So I read back, and my blog is now three years old!
In internet time, that's like an eon or something! So I read my first post, which was posted on February 4th or something, 2009! Over three years ago! And what was my first post about?
Being sick.
God I love it when things stay consistent, don't you? Good to know after 3 years, nothing has changed!
(laughs his ass off and goes to play more computer games while recovering from his nasty cold)
Happy 3-year anniversary, enlightened readers! :-) Shout-outs to Brando, some chick from england, maybe a russian opera singer, rich who moved to aussie land, and the flying spaghetti monster alone knows who else reads this tripe! Hope you've been enjoying it so far! I'll keep posting until I lose all the feeling in my testicles! Well... because once the feeling goes in THOSE, there's not really much point to living, is there? ;-)
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Finder vs Person of Interest
So There's two shows on Thursday nights.
I know, most of you are out "pre-gaming" fridays on thursday nights. Me, I don't have a social life, so I have to content myself with TV. (hugs his TV) I know you'll never abandon me, buddy! (cable goes out) Well fuck you too!
Seriously, there's two shows on at the same time, on separate channels. Person of Interest is about an ex-special-ops soldier rescuing people who are "about" to be involved in a crime, whether they are victims or the perpetrators. He's aided in this endeavor by a man who built a machine that can predict acts of terrorism, but that's not what this show is about. The machine also predicts other violent acts, and that's where our two friends step in and save the victims or stop the perpetrators from committing the crimes.
Opposite it is "the Finder" about a guy who took an IED to the head in Iraq or something and now is slightly mentally unbalanced, by has a knack for finding things. He's aided in this by the largest actor I have ever seen, a gypsy girl with a penchant for thievery, and an FBI agent that is denying the crush she has on him.
Now here's my problem. I started watching Person of Interest because the other show hadn't premiered yet. Person of interest, while dramatic, doesn't have a lot of lightheartedness in it. Finder, while lighthearted, suddenly is about finding aliens (the show I am watching right now, anyway). Both shows are an hour long, so I don't get ten minutes of show followed by twenty minutes of commercials and then, the end. lol They are both on at the same time, so I can't really watch both, and I don't have DVR because I am poor enough to think DVR is an unnecessary expense and wise enough to realize I'd rarely use it anyway. So which show do I watch?
Let's take each show individually. First, Person of Interest. So let me see if I get this right. A guy... invents a machine... that can predict the future of terrorist events... and this show is about the castoffs that the machine DOESN'T focus on? Okay... why? I'm sorry, you have a premise as awesome as maybe one guy, or a team of guys, going in and slaughtering terrorists before they can do any damage, and you choose NOT to focus on that? Why?? lol Also, the guy who is trained to blow things up, kill people, does NOT kill anyone. Yep, that's right, he won't shoot to kill, only to wound or disarm. So he's like a modern-day Doctor Who who actually does use guns but won't kill anyone. Plus, a major premise of the show is that the government is watching everyone. They make a big deal about it, like UH OH BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING and I'm like... wtf? Doesn't everyone already know this? So the show is about a machine that can predict the future, but not about the big futures, about the little futures of anonymous people saved by a guy who uses a gun to not kill people. Yea...
So the other show is Finder, about a bar... fly? tender? i'm not really sure what his day job is. His night job is basically a detective, not a real one, but almost like a private detective living in a bar in florida. There's gypsies involved in a side story involving the gypsy girl who is basically a runaway under the guidance of the bar owner, who i believe is Michael Clarke Duncan? Anyway, so this guy basically finds anything or anyone that is lost, and won't give up until he finds it. The FBI chick is hot, the gypsy girl is cute, and the show just had peta wilson as a guest star! She basically played the finder's arch-nemesis, but he only just found out who she was, so whether she'll be back or not, I have no idea. The evil bad guys in this one are the corporations, and frankly, i have to go along on that one. The government at least has to pretend to care in order to get votes, the less a corporation cares about people, the more money it seems to make, sooooo I'm going to go with the evil corporations being the real bad guys.
I think I'm going to go with Finder on this one. Sure, person of Interest probably has the bigger budget, but the premise seems a little goofy, whereas Finder goes out of it's way to make things seem realistic. Although, one thing that does bug me is, these people hang out in a bar in florida all damn day... and NEVER DRINK. WTF!!!!!! :-o That's about as unrealistic as I can possibly imagine. I mean come on, I've been to florida, many times, and drinking is something I did all the time there! lol
In related news, I've got a cold. Yep. Another illness, definitely a cold this time. And it's not that I am getting old and decrepit... I mean.. I AM, but that's not why, I've been sick with just about everything my whole life. But I think all that is just negative advertising. I'm not sick! I'm simply, "hosting a viral convention in my body!" Yes, that's right, my own personal spin doctor has re-branded my inadequacies as strengths! HAH! I am now perfect. because, you know, i was before, but I was sick a lot, see, so now my sickness is not a weakness, it's a strength! That's the trick in going to job interviews. It's all about lying your ass off, I mean, uh, recalculating your net worth! I'm not "chubby," I'm surplus-nutritioned! I'm not "hairy, I'm "well-insulated!" Which is also good for explaining the flab, err, uh, the "efficient long-term caloric storage system that is so innate, I don't even have to think about it!" I'm a bloody genius! Best spin doctor ever! Shit, I could probably make up a resume of my actual daily activities and make it sound like I am more important than god!
Of course, there are only so many ways one can say, "plays computer games all day in his underwear" which is basically the gist of it. But what corporate human resources dork could ever figure that out? And honestly, even if they DID, that'd just be points in my favor! I can make playing computer games all day in my underwear sound like it's vital to the US economy! And it is! I pay for computer games that pay the people that make them, that keep the corporations in business that pay their employees that pay money for products that keep the monetary world a-turning! Holy crap I am so pumped! I AM THE RULER OF THE BUSINESS WORLD!!!!
Goddamn cold meds. Sneak up on me every time. One minute I feel like crap the next minute, I am higher than space aliens on soundwave-extracted human brain endorphins. Oy. I don't even know if that's possible but my brain just came up with a way to do it. Don't ever let someone tell you being a genius is easy. It's almost as hard as being a supermodel!
I know, most of you are out "pre-gaming" fridays on thursday nights. Me, I don't have a social life, so I have to content myself with TV. (hugs his TV) I know you'll never abandon me, buddy! (cable goes out) Well fuck you too!
Seriously, there's two shows on at the same time, on separate channels. Person of Interest is about an ex-special-ops soldier rescuing people who are "about" to be involved in a crime, whether they are victims or the perpetrators. He's aided in this endeavor by a man who built a machine that can predict acts of terrorism, but that's not what this show is about. The machine also predicts other violent acts, and that's where our two friends step in and save the victims or stop the perpetrators from committing the crimes.
Opposite it is "the Finder" about a guy who took an IED to the head in Iraq or something and now is slightly mentally unbalanced, by has a knack for finding things. He's aided in this by the largest actor I have ever seen, a gypsy girl with a penchant for thievery, and an FBI agent that is denying the crush she has on him.
Now here's my problem. I started watching Person of Interest because the other show hadn't premiered yet. Person of interest, while dramatic, doesn't have a lot of lightheartedness in it. Finder, while lighthearted, suddenly is about finding aliens (the show I am watching right now, anyway). Both shows are an hour long, so I don't get ten minutes of show followed by twenty minutes of commercials and then, the end. lol They are both on at the same time, so I can't really watch both, and I don't have DVR because I am poor enough to think DVR is an unnecessary expense and wise enough to realize I'd rarely use it anyway. So which show do I watch?
Let's take each show individually. First, Person of Interest. So let me see if I get this right. A guy... invents a machine... that can predict the future of terrorist events... and this show is about the castoffs that the machine DOESN'T focus on? Okay... why? I'm sorry, you have a premise as awesome as maybe one guy, or a team of guys, going in and slaughtering terrorists before they can do any damage, and you choose NOT to focus on that? Why?? lol Also, the guy who is trained to blow things up, kill people, does NOT kill anyone. Yep, that's right, he won't shoot to kill, only to wound or disarm. So he's like a modern-day Doctor Who who actually does use guns but won't kill anyone. Plus, a major premise of the show is that the government is watching everyone. They make a big deal about it, like UH OH BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING and I'm like... wtf? Doesn't everyone already know this? So the show is about a machine that can predict the future, but not about the big futures, about the little futures of anonymous people saved by a guy who uses a gun to not kill people. Yea...
So the other show is Finder, about a bar... fly? tender? i'm not really sure what his day job is. His night job is basically a detective, not a real one, but almost like a private detective living in a bar in florida. There's gypsies involved in a side story involving the gypsy girl who is basically a runaway under the guidance of the bar owner, who i believe is Michael Clarke Duncan? Anyway, so this guy basically finds anything or anyone that is lost, and won't give up until he finds it. The FBI chick is hot, the gypsy girl is cute, and the show just had peta wilson as a guest star! She basically played the finder's arch-nemesis, but he only just found out who she was, so whether she'll be back or not, I have no idea. The evil bad guys in this one are the corporations, and frankly, i have to go along on that one. The government at least has to pretend to care in order to get votes, the less a corporation cares about people, the more money it seems to make, sooooo I'm going to go with the evil corporations being the real bad guys.
I think I'm going to go with Finder on this one. Sure, person of Interest probably has the bigger budget, but the premise seems a little goofy, whereas Finder goes out of it's way to make things seem realistic. Although, one thing that does bug me is, these people hang out in a bar in florida all damn day... and NEVER DRINK. WTF!!!!!! :-o That's about as unrealistic as I can possibly imagine. I mean come on, I've been to florida, many times, and drinking is something I did all the time there! lol
In related news, I've got a cold. Yep. Another illness, definitely a cold this time. And it's not that I am getting old and decrepit... I mean.. I AM, but that's not why, I've been sick with just about everything my whole life. But I think all that is just negative advertising. I'm not sick! I'm simply, "hosting a viral convention in my body!" Yes, that's right, my own personal spin doctor has re-branded my inadequacies as strengths! HAH! I am now perfect. because, you know, i was before, but I was sick a lot, see, so now my sickness is not a weakness, it's a strength! That's the trick in going to job interviews. It's all about lying your ass off, I mean, uh, recalculating your net worth! I'm not "chubby," I'm surplus-nutritioned! I'm not "hairy, I'm "well-insulated!" Which is also good for explaining the flab, err, uh, the "efficient long-term caloric storage system that is so innate, I don't even have to think about it!" I'm a bloody genius! Best spin doctor ever! Shit, I could probably make up a resume of my actual daily activities and make it sound like I am more important than god!
Of course, there are only so many ways one can say, "plays computer games all day in his underwear" which is basically the gist of it. But what corporate human resources dork could ever figure that out? And honestly, even if they DID, that'd just be points in my favor! I can make playing computer games all day in my underwear sound like it's vital to the US economy! And it is! I pay for computer games that pay the people that make them, that keep the corporations in business that pay their employees that pay money for products that keep the monetary world a-turning! Holy crap I am so pumped! I AM THE RULER OF THE BUSINESS WORLD!!!!
Goddamn cold meds. Sneak up on me every time. One minute I feel like crap the next minute, I am higher than space aliens on soundwave-extracted human brain endorphins. Oy. I don't even know if that's possible but my brain just came up with a way to do it. Don't ever let someone tell you being a genius is easy. It's almost as hard as being a supermodel!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Lo, Ink - Movie reviews
Lo, Ink is not the name of a chinese shipping company.
So I have this netflix subscription. And I have 258 movies in my instant queue. Most of them are horror. And I was talking with my nephew and I realized... even at a movie a day, that's most of a year, just before I clear out my instant queue. Not even considering new releases. At first, I was aghast, agog, almost kerfluffled at how I would ever watch them all, or in what order to watch them in. Then my nephew mentioned something even more horrible.
The movies sometimes expire.
WHAT!!!!! My movies can DIE???? Yes, it's true. So I'm browsing the dozen or so pages of my instant queue and I notice... Three movies have expiration dates. Like milk on the cusp of going bad, it's best to drink them down before you've wasted your money. No matter how bad they taste, you have to do it. Just CHUG IT DOWN!!!
Thus... I watched Lo, and then Ink, two, shall we say, "independent" movies for view on netflix. Hell, by the time you read this they probably will have been taken off the instantly viewable list (probably a good thing). I had noticed, even though I know the movie by heart and thus had not needed to put it in my instant queue, that "The Thing" by John Carpenter, which WAS available last October, is no longer up for instant viewing. But then, I've seen that movie so many times I can probably recite it line by line. Should I ever have grand-kids, I will tell them the story of "The Thing" around the campfire, long after the zombie apocalypse, when netflix is but a fondly remembered dream. If I am in a charitable mood, I will even give john carpenter credit for the tale, and not tell my kids that it was, in fact, me who killed the thing, trekked my way north from the south pole during the antarctic winter, and made it back to civilization in time for supper.
But, on to the... uh... "movies." Lo and Ink both seem like they were put together by film students in their spare time. There's a stage quality to them, like they were broadway plays before they were films, and one even had a musical number in it, which just... well. Let's just say if you're watching a lot of films with musical numbers in them, you should have long ago turned in your man card.
Lo is the story about a man who uses a magical book he got from his girlfriend to summon up a Demon named Lo, in order to get his girlfriend back. Apparently, he really misses her, or he was really in love with her, or she knew how to give a really good blow job. In any case, he tasks this demon with finding her and dragging her ass back from hell so he can, oh I don't know, live happily ever after. How does he know she's in hell, you ask? Well, he saw a demon take her. So, being an idiot, he reads the book she told him not to read, casts the spell she told him not to cast, and bargains with the worst demon in all of hell to see her again. Sure, there's a twist. And a musical number. And I saw the twist coming from miles away, but the musical number, okay, that one got me. I didn't see that coming. Sure, the acting was high school level, the effects were something I could have put together with masking tape and crayons, but you never expect to see a musical song and dance routine in the middle of a horror movie. You just don't.
Now, I'm not saying the movie was bad. The premise was good. You don't see a lot of talking in horror movies for the most part. And I'm not even sure this could be called a horror movie, despite the whole summoning a demon thing, which is usually a good indicator that you are watching a horror flick. So basically, what happens is, a guy summons a demon, and they talk a lot. And, The End. So. Would I watch it again? No. Did I fast forward through a lot of the movie to see the end? Yes. Do I wish they'd have skipped the whole musical number thing? Hell yea. Would it have made it a better movie? I think so. You can't really take a horror movie seriously when it has a musical number in it. And don't cite "Little shop of horrors," because that's the exception that proves the rule.
Now "Ink," I thought had a chance for a minute there. There was something about some character kidnapping a little girl, and usually in kidnapping cases, there's no song and dance routine. Usually there's a lot of police chases, car chases, people chases, and some major thumping of bad guys going on. Oh, if only I was so lucky. Again, it had that whole "high school musical" thing going for it, and it played out like it was on a stage, so if you like surrealism, you'd like Ink (and Lo as well). I prefer realism in my surrealism... which, of course, makes it less surreal and more... real... but anyway, you get my point. But let me sum up the plot and maybe you'll see what I mean.
So a mystical dream bad guy kidnaps a ... well, a little girl's dream self, i guess you'd call it. And there's these, I don't know what you'd call them, good dream makers and bad dream makers, I guess? That are fighting for possession of the little girl's uh, dream self. And I guess if the good dream people win, she lives, and if the bad ones win, she dies. So, I think that much of the plot can be figured out. My only problem is... none of the movie makes sense. And I'm going to spoil the ending here, so if you want to try and watch this sometime, skip the next paragraph.
According to the movie... the bad guy who kidnaps the little girl is actually the girl's father. Now, the only way to become a dream bad guy (or good guy) is to die. So, I guess these beings are angels or demons or whatever? I don't know. Too theatrical for me to wonder about. So apparently, he commits suicide, dies, and kidnaps his own daughter to sacrifice to the evil dream people to become one of them. Now, due to his traumatic life/death, he can't remember that it is his daughter, but the good dream people know it. So they are trying to get him to remember who it is to save... him? Her? I'm not really sure. Now, I know the dream people say things like "time works differently here than in the real world." and everything, but here's what I don't get. According to the movie, his dead self kidnaps the girl, which precipitates the good dream people to try and remind him of who he is so he can reunite with her and save them both. So, they cause him to have a car accident in the real world so he can get sent to the hospital where his daughter is to help save her. So... Wait, what? How... how does a dead guy have a car.. accident? I'm all confuzzled. And if he's NOT dead, and only had an accident... how did he kidnap her in the first... place? I don't... (head asplodes) I don't know, maybe i missed some strain of random logic in there somewhere, but if his death causes the whole series of events in the entire movie, and he's not actually dead, doesn't that mean nothing actually happened? And it's not even one of those "everything happened in his mind" things, because... oh screw it, just let it go. Obviously these high school film students have been using too many drugs.
So. Would I watch Ink again? No. Did I fast forward through spots to get to the end? yes. Should I have just deleted it from my instant queue when i realized there was a time limit on it? yes, i should have, like i did with the third movie that had a time limit on it.
Now here's my question... if Lo got an average rating of 3 to 4 stars (out of a possible 5), and Ink got an average rating of 4 stars, then do the people who make the movies go to netflix to pad their own stats? Yes. Hell yes, a thousand times, yes. These movies shouldn't have been on netflix. YouTube, perchance. High school drama class, sure. Netflix? No. No, a thousand times, no.
I think I just drank down some bad milk. And yes, that's a euphemism for having watched some horribly bad movies. I haven't had actual milk since the last time I drank chocolate milk straight out of the chocolate cow. And don't ask me wtf I am talking about, it's probably a hallucination from the bad milk-movies.
Plus, I think they gave me gas. Can a bad movie give you gas? This is too surreal for me.
So I have this netflix subscription. And I have 258 movies in my instant queue. Most of them are horror. And I was talking with my nephew and I realized... even at a movie a day, that's most of a year, just before I clear out my instant queue. Not even considering new releases. At first, I was aghast, agog, almost kerfluffled at how I would ever watch them all, or in what order to watch them in. Then my nephew mentioned something even more horrible.
The movies sometimes expire.
WHAT!!!!! My movies can DIE???? Yes, it's true. So I'm browsing the dozen or so pages of my instant queue and I notice... Three movies have expiration dates. Like milk on the cusp of going bad, it's best to drink them down before you've wasted your money. No matter how bad they taste, you have to do it. Just CHUG IT DOWN!!!
Thus... I watched Lo, and then Ink, two, shall we say, "independent" movies for view on netflix. Hell, by the time you read this they probably will have been taken off the instantly viewable list (probably a good thing). I had noticed, even though I know the movie by heart and thus had not needed to put it in my instant queue, that "The Thing" by John Carpenter, which WAS available last October, is no longer up for instant viewing. But then, I've seen that movie so many times I can probably recite it line by line. Should I ever have grand-kids, I will tell them the story of "The Thing" around the campfire, long after the zombie apocalypse, when netflix is but a fondly remembered dream. If I am in a charitable mood, I will even give john carpenter credit for the tale, and not tell my kids that it was, in fact, me who killed the thing, trekked my way north from the south pole during the antarctic winter, and made it back to civilization in time for supper.
But, on to the... uh... "movies." Lo and Ink both seem like they were put together by film students in their spare time. There's a stage quality to them, like they were broadway plays before they were films, and one even had a musical number in it, which just... well. Let's just say if you're watching a lot of films with musical numbers in them, you should have long ago turned in your man card.
Lo is the story about a man who uses a magical book he got from his girlfriend to summon up a Demon named Lo, in order to get his girlfriend back. Apparently, he really misses her, or he was really in love with her, or she knew how to give a really good blow job. In any case, he tasks this demon with finding her and dragging her ass back from hell so he can, oh I don't know, live happily ever after. How does he know she's in hell, you ask? Well, he saw a demon take her. So, being an idiot, he reads the book she told him not to read, casts the spell she told him not to cast, and bargains with the worst demon in all of hell to see her again. Sure, there's a twist. And a musical number. And I saw the twist coming from miles away, but the musical number, okay, that one got me. I didn't see that coming. Sure, the acting was high school level, the effects were something I could have put together with masking tape and crayons, but you never expect to see a musical song and dance routine in the middle of a horror movie. You just don't.
Now, I'm not saying the movie was bad. The premise was good. You don't see a lot of talking in horror movies for the most part. And I'm not even sure this could be called a horror movie, despite the whole summoning a demon thing, which is usually a good indicator that you are watching a horror flick. So basically, what happens is, a guy summons a demon, and they talk a lot. And, The End. So. Would I watch it again? No. Did I fast forward through a lot of the movie to see the end? Yes. Do I wish they'd have skipped the whole musical number thing? Hell yea. Would it have made it a better movie? I think so. You can't really take a horror movie seriously when it has a musical number in it. And don't cite "Little shop of horrors," because that's the exception that proves the rule.
Now "Ink," I thought had a chance for a minute there. There was something about some character kidnapping a little girl, and usually in kidnapping cases, there's no song and dance routine. Usually there's a lot of police chases, car chases, people chases, and some major thumping of bad guys going on. Oh, if only I was so lucky. Again, it had that whole "high school musical" thing going for it, and it played out like it was on a stage, so if you like surrealism, you'd like Ink (and Lo as well). I prefer realism in my surrealism... which, of course, makes it less surreal and more... real... but anyway, you get my point. But let me sum up the plot and maybe you'll see what I mean.
So a mystical dream bad guy kidnaps a ... well, a little girl's dream self, i guess you'd call it. And there's these, I don't know what you'd call them, good dream makers and bad dream makers, I guess? That are fighting for possession of the little girl's uh, dream self. And I guess if the good dream people win, she lives, and if the bad ones win, she dies. So, I think that much of the plot can be figured out. My only problem is... none of the movie makes sense. And I'm going to spoil the ending here, so if you want to try and watch this sometime, skip the next paragraph.
According to the movie... the bad guy who kidnaps the little girl is actually the girl's father. Now, the only way to become a dream bad guy (or good guy) is to die. So, I guess these beings are angels or demons or whatever? I don't know. Too theatrical for me to wonder about. So apparently, he commits suicide, dies, and kidnaps his own daughter to sacrifice to the evil dream people to become one of them. Now, due to his traumatic life/death, he can't remember that it is his daughter, but the good dream people know it. So they are trying to get him to remember who it is to save... him? Her? I'm not really sure. Now, I know the dream people say things like "time works differently here than in the real world." and everything, but here's what I don't get. According to the movie, his dead self kidnaps the girl, which precipitates the good dream people to try and remind him of who he is so he can reunite with her and save them both. So, they cause him to have a car accident in the real world so he can get sent to the hospital where his daughter is to help save her. So... Wait, what? How... how does a dead guy have a car.. accident? I'm all confuzzled. And if he's NOT dead, and only had an accident... how did he kidnap her in the first... place? I don't... (head asplodes) I don't know, maybe i missed some strain of random logic in there somewhere, but if his death causes the whole series of events in the entire movie, and he's not actually dead, doesn't that mean nothing actually happened? And it's not even one of those "everything happened in his mind" things, because... oh screw it, just let it go. Obviously these high school film students have been using too many drugs.
So. Would I watch Ink again? No. Did I fast forward through spots to get to the end? yes. Should I have just deleted it from my instant queue when i realized there was a time limit on it? yes, i should have, like i did with the third movie that had a time limit on it.
Now here's my question... if Lo got an average rating of 3 to 4 stars (out of a possible 5), and Ink got an average rating of 4 stars, then do the people who make the movies go to netflix to pad their own stats? Yes. Hell yes, a thousand times, yes. These movies shouldn't have been on netflix. YouTube, perchance. High school drama class, sure. Netflix? No. No, a thousand times, no.
I think I just drank down some bad milk. And yes, that's a euphemism for having watched some horribly bad movies. I haven't had actual milk since the last time I drank chocolate milk straight out of the chocolate cow. And don't ask me wtf I am talking about, it's probably a hallucination from the bad milk-movies.
Plus, I think they gave me gas. Can a bad movie give you gas? This is too surreal for me.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Ninja - Movie Review
Okay, let me preface this first by saying, this is not the Ninja Assassin movie that has Sho Kosugi in it. It's just called "Ninja." I say this because I have the utmost respect for Sho Kosugi and his badass ninja skills. Even if he is only an actor. He acts like he has badass ninja skills, so I respect his art. Hell, he could probably just act like he is kicking my butt, and manage a decent job of it. lol I would say Ninja Assassin is a smidge better than "Ninja," so try not to get the two confused.
Ninja has some actor named scott in it. He plays the lead. And here's something I can't ever understand. Why does every white martial artist look like a teenage sylvester stallone? The big hair, the ... shall we say, "prominent" nose? You know what I mean, vern? Is there some ninjutsu dojo in Brooklyn I don't know about? Not that I would know, even if there was, but it seems like every white guy who knows martial arts looks like he came out of New York City. Hell, maybe they do. That having been said, let me get to the movie.
Ninja opens, as every good ninja movie does, with ninjas training at the ninja school. Well, except first there is a bit of history about ninjas in Japanese culture, complete with what look like authentic japanese wooden scrolls with artwork on them! Even if they aren't authentic, someone put some work into them so I had to give them a shout-out. They look very realistic. And that's where the authenticity goes by the wayside. So then we see students training to become ninjas. Practicing with knives, staves, bows- and oh what's this? Is someone holding a bow backwards as they shoot arrows at a target? Why yes, yes they are. That is some badass ninja shit right there! You KNOW they are badass ninjas when they won't even hold a bow correctly! YEA, BABY!
So that just sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of action. There were just so many inconsistencies that the movie kept throwing off my enjoyment of it. Let's start with the two main characters. There's a badass ninja trainee called Masazuka, and "Casey" played by that scott-actor-guy. And, now don't get me wrong, Casey has some nice moves, but even as trainees, Casey apparently can't hold his own against masazuka. Which of course, is a lot like every other ninja movie, there's always some better student out there that our hero can't beat, which sets the whole tone of the movie, because the better student is always the bad guy in these things. Well. Except in the Octagon, with Chuck Norris, wherein Chuck Norris is actually the better student, but come on... who can compete with Chuck Norris? The guy is like 100 years old and can still cripple and main someone with a harsh glance. Anyway, in all these ninja movies where there's a white guy, there's always a traditional japanese student who is a racist prick and doesn't like white people, and picks on the white guy all the time. because, you know, even Ninjas have to deal with bullies at school. lol
Now here's where the second inconsistency pops up. The first being, someone using a bow backwards. And maybe I can forgive that one because it is a TRAINEE, so maybe he's just the retarded kid that they are purposely training wrong. As a joke. He could even have been named Wimp Lo, but I can't say. Anywho, the master of the dojo is apparently called a Soke, and the Soke's daughter is in training as well, and seems to be kicking Casey's ass with a staff. Which, well, let's face it, she's the master's daughter, she better be goddamn good at being a ninja or the master is going to look like a moron. But she is consistently beating him with a staff, and yet, the master holds Casey and masazuka up to the class as people they should try and be like. Because if there is one thing teachers do, it's create rivalry among students so the swords come out. Erm. yea.
So here's my beef with the movie. Casey fights with Masazuka, and Masazuka's tossed out of Ninja school. Typical. But masazuka is all like "but, but, I don't KNOW any other life! i've been here since I was 2!" or whatever. Which just makes me feel all sad for masazuka, because, come on, honestly, he got a little angry at the white guy (for no discernible reason, granted), but no one got hurt, maybe he disgraced himself, but was it necessary to kick him out? So he's out of school and I would guess, years pass, because the next time we see masazuka he's a badass, high priced assassin for hire. Now, think about it, the guy knows no other way of life, he'd have to start small, killing farmers and small children or something, til he attracted the attention of the big boys. Even if he used all his ninja skills and killed all his assassin rivals in the area, it would still take years for him to gather the money together to outfit his own evil lair (which he has by the next time we see him). So obviously, he's never completed ninja school, but he's got some technological substitutes to help him get by. Plus, he uses guns.
All through this movie, Casey and the Soke's daughter are fighting multiple thugs and Masazuka. Now... several things are jumping out at me here. One is, for an assassin's daughter, the chick (i can't recall her name) is barely an average fighter. She's tiny, sure. She probably weighs less than one of my legs. But.. wouldn't you think she'd be able to compensate for that? Because all through this movie, she's getting her ass kicked. Thugs, ninjas, masazuka, random people off the street are just bitchslapping her all over the place. Hell, from the looks of it, I could kick her ass, and I'm a computer geek. Where the hell is her training? She can't fight for shit hand to hand. She never bothers to try and find a weapon. We never see her grab a staff. The hero, casey, never even tosses her a pointy stick or something. So, I guess her total lack of skills make her a good heroine in distress for the hero to rescue, but come on? She's supposed to be a NINJA. The mere word should be enough to make hired killers wet their pants. She's an embarrassment to the word, if a pretty cute one.
So then we have casey. Now, supposedly he's going to be the next Master of the dojo, and has at least several more years of training than masazuka by the time all the violence in the movie breaks out, where casey and a few other ninjas are transporting the Yoroi-bitsu (ancient ninja weapons) to a museum in america. And, a side note here, they make this casey fellow always looking at a worn postcard with his mother's address on it, the mother who abandoned him at birth, so when in NY he goes to see her, and she's died months earlier. Wtf? What kind of closure is that? Why even mention it if all you're going to do is kill her off months before he has a chance to talk to her? That's just retarded. Serves no purpose whatsoever.
So gun-toting thugs kill off the ninjas with casey. Sure, the ninjas take out a thug or two. But, again, they are supposed to be NINJAS! Come on. My mom could probably have taken out two or three of the thugs at least. Anyway, disappointing ninjas aside, let's discuss training here.
They make a huge deal of these ninjas making their own poison so that there's only one antidote. There's even an antidote for the poison in the handle of this ancient sword, which saves the girl later in the movie, and I hope I didn't give anything away here, but... if even masazuka, who didn't even finish the training, can make the poison and the antidote for it... why the HELL doesn't every student, including the master, carry around a damn vial of antidote? The MASTER of the damn DOJO dies by the poison, and you're telling me he's too stupid to have the antidote handy when he KNOWS masazuka's a bad ninja? I don't get it. Also, supposedly Casey had years more of training than masazuka, but masazuka still wipes the floor with him in almost every fight.
So let's see here. Masazuka makes his own ninja weapons, kills with poison, destroys just about everyone, kills without warning and without regret, and you're NOT making him the head assassin? I really don't follow that. Seems like the right qualities to me...? Hell, neither Casey nor the chick even seem to bother picking up any weapons, let alone making their own... But they're the good guys! Pfagh. Makes no sense.
Just about the only thing this movie got right is lots and lots of fighting. Casey, at least, seems to make short work of most of the thugs hired to go after him. He doesn't kill them, of course, because that would be WRONG, and.. but... he's a ninja, that's what they do... but... SO CONFUSING!
Ninja Assassin, or, any movie starring Sho Kosugi, is much better, and makes much better use of the ninja weapons. Plus, and here's something else I never understood about ninja movies. WHERE'S THE SUBTERFUGE? The misdirection?? Sure there's this ONE movie here, where a ninja kills with poison, but ninjas were famous for it back in the day. yet most ninja movies feature the hero walking into a building full of armed guards and fighting his way through. That's so not the point. They're supposed to be SNEAKY. They're not armored, they aren't attacking in vast numbers, they don't have sniper rifles with laser scopes, so the only successful option is SNEAKINESS. Most of the Sho Kosugi Ninja movies seem to understand that. Sure, there's going to be fighting in them, I mean that's kind of the point and all, but at least there's a LOT of trickery going on, not just "walk into the bad guy's house and punch him" attitude.
Hell, that guy from "The Mechanic" is better at killing without anyone knowing he's there than the ninjas in this movie. And he's not even a ninja!
So, all in all, a bad ninja movie, even if there is a generous amount of action in it. It's on Netflix if you care to catch it, but I'd recommend Pray for Death instead. With Sho Kosugi! Best ninja EVER! Even if he does only have one eye. Sho Kosugi was in ALL the Ninja movies from the 80's, from Enter the Ninja to Ninja 2 and ninja 3. I think pray for death was probably the last ninja movie of the 80's, and Sho went from a bad guy in the first one (where he died) to the fourth one. Uh, if you've seen Ninja 3 you know it's REALLY hard to kill a ninja, so um, yea, I guess he did come back from the dead for movies 2 through 4. So what? You going to argue with him that it's not possible? I'm not!
Ninja has some actor named scott in it. He plays the lead. And here's something I can't ever understand. Why does every white martial artist look like a teenage sylvester stallone? The big hair, the ... shall we say, "prominent" nose? You know what I mean, vern? Is there some ninjutsu dojo in Brooklyn I don't know about? Not that I would know, even if there was, but it seems like every white guy who knows martial arts looks like he came out of New York City. Hell, maybe they do. That having been said, let me get to the movie.
Ninja opens, as every good ninja movie does, with ninjas training at the ninja school. Well, except first there is a bit of history about ninjas in Japanese culture, complete with what look like authentic japanese wooden scrolls with artwork on them! Even if they aren't authentic, someone put some work into them so I had to give them a shout-out. They look very realistic. And that's where the authenticity goes by the wayside. So then we see students training to become ninjas. Practicing with knives, staves, bows- and oh what's this? Is someone holding a bow backwards as they shoot arrows at a target? Why yes, yes they are. That is some badass ninja shit right there! You KNOW they are badass ninjas when they won't even hold a bow correctly! YEA, BABY!
So that just sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of action. There were just so many inconsistencies that the movie kept throwing off my enjoyment of it. Let's start with the two main characters. There's a badass ninja trainee called Masazuka, and "Casey" played by that scott-actor-guy. And, now don't get me wrong, Casey has some nice moves, but even as trainees, Casey apparently can't hold his own against masazuka. Which of course, is a lot like every other ninja movie, there's always some better student out there that our hero can't beat, which sets the whole tone of the movie, because the better student is always the bad guy in these things. Well. Except in the Octagon, with Chuck Norris, wherein Chuck Norris is actually the better student, but come on... who can compete with Chuck Norris? The guy is like 100 years old and can still cripple and main someone with a harsh glance. Anyway, in all these ninja movies where there's a white guy, there's always a traditional japanese student who is a racist prick and doesn't like white people, and picks on the white guy all the time. because, you know, even Ninjas have to deal with bullies at school. lol
Now here's where the second inconsistency pops up. The first being, someone using a bow backwards. And maybe I can forgive that one because it is a TRAINEE, so maybe he's just the retarded kid that they are purposely training wrong. As a joke. He could even have been named Wimp Lo, but I can't say. Anywho, the master of the dojo is apparently called a Soke, and the Soke's daughter is in training as well, and seems to be kicking Casey's ass with a staff. Which, well, let's face it, she's the master's daughter, she better be goddamn good at being a ninja or the master is going to look like a moron. But she is consistently beating him with a staff, and yet, the master holds Casey and masazuka up to the class as people they should try and be like. Because if there is one thing teachers do, it's create rivalry among students so the swords come out. Erm. yea.
So here's my beef with the movie. Casey fights with Masazuka, and Masazuka's tossed out of Ninja school. Typical. But masazuka is all like "but, but, I don't KNOW any other life! i've been here since I was 2!" or whatever. Which just makes me feel all sad for masazuka, because, come on, honestly, he got a little angry at the white guy (for no discernible reason, granted), but no one got hurt, maybe he disgraced himself, but was it necessary to kick him out? So he's out of school and I would guess, years pass, because the next time we see masazuka he's a badass, high priced assassin for hire. Now, think about it, the guy knows no other way of life, he'd have to start small, killing farmers and small children or something, til he attracted the attention of the big boys. Even if he used all his ninja skills and killed all his assassin rivals in the area, it would still take years for him to gather the money together to outfit his own evil lair (which he has by the next time we see him). So obviously, he's never completed ninja school, but he's got some technological substitutes to help him get by. Plus, he uses guns.
All through this movie, Casey and the Soke's daughter are fighting multiple thugs and Masazuka. Now... several things are jumping out at me here. One is, for an assassin's daughter, the chick (i can't recall her name) is barely an average fighter. She's tiny, sure. She probably weighs less than one of my legs. But.. wouldn't you think she'd be able to compensate for that? Because all through this movie, she's getting her ass kicked. Thugs, ninjas, masazuka, random people off the street are just bitchslapping her all over the place. Hell, from the looks of it, I could kick her ass, and I'm a computer geek. Where the hell is her training? She can't fight for shit hand to hand. She never bothers to try and find a weapon. We never see her grab a staff. The hero, casey, never even tosses her a pointy stick or something. So, I guess her total lack of skills make her a good heroine in distress for the hero to rescue, but come on? She's supposed to be a NINJA. The mere word should be enough to make hired killers wet their pants. She's an embarrassment to the word, if a pretty cute one.
So then we have casey. Now, supposedly he's going to be the next Master of the dojo, and has at least several more years of training than masazuka by the time all the violence in the movie breaks out, where casey and a few other ninjas are transporting the Yoroi-bitsu (ancient ninja weapons) to a museum in america. And, a side note here, they make this casey fellow always looking at a worn postcard with his mother's address on it, the mother who abandoned him at birth, so when in NY he goes to see her, and she's died months earlier. Wtf? What kind of closure is that? Why even mention it if all you're going to do is kill her off months before he has a chance to talk to her? That's just retarded. Serves no purpose whatsoever.
So gun-toting thugs kill off the ninjas with casey. Sure, the ninjas take out a thug or two. But, again, they are supposed to be NINJAS! Come on. My mom could probably have taken out two or three of the thugs at least. Anyway, disappointing ninjas aside, let's discuss training here.
They make a huge deal of these ninjas making their own poison so that there's only one antidote. There's even an antidote for the poison in the handle of this ancient sword, which saves the girl later in the movie, and I hope I didn't give anything away here, but... if even masazuka, who didn't even finish the training, can make the poison and the antidote for it... why the HELL doesn't every student, including the master, carry around a damn vial of antidote? The MASTER of the damn DOJO dies by the poison, and you're telling me he's too stupid to have the antidote handy when he KNOWS masazuka's a bad ninja? I don't get it. Also, supposedly Casey had years more of training than masazuka, but masazuka still wipes the floor with him in almost every fight.
So let's see here. Masazuka makes his own ninja weapons, kills with poison, destroys just about everyone, kills without warning and without regret, and you're NOT making him the head assassin? I really don't follow that. Seems like the right qualities to me...? Hell, neither Casey nor the chick even seem to bother picking up any weapons, let alone making their own... But they're the good guys! Pfagh. Makes no sense.
Just about the only thing this movie got right is lots and lots of fighting. Casey, at least, seems to make short work of most of the thugs hired to go after him. He doesn't kill them, of course, because that would be WRONG, and.. but... he's a ninja, that's what they do... but... SO CONFUSING!
Ninja Assassin, or, any movie starring Sho Kosugi, is much better, and makes much better use of the ninja weapons. Plus, and here's something else I never understood about ninja movies. WHERE'S THE SUBTERFUGE? The misdirection?? Sure there's this ONE movie here, where a ninja kills with poison, but ninjas were famous for it back in the day. yet most ninja movies feature the hero walking into a building full of armed guards and fighting his way through. That's so not the point. They're supposed to be SNEAKY. They're not armored, they aren't attacking in vast numbers, they don't have sniper rifles with laser scopes, so the only successful option is SNEAKINESS. Most of the Sho Kosugi Ninja movies seem to understand that. Sure, there's going to be fighting in them, I mean that's kind of the point and all, but at least there's a LOT of trickery going on, not just "walk into the bad guy's house and punch him" attitude.
Hell, that guy from "The Mechanic" is better at killing without anyone knowing he's there than the ninjas in this movie. And he's not even a ninja!
So, all in all, a bad ninja movie, even if there is a generous amount of action in it. It's on Netflix if you care to catch it, but I'd recommend Pray for Death instead. With Sho Kosugi! Best ninja EVER! Even if he does only have one eye. Sho Kosugi was in ALL the Ninja movies from the 80's, from Enter the Ninja to Ninja 2 and ninja 3. I think pray for death was probably the last ninja movie of the 80's, and Sho went from a bad guy in the first one (where he died) to the fourth one. Uh, if you've seen Ninja 3 you know it's REALLY hard to kill a ninja, so um, yea, I guess he did come back from the dead for movies 2 through 4. So what? You going to argue with him that it's not possible? I'm not!
Monday, February 6, 2012
It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn
And no, that doesn't mean I am writing this at 4 am.
And it's not a movie review, either. I guess maybe it's just a case of "the Mondays," but I was mildly depressed and a bit stressed this morning, thinking "oh, I've been out of work so long, and job prospects don't look good. I'm old, I'm financially unstable, and who knows when I will have money coming in?"
And then I thought to myself... "You're an idiot." And as usual, I am right.
Sure, there's no way to know the future, and things might get worse before they get better, but I am reminded of a few things. There's a saying that I have found to be true over the course of my 41 and three-quarter years. "There's always a way." And to give you specific examples instead of quoting a silly cliche, and to inspire myself to get through my day, I'm going to write about a couple.
First, let me give you the background. Just to make sure you understand how fair things were, these examples are from a game. Why a game? Because in a game, not only does a loss usually result in ignominious defeat, but death and dismemberment as well, and a game is as close as I ever want to get to that kind of violence. Also, games are designed so your choices are few and far between, tactics and strategy are limited to what the programmers could think of, and I want you to realize that, in real life, there are so many more options available to you, many you may not even think about. Another also, usually if you make bad choices in real life, you don't die from them. You can almost always pick yourself up, realize you made a mistake, and try something else next time. In a game, if you screw up, you lose. Game over. It's also important to remember, I had no unfair advantages or disadvantages, which is NOT like real life, but it also isn't always the case where you are the only one at a disadvantage. Sometimes, you have the upper hand, you just may not know it.
The game was Medal of Honor. The expansion pack specifically was Allied Assault, resulting in the ridiculously long winded title Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (or MOHAA). I'm not sure how many of you played or even remember this, so let me sum up. The game put you in the body of an Allied or Axis soldier during World War II. All you saw of yourself was your weapon and maybe your hands, and the settings were confined to a few city blocks, a building or two, or maybe a farm in the suburbs of France. That this limited the choices I had to make, and the ways I could overcome the opposition, goes without saying. Also, in real life, it's usually frowned upon when you blow someone up with a grenade. The game gives you an option you don't usually have in real life, but it just illustrates my point. There's always a way. In both situations I am about to describe, the server I was playing on was rifles-only, meaning, everyone in the game was limited to a bolt action rifle (with regular sights) and a grenade or two, instead of, say, sub-machine guns, pistols, and sniper rifles, which were available in other servers. With a bolt action rifle, you aim, fire one bullet, and then have to reload (reloading meaning, chambering the next round), which takes maybe 3 to 5 seconds. An eternity in actual in-game combat, the bolt-action rifles-only setting was designed to make a fair game even fairer. If you hit your target, you won, and if you missed, you usually didn't have enough time to reload for a second shot. As compensation, you could bash with the butt of your rifle, but that only worked in extremely close quarters. There were typically 12 to 16 players per server, split as equally as possible between the two opposing teams.
I'm going to set up the situations first, so you can see how utterly hopeless my chances seemed, before I tell you how I got out of them, and managed to turn catastrophic failure into overwhelming victory.
SITUATION (1): The map was your typical industrial section, whether it be France, Germany or where, I can't recall. The map was limited to a couple of warehouses, and there were several alleys between them, cluttered with numerous large crates for ample cover. Whether I was Axis or Allies, I don't recall. I spawned into the game, started searching around for cover and the enemy along with the half dozen other guys on my side. It was a simple Death Match game, meaning, when one side's players had all died, they lost, and the game either moved onto the next map, or reloaded the same one for best of 3 or 5 rounds. I broke off from my main group of allies and went down a side alley.
I realized afterwards that was probably the best choice, because apparently, all my allies were immediately killed shortly after I left them. As I followed the path down another alley, where it branched left and there was a door to a warehouse up ahead to the right, someone shot at me and missed. Glancing up, i saw someone in the blown-out second-floor window of the warehouse on my right. I fired a shot at him, which hit the windowsill at his feet, doubtless causing him no damage whatsoever, but he ducked back inside. I knew there were stairs up inside the warehouse, but to get in and go after him, I'd have to go through the door on my right. Since the door faced the alley that branched off to the left, I'd be exposing my back to whoever was in the alley as soon as I went for the door. I headed for the door, turning left as soon as I cleared the wall and could see down the alley just in case someone was hiding there, too.
Turns out, there were three guys there, all behind crates, rifles pointed in my direction. Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but everyone else on my team was dead, and these 3 enemies and the one in the second floor of the warehouse were all that was left of the enemy team, who had only lost 2 people taking out my 5 allies. Another shot rang out behind me; obviously the amateur sniper had returned to the second floor window and was shooting at me too. Facing 3 rifles in an open alley and an enemy behind, all behind cover, well... if that was real life I'd probably have surrendered then and there. Pretty hopeless, right?
SITUATION (2): Near the end of the war, Germany had been developing V2 rockets, the precursors to our modern ICBM's. This map was a V2 rocket facility, complete with large multi-tiered building and a courtyard with a rocket pad. The goal of the map was to fight your way through the building, enter the courtyard, and blow up not only the rocket, but the control room as well. Unfortunately the courtyard was extremely open, and to get to either the control room OR the rocket, you had to enter the courtyard and then go back into the building from another door. I was on the Allies side. We'd played this map 4 times already (out of 5) and my side had lost every time, because the Allies spawned at the entrance to the building, had to come out one of 2 or 3 doors into the courtyard, and the Axis players all spawned in the courtyard. From there, it was a simple matter for them to set up behind the nearest crate or barrel, aim at one of the doors, and fire a shot the minute the door opened, likely killing anyone coming through while staying almost completely behind cover. The Axis team was using this completely to their advantage, not bothering to go into the building at all for the most part, just waiting for us to open a door and get shot. It was working perfectly for them, so well that everyone on my team was complaining about it, saying how unfair it was, even though it was just good use of cover. No matter how quickly we ran through the building, no matter how many of us poured through those doors, we died in threes, four and five at a time, because the quickest (quickest meaning, the Axis had less time to get ready for us, we hoped) way through that building was a long narrow corridor, and there was no place to hide in that corridor once the door was open. So if all 6 of us ran down the hall and the one in front opened the door, we all died from an immediate hail of rifle fire before we could even get our bearings, let alone see any Axis players shooting from covered positions.
To make matters worse, this 5th round on this map, i spawned in an unfamiliar location, and got totally lost in the bowels of the building while I saw the text flash up on the screen that all my team had been slaughtered just like in each of the 4 other rounds on this map. Lost in an enemy building, facing 6 well trained Axis snipers, alone, and I have to not only destroy the control room, but destroy the rocket as well, in order to win. Well, even in the game, i was despairing of ever surviving. I knew the minute I even found my way to one of the doors, I'd get shot. There was no hope. Even worse, the V2 rocket was on countdown to launch, so I couldn't even wait in a corner for them to come to me. I would somehow have to bring the fight to them, or the Axis would win by default when the allotted time expired and the rocket launched. Good god, man! What drama! :-o
How could I possibly have survived these situations, without cheating, you ask? Well, let me tell you! :-D
SOLUTION (1): Facing 3 rifles in an open alley, an enemy sniper in the second floor window above and behind me, I knew a frontal assault was suicide. Cowards may die a thousand deaths, but at least they get to live another day! I fired off a shot at one of the three enemies facing me to give them something to think about instead of killing me. Just to illustrate how good those crates were as cover, I hit one of the crates, my bullet not coming anywhere near hitting one of the enemy. I turned to run, reloading as I went. I brought my rifle up as I neared the door, somehow not having three holes already in my back (how, I have no idea) and took another shot at the guy in the second floor window, which of course, hit the window sill again. In any case, just as i reached the door, I saw him leap clear out of the window, but I didn't wait to see where he landed. I was already through the door and moving to the right, where the stairs were up to the second floor, and there was a back way out of the warehouse.
Then... I stopped dead. The alleyway outside the warehouse WAS an excellent spot for an ambush, but having failed to kill me there, they would all have to come through the door I just went through in order to catch me. Unless, of course, they decided to go all the way around the warehouse and catch me coming out the back door, but that seemed unlikely. They'd all just seen me run like a scared rabbit (which, i had done), and they were going to give chase, i was sure. In any case, the door they'd all just seen me go through was right in front of them. And the room just inside the warehouse was perfect... To spring my OWN ambush! :-D
I spun about 180 degrees and faced the open doorway. i was far enough to the right of the door that shots fired through the door had no chance of hitting me, but anyone coming through the door would have to turn right to fire at me. I aimed right about the spot a head would be, if anyone came barreling through the door, and waited. It felt like an eternity, during which time I was worried they WOULD come around and get me from behind, but it was probably only a couple seconds before the first of them came through the door. The first one was probably the one who had jumped from the second floor window, since he would have been closest. His head moved into my cross-hairs, I fired, and he dropped. I reloaded, knowing if anyone came through the door now, i was a goner. They'd have plenty of time to turn and fire at me before I myself was ready to fire. And then I was reloaded, aimed again about head height, and then all three of the ones from the alley seemed to pour through the door at once. The first head of this group entered my sights and I fired, dropping him, my second kill of the round. The second man through the door must have thought I was long gone, because he ran so fast he was almost past me while I was trying to reload. I had no choice. Mid-reload, unable to fire yet, I turned and bashed him as he went by. He fell at my feet.
Bashing, unfortunately, stops the reloading process. I had to start all over again. The fourth and final enemy, standing in the doorway, raised his rifle (i would swear he smiled) and fired. I'm not sure whether the sight of all three of his buddies laying on the floor rattled him, throwing off his aim, or he was aiming at lady luck sitting on my shoulder, because he missed me completely. I reloaded, taking all the time in the world, knowing he'd never be able to chamber a round and fire before I had a chance to fire again. I aimed carefully and shot him in the face. The round ended with startled cries of "WTF?!?!" from the enemy team. I'd just killed 4 of them in about ten to 12 seconds without suffering a single wound. I might be a scared little rabbit, but I was a scared little rabbit with a rifle and an almost-perfect AMBUSH! :-D
SOLUTION (2): Lost in the bowels of the V2 rocket facility, I came to a door I thought was the way to the courtyard. I figured what the hell, there's no way to win this round anyway. So i opened it, waiting for the bullets. Nothing. It was a little room with the bottom of a staircase in it. Still lost, I went up the stairs, what must have been 3 flights worth, and came to a room with another door. This one did lead out to the courtyard, but to an upper catwalk, not the ground floor. I stayed in the room inside the facility and opened the door, staying low, waiting for the first bullet. No shots rang out. What? Could this be the only unguarded doorway into the courtyard? Inconceivable!
After a few seconds, the door automatically swung shut again. I opened it again and sure enough, a bullet ricocheted off the catwalk railing, making a distinctive bullet-on-metal ringing noise. I used the 3 second reload time to my advantage, bolting through the door and turned left, running along the catwalk. Nazis were everywhere. Bullets rang off the metal catwalk and thunked into the concrete wall all around me. There was a door at the end of the catwalk straight ahead that led towards the control room, but before I could get there, another of the doors that led into the Allied spawn area flew open in front of me. All my allies long dead, this must have been an Axis soldier gone scouting for me inside the building. He ran out onto the catwalk, moving right into my cross-hairs as I was running for the door in front of me. I shot him down without even slowing. My first kill. 5 to go.
I burst through the door and turned right, heading for the control room. There was a side door here, one straight ahead leading to the control room and another to my left with a storage room. The perfect hiding spot. Not for me, of course, but for the enemy, since hiding did not help me at all. I opened the door, fired off a round to keep everyone under cover, and tossed my only grenade. It exploded. I must have killed one of them with that grenade, because the other one ran out. He was injured and my shot, that would have ordinarily winged him because my aim was off, killed him. I checked the room again, and it was clear. On to the control room! To describe the action in the control room would be like describing a particularly bad shooting scene in a comedy movie. The one enemy and I were on each side of a table that was partially clear underneath, so we could see each other through the various bits of machinery stored under it, but because of the way the game worked, we couldn't shoot under the table, only over. So one of us would pop up, fire over the table, duck down. Then the other would do the same, and we'd take turns. When I moved around the table to get a better shot, he moved to keep the table between us, and vice-versa. There was a moment there where I thought the time would run down with us still doing that, but i faked a pop-up, not firing, and when he popped up to shoot, I shot him down. And when I set the explosives to destroy the control room, I went through the far door and waited, because I knew.
See, it takes a goodly amount of time for the timer set on the explosives to destroy the control room, allowing the enemy plenty of time to disarm them before they blow. Therefore, you have to stick around and guard them, otherwise there's no point. Of course, you can't stick around too long or you go up with the explosion, and the countdown is obvious to everyone on both sides. So of course the minute I set it, they all rushed the control room to blow me up and disarm the explosives. Although, actually just blowing me up would have done it, since Iw as the only one left. As soon as I cleared out of the room and shut the door behind me, explosions rocked the little control room. Oh not the timed explosives, you see. They'd lobbed grenades in through the door and open window to kill me. Since I was out of the room at the time, I lived, but I was still close enough to check the room if someone came to disarm the explosives I'd set.
Timing was everything at this point. I couldn't see into the room, so if I opened the door and someone was in there looking for me, he'd shoot me and it was over. If I left the room and they disarmed the timer, it was over. I waited right by the door, and just as I was about to check the control room again, it swung open. Luckily since I was so close to it, it swung me with it, shoving me between the wall and the door. I saw a rifle barrel looking towards the stairs I would need to take to get down to the courtyard, but apparently the guy didn't see me behind the door, because the rifle disappeared and the door automatically swung shut. He must have thought I went down to destroy the rocket already. I faced the door again, crouched down, waited as long as I dared, then opened it. Yep, there was enemy number 5, trying to disarm the explosives, completely oblivious. I shot him in the side of the head, stopping him from disarming them, and shut the door. The control room exploded as my timed satchel charge blew it apart.
Now for the rocket! I headed down the stairs. This was the moment of truth. I was at the door to the courtyard, one enemy left between me and the rocket. I had to go out to the courtyard, putting myself in the open, to get to him and the rocket. There was not only half a courtyard to navigate, but a long catwalk that led down to the launch pad. I had to get right under the rocket to set the explosives, and he was most likely set up behind cover and waiting for me. I popped open the door, but didn't go out. A shot rang out. The door swung shut before I could go out. I opened it again... and no shot. This was a smart one. He was waiting for me to stick my head out. The door swung shut again. I opened it a third time, poked my head out, darted back, the shot hit the wall and I bolted. There were probably 3 crates, 4 barrels and an oil slick between me and him, as well as the full length of the courtyard. He was hiding behind a crate at the far end, ducked down so far behind it all I could see was the rifle barrel. I dare not try the catwalk down into the launch pad without taking him out first, so it was a zig-zaggy, jumping, crouching down run across an open courtyard, firing and reloading constantly while his shots somehow kept missing me, and my shots kept hitting nothing but crate. Finally, by some miracle of physics or nudge by a flying spaghetti monster, I made it to his crate. unable to put me down the old fashioned way, he stood up and at nearly point blank range, we circled, moved, ducked and fired, each trying to put the other down. Honestly once I cleared the crate, he probably only managed to get off two shots. The first he missed with, but I also missed my shot, and as I was reloading I tried a bash. Missed completely, but his follow-up shot wounded me severely. His aim must have been off and luckily I had full health before that (not having been wounded once until this point), otherwise the game would have ended there. I stopped trying to bash since I really was not very good at it, and just shot him down with my next round. Then it was a simple matter of waltzing easily down to the rocket, setting the explosives, and waiting for the detonation of the satchel charge to ensure my victory. Why yes, I was grinning like an idiot the whole time, how did you know? :-)
There you have it. All hope of victory lost, fleeing in fear, expecting a bullet through the head at any minute, wandering around lost and alone, and STILL I managed to not only win, but KICK MAJOR ASS. I am sure everyone has certain of these moments in their lifetimes, moments of complete and utter WIN in the face of impossible odds, and whenever you have moments of fear or doubt, why, just remember... You've done it before. You can do it again.
Or if you haven't, I have, and you too, can learn my methods, for only $300 US! lol I am kidding, I'm not selling any self-help books. Not this week, anyway. ;-)
And it's not a movie review, either. I guess maybe it's just a case of "the Mondays," but I was mildly depressed and a bit stressed this morning, thinking "oh, I've been out of work so long, and job prospects don't look good. I'm old, I'm financially unstable, and who knows when I will have money coming in?"
And then I thought to myself... "You're an idiot." And as usual, I am right.
Sure, there's no way to know the future, and things might get worse before they get better, but I am reminded of a few things. There's a saying that I have found to be true over the course of my 41 and three-quarter years. "There's always a way." And to give you specific examples instead of quoting a silly cliche, and to inspire myself to get through my day, I'm going to write about a couple.
First, let me give you the background. Just to make sure you understand how fair things were, these examples are from a game. Why a game? Because in a game, not only does a loss usually result in ignominious defeat, but death and dismemberment as well, and a game is as close as I ever want to get to that kind of violence. Also, games are designed so your choices are few and far between, tactics and strategy are limited to what the programmers could think of, and I want you to realize that, in real life, there are so many more options available to you, many you may not even think about. Another also, usually if you make bad choices in real life, you don't die from them. You can almost always pick yourself up, realize you made a mistake, and try something else next time. In a game, if you screw up, you lose. Game over. It's also important to remember, I had no unfair advantages or disadvantages, which is NOT like real life, but it also isn't always the case where you are the only one at a disadvantage. Sometimes, you have the upper hand, you just may not know it.
The game was Medal of Honor. The expansion pack specifically was Allied Assault, resulting in the ridiculously long winded title Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (or MOHAA). I'm not sure how many of you played or even remember this, so let me sum up. The game put you in the body of an Allied or Axis soldier during World War II. All you saw of yourself was your weapon and maybe your hands, and the settings were confined to a few city blocks, a building or two, or maybe a farm in the suburbs of France. That this limited the choices I had to make, and the ways I could overcome the opposition, goes without saying. Also, in real life, it's usually frowned upon when you blow someone up with a grenade. The game gives you an option you don't usually have in real life, but it just illustrates my point. There's always a way. In both situations I am about to describe, the server I was playing on was rifles-only, meaning, everyone in the game was limited to a bolt action rifle (with regular sights) and a grenade or two, instead of, say, sub-machine guns, pistols, and sniper rifles, which were available in other servers. With a bolt action rifle, you aim, fire one bullet, and then have to reload (reloading meaning, chambering the next round), which takes maybe 3 to 5 seconds. An eternity in actual in-game combat, the bolt-action rifles-only setting was designed to make a fair game even fairer. If you hit your target, you won, and if you missed, you usually didn't have enough time to reload for a second shot. As compensation, you could bash with the butt of your rifle, but that only worked in extremely close quarters. There were typically 12 to 16 players per server, split as equally as possible between the two opposing teams.
I'm going to set up the situations first, so you can see how utterly hopeless my chances seemed, before I tell you how I got out of them, and managed to turn catastrophic failure into overwhelming victory.
SITUATION (1): The map was your typical industrial section, whether it be France, Germany or where, I can't recall. The map was limited to a couple of warehouses, and there were several alleys between them, cluttered with numerous large crates for ample cover. Whether I was Axis or Allies, I don't recall. I spawned into the game, started searching around for cover and the enemy along with the half dozen other guys on my side. It was a simple Death Match game, meaning, when one side's players had all died, they lost, and the game either moved onto the next map, or reloaded the same one for best of 3 or 5 rounds. I broke off from my main group of allies and went down a side alley.
I realized afterwards that was probably the best choice, because apparently, all my allies were immediately killed shortly after I left them. As I followed the path down another alley, where it branched left and there was a door to a warehouse up ahead to the right, someone shot at me and missed. Glancing up, i saw someone in the blown-out second-floor window of the warehouse on my right. I fired a shot at him, which hit the windowsill at his feet, doubtless causing him no damage whatsoever, but he ducked back inside. I knew there were stairs up inside the warehouse, but to get in and go after him, I'd have to go through the door on my right. Since the door faced the alley that branched off to the left, I'd be exposing my back to whoever was in the alley as soon as I went for the door. I headed for the door, turning left as soon as I cleared the wall and could see down the alley just in case someone was hiding there, too.
Turns out, there were three guys there, all behind crates, rifles pointed in my direction. Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but everyone else on my team was dead, and these 3 enemies and the one in the second floor of the warehouse were all that was left of the enemy team, who had only lost 2 people taking out my 5 allies. Another shot rang out behind me; obviously the amateur sniper had returned to the second floor window and was shooting at me too. Facing 3 rifles in an open alley and an enemy behind, all behind cover, well... if that was real life I'd probably have surrendered then and there. Pretty hopeless, right?
SITUATION (2): Near the end of the war, Germany had been developing V2 rockets, the precursors to our modern ICBM's. This map was a V2 rocket facility, complete with large multi-tiered building and a courtyard with a rocket pad. The goal of the map was to fight your way through the building, enter the courtyard, and blow up not only the rocket, but the control room as well. Unfortunately the courtyard was extremely open, and to get to either the control room OR the rocket, you had to enter the courtyard and then go back into the building from another door. I was on the Allies side. We'd played this map 4 times already (out of 5) and my side had lost every time, because the Allies spawned at the entrance to the building, had to come out one of 2 or 3 doors into the courtyard, and the Axis players all spawned in the courtyard. From there, it was a simple matter for them to set up behind the nearest crate or barrel, aim at one of the doors, and fire a shot the minute the door opened, likely killing anyone coming through while staying almost completely behind cover. The Axis team was using this completely to their advantage, not bothering to go into the building at all for the most part, just waiting for us to open a door and get shot. It was working perfectly for them, so well that everyone on my team was complaining about it, saying how unfair it was, even though it was just good use of cover. No matter how quickly we ran through the building, no matter how many of us poured through those doors, we died in threes, four and five at a time, because the quickest (quickest meaning, the Axis had less time to get ready for us, we hoped) way through that building was a long narrow corridor, and there was no place to hide in that corridor once the door was open. So if all 6 of us ran down the hall and the one in front opened the door, we all died from an immediate hail of rifle fire before we could even get our bearings, let alone see any Axis players shooting from covered positions.
To make matters worse, this 5th round on this map, i spawned in an unfamiliar location, and got totally lost in the bowels of the building while I saw the text flash up on the screen that all my team had been slaughtered just like in each of the 4 other rounds on this map. Lost in an enemy building, facing 6 well trained Axis snipers, alone, and I have to not only destroy the control room, but destroy the rocket as well, in order to win. Well, even in the game, i was despairing of ever surviving. I knew the minute I even found my way to one of the doors, I'd get shot. There was no hope. Even worse, the V2 rocket was on countdown to launch, so I couldn't even wait in a corner for them to come to me. I would somehow have to bring the fight to them, or the Axis would win by default when the allotted time expired and the rocket launched. Good god, man! What drama! :-o
How could I possibly have survived these situations, without cheating, you ask? Well, let me tell you! :-D
SOLUTION (1): Facing 3 rifles in an open alley, an enemy sniper in the second floor window above and behind me, I knew a frontal assault was suicide. Cowards may die a thousand deaths, but at least they get to live another day! I fired off a shot at one of the three enemies facing me to give them something to think about instead of killing me. Just to illustrate how good those crates were as cover, I hit one of the crates, my bullet not coming anywhere near hitting one of the enemy. I turned to run, reloading as I went. I brought my rifle up as I neared the door, somehow not having three holes already in my back (how, I have no idea) and took another shot at the guy in the second floor window, which of course, hit the window sill again. In any case, just as i reached the door, I saw him leap clear out of the window, but I didn't wait to see where he landed. I was already through the door and moving to the right, where the stairs were up to the second floor, and there was a back way out of the warehouse.
Then... I stopped dead. The alleyway outside the warehouse WAS an excellent spot for an ambush, but having failed to kill me there, they would all have to come through the door I just went through in order to catch me. Unless, of course, they decided to go all the way around the warehouse and catch me coming out the back door, but that seemed unlikely. They'd all just seen me run like a scared rabbit (which, i had done), and they were going to give chase, i was sure. In any case, the door they'd all just seen me go through was right in front of them. And the room just inside the warehouse was perfect... To spring my OWN ambush! :-D
I spun about 180 degrees and faced the open doorway. i was far enough to the right of the door that shots fired through the door had no chance of hitting me, but anyone coming through the door would have to turn right to fire at me. I aimed right about the spot a head would be, if anyone came barreling through the door, and waited. It felt like an eternity, during which time I was worried they WOULD come around and get me from behind, but it was probably only a couple seconds before the first of them came through the door. The first one was probably the one who had jumped from the second floor window, since he would have been closest. His head moved into my cross-hairs, I fired, and he dropped. I reloaded, knowing if anyone came through the door now, i was a goner. They'd have plenty of time to turn and fire at me before I myself was ready to fire. And then I was reloaded, aimed again about head height, and then all three of the ones from the alley seemed to pour through the door at once. The first head of this group entered my sights and I fired, dropping him, my second kill of the round. The second man through the door must have thought I was long gone, because he ran so fast he was almost past me while I was trying to reload. I had no choice. Mid-reload, unable to fire yet, I turned and bashed him as he went by. He fell at my feet.
Bashing, unfortunately, stops the reloading process. I had to start all over again. The fourth and final enemy, standing in the doorway, raised his rifle (i would swear he smiled) and fired. I'm not sure whether the sight of all three of his buddies laying on the floor rattled him, throwing off his aim, or he was aiming at lady luck sitting on my shoulder, because he missed me completely. I reloaded, taking all the time in the world, knowing he'd never be able to chamber a round and fire before I had a chance to fire again. I aimed carefully and shot him in the face. The round ended with startled cries of "WTF?!?!" from the enemy team. I'd just killed 4 of them in about ten to 12 seconds without suffering a single wound. I might be a scared little rabbit, but I was a scared little rabbit with a rifle and an almost-perfect AMBUSH! :-D
SOLUTION (2): Lost in the bowels of the V2 rocket facility, I came to a door I thought was the way to the courtyard. I figured what the hell, there's no way to win this round anyway. So i opened it, waiting for the bullets. Nothing. It was a little room with the bottom of a staircase in it. Still lost, I went up the stairs, what must have been 3 flights worth, and came to a room with another door. This one did lead out to the courtyard, but to an upper catwalk, not the ground floor. I stayed in the room inside the facility and opened the door, staying low, waiting for the first bullet. No shots rang out. What? Could this be the only unguarded doorway into the courtyard? Inconceivable!
After a few seconds, the door automatically swung shut again. I opened it again and sure enough, a bullet ricocheted off the catwalk railing, making a distinctive bullet-on-metal ringing noise. I used the 3 second reload time to my advantage, bolting through the door and turned left, running along the catwalk. Nazis were everywhere. Bullets rang off the metal catwalk and thunked into the concrete wall all around me. There was a door at the end of the catwalk straight ahead that led towards the control room, but before I could get there, another of the doors that led into the Allied spawn area flew open in front of me. All my allies long dead, this must have been an Axis soldier gone scouting for me inside the building. He ran out onto the catwalk, moving right into my cross-hairs as I was running for the door in front of me. I shot him down without even slowing. My first kill. 5 to go.
I burst through the door and turned right, heading for the control room. There was a side door here, one straight ahead leading to the control room and another to my left with a storage room. The perfect hiding spot. Not for me, of course, but for the enemy, since hiding did not help me at all. I opened the door, fired off a round to keep everyone under cover, and tossed my only grenade. It exploded. I must have killed one of them with that grenade, because the other one ran out. He was injured and my shot, that would have ordinarily winged him because my aim was off, killed him. I checked the room again, and it was clear. On to the control room! To describe the action in the control room would be like describing a particularly bad shooting scene in a comedy movie. The one enemy and I were on each side of a table that was partially clear underneath, so we could see each other through the various bits of machinery stored under it, but because of the way the game worked, we couldn't shoot under the table, only over. So one of us would pop up, fire over the table, duck down. Then the other would do the same, and we'd take turns. When I moved around the table to get a better shot, he moved to keep the table between us, and vice-versa. There was a moment there where I thought the time would run down with us still doing that, but i faked a pop-up, not firing, and when he popped up to shoot, I shot him down. And when I set the explosives to destroy the control room, I went through the far door and waited, because I knew.
See, it takes a goodly amount of time for the timer set on the explosives to destroy the control room, allowing the enemy plenty of time to disarm them before they blow. Therefore, you have to stick around and guard them, otherwise there's no point. Of course, you can't stick around too long or you go up with the explosion, and the countdown is obvious to everyone on both sides. So of course the minute I set it, they all rushed the control room to blow me up and disarm the explosives. Although, actually just blowing me up would have done it, since Iw as the only one left. As soon as I cleared out of the room and shut the door behind me, explosions rocked the little control room. Oh not the timed explosives, you see. They'd lobbed grenades in through the door and open window to kill me. Since I was out of the room at the time, I lived, but I was still close enough to check the room if someone came to disarm the explosives I'd set.
Timing was everything at this point. I couldn't see into the room, so if I opened the door and someone was in there looking for me, he'd shoot me and it was over. If I left the room and they disarmed the timer, it was over. I waited right by the door, and just as I was about to check the control room again, it swung open. Luckily since I was so close to it, it swung me with it, shoving me between the wall and the door. I saw a rifle barrel looking towards the stairs I would need to take to get down to the courtyard, but apparently the guy didn't see me behind the door, because the rifle disappeared and the door automatically swung shut. He must have thought I went down to destroy the rocket already. I faced the door again, crouched down, waited as long as I dared, then opened it. Yep, there was enemy number 5, trying to disarm the explosives, completely oblivious. I shot him in the side of the head, stopping him from disarming them, and shut the door. The control room exploded as my timed satchel charge blew it apart.
Now for the rocket! I headed down the stairs. This was the moment of truth. I was at the door to the courtyard, one enemy left between me and the rocket. I had to go out to the courtyard, putting myself in the open, to get to him and the rocket. There was not only half a courtyard to navigate, but a long catwalk that led down to the launch pad. I had to get right under the rocket to set the explosives, and he was most likely set up behind cover and waiting for me. I popped open the door, but didn't go out. A shot rang out. The door swung shut before I could go out. I opened it again... and no shot. This was a smart one. He was waiting for me to stick my head out. The door swung shut again. I opened it a third time, poked my head out, darted back, the shot hit the wall and I bolted. There were probably 3 crates, 4 barrels and an oil slick between me and him, as well as the full length of the courtyard. He was hiding behind a crate at the far end, ducked down so far behind it all I could see was the rifle barrel. I dare not try the catwalk down into the launch pad without taking him out first, so it was a zig-zaggy, jumping, crouching down run across an open courtyard, firing and reloading constantly while his shots somehow kept missing me, and my shots kept hitting nothing but crate. Finally, by some miracle of physics or nudge by a flying spaghetti monster, I made it to his crate. unable to put me down the old fashioned way, he stood up and at nearly point blank range, we circled, moved, ducked and fired, each trying to put the other down. Honestly once I cleared the crate, he probably only managed to get off two shots. The first he missed with, but I also missed my shot, and as I was reloading I tried a bash. Missed completely, but his follow-up shot wounded me severely. His aim must have been off and luckily I had full health before that (not having been wounded once until this point), otherwise the game would have ended there. I stopped trying to bash since I really was not very good at it, and just shot him down with my next round. Then it was a simple matter of waltzing easily down to the rocket, setting the explosives, and waiting for the detonation of the satchel charge to ensure my victory. Why yes, I was grinning like an idiot the whole time, how did you know? :-)
There you have it. All hope of victory lost, fleeing in fear, expecting a bullet through the head at any minute, wandering around lost and alone, and STILL I managed to not only win, but KICK MAJOR ASS. I am sure everyone has certain of these moments in their lifetimes, moments of complete and utter WIN in the face of impossible odds, and whenever you have moments of fear or doubt, why, just remember... You've done it before. You can do it again.
Or if you haven't, I have, and you too, can learn my methods, for only $300 US! lol I am kidding, I'm not selling any self-help books. Not this week, anyway. ;-)
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Trancers!
"Only squids can be tranced."
An iconic line from the 80's, I remember saying this to lots of chicks in high school. Maybe that explains why I had such bad luck with women. Hmmm. For those in the know, it's a quote from Tim Thomerson's TRANCERS! This was an entire series of movies, back in the 80's and 90's, when Tim Thomerson was as famous as Sylvester Stallone and Helen Hunt was somebody who had never been in Twisters yet.
The original movie came out in 1985, about a year after Terminator did so well at the box office, and was a different take on the whole Time Travel schtick hollywood loved back then. Tim Thomerson plays Jack Deth, a cop from the future who travels down the line (their way of saying, into the past) into the body of one of his ancestors in order to hunt down Whistler, a psychic from the future. At least, I think he's a psychic, the way they describe him, he's some kind of superhumanoid smarty-pants kind of guy. Only, in the movie, he seems like just your average bad guy with an army of thugs.
Helen Hunt was 22 years old when she made this movie, and I thought it was one of her first roles, but a quick check of IMDB tells me she had been acting since she was 10 years old, so this was just another paycheck for her at this point. Although as far as I can tell, Trancers (followed by Trancers 2 and 3) was the only series of movies she's ever done. Trancers, of course, was but one of Tim Thomerson's series, starring in things such as Dollman, Dollman vs demonic toys, and so on (most of which are viewable on netflix).
What really confuses me, apart from the whole time travel thing, is how the hell a character actor as prolific as Art le Fleur (who played Thomerson's boss in trancers 1 and 2), who has played in movies alongside sylvester stallone, mel gibson, and dozens of other A-list actors, does NOT have an IMDB bio. I just don't get it. The guy's been working in hundreds of films since the 70's and there's just NOTHING about him at all. Makes no sense whatsoever.
On a sad note, I was reading Tim Thomerson's bio when I noticed Brion James had passed on about, oh, 13 years ago, now (he died in 1999). He was one of my favorite B-movie actors and I had been wondering where he'd gone to lately. Turns out he had a heart attack just two years after playing the general to Bruce Willis' character in Fifth Element. Tragic really, I would have loved to continue to see him in movies well into the 2000's.
But back to Trancers. If this series isn't in dire need of a remake, I don't know what is. How can you compete with such lines as "Only squids have dry hair" and "You're going up the line... with no stops!" For those in the know, squids are weak-willed people. Thus the phrase, "only squids can be tranced" meaning, only weak-willed people can be psychically dominated by a psychic from the future. Or, by jedi, apparently, if you remember the scene from Return of the Jedi, where the jedi mind tricks fail to work on Jabba the Hutt.
So let's sum up the plot, and if you want to watch the movies, stop reading here. Jack Deth is a trancer-hunter. He killed Whistler about 6 months before the start of the first film, and has been cleaning up whistler's "trancers" (psychically dominated zombies) for months. Apparently how this works is, once you've been tranced, you're basically a zombie drone. You're still technically alive, but at some point (like the appearance of Jack Deth), you're going to turn into a raving psychotic killer with superhuman strength and bad skin. You aren't actually a zombie-zombie, meaning, bullets still kill you, but once you're dead you just turn to ash because you're, well, already a goner, basically.
So Jack finds out whistler isn't actually dead, he's just escaped into the past and he's systematically killing off the ancestors of the members of the high council. Council members are basically the final arbiters of government in the future, so obviously this is a bad thing. Basically, whistler is doing what "The Terminator" couldn't, killing off people in the past to prevent them from stopping him in the future. Which just reinforces what I always say, never send a cybernetic terminator to the past when you can send a psychic brainwasher instead. Uh. Yea. Which means Jack has to go into the past and, just like in the Terminator, prevent the final ancestor of the last council member from dying so he can live long enough to procreate and thus ensure the future council.
Now here's where things get fuzzy. The final ancestor is actually a 50-year old bum. At least, he looks 50, he's grey-haired, out of shape, grizzled, apparently an ex-baseball player, and at the time of the movie in 1985, Jack has a baseball card with Hap Ashby on it from 1963. Now... doing some quick calculations in my head... If Ashby was in his 20's in 1963... let's see.... carry the one... he's at least 50 years old in the first movie. yet jack tells him he's going to "get off the sauce, find a woman, get married and have kids..." Hmmmm. Now I know men can still have kids into their later years, but... really?
So then 6 years later, when Trancers 2 starts, Jack is living with Ashby, and ashby is now a millionaire, having done very well on the stock market, or some ridiculous explanation. In any case... It's 6 years later, there's no girl in sight, Ashby has to be close to 60, and still no wife or kid? Doesn't that kind of contradict the first movie just a tad?
Ah well, suffice it to say, Trancers 1 and 2 go very well together. Done 6 years apart, the only differences I can tell are that Tim Thomerson seems to have aged just a smidge, and helen hunt goes from being someone who looks like a teenager in her first movie to someone who's going to do Twister just 5 years after making trancers 2. She obviously looks older and seems more polished as an actress. Essentially, she doesn't look like someone who should be doing Trancers 2. lol The music is the same in both movies, Art le Fleur plays the same character, and if Tim Thomerson kicks off any time in the next few weeks, I'm going to picture him as the scene in the end of Trancers 2, having cleaned up the trancers and just bought a house with Helen Hunt to live happily ever after.
I can see why Tim Thomerson returned to Trancers 2, though, I mean, the script calls for his boss to be in the body of one teenage girl, his ex-wife (who died before the first movie) is in the body of another teenage girl, and Helen Hunt plays his current wife. The man is literally surrounded by teenage girls. And he looks like he's having a rough time? Pish! Guy needs to loosen up a little.
Of course, Tim goes on to star in Trancers 3, 4, and 5. I've seen these films but they aren't currently available on netflix. Helen Hunt is in 3, and in 4 and 5, Jack goes so far back into the past he has to kill trancers with swords. None of those are ever as good as 1 and 2 were, although honestly, 1 was still much better as far as good lines go. Jack hardly ever calls anyone a squid in the second movie, although Jeffrey Combs (of Reanimator fame) does put in an appearance as a lab geek crony of the bad guy, played by Richard Lynch! Who, as we all know, has played every bad guy in every movie in every decade, ever. lol
This month, in honor of the oscars, I'm going to try to review movies of some people who deserve oscars, but never got them, simply because they were in horror films instead of mainstream drama. I was discussing flicks with one of my buddies earlier and he was telling me about a scene in Pulp Fiction, which i have not seen all of. Because there's no monsters in it, that's why! No monsters, no watchy! No movie is ever complete without SOME kind of monster in it. Seriously, who watches movies without monsters in them? WEIRDOS, THAT'S WHO!!!! So now I have to try and sit through all of Pulp Fiction just so I can see what he was talking about. How can people watch that drivel with a straight face? Using GUNS to kill people instead of lasers shooting out of eye sockets? How archaically laughable!
An iconic line from the 80's, I remember saying this to lots of chicks in high school. Maybe that explains why I had such bad luck with women. Hmmm. For those in the know, it's a quote from Tim Thomerson's TRANCERS! This was an entire series of movies, back in the 80's and 90's, when Tim Thomerson was as famous as Sylvester Stallone and Helen Hunt was somebody who had never been in Twisters yet.
The original movie came out in 1985, about a year after Terminator did so well at the box office, and was a different take on the whole Time Travel schtick hollywood loved back then. Tim Thomerson plays Jack Deth, a cop from the future who travels down the line (their way of saying, into the past) into the body of one of his ancestors in order to hunt down Whistler, a psychic from the future. At least, I think he's a psychic, the way they describe him, he's some kind of superhumanoid smarty-pants kind of guy. Only, in the movie, he seems like just your average bad guy with an army of thugs.
Helen Hunt was 22 years old when she made this movie, and I thought it was one of her first roles, but a quick check of IMDB tells me she had been acting since she was 10 years old, so this was just another paycheck for her at this point. Although as far as I can tell, Trancers (followed by Trancers 2 and 3) was the only series of movies she's ever done. Trancers, of course, was but one of Tim Thomerson's series, starring in things such as Dollman, Dollman vs demonic toys, and so on (most of which are viewable on netflix).
What really confuses me, apart from the whole time travel thing, is how the hell a character actor as prolific as Art le Fleur (who played Thomerson's boss in trancers 1 and 2), who has played in movies alongside sylvester stallone, mel gibson, and dozens of other A-list actors, does NOT have an IMDB bio. I just don't get it. The guy's been working in hundreds of films since the 70's and there's just NOTHING about him at all. Makes no sense whatsoever.
On a sad note, I was reading Tim Thomerson's bio when I noticed Brion James had passed on about, oh, 13 years ago, now (he died in 1999). He was one of my favorite B-movie actors and I had been wondering where he'd gone to lately. Turns out he had a heart attack just two years after playing the general to Bruce Willis' character in Fifth Element. Tragic really, I would have loved to continue to see him in movies well into the 2000's.
But back to Trancers. If this series isn't in dire need of a remake, I don't know what is. How can you compete with such lines as "Only squids have dry hair" and "You're going up the line... with no stops!" For those in the know, squids are weak-willed people. Thus the phrase, "only squids can be tranced" meaning, only weak-willed people can be psychically dominated by a psychic from the future. Or, by jedi, apparently, if you remember the scene from Return of the Jedi, where the jedi mind tricks fail to work on Jabba the Hutt.
So let's sum up the plot, and if you want to watch the movies, stop reading here. Jack Deth is a trancer-hunter. He killed Whistler about 6 months before the start of the first film, and has been cleaning up whistler's "trancers" (psychically dominated zombies) for months. Apparently how this works is, once you've been tranced, you're basically a zombie drone. You're still technically alive, but at some point (like the appearance of Jack Deth), you're going to turn into a raving psychotic killer with superhuman strength and bad skin. You aren't actually a zombie-zombie, meaning, bullets still kill you, but once you're dead you just turn to ash because you're, well, already a goner, basically.
So Jack finds out whistler isn't actually dead, he's just escaped into the past and he's systematically killing off the ancestors of the members of the high council. Council members are basically the final arbiters of government in the future, so obviously this is a bad thing. Basically, whistler is doing what "The Terminator" couldn't, killing off people in the past to prevent them from stopping him in the future. Which just reinforces what I always say, never send a cybernetic terminator to the past when you can send a psychic brainwasher instead. Uh. Yea. Which means Jack has to go into the past and, just like in the Terminator, prevent the final ancestor of the last council member from dying so he can live long enough to procreate and thus ensure the future council.
Now here's where things get fuzzy. The final ancestor is actually a 50-year old bum. At least, he looks 50, he's grey-haired, out of shape, grizzled, apparently an ex-baseball player, and at the time of the movie in 1985, Jack has a baseball card with Hap Ashby on it from 1963. Now... doing some quick calculations in my head... If Ashby was in his 20's in 1963... let's see.... carry the one... he's at least 50 years old in the first movie. yet jack tells him he's going to "get off the sauce, find a woman, get married and have kids..." Hmmmm. Now I know men can still have kids into their later years, but... really?
So then 6 years later, when Trancers 2 starts, Jack is living with Ashby, and ashby is now a millionaire, having done very well on the stock market, or some ridiculous explanation. In any case... It's 6 years later, there's no girl in sight, Ashby has to be close to 60, and still no wife or kid? Doesn't that kind of contradict the first movie just a tad?
Ah well, suffice it to say, Trancers 1 and 2 go very well together. Done 6 years apart, the only differences I can tell are that Tim Thomerson seems to have aged just a smidge, and helen hunt goes from being someone who looks like a teenager in her first movie to someone who's going to do Twister just 5 years after making trancers 2. She obviously looks older and seems more polished as an actress. Essentially, she doesn't look like someone who should be doing Trancers 2. lol The music is the same in both movies, Art le Fleur plays the same character, and if Tim Thomerson kicks off any time in the next few weeks, I'm going to picture him as the scene in the end of Trancers 2, having cleaned up the trancers and just bought a house with Helen Hunt to live happily ever after.
I can see why Tim Thomerson returned to Trancers 2, though, I mean, the script calls for his boss to be in the body of one teenage girl, his ex-wife (who died before the first movie) is in the body of another teenage girl, and Helen Hunt plays his current wife. The man is literally surrounded by teenage girls. And he looks like he's having a rough time? Pish! Guy needs to loosen up a little.
Of course, Tim goes on to star in Trancers 3, 4, and 5. I've seen these films but they aren't currently available on netflix. Helen Hunt is in 3, and in 4 and 5, Jack goes so far back into the past he has to kill trancers with swords. None of those are ever as good as 1 and 2 were, although honestly, 1 was still much better as far as good lines go. Jack hardly ever calls anyone a squid in the second movie, although Jeffrey Combs (of Reanimator fame) does put in an appearance as a lab geek crony of the bad guy, played by Richard Lynch! Who, as we all know, has played every bad guy in every movie in every decade, ever. lol
This month, in honor of the oscars, I'm going to try to review movies of some people who deserve oscars, but never got them, simply because they were in horror films instead of mainstream drama. I was discussing flicks with one of my buddies earlier and he was telling me about a scene in Pulp Fiction, which i have not seen all of. Because there's no monsters in it, that's why! No monsters, no watchy! No movie is ever complete without SOME kind of monster in it. Seriously, who watches movies without monsters in them? WEIRDOS, THAT'S WHO!!!! So now I have to try and sit through all of Pulp Fiction just so I can see what he was talking about. How can people watch that drivel with a straight face? Using GUNS to kill people instead of lasers shooting out of eye sockets? How archaically laughable!
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