is not a police officer. The only question that remains is 1) how long is it going to take this manager to realize that this man is not a police officer and 2) how ugly will this ordeal  will get in the meantime.

Compliance, then, is an hour and a half of watching abuse get worse and worse at the hands of increasingly gullible people. After the ruse is up, there is no more plot left to prop the story up. Everyone stands around looking shocked, there are rumors of a lawsuit, and the movie ends.

Interspersed with awful scenes of the girl's humiliations are mournful long shots of boiling deep-fat fryers and greasy sinks, as though we're supposed to be disgusted not only by sexual assault but also by the concept of fast food in general. It seems like a case of misplaced priorities, but then again, maybe I like Chick-Fil-A too much.

This movie was heartily acclaimed when it played at Sundance and I can't imagine why. Possibly because it's based on a true story and because it's a finger-wagging warning about listening to authority. I don't know. I'm gonna go get some Chick-Fil-A.

That'll make it better.

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We'll Just Keep Telling You When More American Horror Story Teasers Show Up

By Beth's count we were supposed to get another one with a hovering girl and "House of the Rising Sun." Instead we got this teaser about some poor gal decidedly not hovering and hanging out six feet under.

So someone gets... resurrected? Buried alive? 

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Jared Harris Has to Eat Too

Maybe I just take this personally because I've been nursing a years-long crush on Jared Harris (I have an accent-and-waistcoat fetish) but it's been pretty grim watching Harris take not only roles in what look to be stupid movies, but also the stupidest roles available in said movies. He was already in last week's widely panned The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and he's also posed to be in next year's sand-and-sandal epic Pompeii (watch the astoundingly derivative trailer here) as a snobby antagonist senator.

So he's basically signed up to be the third-string villain in a Marvel movie.

Now we find out that he's going to be in the remake of Poltergeist, as the ubiquitous paranormal expert who appears, then halts the pace of, just about every PG-13 piece of studio Hollywood horror I can think of. The third-act paranormal researcher gumming up American horror movies is already a trope I can't stand, but this is tied up with a trope I hate even more: the respectable British actor with genuine talent who, for reasons only the American subconscious can explain, plays a bit part of either generic educated eccentric or historical figure, is as generic as the soundstage he's sitting on, collects a paycheck, and leaves.

I'm already writing off the Poltergeist remake after looking at the folks behind it. The producers involved are already practiced veterans of mass-produced, forgettable horror movies (The Grudge, The Strangers, and The Possession were all their fault). The exception in the bunch is Sam Raimi, who's still on my hit list after a bleak 2013. He's also bringing along his scriptwriter David Lindsay, who wrote Oz the Great and Powerful. Because the script of Oz was so memorable.

I know Mr. Harris has a mortgage and I don't doubt that these big-studio roles pay better than parts in smaller, meatier movies -- but come on, buddy, make like your dad and be a star. It's been too long since I've seen Lane Bryce beat up Pete Campbell, struggle with his friendship and crush on married Joan Harris, and ultimately succumb to the pressure of his own pride and guilt. Come on, Jared. Be in a movie I'll like.

Rise to the occasion, you sweaty British badass.

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Here's a new, totally not suggestive poster for AHS.

If only this show was as consistently creepy, creative, and effective as its marketing.

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Nerd Vindication: 50 Shades Fans Are Even Worse than the Batman Set

It's been fun being a diehard Batman fan and laughing at the Ben Affleck/Batman panic. However, I already have a chip on my shoulder about  Fifty Shades of Gray (Fifty Shades is rivaled only by Twilight for brazenly spitting in the face of literature), so it's nice to see that the hard core Fifty Shades crowd is even more of a discredit to humanity than the Batman folks are.

As proof positive, I submit this Variety article wherein a group of fans have created a change.org petition (is this going to start becoming change.org's bread and butter?) to cast Matt Bomer and Alex Bledel in the leads of the 2014 movie.

I'm not going to give you the link to the petition because I'm afraid you freaks might actually sign it, but if you're so inclined to google this I promise that reading this will be the highlight of your morning. For one thing, the petition writers are apparently oblivious about the casting process and seem to think that the actors are basically Sims. Does anyone know if Bomer and Bledel are otherwise occupied with other projects? Or maybe they aren't interested in the part? Maybe they don't particularly like each other? These are actual human beings who can choose, seek out, or reject jobs for their own reasons. You can't just draft them like soldiers and make them appear in your movie.

Furthermore, it's hard to beat the extreme outrage and waxing determination these people are exhibiting as they go about the task of recasting bondage porn. Comments range from the strangely inspirational ("We can do anything, guys! Let's make our voice heard!"), the sidetracked ("Bomer was only rejected because he's gay!") to the laden with inexplicable portmanteaus ("I'm completely Graysessed!").

Apparently I had completely underestimated how badly America wanted to see Rory Gilmore tied up and spanked while delivering cheesy dialogue. Is there such thing as a cheesy dialogue fetish? That would explain a lot about Fifty Shades. Y'all are sick.

Sick, sick, sick.

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The Lead Actress in "50 Shades" Is Younger than Beth and Louise

Well, not much younger, at least. This is deeply disconcerting to us, though, as this seems to indicate that we are, in fact, now old.

Let the record show that neither Beth nor Louise has ever read Fifty Shades of Grey, except out loud to the other one, with alcohol, laughing hysterically. We fancy ourselves as rather literary ladies, even if we're old ones.

The Breaking Bad Murder Chart

Help for the perplexed: who wants who dead in Breaking Bad and why errbody's gonna die.

Wild cards include Lydia, who just wants money, apparently, plus potential civilian casualties like Walt Jr. and Holly. Also, Hank is excluded from wanting people dead because he seems to be more interested in wanting people in prison.

Everyone is Going to Get Murdered

Oh boy. Ohhhhhh boy. We are fixin' to have us a murder party here on Breaking Bad. 

Pictured: A Breaking Bad murder party

Everyone, and I mean everyone, on Breaking Bad is now ready to shed blood. And that means blood is going to be shed, in gallons. The questions is just who, by whom, and when. We've always known that Walt was willing to kill, but for the first time he's now ready to do in his own partner, Jesse. Skyler is fine with killing Jesse and doesn't even think it's the worse thing they've done. Hank was happy to let Walt murder Jesse for the videocamera, and, most disconcerting of all, Marie is thinking of doing in Walt herself.

With all these characters suddenly getting pushed to their limits, it's safe to say that with four episodes down and four to go, the trigger has been pulled, the die is in the air, and we're ready for a serious Shakespeare-esque denouement. Marie's scenes in particular seem to be setting us up for a major disaster. She's thinking of using an untraceable poison to off Walt, and since Hank now knows about the ricin cigarette, it's only a matter of time until Marie discovers ricin herself. Maybe we'll get a Hamlet scene where Marie tries to poison Walt, only to accidentally poison Skyler, Walt Jr., or even Holly?

Either way, someone's gonna get Ricined. 

Furthermore, Jesse's announced plans to get Walt "where he really lives." Where is that? Walt's family? It seems a little cold for Jesse to target Walt's wife and kids, especially since he was so horrified that Walt would harm an innocent kid himself. What's more, if Jesse is going to work with Hank (which he doesn't seem particularly keen on, but he may have a lot of options), Hank isn't going to let Jesse set fires, kill women, or steal money. Not yet, at any rate. We'll see what happens to Marie.

The reemergence of loose cannon Todd is also disconcerting. Walt's bringing him on to finish off Jesse, but we already know Todd is pretty casual about collateral damage. The deaths are going to start soon -- probably not next week, but maybe the week after -- and I'm ready to bet that once the heads start rolling, they'll be heard to stop.

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Fun with Jerks: Why Other People's Pain Is Hilarious

Sometimes it's fun to watch awful people suffer. In movies, at least. In real life it's no fun at all but on the screen it's hilarious.

Sometimes.

As case studies, I submit two black comedies: one the recently-released apocalypse comedy (one of four this year, actually) It's a Disaster and the other Diablo Cody's most tolerable movie to date, 2011's Young Adult. Both feature good writing, solid performances, reprehensible behavior, tons of despair, and, yes, truly despicable characters for the leading roles.

One of these movies is funny.


For those of you unfamiliar with this little indie gem, It's a Disaster is about four couples meeting up for their monthly couples' brunch, a ritual none of them seem to look forward to and a few of them actively despise. On the guest list is Tracy (Julia Stiles) and her new(set) boyfriend, Glen (David Cross). While Glen struggles to mesh his own awkward self into this group of garden-variety, brittle suburban sociopaths (who are also, apparently, insatiable cheaters), a massive terrorist attack in nearby New York City isolates the group from the outside world. Trapped inside with only hours to live before they succumb to the grisly symptoms of nerve gas, the group struggles to come to terms with their impending deaths and make the most of their last moments, mostly through orgies and meth. If this scenario sounds like a barrel of laughs, I'm afraid you're almost as sick as I am.

Young Adult, a bit more widely known than Disaster but not nearly as well known as Cody's nerve-grating Juno, is about a former high school beauty queen Mavis (Charlize Theron) who goes back to her rural hometown to reconnect with her high school sweetheart. The one wrinkle in Mavis' plan is that Mavis' ex Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has already married another lady and has an infant daughter. Completely unfazed by this discovery, Mavis sets out to destroy her ex's marriage, win her man back, and regain her status as queen bee in her hometown. Oh yeah, and she's an unemployed alcoholic and she sleeps with a guy played by Patton Oswalt whose, uh, plumbing doesn't work because he was the victim of a particularly brutal hate crime. And it's a comedy.

Yes, yes, it's very sad. Don't worry, though, this is as low as the camera ever pans.

No one is getting out of the above scenarios with destroying a couple of lives, or at the very least, going out on a sour note once nerve gas has already destroyed what was left of their lives. But the first movie, Disaster, is significantly funnier than the second, because while both movies feature deeply unlikeable people, it's much, much funnier to watch terrible people punish each other rather than take it out on everyone else.

Although David Cross' character is at least a little sympathetic -- he keeps his head and tries to comfort characters who are scared and panicking -- most of the characters in Disaster are selfish jerks. They're punishing each other with their petty, narcissistic actions as well as getting punished in return, and it's as funny and satisfying as hell. It's funny to watch these people bicker and argue while, outside, the bodies of their neighbors get eaten by vultures, because we think they deserve it. They're mean-spirited, immature, shallow, and, hilarious, so watching them go out on a bad note feels like vindication. They're going to die from nerve gas, but it's funny because we think they have it coming.

Beth and Louise fully endorse the deaths of all these people.

Young Adult, on the other hand, still features strong dialogue and performances, but because it's such an amoral film it's not as satisfying. Mavis is in a downward spiral of alcoholism and depression, but she's taking everyone down wit her. And "everyone," in this case, includes her fundamentally good friends and neighbors, who seem to want nothing but the best for her. She ruins special occasions, embarrasses herself and her ex by flirting openly and publicly with him, and blows off the attention of the only people who seem to have any genuine compassion for her.

An unlikable heroine (or even a morally reprehensible but sympathetic one, as Mavis occasionally can

be) isn't necessarily a fatal flaw in a film. But the problem is that Diablo Cody, who penned this script, doesn't seem to understand how rotten Mavis can be -- especially compared to the other characters. Buddy and his wife are happily married with a beautiful daughter, and Patton Oswalt's character Matt is capable of far more kindness and sensitivity than Mavis ever shows. What is puzzling, though, is that Cody apparently agrees with Mavis, in that Mavis is better than everyone around her. In a late, triumphant monologue in the movie, Mavis "discovers" that everyone in her hometown is fat and uneducated, while Mavis is beautiful, lives in the city, and publishes books. Mavis can then do better than her ex, because she is in a class above him. Never mind that Buddy has a good family, good job, good life, and good heart. Mavis is superior because looks like Charlize Theron and has a college degree.

The moral universe of It's a Disaster, then - lousy people being lousy to other lousy people - allows it to be funnier than Young Adult - lousy people preying on decent people while the screenwriter remains oblivious to all the lousiness. If you're going to have fun with jerks on Netflix tonight -- and that's the best kind of fun, really -- it's more fun to watch jerks be jerks and die rather than be jerks and get vindicated.

So give It's a Disaster a few hours. It'll be more fun than couples' brunch, I'm sure.

For more Beth and Louise, follow us on Twitter at @BandLHateMovies or subscribe to the podcast. Give us a rating and leave a comment on iTunes!

The Cronenberg Crawl: Being Stuck in Traffic With Naked Robert Pattinson Is No Fun Edition

Cosmopolis is a movie about how much it sucks to be bored, passionless, and cold, even when you’re on top of the world. That’s cool and everything, but I don’t go to the movies to not give a damn.

Robert Pattinson, not giving a damn.

Robert Pattinson is well-known for playing bloodless pillars built of strong chins and ennui. He’s mostly dead in Twilight but here he’s all dead here, so, as Billy Crystal would say, the only thing useful to be done with him at this point is to go through his pockets for loose change, not cast him in another movie. But here he is in Cosmopolis, in his limo, where he’s made a lot of money in the... money business (these movies always feature twenty-something billionaires with no discernible skills, which has me wondering why I’m writing this review in a studio apartment with no air conditioning and not from an office made of cocaine bricks). At the beginning of the movie, he declares that he needs a haircut, from a barber shop on the other side of Manhattan. Then, very slowly, in terrible traffic, he makes his way through Manhattan, interacting with a variety of odd characters, hearing in alarming little bursts that someone is trying to kill him and he is slowly losing his fortune. It’s a bad day in the money business, apparently. They talk about yen a lot in this movie but I didn’t really listen because damn, I hate math.

Robert Pattinson, still not giving a damn. 

Anyway, most of the movie takes place in Robert Pattinson’s limo, because the president is in town, a rapper has just died and the traffic is awful. Or, as this pretentious asshole of a movie puts it, “We need a haircut.” That’s Pattinson’s line. He speaks in the royal plural in this movie. Why? Because Don Delillo says so, that’s why. “You will hit traffic that speaks in quarter inches,” says Pattinson’s driver. Hang on a second -- traffic doesn’t speak. Is “speak” the word that Pattinson, Dellilo, and Cronenberg are looking for? Apparently it is, because the lines only spiral down frantically from there. I was a creative writing major in college (see preceding line about studio apartment and no air conditioning) and I heard some terrible dialogue spewed in undergrad workshops. This movie talks like the kid who wrote the worst dialogue in your fiction workshop, but only after you bought him too many drinks on the night that the other partners in his polyamorous group relationship voted him out, and several hours into his depression bender you got stuck listening him philosophize at the most overpriced bar in town bar while he tried to smoke an unlit cigarette. This movie talks like that guy. The dialogue goes nowhere, chases its tail, makes weird allusions, picks up threads, traces abstract thoughts, and abandons them quickly.

We get, for example, to see characters talk about holes. Here is the scene.

Character A: "Holes are interesting. There are books about holes."

Character B: "There are books about shit."

Is there a context in which this dialogue might be snappy and interesting? I doubt it. It definitely isn’t in this movie. And there are lines that sound smart at first listen but really aren’t, like when a character contemptuously refers to “Judeo-Christian jogging.” Judeo-Christian jogging, as opposed to -- what, secular-humanist jogging? There are lines that clip along at a brisk, breezy pace until one character utters such a dud that you have the sudden queasy sensation that the entire script stepped in a pile of dog turds.

Pattinson: “How old are you? I’m interested.”

Other guy: “How old? Forty-one.”

Pattinson: “Hm. A prime number.”

Other guy: “But not an interesting one.”

Did you hear the squish? It was a cool moment, when we see that Pattinson is so caught up in numbers that the first thing he notices about this man’s age is the fact that forty-one has no divisors. And then it’s... not an interesting prime number. Why not? What does Cronenberg have against forty-one? Is there something about forty-three I should know?

But worst of all are the characters who talk like no one you have ever met nor like anyone who has ever lived. There are dozens of examples. Pattinson’s wife calmly informs him that he “reek(s) of sexual discharge.” We learn that the “logical extension of business is murder,” which is a logic that I am not familiar with, but this is not my movie. A doctor tells us that Pattinson’s prostate is asymmetrical, which is a fact that both has massive symbolic significance and is something that every character in the movie knows and brings up repeatedly. Most obnoxious of all is a female character who monologues in what sounds like the comments on a philosophy blog if you back-translated them on Babelfish. “People will not die. Isn't this the creed of the new culture? People will be absorbed in streams of information. I know nothing about this. Computers will die. They're dying in their present form. They're just about dead as distinct units. A box, a screen, a keyboard, are melting into the texture of everyday life. Is this not true?”

The dialogue sounds like jamming knitting needles in your ears, the characters are as bloodless as slugs, people you don’t care about keep getting shot in the head, and there is an extended motif of dead rats that is apparently important but I only remembered when I rewatched the trailer. There is nothing to get worked up about in this movie. 

Not even Robert Pattinson's prostate exam.