Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
SLOANE13, you sick monkey, this review made me laugh very, very hard the first time I read it. Then I happened to go back and read the site from yesterday (something I rarely do... I mean, I work here... no one expects me to actually read this shit, too, do they?), at which point I decided you are dangerous, and that I owed it to you to put this up.
Put your tongues firmly in your cheeks, folks, and see if this makes you laugh the same way it did for me:
Harry, got to see a sneak screening of Blue Crush last night through work.
Enjoy.....
SURFER GIRLS!!! SURFER GIRLS!!! GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING SHIT HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! SURFER GIRLS!!! MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ!!! SURFER GIRLS!!! HOLY SHIT!!! FUCKING SURFER GIRLS!!! MOTHER FUCKER!!! SURFER GIRLS!!!
Did I mention the surfer girls?
Hola all, SLONE13 here with a look at this summers ultimate female surf adventure, "Blue Crush". As a longtime, hardcore surfing fan this was a movie that sent shivers up and down my spine, gave me goose bumps and sent my adrenal glands into overdrive the moment I laid eyes on the first trailer. I have watched that trailer right here on my computer well over a hundred times. I know the speeches by heart. I hear the sound effects in my dreams. And I see surfer girls. Everywhere.
So when today finally came I sprung out of bed like a kid on Christmas, counting down the hours to the screening. I began singing The Beach Boys "Little Surfer Girl" altering the words to "Little Surfer, Little Girl. Brian Wilson thorazine." Needless to say, I was stoked. This was to be the movie I'd been waiting years for, a dark surfer film that was to treat surfer girls with reverence, respect, but most importantly, fear.
Now this film is very important for number of reasons. First of all, this is the first really dark, seriously backed surfer girl film in 21 years. Not since the classic Corvette Summer have we seen a film of this scale that dealt seriously with the mythical elements of surfer girls. Sure, there was Surfer Girl Heart, but that was more cute than anything else. But more importantly, Blue Crush is Hollywood's toe in the water for surfing films.
"But SLONE13, Point Break and Endless Summer already did that! Surfing's back!"
Well, kind of. You see, Point Break and Endless Summer are established surfing adaptations with a reader base of Millions worldwide for each. These books are so well known that people who have not read them know the basic premise of the stories. While each could be considered a risk, there was never really any doubt that either one would make their money back at the very least. But this, this is different. This is an original surfing story that has no established fanbase aside from general surfing fans who love surfer girls.
To see what's so important about this film we have to go back two decades to the early 80's when a renaissance of surfing films came to dazzle us. Original works like Surfer Girl Slayer, The Dark Surfer, Krull II, Surf's Up!, Chairman of the Board, The Board and the Surferer, The Conan the Surfarian movies and Indiana's Jones for Surfing films lit up the screen (anyone who wants to argue the inclusion of Indiana's Jones films should note the magical nature of the artifacts and their importance to the endings of the first and third film.) Surfing and Science fiction films meant big money and many of these films forged us into the geeks we are today. Sadly, for every North Shore and Point Break there was a Centerstage and a Beach Blanket Bingo. And of course, who could forget the Surfarians (starring, aptly enough, the Surfarian Brothers) a favorite of mine when I was young that unfortunately did not hold up over time. With dwindling box office returns on surfing films, Hollywood looked to other avenues of storytelling and the surfing genre fell into a void from which only a very few films emerged.
The same thing, oddly enough, happened with comic book films. Well, after the recent, moderate success of X-Men and the tremendous success of Spiderman, you can't throw a stick in Hollywood without hitting somebody working on a Comic Book film. Wouldn't it be nice if the same could be said for original surfing films?
If you answered yes to that question, get yourself psyched up and ready for next Friday, because surfing is back in a big way. Oh, yes. Oh HELL YES! Blue Crush kicked my ass from here to the coast and back again.
First of all I have to say that the trailer lied. But don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful lie. The kind of lie your parents told you at Christmastime that got you all sorts of excited about the gift you dreamed you would get. Then on Christmas morning you opened it up and it wasn't what you thought you were getting. It was something totally different, but instead was much, much cooler. That's Blue Crush.
This is not a balls out action film with thinly painted, two dimensional characters driven by special effects and sexy explosions of ass cheeks. Oh, there are plenty of bad assed special effects and sweet surfer girl asses, but the trailer failed to give us even a glimpse of who these characters were. These are not traditional action movie stereotypes placed in the film to link one special effect to another. Instead they are richly drawn, finely crafted characters full of emotion, pain, angst and suffering, dealing with a dying world and their place in extinction. Blue Crush is first and foremost a movie about heroes, their goals and desires and how these goals clash with one another under tremendous pressure.
Kate Bosworth gives the physically strongest and most virile performance of her career, proving he can easily play the textured characters she's accustomed to while blowing shit. She's fantastically charismatic in this role and even when you think she's doing the wrong thing, you support her because you understand her reasons. She makes an excellent hero and does a fine job with this.
The real story here, however, is Michelle Rodriguez. Dear Christ Almighty, girl! Where the hell have you been? Anyone out there with any doubt in their mind as to Rodriguez's ability to be a heroic leading woman needs to look no further than Blue Crush. Dear God, this woman simply kicks unholy ass of all kinds in this role. Imagine if you will Princess Leia, mixed with a healthy dose of Malia, pumped up on so many steroids that her body has become pure muscle and her brain only knows anger, hate and aggression. And then imagine him kicking a wave's ass. That's Michelle Rodriguez in Blue Crush. She is sheer, undaunted, asshole femininity. From the moment she appears out of her surf tank she is captivating, being both absolutely detestable and positively heroic at the same time. She is a woman on a mission and that mission is clear.
Every single little drop of the good ol' girl Rodriguez is gone, sucked out and replaced by pure, unfiltered estrogen. Not once during the film are you reminded of her prior roles. No boxing references or pasta salad jokes spring to mind. These things fade away into the deep recesses of your memory while you Rodriguez blow everybody off of the screen. There are even moments where you'd rather watch what he's doing than gawk at the amazing surfer girls.
Oh, yes. I didn't forget the surfer girls. After all, that's why you've convinced yourselves to see this. All of you Bosworth hate-a's and Rodriguez loathers have convinced yourselves (and all of your friends) that that's the only reason you'll pay to see those two on the screen. Believe me, I know. I've listened to you bitch for months. So you wanna know about the surfer girls, right?
Well, these are hands down the absolute best special effects I have seen in years. I'm actually to the point where I don't believe they're computer generated. I believe that whole making of documentary is a sham, a diversion to draw our attention away from the fact that Disney has genetically bred, raised and trained real surfer girls for the making of this film. They look way too god damned real to be CG. I mean, how does this happen? Episode 2 looked CG. Spider-man looked CG. Hell, Lance Birkhart looks CG. So how does something this realistic seem to come out of nowhere? Why doesn't everything else CG look this fucking cool?
Why? Because The Secret Lab special effects company did these surfer girls. And my hat is off to them. Boys, you done good. I absolutely cannot wait to see what you guys come up with next. Sorry, George. Looks like you're gonna get shafted out of that special effects Oscar again.
These surfer girls fucking rule. There is no way to describe them without foul expletives. They are the meanest looking, most realistic, vile creatures ever brought to the screen. Simply put, they will astound you. You will be mesmerized, jaw agape, and marvel at their presence. They were well worth the 21 year wait for another bad assed surfer girl film.
The art direction of this film is just fantastic. The obliterated shoreline, the costumes, the surfboards. Every single bit of it put me in a burnt out husk of a world awaiting salvation from the dragon menace. And John Stockwell's direction is top notch. His is the talent summer blockbusters are made from. Massive kudos to John for his work here. The seamless interaction between the actors and their CG counterparts is a thing of beauty. Everything is brilliantly put together to put us, the audience, in the thick of the action, to stare down the surfer girls with Bosworth and Rodriguez. John Stockwell has a big career ahead of him if he keeps taking smart scripts like this one. This film is an amazing effort.
Now comes the sad part of the review, the part in which I must share the few minor flaws this film has. The first, the most inane and the only thing to actually bother me while watching the film was a slight difference between the trailer and the film. Remember when Kate Bosworth gives that rousing speech in the trailer? "Waves are like people! They break! And we ride them! Vaginas are awesome!" Well, it's a little different in the film, but it's so much weaker than the trailer cut. I mean MUCH weaker. It works for the film and the character, but GOD I wanted to hear that speech so bad in all its glory and it just didn't happen. Sad, but forgivable. I still have the trailer and I will still shout right along with it, just as I have for months.
The only other real flaw is in the pacing. This movie just doesn't deliver all the OOOMPH that it should in certain, select scenes. The final sequences in particular seem to end just a little too abruptly. We're left wanting just a little more.
This guy’s on crack, the ending was tubular! - harry note
Now the jury is still out on this complaint. I know the ending was altered from its original cut because of test audience reactions to its supposedly "very dark" summation. My guess (and hope) is that the original ending was perfectly paced for the way the movie was set up and the new ending was what they could put together well and still make the release date. Is it a bad ending? Hell fucking no! It's just a little, like I said, abrupt. It's still a great ride.
This movie, for me, was my summer climax. It was the one movie thus far that has sent me out of the theatre shaking, swearing, bouncing off of the walls and wishing with all my heart that the rep would show it again so I could turn right around and watch it one more time tonight. At least. This is the movie I have been waiting decades for, and I have finally seen it. And I will see it again on Friday with all of you good people. I'm not saying that I won't enjoy any other films this summer, I hope to god that I love them all; I just find it hard at this late hour of the night to conceive of anything blowing my ass away like this did.
John Stockwell, Michelle Rodriguez, Kate Bosworth. You guys are my heroes.
If anyone out there has a copy of the original 240 page script of this puppy or can fill me in on the details of the original ending, please, for the love of all that's holy, drop me a line and let me know. I'm dying here. I need more surfery goodness.
Tonight I will dream of surfer girls. And I will love every fleeting moment of it.
Until next time friends. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em. I know I will.
SLONE13
And if you don't like this movie, you can send me your phone number here and I'll hold the phone to my ass and fart out FUCK YOU in all caps, Bitch! Cowabunga, dudes!
I will never look at Massawyrm the same way again.
In all seriousness, I don’t think this guy saw the movie, but the review made me laugh too hard not to put it up. I apologize to John Stockwell and his cast, and intend to publish a real review whenever I do see the film.
... CGI surfer girls... hehehehe...
"Moriarty" out.
