Whee, the last review before Halloween Horror-movie-Review-a-thon! 31 Days of Horror! I am SO psyched! I feel like a teenage girl about to start as a freshman in high school, and over the summer, her acne cleared up and she got her braces off. Yes, THAT psyched! But let's get to the review before I pee myself and have to change my panties. Again.
Riddick (2013) picks up pretty much where the last Riddick movie left off. To sum up the first two movies in case you didn't see them, Riddick is an interplanetary criminal wanted for, well, killing pretty much everything he runs into. Where I come from, that's a talent, not a reason to put a bounty on a guy, but eh. Space is different. As a wanted man with a bounty on his head so large that you could afford to buy a planet with it, Riddick has been hunted by mercenaries and assassins for decades. In the last movie, he managed to assassinate a king, and took his place. Very briefly, Riddick explains in this movie that he "got sloppy" and lost his edge, and the Necromongers (the spacefaring conquerors he became king of) tried to kill him, and left him for dead on a desert planet. And that's just in the beginning of this movie, so you know he at least survives the assassination attempt. Now, all he has to do is recover from a shattered leg, various wounds from being dropped off a cliff, and survive a lack of food and water, all while fighting off legions of bloodthirsty desert creatures intent on eating him, also while looking for a way off-planet. Piece of cake!
I'm going to tell you about the one bad thing I dislike in this movie, before I get to the good parts. I never liked the entire 'Necromonger' story line to begin with, which is what the whole last movie was about. I mean, he goes up against an entire race of spacefaring conquerors, kills their leader, and then, has to deal with POLITICS. Ugh. It was probably good that he didn't know that whole "You keep what you kill" slogan of the necromongers before he offed their king, otherwise, he'd probably have let them kill him. No wonder he got soft. Politics will turn your brains to tapioca faster than cutting off the top of your skull, scooping out your brains with a spatula, and filling the empty space with tapioca. Yes, that fast. Now you know why all our politicians are idiots. And no, stop arguing. I'm not making any exceptions. So what I dislike, is that they clear it up with a five-minute thing about Riddick looking for his home planet of Furya, and how he "got sloppy." Riddick gets sloppy, and gets deposed, and now there's an entire goddamn ARMY of spacefaring conquerors out there, going from planet to planet, destroying EVERYTHING. Which, is what they did before Riddick started leading them. Why the hell wouldn't they return to that? It was working fine for them! So, in Riddick's five minutes of recrimination, he's let loose an entire armada of killers, who are still out there, destroying entire planets. Sloppy, indeed, Riddick. Sloppy, indeed.
Now, on to the good stuff. Whatever planet Riddick gets dumped on, and even he doesn't know the name, really is out to kill him. There's doggy-things, and scaly-things, and flying-things, and swimmy-things, and they all have sharp claws, and bitey jaws, and pointy tails, and nasty venom. What I like about this movie is that it's almost TWO HOURS of Riddick getting his edge back. It's not just monsters and beasties that Riddick has to kill. Mercs (mercenaries) track him down and he has to fight them, too. It's rare nowadays to get an almost two-hour long sci-fi movie that doesn't have naked blue aliens in it. This isn't Smurfs in Space. This is technology-driven, decent-looking-aliens-made-by-a-good-budget, lasers vs bone knives vs things with jaws bigger than my head, for two hours. It's an action movie with sci-fi as a background, which is what I like to see.
The movie gets a little slow in the middle, looking for tension and suspense instead of action, and I think that was a mistake, but not a huge one. Vin Diesel (who plays Riddick) does his usual job of looking beefy and acting tough, and Katie Sackhoff (of Battlestar Galactica fame) does her usual job of looking beefy and acting tough while showing off her boobs. In fact, I think everyone in this movie was selected based on their ability to look beefy and act tough, which, they are very good at. Even Katie Sackhoff made me pee myself, and only partially out of excitement. The CGI alien beasties even looked beefy and acted tough, and that's amazing, for a computer-generated image. I didn't pee myself, but I admit to wanting to tame and domesticate a pet alien doggy like Riddick did. Of course, if I tried, I'd probably lose a hand. And then an arm. And then, the rest of my limbs. And that's just to the CGI. My encounter with an alien beast would go much worse.
Riddick was a pretty decent movie. There was a good amount of action, and I liked the science fiction aspects of it. They were well done and made a fair amount of sense (except where they try to tell me you can't mix-and-match power cells... isn't that exactly what they did in Pitch Black? I do have a memory longer than your average goldfish). I was going to watch it again tonight, because I was so on-the-edge-my-seat the first time I watched it (last night), that I could hardly enjoy it in that, "I'm half drunk and this is a good movie" way I like to enjoy my monster flicks, but Madame Secretary with Tea Leoni came on again, and dammit, Tea looks hot with those smarty-pants mom-glasses on. Next time, I swear, Tea, you will not seduce me with your "I wear a suit that costs more than you make in a year" ways. You just won't. I am so over you.
That's all for tonight. Watching the Strain later. Catch you guys Oct. 1st for the first horror movie review of Halloween month! :-D And no, I have absolutely no idea of what I am reviewing yet. I'm playing it by ear this year. heh, I made a rhyme.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Sunday Review - 3 Days to Kill (2014)
Okay, I admit I'm not a huge Kevin Costner fan. But seriously, do you guys know how hard it is, NOT to review horror movies? I'm trying to save them til next month! And Carrie doesn't count. That movie wasn't even that good. So you'll have to settle for action til then. Not long, now. Ten whole days. Seems like forever.
3 Days to Kill (2014) stars Kevin Costner as Ethan Renner, an aging CIA agent who's dying. He's got glioblastoma something or other, which is bad, I guess. The doc gives him 3 to 5 months to live, and he goes home to his estranged wife, and the daughter he barely knows. Only, the CIA has one last mission they'd like him to do. The Wolf, the architect behind Ethan's last near-disastrous mission, is still out there. And Ethan's the only one who's seen him.
Yea, I know it's kind of a short synopsis, but it's pretty much a simple movie. I've never really liked Kevin Costner in.... well, anything, really. He played a serial killer in Mr. Brooks, I think it was? That role sort of played to him. I think his, uh, acting instincts, shall we say, made him very suitable to playing the bad guy. He doesn't really play a bad guy in this movie, but he does go around killing people. Not enough people, in my opinion, but some. This movie kind of drags a bit, there's a lot of him trying to make up with his family, who, frankly, aren't very interesting. His wife doesn't like him very much, and his daughter's pretty pissed at him for not being around for, oh, her entire life. Hailee Steinfeld plays the daughter, I guess she is a popular up and coming actress, but eh, I'm not seeing it. I can't recall who played the estranged wife but she's probably the best actress in this film (Connie Nielson, thank you imdb.com). Amber Heard plays Ethan's "handler," which, if you don't regularly watch spy movies, means his immediate superior who provides him with mission objectives and details and so on. Amber Heard completely and totally overacts this part, which, is fine. Considering the rest of the movie is drab and mainly uninteresting, Amber Heard overacting a bit here and there is a welcome change.
There's a scene in this movie where Amber Heard is watching some girl dancing nude (and yes, I know she's lesbian, so it makes perfect sense), and they don't actually show anything. There's some like, smoke and lights obscuring the naughty bits. I'm not really sure why they did this, maybe it's because Kevin Costner was in the scene, and he doesn't like seeing that kind of thing? Who knows, maybe he plays for the other team, so to speak. Totally off topic, but have you ever noticed how many euphemisms pop up in everyday speech? Back on-topic, why the hell wouldn't they add nudity to spice up this movie? I am sure Amber Heard wouldn't have objected. Odd, that they had nude dancers and blurred it out, considering I saw this on Netflix. They certainly shouldn't have needed to blur anything. On that same note, it's rare that Netflix gets a movie that was finished this same year. Which probably means that 3 Days to Kill wasn't very good, and hey, guess what? I agree.
Oh, there were some good parts. Kevin Costner's character does some good shooting, kidnapping, torturing, killing, blows a few things up, but really, he's dying. I mean, how active and spry can a dying cancer patient be? The various sub-plots where he's trying to torture people so he can find his main target, and his daughter calls, and he asks them for advice, is pretty funny. There's also some holes, not necessarily in the plot, but they don't really let you know how things worked out. For instance, the daughter gets a chance to be alone with this supposedly really nice guy, who happens to be the son of the bad guy's partner. She gets locked in a room alone with him, and... what happens? They don't show anything. Just, all of a sudden, it's the end of the movie. Did he try and kill her? Did she kick his ass? Did someone save her? Did they have hot messy sex? Who knows?
Mostly, the movie dragged a little bit too much. I think Amber Heard managed to step in at just the right moments for me not to stop it and eject it from my Netflix queue. Hey, if you like watching Amber Heard overact, take a gander at 3 days to kill. Kevin Costner doesn't overact here, in fact, I don't think Kevin Costner can overact. He's more of a chronic under-actor. Everyone else does okay, and the villains do a good enough job of acting villain-y. If you're looking for action, this movie is a bit lacking, but there is some. If you're looking for comedy, well, there's a tiny smidge. If you want to see an aging Kevin Costner act like a guy near death, hey, you're in luck, there's a lot of that. The fight scenes didn't particularly seem realistic, in my opinion, at least not compared to other movies of similar ilk, and frankly, a cancerous guy, fighting off unconsciousness, taking out a trained killer is, well, unlikely. (shrug) I'm trying to be nice, but honestly, the movie wasn't that good. I'm definitely not going to watch it again.
You guys are in luck tonight. You get a bonus review! I managed to catch Madame Secretary, Tea Leoni's newest show. Yes, she produced it, too. She plays the new secretary of state after the last one gets killed in an airline crash. Sure, there's enough here to keep it going for years, but I already figured it out. The president's chief of staff is the bad guy. He's running a CIA-backed drug operation and raking in the millions, and he had the last secretary of state killed because he knew too much. And, there's no monsters, aliens, naked chicks, and so on, so, why am I watching this again? Can't think of a good reason. Well, at least I checked it out, now I can cross it off my list of shows to watch. Sorry Tea, I know you're producing it and all, but I'll just have to come up with another reason to pick you up in a bar the next time I see you in one. And if I can't think of anything, please, just come on over and pick me up. I'm lonely. So lonely. It's too quiet here. I can hear the house creak when the wind blows.
Another bonus review, caught The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last night on HBO. Yea, I'm not recommending it. It's a Ben Stiller movie, for god's sake. I'm not going to make a determination on his acting skills, because I don't think he's actually tried to act yet, but personally, the only person I dislike more in Hollywood right now is Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise just seems, I don't know, wrong somehow, like he's actually an alien parasite hell-bent on world domination, and we all know it, but we don't talk about it because it's just too crazy to say out loud. Oops. There, now I've done it. I've gone and said it. Shit. Now what do I do?
There's basically 3 main characters in this movie that mean anything. Walter Mitty, played by Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, the love interest, who, well, let's just say she's not exactly a Hollywood sex object, but I guess that's the point, and Sean Penn, who plays a supporting role, but the only other role in the movie that really means anything. Sean Penn did a decent job, but it was more of a cameo than anything else. Also, the movie is a remake of an earlier movie, probably a much-better-done one, as well, but I haven't seen the original, so i can't compare the two. So let's see, we've got a remake of a comedy that's not funny, not exciting and not terribly interesting. Blech. And, hey, there's no monsters, and no nudity. Don't ask me why I watched it. Must have been day-dreaming about a better movie while it was on.
That's all for tonight. It's late and I feel like I'm coming down with something. Yes, I know. What, me? I never get sick! heh Fall arrives on Tuesday, and I'm already getting started on cold and flu season. Oh, speaking of fall, as it turns out, my weather prediction for summer was way off! Remember that weather prediction I made back in June, how summer was going to be smoking hot and there'd be hurricanes galore and shit? Well, I was wrong! I am man enough to admit it. June WAS warm and toasty, above average temps all month, but July and August, and probably September as well, were way below average, temperature-wise. Which made for a goddamn crappy summer. I haven't even been able, for various reasons including the weather, to work on my tan, probably since July. I am pasty white again. :-( Can't get any geekier than that, I suppose. Oh well. Maybe next summer will be warmer. Now I get to try and make it through 9 glorious months of winter. Whee. Feel my excitement.
Til next week, and hopefully a better movie or series to review!
3 Days to Kill (2014) stars Kevin Costner as Ethan Renner, an aging CIA agent who's dying. He's got glioblastoma something or other, which is bad, I guess. The doc gives him 3 to 5 months to live, and he goes home to his estranged wife, and the daughter he barely knows. Only, the CIA has one last mission they'd like him to do. The Wolf, the architect behind Ethan's last near-disastrous mission, is still out there. And Ethan's the only one who's seen him.
Yea, I know it's kind of a short synopsis, but it's pretty much a simple movie. I've never really liked Kevin Costner in.... well, anything, really. He played a serial killer in Mr. Brooks, I think it was? That role sort of played to him. I think his, uh, acting instincts, shall we say, made him very suitable to playing the bad guy. He doesn't really play a bad guy in this movie, but he does go around killing people. Not enough people, in my opinion, but some. This movie kind of drags a bit, there's a lot of him trying to make up with his family, who, frankly, aren't very interesting. His wife doesn't like him very much, and his daughter's pretty pissed at him for not being around for, oh, her entire life. Hailee Steinfeld plays the daughter, I guess she is a popular up and coming actress, but eh, I'm not seeing it. I can't recall who played the estranged wife but she's probably the best actress in this film (Connie Nielson, thank you imdb.com). Amber Heard plays Ethan's "handler," which, if you don't regularly watch spy movies, means his immediate superior who provides him with mission objectives and details and so on. Amber Heard completely and totally overacts this part, which, is fine. Considering the rest of the movie is drab and mainly uninteresting, Amber Heard overacting a bit here and there is a welcome change.
There's a scene in this movie where Amber Heard is watching some girl dancing nude (and yes, I know she's lesbian, so it makes perfect sense), and they don't actually show anything. There's some like, smoke and lights obscuring the naughty bits. I'm not really sure why they did this, maybe it's because Kevin Costner was in the scene, and he doesn't like seeing that kind of thing? Who knows, maybe he plays for the other team, so to speak. Totally off topic, but have you ever noticed how many euphemisms pop up in everyday speech? Back on-topic, why the hell wouldn't they add nudity to spice up this movie? I am sure Amber Heard wouldn't have objected. Odd, that they had nude dancers and blurred it out, considering I saw this on Netflix. They certainly shouldn't have needed to blur anything. On that same note, it's rare that Netflix gets a movie that was finished this same year. Which probably means that 3 Days to Kill wasn't very good, and hey, guess what? I agree.
Oh, there were some good parts. Kevin Costner's character does some good shooting, kidnapping, torturing, killing, blows a few things up, but really, he's dying. I mean, how active and spry can a dying cancer patient be? The various sub-plots where he's trying to torture people so he can find his main target, and his daughter calls, and he asks them for advice, is pretty funny. There's also some holes, not necessarily in the plot, but they don't really let you know how things worked out. For instance, the daughter gets a chance to be alone with this supposedly really nice guy, who happens to be the son of the bad guy's partner. She gets locked in a room alone with him, and... what happens? They don't show anything. Just, all of a sudden, it's the end of the movie. Did he try and kill her? Did she kick his ass? Did someone save her? Did they have hot messy sex? Who knows?
Mostly, the movie dragged a little bit too much. I think Amber Heard managed to step in at just the right moments for me not to stop it and eject it from my Netflix queue. Hey, if you like watching Amber Heard overact, take a gander at 3 days to kill. Kevin Costner doesn't overact here, in fact, I don't think Kevin Costner can overact. He's more of a chronic under-actor. Everyone else does okay, and the villains do a good enough job of acting villain-y. If you're looking for action, this movie is a bit lacking, but there is some. If you're looking for comedy, well, there's a tiny smidge. If you want to see an aging Kevin Costner act like a guy near death, hey, you're in luck, there's a lot of that. The fight scenes didn't particularly seem realistic, in my opinion, at least not compared to other movies of similar ilk, and frankly, a cancerous guy, fighting off unconsciousness, taking out a trained killer is, well, unlikely. (shrug) I'm trying to be nice, but honestly, the movie wasn't that good. I'm definitely not going to watch it again.
You guys are in luck tonight. You get a bonus review! I managed to catch Madame Secretary, Tea Leoni's newest show. Yes, she produced it, too. She plays the new secretary of state after the last one gets killed in an airline crash. Sure, there's enough here to keep it going for years, but I already figured it out. The president's chief of staff is the bad guy. He's running a CIA-backed drug operation and raking in the millions, and he had the last secretary of state killed because he knew too much. And, there's no monsters, aliens, naked chicks, and so on, so, why am I watching this again? Can't think of a good reason. Well, at least I checked it out, now I can cross it off my list of shows to watch. Sorry Tea, I know you're producing it and all, but I'll just have to come up with another reason to pick you up in a bar the next time I see you in one. And if I can't think of anything, please, just come on over and pick me up. I'm lonely. So lonely. It's too quiet here. I can hear the house creak when the wind blows.
Another bonus review, caught The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last night on HBO. Yea, I'm not recommending it. It's a Ben Stiller movie, for god's sake. I'm not going to make a determination on his acting skills, because I don't think he's actually tried to act yet, but personally, the only person I dislike more in Hollywood right now is Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise just seems, I don't know, wrong somehow, like he's actually an alien parasite hell-bent on world domination, and we all know it, but we don't talk about it because it's just too crazy to say out loud. Oops. There, now I've done it. I've gone and said it. Shit. Now what do I do?
There's basically 3 main characters in this movie that mean anything. Walter Mitty, played by Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, the love interest, who, well, let's just say she's not exactly a Hollywood sex object, but I guess that's the point, and Sean Penn, who plays a supporting role, but the only other role in the movie that really means anything. Sean Penn did a decent job, but it was more of a cameo than anything else. Also, the movie is a remake of an earlier movie, probably a much-better-done one, as well, but I haven't seen the original, so i can't compare the two. So let's see, we've got a remake of a comedy that's not funny, not exciting and not terribly interesting. Blech. And, hey, there's no monsters, and no nudity. Don't ask me why I watched it. Must have been day-dreaming about a better movie while it was on.
That's all for tonight. It's late and I feel like I'm coming down with something. Yes, I know. What, me? I never get sick! heh Fall arrives on Tuesday, and I'm already getting started on cold and flu season. Oh, speaking of fall, as it turns out, my weather prediction for summer was way off! Remember that weather prediction I made back in June, how summer was going to be smoking hot and there'd be hurricanes galore and shit? Well, I was wrong! I am man enough to admit it. June WAS warm and toasty, above average temps all month, but July and August, and probably September as well, were way below average, temperature-wise. Which made for a goddamn crappy summer. I haven't even been able, for various reasons including the weather, to work on my tan, probably since July. I am pasty white again. :-( Can't get any geekier than that, I suppose. Oh well. Maybe next summer will be warmer. Now I get to try and make it through 9 glorious months of winter. Whee. Feel my excitement.
Til next week, and hopefully a better movie or series to review!
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Fall TV Lineup - What I'm Going To Watch.
Yea, Fall TV season is coming up soon, and in some cases, already underway. Like most of you, I can't stand most of the crap they put on TV nowadays, and just to be clear, I will never, ever recommend that anyone watch a reality TV show. Because, that's just cruel. What I will recommend, is anything with action, hot chicks, or monsters. Or, you know, horror in general. I may not end up watching all of my picks all season, but these are the ones I've heard of that I'm going to at least check out. Here's a listing of Sept and October premieres:
http://www.tvguide.com/special/fall-preview/calendar.aspx
Let me first explain why I will eliminate a bunch of good shows because they don't live up to my personal standards. Boardwalk Empire's final season premiered on HBO a couple weeks ago, and plays every sunday. Although I love Steve Buscemi as an actor, the concept of a show about a prohibitionist-era bootlegger doesn't appeal to my personal taste. No actual aliens, monsters, or the like. Sure, it's got action, and probably nudity, but just not my kind of show, I suppose. Sons of Anarchy, although I have heard good things about it, has been eliminated from my viewing for the same reason. I've eliminated The Walking Dead (whenever it premieres, I have no idea) because the writing sucks, at least in my opinion, despite it having actual zombies. If I don't mention a show, assume I have either not heard about it, or have eliminated it because there's no monsters or not enough action, or I've already seen it and decided it's crap on a stick.
Z Nation appeared last week Friday on Syfy in the 10 pm time slot. It's an hour long show similar to the Walking Dead. I wasn't terribly impressed by the pilot episode, but I'm giving it a second and maybe a third chance because it has zombies in it. I loves me some zombie horror, as a redneck horror fan might say. Maybe I should have a t-shirt made up with that slogan on it. I LOVES ME SOME ZOMBIE HORROR. Maybe I should have it tattooed above my ass. I hear tramp stamps are attractive to the opposite sex. My back fur would probably obscure the writing, though. Hmmmm.
Earlier tonight, I took a peek at Red Band Society and the Mysteries of Laura. The Red Band Society is about cancer patients in a cancer ward, and the Mysteries of Laura is supposedly a cop show. I'm... not really sure who the hell thought a show about cancer patients would make a good show. I watched it for about 15 minutes, and all I got out of it was depression. People with bald heads, amputated limbs and dismal prospects for survival, while stuck in a place reeking of death and disinfectant, does not make for a happy show. I will not be watching that one again, not even out of morbid curiosity. I only watched about 15 seconds of the Mysteries of Laura. It's possible the rest of the show was really good, but the 15 seconds I saw centered around a drab-looking dinner party. It's a toss up which place I would feel more morose at, a stuffy-looking dinner party or a hospital cancer ward, so I can't see me watching either of those silly things.
Madam Secretary is on Sundays on CBS at 8 pm. I've always found Tea Leoni attractive, and since her show doesn't interfere with The Strain, which is on later sunday nights, I thought I might be able to at least catch a few episodes of it. The idea of a show wrapped around a tough-talking secretary of state might be a good idea, even if there are no monsters in it. Eh, who am I kidding, it's probably crap, but Tea Leoni is a cutie pie. I have to at least watch an episode or two, otherwise, how could I walk up to her in a bar after the show is cancelled and offer to console her? I'd feel like a hypocrite because I'd never even seen the silly thing! Not that I'm ever going to come across Tea Leoni in a bar, but dammit, it's the principle of the thing.
Next week Monday, the 22nd, brings my first real dilemma of the fall season. Gotham premieres on Fox in the 8 pm time slot. That's not the hard part. I might enjoy a show about Gotham without Batman, but frankly, I don't think I will. Still, it's a glimpse at the world of superheroes, without any superheroes on the show. In that sense, it's a lot like Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, but set in the DC universe. We'll see how that one goes, but the 9 pm time slot? That could be bad. Sleepy Hollow's second season premieres on Fox right after Gotham, and Scorpion's pilot episode premieres on CBS at the same time. I watched Sleepy Hollow last season, and while it wasn't outstanding, it did have headless horsemen, demons, magic and Clancy Brown. You can't really go far wrong with that combination, though the show did try very hard to go wrong. Scorpion is about a bunch of geniuses banding together to fight crime, essentially forming the Avengers of the MENSA crowd. As a genius myself (I don't like to brag, but my IQ is significantly above the genius level. you might even refer to me as a super-genius. I like the sound of that. Wile E. Coyote, Super-genius! Uh, but I digress, and there's probably a train coming at me right now about to run me over), this show interests me. It may be hard to decide between Sleepy Hollow, with its decidedly magical bent, and Scorpion, which seems more reality-focused. I'll have to let you guys know which one wins out in the end.
Sept the 23rd brings the second season of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD in the 9 pm time slot on ABC. The first season was so good that if another channel showed boobs for an hour, I'd never know. Yes, it's so good that I would watch it over boobs. Or under boobs. Or around boobs. Or even, with boobs. You don't have to be a guy to appreciate good Marvel TV shows. Samuel L Jackson made a guest appearance on last season's finale as Nick Fury, and Bill Paxton (of both Aliens and Predator 2 fame) was the major villain last season. With Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson himself) playing the lead, Agents of SHIELD looks to be a decent seasonal glimpse into the world of superheroes in between the major superhero blockbusters coming out almost every year. It's almost like having a subscription to a comic book about the Hulk in between going drinking every Friday with Bruce Banner. Wait. No, it's nothing like that. That's the stupidest simile I have ever heard. I'm an idiot.
October 7th has The Flash premiering on the CW network in the 8 pm time slot, which works out nicely. It doesn't interfere with Agents of SHIELD, and is another look at the DC universe the night after Gotham is on. I actually watched the last time they tried to put The Flash on TV some 10 or 20 years ago, and frankly, it wasn't bad. Apparently, other people thought it was, because they pulled it. (shrugs) I like the Flash as a superhero mainly because he seems to have boundless energy combined with the ability to act faster than anyone else. As long as he has the intelligence to choose the right actions, I don't know how anyone could stand against such power, not even Superman. Of course, it's probably a drag to have to run everywhere because taking the train just seems so damn slow. In any case, I'm interested to see how it goes.
American Horror Story premieres October 8th at 10 pm on FX. This season is about Freaks. I liked last season's Witch motif, but since I am not overly fond of Freaks (despite being a bit of an outcast myself, they don't really qualify as monsters), I may not even get around to watching it this season. At least it doesn't interfere with any other shows I want to watch, as far as I know. I didn't see the first season of American Horror Story, but at least it's available on Netflix if I want to catch up.
Pretty much the biggest and last Premiere night is October 24th, when Grimm returns to NBC at 9 pm for its third season. I've been watching Grimm since the first season, and it's one of the better shows out there. I personally came up with the idea about ten years ago, but never went anywhere with it, and dammit, wouldn't you know it? Somebody else had the same idea and went ahead with it. Oh well, you snooze, you lose, as they say. Immediately following Grimm on NBC on the same night is the pilot episode of Constantine, which I guess pretty much picks up where the movie version with Keanu Reeves left off? I haven't heard anything about the show but I enjoyed the Constantine movie. I know, Keanu can't act, but the premise of the movie was good.
Okay, let's do a quick recap of what I am watching this winter, because even I can't keep track of all these shows in my head at once. I'm just going to list them by weekdays, so I know when these shows are on and when to look for them to premiere.
Sundays, Madam Secretary, CBS, 8 pm. The Strain, later that night on FX until the current season is over. Mondays, Gotham on Fox at 8 pm, Sleepy Hollow on Fox OR Scorpion on CBS, both at 9 pm. Tuesdays, The Flash on CW at 8 pm, followed by Agents of SHIELD at 9 on ABC. Wednesdays, possibly American Horror Story at 10 pm on FX. Thursdays, I've got nothing. Looks like I am watching porn and flogging the bishop on Thursday nights. Friday has Grimm on at 9 pm on NBC and Constantine at 10 pm immediately following it, also on NBC. And... Saturday looks like another night of self-flagellation, guilt and waking up in a puddle of my own excretions. Well, everyone needs a hobby.
That's all for tonight! It's late and it's way past my bedtime. Til the weekend and my next review, then.
http://www.tvguide.com/special/fall-preview/calendar.aspx
Let me first explain why I will eliminate a bunch of good shows because they don't live up to my personal standards. Boardwalk Empire's final season premiered on HBO a couple weeks ago, and plays every sunday. Although I love Steve Buscemi as an actor, the concept of a show about a prohibitionist-era bootlegger doesn't appeal to my personal taste. No actual aliens, monsters, or the like. Sure, it's got action, and probably nudity, but just not my kind of show, I suppose. Sons of Anarchy, although I have heard good things about it, has been eliminated from my viewing for the same reason. I've eliminated The Walking Dead (whenever it premieres, I have no idea) because the writing sucks, at least in my opinion, despite it having actual zombies. If I don't mention a show, assume I have either not heard about it, or have eliminated it because there's no monsters or not enough action, or I've already seen it and decided it's crap on a stick.
Z Nation appeared last week Friday on Syfy in the 10 pm time slot. It's an hour long show similar to the Walking Dead. I wasn't terribly impressed by the pilot episode, but I'm giving it a second and maybe a third chance because it has zombies in it. I loves me some zombie horror, as a redneck horror fan might say. Maybe I should have a t-shirt made up with that slogan on it. I LOVES ME SOME ZOMBIE HORROR. Maybe I should have it tattooed above my ass. I hear tramp stamps are attractive to the opposite sex. My back fur would probably obscure the writing, though. Hmmmm.
Earlier tonight, I took a peek at Red Band Society and the Mysteries of Laura. The Red Band Society is about cancer patients in a cancer ward, and the Mysteries of Laura is supposedly a cop show. I'm... not really sure who the hell thought a show about cancer patients would make a good show. I watched it for about 15 minutes, and all I got out of it was depression. People with bald heads, amputated limbs and dismal prospects for survival, while stuck in a place reeking of death and disinfectant, does not make for a happy show. I will not be watching that one again, not even out of morbid curiosity. I only watched about 15 seconds of the Mysteries of Laura. It's possible the rest of the show was really good, but the 15 seconds I saw centered around a drab-looking dinner party. It's a toss up which place I would feel more morose at, a stuffy-looking dinner party or a hospital cancer ward, so I can't see me watching either of those silly things.
Madam Secretary is on Sundays on CBS at 8 pm. I've always found Tea Leoni attractive, and since her show doesn't interfere with The Strain, which is on later sunday nights, I thought I might be able to at least catch a few episodes of it. The idea of a show wrapped around a tough-talking secretary of state might be a good idea, even if there are no monsters in it. Eh, who am I kidding, it's probably crap, but Tea Leoni is a cutie pie. I have to at least watch an episode or two, otherwise, how could I walk up to her in a bar after the show is cancelled and offer to console her? I'd feel like a hypocrite because I'd never even seen the silly thing! Not that I'm ever going to come across Tea Leoni in a bar, but dammit, it's the principle of the thing.
Next week Monday, the 22nd, brings my first real dilemma of the fall season. Gotham premieres on Fox in the 8 pm time slot. That's not the hard part. I might enjoy a show about Gotham without Batman, but frankly, I don't think I will. Still, it's a glimpse at the world of superheroes, without any superheroes on the show. In that sense, it's a lot like Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, but set in the DC universe. We'll see how that one goes, but the 9 pm time slot? That could be bad. Sleepy Hollow's second season premieres on Fox right after Gotham, and Scorpion's pilot episode premieres on CBS at the same time. I watched Sleepy Hollow last season, and while it wasn't outstanding, it did have headless horsemen, demons, magic and Clancy Brown. You can't really go far wrong with that combination, though the show did try very hard to go wrong. Scorpion is about a bunch of geniuses banding together to fight crime, essentially forming the Avengers of the MENSA crowd. As a genius myself (I don't like to brag, but my IQ is significantly above the genius level. you might even refer to me as a super-genius. I like the sound of that. Wile E. Coyote, Super-genius! Uh, but I digress, and there's probably a train coming at me right now about to run me over), this show interests me. It may be hard to decide between Sleepy Hollow, with its decidedly magical bent, and Scorpion, which seems more reality-focused. I'll have to let you guys know which one wins out in the end.
Sept the 23rd brings the second season of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD in the 9 pm time slot on ABC. The first season was so good that if another channel showed boobs for an hour, I'd never know. Yes, it's so good that I would watch it over boobs. Or under boobs. Or around boobs. Or even, with boobs. You don't have to be a guy to appreciate good Marvel TV shows. Samuel L Jackson made a guest appearance on last season's finale as Nick Fury, and Bill Paxton (of both Aliens and Predator 2 fame) was the major villain last season. With Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson himself) playing the lead, Agents of SHIELD looks to be a decent seasonal glimpse into the world of superheroes in between the major superhero blockbusters coming out almost every year. It's almost like having a subscription to a comic book about the Hulk in between going drinking every Friday with Bruce Banner. Wait. No, it's nothing like that. That's the stupidest simile I have ever heard. I'm an idiot.
October 7th has The Flash premiering on the CW network in the 8 pm time slot, which works out nicely. It doesn't interfere with Agents of SHIELD, and is another look at the DC universe the night after Gotham is on. I actually watched the last time they tried to put The Flash on TV some 10 or 20 years ago, and frankly, it wasn't bad. Apparently, other people thought it was, because they pulled it. (shrugs) I like the Flash as a superhero mainly because he seems to have boundless energy combined with the ability to act faster than anyone else. As long as he has the intelligence to choose the right actions, I don't know how anyone could stand against such power, not even Superman. Of course, it's probably a drag to have to run everywhere because taking the train just seems so damn slow. In any case, I'm interested to see how it goes.
American Horror Story premieres October 8th at 10 pm on FX. This season is about Freaks. I liked last season's Witch motif, but since I am not overly fond of Freaks (despite being a bit of an outcast myself, they don't really qualify as monsters), I may not even get around to watching it this season. At least it doesn't interfere with any other shows I want to watch, as far as I know. I didn't see the first season of American Horror Story, but at least it's available on Netflix if I want to catch up.
Pretty much the biggest and last Premiere night is October 24th, when Grimm returns to NBC at 9 pm for its third season. I've been watching Grimm since the first season, and it's one of the better shows out there. I personally came up with the idea about ten years ago, but never went anywhere with it, and dammit, wouldn't you know it? Somebody else had the same idea and went ahead with it. Oh well, you snooze, you lose, as they say. Immediately following Grimm on NBC on the same night is the pilot episode of Constantine, which I guess pretty much picks up where the movie version with Keanu Reeves left off? I haven't heard anything about the show but I enjoyed the Constantine movie. I know, Keanu can't act, but the premise of the movie was good.
Okay, let's do a quick recap of what I am watching this winter, because even I can't keep track of all these shows in my head at once. I'm just going to list them by weekdays, so I know when these shows are on and when to look for them to premiere.
Sundays, Madam Secretary, CBS, 8 pm. The Strain, later that night on FX until the current season is over. Mondays, Gotham on Fox at 8 pm, Sleepy Hollow on Fox OR Scorpion on CBS, both at 9 pm. Tuesdays, The Flash on CW at 8 pm, followed by Agents of SHIELD at 9 on ABC. Wednesdays, possibly American Horror Story at 10 pm on FX. Thursdays, I've got nothing. Looks like I am watching porn and flogging the bishop on Thursday nights. Friday has Grimm on at 9 pm on NBC and Constantine at 10 pm immediately following it, also on NBC. And... Saturday looks like another night of self-flagellation, guilt and waking up in a puddle of my own excretions. Well, everyone needs a hobby.
That's all for tonight! It's late and it's way past my bedtime. Til the weekend and my next review, then.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Review - Carrie (2013)
I was trying to save the horror flicks for the month of October, but those of you that know me, know I can't resist a good horror movie. Usually I just watch them as soon as I can get a chance to view them. Epix was having a free preview weekend this weekend, and I managed to catch Carrie (2013) on it.
Carrie was originally written by Stephen King many years ago, probably back in the mid to early 70's. I know, most of you readers out there are going "The SEVENTIES? Jesus, Did they even have TV back then? Wasn't that during the Civil War?" No, we didn't have TV back then, but we did have magic boxes that streamed movies through the AIR, just like Wireless, only with worse reception. Yes, we called them TV's, but they weren't really TV's, because the North and the South were fighting a war over what to call them. That whole slavery thing was just a cover story. That's right, only here, on my blog, will you learn the truth! No, don't take me seriously. I totally made that up for the sake of humor.
I never actually read the book, "Carrie." At least, I don't think I did. I read a lot of books back in the 70's, because TV consisted of three channels, 2, 4 and 7. Mostly, they had the news on. When the news wasn't on, it was sports. I found neither particularly interesting. I might have read Carrie back then, and just never recalled it. I didn't even turn ten til 1980, so that was a long time ago, to me.
But let me sum up the story, first. And I'm not going to hold anything back, because this story is almost older than I am, and this is the third incarnation of it. If you haven't heard what the story is by now, you don't get out much. If you still have no idea what happens, and want to see the movie, skip the rest of this paragraph. Carrie White is a young teen girl that lives with her religious fanatic of a mother, Margaret. Carrie would be home schooled, except the law forced Carrie to attend public high school. It's no surprise that Carrie has no idea what puberty means, but when her periods happen to start, embarrassingly enough, in the midst of the locker room shower after gym class, Carrie's peers throw tampons and maxi pads at her. Today, this kind of thing would probably be considered mild hazing. Come to think of it, back then it was probably considered mild hazing, too. In any case, Carrie gets freaked out, and becomes the butt of many jokes, and video of her freakout gets uploaded to the internet (back in the 70's, of course, the internet didn't exist, nor did cell phones or hand-held movie cameras, so no incriminating videos appeared in the original story). The gym teacher stops Carrie's harassment, and manages to punish the girls with after-hours workouts as a form of detention. One girl completely refuses to accept her punishment, and the gym teacher manages to get her banned from the prom. Over the next few weeks, one of the girls who partook of Carrie White's humiliation begins to feel bad about what she did, and decides to have her boyfriend ask Carrie to the prom as a way to make up for it. Enter Tommy Ross, quite possibly the only innocent in this entire sordid tale. Tommy asks Carrie to the prom out of love for his girlfriend, who wants to make Carrie feel better. Also, since Tommy's girlfriend isn't going, well, he needs a date, and all. Tommy was completely unwilling at first, but his girlfriend convinced him, cajoled him, threatened him and otherwise coerced him into agreement. In any case, as the prom nears, Carrie begins to realize she is gifted with unusual powers, namely Telekinesis, otherwise known as Mind Over Matter. These powers begin to manifest when Carrie is under extreme duress, which is often the case when home with her mother, but not as often during school hours. Carrie discovers she has these abilities, and begins to try and learn to control them. This is all setup for Prom night, of course. Prom night comes, and Carrie's fanatically religious mom forbids her to go. Carrie has a showdown with her mother, and locks her mother in the "prayer closet" where Carrie has spent so many nights. Carrie goes to the prom with Tommy Ross. Tommy's girlfriend stays home, since her boyfriend is going with Carrie, and the one girl who has been banned from the prom for what she did to Carrie gets super pissed off. She and her friends slay a pig, drain its blood, and rig up a bucket to spill over Carrie when she is named prom Queen, which somehow happens (in the original, the girl who was banned from Prom rigs the election). As Carrie takes the stage, the bucket of blood is dumped over Carrie, and everyone laughs. The bucket falls onto Tommy's head, killing him (or knocking him unconscious in the original). Carrie's rage erupts in telekinetic fury. The doors to the gym swing closed, and everyone dies horribly. Some die by fire, others die by electrocution. Some few escape. Carrie leaves the prom, only to find her chief tormentor trying to escape after dumping the bucket of blood on her. She and her boyfriend try to run Carrie down. Carrie slays them by means of her mind. Heading home for solace after such a horrifying evening, Carrie finds her mother has escaped. Carrie's mother pretends to comfort Carrie, then stabs her repeatedly, believing her possessed by the devil. Carrie, slowly dying, exacts revenge upon her mother via telekinesis, slaying her as well. in death, Carrie's powers fold inward upon her, sucking her house into the ground and leaving nothing but rubble.
It's actually a very good tale, and I recommend anyone interested to go ahead and watch the original 1976 version with Sissy Spacek. I think John Travolta made an appearance in it as well. The acting was frankly much better in that one, and I think the effects were done better as well. Just a personal opinion.
Chloe Grace Moretz plays Carrie in the 2013 remake. She did an acceptable enough job, but I wonder about her use of her hands to convey her use of Telekinesis. She basically does clawing motions in the air when using her powers, which Sissy Spacek never did in the original. Also, Chloe doesn't seem to have that same look of blank fury on her face that Sissy Spacek managed so well in the 1976 version. That look itself was pretty terrifying. It was the look of someone who has been pushed beyond insanity. If I had to picture a nun possessed by the power of satan, I'd think of Sissy Spacek in that movie. The sheer blankness of the look, the coldness of her fury, was terrifying in and of itself. Chloe doesn't seem to manage that look at all in the 2013 remake. Julianne Moore does a good job of playing Carrie's mom. I would say the original actress might have done a better job in the 1976 version, but it's a close call, and frankly, I like Julianne Moore better as an actress. She has some serious acting chops, and never hesitates to challenge herself. The rest of the cast in the 2013 version is ultimately forgettable, except perhaps for the blonde amazon who plays the girl who was dating Tommy Ross, five foot ten inch tall Gabriella Wilde, according to IMDB. She is attractive, cute and well-formed. The original movie, of course, launched the careers of John Travolta and half a dozen young actresses, but I think this remake will probably only help the career of Gabriella Wilde. Everyone else appearing in it was already fairly well established, or forgettable enough not to notice in the future. There's no nudity in the 2013 version, at least none that I saw, though there was in the 1976 one.
I read some reviews that say this version is not as good as the original, and it's true. It was an okay movie in and of itself, but I think the original 1976 version seemed to have more depth to it. Sure, Chloe Grace Moretz looks sexy covered in blood and all (hey, maybe Carrie is where I got my naked chicks covered in blood fetish!), but it was almost like a recap of the main events. Like if a news reporter was covering the story, instead of going into detail about it, and just recapped the important things that happened. The various daily bits and activities that I seem to recall from the 1976 version, just seemed, I don't know, like it was removed from the 2013 remake to streamline it, and the movie suffers as a result of that.
I've also read other reviews of this remake that say if you go into this movie comparing it to the original, it's the wrong mindset. Personally, I completely disagree with that opinion. How can you NOT compare two virtually identical movies? Much like the Omen remake a few years ago, the dialogue was almost word for word, the same as in the original, and the same exact events happened at the same relative pace. Honestly, aside from cutting out the need for a screenwriter to pen a script of the remake, and saving money that way, I really do not see the purpose of all these remakes. Yes, of course, I know it's to make the producers more money, and cutting out the need for a screenwriter to write a new script gives the producers even MORE money to line their pockets with, but aside from that, there seems absolutely no point in constantly remaking these movies. Is there just so little original material these days that the producers have no choice but to turn to old favorites? That's hogwash. There's plenty of original material, but no one wants to take a chance on it, because not a single one of these old, fat producers have any balls left. Their wallets have got so fat, they've crushed their testicles. I have no idea how, having seen the same movie some thirty years ago, someone could actually watch a remake and think the movie was fresh in any way, shape or form. I suppose it's legitimately possible that a movie had been done so badly in the past that a remake might actually be better than the original, but that's never going to happen, because if the original was badly done, it would have done badly at the box office, which means no one would bother to take a chance on losing money on it nowadays. Like I said, producers now will only bet on sure things. I wish they'd grow a pair, or maybe some women producers need to step in and grow some guts to replace the lack of ball sacks. Remakes blow.
Remakes are always going to suck balls compared to the originals, and I'll tell you why. In the original movie, the directors, producers, screenwriters and actors had to take risks to make a good product. Their careers were literally riding on the outcomes of these films. Everyone did their best, from the special effects guys to the sound editors and everyone in between. As a result, the films were outstanding. Actors hit the ball out of the park, and actresses showed more skin than they necessarily had to, hoping to get noticed. The special effects were as good as money could buy for the time, and the technical guys outdid themselves to show off their skills. All those little individual efforts added up to an outstanding film that grossed hundreds of millions and made the film worthy of being remade in the first place. Years go by, and now the remake comes along. You don't need to spend money on a script, because you already have one. You know the movie is going to do well, because the original was such a huge draw. Word of mouth alone will get people coming to the theaters to see the remake, just because of the original. People who have seen the original will remember how good it was, and go to see the remake just so they can relive how great the original movie was, even if the remake sucks balls. Producers don't have to take any risks, and in fact, taking a risk with a successful product is stupid, because you don't know if your effort will pay off, so nobody is going to risk changing the original story anyways. You can get cheaper actors and actresses, or actresses that don't have to take risks. They don't have to put their hearts into it because they know the story is already a hit. There's no need to show any nudity, because you don't need to draw in the male audience. They're already hooked from the nudity in the original. Nobody bothers to put any effort into the story, because they know it will do well. Nobody's career is riding on the outcome of the remake. Producers will just have a few more bucks to line their pockets with, and as a result, they don't need to pay top dollar for the best actresses and the best people to work on the film. They don't need the best. They just need "good enough." They can cut corners, shave costs, leave off hiring people they don't really need, and can afford to hire less-than-star power to put the film out there, knowing full well the original was good enough to draw everyone in. Actors can phone in their performance, knowing full well they don't have to strain themselves trying to make the film good. In short, it is in the producer's best interest, financially, to remake the movie with less quality than the original. Therefore, the remakes will ALWAYS be worse than the original, not only by comparison to the original, but on their own merits.
Let me tell you now, how this version of Carrie might have been better than the original. During the confrontation with her mother, Carrie White mentions that her Telekinetic ability is usually passed down through families, according to the books she was reading, trying to convince her mother that her powers are not satanic in origin. Carrie says that her grandmother probably had them, too and it just skipped a generation. Which made me think. What if... What if it HADN'T skipped a generation? Julianne Moore played Margaret White as a fanatically religious psycho who cut herself daily in an effort to keep herself from committing sin. Personally, I don't remember that from the original movie, so that's kind of new, I think. Self-flagellation, as I believe the fanatics refer to it, but what if... What if Margaret was cutting herself to keep her Telekinesis in check? What if, by focusing her mind on her own pain, she was stopping herself from mentally tearing apart the 'sinners' she saw in everyday life? It would certainly have made Carrie's showdown with her mother MUCH more interesting. Suddenly, Carrie realizes it HASN'T skipped a generation, and Carrie's mom is trying to kill her with telekinetic powers as well! At that point, I can fully picture the house being torn to rubble, as both mother and daughter unleash Telekinetic HELL upon the other. Now THAT would be a risk worth taking, and have made the remake OH-so much more fun to watch. But does anyone ask me how to make the remakes better? Nope! No one does. Why? No idea. I have some pretty goddamned brilliant ideas. I am a genius, after all. Ah well. Maybe someday I'll be known as the King of Remakes, and I'll have reformed the word "remake" from being a naughty word, into something someone will actually want to watch. One can only hope.
Also, I saw Z Nation on Syfy the other night. New zombie survival series. I think they're basing it off the walking dead, since they supposedly refer to some "cop in a prison" giving them directions. Well, that's what I heard, anyway. I don't watch the Walking Dead, mostly because the writing doesn't take any risks, so I didn't even notice in Z Nation if they did indeed refer to the Walking Dead. Z Nation, in and of itself, wasn't that spectacular. The most interesting aspect of it revolves around a guy who was being tested with a 'cure' for the zombie virus while he was attacked by zombies. Bitten multiple times, he not only survived, but didn't turn into a zombie, either. I used to read an internet webcomic where a guy was half-zombie. I can't recall the name of it, but if that's where this story is going, then that is cool. If it's not, then it's not really worth watching, as far as I can tell. Just more running, gunning and special effects set in a post-zombie-apocalypse world. Nothing we haven't seen before. There was a zombie baby (done before) and a few hot chicks scattered in, but possibly the most interesting figure so far is the male lead. He reminds me of Lance Guest from the Last Starfighter, but I can't figure out which actor is playing him from the list of people on IMDB. He gets caught in a room with a buttload of zombies and just goes absolutely psycho on them, beating them to death with a hammer. It's fun to watch, but maybe I am a little weird. In any case, that kind of psycho-kill-the-zombies attitude is probably going to make him the only survivor you can bet on. All in all, I suppose I may watch a few more episodes of it, to see where it goes, but nothing special so far.
In other news, I'm trying to catch up on missed episodes of The Strain tonight. It's got a new take on vampires that has been fun to watch so far. Something the lead guy in the series said finally gave a rational explanation to why vampires burn up in sunlight. UV radiation is often used to kill bacteria, or at least, in all the movies I've seen where viruses or bacteria go apeshit, it has been. So when vampires are exposed to daylight, the UV radiation kills whatever pathogen turned the original human into a vampire to begin with. Of course, why that would cause the people to burst into flame is still a mystery, but at least it's a step in a new direction. Also, I don't think the UV radiation could get through the skin to reach the infected insides, but that's another technicality the whole 'UV light kills the parasites' theory has to conquer.
That's all for this weekend. Gearing up for October Halloween Horrorfest next month! Can't wait for it! 31 days of horror movie reviews! I haven't decided whether I am writing a review a day, or trying to squeeze a whole bunch of reviews into the weekends. Depends how much time I have on my hands, I guess. See you guys next weekend!
Carrie was originally written by Stephen King many years ago, probably back in the mid to early 70's. I know, most of you readers out there are going "The SEVENTIES? Jesus, Did they even have TV back then? Wasn't that during the Civil War?" No, we didn't have TV back then, but we did have magic boxes that streamed movies through the AIR, just like Wireless, only with worse reception. Yes, we called them TV's, but they weren't really TV's, because the North and the South were fighting a war over what to call them. That whole slavery thing was just a cover story. That's right, only here, on my blog, will you learn the truth! No, don't take me seriously. I totally made that up for the sake of humor.
I never actually read the book, "Carrie." At least, I don't think I did. I read a lot of books back in the 70's, because TV consisted of three channels, 2, 4 and 7. Mostly, they had the news on. When the news wasn't on, it was sports. I found neither particularly interesting. I might have read Carrie back then, and just never recalled it. I didn't even turn ten til 1980, so that was a long time ago, to me.
But let me sum up the story, first. And I'm not going to hold anything back, because this story is almost older than I am, and this is the third incarnation of it. If you haven't heard what the story is by now, you don't get out much. If you still have no idea what happens, and want to see the movie, skip the rest of this paragraph. Carrie White is a young teen girl that lives with her religious fanatic of a mother, Margaret. Carrie would be home schooled, except the law forced Carrie to attend public high school. It's no surprise that Carrie has no idea what puberty means, but when her periods happen to start, embarrassingly enough, in the midst of the locker room shower after gym class, Carrie's peers throw tampons and maxi pads at her. Today, this kind of thing would probably be considered mild hazing. Come to think of it, back then it was probably considered mild hazing, too. In any case, Carrie gets freaked out, and becomes the butt of many jokes, and video of her freakout gets uploaded to the internet (back in the 70's, of course, the internet didn't exist, nor did cell phones or hand-held movie cameras, so no incriminating videos appeared in the original story). The gym teacher stops Carrie's harassment, and manages to punish the girls with after-hours workouts as a form of detention. One girl completely refuses to accept her punishment, and the gym teacher manages to get her banned from the prom. Over the next few weeks, one of the girls who partook of Carrie White's humiliation begins to feel bad about what she did, and decides to have her boyfriend ask Carrie to the prom as a way to make up for it. Enter Tommy Ross, quite possibly the only innocent in this entire sordid tale. Tommy asks Carrie to the prom out of love for his girlfriend, who wants to make Carrie feel better. Also, since Tommy's girlfriend isn't going, well, he needs a date, and all. Tommy was completely unwilling at first, but his girlfriend convinced him, cajoled him, threatened him and otherwise coerced him into agreement. In any case, as the prom nears, Carrie begins to realize she is gifted with unusual powers, namely Telekinesis, otherwise known as Mind Over Matter. These powers begin to manifest when Carrie is under extreme duress, which is often the case when home with her mother, but not as often during school hours. Carrie discovers she has these abilities, and begins to try and learn to control them. This is all setup for Prom night, of course. Prom night comes, and Carrie's fanatically religious mom forbids her to go. Carrie has a showdown with her mother, and locks her mother in the "prayer closet" where Carrie has spent so many nights. Carrie goes to the prom with Tommy Ross. Tommy's girlfriend stays home, since her boyfriend is going with Carrie, and the one girl who has been banned from the prom for what she did to Carrie gets super pissed off. She and her friends slay a pig, drain its blood, and rig up a bucket to spill over Carrie when she is named prom Queen, which somehow happens (in the original, the girl who was banned from Prom rigs the election). As Carrie takes the stage, the bucket of blood is dumped over Carrie, and everyone laughs. The bucket falls onto Tommy's head, killing him (or knocking him unconscious in the original). Carrie's rage erupts in telekinetic fury. The doors to the gym swing closed, and everyone dies horribly. Some die by fire, others die by electrocution. Some few escape. Carrie leaves the prom, only to find her chief tormentor trying to escape after dumping the bucket of blood on her. She and her boyfriend try to run Carrie down. Carrie slays them by means of her mind. Heading home for solace after such a horrifying evening, Carrie finds her mother has escaped. Carrie's mother pretends to comfort Carrie, then stabs her repeatedly, believing her possessed by the devil. Carrie, slowly dying, exacts revenge upon her mother via telekinesis, slaying her as well. in death, Carrie's powers fold inward upon her, sucking her house into the ground and leaving nothing but rubble.
It's actually a very good tale, and I recommend anyone interested to go ahead and watch the original 1976 version with Sissy Spacek. I think John Travolta made an appearance in it as well. The acting was frankly much better in that one, and I think the effects were done better as well. Just a personal opinion.
Chloe Grace Moretz plays Carrie in the 2013 remake. She did an acceptable enough job, but I wonder about her use of her hands to convey her use of Telekinesis. She basically does clawing motions in the air when using her powers, which Sissy Spacek never did in the original. Also, Chloe doesn't seem to have that same look of blank fury on her face that Sissy Spacek managed so well in the 1976 version. That look itself was pretty terrifying. It was the look of someone who has been pushed beyond insanity. If I had to picture a nun possessed by the power of satan, I'd think of Sissy Spacek in that movie. The sheer blankness of the look, the coldness of her fury, was terrifying in and of itself. Chloe doesn't seem to manage that look at all in the 2013 remake. Julianne Moore does a good job of playing Carrie's mom. I would say the original actress might have done a better job in the 1976 version, but it's a close call, and frankly, I like Julianne Moore better as an actress. She has some serious acting chops, and never hesitates to challenge herself. The rest of the cast in the 2013 version is ultimately forgettable, except perhaps for the blonde amazon who plays the girl who was dating Tommy Ross, five foot ten inch tall Gabriella Wilde, according to IMDB. She is attractive, cute and well-formed. The original movie, of course, launched the careers of John Travolta and half a dozen young actresses, but I think this remake will probably only help the career of Gabriella Wilde. Everyone else appearing in it was already fairly well established, or forgettable enough not to notice in the future. There's no nudity in the 2013 version, at least none that I saw, though there was in the 1976 one.
I read some reviews that say this version is not as good as the original, and it's true. It was an okay movie in and of itself, but I think the original 1976 version seemed to have more depth to it. Sure, Chloe Grace Moretz looks sexy covered in blood and all (hey, maybe Carrie is where I got my naked chicks covered in blood fetish!), but it was almost like a recap of the main events. Like if a news reporter was covering the story, instead of going into detail about it, and just recapped the important things that happened. The various daily bits and activities that I seem to recall from the 1976 version, just seemed, I don't know, like it was removed from the 2013 remake to streamline it, and the movie suffers as a result of that.
I've also read other reviews of this remake that say if you go into this movie comparing it to the original, it's the wrong mindset. Personally, I completely disagree with that opinion. How can you NOT compare two virtually identical movies? Much like the Omen remake a few years ago, the dialogue was almost word for word, the same as in the original, and the same exact events happened at the same relative pace. Honestly, aside from cutting out the need for a screenwriter to pen a script of the remake, and saving money that way, I really do not see the purpose of all these remakes. Yes, of course, I know it's to make the producers more money, and cutting out the need for a screenwriter to write a new script gives the producers even MORE money to line their pockets with, but aside from that, there seems absolutely no point in constantly remaking these movies. Is there just so little original material these days that the producers have no choice but to turn to old favorites? That's hogwash. There's plenty of original material, but no one wants to take a chance on it, because not a single one of these old, fat producers have any balls left. Their wallets have got so fat, they've crushed their testicles. I have no idea how, having seen the same movie some thirty years ago, someone could actually watch a remake and think the movie was fresh in any way, shape or form. I suppose it's legitimately possible that a movie had been done so badly in the past that a remake might actually be better than the original, but that's never going to happen, because if the original was badly done, it would have done badly at the box office, which means no one would bother to take a chance on losing money on it nowadays. Like I said, producers now will only bet on sure things. I wish they'd grow a pair, or maybe some women producers need to step in and grow some guts to replace the lack of ball sacks. Remakes blow.
Remakes are always going to suck balls compared to the originals, and I'll tell you why. In the original movie, the directors, producers, screenwriters and actors had to take risks to make a good product. Their careers were literally riding on the outcomes of these films. Everyone did their best, from the special effects guys to the sound editors and everyone in between. As a result, the films were outstanding. Actors hit the ball out of the park, and actresses showed more skin than they necessarily had to, hoping to get noticed. The special effects were as good as money could buy for the time, and the technical guys outdid themselves to show off their skills. All those little individual efforts added up to an outstanding film that grossed hundreds of millions and made the film worthy of being remade in the first place. Years go by, and now the remake comes along. You don't need to spend money on a script, because you already have one. You know the movie is going to do well, because the original was such a huge draw. Word of mouth alone will get people coming to the theaters to see the remake, just because of the original. People who have seen the original will remember how good it was, and go to see the remake just so they can relive how great the original movie was, even if the remake sucks balls. Producers don't have to take any risks, and in fact, taking a risk with a successful product is stupid, because you don't know if your effort will pay off, so nobody is going to risk changing the original story anyways. You can get cheaper actors and actresses, or actresses that don't have to take risks. They don't have to put their hearts into it because they know the story is already a hit. There's no need to show any nudity, because you don't need to draw in the male audience. They're already hooked from the nudity in the original. Nobody bothers to put any effort into the story, because they know it will do well. Nobody's career is riding on the outcome of the remake. Producers will just have a few more bucks to line their pockets with, and as a result, they don't need to pay top dollar for the best actresses and the best people to work on the film. They don't need the best. They just need "good enough." They can cut corners, shave costs, leave off hiring people they don't really need, and can afford to hire less-than-star power to put the film out there, knowing full well the original was good enough to draw everyone in. Actors can phone in their performance, knowing full well they don't have to strain themselves trying to make the film good. In short, it is in the producer's best interest, financially, to remake the movie with less quality than the original. Therefore, the remakes will ALWAYS be worse than the original, not only by comparison to the original, but on their own merits.
Let me tell you now, how this version of Carrie might have been better than the original. During the confrontation with her mother, Carrie White mentions that her Telekinetic ability is usually passed down through families, according to the books she was reading, trying to convince her mother that her powers are not satanic in origin. Carrie says that her grandmother probably had them, too and it just skipped a generation. Which made me think. What if... What if it HADN'T skipped a generation? Julianne Moore played Margaret White as a fanatically religious psycho who cut herself daily in an effort to keep herself from committing sin. Personally, I don't remember that from the original movie, so that's kind of new, I think. Self-flagellation, as I believe the fanatics refer to it, but what if... What if Margaret was cutting herself to keep her Telekinesis in check? What if, by focusing her mind on her own pain, she was stopping herself from mentally tearing apart the 'sinners' she saw in everyday life? It would certainly have made Carrie's showdown with her mother MUCH more interesting. Suddenly, Carrie realizes it HASN'T skipped a generation, and Carrie's mom is trying to kill her with telekinetic powers as well! At that point, I can fully picture the house being torn to rubble, as both mother and daughter unleash Telekinetic HELL upon the other. Now THAT would be a risk worth taking, and have made the remake OH-so much more fun to watch. But does anyone ask me how to make the remakes better? Nope! No one does. Why? No idea. I have some pretty goddamned brilliant ideas. I am a genius, after all. Ah well. Maybe someday I'll be known as the King of Remakes, and I'll have reformed the word "remake" from being a naughty word, into something someone will actually want to watch. One can only hope.
Also, I saw Z Nation on Syfy the other night. New zombie survival series. I think they're basing it off the walking dead, since they supposedly refer to some "cop in a prison" giving them directions. Well, that's what I heard, anyway. I don't watch the Walking Dead, mostly because the writing doesn't take any risks, so I didn't even notice in Z Nation if they did indeed refer to the Walking Dead. Z Nation, in and of itself, wasn't that spectacular. The most interesting aspect of it revolves around a guy who was being tested with a 'cure' for the zombie virus while he was attacked by zombies. Bitten multiple times, he not only survived, but didn't turn into a zombie, either. I used to read an internet webcomic where a guy was half-zombie. I can't recall the name of it, but if that's where this story is going, then that is cool. If it's not, then it's not really worth watching, as far as I can tell. Just more running, gunning and special effects set in a post-zombie-apocalypse world. Nothing we haven't seen before. There was a zombie baby (done before) and a few hot chicks scattered in, but possibly the most interesting figure so far is the male lead. He reminds me of Lance Guest from the Last Starfighter, but I can't figure out which actor is playing him from the list of people on IMDB. He gets caught in a room with a buttload of zombies and just goes absolutely psycho on them, beating them to death with a hammer. It's fun to watch, but maybe I am a little weird. In any case, that kind of psycho-kill-the-zombies attitude is probably going to make him the only survivor you can bet on. All in all, I suppose I may watch a few more episodes of it, to see where it goes, but nothing special so far.
In other news, I'm trying to catch up on missed episodes of The Strain tonight. It's got a new take on vampires that has been fun to watch so far. Something the lead guy in the series said finally gave a rational explanation to why vampires burn up in sunlight. UV radiation is often used to kill bacteria, or at least, in all the movies I've seen where viruses or bacteria go apeshit, it has been. So when vampires are exposed to daylight, the UV radiation kills whatever pathogen turned the original human into a vampire to begin with. Of course, why that would cause the people to burst into flame is still a mystery, but at least it's a step in a new direction. Also, I don't think the UV radiation could get through the skin to reach the infected insides, but that's another technicality the whole 'UV light kills the parasites' theory has to conquer.
That's all for this weekend. Gearing up for October Halloween Horrorfest next month! Can't wait for it! 31 days of horror movie reviews! I haven't decided whether I am writing a review a day, or trying to squeeze a whole bunch of reviews into the weekends. Depends how much time I have on my hands, I guess. See you guys next weekend!
Monday, September 8, 2014
Monday Madness Review - Hard Rain (1998)
Back to the reviewing! Gearing up for 31 days of horror in October, and that's... Holy spacemonkeys, that's next month! :-o I would apologize for the lack of posts the past few weeks, but frankly, I went out of town of vacation, and when I got back, there's been a lot of work going on in my house, so things are a little crazy here. If it's any consolation to you, my vacation sucked, and whatever you do, don't hang around Rollins Pond in the Adirondack region of New York State at night. Lots of spiders. Like, swarms of spiders. Like, Syfy movie of the week swarms of spiders. I hate spiders.
Luckily, these were mostly Harvestman spiders, otherwise known as Daddy-Long-Legs. Harmless to humans, they hunt other spiders with a venom so toxic that drop for drop, it's one of the deadliest spider venoms in the world. However, their fangs are too damn short to get through human skin, so I was completely safe. I only killed the ones that crawled on me, so less than a dozen or so. They infested everything. We found a few of them as we were unpacking the car, after we got home. They were everywhere. I had one on my neck in the car, riding home in the dark. I almost flipped out! Blech! (shudders in horror)
Anyway, I was going to review The Hobbit, the desolation of Smaug last night, but I hit CTRL-A again and accidentally deleted everything. Suffice it to say, the movie wasn't that good. The second part of Peter Jackson's dragged-out epic retelling of the Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, the movie focused on the company of Dwarves, including the "burglar" Bilbo Baggins, making their way through the Elven forest of Mirkwood, then the human town of Dale, to the Lonely Mountain, Erebor. There they disturbed the sleep of one Smaug the Golden, as I've heard him referred to, one of the last remaining Dragons of Middle-Earth. Or perhaps the only remaining dragon in Middle earth. An interesting thing to note, was that Smaug (I've always pronounced it simply 'Smog' but the characters in this movie pronounce it Sma-oog for some reason) referred to the men of Dale as 'Englishmen with their Long Bows.' I am sure J. R. R. Tolkien had referred to them as such in his novels, but I found it odd to use that exact phrase in the movie, since 'England' as a country does not exist on the map of middle earth, as far as I know. Also, they made Smaug out to look like an idiot. I mean, he slaughtered an entire mountain full of dwarves, and yet he's having issues killing even one in a company of 13? I can see him letting Bilbo live, just to spread the tales of Smaug the terrible, but Smaug hates dwarves. He certainly wouldn't have let even one of them live, and yet, all survive. Makes the poor dragon seem like just another stupid troll, and Gandalf wasn't even there to help, this time. Oh well. Maybe the third installment will be better. I like the Goblins this time around. Their characters aren't exactly fleshed out, but they make fine villains.
On to the real review! Hard Rain (1998) is a story about, well, rain. It's an 'atmospheric' thriller (heh, see what I did there?) that has a lot of character to it. There's a lot of things that make up a good movie, and the setting has to be one of the most important ones. This particular setting is a town that's getting a lot of rain. So much rain, that the town is being evacuated. Not wanting to lose the money in the local banks, a security company sends a truck through the town to gather up the loose cash at the banks for temporary transport to a more secure, and probably dryer, facility. Along with just about every disaster, there comes the looters, and wouldn't you know it, this armored car truck is targeted for hijacking. Well, that just doesn't sit well with Tom, the newly-hired young security guard who is riding shotgun in this particular armored car. They just don't know who they are messing with, do they?
Hard Rain probably didn't get very good reviews when it came out. I mean, the male lead is Christian Slater, and he's not exactly A-list material. However, I will say that this is probably one of the best, if not the best, movie of his entire career. Christian Slater plays Tom, the security guard. Ed Asner plays his partner and uncle. Morgan Freeman takes a rare turn as a bad guy in this movie, and there's Randy Quaid, yes, you heard that right, Randy "Crazy Cousin Eddie" Quaid, playing the sheriff who's just been voted out of office, trying to maintain order in a flooded town with two weeks left til he's out of a job. Betty White even has a small role in this film, and Minnie Driver plays the constantly-soaking-wet love interest.
I'm pretty sure no group of actors, including the guys from the Jaws movies, has ever been wetter for a longer period of time, than the people in this movie. I bet the entire cast and crew got hazard pay just for being in the water for so long. I KNOW they got waterlogged. Minnie Driver is probably still soaking wet. It rains from the opening credits until the closing ones, and that's just the stuff coming down from the sky. The town is already flooding as the movie opens, which gives the movie a sense of urgency that few other movies have. There's little time to relax here and 'soak' up the surroundings (heh, see what I did there?). The minute you find out what's going, which isn't even explained, but pretty much inferred in the first 5 minutes of the movie, it's straight into the action. I would say the action is non-stop the rest of the movie, and in a sense, it is, because there isn't a lot of talking. Mostly, there's boat chase scenes, explosions, fires, flooding, and shootouts with the looters right up from 5 minutes in, until the end credits roll. I've seen some reviews on Netflix (where I saw this movie) that didn't give this movie a very high rating, but I can't imagine why. Maybe a better lead actor would have given it more star power, but in terms of rewatchability, it's way up there. I've seen it half a dozen times already and it's still worth watching. For best effect, watch it on a rainy day. I watched it over a dinner of chinese food on a nice sunshine-y evening, just because I didn't want to have to wait to see it til the next time it rained.
Let's face it here, this is basically a disaster movie with good-guy vs bad-guy action tossed in. You can't really go wrong with that kind of film, and I think the only reason it didn't do well was because Christian Slater wasn't a bigger star at the time this film was made. I won't say his acting talent is up there with Gene Hackman or anything, but dammit, the guy tries hard. What more can you ask for? The all-star supporting cast is excellent, with Randy Quaid turning in a similar performance to his role in Wraith with Charlie Sheen way back in the day. I wish Randy would just split with his wife (he wasn't psycho til he hooked up with her) and get back to acting, because the man is a very undervalued and under-appreciated talent who shouldn't be underestimated (heh, that's a lot of unders). I don't guess that's going to happen anytime soon, because the last I heard, he was hiding out in canada somewhere. Morgan Freeman puts in an excellent performance as always, Minnie Driver does a bang-up job, and even the guy playing the dam operator takes a turn as comedy relief. Shit, I may go watch it again, right now, it was so 'dam' entertaining (heh, I did it again).
In other news, True Blood ended its, um, six-year run, I think, just last month. I wasn't able to catch the last season of Dexter (it's still on Netflix if anyone wants to watch it, I plan to catch the final season at some point myself), but I still have HBO despite my horrible financial situation, at least for now. I've been watching True Blood since the first episode, and frankly, the final season was just disappointing. I guess they had to end it somehow, but let's recap the entire last season, shall we?
Nearly everyone in the town of Bon Temps dies. That's just the season opener. I guess if you want to end a series, killing everyone off is a good place to start. A crowd of Hep-V positive rapacious vampires slaughters nearly everyone, kidnaps some folks, and Sookie and the Scooby gang go off to rescue them. Eric nearly dies of Hep-V himself, but Pam (Eric's progeny) rescues him, and they discover that a cure exists. Sookie and the gang rescue the last survivors of Bon Temps, kill the last of the Hep-V vamps in the area, and regroup. Meanwhile, Alcide the werewolf (sookie's current beau) gets gunned down, and Sookie takes up with Bill once more, but accidentally infects him with Hep-V. Sookie's fairy blood causes the infection to spread through Bill like wildfire, and he releases Jessica from his mentorship (or whatever it's called) before he gets too sickly. Jason's friend Bubba returns from alaska, manages to save just about half the remaining townsfolk by killing a vampiric she-bitch (they never did explain how he found his way to that vampire chick's house, or how she never heard him coming), and ends up marrying Jessica. Eric manages to track down the cure for Hep-V and cure himself, and Eric and Pam make millions (if not billions) of dollars selling the cure to other vampires, marketing the treatment as a replacement blood drink known as 'New Blood,' as in, Sarah Newman, the carrier of the cure for Hep-V. Bill refuses the cure out of love for sookie, because, let's face it, he's an asshole, and Sookie just can't resist him. So Bill dies at Sookie's hand (she kills him out of mercy, to save him the suffering of Hep-V), and everyone else lives happily ever after. Which makes me think Bill really was the bad guy all along, because once he dies, everyone is happy. Strange series. Kind of sounds like Twilight, only with.. uh... other supernatural critters tossed into the mix. And more sex. Like a vampire romance novel. Blech. Why the hell did I watch that crap for 6 years? Oh right. Anna Paquin and Deborah Ann Woll. Stupid question.
That's all for tonight. Only a few more reviews til the October Horrorfest begins! I get so excited about this time of year. Summer's either a short washout or a quick scorcher in Western New York, spring lasts about a minute, and winter last a good 8 months, but Autumn really shines here. The weather's cool and sunny, the leaves are half the colors of the rainbow, and then comes the horror movie month of October, followed by the feasting days of thanksgiving, christmas presents, and new year's debauchery! Most exciting time of year for me! Followed by 5 more months of winter. It's like Mardi Gras, at least for me, only Fat Tuesday is actually the first of January. That means September to December is Party time! Catch you guys next weekend. :-D
Luckily, these were mostly Harvestman spiders, otherwise known as Daddy-Long-Legs. Harmless to humans, they hunt other spiders with a venom so toxic that drop for drop, it's one of the deadliest spider venoms in the world. However, their fangs are too damn short to get through human skin, so I was completely safe. I only killed the ones that crawled on me, so less than a dozen or so. They infested everything. We found a few of them as we were unpacking the car, after we got home. They were everywhere. I had one on my neck in the car, riding home in the dark. I almost flipped out! Blech! (shudders in horror)
Anyway, I was going to review The Hobbit, the desolation of Smaug last night, but I hit CTRL-A again and accidentally deleted everything. Suffice it to say, the movie wasn't that good. The second part of Peter Jackson's dragged-out epic retelling of the Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, the movie focused on the company of Dwarves, including the "burglar" Bilbo Baggins, making their way through the Elven forest of Mirkwood, then the human town of Dale, to the Lonely Mountain, Erebor. There they disturbed the sleep of one Smaug the Golden, as I've heard him referred to, one of the last remaining Dragons of Middle-Earth. Or perhaps the only remaining dragon in Middle earth. An interesting thing to note, was that Smaug (I've always pronounced it simply 'Smog' but the characters in this movie pronounce it Sma-oog for some reason) referred to the men of Dale as 'Englishmen with their Long Bows.' I am sure J. R. R. Tolkien had referred to them as such in his novels, but I found it odd to use that exact phrase in the movie, since 'England' as a country does not exist on the map of middle earth, as far as I know. Also, they made Smaug out to look like an idiot. I mean, he slaughtered an entire mountain full of dwarves, and yet he's having issues killing even one in a company of 13? I can see him letting Bilbo live, just to spread the tales of Smaug the terrible, but Smaug hates dwarves. He certainly wouldn't have let even one of them live, and yet, all survive. Makes the poor dragon seem like just another stupid troll, and Gandalf wasn't even there to help, this time. Oh well. Maybe the third installment will be better. I like the Goblins this time around. Their characters aren't exactly fleshed out, but they make fine villains.
On to the real review! Hard Rain (1998) is a story about, well, rain. It's an 'atmospheric' thriller (heh, see what I did there?) that has a lot of character to it. There's a lot of things that make up a good movie, and the setting has to be one of the most important ones. This particular setting is a town that's getting a lot of rain. So much rain, that the town is being evacuated. Not wanting to lose the money in the local banks, a security company sends a truck through the town to gather up the loose cash at the banks for temporary transport to a more secure, and probably dryer, facility. Along with just about every disaster, there comes the looters, and wouldn't you know it, this armored car truck is targeted for hijacking. Well, that just doesn't sit well with Tom, the newly-hired young security guard who is riding shotgun in this particular armored car. They just don't know who they are messing with, do they?
Hard Rain probably didn't get very good reviews when it came out. I mean, the male lead is Christian Slater, and he's not exactly A-list material. However, I will say that this is probably one of the best, if not the best, movie of his entire career. Christian Slater plays Tom, the security guard. Ed Asner plays his partner and uncle. Morgan Freeman takes a rare turn as a bad guy in this movie, and there's Randy Quaid, yes, you heard that right, Randy "Crazy Cousin Eddie" Quaid, playing the sheriff who's just been voted out of office, trying to maintain order in a flooded town with two weeks left til he's out of a job. Betty White even has a small role in this film, and Minnie Driver plays the constantly-soaking-wet love interest.
I'm pretty sure no group of actors, including the guys from the Jaws movies, has ever been wetter for a longer period of time, than the people in this movie. I bet the entire cast and crew got hazard pay just for being in the water for so long. I KNOW they got waterlogged. Minnie Driver is probably still soaking wet. It rains from the opening credits until the closing ones, and that's just the stuff coming down from the sky. The town is already flooding as the movie opens, which gives the movie a sense of urgency that few other movies have. There's little time to relax here and 'soak' up the surroundings (heh, see what I did there?). The minute you find out what's going, which isn't even explained, but pretty much inferred in the first 5 minutes of the movie, it's straight into the action. I would say the action is non-stop the rest of the movie, and in a sense, it is, because there isn't a lot of talking. Mostly, there's boat chase scenes, explosions, fires, flooding, and shootouts with the looters right up from 5 minutes in, until the end credits roll. I've seen some reviews on Netflix (where I saw this movie) that didn't give this movie a very high rating, but I can't imagine why. Maybe a better lead actor would have given it more star power, but in terms of rewatchability, it's way up there. I've seen it half a dozen times already and it's still worth watching. For best effect, watch it on a rainy day. I watched it over a dinner of chinese food on a nice sunshine-y evening, just because I didn't want to have to wait to see it til the next time it rained.
Let's face it here, this is basically a disaster movie with good-guy vs bad-guy action tossed in. You can't really go wrong with that kind of film, and I think the only reason it didn't do well was because Christian Slater wasn't a bigger star at the time this film was made. I won't say his acting talent is up there with Gene Hackman or anything, but dammit, the guy tries hard. What more can you ask for? The all-star supporting cast is excellent, with Randy Quaid turning in a similar performance to his role in Wraith with Charlie Sheen way back in the day. I wish Randy would just split with his wife (he wasn't psycho til he hooked up with her) and get back to acting, because the man is a very undervalued and under-appreciated talent who shouldn't be underestimated (heh, that's a lot of unders). I don't guess that's going to happen anytime soon, because the last I heard, he was hiding out in canada somewhere. Morgan Freeman puts in an excellent performance as always, Minnie Driver does a bang-up job, and even the guy playing the dam operator takes a turn as comedy relief. Shit, I may go watch it again, right now, it was so 'dam' entertaining (heh, I did it again).
In other news, True Blood ended its, um, six-year run, I think, just last month. I wasn't able to catch the last season of Dexter (it's still on Netflix if anyone wants to watch it, I plan to catch the final season at some point myself), but I still have HBO despite my horrible financial situation, at least for now. I've been watching True Blood since the first episode, and frankly, the final season was just disappointing. I guess they had to end it somehow, but let's recap the entire last season, shall we?
Nearly everyone in the town of Bon Temps dies. That's just the season opener. I guess if you want to end a series, killing everyone off is a good place to start. A crowd of Hep-V positive rapacious vampires slaughters nearly everyone, kidnaps some folks, and Sookie and the Scooby gang go off to rescue them. Eric nearly dies of Hep-V himself, but Pam (Eric's progeny) rescues him, and they discover that a cure exists. Sookie and the gang rescue the last survivors of Bon Temps, kill the last of the Hep-V vamps in the area, and regroup. Meanwhile, Alcide the werewolf (sookie's current beau) gets gunned down, and Sookie takes up with Bill once more, but accidentally infects him with Hep-V. Sookie's fairy blood causes the infection to spread through Bill like wildfire, and he releases Jessica from his mentorship (or whatever it's called) before he gets too sickly. Jason's friend Bubba returns from alaska, manages to save just about half the remaining townsfolk by killing a vampiric she-bitch (they never did explain how he found his way to that vampire chick's house, or how she never heard him coming), and ends up marrying Jessica. Eric manages to track down the cure for Hep-V and cure himself, and Eric and Pam make millions (if not billions) of dollars selling the cure to other vampires, marketing the treatment as a replacement blood drink known as 'New Blood,' as in, Sarah Newman, the carrier of the cure for Hep-V. Bill refuses the cure out of love for sookie, because, let's face it, he's an asshole, and Sookie just can't resist him. So Bill dies at Sookie's hand (she kills him out of mercy, to save him the suffering of Hep-V), and everyone else lives happily ever after. Which makes me think Bill really was the bad guy all along, because once he dies, everyone is happy. Strange series. Kind of sounds like Twilight, only with.. uh... other supernatural critters tossed into the mix. And more sex. Like a vampire romance novel. Blech. Why the hell did I watch that crap for 6 years? Oh right. Anna Paquin and Deborah Ann Woll. Stupid question.
That's all for tonight. Only a few more reviews til the October Horrorfest begins! I get so excited about this time of year. Summer's either a short washout or a quick scorcher in Western New York, spring lasts about a minute, and winter last a good 8 months, but Autumn really shines here. The weather's cool and sunny, the leaves are half the colors of the rainbow, and then comes the horror movie month of October, followed by the feasting days of thanksgiving, christmas presents, and new year's debauchery! Most exciting time of year for me! Followed by 5 more months of winter. It's like Mardi Gras, at least for me, only Fat Tuesday is actually the first of January. That means September to December is Party time! Catch you guys next weekend. :-D
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