How do you want to die?

That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time. Being an overweight, out-of-shape Hispanic with a family history of Alzheimer’s, diabetes, mental illness and what I’m sure is a host of other surprises just waiting to be discovered as I continue to age, I have a pretty good idea already what the answer to my question is: slow and painfully.

If I had a choice, though, how would I want to bite the big one? And really, I suppose I do have a choice. I could always jump the gun and pick a fight with Big Bad Leroy Brown. Apparently that’d be a pretty reliable way of taking my destiny into my own hands and picking the time, place and method of my demise. As it goes, though, I don’t particularly have a desire to be pummeled to death by the fictional creation of the late Jim Croce. In fact, there are many more ways I would rather not go out than ways I’d be OK with dying. Naturally, right?

I’d rather not drown in my own vomit, be raped to death by Charlie Sheen, have my skull sat upon by an elephant or be sucked out a dime sized hole in a spaceship. It’s not that I fear a violent death, though. If I were in charge of things regarding life and death, I’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than shuffle off the mortal coil while sleeping in a rocking chair as my cataract-filled eyes flicker under heavy lids – remembering a long life spent petting kittens and giving lollypops to grandchildren.

When it comes to my death, I dream big. I want explosions, giant monsters or carnivorous alien conquistadores involved. In other words, I want Michael Bay to direct my demise.

I don’t want to qualify for a Darwin Award, though. Even though my exact thoughts about the afterlife are a little sketchy and I’m not sure if I’ll have the capacity to be embarrassed by my own death, I don’t want to be afraid to visit the local commissary up in heaven and hear the snickering of angels mocking the fact I was eaten by a bear because I forgot to wipe properly during a camping trip and the scent of my poo-smudged butt attracted a family of hungry grizzlies.

I want a death my ancestors can be proud of — a legend they can pass down throughout the ages either as a glorious aspiration for their own lives or a whispered cautionary tale about why it doesn’t pay to be so damn heroic all the time. I don’t care — either one will do.

Despite the near constant presence of choice in our lives, though, I fear destiny will probably have a bigger role to play in my eventual death than I could ever hope to possesses on my own. More so, I fear destiny has a very distinct plan for me post-death, too. When it comes right down to it, I’m just not end of the book material.

In post-apocalyptic stories such as The Stand or The Walking Dead, there are the chosen few whose stories drive the book forward. As they make their way to the end of the tale, they come across the less than fortunate masses whose bodies litter the ditches — providing atmosphere to another’s quest. I fear that even after a non-noteworthy death, I’ll just end up just being the tone-setter to another’s glorious adventure.

Whether my corpse is the puffed-up, horribly decayed body that falls out of a car and scares the lone survivor of a plague-ravaged metropolis as he searches a tunnel for supplies or mine is the tomb that an archeologist of note dumps his equipment on while he searches for buried treasure three graves down the way, I’m just destined to be a footnote in somebody else’s story.

I promise this, though; I’ll be the damn finest footnote you’ve ever seen.

Read more of my insane thoughts on life

Suffering from depression? Great!

1. Read through high school yearbooks — especially the places where friends wrote you personalized messages about just how far you were destined to go in life. Follow that with a good cry as you clip your name tag onto your brightly colored cotton polyester work uniform.
2. Lie in bed, listen to songs by The Hollies and reminisce over relationships that didn’t work out by reading the stash of love letters you still hide under your mattress. Quickly hide the letters when your shrew of a wife comes home and demands you stop dicking around and get dressed so the two of you can go to her ex-boyfriend’s funeral where she will publicly wallow in mourning.
3. Go through your cell phone and delete the numbers from friends you’ve lost touch with. Stare blankly at the two remaining numbers left in your phone’s address book before remembering your parents passed away last fall and their numbers should probably be deleted too.
4. Stare at your face in the mirror for three hours and mark the different ways the years have robbed you of your potential and poured your childhood dreams down the drain — but then remember your dreams can’t fit down the drain because it’s clogged with the hair that has fallen out of your head.
5. Slowly work your way to the bottom of a can of baked beans while you watch episodes of Family Matters from the complete series collection you bought using the insurance money you were given when your only child was crushed by a runaway horse at the rodeo. Wipe away the bean juice from your face that was left when you wiped away the tears that came moments earlier.
6. Clean out and organize your razor blade drawer.
7. Spend an hour staring blankly at the open iTunes window on your laptop as you attempt to make a mix CD. Work your way slowly through the paralyzing realization that no song by The Cure quite summarizes just how sad you are feeling right now.
8. Go through Facebook and look at how successful everybody you hated from high school has become.
9. Passively aggressively comment on your successful high school “friends”’ Facebook photos — remarking on how fat their children look and inquiring whether or not they’ve been diagnosed with child-onset diabetes yet. Then spend the next several minutes hurriedly erasing the comments — not wanting to come off as an asshole months before the 20th high school reunion but not realizing that Facebook has already sent an e-mail alerting your friend of your comment.
10. Sit in the corner of the room, wrapped in a Snuggie and wondering where all your childhood toys are now.
11. Drink your way through a bottle of wine given to you by your boss three weeks before you were laid off and count just how many pills come in a bottle of sleeping pills.
12. Google the names of the people who were hired for the dream job you once applied for but didn’t receive. When you discover their blog, take special note of the entry where they post just how much they hate their job and how it’s only a stepping stone in their planned career.
13. Visit the zoo alone on a Saturday morning and sit on a park bench eating pre-packaged nachos and drinking a liter of cola while you watch the surrounding families blissfully run from cage to cage. Shed a single tear as a mother glances you out of the corner of her eye and tightly pulls her child in closer — fearful that you may be a deadlier predator than any locked in a cage.
14. Give the inside of your oven a through cleaning.
15. Spend three hours sitting on a plastic chair in the layaway section of an inner-city Wal-Mart the week before Christmas. Listen carefully to the cries of children who will wake up to a roll of socks and a halved chocolate bar under their Christmas tree.
16. Count your good-fortune … and then count the good-fortune of your one neighbor down the street who has a pool, a personal humidor and is married to the weather girl from channel 37.
17. Walk through a nursing home on a Tuesday afternoon and stare into the pleading eyes of the elderly as they ask you to help them find the last, vanished segment in the 1000-piece puzzle they’ve just spent the last month of their life working on. As you leave, visit the orderly station where a puzzle piece is framed on the office wall — a trophy to the eternal victory of the young over the old.
18. Watch the big-screen adaptation of The Little Rascals and wonder to yourself just how many of the child actors are now trapped in loveless relationships or have overdosed on drugs. IMDB them to discover most of them ares still now far more successful, richer and attractive than you are.
19. Visit any comic book store and watch as a shopkeeper struggles to maintain a pleasant demeanor as he plays video games and lords over the children who visit his shop regularly but lack the money to actually buy anything — all distractions meant to keep his mind off of the crippling debt that threatens to bankrupt him.
20. Come up with a list of twenty really depressing things not to do when you’re suffering from crippling depression.

Read more of the insane crap that comes from my head

You wish your mom was like mine.

I love my mom. Not only did she (along with my dad) do a great job raising me and my two sisters, she has continued to be an active presence in my life after I’ve left home. Case in point: Over the last six months, she has not only humored my desire to construct costumes for events I’ve hosted at the Alamo Drafthouse, she’s jumped right in and made the projects her own.

Growing up, I was always one of the lucky kids when it came time for Halloween. While other parents would go out and buy their kid a cheap rubber mask or slab some grease paint on their face and call it a costume, my mom spent the weeks leading up to Halloween working on designer costumes for me and my sisters. And since I didn’t like to wear any type of make-up or face paint as a kid (I have bad memories of not being able to get werewolf fur off my face after a fall festival at my pre-school), she specialized in masks and costumes.

As a kid, I was everything from a Killer Tomato to Batman to Venom to Ghost Rider to Mike from The Blair Witch Project and all of those costumes were made from scratch. As you can see, I was a movie/comic geek from the start. My mom even found a creative solution when I wanted to be a werewolf for a different Halloween but didn’t want to glue fur onto my face again. Instead, she glued fake fur onto a hockey mask — allowing me to have my very own custom removable werewolf mask.

I wish I had pictures of more of those costumes. Once I can find some (I know they exist somewhere) I’ll update this blog.

One of the benefits of living close to my parents in the last few years has been my ability to tap into my mom’s creativity a lot more often than I was able to in college or the years immediately following. When I hosted a double feature screening of Best Worst Movie and Troll 2 at the Houston Alamo Drafthouse last August, I envisioned a wealth of costumes for the night. I had seen a live production of Everything is Terrible earlier in the month and I wanted to capture some of the comedy troupe’s magic. I wanted to do my own production and that meant troll (or goblin, as the case may be) costumes.

Since I didn’t have any way of making latex masks, I decided to do the next best thing – use paper mache. Turning to my mom for help, I put a layer of paper mache over three large balloons. I also used some plaster to help keep the masks sturdy. Since August is a busy time of the year for me at work, my mom volunteered to tackle the masks’ paint jobs. I left her with a copy of Troll 2 along with several pictures I had printed off the Internet. As I would go visit her, I grew more and more excited at the masks she was assembling.

She had taken the basic look of the goblins from Troll 2 but added her own artistic touch to them. Using material she had around the house, she gave the goblins a full set of hair, neck bibs, green-stained teeth and an evil glint in their felt eyes. They looked like the monsters of the movie but they also looked like something she could have come up with. It was like my mom was a musician doing a cover version of The Rolling Stones.

Big thanks to www.wonderbros.com for taking photos at the Alamo event.

Not only did she make the troll masks, she made me an almost exact replica of the outfit worn by Peter during the opening scene of Troll 2.

I don’t have any pictures (yet) but imagine a felt hat and a vegetable vest. Taken by the idea that the goblins of Troll 2 were vegetarians, my mom made the vest out of material that featured a selection of vegetables as its decorative pattern.

The costumes being a hit at the screening, I immediately went to work thinking up our next collaboration. I didn’t get another chance to work on a costume with her, though, until Halloween.

My friends Mandy and Cliff Holverson are a pair of Houston make-up artists. Every year they throw a Halloween party at their house. While my costume last year (of which my mom helped brainstorm) was kinda creative, it lacked a sort of oomph.

This year I was determined to come up with something more unique. For the last several months, I had my heart set on a Kuato costume from the film Total Recall. Every day I would look at the Tyler Stout / Mondo Tees Total Recall poster that hangs on my living room wall and my resolve would only grow. I imagined grand plans that involved robotics, voice chips and more paper mache. Unfortunately, time quickly passed and before I knew it I was a week away from the party without having even begun my costume.

Naturally, I turned to my mom for help. We brainstormed a bit and I left my parents’ home with an idea on how we were going to get the costume ready in a week. While I searched around for a plastic baby mask and a muscle t-shirt, my mom went to work constructing the body. The body is made out of panty hose stuffed with cotton. Veins are painted on and muscles formed with thread and glue. My mom, always attentive to details, even painted finger nails onto the mutant growth. I bought the baby mask and my mom touched it up with some paint, added eyes and sewed it onto the body she had made.

Since I couldn’t find a muscle shirt (I thought The Situation was supposed to be one of this year’s top costumes?), my mom actually painted one. She bought a pink shirt and added a full six-pack of muscles to it. You can’t really see them very well because Kuato ended up being sewed on right over the muscles but if you look carefully, you can still see the nipples my mom painted on. Who knew she apprenticed under Joel Schumacher.

The costume came out amazing. I borrowed an old army jacket to hide the fact I was wearing a pink shirt and enjoyed the compliments that came at the party. On the drive home, though, I realized I had wasted my good Halloween costume idea a week before Halloween. Pictures were already on Facebook and the cat was out of the bag. I was hosting a horror movie marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse on Halloween day and I needed something really creative that would surpass the accolades I had already received from my Kuato costume. I needed Sharktopus.

If you haven’t already been convinced my mom is beyond awesome, not only did she readily agree to help me build a Sharktopus costume within a week, she did it with glee.

Together with my dad, we brainstormed ways we could build a Sharktopus mask. I originally envisioned doing something similar to this hyena costume my mom helped me make when I was in high school.

We quickly settled on an easier tactic. I constructed a quick prototype of how the mask would work out using butcher paper and duct tape and we were off.

The costume would be made out of three parts. The first was a mask made up of grey vinyl and a thin white material. Using the butcher paper prototype as a pattern, we cut out the front of the mask out the white material and the back out of the grey vinyl. My mom sewed the two pieces together while I started working on the tentacles.

Four tentacles were made by taking pool noodles, cutting them in half and then sewing grey cloth coverings for them. Suction cups were made out of felt. My arms and legs formed the four remaining tentacles. For these tentacles’ suction cups, we used felt glued onto plastic furniture sliders.

By that point, the rough shape of the mask was in place. For the front, we cut a hole for me to peer out of and placed red mesh over the hole. Teeth were built out of foam and painted red. Felt eyes were glued onto the back of the mask and gills drawn on with sharpie. A fin was sewn/glued onto the back of my mask.

For the torso, I took a grey long-sleeved shirt (with suckers attached) and my mom painted a white belly onto the front. Grey flippers were made out of remaining pieces of vinyl and sewn onto the shoulders.

The last touch was suggested by my dad. I took some invisible wire and attached it to the tips of my two front tentacles. The other end of the wire was wrapped around my wrists so that when I moved my arms my tentacles would also move.

Her goblin costumes received compliments from the cast and crew of Best Worst Movie and Troll 2, she won a trophy for her Kuato costume and the Sharktopus suit was a hit at the Drafthouse on Halloween. Even still, my mom doesn’t quite get how popular her costumes are. I’m trying to convince her to go into business making costumes for movie geeks now that she’s retired from her life-long career as a nurse.

In the meantime, though, you can be sure I’ll be using her to build more costumes for upcoming Alamo events or just for the heck of it. I already have a great idea for a costume that combines two characters from two off-beat Christmas movies.

If you have any questions on how any of these costumes were made or would like to see additional pictures, just let me know.

Feel free to use any of these pictures but please give credit where credit is due. Or else I’ll sick Sharktopus on you.

Read more movie related posts

A Christmas poem

This November, while you are shifting through the huddled masses of frenzied shoppers — all of them beady-eyed and borderline dangerous in their search of a good shopping deal — just keep reminding yourself that it’s worth it.

Sure you may be risking life and limb as you engage in mortal combat with fellow bargain-hunters over who will grab the last three dollar toaster at Target, but at least you’ll be saving yourself a handful of cash — with your self-dignity being the only expense you can’t redeem a coupon for.

To assist you in your shopping adventure, I present a seasonal diversion: a Christmas poem celebrating the joy of materialism.

Enjoy.

Friends Don’t Buy Friends Full-Screen DVDs

A Christmas Poem by Robert Saucedo

Every Aggie down in Aggieland liked widescreen DVDs a lot …

Even more than country-music superstar Willie Nelson loves his pot.

This wasn’t true, though, for the Grinch who lived north of Northgate.

He saw enormous black bars on his television and was filled with hate.

Come Christmas Eve, at the market the Grinch stood.

Lord only knows, he was up to no good.

His cogs were a-turning, his mind scheming a scheme.

He bought for his friends DVDs fully full-screened.

He clutched in his hands pan-and-scan gifts.

Paying for the abominations, he let out a sniff.

“Bah humbug to letterbox,” he snarled with a sneer.

“On widescreen a pox,” he let go with a leer.

He purchased full-screen, despite the loss of detail and depth.

For such a massive mistake to make, one must be on crystal meth.

“My friends won’t care if half an intended shot is missing.”

For the director’s consent, he was not fishing.

Jerky movements mar a pan-and-scanned disk.

The loss of story info will indeed be missed.

Without widescreen, 45 percent of the visual is lost.

Those “two black bars” are well worth the cost.

Letterboxing a film gives viewers the original aspect ratio.

Full-screen must go the way of Billy Blanks, master of tai bo.

After one hour of widescreen watching, the bars are soon forgotten.

It’s easier than you think to ignore black bars, top and bottom.

Despite a smaller visual proportion, you see more of the frame.

Full-screen, my friends, is quite simply not the same.

None of this concerned the Grinch.

Ignoring valuable facts, for him, was a cinch.

Come Christmas morning, the Grinch’s pals woke to presents a-gleaming.

As they opened their gifts, two words stood a-screaming.

“Full Screen” was stamped on their DVDs’ labels,

Their viewing pleasures forever disabled.

“What about the original aspect ratio!” His friends let out a cry.

“You stole half of my movie,” his friends sobbed, as they dabbed at their eyes.

Friends don’t buy friends full-screen DVDs.

The reasons are even obvious to the birds and the bees.

Come Christmas time, take note as you shop:

Nobody likes movies that come from the box cropped.

I apologize for any trauma reading that poem may have given your Christmas spirit. Nobody said I was a poet.

Read more movie reviews.

Despite it’s single-digit score on Rotten Tomatoes, Post Grad is not a terrible movie. Trust me, I’ve seen terrible movies. No, Post Grad is just a terribly unmemorable cookie-cutter approximation of a movie.

Neither insulting in its awfulness nor worthy of anything deeper then a cursorily glance, the film is doomed to little more then a few more months spent being shown to disappointed tweens at the first and last slumber party hosted by that awkward lonely girl who sits in the back of the classroom sucking her own hair oblivious to the fact that the rest of her classmates mock her Lisa Frank folders.

But that destiny too will be taken from Post Grad when another similarly mediocre movie is pushed through the studio production cycle within the next year.

It’s a real shame too.

Post Grad is chock-full of great actors who, given a slightly less apathetic script, could have put together a movie that spoke of something deeper then the collection of The CW network melodramas that are stitched together in an attempt to spin a half-hearted movie out of straw.

Alexis Bledel stars as Ryden Malby, a recent college graduate who finds she needs to readjust her expectations after she has trouble landing a job.

Offering her emotional support as she blinks her bright blue eyes in frustration are Adam Davies, her loyal platonic non-gay friend played by Zach Gilford, and her wacky family of free-spirits that are played by Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, Bobby Coleman and Carol Burnett.

Rodrigo Santoro (notably missing the body makeup he used to play Xerxes in 300), J.K. Simmons, Craig Robinson, Fred Armisen and Demitri Martin all have small supporting roles in the film.

Not to sound snarky but director Vickey Jenson, who with this film makes the move from the world of directing animation, just can’t make the break from crafting a cartoon.

While I can certainly sympathize with how emotionally exhausting looking for a job after college can be, Post Grad chooses to gloss over that very interesting subject matter in favor of building a clichéd romantic comedy paint-by-numbers plot that audiences have seen a million times before.

In fact, the movie’s biggest fault is the fact that it has nothing new or interesting to say beyond its “young people have emotional stress too” theme.

As Adam, Friday Night Light’s Zach Gilford plays the unrequited lover, hoping to woo the affections right out underneath Ryden. Unfortunately for Adam, Ryden is much more interested in landing her dream job — that of an assistant editor at a publishing house.

SPOILER ALERT

That all changes, of course, when Adam gets tired of waiting for Ryden to notice him and moves to New York City. Ryden, who has finally just landed her dream job, then proceeds to quit her job, move across the country and chase after the boy she spent the entire movie spurring his advances. That’s right, girls! Careers are a fun hobby but nothing should get in the way of a future spent barefoot and in the kitchen. Ugh.

SPOILER ALERT OVER.

The movie trudges along, playing out predictable scenarios in a way that only those who have limited experiences with the art of moving pictures would be impressed by.

While there are a few half-smile worthy moments in the film, they come at the expense of schizophrenic plotting.

Ryden’s story is, at times, completely put on pause while the film takes leisurely vacations with her wacky family — showcasing admittedly cute sitcom-esque vignettes that have little to nothing to do with the actual plot.

On Blu-ray, the film certainly looks as good as can be expected. Available in the special features section is a collection of deleted and alternate scenes, a music video, life advice from the film’s stars, a few short featurettes that deal with life after college and a few interactive games that are as silly and shallow as the movie itself.

Post Grad, like I said above, is not a bad movie.

It will not hurt a person to watch it. But, if you have any inkling of desire to check the movie out for yourself, I advice you to hold your horses and just wait until that fateful day not too soon in the future where the film will be available by the hundreds at your local used DVD store — sold to the store by a lonely girl who sucks her hair and whose classmates won’t be tricked into attending anymore of her sleepovers again because she showed them Post Grad.

Robert Saucedo wants to know why anybody won’t come to his slumber parties. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2

There is no doubt in my mind that I could have gone my entire life without having seen Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and I would be none the worse off for it.

In fact, truth be told, up until a few weeks ago, I had completely forgotten that there was a sequel released to the 2003 Steve Martin comedy. More so, I only have vague memories of the original film.

But enough about how forgettable Martin’s film repertoire has been of late. I could spend 1,000 words poking fun at a man for whose work I still have fond, if obscured, memories for. Doing so, though, would break my heart.

Originally released in 2005, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 has recently been released on Blu-ray (odd, considering the fact that the original Cheaper by the Dozen is still exclusive to DVD).

For those who may have similar shaped holes in their memory when it comes to the Cheaper by the Dozen saga, the films follow the Baker family, a clan 15 members strong (including 12 kids and one son-in-law). As patriarch Tom Baker, Steve Martin and his wife Kate (Bonnie Hunt) must wrangle children who range in ages from early childhood to young adult. Among the actors who constitute the child side of the Baker clan are Piper Perabo, Tom Welling and Hilary Duff.

When Tom begins to feel his family drifting apart, he plots one last hurrah as a complete unit and books a summer vacation at a lake house for the entire family.

Once at the house, though, Tom encounters an old rival (Eugene Levy) who has done well for himself as of late and, spurred by mutual jealousy, the two pick up old habits again — prompting a war of the families.

Levy plays Jimmy Murtaugh, the father figure of a 10-member family unit including a trophy wife played by Carmen Electra, a daughter played by Jaime King and a son played by future wolfboy Taylor Lautner.

From there, the movie follows a pretty straight path towards mediocrity. The director, Adam Shankman (a man who is dangerously close to being labeled a hack) follows a strict recipe when it comes to crafting standard family friendly fair. There are pratfalls, cute animals, even cuter kids and plenty of parental/child conflict to last a very tedious ninety-plus minutes.

If you’ve seen one of Steve Martin’s family movies of the ‘00s, you’ve got the general gist for what to expect from Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

The large cast of actors trudge through their scenes — the younger kids obviously having a blast while the older actors let the occasional look of world-weariness and necessity for a paycheck slip through their masks.

As I patiently stared at the screen and waited for the movie to end, I couldn’t help but wonder who exactly would want to watch this movie?

Even my mom, a woman notorious for her taste for terrible films, would grow weary of Cheaper by the Dozen 2 by the halfway mark. The problem with the film is that it lies in that nebulous zone between bad movies and bad movies so bad they become good once again.

Not even enjoyable for its spectacular awfulness, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is just pure and simple fluff — as forgettable as it is uninviting.

While the image may look nice on Blu-ray, 1080p resolution can’t turn a bad movie into anything but. For those mysterious audience members who demanded the film come to Blu-ray, though, Fox has delivered a few special features to wrap upon this turd sandwich up in a tapeworm bow.

Showing this to an old person to distract them from the thought that one day soon they will die is the only reason I can imagine why someone would put this movie into their Blu-ray player.

An audio commentary from the director and a trio of featurettes should provide a few more hours of subterfuge for Grandma.

Robert Saucedo is full of subterfuge when it comes to dealing with grandparents. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

At the risk of treading the same ground as every other hack movie critic come this time in April, Kick-Ass is just plain kick ass.

I’m sorry, but there is just no better way to sum up the general attitude, atmosphere and execution of Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic book.

While liberties were had with the storyline and some changes are better executed then others, the movie, as a stand-alone project, succeeds in what it set out to do: tell an off-beat superhero story about a loser who finds fame and nookie after putting on a superhero costume and getting his ass kicked.

Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a high school geek who, in an attempt to provide meaning for his life, decides to become a superhero. Ordering a wet suit off the Internet and arming himself with a pair of batons, Dave takes to the streets as Kick-Ass — the world’s first official superhero (even if he doesn’t officially have superpowers).

Along for the journey are a trio of fellow vigilantes: Hit Girl, a cute-as-a-button pre-teen girl played by Chloe Moretz who will gladly rip your head off and show it to you; Big Daddy, a former cop and Hit Girl’s father played by Nic Cage in a weird amalgam of Greg Brady and Adam West’s Batman; and Red Mist, an even bigger dork then Lizewski with a dark past played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Like I mentioned above, the move takes massive liberties with the source material — especially in the film’s climax. Fortunately, much like Vaughn’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust managed to build upon a great book to make an amazing movie, the changes in Kick-Ass don’t stick out like a sore thumb and actually lead to a pretty satisfying ending — though I do miss one particular twist about Cage’s Big Daddy character that was left out of the movie.

If you are thinking of taking your kids to see the movie because of the colorful costumes and peppy tween superhero — think again! The movie is as violent as a Charles Manson slumber party and four-letter words are thrown around more then feces at a chimpanzee retirement home.

Kick-Ass is like a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Richard Donner — a big, sweeping epic film that’s not afraid to get down and dirty with blood, guts and dismemberment.

In one particularly QT-move, the soundtrack almost exclusively of a lot of pop songs and score music ripped straight from other films. Much like it does in Tarantino’s films, this musical choice helps to build a sense of familiarity with the subject matter and makes it easier for audiences to associate with the fantastical violence being perpetrated on screen by a 12-year-old girl with a butterfly knife. Moments where 3 Doors Down’s Kryptonite blends seamlessly into Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation help to create a pop culture pastiche that easily sells a world where a teenage kid can associate so much with fiction that he decides to become a four-color crime fighter.

The movie is a blast, through and through. Hopefully it will open big when it hits theaters on April 16. The buzz that will erupt around the movie after SXSW should help in that regard.

If you’re at SXSW this weekend, watch the movie. If not, brace yourself for a very long month until you get your own chance to have your ass kicked.

Category: Headliners
Director: Matthew Vaughan
Showtimes: Friday, March 12 at 7 PM at Paramount

Inside Pulse — Movies will be on the ground at SXSW! For live coverage from the event, follow Robert Saucedo and Travis Leamons on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500 and @skipkassidy.

The South by Southwest film festival will be held in Austin from March 12 through the 20th. For more information about attending the festival and the films being shown, visit www.sxsw.com/film.

Once you witness the majesty contained within the film’s all-to-fleeting 82 minutes, all other movies will diminish when seen in US:TR’s grandiose shadow.

This is the reason why movies are made.

Nah… I’m just bullshitting you.

Universal Soldier: The Return is one bad movie. The good news, though, is that it’s a bad movie that, under the right state of inebriation, can be a joy to watch.

I can’t say I’m much of a scholar when it comes to the fabled Universal Soldier franchise. Being a male child in the ‘90s, I was, of course, aware of the films’ existence and possibly, maybe watched one or two of the made-for-television sequels to the original 1992 film.

I vaguely remembered Universal Soldier: The Return being released in 1999 — mostly due to the Megadeth song Crush ‘Em, from the US:TR soundtrack, that played non-stop on the rock radio station of my hometown in the summer of ’99.

When a mix-up occurred and I was sent Universal Soldier: The Return instead of Universal Soldier: Regeneration, the recently released fourth sequel in the series, I decided to just go with the flow and watch the Blu-ray copy of Universal Soldier: The Return.

What little I knew about the series turned out to be just enough to understand the plot of Universal Soldier: The Return, which apparently ignored the two made-for-TV sequels that had come before.

Jean-Cluade Van Damme returns as Luc Deveraux, a Vietnam solder who, after being killed in combat, was resurrected as a computer chip-enhanced killing machine.

In The Return, Luc has forsaken his heritage as a cyborg and is now just an ordinary G.I. Joe, lending his expertise to the U.S. Government and helping them train and evaluate the new generation of universal solders.

These solders are supervised by the watchful robotic eye of S.E.T.H., a computer program with dreams of world conquest. When S.E.T.H., voiced by Michael Jai White, overhears news that the universal solder program is about to be shut down, he resorts to that old robot trick and kills his human masters and recruits an army of Universal Solders to take over the world.

Well, as you might of guessed, it’s up to the Muscles from Brussels to put a stop to S.E.T.H. and the cyborg corpses. Unfortunately for JCVD, S.E.T.H. has implanted his programming into the body of a genetically modified super soldier (also played by Jai White).

Universal Soldier: The Return is the type of bad movie that revels in its awfulness.

Full of bad lines, even worse plot contrivances and enough male body builder posturing to make happy any gay man or fan of wrestling (but really, what’s the difference?).

But before you think this movie is nothing more then shirtless muscle-bound dudes punching each other, there’s also a brief bar fight in a strip club. So if you’ve ever wanted to see a topless, big-breasted perform a high kick into a man’s head — this is the movie for you.

I can’t, in any right mind, recommend Universal Soldier: The Revenge to anybody with a taste for good movies. I can, though, whole-heartedly recommend the film to anybody and everyone who loves bad movies.

Unfortunately, the film’s Blu-ray is nothing to crow about. I’ve seen Blu-ray transfers of 40-year-old movies that look better then this fuzzy re-master of the 1999 action movie. The disc does come with a few featurettes: a five-minute making-of, a four-minute spot on Michael Jai White’s training regime and a 12-minute retrospective of JCVD’s career.

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in the last year and Universal Soldier: The Return was, without a doubt, one of the most fun.

It’s big and stupid in the kind of way that made me kind of see why pretty girls go for the dumb jocks in high school.

The film is ballsy in its awfulness — almost like it was trying to be the worst possible movie it could be.

Between JCVD’s drunken-slur-like delivery of lines (I know he has an accent but surely he doesn’t always sound like he’s just had a stroke) and Bill Goldberg’s cartoon-like role as Romeo, the Yosemite Sam of killer robot movies, US:TR is a lot of fun — in a bad way.

Robert Saucedo is the Yosemite Sam of bad movie fans. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

“AMERICAN DREAMZ” attempts to satirize America’s obsession for bland commercial drivel in lieu of real political issues. Unfortunately, writer and director Paul Weitz has created an hour and a half of more bland, commercial drivel. Pretty faces and mildly amusing performances help make this silly ensemble comedy easier to swallow, but biting observational humor this is not. “Dreamz” is political satire for dummies.

Hugh Grant plays Martin Tweed, the host of “American Dreamz,” a televised singing competition. A fountain of self-loathing and jerkitude, Tweed represents the other half of Grant’s acting range. While nobody has ever accused Grant of being a versatile actor, his role in “Dreamz” is a phone-in performance.

Mandy Moore plays Sally Kendoo, an ambitious Southern girl who fills the empty hole in her soul with dreams of superstardom. Used mostly for her celebrity status and singing ability, Moore’s performance may not be anything special, but at least she knows how to deliver a joke – kinda.

Utilizing the wide-eyed, good ol’ boy charm that made him semi-famous in the late ’90s, Chris Klein plays Sally’s punching bag of a boyfriend who is dragged along Sally’s rise to fame in order to capitalize on his injured Iraq-veteran status.

Meanwhile, Omer (Sam Golzari) is an inept terrorist who is transferred to America as a sleeper agent after bumbling through terrorist camp. Omer’s hidden dreams of Broadway music eventually get him noticed by Tweed’s production crew and earn him a spot on the new season of “American Dreamz.”

Omer’s interaction with his fellow terrorists are laugh-out-loud funny in their larger-than-life presentation of American stereotypes and assumptions of the Middle East. Using the classic “fish out of water” formula, Weitz creates spot-on situational comedy for Golzari to bounce off of Omer. From his overtly Americanized host family, of which Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo plays the matriarch, to the silliness transposed onto Omer’s terrorist superiors, the scenes featuring Omer would be considered instant classics on “Saturday Night Live.” This, though, is not “SNL.”

Rounding out the main cast is Dennis Quaid as President Staton, a clear reflection of President Bush. While Quaid does an admirable job channeling our current president, he isn’t given much to work with as far as material goes. Besides some cheap shots at the administration, there is nary an original joke made that hasn’t already been done to death by other more talented comedians. Willem Dafoe’s performance as the Cheney-esque Vice President Sutter suffers the same mistreatment. Dafoe throws himself into a character that isn’t given proper space to develop into anything larger then a simple caricature.

There is a real need for smart political satire in today’s world. Jon Stewart and “The Onion” consistently deliver edgy material that finds humor in the truth. It’s a real shame then that Paul Weitz, a genuinely talented filmmaker, could not produce something more special than cast-off opening monologue jokes with his bigger budget and supposedly more talented workforce. The movie does have its funny moments and isn’t a total waste of time, but watching it, one can’t help but wonder what could have been.

It’s October and that means it’s time for another Saw movie. This weekend, the fifth film in the ultra-violent torture-porn franchise is released in theaters — giving horror junkies an excuse to roll out of bed, shuffle past their vintage Faces of Death movie poster, pop a Monster Magnet cassette into the tape deck in their parent’s station wagon and head to the local theater in search of some blood and guts on the big screen.

The Saw movies as a whole might be an epic dissertation into the horrors of man’s soul, but I stopped watching after the second film, unable to get past the horrible acting and general misanthropic attitude — two things I got my fill of in high school.

It’s not coincidental, then, that the average audience member of a Saw film is more often then not barely able to grow peach fuzz on his chin. Unaware of the horrors of real, everyday life, the films’ teenaged disciples cling to the teachings of Jigsaw, the franchise’s murderous anti-hero, as hard as they cling to their belief that shopping at Hot Topic is edgy.

If Saw V isn’t worth the price of a ticket, though, how should those in need of a good scare get their blood pumping? Try these “horror” movies on for size.

* Requiem for a Dream — Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel of drug addiction is the perfect cure for a good day. The film, which chronicles the downfall of four different addicts, will leave audiences in need of a cold shower and a phone call from their mother. Lives are ruined and dreams shattered. Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly star as people whose addiction to drugs leads to the some of the worst possible outcomes imaginable.

* Happiness — Writer/Director Todd Solondz is a sick, sick man. Watching Happiness, his anthology of depravity, is an experience akin to spending the weekend with that creepy uncle of yours who always is inviting you to wrestle him, even though all he has on is boxer shorts. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker and Lara Flynn Boyle star as three deviants whose lives intersect. Baker’s character, a father who also is a pedophile, in particular has some of the most cringe-worthy scenes in celluloid history. I promise nobody will be able to sit still in their seats without flinching as Baker’s character explains to his son what being a pedophile means.

* Kids — Larry Clark’s 1995 exploration into urban youth is an eye-opener guaranteed to make viewers queasy. Staring a collection of mostly authentic children actors (including then-unkown Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson), the movie follows an HIV-positive teenage boy as he sets out to have sex with as many virgins as possible. Teenagers, if you thought your parents were tough before, let them watch this film and they will lock you in a dungeon until you are 33 years old.

Robert Saucedo warns those attempting a marathon of these three movies they they should stock up on hugs from teddy bears. Follow him on twitter @robsaucedo2500.