TV Watched In 2012

Rankings are out of 10 with half points. 
Anything 5.0 and higher is more or less a thumbs up. 
Anything 4.0-4.5 is a somewhat admirable failure. 
Anything below that is varying degrees of despicable failure.
WR = Writer
DR = Director

January: 
(Hadn't thought of this awesome idea yet, so no list for January)


February: 
02.04: 
01. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Nightmares" (S01E10, 1997) 
-WR: Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt; DR: Bruce Seth Green  (4.0)
02.05: 
02. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight" (S01E11, 1997)
-WR: Joss Whedon, Ashley Gable & Thomas A. Swyden; DR: Reza Badiyi (5.0)
03. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Prophecy Girl" (S01E12, 1997)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (8.0)
04. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "When She Was Bad" (S02E01, 1997)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (5.5)
05. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Some Assembly Required" (S02E02, 1997)
-WR: Ty King; DR: Bruce Seth Green (4.5)
06. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "School Hard" (S02E03, 1997)
-WR: Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt; DR: John T. Kretchmer (7.0)
02.06:
07. Ugly Betty, "Brothers" (S01E15, 2007)
-WR: Shelia Lawrence; DR: Lev L. Spiro (4.5)
08. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Inca Mummy Girl" (S02E04, 1997)
-WR: Matt Kiene & Joe Reinkemeyer; DR: Ellen S. Pressman (3.0)
09. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Reptile Boy" (S02E05, 1997)
-WR: David Greenwalt; DR: David Greenwalt (3.5)
10. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Halloween" (S02E06, 1997)
-WR: Carl Ellsworth; DR: Bruce Seth Green (4.5)
11. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Lie To Me" (S02E07, 1997)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (5.5)
02.07:
12. Monk, "Mr. Monk Goes Back To School" (S02E01, 2003)
-WR: David Breckman & Rick Kronberg; DR: Randall Zisk (3.0)
02.08:
13. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "The Dark Age" (S02E08, 1997)
-WR: Dean Batali & Rob Des Hotel; DR: Bruce Seth Green (5.0)
14. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "What's My Line? Pt. 1" (S02E09, 1997)
-WR: Howard Gordon & Marti Noxon; DR: David Solomon (6.0)
15. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "What's My Line? Pt. 2" (S02E10, 1997)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: David Semel (4.5)
02.11:
16. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Ted" (S02E11, 1997)
-WR: David Greenwalt & Joss Whedon; DR: Bruce Seth Green (6.0)
17. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Bad Eggs" (S02E12, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: David Greenwalt (3.0)
02.12:
18. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Surprise" (S02E13, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: Michael Lange (4.0)
02.13:
19. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Innocence" (S02E14, 1998)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (7.0)
02.14:
20. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Phases" (S02E15, 1998)
-WR: Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali; DR: Bruce Seth Green (4.0)
02.15:
21. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" (S02E16, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: James A. Contner (7.5)
22. Cougar Town, "Ain't Love Strange" (S03E01, 2012)
-WR: Bill Lawrence; DR: Bill Lawrence (3.0)
02.16:
23. Happy Endings, "St. Valentine's Day Maxssacre" (S02E13, 2012)
-WR: Daniel Libman & Matthew Libman; DR: Joe Russo (3.0)
02.17:
24. Happy Endings, "Everybody Loves Grant" (S02E14, 2012)
-WR: Leila Strachan; DR: Kyle Newacheck (6.0)
25. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Passion" (S02E17, 1998)
-WR: Ty King; DR: Michael Gershman (7.0)
02.18:
26. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Killed By Death" (S02E18, 1998)
-WR: Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali; DR: Deran Sarafian (5.0)
27. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "I Only Have Eyes For you" (S02E19, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: James Whitmore, Jr. (5.0)
28. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Go Fish" (S02E20, 1998)
-WR: David Fury & Elin Hampton; DR: David Semel (3.0)
29. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Becoming: Part 1" (S02E21, 1998)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (4.5)
30. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Becoming: Part 2" (S02E22, 1998)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (7.0)
02.19:
31. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Anne" (S03E01, 1998)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (3.5)
32. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Dead Man's Party" (S03E02, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: James Whitmore, Jr. (3.5)
02.20:
33. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Faith, Hope & Trick (S03E03, 1998)
-WR: David Greenwalt; DR: James A. Contner (6.0)
02.28:
34. Parks And Recreation, "Operation Ann" (S04E14, 2012)
-WR: Aisha Muharrar; DR: Morgan Sackett (6.0)
35. Parks And Recreation, "Dave Returns" (S04E15, 2012)
-WR: Harris Wittels; DR: Robert B. Weide (7.0)
36. Parks And Recreation, "Sweet Sixteen" (S04E16, 2012)
-WR: Norm Hiscock; DR: Michael Schur (7.5)
37. Cougar Town, "A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own" (S03E02, 2012)
-WR: Chrissy Pietroch & Jessica Goldstein; DR: John Putch (8.0)
38. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Beauty And The Beasts" (S03E04, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: James Whitmore, Jr. (4.0)
39. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Homecoming" (S03E05, 1998)
-WR: David Greenwalt; DR: David Greenwalt (7.0)
40. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Band Candy" (S03E06, 1998)
-WR: Jane Espenson; DR: Michael Lange (8.5)
02.29: 
41. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Revelations" (S03E07, 1998)
-WR: Douglas Petrie; DR: James A. Contner (6.0)


March:
03.01:
42. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Lovers Walk" (S03E08, 1998)
-WR: Dan Vebber; DR: David Semel (5.0)
03.02:
43. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "The Wish" (S03E09, 1998)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: David Greenwalt (6.0)
44. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Amends" (S03E10, 1998)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (6.0)
45. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Gingerbread" (S03E11, 1999)
-WR: Thania St. John & Jane Espenson; DR: James Whitmore, Jr. (4.0)
46. Happy Endings, "The Butterfly Effect Effect" (S02E15, 2012)
-WR: Jonathan Groff & Sierra Teller Ornelas; DR: Victor Nelli (5.5)
47. Happy Endings, "Cocktails & Dreams" (S02E16, 2012)
-WR: David Caspe, Matthew Libman & Daniel Libman; DR: Rob Greenberg (5.0)
48. Parks And Recreation, "Campaign Shake-Up" (S04E16, 2012)
-WR: Dan Goor; DR: Dan Goor (5.0)
49. Cougar Town, "Lover's Touch" (S03E03, 2012)
-WR: Michael McDonald; DR: Michael McDonald (4.0)
03.03:
50. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Helpless" (S03E12, 1999)
-WR: David Fury; DR: James A. Contner (8.0)
51. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "The Zeppo" (S03E13, 1999)
-WR: Dan Vebber; DR: James Whitmore, Jr. (9.0)
52. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Bad Girls" (S03E14, 1999)
-WR: Douglas Petrie; DR: Michael Lange (6.5)
53. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Consequences" (S03E15, 1999)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: Michael Gershman (6.0)
54. The Rockford Files, "The Kirkoff Case" (S01E02, 1974)
-WR: Stephen J. Cannell & Roy Huggins; DR: Lou Antonio (4.0)
03.04:
55. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Doppelgangland" (S03E16, 1999)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (6.0)
56. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Enemies" (S03E17, 1999)
-WR: Douglas Petrie; DR: David Grossman (6.5)
57. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Earshot" (S03E18, 1999)
-WR: Jane Espenson; DR: Regis Kimble (4.0)
58. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Choices" (S03E19, 1999)
-WR: David Fury; DR: James A. Contner (6.5)
59. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Prom" (S03E20, 1999)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: David Solomon (8.0)
60. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Graduation Day Part One" (S03E21, 1999)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (7.0)
61. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Graduation Day Part Two" (S03E22, 1999)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (6.0)
03.05:
62. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "The Freshman" (S04E01, 1999)
-WR: Joss Whedon; DR: Joss Whedon (5.5)
63. Angel, "City Of" (S01E01, 1999)
-WR: Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt; DR: Joss Whedon (5.0)
64. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Living Conditions" (S04E02, 1999)
-WR: Marti Noxon; DR: David Grossman (4.0)
65. Angel, "Lonely Hearts" (S01E02, 1999)
-WR: David Fury; DR: James A. Contner (6.0)
03.06:
66. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "The Harsh Light of Day" (S04E03, 1999)
-WR: Jane Espenson; DR: James A. Contnet (4.5)
03.08:
67. Angel, "In The Dark" (S01E03, 1999)
-WR: Douglas Petrie; DR: Bruce Seth Green
68. Cougar Town, "Full Moon Fever" (S03E04, 2012)
-WR: Sanjay Shah; DR: Courteney Cox (6.0)
03.09:
69. Parks And Recreation, "Lucky" (S04E17, 2012)
-WR: Nick Offerman; DR: Troy Miller (5.5)
70. Happy Endings, "The Kerkovich Way" (S02E17, 2012)
-WR: Todd Linden; DR: Stephen Sprung (6.0)
71. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Fear, Itself" (S04E04, 1999)
-WR: David Fury; DR: Tucker Gates (4.0)
72. Angel, "I Fall To Pieces" (S04E04, 1999)
-WR: David Greenwalt & Joss Whedon; DR: Vern Gillum (3.0)
03.12:
73. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, "Beer Bad" (S04E05, 1999)
-WR: Tracy Forbes; DR: David Solomon (3.0)


TV Episodes Watched In 2012: 73

Movies Watched In 2012

Rankings are out of 10 with half points. 
Anything 5.0 and higher is more or less a thumbs up. 
Anything 4.0-4.5 is a somewhat admirable failure. 
Anything below that is varying degrees of despicable failure. 
 January: 
01.03: 
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) - Tomas Alfredson - Theatre (2.5) 
01.04: 
Drive (2011) - Nicholas Winding Refn - AVI (3.5) 
01.05: 
Certified Copy (2011) - Abbas Kiarostami - Instant Watch (9.0) 
01.09: 
Zombie Apocalypse (2011) - Nick Lyon - DVD (2.0) 
R.E.D (2010) - Robert Schwentke - DVD (3.0) 
01.11: 
I Am Number Four (2011) - D.J. Caruso - Blu-Ray (3.0) 
01.12: 
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - Brad Bird - Theatre (3.5) 
01.14: 
Moneyball (2011) - Bennett Miller - DVD (6.5) 
01.19: 
In Time (2011) - Andrew Niccol - AVI (2.0) 
01.28: 
Contraband (2012) - Baltasar Kormakur - Theatre (4.0) 
A Dangerous Method (2011) - David Cronenberg - Theatre (2.5) 
01.29: 
The Killer (1989) - John Woo - Blu-Ray (4.0) 


Movies Seen In January: 10 


February: 
02.03: 
Louis CK: Hilarious (2010) - Louis C.K. - Instant Watch (3.5) 
02.05: 
Pumzi (2009) - Waniru Kahiu - AVI (4.0) 
Summer Wars (2010) - Mamoru Hosada - Blu-Ray (3.5) 
02.10:
Real Steel (2011) - Shawn Levy - Blu-Ray (6.5)
02.12:
Life Without Principle (2012) - Johnnie To - Theatre (6.5)
02.13:
Contagion (2011) - Steven Soderbergh - Blu-Ray (2.5)
02.14:
Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) - Sion Sono - DVD (8.5)
02.17:
Abduction (2011) - John Singleton - Blu-Ray (4.5)
Shark Night (2011) - David R. Ellis - DVD (2.0)
02.23:
Pina 3D (2011) - Wim Wenders - Theatre (2.5)
Chronicle (2012) - Josh Trank - Theatre (3.5)
02.24:
Frame (1975) *Short* - Ken Kobland - Theatre (6.5)
Vestibule (1978) *Short* - Ken Kobland - Theatre (4.0)
Arise! Walk Dog Eat Donut (1999) *Short* - Ken Kobland - Theatre (3.5)
Buildings And Grounds (2003) *Short* - Ken Kobland - Theatre (4.5)
Flushed At Once (2002) *Short* - Ken Kobland - Theatre (3.5)
02.25:
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance (2012) - Neveldine/Taylor - Theatre (3.5)


Movies Seen In February: 15


March:
03.04:
Elephant (2003) - Gus Van Sant - DVD (8.5)
03.11:
Marie Antoinette (2006) - Sofia Coppola - DVD (8.0)
03.15:
Safe House (2012) - Daniel Espinosa - Theatre (4.0)


Movies Seen In March: 3

The Horde (Yannick Dahan & Benjamin Rocher, 2009)

Made it considerably less far into this, my second foray into French as the only movies I'm watching. Begins as a cop revenge movie, only to have the police hit squad out for revenge bungle so badly that half of them die in the opening sequence. I presume, once the zombies show up sufficiently, that cops and crooks will have to work together in an attempt to survive. Unfortunately, I only made it twenty minutes into the proceedings. The film showed no flair for tension nor any decent idea of how to shoot a frightening action scene. The first zombie that shows up enters with a flurry of quick cutting and semi-hilariously sped-up footage. Benny Hill meets George Romero. Throw in a little extraneous close-ups of gnawing flesh and you have a film that feels mostly like incompetent pandering. The only halfway interesting character in the film is one of the first to die, and the rest seem to have no personality. This wouldn't be a huge deal, as Assault on Precinct 13, which the film is obviously modeled after, has characters who are closer to archtypes than people. But that movie had John Carpenter. This is probably the most superficial thing I've written for this blog, but there honestly isn't much to say. If one expects a cops vs robbers vs zombies movie to have a lot to say about real human life, one is probably going to be disappointed. I wasn't even expecting that and I still managed to be too quickly bored to contine.

36th Precinct (Olivier Marchal, 2004)

The first in my experiment to watch almost exclusively French movies for the rest of the year (exceptions will be: movies seen in the theatre and when I feel like it). Though, to be fair, I haven't actually even finished it and am not sure that I will. I watched half of it before going out to a late dinner last night and have not yet had the will to resume it. It begins somewhat interestingly -- a kind of mood piece in which the viewer is thrown into a series of scenes that don't quite add up to a story. Police parties, heists, violence, political intrigue. Each scene almost seems to exist for itself, for the emotion it generates and for the piece of law enforcement that it represents. Later on, however, it's difficult to tell if this ambiguity is intentional or simply the result of poor plotting. It seems difficult to believe that the same person who would have intentionally crafted these sequences would have agreed to a scene in which an officer who has just filed for transfer and has X days until he leaves would be shot in slow motion while the main character yells NOOOOOOOOOOOO (or, since it is a French movie, NOOOOOOOOOOONNN).

36th Precinct's about-face is easy enough to pinpoint -- it begins with a disturbing and gratuitous sex scene. Well, disturbing to me anyway. However much I complain about chinless nerds as the new male hetero cinema icons, they still can't beat the French for their fascination with plain old seriously ugly old dudes. Both Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil have wives who seem far too attractive and sexually voracious to be married to such unappealingly glum and work-obsessed men. After this we get a series of home scenes which fill in unnecessary back story elements of each officer's characters and the rest of the movie from there is content to pack on the cliches and sentiment. With over an hour left to go, I am unsure what they could introduce to bring it back from such an edge. Thus I will also be starting to indulge in another experiment: that of quitting while the quitting is good. Too often lately I have made myself suffer through a movie long after I know it won't offer anything to me.

Pitch Black (David Twohy, 2000)

An unsuccessful mish-mash of George Lucas, Ridley Scott, John Carpenter and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Twohy betrays his occasionally keen visual eye -- I actually the movie's burnt orange, overexposed look during the early sun segments -- with nonsensical editing, cutting irregularly between various shots of the same action in a confusing flurry of activity that diminishes, rather than heightens, the tension of an unknown predator hunting them. The film's writing is similarly miserable, relying on tough guy '80s one-liners in place of characterization, often resulting in characters who do things without explicable motivation. This latter problem wouldn't be of great concern in what is, essentially, a retread of Alien if the movie didn't leave such little else to worry about. I value a well-made suspense sequence far more than, as Rosenbaum once put it, modern cinema's "tendency to turn people into garbage," but this movie spends most of its time on jump scares and red herrings before devolving into a completely wasted premise. There are so many cool ways to make a suspense film based on the idea that characters have to stay in the light in order to survive, but nearly all of them are mangled. Exactly how many light-making objects they have is constantly unclear, leaving the loss of one or two less disastrous seeming than it should be; the characters fail time and time again to manage the priority of surviving above petty bickering, making them seem like childish infants; and each individual sequence appears and is gone before the gravity of the situation has time to properly settle in, giving the feeling of very little consequence. This feeling of empty action is heightened by the film's rather glib attitude towards death. I count at least four deaths in the film that we are, at least slightly, encouraged to guffaw at. And this encouragement of laughter, other than being admittedly a little icky, serves to break the tension that the chaos of trying to survive on a hellish alien planet is supposed to instill.

I Wanna Go (Chris Maars Piliero, 2011)

Britney's new video, I Wanna Go, continues in the vein of Hold It Against Me -- taking a song that hints little if at all to her ongoing love/hate relationship with fame, notoriety, the press, her old image -- and meshes it with a video overloading on those elements. Here she and director Piliero craft a pastiche of Old Brit references: skull Mickey Mouse shirt, makeup, hair styling and close-ups reminiscent of Lucky video, a Got Milk? parody, a reference to Crossroads, and likely others that I missed, in an attempt to recontextualize her media breakdowns and burn outs as a combination of pseudo-fuck you rebellion and the pent-up dissonance between the person she feels she is and the person the media/world perceives her as. Somehow the whole thing never quite comes together. As with many pop stars, her acting abilities are relegated mostly to facial expression and anytime she's required to emote with spoken lines, a certain flatness appears inescapable. The oddly literal reference to Half-Baked at the end of the press conference does nothing to enliven the situation.

Her coy stroll through fan groping, indecent exposure and cop seduction is better-handled, but still lacks a certain oomph -- neither filled with the manic, albeit reprehensible, energy of Avril Lavigne being a dick to some dude's girlfriend (whose terrible videos were clearly something of an inspiration for this one) nor an actually sleazy coat of grime that might add character to Britney's well-traveled road of public misperception. This is, I think, the biggest reason the video never quite gets off the ground. Unlike her first video for Femme Fatale, Hold It Against Me, she has retreated back into the mindset of blameless victim, forever at the mercy of a media attempting to twist her words and actions around, rather than the more ambivalent truth of the subject.

The physicality of Britney vs Britney in Hold It Against Me is replaced here with a much tamer fight sequence (full of bad, weightless CGI). If you're going to do a Terminator reference, I suppose paparazzi as unstoppable, bloodthirsty machines is as good a way to do it as any, but there's no real sense of dread or terror that the idea of Terminators are intended to instill. Like most of the other references, it feels like the director is nudging you in the ribs and winking really hard before moving on to the next bit. The Thriller reference is similarly unearned, which is a shame because, upon reflection (and with a little knowledge of Britney's real-life history) it suggests a somewhat tragic parallel with her own brief relationship with paparazzi photographer Adnan Ghalib. If I Wanna Go had stripped down some of the ideas and focused on this push-and-pull relationship, it could have been something darkly confessional and interesting. Instead, like almost everything else, it's a one-off that simplifies, rather than complicates, Britney's ongoing struggle with being Britney Spears -- and trying to figure out who that person even is.

The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips, 2011)

I walked into The Hangover Part II with an expectation that I would not like it. While I had not ever seen the first film (I hesitate to call it "original"), I had seen several previews for both. They did not inspire confidence. But, after a frustrating day, sometimes you just want to have two beers and go to a midday showing of a movie you fully expect to not be good. This is the part of the review in which a person might normally admit to being wrong. That all this expectation was for nothing, and it was merely the marketing executives doing what they do (using advertising to make their movies look worse than they are). This is not what happened. The movie advertised, especially the strangely eerie trailer of Ken Jeong and Zach Galifianakis slowly singing to elevator music, make the movie look better than it actually is.

It begins just fine. Whoever was the Assistant Director on this movie, actually, is working his or her ass off (probably his, sadly) to get a real job as a director. Almost all the shots that do not involve any of the principle actors look fantastic. While it is probably not that difficult to go to Thailand and film what is, in essence, a pretty looking travelogue of pseudo-exoticism, AD still kinda nails the hell out of it. And compared to how bland and typically comedy movie-looking the rest of the film is, these throwaway moments are a wonderful change of pace. Even the opening of the post-Hangover wake up in a small Bangkok hotel room, there's a tinge of moody loneliness to all the shots leading up to the actors getting up and doing things.

But, other than that, the movie is more or less worthless. I cannot understand the appeal of Galifianakis' movie persona. His psychotically boorish tendency to make every situation he's in worse for the other "protagonists" is acknowledged at the very beginning of the movie, yet the characters still allow themselves to be guilted into keeping him around. With less exaggeration this could be a plausible storyline, but Galifianakis' character is so obviously mentally ill and in need of serious psychological help that he simply becomes sad and pathetic, rather than humorous. It's impossible to quite be angry with him, because he is clearly incapable of any form of impulse control, yet it also feels weirdly cruel to laugh at anything he does -- malicious, even. It helps that, at least to these ears, his lines and delivery are never funny.

Ken Jeong does battle with Galifianakis for most awful thing about the film, and mostly manages to win with an awful caricature of "ching-chong-y" Chinese stereotypes, speaking in an exaggerated accent that he can't even keep up a decent portion of the time (dropping into a higher-pitched version of his normal English, which is, at least, less offensive if no less obnoxious).

In the film's opening post-Hangover scene, Jeong overdoses on cocaine, has a heart attack and dies. The other characters then decide to stuff his body in an ice chest, rather than attempt to call any authorities or make any serious attempt to revive him. They come to this conclusion so nonchalantly, and with very little moral panicking or indecision, that it makes it immediately impossible to see them as anything but reprehensible human beings, even if three-quarters of the way through the movie it turns out Jeong isn't dead after all. They thought he was, and they reacted in the most self-serving and awful way possible, without even much flinching. And, in the end, that is all that really needs to be said about these characters. We are expected to embrace and relate to them and their plight to discover what, exactly, they did the night before, and yet they are such reprehensible low-lifes, and the movie is so patently unaware of this fact (save Galifianakis, though even he is sympathetic) that it is a movie that has failed as soon as it begins. And its failure continues from there, an almost endless stream of racism, cliches and hatefulness in celebration of exactly the disgusting American tourist entitlement that, say, Hostel satirizes so viciously.