Real-Time Review: Man on a Ledge (2012)

I call this a real-time review, because I am watching the movie as I type this.  You may run into some spoilers, because I am commenting on the movie as I watch it.

I have problems with this movie already.  Okay, guy gets on a ledge after escaping from jail to prove his innocence.  You get that right off, so there's nothing to spoil here.  He escapes from custody after attending his father's funeral.  My first problem is, the two officers guarding him have radios.  Why not disable their radios so they can't call it in?  I mean as far as anyone knows, if they can't call in, it's just a long funeral service.  But, he doesn't.  Then, he looks to his left, shoots the tire out of a brown jeep like vehicle.  And then....  gets into that vehicle and drives off?  Wha?  That's exactly how it appears watching this movie, that he shoots that tire out, then goes around to the driver's side and gets in.  Then his getaway vehicle gets hit by an onrushing train that crushes the back end and flips the vehicle over several times.  And... he's fine afterwards!  The man has the constitution of a ninja.

On the plus side.  Everyone is in this movie.  I saw william sadler as a valet already, elizabeth banks is the negotiator, kyra sedgewick is a reporter, ed harris is the rich bad guy, I know this sam worthington (the jumper) fellow from other roles but he's not very well known to me personally.  I think I saw my mom in the crowd as an extra.  lol  YEP!  There she is, complaining about the traffic to the reporter.  lol

Yea, I knew his brother was in on it.  Not that nobody ever fights at the death of a parent (I fully expect a brawl at my next family wake), but the scene just seemed too contrived.  They waited til everyone was gone except the guards and then started an obviously fake brawl.  I don't really know why the guards jumped in so fast.  I'd have just pulled my gun and waited.  Anyway, the brother's gf is hot, and Elizabeth Banks is smoking hot as usual.  Damned if I can figure out why all the really hot chicks wear several layers of clothing to bed, though.  I guess a nude scene wasn't in her contract.  Loved the nipples poking through the shirt shot, but they probably weren't even really her nipples, just a prop for the scene.  You can't believe anything coming from hollywood nowadays.  I think even the marriages and breakups are staged half the time.  Maybe even the deaths!  lol

Now wtf.  The ex-partner of this guy (the jumper is a former cop) breaks into a storage compartment owned by the jumper's brother without a warrant.  Now, that cops are doing something illegal doesn't surprise me.  What does is why he's breaking into a storage facility without a warrant when he supposedly is the jumper's friend.  So my guess is he's dirty, and had something to do with framing the jumper.  Sorry if that spoils anything, but everything seems kind of lame for some reason.  Also, where did he get all this money he's throwing away if he DIDN'T steal the diamond?  I mean look, I'd only been watching the movie for 5 minutes by the time I realized he didn't have anything to do with the robbery.  Otherwise, we wouldn't have a movie here.  lol

Man, the brother's gf is hot.  She even knows shit about relationships.  And she has a nice rack.  I want to date her.  lol  Maaaaaan she looks good in those panties.  Err, sorry I'm wandering.

Hey they got woody harrelson to do a bit part!  Oh that's not woody harrelson.  Just looks like him.  lol Crazy guy in the crowd, dead ringer for Woody, but with.. uh...  more...  hair.  Sorry Woody.  I think you're a good actor, though.  And all this man on a ledge shit has me freaking out inside.  I hate heights. lol  I'll never be a jumper.

Plenty of action in this movie.  Lots of suspense and tense moments.  Hmmm I don't know.  It's kind of short, I guess.  At an hour and 36 minutes I expected more.  Where's the twist ending?  Where's Ed Harris with a sneaky, dirty cop surprise coming out from behind a corner and Elizabeth Banks shooting him?  I'm telling you, they should have had a third dirty cop, the one friendly with Mercer, maybe, sneaking up on the guy.  Ah well.  I guess a happy ending in today's world is a good thing.

Well, there's my real-time review.  No nudity, bits of sexy, some suspense and tense moments, bits of action thrown in here and there, but a lot of unbelievability.  Like, how does an ex-cop talk his brother and his brother's girlfriend into breaking into a vault?  Not, trying to convince them to do it, I mean, how did he tell them HOW?  How did they manage to become expert safecrackers in two short years after he goes to prison?  I mean come on, your normal safecracker takes years of experience, bad judgement, and prison time to get good at his trade.  You telling me a guy from NYC and his latina lady can figure all that shit out in a couple years?  Even if he helped them, how much does he know?  He's just an ex cop.  he may have seen the vaults from time to time, but how would he know all the specs, or how to disable them, or anything?  Meh.  Lots of plot loopholes in this movie.  Needs more naked Elizabeth Banks to distract you from thinking too hard.  :-)

Til next time!

Review - The Factory (2012)

Okay, so normal thursday night.  Nothing good on TV.  I decide to catch a netflix movie.  As bored people do.  I see this more recent flick, just added to netflix within the last few weeks.  The Factory, 2012.  John Cusack!  He's a good actor, one of my favorites.  Not all of his movies are blockbusters, but he never lacks for acting performance.  Always on his game.  I've never seen him phone one in, as they say.  Then again, a lot of his characters are similar.  Come to think of it, I'd love to see him do a romantic comedy again.  He is awesome delivering one-liners and making sarcastic comments, like he did in Better off Dead and that one with Demi Moore where he's like a lovestruck artist hanging around the beach a lot.  Can't recall the name of the movie.  One Crazy Summer!  Thanks IMDB.  Bob Goldthwait was in that one too, you don't see him acting much anymore.  Too busy directing, I guess.  Also in this, Jennifer Carpenter, of Dexter fame, also Quarantine.  Well on with the review.

Needless to say, with that kind of acting talent tossed into the mix, I figured I had picked a winner.  And then, lo and behold, I find out that it's set in Buffalo, NY!  Shit, that's where I LIVE!  :-D  They pretty much had me sucked in right then and there.  I wish they had shown the outdoors more, but there were only a few glimpses of snow-covered streets.  And I'm pretty sure all the snow was faked because the movie seemed to be showing a very bad winter, and we haven't had a bad winter around here in a while now.  But it was mostly around thanksgiving, so maybe I was too drunk or stuffed with turkey to remember that particular holiday storm.  It sure looked like Buffalo, at least from what I could see of the indoor scenes.  Grey, lifeless, depressing, you know...  Buffalo in the winter.  lol

So here's John Cusack, playing an obsessed detective.  He does obsessed and psychotic very well.  I wouldn't be surprised if he strayed into villain territory in his next role switch.  He's obsessed because 7 prostitutes disappeared the previous winter, and despite searching all through summer (while the apparent killer was not out hunting, I guess), the police have no leads.  At the opening of the movie, they are basically closing the case.  But Mike Fletcher, obsessed detective, isn't cool with that.  He really CARES about these hookers.  Which is probably a good thing, because, well, he's the hero, and you can't have a hero who doesn't give a shit.  lol  However, as with most police officers, he has a hard family life.  Made all the harder due to the grey and dingy Buffalo winters, no doubt.  So Mike still searches for these prostitutes in his off hours, and one night, while he's following up leads with his new partner (Jennifer Carpenter), Mike's daughter goes missing...

Oh noes!  :-o

Spoilers to follow, all in this paragraph, but this movie was decent enough that I won't ruin it for you.  I had no problems following this movie.  All of it made sense except the whole Mike not eating or sleeping for days while searching for his daughter.  Which still made sense, but I don't know why they benched Mike unless it was for roughing up that one suspect, because he was still mostly keeping it together.  And yes, I know they don't let you work cases where family is involved but police do whatever the fuck they want anyway, so I don't imagine them stopping each other from working cases where loved ones are missing.  I saw a lot of disappointed reviews on netflix about this movie.  I actually thought it was well acted, and Jennifer Carpenter (I keep wanting to call her Charisma Carpenter, but I don't think they are related in any way) did a fine job.  There was a lot of people saying she plays the same role here as she does in Dexter (on showtime).  There were some basic similarities but I don't think this role was like the one in dexter much at all, and I've watched dexter since it premiered.  The ending of this movie was particularly hard on most viewers, I guess.  I sort of saw it coming, I mean, they gave you so many clues, I knew SOMETHING was up, so when it happened it all clicked together for me.  Still, the loss at the end was unexpected, and probably why this film didn't do well in theaters.  End spoilers.

All in all, i thought this was a good movie.  Lots of suspense, a little action, cars driving really fast through blizzards although no actual chase scenes, your typical murder mystery type cop movie.  I love these sorts of things.  I always have fun trying to figure out the plot twists before they happen.  And I'm usually right, but sometimes I get it wrong, and though you'd think that'd make it boring for me, it doesn't.  There's always a few twists and turns that make the road interesting along the way.  So, would I watch it again?  Sure!  Would I recommend it to others?  Yep!  Will others like the grey dinginess of buffalo winters?  Fuck, no.  lol

Come to think of it, this movie has a similar feel to the Jesse Stone movies.  Those are set in Maine, or something like that.  Bad winters there too.  Starring Tom Selleck, those movies are some of the most depressing movies I have ever seen in my life.  But they are all about the detective work, and Tom Selleck plays an excellently likeable police chief, if a bit of a drinker, so they are still fun to watch.  I am glad I don't live in Maine, though.  From the looks of it, it's almost as bad as Buffalo in the winter.

And no, I'm not down on where I live.  It's really nice here in the summers, and the people are mostly great.  But shit, we have an average of 206 cloudy days a year, and Seattle, Washington (i think it was seattle, anyway), the cloudiest city in the country, has 209.  So, we're right up there in depressing settings, third or fourth gloomiest city in the country!  YEAH BABY!  And, come to think of it, those opther cities probably have nice architecture and beautiful countryside to help keep the inhabitants sane.  Not so much, here.  :-)  No wonder I spend a lot of time indoors, staring at a computer screen.  lol

Okay, that's it for now, back to kicking medieval ass in my latest computer game: Chivalry, Medieval Warfare!   Rrrraaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

Review - The Hunger Games

This isn't usually my type of movie.  I just want to make that clear.  I go for monster movies, horror, science fiction, fantasy.  The thinking man's entertainment.  Which... this really isn't.  lol

So, I start watching the Hunger Games.  And honestly, the first thing I notice, is...  this heroine, supposedly from a starving mining district (at least, they show everyone thin and scrounging for food), is chubby.  Now I generally have nothing against the lead actress, she was in X-Men: First Class and all, and I love a good comic book movie.  But let's be honest here, she doesn't LOOK starving.  Despite supposedly actually almost starving at one point in her past.  I wasn't unduly impressed with her acting talent in this, either, but maybe it had something to do with the movie in general.

So let's get to picking this movie apart, since I absolutely found it not only confusing, but what parts I could understand, I found offensive.  First, it's based off a japanese movie by the name of Battle Royale.  To sum up the japanese movie, which I had no trouble understanding (except for the very beginning and the very end), a bunch of high school students are selected, supposedly at random, by the japanese government because they are, essentially, unruly.  Not all of them, mind you, but I guess a fair portion of them don't get along with authority very well.  See, apparently the japanese government passed a law allowing them to choose students at random this way to serve as a lesson to other unruly youths.  Although, from what I got from the movie, I doubt there was anything random about how this class was chosen.  So what we get is a bunch of high school students sent in secret to an island, where most of them fight it out to the death, and all sorts of relationships and rivalries come to the fore and add to the excitement.  Now to the confusing part.  At the very beginning of the movie, they show a clear winner being brought off the island by the authorities.  It's a girl.  I'm ashamed to say after watching most of the movie (i was in a bit of a hurry to watch it, and honestly there was a fair bit of romance and mushy mushy stuff in between the cool killing stuff, so i sort of fast forwarded through those parts), i could not identify the girl they showed at the beginning of the movie, since, at the end, they show a boy and a girl sneaking off the island by boat and disappearing amongst the average citizens.  So...  Who actually won, I have no idea, but that battle was limited to 3 days.  Also, Battle Royale was much more entertaining than Hunger Games, in that I wasn't going "Huh?  what the f.. how does that make sense?" every few minutes.  So, Hunger Games was actually swiped from Battle Royale.  I guess it's true, to be successful in Hollywood, you actually have to be successful elsewhere first.  lol

So now we come to the actual movie, Hunger Games.  Here's the setup.  There was a war of some kind.  The government chose to break up the defeated areas into 12 Districts, and require as tribute, 24 children between the ages of 12 and 18 every year, to be sent to an island where they battle to the death, and there is only one winner.  Okay, let's dissect this right here and list everything that's wrong with this picture.  First off, it's supposedly a civilized society, requiring children to be sacrificed.  Not nice.  Two, all of these districts willingly give up their children.  Absolutely ridiculous.  It's one thing if they take them off to fight a war or something, like a military draft, where they are outfitted with weapons and given a fair chance to survive.  Out of 24 kids, 12 boys and 12 girls, only ONE will survive.  That's a 96% chance of dying.  Almost a certainty.  No parent, and certainly many of the adults, friends and relatives, would willingly allow their children to die.  They show one instance where a district revolts, attacks and kills the guards, and destroys some of the government facilities, in response to the death of one of the children from their district.  And the attackers are hosed down with water cannons.  Look, when you've killed soldiers, taken their weapons, and destroyed government buildings, a water cannon isn't going to slow you down much.  lol  This isn't even mentioning that anyone requesting the yearly deaths of 23 children is simply retarded and ASKING to be overthrown.

Here's something that proves how retarded they are.  They TELEVISE the whole thing.  To all the districts.  Yea, here, not only are we taking 24 of your children and making them fight it out to the death, we're going to let you watch them die!  lol  Now this confuses the shit out of me.  At first I got the impression, from what the dialogue was, that the actual fight would only last 24 hours.  But even watching 24 hours straight of tv seemed ridiculous to me, and I watch a lot of TV anyway.  But I was wrong, apparently, the actual games last weeks.  So starvation is really a factor, even though realistically, people could survive on just water for weeks at a time, anyway.  But realism really doesn't seem to be the driving force behind what goes on in this movie.  They broadcast the games to EVERYONE, in every district.  Who the hell has time to watch WEEKS worth of tv?  Maybe the rich people in the main district or whatever, but the conquered ones, who apparently are starving, would have to resume their daily tasks of trying to find food, wouldn't they?  Who the hell has time to watch weeks worth of tv?  Nobody.  The main heroine's (her name is Katniss, i think) boyfriend says to her at the beginning of the film "What would they do if we all just stopped watching?  it would ruin them."  So apparently, the government gets some kind of ratings boost by broadcasting it everywhere?  I mean, look, let's be frank here.  I get tired of watching a 4 hour miniseries.  Something that lasts weeks, well, forget it.  This is why we have half hour sitcoms, hour long shows and 2 hour movies.  People simply cannot watch something for days straight.  And where's the advantage to having people watch it?  There didn't seem to be any advertisements, and even if there were, the people of the poorer districts certainly couldn't afford them.  So if not watching would ruin the games, and you can't realistically watch them anyway, why not just stop?  Makes no sense.  Not to mention, you are SHOWING the districts how their children are dying horribly.  If that doesn't piss them off, nothing will.  But, moving on to the next ridiculous thing.

The technology.  Apparently they can make holographic fire, realistic looking robotic dogs (or real dogs, some kind of wild animals), flying ships, but they still need people to mine for them and grow their food.  Makes no sense, again.  Now I know, I am supposed to try and suspend my disbelief here and just enjoy the movie, but how the hell can i when the movie seems to keep contradicting itself over and over?  There's a part where Katniss is miles away from the others, and this upsets the game-runners.  So they engineer a forest fire to herd her back to the others.  Now here's where I get confused. A fire's a good idea.  But these kids are on an island, by themselves.  Fire is inherently uncontrollable.  Once you start one, it gets everywhere.  A holographic fire might work, but katniss' leg gets burned by the flames, so it has to be real.  So Katniss is running from the fire, and it's everywhere, it's consuming an entire forest behind her, fireballs are flying everywhere, and finally she dives into a pond, and she's safe.  And then the other kids come by to get her, and she runs.. back the way she came...  and EVERYTHING'S GREEN.  No fire, no smoke, no burning.  No trace of the fire.  So.  How did her leg get burned?  Holograms do not burn flesh.  Where did all the fire go?  Likewise, later in the movie, they create some wild dogs to chase the kids.  And one of the dogs knocks down one of the kids.  And Katniss wounds one with an arrow.  So.  They are mostly real, I guess?  Who knows.  I'm all confused.  I'd like to note that there was none of this crazy technology shit in Battle Royale.

Let's take the main characters.  As I said, katniss is a bit chubby.  i wouldn't call her overweight or anything, but she doesn't look hungry.  In a district that's supposedly starving, where she has to hunt for her own food in order to survive.  But she's a good hunter, so fair enough, she eats well.  Only...  in her district, there's acres and acres of forest she hunts in.  Why the HELL don't they just clear the forest and farm on it?  DUH!  Her counter-part, the guy selected from her district, works in a BAKERY, decorating cakes. Right.  So let me get this straight.  Everyone is starving.  And yet there's a successful bakery right down the street.  That sells decorated cakes.  To... who?  lol  They make a big deal out of this boy, I think his name is Peeta?  Somehow being strong as an ox by lifting sacks of flour...  SACKS OF FLOUR?  Where do these sacks of flour come from, if there's no farms and everyone is starving?  I'm confused again.  So they make a huge deal out of him tossing her a moldy loaf of bread that he wouldn't feed to his pigs.  And this was somehow an act of kindness on his part.  Wait, PIGS?  And everyone is starving?  Who the hell is starving if there's pigs and decorated cakes and food?  Katniss' boyfriend hands her a roll or a cake of some kind at the beginning of the film, and she asks "IS IT REAL?" like she'd never seen bread before, despite having been given a loaf of moldy bread by a boy who works at a bakery, which is apparently just down the street from her.  Look, if I am a starving kid, standing outside the bakery staring at the freshly baked bread would take up much of my time, trust me.  Why would she not think it was real?  lol  So yea, makes no sense.  Moving on again.

So some more issues.  They say 50% of the kids in the Hunger Games die of exposure and starvation or whatever.  Some crazy percentage.  But you can't start a fire because that will attract the other kids, and since there's only one winner chosen, they are all going to want to kill you sooner or later.  But more on that later.  So you can't start a fire...  how exactly are you supposed to stop yourself from dying of exposure?  For those that don't know what "exposure" means, it means COLD.  Temperatures of 55 or below may not mean much to you when you are going to be out of your house for 10 minutes, but it can quickly wear you down and make you die of hypothermia if your clothes get wet and/or you don't have a way to keep yourself warm.  And yet katniss sleeps in a tree every night.  With a jacket on.  And frequently spends time tromping through streams and diving into ponds.  So if exposure is such a danger...  Why is she fine?  I got nothin.

On to the "other kids."  Apparently, they are hunting in packs.  Sure, makes sense, you get dropped off on an island, you have to team up to survive.  Only...  you don't.  Because there's only ONE winner chosen.  Just one.  So... wouldn't you be better off on your own, trying to outlast the others?  I mean, who the hell is going to team up with you knowing that eventually, one of you has to kill the other anyway?  Makes for awkward meal times, if nothing else.  Which brings me to another weird thing.  If they are so intent on causing Katniss to get found by the other kids so she can get killed off, why the fuck do they let the other kids team up in the first place?  Why do they hate katniss so?  lol  Again, no apparent rhyme or reason to any of this.

Later in the movie, they make an announcement that two people may be chosen as winners if they are both from the same district.  I, of course, mistrusted this announcement immediately, and I was, of course, right.  Spoiler ahead!  So here they are, at the end, Katniss and Peeta, and they decide to eat poison berries rather than kill each other.  So all of a sudden, the game-runners say NO STOP YOU'RE BOTH WINNERS!  So let me get this straight.  You sentence 22 children to death.  You show it everywhere in your civilized world.  People are cheering them on to violently kill each other.  And...  you can't handle a couple of kids eating poison berries?  Kids who you have spent the entire MOVIE trying to kill off?  Now I'm really confused.

So here's something more confusing.  Let's say you're Katniss, or any one of these kids.  You have a 96% chance of dying in the upcoming games.  You've basically been sentenced to death.  They invite you to "show your stuff" to the people running the games.  To "get sponsors" they call it.  Patently ridiculous from the get-go, but lets move on quickly before I get bogged down in how asinine this movie is.  Katniss has a bow and arrow, and she's shooting targets to try and impress the judges, or whatever.  So she shoots an apple out of the mouth of this roast pig, which is right between a group of sponsors.  Seriously?  An apple?  That's your target?  Look, if I'm being sentenced to death by a bunch of fuckers in weird outfits, and I've got a bow and arrows in hand and there's no one guarding these fuckers, I AM TAKING THEM OUT.  How's that for showing my stuff?  If I have 6 arrows, 6 of those sponsors are DEAD.  I am not wasting a single one on the damn apple, the target, fuck that.  Those bastards are representatives of the government, they sponsor these games, they are going to watch me die and cheer on the one who killed me.  I am putting a goddamn arrow through their necks.  Let them try watching the games from a hospital bed, IF they survive.  Am I right?  Wouldn't someone have already thought of that?  I would think so.  Stupidity.  Moving on again.

Woody Harrelson has a decent role as a mentor in this, but he spends little time on screen.  The rest of the actors, for the most part, are acting veterans who are not well known and get little screen time.  Donald Sutherland plays a president who, and this part confuses me, wants the other districts to be afraid, but to have a spark of hope.  Because, he says, Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.  Well Love is stronger than fear, too, and if you believe the Green Lantern movie, so is Will.  But, he says, only the spark of hope, and it needs to be contained.  You can't have it spread.  So he seems wise enough to know how to handle people, even if he's a bit wrong in his views...  and yet he can't see the harm by sacrificing 23 children a year in tribute?  Again, I guess this movie is not made for the thinking man.  Or thinking woman.  Probably for the Twilight crowd.

I can't really recommend the Hunger Games to anyone.  Long movie.  No nudity, nothing sexy, a bunch of stupid teens running around hacking each other to bits.  At least it has more fighting than Twilight, but not much more.  The battles are quick and usually one-sided.  The technical effects of the advanced technology can be cool for a few brief seconds before you get bored of it.  I'd recommend Battle Royale more.  The teens are cuter, the battles bloodier, and the whole movie generally makes sense until you get to the end and you're left wondering who actually won the thing.  There is already a Battle Royale 2 out (the japanese movies came out in 2000 and 2003 respectively) and they are making a Hunger Games 2 now.  I have serious doubts that i will watch Hunger Games 2, because even if it's free to do so, I wouldn't waste my time.  Battle Royale 2, on the other hand, is already in my instant queue on netflix.  Maybe i can piece together who actually won the first one.  lol

That's all for now.  Nothing left on my movie docket for the next few days.  See you next time i come across a good movie.  :-)  OH something I forgot to mention!  I'm 43 now!  I actually had a birthday days ago but I kept forgetting to mention it.  lol  OH something else.  Out of the blue, my one nephew points out that my favorite weather website, wunderground.com, was 5 degrees off on it's forecast about the temperature today.  Yes, this is the one I had an argument with 2 or 3 years ago about whose weather website was easier to use.  He's still going on about it.  And thinks it being 5 degrees off was something he absolutely had to point out, or somehow made him right about what weather website he chose to frequent.  And he says he doesn't like to argue.  lol  Ah, kids nowadays.  Maybe we should have an "Intelligence Games" where the kids are chosen at random and sent to a school where they can have their brains tested to see whether they can actually learn any wisdom or common sense.  I wouldn't go so far as to kill the losers, though.  Given the current state of the education system, I suspect we'd never have a winner.  Sigh.

Review - Prometheus

Aha!  Another Aliens movie!

Meh not quite.  So a short rundown of the Prometheus movie (without ruining it), and don't ask me to do an actual timeline since the Aliens movies sort of flip around so much as far as I can recall, but Mr Weyland (of Weyland-Yutani fame, a prominent company in the Aliens universe) is about to die.  So of course, he's seeking a way to extend his life.  So these two archaeologists come to him with a scientific discovery.  They believe they have located an ancient starmap in a cave and the starmap leads to the birth-planet of the creators of the human race.  So Mr Weyland funds a scientific expedition to the alien planet to find the creators before he dies.

At least, that's the theory.  I am going to spoil the shit out of this movie for you, though.  So if you seriously want to see it and think anything I am about to say is going to ruin it for you, then by all means, let me get my overall opinion out of the way.  This wasn't really an aliens movie.  It's like an origin story for the aliens.  A type of movie I honestly think is retarded.  Seriously, you have Aliens.  The most deadly species in human history.  They bleed acid.  They rip through steel with their bare hands.  They eat space-marines for breakfast.  Literally.  They use your dead and wounded as human hosts for their offspring, which gestate within you and then tear their way out through your ribcage, killing you in the process.  Can you get any more violent and parasitic?  I think not.  Why try to explain where they came from?  Ludicrous.  You're just ruining things at this point.  Which is what this movie did, and I don't like it and I don't want you to waste your time seeing it unless you really, really want to.

So let me summarize the movie and totally destroy it for you.  Most of the movie is similar to the Aliens Vs Predator movie.  WAY too much buildup and explanation before getting to the good stuff.  Which there is really very little of.  Basically Mr Weyland tasks his daughter with finding the creators.  And yes, this movie also decided to explain the origin of the human race, not just aliens.  Way too much explaining at this point, I already feel like I am dozing off in a college lecture room, but let me plow on.    So the "Engineers" (yes, those big aliens featured as long-dead at the beginning of the original Alien movie) are actually very human-like, with advanced technology.  They create us.  Then for some reason, decide to kill us.  So they create a virus-like organic goo, seal it in thousands of geometric little capsules, and prepare to blast off, but before they can, they fall prey to their own goo and all die.  So human life flourishes, we find their cave markings or our cave markings or some sort of goddamn starmap to lead us back to.. not their home planet, mind you, but some alien bio-death-lab.

Okay, I'm stopping here because this makes absolutely no goddamn sense already.  You create intelligent life.  You don't like it.  You decide to destroy it.  Instead of, I don't know, creating the actual means to destroy the life ON THE ACTUAL PLANET YOU MADE IT ON, you decide to make a death-goo on another planet.  Sure, seems reasonable.  No.  No it doesn't.  Shut up.  Moving on.  So you influence the ancient cultures of the time...  5000 years ago...  So....  You create life, it takes us billions of years to evolve, you like us so much that 5000 years ago (the earliest starmap cave paintings were all done around this time, i guess), you give us directions back to...  your death-planet, where you are developing Killer-goo.  Yea I don't... what?  Makes no goddamn sense.  Forget this part.  Plowing on again.

So the aliens all die from their own death-goo.  Fast forward 5000 years.  Humans fly out in a space ship, land on death-goo bio-lab planet.  There's nothing left.  One mountain.  Bunches of cargo rooms full of death goo.  A few functional spacecraft and some dead aliens that HEY, they look JUST like us!  Only, you know, taller and blue and with funny looking faces.  Why is every alien species humanoid and taller and blue and with funny looking faces?  Honestly.  Ridiculous.  Sorry, I digress.  So we find the alien goo, and hey!  We fuck up and release it.  Just like you guys must have done 5000 years ago, or whatever.  Sure.  Makes sense now, humans fuck shit up all the time.  Long story short, alien goo gets everywhere, just like sand, and people get infected, and bad shit happens, and everyone dies.

So let me explain some more of my issues with this movie.  One, the aliens don't actually show up.  yea, really.  At ALL.  There's a tiny tiny scene at the end of the movie where one proto-alien gets born, that sort of looks like the alien from the first Alien movie back in 1978.  That's the only appearance in the ENTIRE movie.  And it was just born.  That's all they showed.  The rest of the movie was about death-goo, Weyland, and the Engineers.  So, to sum up, they made an Aliens movie about everything they could possibly think of, EXCEPT ALIENS.  That's genius!  We've got a winning franchise!  It's lasted through four blockbuster movies!  What can we do with it to RUIN THE SHIT OUT OF IT?  I know!  We'll make a movie about EVERYTHING ELSE BUT ALIENS!  What the fuck!  That's brilliant!  Why didn't I think of that?  Because I make the big bucks, that's why.  Let' do it!  yeah!  Also, one alien gets born at the end of the movie, after everyone is dead.  So.  How.. does this alien reproduce exactly?  And... how does it get to LV-426 to infect the original Engineer vessel from the 1978 movie?  No fucking clue!  It's a flying space-alien!  Shut up!  suspension of disbelief, that's all I need.  Suspension of disbelief.  SILENCE!  I must meditate to try and understand god's will, because this shit makes no fucking sense.

Okay so.  More issues.  Mr Weyland shows up near the end.  Yea, he's old, he's near death.  Apparently, cryogenic hyper sleep is so fucking hard on the human body that it makes one of the archaeologists vomit for like hours afterwards.  But an old guy, maybe days before death, can be hyper-slept, woken up, and be JUST FINE!  Shut up, suspension of disbelief.  Moving on.

One of the archaeologists, in apparently a pivotal scene to the development of the Alien species, gets... wait, let me try and recreate the series of ridiculous events for you.  A fully functioning android, who has been caring for the hyper-sleeping humans for 2 years, goes bonkers, but without any visible signs or warnings.  He goes along with the archaeologists and brings back some death-goo.  Then infects one of the archaeologists with it by dipping his gooey finger into the archaeologists' drink.  That one, a guy, makes crazy-sex with the female archaeologist, who gets impregnated with a death-goo baby, before going on to perish from the death-goo the next day.  I shit you not.  This is their convoluted explanation.  Wait, wait, there's more.  So the death goo baby is really growing fast!  As death-goo babies will.  Of course.  And she goes into the secretive escape pod of Weyland's daughter... Now here's where I got REALLY confused.  Weyland's daughter has a fancy shmancy robo-doctor pod in her fully-separate escape-ship.  Only...  It's completely configured to deal with male anatomy.  I was thrown for a loop there, because weyland's daughter is played by Charlize Theron (yes, the evil queen from Snow white! Thanks for keeping up!), who we all know is NOT a man.  At least, I don't.. think she is.  If she turns out to be, that would really fuck up my day.  Come to think of it, has she ever done full frontal nudity?  Maybe she is a man.  Huh.  Anyway, I GUESS the pod is actually for her father.  Makes no sense that a fully functional robo-med-pod thingy can't, you know, tell the difference.. between a man and a woman and...  reprogram itself accordingly, but...  What the fuck do I know.  SO, the doc has an alien death-goo baby growing within her, finds the pod, reprograms it to accept female anatomy, tells it to abort her death-goo-baby-fetus, and out pops a squid!  yea, it was so cute!  Four legs, squiddy-body, tentacles everywhere, I just wanted to hug it, or, you know, start chanting "Yog Sothoth!  Chtulhu ftaghn!"  or something.  So the auto doc STAPLES her enormous gaping wound shut.  And there's a ridiculously small amount of blood from a foot wide incision on her lower belly, but whatever.  She's awake during the whole procedure, then slides right out of the doc, and goes traipsing down the hall to run into mr weyland.  She then proceeds to pass out, because she's just had surgery, and she would be, you know... in shock, or something.  What?  What do you mean, she doesn't pass out?  She's FINE?  She puts on a spacesuit and goes with Weyland and the robot into the alien spacecraft?  But that's CRAZY!  She just went through major surgery!  Yes.  Yes it is crazy.  I'm not making this shit up.  lol  She proceeds to have a whole FUCKLOAD of physical adventures, running, leaping, climbing and so on, hours after having had major surgery.  Whew, them robo-med-pods are sure good at their job!  Except, they can't tell the difference between guys and girls.  Huh.  Yea.

Yea, so let me get to the actual historical record of the birth of the alien species, now.  So Blue humans called Engineers create death-goo.  It kills them.  Hangs around a few thousand years.  Humans drop by.  A crazy android (much like Ash from Alien) infects a guy with it.  Guy has sex with girl.  Girl has death-goo baby-squid.  Then... one of the engineer-aliens who has slept for thousands of years in a sleep-tube, wakes up grumpy, proceeds to kill everything, runs face first into the now larger death-goo-squid-baby, who basically facehugs him, and BAM we have a full grown alien popping out of the engineer's body.  Yea.  I don't think you can make this shit up if you were high, drunk AND crazy.  I'm REALLY CONFUSED NOW.

So...  if you are like me, and logically, this makes no sense whatsoever, then, don't see the Prometheus movie.  One, there's no charlize theron nudity.  Or any nudity, really.  Two, there's no actual Alien til a cameo appearance at the end.  The engineers do pop up a few times, but there's no real explanation of who they are, what they are doing, why they made humans and then said OH fuck that, they can't be allowed to survive.  Let's make some death-goo!  Good idea.  Death-goo.  OH we fucked up and death goo killed us.  Dammit, I hate when that happens.  The only redeeming feature of the movie, really, was the death-goo-baby-squid.  Whose entire existence seemed to be lying in wait for a passing engineer to facehug.  And then it dies, yes.

I don't know, don't ask me.  I didn't write that shit.

I'm still trying to piece together how no one remembers the actual, you know, ALIENS.  Despite them being ON EARTH, under antarctica, for millions of years, according to the Aliens vs predator movies. AND THEN, showing up again around modern times to kill some hot chick in Alien's vs predator requiem.  I can understand raping the timeline to have aliens show up in modern times, I really can.  It was a cool movie, quite frankly.  It didn't try to explain much of anything, just showed lots of fighting between aliens, regular earth-bound soldiers, and predators.  Fun stuff.  Even if you just go by the Prometheus-Alien-Aliens-Alien 3-Alien: Resurrection timeline, things get all confusing.  Alien gets born on one planet, somehow makes it to another planet, infects people, they kill it, humans start a colony there, it infects everyone, colony gets blown up, ripley is STILL somehow infected, dies, 200 years later, genetic material from ripley is somehow used to clone an actual alien, and it still kills everyone.  I'm dying to know how the hell anyone figured this shit out.  I mean think about it.  As far as anyone knows as of Aliens, there are NO Aliens.  Then Ripley gets found, tells her story.  No one believes her.  Colony on LV-426 gets raped and blown up, and the only survivors go into hypersleep, are infected, and end up dying on a prison planet where the only living survivor of those events is some dumb guard with an IQ of 86.  Somehow, the facts of THAT incident survive 200 years later, where then and ONLY then, can they genetically reproduce ripley and the aliens?  So as far as the Weyland Yutani company is concerned, the ONLY story they have for what happened on LV-426, and Fury-161, is the second hand info they got from a guy with an 86 IQ?  And they STILL try and reproduce Ripley from it?  Whew,  suspension of disbelief indeed.

I haven't watched Hunger Games yet, but I think I'll review that one next.  Give me something to do while i eat dinner.  I'll try to keep my suspension of disbelief levels high, but don't count on it.  I've already heard it's a cheap rip off of a much better japanese movie.

Review - The Hobbit

I must admit, I did actually see the movie of the Hobbit long before I'd read the book.

And by "the movie" I mean the animated version, made back in the 70's.  You see, back before computer animation, there was just "animation" with drawn pictures.  It was a lot cheaper than computer animation, and you could pretty much do anything you wanted to with it, assuming you had some colored pencils and a good imagination.

Back then, growing up, the images of Smaug the Golden roaring out of the Lonely Mountain were quite fascinating, to say the least.  Of course, I think his name was Smaug the Golden.  Why he was called Smaug the Golden, and not Smaug the Red, I'm not really sure, because he was always portrayed as red whenever I have seen him in the past.  Maybe because of his habit of sleeping amidst piles of gold, or covering the miniscule holes in his scaly armor with gold and jewels.  In any case, as a poor, imaginative boy growing up when the animated version came out, I was enchanted by Smaug.  To this day, I sleep amidst piles of gold and jewels, and breathe huge gouts of fire...  out of my ass.  lol

So I saw the first part of the Hobbit last week.  Now, there was only one book, unlike the 3 books of the lord of the rings saga.  However, the producers of The Hobbit, for whatever reason (cough, cough, money, cough, cough), have decided to expand that book to encompass three movies.  Three extraordinarily long movies.  Yes.  Nine hours worth of the Hobbit.

So in the first three hour installment, we learn that Smaug, an ancient and powerful Dragon, took the mountain fortress of Erebor, inside what came to be known as the Lonely mountain, from the Dwarves. Sometime many years later, the descendants of those same dwarves, a paltry 13 in number, hook up with Bilbo Baggins (yes, Frodo's uncle), and start their long journey to retake the lonely mountain back from the dragon Smaug.  Along the way, they run across Saruman, Elrond of Rivendell, and some nasty warg-riding orcs and goblins led by Azog, an orc lord.

I personally dislike the amount of eating, singing, and general merriment that goes along with this movie, but I guess they had to add something into it to lengthen it to three hours.  There is a fair bit of action, some fighting, but while Smaug's taking of the mountain is shown at the very beginning, Smaug fails to make an actual appearance in this movie.  Perhaps they thought it would ruin the surprise, and want to only reveal him in the second, or perhaps, third installment.  Seems a bit counterproductive to me, as this particular movie did not feature a huge amount of action, but as I am fond of saying, what the hell do I know?  That having been said, there is a nice battle with goblins towards the end of the flick.

Worth a watch.  Much like Fellowship of the Ring of the Lord of the Rings movies, the first part of The Hobbit is basically a set-up movie, to let you know what's going on and to get you involved in the backstory.  So, once you've seen it, you can go "okay, now I wait 2 or 3 years til the next one comes out."  And then another few years til the last one.  Well.  At least the actors involved have job security.

Before closing, I'd like to mention something.  The word Hobbits is a bastardization of Hob, which is another word for Hobgoblin, which Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit, is supposedly to have mistaken for a larger version of Goblin.  It's actually a smaller, kindlier version.  So, if you go simply by linguistic and folkloric origins, then, Hobbits are actually kindlier cousins of Goblins.  Funny, isn't it?  Makes you wonder if old Gandalf deduced their origins enough to realize they were related, and if so, then why did he decide to toss them into the mix, you think?  Goblin wildcard?  Just to see what would happen?  Because he knew Goblins were hardy and clever and he was hoping their traits had been passed on to Hobbits?  Makes you wonder, eh?

That's all for now!  Next review, Prometheus!

Review - Snow White and the Huntsman

So I saw Snow White and the Huntsman.

And a couple things bother me.  First thing, and I know it's supposed to be a fantasy movie, and I'm supposed to suspend my disbelief.  Which would be fine if we were talking elves, dragons, talking trees, whatever.  But...  The evil queen is Charlize Theron.  Who is, well, you know.  Pretty hot.  And Snow White is...  Kristen Stewart?  Look, she may be "snow white," but the fairest in the land?  Seriously?  Not even my imagination goes that far.  And who the HELL bribed the mirror to tell her it was Snow White?  Look, let's review here.  Charlize Theron.  Evil, sexy, snappy dresser, rich, controls scores of men, queen of the land.  Kristen Stewart.  Plain.  Wears K-Mart dresses off the rack that do absolutely nothing to complement her ... uh... figure...  and can't speak a coherent sentence to save her life.  Also, has the choice between Chris... Hemsworth?  I think that's his name.  The guy who plays Thor.  And she chooses some douchebaggery duke's son?  Who wears FULL PLATE ARMOR and wields... a... bow.  Yea.  SO.  Charlize Theron, or Kristen Stewart?  I'm going to go with the queen.  Evil?  Maybe, but no one's perfect!

So....   Who the FUCK wears full plate armor and wields a bow?  Seriously?  Look, genius.  One, you wield a bow.  Wearing Full plate armor is, shall we say, overkill, since if you are any good at your job, you never get near the battle.  Two, I know, you're a duke's son, so you steal a perfectly good set of plate that a REAL knight can wear, to protect yourself as you.. shoot arrows at people from a distance.  Somewhere, there's a poor knight who's hacking his way through the enemy troops wearing leather jerkin and wishing he had some goddamn ARMOR to hide all the battle scars he's got because some friggin DICK stole his armor.  Also, plate is HEAVY.  Which leaves us with two options.  Obviously, the armor is completely fake and lightweight because a real actor would not be able to handle the weight of full platemail AND still be able to act for more than a take or two.  So, let's pretend it's real platemail, and assume the duke's son is strong enough to handle the weight of full platemail.  One, he'd be... a bit bulkier...  and two, he'd have to be strong enough to wield a real weapon, like a sword, axe, mace, you know.  Usual melee weapon stuff.  Because let's face it, genius duke's son there is RUNNING FULL BORE INTO THE MIDDLE OF BATTLE... and he has no weapon to defend himself up close.  Bows are a horrible defense against melee weapons.  So, we've got a moronic offspring of the nobility running around in full plate mail wielding a bow.  And I've noticed several instances where he just turns, shoots and fires without having ANY WARNING OF ANY KIND that there was an enemy there.  So he's not only a moron, but a psychic moron.  Reminds me of that new jersey medium chick.  Medium?  Looks like a large to me!  lol

Which leads us to the speech.  Now, look, I realize Snow White had just recovered from a near-fatal poisoning.  I know she may not have been at her best.  And I know she was imprisoned in a tower by herself for like ten years.  So, her command of the language may not have been, well, you know, adequate.  But....  "Iron melts!  But it writhes!  WHO'S MY BROTHER?"  Seriously?  Shit, honey, I could have literally BEEN your brother, and I'd have kept my mouth shut there.  I'd have been looking around, going all like "I don't know this woman, I think she's possessed by demons, someone help her inside.  Maybe a head wound."  Sane, rational people, other than, you know, americans in general, do NOT respond to random gibberish by swearing fealty to the speaker.  I excuse americans in general because their leaders always speak gibberish, and if they don't swear fealty to the speaker, they get shot.  It's not their fault.

And yes.  There are singing dwarves.  And no, it's not something catchy, like Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go....  It's...  some....  really fuckin sad dwarf song that made me want to slit my wrists.  And I'm not even going to MENTION Chris hemlock or whatever his name is.  He was a grumpy looking Thor without a hammer.  Seriously.  I couldn't tell who had been constipated longer, Chris or Kristen.

So, in all, with the unfortunate death of the only person capable of acting in the entire movie, and by that I mean, Charlize Theron, all future hope of anything fun coming out of the snow white and the huntsman series is dead and buried.  Unless of course they somehow resurrect Charlize Theron, which, would be the only reason I might watch a sequel.

Just to illustrate it's not just me who was, shall we say, nonplussed by the casting of Kristen Stewart as the fairest in the land...  I was watching the movie with a group of my family and friends, and the minute Kristen Stewart was revealed as the older Snow White, there was a collective groan from the room full of people.  I suspect much the same thing happened in the theater.

Two things before I close.  One, Charlize Theron should have gotten an oscar for her staunch protrayal of the queen, not only because she was one of the only people in the movie who could act, but she did it knowing she was the only thing in the movie worth watching.  That took guts.  Second, Bob Hoskins, who played one of the dwarves, retired as of this movie.  It wasn't exactly a swan song for him, but he's had a long and active career and I wish him a happy retirement.  Hopefully his various health issues won't stop him from enjoying a peaceful existence.

Next review...  The Hobbit!  Part one.