comment #1

BurmaShave says ...

I've never been more sick of a character in the run-up to a film than Hit-Girl. Spare me.

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

Also if you really think these people "don't count and don't matter" you are in for an interesting awakening in 9 months.

comment #3

Michael says ...

giving voice to concerns of people who don't count and don't matter.

The NYPD takes this same attitude about the people living in wide swaths of the city.

comment #4

Rich S. says ...

The theater I where I worked had an entire reel of red-band trailers we showed during employee previews. The mainstream studio ones were crap, with just a couple of swear words.

The grade-z independents, however, were awesome. The trailers for the Andy Sideris canon were especially well-received.

comment #5

LexG says ...

Burma...

Yup. Fortunately for once there were enough pressing matters on the table in '08 that the "Washington vs Hollywood" scrutiny would've seemed the lame lip service that it always is.

But with all the grassroots conservative movements AND liberal government oversight tendencies in high gear, it's probably time for another bipartisan, clueless series of hearings where old white men who haven't been to a multiplex in decades start talking out their ass about film, TV and videogame violence. See Tipper and the PMRC, Paul Simon in the late '80s, the Beavis and Butthead trials of '93, Dole Taking On Tarantino in '96, and the MPAA issue coming up in '00.

Thanks to this stupid fucking movie, we could probably get another annoying round of that shit, no doubt with Palin or Lieberman front and center, and for three months everyone in town has to pretend they're cleaning up their act, until something substantive comes along and we can go back to worrying about shit that actually

comment #6

matt cousens says ...

This day rules.

comment #7

Eloi Manning says ...

Chloe Moretz's acting style should be censored.

comment #8

LexG says ...

Long as I'm off on a rant here:

Thanks to the magic of HBO, by the time I was NINE OR TEN YEARS OLD, I had seen: The Shining, Halloween, The Fog, Alien, BODY HEAT, Animal House, Caddyshack, American Werewolf In London, Nighthawks, Looker, Conan the Barbarian, Road Warrior, Stripes, Porky's, Friday the 13th 1 and 2, Bustin' Loose, Wolfen, and The Godfather. By 13 I was watching Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Deliverance, Officer and a Gentleman, Dawn of the Dead, etc.

NEWSFLASH, MOVIE MOM: Seeing all those movies at an "impressionable age" didn't make me violence, or aggressive, or a perverted sex criminal. It made me MORE CREATIVE.

Kids SHOULD be exposed to these things instead of coddled. And lest you think I'm some Tarantino-esque early film geek who "knew the difference because I was smarter about film from a young age," EVERY KID IN CLASS would come in the next day in 5th and 6th grade talking about the tits in Animal House when Bluto's watching out the window; Come in RAVING about Deer Hunter or some ultraviolent horror or war film, whooping it up with glee at the garnage and tits, quoting all the choice lines. This was literally EVERY KID I knew at age 10. And to the best of my knowledge, none of those guys went on to be any worse the wear for having seen adult material.

Again, when it comes to kids, Americans are GIANT PUSSIES. Your kid can handle it. I did.

comment #9

matt cousens says ...

I can't wait for this movie.

comment #10

George Prager says ...

"Thanks to the magic of HBO, by the time I was NINE OR TEN YEARS OLD, I had seen: The Shining, Halloween, The Fog, Alien, BODY HEAT, Animal House, Caddyshack, American Werewolf In London, Nighthawks, Looker, Conan the Barbarian, Road Warrior, Stripes, Porky's, Friday the 13th 1 and 2, Bustin' Loose, Wolfen, and The Godfather. By 13 I was watching Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Deliverance, Officer and a Gentleman, Dawn of the Dead, etc."

The funniest title in there is LOOKER. Haha.
Seriously, did any of those movies (except for THE SHINING..and TAXI DRIVER, sort of..) star little kids?

comment #11

matt cousens says ...

Ok, so it's the The Professional 2.0.

comment #12

Rich S. says ...

"Seriously, did any of those movies (except for THE SHINING..and TAXI DRIVER, sort of..) star little kids?"

The Road Warrior had one of the greatest kids in the history of motion pictures. Remember the boomerang?

comment #13

Eloi Manning says ...

There was a moral panic about Home Alone when I was a kid. Parents worried that we'd all copy Macauley Culkin and booby-trap the house.

comment #14

Rich S. says ...

The biggest adult hand-wringing movie of my youth was The Bad News Bears. So, of course, we couldn't wait to see it.

comment #15

LexG says ...

Hey, LOOKER was PG, but it had tons of awesome nudity and SMOKING-hot chicks.

And those awesome guns.

comment #16

George Prager says ...

Yes THE BAD NEWS BEARS was awesome, but no sex talk and the only kid who committed a violent act was Brandon Cruz, but the shock of that was neutralized by Vic Morrow.

And, yes, LexG, LOOKER was a four-boner classic. Susan Dey was awesome in it. Where's the remake?

comment #17

matt cousens says ...

35 years after Bad News Bears, i think we're overdue for more sex talk and violence from kids.

comment #18

matt cousens says ...

Because, of course there's been none since...

comment #19

Colin says ...

I don't like this movie, but if it offends people at belief.net good for Kick-Ass.

comment #20

George Prager says ...

If you look at Nell Minow's blog, she gives SHUTTER ISLAND a B+, so it's not like she's a rube. And her top 12 most inspiring movies of the decade is pretty good as well. I think I would trust her tastes more than, say.. Stephanie Zacharek or Armond White.

comment #21

TL says ...

Why are you singling out Nell Minnow? From your links, she doesn't seem to have been involved at all until the reporter at the Times asked her for a quote. (Also, FWIW, according to the article she's a shareholder activist, which are generally pretty liberal people and actively hated by corporate-types.)

comment #22

Colin says ...

The most disappointing thing about all of this is Moretz is in the Let the Right One In remake as a co-lead.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

" It's extremely curious to see a piece in a world-class newspaper giving voice to concerns of people who don't count and don't matter."

Sounds like something Ayn Rand would've said.

comment #24

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"Seeing all those movies at an "impressionable age" didn't make me violence, or aggressive, or a perverted sex criminal."

Last one is semi-debatable, given your Dakota Fanning posts. I keed. Good rant. I saw Aliens on video when I was about 8 years old. Could I handle it? Not really. That didn't stop it from making one of the most awesome movie-watching experiences of my life, though.

comment #25

Rusty Never Sleeps says ...

Wells, you're a consistently self-pitying (re: talkbackers), ethnicity-baiting, conceited, arrogant, small-minded urban-supremacist knucklehead putz. All the ass-reaming you've received and hopefully will receive more of in the future is fully deserved.

And LexG, your self-assessment as to what has or has not warped you in your youth and until today, is an example of the classic unreliable narrator. Not that you don't have some humorous moments, which Wells never does, but I'm glad you're not MY neighbor.

comment #26

Josh Massey says ...

I have no problems with Chloe Moritz's dialogue. I have a lot of problems with Chloe Moritz.

comment #27

joefilm1 says ...

BurmaShave do you mean Christmas? You're a few months off.

comment #28

Thunderballs says ...

The only thing anyone should be offended by is how awful the film is, and it is awful.

comment #29

Anath White says ...

I hold no brief for Nell Minow, Jeff, but she does have more standing than you ascribe to her in your column today. She's an attorney (U of Chicago) and Sarah Lawrence grad, whose sister is the Dean of Harvard Law School. Her dad Newton coined the enduring phrase "vast wasteland" when he chaired the FCC. Agree or disagree with her POV, but she's no rube.

comment #30

Sams says ...

Brooks Barnes writes some of the worst pieces to appear in the NY Times.

comment #31

LexG says ...

Annasophia Robb > Chloe Mortiz.

And goes without saying, but Robb or especially DAKOTA would slay in that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN remake, which COULDN'T be any worse than the original. Wells couldn't be more right in ignoring that overhyped, boring Twilight ripoff. STICK WITH THE REAL THING.

FANNING POWER.

DAKOTA. BOW.

comment #32

BurmaShave says ...

Lex that's too insane to even let slide as part of your schtick. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN was one of the better films of the decade and TWILIGHT never once entered my head when watching it. They're not even on the same plane.

And Wells, you've really stepped in it with this. Attacked a seemingly knowledgeable woman for no reason. My favorite thing about this is the idea that her opinions have no value but I'm supposed to give a shit what someone like Karina Longworth thinks.

comment #33

LexG says ...

"They're not even on the same plane."

Yeah, one sucks, and the other stars the most alluring woman in the history of the universe.

I'll concede that I saw it on that shitty DVD with the incomplete dialogue, and I'll give it props for being the rare OVERlit horror movie (something I prefer to subterranean murk), but I didn't get it AT ALL, hated the kids, thought all the stuff with the fringe apartment dwellers and that old man SUCKED; Wasn't scary, wasn't entertaining, it just LAYS there. I felt NO emotion whatsoever in watching it. Whereas with Twilight I cry along at my MUSE and her longings and her sensitivity.

Tonight I am going to watch Cannibal Holocaust for the first time ever via Netflix while consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

I really wish I had a cute 18-year-old romper chick in a little outfit to watch it along with me and put her head on my shoulder, then later we'll listen to SWEET FREEDOM on the iPod and she can sleep in the spare room because she's demure. YEP.

comment #34

BurmaShave says ...

Just odd. I would respectfully submit that someday you should make time for it again.

comment #35

BurmaShave says ...

Also there are plenty of non-Bella Kristen Stewart movies now in which to admire her. I think it's time to admit how much they suck.

comment #36

DeeZee says ...

Lex: None of my friends remember the R-rated stuff from Conan when they were kids.

matt: Does Battle Royale count?

Kane: I saw Robocop 2 in theaters when I was 10, scared the shit out of me the way the drug-dealin' kid was shot up and that stuff with the brain transplant.

Josh: I have a problem with how they're trying to turn her into a Britney Spears for pedos.

comment #37

DeeZee says ...

Lex: Just don't eat anything when you watch that fucker.

comment #38

LexG says ...

I have a Bella T-shirt.

I sleep in it.

comment #39

Gordn27 says ...

Lex - people like it because it's beautifully shot, it has a generally creepy atmosphere, and it seems unconventional but still has really conventional Hollywoody setpieces.

comment #40

Gordn27 says ...

"None of my friends remember the R-rated stuff from Conan when they were kids. "

That must've been an exhaustive survey to take.

comment #41

LexG says ...

There were a couple of different cuts of Conan, if I recall.

HBO used to show it at 115 minutes, for some reason, in 1984. It was still definitely an R-rated cut that they'd show only at night, and had at least some of the nudity. This is opposed to Excalibur, which had a PG-rated cut that would sometimes air on HBO during the day.

Conan usually clocks in at 126. The DVD, which I HATE because the expansion of the last scenes destroys the Nietzchean-fascism of Conan ROLLING SOLO and has the chick off to the side RUINING IT, is 129 minutes.

comment #42

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"I really wish I had a cute 18-year-old romper chick in a little outfit to watch it along with me and put her head on my shoulder, then later we'll listen to SWEET FREEDOM on the iPod and she can sleep in the spare room because she's demure. YEP."

Very strange...look what working with porn all day has done to you. Spare room??

comment #43

THE MovieBob says ...

Is it even worth mentioning that Hit Girl is SUPPOSED to bother you? It wasn't subtle in Millar's (overpraised, but what else is new..) comics, and it looks even less-so in live action: The whole point with this character is to make you feel skeeved out and uncomfortable about the fetishism of the "superheroine" thing by putting it on a ten year-old girl. If you're repulsed by it, it's doing it's job.

comment #44

BurmaShave says ...

Bob, my only problem with that no doubt accurate summation of the character is that a lot of the problem stems from Moretz seeming to be a shit actress.

comment #45

Nell Minow says ...

For the record: My name is spelled Nell Minow. The online NY Times article does have links to both the red and green band trailers.

And your solipsistic and reductionist view that whatever worked for you (let's assume for the moment that your self-assessment is correct and that it did) should apply to everyone else is its own best rebuttal. The derisive laughter of young teenagers is not something I worry about either. Yeah, I get it. You're a badass. And so your way of doing things totally rocks. But even that argument, thin as it is, misses the point.

I expect that you share my concern that the MPAA is inconsistent and unhelpful. In this particular case, as I said, the studios benefit from hypocrisy in pretending that there is a system to protect underage kids from material they themselves categorize as inappropriate and at the same time making it available.

I am looking forward to the movie. I think it looks great. But that doesn't mean that I think that children should see the red band trailer (even you speak of young teens watching it, not littler kids) or that parents should be deprived of the opportunity to decide what their kids see or that studios and the MPAA should get away with pretending one thing and doing another.

comment #46

KRush says ...

Props to Nell for bringing it. I have an 11-year old son and we've watched On the Waterfront and Dr. Strangelove and a host of other great movies. But not the Godfather (except the one scene that Robert Towne wrote), and not Pulp Fiction or a bunch of other great movies. Gratuitous swearing or subtly misogynist nudity is not something I want my son to be dealing with yet. It's perfectly fine if you're an adult and can sort it out. But give me a chance to break the kid into the real world.

comment #47

lipranzer says ...

Ms. Minow,

You give a a reasoned response (although I'm not looking forward to the movie; I haven't liked the movies Matthew Vaughn has directed to date), and I am as anti-MPAA as anyone. However, all due respect, if parents don't want their kids, or if you don't want your kids, to see the "red-band" trailers, then I think it's up to you as parents to police your own children.

comment #48

BoomerSooner says ...

Um, Wells, why do you matter any more than these people?

comment #49

DeeZee says ...

Gordon: Yeah, unlike me, you must really be the center of attention if you're hanging out here.

Bob: I dunno. The vibe I'm getting from the drawing is totally different from the vibe I'm getting from the movie version of the character. http://api.ning.com/files/CvXKE3xekzqIteCrRztOCij3EbP2zxJGQlveKhRcKaIv1x7FI00P66PtTIFXM5v69p0s6ioaQ2WdVpOlM7hyQObf7nwaC8Iu/hitgirl.bmp

comment #50

Gordn27 says ...

"Yeah, unlike me, you must really be the center of attention if you're hanging out here. "

Most of the time I spend on here, I'm getting paid, because I have a job. Most of the time you spend on here, you could be looking for a job. Pretty big difference, right there.

Though, I admit, right now, this is off-hours, sure.

comment #51

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

Jeff did not ignore LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. I specifically recall him praising it, because he gave me credit for shouting-out to it first.

comment #52

joncro says ...

Lex,

surprised you haven't commented on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPSebznyg8

comment #53

Outdoor Clothing says ...

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comment #54

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Pretty sure he already did, joncro...

comment #55

George Prager says ...

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

comment #56

Scott Mendelson says ...

In my opinion, the story here is not Nell Minnow's perfectly understandable objections (that I don't entirely agree with), but the fact that the New York Times (and Brook Barnes yet again) has basically taken the protests of one knowledgeable and intelligent person and turned it into a finger-wagging trend story.

The irony is that this alleged CapAlert-type moralist is actually looking forward to the film more than many of the people on this board (certainly more so than me). Come what may, she knows the difference between making movies for adults and marketing adult movies to kids. That's a big distinction that too few in her field seem to understand.

comment #57

Gonzalo says ...

Who cares? Is just a movie.

comment #58

BurmaShave says ...

I'm glad she corrected you on her name almost a day ago and it's still not fixed. Stay classy.

comment #59

EdHavens says ...

I miss red band trailers in theatres.

comment #60

JaySmack says ...

Jeff Wells, you KILL me! You rant about other people being prudish about this guaranteed turd of a flick but after your "giving the middle finger to common sense" diatribe you still FAIL to tell us anything good about this movie.
And yes it is vulgar and a real turn off to have pre-teens talking like drunken rock stars off their meds. You may think it's cute but as you can see you are alone.

And that seems to be a problem that the Kick-Ass chorus suffers from. They don't want anyone saying anything bad about this shitball of a movie, yet they don't give anyone anything good to say.

Prurient garbage like Kick-Ass belongs in a flick like "Epic Movie/Disaster Movie/ Scary Movie etc," where retarded teens --or their adult counterparts-- can giggle idiotically to themselves and waddle out of the theater raving, "And the part where the little girl says 'cock!' That's the greatest thing I've EVER seen!"

And you actually wonder why movies are pure shit these days?

comment #61

HarryMoseby says ...

Various folks have rendered judgement on Kick-Ass to the effect that it "sucks" or is a "turd"/"shitball", but I am unclear if any of these people have seen it or are responding to the trailer. At times it takes no more than a trailer/TV spot/or just a print ad for me to cast judgement on a movie, so no problem there, but it looks good to me and I've enjoyed M. Vaughn's prior work, so I, too, am looking forward to it. I have a problem with this Mark Miller guy, though, as, having enjoyed Wanted, the movie, I was given a copy of the graphic comic book, and it was, indeed, a shitball; yes, it really sucked. Whatever you thought of the movie, it was a silk purse compared to the tattered and bloody piece of stinking meat served up by Mister M.M. It was so bad I'd like to make this an ad hominem attack, but I don't know what he looks like.
Still he crests on this wave of percieved talent, and yet the original work was bitter, crass, and sophomoric. Chances are the same applies here, but Matthew V. is a talent, and that's why I'm looking forward to this movie.

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comment #68

german shorthaired pointer says ...

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