Get Ready, Movie Fans, It’s Shitember!
Every movie fan knows that summer movie season draws to a close sometime between the middle and end of August; I think Fright Night pretty much closed it out this year. Starting in October (amidst what seems to be an ever-decreasing number of forgettable but enjoyable horror flicks), studios will be releasing the films that they think will get Oscar attention. Some of these will spend too much time cloying for the Academy nod to be enjoyable, but a good chunk of them will be really good movies.

Those of you who are familiar with modern American timekeeping will, of course, note that between these two periods lies the month of September, which we’re just entering. That’s when studios release that stuff that doesn’t have the starpower or visual effects to compete with Conan and Captain America and is far too devoid of artistic merit for even a bought Academy member to vote for. If you love movies but hate yourself, September’s the month for you! Here’s what’s in store for you:

September 2: Apollo 18
This is another one of those fake documentaries like Blair Witch or Cloverfield, which in my book is strike one against it. The footage purports to show NASA’s secret final visit to the moon and <spooky announcer voice> why we didn’t go back! So basically, this is shaping up to be the first fifteen minutes of Transformers 3, only without any actual Transformers. IMDB lists both of the actors as “uncredited.” Not sure if that’s due to a dumb marketing maneuver, a scheme to get around SAG pay scales, or just the actors saying “hey, how about you just leave our names out of this?”
What It Wants To Be: Apollo 13 meets Aliens
What It Will Probably Be: Paranormal Activity in SPAAAAAAACEEEEEE!!!!!!
Recommendation: Just go see Shark Week 3-D instead. It’s a gorefest about sharks eating people (in 3-D!), but at least they’re not trying to pretend that a worn-out framing device that rarely works is something edgy and new. If you’re really curious about Apollo 18, you can probably get the same experience by watching random excerpts from Discovery Channel shows about the space program while a guy  wearing a rubber alien suit hits you in the crotch repeatedly with a hammer.

September 9: Contagion
This one worries me not in spite of its star power, but because of it. Even though the cast is largely made up of people whose careers have likely peaked, the need to bring so many turn-of-the-century big names on board makes me worry that the plot’s a little thin. Also, based on the preview, the only two who might not be completely phoning it in are John Hawkes and that dude who played Veronica Mars’ dad. Worse still, Soderbergh is kind of hit-or-miss as a director, and this film looks like Roland Emmerich trying to do a remake of Outbreak while pretending he’s Robert Altman. It might turn out ok, but I’m skeptical.
What It Wants To Be: I’m not sure Soderbergh has any idea. Is it a drama? A thriller? A disaster movie? For most of the actors, I think the answer is “how I’ll pay for that boat I’ve been wanting to get.”
What It Will Probably Be: Again, no clue. It could be good, or it could be two hours you’ll never, ever get back.
Recommendation: Unless Burke and Hare (Simon Pegg as half of the Victorian age’s most famous grave-robbing duo!) plays here, check it out. Your only other option is Warrior, which looks to be The Fighter  without all the heroin addiction and, you  know, acting.

September 16: I Don’t Know How She Does It
It’s a bit alarming how much the trailer for this movie pissed me off. The basic premise is that Sarah Jessica Parker is happily married, incredibly successful, and has overachieving kids...and it’s just really, really stressful! You know, I’m pretty sure there’s a chick in Marshall County or Ledbetter or somewhere with a special needs child and an abusive ex who’d trade in her double shifts at Wal-Mart and the meth lab next door for this  “stressful” life without a second thought. Once you get past the elitism of the premise, the rest of the movie seems every bit as uninspired as the decision to cast Sarah Jessica Parker as a vapid cunt.
What It Wants To Be: A modern-day 9 to 5.
What It Will Probably Be: An insult to Rosanne Barr’s entire career.
Recommendation: Piranha 3DD

September 23: Killer Elite
You may have heard of “on the tin advertising,” which basically means you get exactly what’s advertised. In the world of movies, this describes fine films like Snakes on a Plane and Hot Tub Time Machine. Killer Elite seems to be a variation on, or perhaps an evolution of, that concept. In this case, the basic idea seems to be “if we tell them what the movie is about, we don’t have to even bother giving it a good title.” If you hook two groups of guys up to state-of-the-art brain scanners and tell one group,  “We’re making a movie about Jason Statham and Clive Owen trying to kill each other. It’s called Killer Elite.” and tell the other group “We’re making a movie about Jason Statham and Clive Owen trying to kill each other. It’s called Photographs of President McKinley’s Hairy Nutsack,” the readouts for the two groups will be identical: Fuck yeah!
What It Wants To Be: A giant action movie about Jason Statham and Clive Owen trying to kill each other.
What It Will Probably Be: A giant action movie about Jason Statham and Clive Owen trying to kill each other.
Recommendation: Did you miss the part where Jason Statham and Clive Owen are trying to kill each other?

September 30: Courageous
This movie is from the makers of Fireproof, so I’m assuming that it, like Fireproof, will play at the Paducah Cinemark for months despite the fact that in by all rights it should be a straight to video release. Fortunately, this one doesn’t have the kind of star power (by which I mean Kirk Cameron) that Fireproof brought to the table, so hopefully it won’t hang around as long. Although I’ve never seen Fireproof, my understanding is about a heroic firemen who love God. Courageous, on the other hand, is about heroic policemen who love God. So this is a pretty radical departure for the film makers.
What It Wants To Be: An affirmation of Christ’s love and/or the inherent legitimacy of authority figures in uniform.
What It Will Probably Be: Wasting a screen that could be showing a perfectly good movie about tits and evil fish.
Recommendation: Hope something good’s playing at Maiden Alley. The only other new release this weekend that might be watchable is 50/50, which might not even play here. “50/50,” by the way, is both the title of the film and the ratio of good to bad leads (Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Seth Rogan)

Once the long dark teatime of the movie industry that is September ends, things will get better (or, in the case of Hugh Jackman in Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em Robots: The Movie, bad in much more ridiculous and potentially amusing way). In addition to The Rum Diaries (which I hope will show up at Maiden Alley), October’s got at least one over-the-top action flick (the steampunk Three Musketeers movie), what could be a passable sci-fi flick starring Justin Timberlake (In Time), and a few remakes that might be worth seeing out of curiosity if nothing else (Footloose, The Thing). After that, the holiday movie season kicks into gear and there’ll be too many movies coming out to keep up with. Just don’t forget what’s really important this holiday season: seeing the new Muppet movie.

I was enlightened or warped, depending on how you look at it, by George Carlin at a relatively young age. One of the things I agreed with Carlin about for a long time was voting, on which he said:

"I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created."

Since all politicians seemed equally dishonest, I took Carlin’s advice and stayed home most election days. Then in 2000, the Supreme Court appointed George W. Bush to the presidency and it quickly became apparent that in some cases the lesser of two evils was in fact preferable. So I started voting for the person I thought would fuck up things the least and/or the candidate who could correctly pronounce “nuclear.” Until 2008, every vote I cast was against the other guy, not for the guy who got my vote.

In 2008, Barack Obama came along, and I actually believed that he’d do what he said he’d do. While I knew that many of his ideas could never actually be implemented, he made me believe that he’d at least fight for them, and for the first time I voted for a candidate rather than against his opponent. During the early days of the Obama presidency, my Hopium addiction was still strong enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but after a while I managed to kick the habit of paying more attention to what Obama was saying than what he was doing.

Many who are still hopelessly addicted to Hopium are quick to point out the accomplishments of the Obama administration, but most of these are hollow victories. The Iraq war is over, but only on paper, and we’ve more than made up for the decreased fighting there in Afghanistan, not to mention our air and drone attacks in Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. We’ve got universal health care, but in the form of a corporate-friendly mandate almost identical to the plan that the Heritage Foundation proposed during the Clinton administration. The administration directed the DEA to stop raiding state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries, but then changed its mind when it realized how much money these dispensaries were making without DEA interference. I guess they were worried about that money cutting into Big Pharma’s profits and by association Big Pharma’s campaign contributions. Obama’s few real accomplishments, like the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” were inevitable. They might have taken a few years longer without Democratic leadership, but they were gonna happen sooner or later.

It’s become abundantly clear that Obama, like most other Democrats, only differs from the Republicans on a few social issues. When it comes to economics, the difference between the two parties is so minor as to be almost academic. They’re both ultimately concerned with keeping their rich donors happy, the only difference is that the Democrats will occasionally hide their blind greed and self-interest by throwing a bone to a social program or two. It’s a lot like professional wrestling: To a progressive-minded voter, the Dems are the faces and the GOP play the role of the heels, but at the end of the day they’re all working to put on a good show (like The Debt Ceiling Showdown pay-per-view event) to keep the cash flowing from the rubes (us) to Vince McMahon (the Koch brothers, Walton family, and other billionaires).

Obviously, people on my end of the political spectrum aren’t going to vote for any of the criminals and maniacs that have a chance of getting the GOP nomination, so what the hell are we supposed to do? Much as I agree with Carlin on most things, on this particular point, I think he’s wrong, so I’m going to vote for somebody. The question is, who? My current plan is to vote for a third party candidate (a real one, not a Republican wearing teabags on his three-cornered hat). 

Some people will probably counter this idea with the Nader argument and say that by “throwing away your vote” on some third-party candidate, you’ll help to put the GOP back in power. My counter-argument is “what’s the difference?” From where I’m sitting, I really can’t see much of one. All the worst policies of the Bush years have been continued under Obama. As for all the GOP policies that Democrats use to frighten votes out of people--cutting of social programs, outlawing abortion, passing DOMA--keep in mind that the Republicans controlled all three branches of government for most of a decade and didn’t accomplish any of these things. That’s because actual reform of this sort would cost them votes in the next election. Wedge issues like these are the steel cage ladder matches that keep us watching (and voting).

If you can’t find a third party candidate you agree with, just vote for the absolute most batshit insane person you can find. Under our current political system, third party candidates don’t have much chance of getting elected anyway, so you’re not really voting to elect anyone. Instead, you’re voting to show the major parties that you refuse to give your vote to someone who isn’t going to work for your interests. If enough people do it, maybe eventually they’ll take notice (at least until the Supreme Court decides that corporations get 1 vote for every dollar they earn or something). If a few third party guys get elected, even better. There’s always a chance that a handful sincere true believers and colorful nutjobs can at least slow down the bi-partisan corporate toadying and upwards redistribution of wealth that goes on in politics today. At the very least, having a few true loonies in office will make C-Span a lot more entertaining.