misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

An essay titled "Something that is pissing me off on Tuesday, June 10, 2:13 P.M. Eastern Standard Time*, presented with the help of footnotes and inner-brackets":

The Something: Movies that remind me of other movies: Two of the previews before The Strangers (which for you horror movie fans** is actually really solid [particularly the first hour, which has a heavily slow and deliberate and authentic build towards tension and fear before ultimately turning to the use of horror movie cliches***, although this was forgiven by a solid ending which included an imaginative use of teenage girls]. [As a sub-bitch to this bitch, I will point out that the entire "Inspired by true events" premise of the movie is a bit misleading. Post-movie research reveals that the "true events" consisted of some creepy person**** knocking on the director's door when he was a child and asking for someone who didn't live there ... that was the "event" {which to his defense does happen in the movie, but everything else after that did not and stemmed only from his imagination} .... this should've been more obvious by the use of the word "inspired" by true events instead of "based" on true events, which i think legally requires more of a connection) were for two movies about assassins. One involved Nicholas Cage (Bangkok Dangerous which screams "shitty Hong Kong director unsuccessfully trying to remake a solid Asian flick for American audiences*****" ) and involves the following storyline: The world's best assassin goes to Bangkok for an assignment (assassin-speak for a kill), falls in love with a Thai chick (assassins never fall in love with members of their own race), doesn't have the heart to kill his assignment anymore because falling in love pussifies a man, and spends the rest of the movie escaping his employers, who are pissed at having hired the world's best assassin only to have him turn into a whipped in-love douche-bag******. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is. To a letter, that is the plot of the last twelve assassin movies i've seen, including The Replacement Killers, Point of No Return/Le Femme Nikita, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Gross Point Blanke, and A History of Violence. So what more needs to be said about this issue? Can we switch it up a bit, and find some other profession that is also trying on the conscience? Like being a puppy killer or organ trafficker or Enron management? Matters weren't helped by the fact that the second preview was also a movie about assassins, with Angelina Jolie******* , called Wanted, which vaguely reminded me of every movie i've ever seen rolled into one. The remaining trailers consisted of The Incredible Hulk 2 and a comedy about a failed actor who had one last chance at redemption by teaching at a high school where he finally finds what life is all about.******** I now feel better about working in the advertising industry than I ever did before. I've realized that all this redundant drivel I spend all day making is exactly like making movies, only everything is longer and there is more money behind it.*********

* EST
** In other words Adrian Liang and Deborah Anderson
*** Such as: The dead cell-phone battery cliche (which is better than the no-reception cliche), the trip over a hidden branch during an escape attempt cliche (which instantly ends the said escape attempt), the unaware friend who arrives at the house and doesn't think to call anyone even though he sees blood and broken windows cliche, and the use of creepy masks cliche, which, in this instance, although they are thoroughly creepy, as someone who has dressed up as Death the past two halloweens, I think I can accurately tell you that wearing a mask for more than ten minutes is particularly uncomfortable and dramatically impairs your vision and breathing, even more so when you are trying to chase two twenty-something-year-olds while holding a sharp person-killing device.
**** I actually added the creepy person part, it was just a regular person knocking on the director's door and asking for someone who didn't live there. Whether or not that was at night, or the person at the door was a girl asking for "Tamara" is neither confirmed nor denied by Wikipedia.
***** Like John Woo spent ten years doing. White pigeons anyone?
****** Why are assassins always falling in love and becoming bitches? When I got a girlfriend, I didn't suddenly start sucking at my job. Why is having a girlfriend so incompatible with killing for a living? It seems this is the kind of thing a professional assassin would've thought out before meeting a girl, and even then I'd have to say this particular guy is bitch-whipped.
******* I have an issue with the casting on this. Angelina Jolie as an assassin is just not working for me.
******** Which actually I might see, but only if the failed actor turns out to be an assassin at the end.
********* The end.