MYSTERY TEAM is the future of cinema (kinda)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, INCEPTION is mind-blowing. AVATAR will keep us fucking around with 3D for the next decade or so. But when we're talking about the future of cinema, any serious discussion will have to include MYSTERY TEAM.

The brainchild of Derrick Comedy, an online comedy troupe who have brought us such viral classics as Girls Are Not To Be Trusted, Bro Rape, and this hilariously crass send-up of the National Spelling Bee, MYSTERY TEAM is a charming film with no budget and a ton of very, very funny ideas. The basic hook is a team of kid detectives have grown up without ever leaving the whole kid detective-thing behind. They don't swear. They charge a dime for a case. But when a murder case falls in their lap, the kids have to solve the case, get the girl, and maybe grow up a little bit.

If I were Peter Travers, I would paraphrase the EPK synopsis like I just did, and then say things like "MYSTERY TEAM is fall-down funny!" and "deliciously warped!", but I'm not trying to get on a box, so fuck that guy.

But MYSTERY TEAM is truly fall-down funny, and marks the emergence of a true talent with Donald Glover. This kid is blowing up - he's written, starred in, or scored three of the funniest network shows in recent memory, he's self-producing and releasing killer hip-hop albums ("I can Say Anything, call me John Cusack / keep my dick wetter than the bottom of a cruise ship"), and he recently launched a Spider-Man petition that cleverly got people talking about the role of race in comic books - not bad for a guy who probably has to put up with every third person he meets asking him for PREDATOR 2 merch.

But here, Glover is just part of a devastating ensemble that completely gets the material (probably because most of them helped write it). The film is playing with the conventions of all those Encyclopedia Brown-Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew novels of our childhood, and combining them with coke dealers, strip clubs, and horrifying diarrhea jokes. The result is something that's, well, deliciously warped, that feels almost infinitely re-watchable.

The real drawbacks of the film are with it's obvious budget (or lack thereof), which occasionally gives the film a cheap feel. Which brings me back to that whole "future of cinema" thing. In a world where the Old Spice guy is getting an NBC show and The Whitest Kids U Know are on basic cable, we've all become casting directors, with the web as our version of headshots, and YouTube as our generation's casting couch.

And we've done a hell of a job with MYSTERY TEAM. Now we just need to get them some money.

An Open Letter to Topher Grace (PREDATORS Review)

Hi Topher Grace!

How ya doin' buddy? It's been a while. Man, remember when we used to hang out on THAT '70'S SHOW? Those were good times. Remember when people used to say shortening your name from Christopher to Topher was fucking retarded? And why couldn't you be like every other Christopher on the planet and go by Chris? You stuck to your guns on that one, and you sure showed them wrong, bud. Wow. Talk about a nostalgia trip. Probably one of those things that's best left in the past, to be honest, but hey, we had fun while it happened, right?

But then, hey, remember when you pulled that amorality-of-youth thing in Steven Soderbergh's TRAFFIC? That was freaking awesome, dude. Really a game-changer, to be honest. I don't think anyone was expecting Eric Foreman to be ... well, such a dick. But I mean that in a good way. You were going to be one of the young up and coming actors to watch, along with your TRAFFIC co-star, Erika Christensen, who promptly went and made SWIMFAN, THE BANGER SISTERS, and FLIGHTPLAN (making this the second worst trio of films made by an actor named Christensen).

You played it smart, though - you kept on good terms with Soderbergh and pulled out hilarious cameos in OCEAN'S ELEVEN and OCEAN'S TWELVE. And I've never seen P.S., but apparently you were really good in that, too. I'll be honest, IN GOOD COMPANY looked like it was shit, but hey, old people love Dennis Quaid, right? I guess it could have been a smart career move.

But look man, the real reason I wanted to talk to you today was the last couple of films you've done. I don't really want to get into SPIDER-MAN 3 - I think the Internet was pretty much created to hate that movie, and enough time has been spent on talking about why it was so bad - but suffice it to say, while it may not be all your fault, you did nothing to help matters. Deciding to play Eddie Brock/Venom as a snivelling whiner who relishes his newfound power was just a little on the acne-tipped nose. And hey, I know it couldn't have been your idea to have the Venom mask coming off all the time, but did you have to be sneering every time it did?

I'm sorry man, I promised I wasn't going to do this. You know I hate to hit you baby, so don't make me. It's just - you helped ruin Spider-Man. That's pretty capital, sir. And yeah, I know I gave you the cold shoulder after that, but I figured that was probably for the best. I was just giving us a little break, so we could let time go to work and heal those wounds.

But I never gave up on you. I knew you could return to the glory of Foremans-and-drug-fiends-past. So when I heard you were starring in the Robert Rodriguez-scripted PREDATORS, I got excited. Well, maybe not excited. But intrigued, definitely intrigued. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I thought, "Hey, it's been a couple of years - people change, right?"

Well, you screwed me on that one, Grace. Again, I know you can't be completely to blame for PREDATORS' third act, but damn, do you do nothing to stop its train wreck. For the first hour or so, Rodriguez had actually managed to convince me he was trying to do a true sequel to the ruthless and uncompromising pace of the original PREDATOR. And I thought you were trying to do something new with the comedic support role.

But oh no, y'all had to go and decide to add DEXTER to the world of Predator. Hey, here's a funny story: no one, in the history of the world since PREDATOR came out, has watched PREDATOR and thought, "Yeah, OK I guess. What really would have taken this to classic-level status was a sneaky serial-killer type" or watched DEXTER and thought, "Yeah, along with some more of the overly-written narration, what if Dexter teamed up with some aliens to hunt people?"

NO.

NO.

NO.

You got it all wrong.

So, Grace, let me leave you with this parting rhyming couplet:

Topher/

It's over.

And your name is fucking Chris.