Yes, this is pretty much the only new movie I saw this weekend. So let's recap what's going on in the world of transformers. Transformers are shape-changing robots of various sizes who look like cars or helicopters or tanks or the like. The Autobots are the good guys, led by Optimus Prime, who looks like a semi-truck. The bad guys are the Decepticons, led by Megatron, who looks like a plane. In the last two movies, Optimus and the Autobots kicked the Decepticons' asses so badly that they don't even really show up in this movie. Megatron is dead.
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) is about the hunt for Optimus Prime. Apparently, Optimus Prime's creators have put a price on his head. Who are his creators? That's never explained, but a lot of Autobots died while some robot named Lockdown chews his way up the ladder to find Optimus Prime. Fortunately for Optimus prime, he's currently offline while an unexploded missile is lodged in his 'spark,' or power source. But while Lockdown is basically a bounty hunter out for Prime's head, he's not working alone. He's got a deal with a CIA guy (played by Kelsey Grammar) to provide the metal the transformers are made of, to the head of a technology company (played by Stanley Tucci), who is using the heads of dead Decepticons to remake his own line of Transformers. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, Megatron's head still has some life in it, and he uses the technology factory to make himself a new body...
Okay, I don't think I can recap the number of times Megatron and Optimus have both died by this point. Sure, it's great that they're robots, and they come back every movie to duke it out, but wasn't it the point of the first two or three Transformers movies to have Optimus and Megatron duke it out for the final time? How many 'final' final times are there? Looks like at least one more.
Mark Wahlberg heads the cast of humans this time, supported by Nicola Peltz, who is quite hot, and tends to run around in extremely short Daisy-dukes. For those of you who don't know what daisy dukes are, they are very short denim shorts. But, I digress. I think the real problem here is they spend too much time trying to make the humans the heroes of the Transformers movies. Look, it's a movie about giant robots. The cartoon series back in the 80's had 1 human involved, a teenaged boy, who spent most of his time getting into trouble that the Autobots had to get him out of. I think there was one episode where the boy actually helped the autobots, and the rest of the time he was pretty much a nuisance who just gave the Autobots the use of his dad's garage so they could repair themselves. Every transformers movie made so far seems to be focusing on making the humans as heroic as possible, and when they're up against giant alien robots, I mean really, how heroic can they be?
There's one scene where this giant space ship shoots down some anchor lines to a bunch of buildings in a city, and the humans are trying to escape down the anchor lines. Now, since the anchor lines are made of parallel steel poles, and the anchor lines are running almost horizontally, they try to walk along them like walking along a wooden plank. Needless to say, there's all kinds of shit flying around, the anchor lines are bouncing around in the breeze and as the ship moves, and there's nothing holding them up at all except their own two feet. And yet, they manage to almost make it back down to the building. While firing away at robots running down the lines after them. Look, have you ever seen a human being walk? Our balance isn't so good. We fall down and bump into shit all the time. I'm pretty goddamn sure even a master tightrope walker like Nik Wallenda would have been tossed off before making it about 50 feet, and here's a farmboy-turned-engineer who's probably never even climbed a mountain (or even walked up a steep hill) shooting robots down off the anchor lines while shouting encouragement to his daughter. And here's the 20-year-old daughter wearing cowboy boots and daisy dukes who manages to hang on while robot wolves are chasing her down the wire? Riiiiiiiight.
Another little error, and I know that supposedly time passes between scenes at some point, but Nicola bounces between having jeans on, and having her shorts on, almost at will. First she's got them on, then she doesn't, then she does, I don't know. Hey, maybe it's not an error, maybe she just changes clothes a lot, but I find it hard to follow how you have time to change clothes 15 times while being chased by everyone from the CIA to killer alien robots. Maybe she's trying to confuse her pursuers. Sure, I bet that's it. I'm sure confused. It worked on me.
All that having been said, the robot fighting isn't as good as the first two movies, even. John Goodman adds a little comedy relief as a chubby robot gunner, and Bumblebee is back, but all that doesn't help much. The bounty hunter doesn't have as much villain-y badness to him as Megatron did, and the Dinobots, which seem awesome, barely even make an appearance til the end of the movie. Sure, the movie is hours long and supposedly a blockbuster, and sure there's giant robots beating each other into scrap throughout the movie, but I just don't think it's even as good as some of the other Transformers movies. Plus you got Mark Wahlberg taking out dozens of robots with a tiny gun that seems to have infinite ammo, while John Goodman's robot arsenal seems to run out faster than a minigun with a busted ammo chain. I know suspension of disbelief is supposed to fit in here somewhere, but really? And even the dialogue doesn't make much sense. Mark and his daughter Nicola are arguing over her having a boyfriend, and Nicola throws some argument at him about how if he'd just turned the truck over to the government, none of this would have happened, except... isn't that exactly what the other guy did, that got everyone into the trouble to start with? Where does logic fit in?
You know, I can't even really tell you to watch this movie, or not. I'm biased because I watched the cartoons as a kid, and I love to see giant robots fighting each other, so I'd have watched this movie no matter how bad it is. I can't really call myself a Transformers fanboy or anything, because I've obviously just ripped this movie a new asshole, but I'm tempted to tell you to watch it once just for the giant alien robots. And sure, maybe to see Nicola's legs. But my point is, I don't want to do that, because you probably won't like the movie, unless you just LOVE watching giant CGI-generated robots tear each other apart. Which, I do. So don't. Just don't watch this one. Skip it. Or don't. It's currently playing on Epix if you want to check out Nicola's legs.
That's all for this weekend. Hopefully something better will come up by next weekend. Happy St. Patrick's day to all those Irish out there. Try not to drink too much green beer. And Spring officially starts friday! At least I got that to look forward to.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Friday the 13th - The Movie Series
Friday the 13th is here! :-D
I've always liked the number 13. It's always seemed lucky to me, somehow. In honor of this non-holiday, Epix and Netflix both have pretty much all the good friday the 13th series of movies, for your viewing entertainment! Yay! What's that? You've never seen the Friday the 13th movies before? You want to know what ones are good, and what ones suck huge sweaty donkey balls? Well, shit! Let me help you with that, because I've seen them all. Plot spoilers to follow, but since most of these movies were made in the 80's and 90's, I'm guessing most of you have seen them all. I generalize and sum up, anyway, so the movies should still be enjoyable even if I might spoil the end in some cases. Obviously, these movies are your typical slasher flicks, so most of them contain graphic violence, lots of blood, some nudity, and severed body parts. Just the way I like them!
Friday the 13, part 1 (1980) - This movie begins the Friday the 13th series. Essentially, this covers Jason's back story, like any good superhero movie. Jason Voorhees was a deformed, mentally deficient boy who drowned in Crystal Lake, partly because the camp counselors were too busy smoking pot and screwing around to keep an eye on him. Years later, Jason's mom gets even by killing a bunch of camp counselors who are trying to reopen the camp. Some people think this is a classic, and it gets played on TV a lot. I personally don't like this one because Jason doesn't actually do any of the killings; his mother does. Jason himself may or may not put in an appearance at the end of the film, depending on how hysterical you think the only survivor is. If you absolutely MUST see the back story of one of the most prolific fictional killers in movie history, then by all means, check this one out, but I'm pretty sure I covered all the basics.
Friday the 13th, part 2 (1981) - Some camp counselors are renewing their training on the other side of Crystal Lake before the start of the summer season. The beginning of this movie may be the quintessential beginning of any horror movie ever made, with the introduction of one of the horror movie staples, The Old Man Who Knows. Or, The Old Man Who Warns. Either way, this is some creepy old geezer who knows what happened to the last bunch of people who died at the end of some old road, in some old house, at some old barn, or wherever, and tries to tell the latest bunch of kids to turn back. Like the old man says, "I tried to warn them. They didn't listen. But I tried." If only those crazy kids had listened to this old man, none of them would have died horribly at the end of a machete. Or an ax. Or a harpoon gun. But, they never listen! You know why? Because there wouldn't be a movie if they did. Somehow grown into an adult even though he supposedly drowned as a boy before the beginning of the movie series (apparently, Jason survived the drowning, but hid in the woods away from his mother, and then saw her get killed at the end of the first movie), Jason leaves Crystal Lake to take out the only survivor of the first movie (shown in the first few minutes of this film), then returns home in time to slaughter half the counselors-in-training. This movie features nudity, Jason's first actual kill, and some pretty funny humor tossed in by the practical-joking counselors. This movie sets the standard for the rest of the series, and is definitely worth watching and repeat viewings. Also features the first skinny dipping scene in the series, and she's also definitely worth the watch. Important thing to remember about the end of the movie, half the counselors survive by heading into town for a night of drinking and partying. Apparently, Jason doesn't give a shit if you're a drunken slut of a party animal AWAY from the Lake. Also, it probably helps if one of the surviving counselors cuts Jason down at the Camp before he can head into town. Jason is still human in this movie, so don't be surprised by him sustaining injuries. There may be some confusion about the ending, so I'll give you my theory: After Jason takes a severe wound to the body, his adrenaline allows him to chase down the survivors, but adrenaline doesn't last forever. After killing Paul and probably thinking he's killed everyone else, Jason crawls off to heal up in the woods for the next film.
Friday the 13th, part 3 (1982) - Originally filmed in 3-D, this movie supposedly takes place the day after the second movie. However, the supposedly wounded Jason seems pretty spry, and there's absolutely no mention of the camp counselors who spent all night drinking at the bar in town. You'd think they'd all show up hung over and scared shitless, but they don't. Instead, a group of drug-addicted party animals head up to the lake to, well, get high and have sex. No surprise there. Jason kills a few people living around town, then heads back to the lake to finish off the party-goers, who are being stalked by a gang of pissed-off bikers. There's a lot of 3-D action in this movie, sadly not featuring nipples, but everything from spears, to eyes, to snakes. The usual version shown on TV is not in 3-D, but is still entertaining. This film marks the first time Jason dons his signature Hockey Mask, having worn a burlap sack over his head in the second film (like the killer in The Town That Dreaded Sundown). Fun fact, I actually carved a Jason-style hockey mask into a pumpkin one year for Halloween, and it was AWESOME. Even my mom still remembers it. Yea, I'm a Jason fanboy, I admit it. Part 3 is worth watching only as a stepping stone to part 4, or if you must know where he picked up the hockey mask from. Jason is axed in the head at the end of this movie, apparently dead, but somehow manages to return for part 4. A critical exception to this is if you actually get to see a 3-D screening of the movie. Apparently, the 3-d effect is worth it to see jason reach out of the screen and try to kill you. Personally, those 3-D things and blue and red glasses only managed to give me a headache, so I prefer the TV version.
Friday the 13th (part 4), The Final Chapter (1984) - This movie apparently happens right after the events in Part 3 (which happens right after part 2), but how Jason manages to survive the ax-wound to the head in addition to the grievous bodily machete-cut on the day before is beyond me. After his body is taken to the nearby hospital, Jason wakes up and kills a bunch of doctors and nurses, then heads back to the lake. On yet another part of the woods around camp Crystal lake, the Jarvis family is living next to a bunch of kids who rented the cabin next door. One by one, the teenaged party animals die, and then Jason goes after the Jarvis family. Tommy Jarvis, a young boy addicted to video games and who makes his own horror masks, is scared so badly by Jason that he goes apeshit, shaves his head bald, and hacks Jason to death with his own machete. Tommy Jarvis was played by a young Corey Feldman, who is now deceased. Watch this one to see how Jason finally shuffles off his mortal coil, and the origin of Jason's arch-nemesis, Tommy Jarvis.
Friday the 13th (part 5), A New Beginning (1985) - Tommy Jarvis, now a mentally disturbed teenager, is attending a rehabilitation camp with a bunch of other teen-aged nuts when a death among their number gets Tommy Jarvis worried about Jason returning from the grave. Things get even worse when Jason starts killing off more kids, and Tommy can't tell whether he's hallucinating and doing the killings himself, or whether it's actually Jason, back from the grave. I don't like this movie much, not only because the teen-aged Tommy Jarvis is kind of a messed up dork who doesn't resemble his earlier self at all, but because Jason isn't actually doing any of the killings. Turns out an ambulance driver got pissed and put on a hockey mask to cut up the crazy kids before getting killed at the end. Generally following a similar pattern to the other movies, this movie felt like a bunch of filler that just gets you to part 6, OR it was supposed to start a whole string of movies where the killers were just Jason copycats. Instead, part 6 happened, and really WAS a new beginning...
Friday the 13th (part 6), Jason Lives! (1986) - Tommy Jarvis, now an adult, is finally released from his long incarceration at a mental facility. Still plagued by nightmares, Tommy tracks down Jason's grave, intending to dig up Jason's remains and burn them to ashes. Instead, a sudden lightning storm manages to bring Jason back to life. Oh, shit! :-o Zombie-Jason kills Tommy's friend, and heads back to the lake, stronger and tougher than ever. After killing a bunch of deputies and the local sheriff, Zombie Jason is finally imprisoned at the bottom of Crystal Lake by Tommy Jarvis and the sheriff's daughter. This movie marks the last appearance of Tommy Jarvis, who apparently runs off with the incredibly hot sheriff's daughter and is never seen again. Worth watching to see the first appearance of Zombie-Jason, who returns for the rest of the movies from here on out.
Friday the 13th, part 7, New Blood (1988) - A young girl gifted with telekinesis, the ability to move things with her mind, accidentally killed her father at Crystal Lake with her emerging powers. Years later, her psychologist tries to bring her back to the lake in an attempt to make her powers come out, hoping to record them and make a bundle off proof of the paranormal. Instead, the girl accidentally releases Zombie-Jason from his prison at the bottom of Crystal Lake, and Jason proceeds to kill everyone off. In a showdown with the telekinetic girl now in better control of her awesome powers, Jason gets the crap beat out of him and is once again imprisoned at the bottom of the lake. Worth watching for the final fight scene alone, the Zombie makeup in this movie is also very good. Zombie-Jason not only looks dead and rotting, but supremely pissed off by his inability to take down one teen aged girl.
Friday the 13th, part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) - A bunch of rich school-kids head out on a yacht from Crystal Lake to Manhattan. Somewhere along the way, Jason hitches a ride, and proceeds to kill everyone on the boat before it makes it into port. As the boat goes up in flames, the survivors paddle to shore, only to have Jason follow them ashore and track them down. Not one of the better films, Jason ends up getting washed away by (possibly toxic?) sewer water. Maybe worth a watch if you like to see Jason get the shit kicked out of a him by a boxer, only to win the fight in the final round by knocking the other fighter's head off. Literally.
Jason Goes to Hell (Friday the 13th, part 9), The Final Friday (1993) - Jason is brought out into the open by a police sting operation, and is blown apart after being shot to death. While the coroner is examining what's left of Jason's body, some surviving part of Zombie-Jason enters the coroner, who proceeds to go on a killing spree. Jumping from body to body, the supposedly demonic part of Jason is eventually banished to hell. Only worth watching to see Erin Gray, otherwise known as Wilma Deering from the Buck Rogers TV series, because you were wondering what happened to her after all these years, weren't you? I know I was.
Jason X (2001) - After being captured, Jason manages to escape while experiments are being performed on him, but the doctor in charge manages to cryogenically freeze him along with herself. Centuries later, a wandering spaceship salvages Jason's cryo-tube and unfreezes both Jason and the Doctor. Catapulted forward hundreds of years in time, Jason is stopped by an android, only to have his body re-formed by nanobots, who make him an even more unstoppable cyborg. While tracking down and destroying nearly every person on the space ship, Jason destroys the ship itself, and either burns up in re-entry on an alien planet that resembles earth, OR lands in a pond on a world colonized by humans. Has the new zombie-cyborg Jason found another Crystal Lake? Not really worth watching unless you need a decisive end to the series, or you really like Lexa Doig, who played the 20th-century doctor in charge of Jason.
I'm not even going to mention Freddy vs jason, because that one is just kind of weird. It doesn't fit the pattern, and has more a Freddy-movie feel to it. The crossover was likely set up to infuse some life into an otherwise dead Freddy, who hasn't been able to attract moviegoers to the theater in years. So, to sum up, parts 2 (maybe 3), 4, 6 and 7 are definitely worth watching. The rest of them, Eh. Only watch them if you are having a Friday the 13th marathon and you need to show something in between the good movies. The recent Friday the 13th remake? Well, that's even worse than the in-between movies that I didn't like. Only watch that if you're so high you can't find my blog page to tell you which movies to watch. Maybe you'll enjoy it better.
That's all for tonight! Might be back sometime this weekend with another review, if I see something good. If not, enjoy the... damn, Friday the 13th is now Saturday the 14th (which is also a good movie, but more for kids than adults). Don't fret. There's yet a THIRD friday the 13th this year, in November, I believe. Any month that starts on a sunday has a friday the 13th in it, so check your calenders. As long as there are fridays marked 13 on your calender, there's going to be Jason movies. :-D
I've always liked the number 13. It's always seemed lucky to me, somehow. In honor of this non-holiday, Epix and Netflix both have pretty much all the good friday the 13th series of movies, for your viewing entertainment! Yay! What's that? You've never seen the Friday the 13th movies before? You want to know what ones are good, and what ones suck huge sweaty donkey balls? Well, shit! Let me help you with that, because I've seen them all. Plot spoilers to follow, but since most of these movies were made in the 80's and 90's, I'm guessing most of you have seen them all. I generalize and sum up, anyway, so the movies should still be enjoyable even if I might spoil the end in some cases. Obviously, these movies are your typical slasher flicks, so most of them contain graphic violence, lots of blood, some nudity, and severed body parts. Just the way I like them!
Friday the 13, part 1 (1980) - This movie begins the Friday the 13th series. Essentially, this covers Jason's back story, like any good superhero movie. Jason Voorhees was a deformed, mentally deficient boy who drowned in Crystal Lake, partly because the camp counselors were too busy smoking pot and screwing around to keep an eye on him. Years later, Jason's mom gets even by killing a bunch of camp counselors who are trying to reopen the camp. Some people think this is a classic, and it gets played on TV a lot. I personally don't like this one because Jason doesn't actually do any of the killings; his mother does. Jason himself may or may not put in an appearance at the end of the film, depending on how hysterical you think the only survivor is. If you absolutely MUST see the back story of one of the most prolific fictional killers in movie history, then by all means, check this one out, but I'm pretty sure I covered all the basics.
Friday the 13th, part 2 (1981) - Some camp counselors are renewing their training on the other side of Crystal Lake before the start of the summer season. The beginning of this movie may be the quintessential beginning of any horror movie ever made, with the introduction of one of the horror movie staples, The Old Man Who Knows. Or, The Old Man Who Warns. Either way, this is some creepy old geezer who knows what happened to the last bunch of people who died at the end of some old road, in some old house, at some old barn, or wherever, and tries to tell the latest bunch of kids to turn back. Like the old man says, "I tried to warn them. They didn't listen. But I tried." If only those crazy kids had listened to this old man, none of them would have died horribly at the end of a machete. Or an ax. Or a harpoon gun. But, they never listen! You know why? Because there wouldn't be a movie if they did. Somehow grown into an adult even though he supposedly drowned as a boy before the beginning of the movie series (apparently, Jason survived the drowning, but hid in the woods away from his mother, and then saw her get killed at the end of the first movie), Jason leaves Crystal Lake to take out the only survivor of the first movie (shown in the first few minutes of this film), then returns home in time to slaughter half the counselors-in-training. This movie features nudity, Jason's first actual kill, and some pretty funny humor tossed in by the practical-joking counselors. This movie sets the standard for the rest of the series, and is definitely worth watching and repeat viewings. Also features the first skinny dipping scene in the series, and she's also definitely worth the watch. Important thing to remember about the end of the movie, half the counselors survive by heading into town for a night of drinking and partying. Apparently, Jason doesn't give a shit if you're a drunken slut of a party animal AWAY from the Lake. Also, it probably helps if one of the surviving counselors cuts Jason down at the Camp before he can head into town. Jason is still human in this movie, so don't be surprised by him sustaining injuries. There may be some confusion about the ending, so I'll give you my theory: After Jason takes a severe wound to the body, his adrenaline allows him to chase down the survivors, but adrenaline doesn't last forever. After killing Paul and probably thinking he's killed everyone else, Jason crawls off to heal up in the woods for the next film.
Friday the 13th, part 3 (1982) - Originally filmed in 3-D, this movie supposedly takes place the day after the second movie. However, the supposedly wounded Jason seems pretty spry, and there's absolutely no mention of the camp counselors who spent all night drinking at the bar in town. You'd think they'd all show up hung over and scared shitless, but they don't. Instead, a group of drug-addicted party animals head up to the lake to, well, get high and have sex. No surprise there. Jason kills a few people living around town, then heads back to the lake to finish off the party-goers, who are being stalked by a gang of pissed-off bikers. There's a lot of 3-D action in this movie, sadly not featuring nipples, but everything from spears, to eyes, to snakes. The usual version shown on TV is not in 3-D, but is still entertaining. This film marks the first time Jason dons his signature Hockey Mask, having worn a burlap sack over his head in the second film (like the killer in The Town That Dreaded Sundown). Fun fact, I actually carved a Jason-style hockey mask into a pumpkin one year for Halloween, and it was AWESOME. Even my mom still remembers it. Yea, I'm a Jason fanboy, I admit it. Part 3 is worth watching only as a stepping stone to part 4, or if you must know where he picked up the hockey mask from. Jason is axed in the head at the end of this movie, apparently dead, but somehow manages to return for part 4. A critical exception to this is if you actually get to see a 3-D screening of the movie. Apparently, the 3-d effect is worth it to see jason reach out of the screen and try to kill you. Personally, those 3-D things and blue and red glasses only managed to give me a headache, so I prefer the TV version.
Friday the 13th (part 4), The Final Chapter (1984) - This movie apparently happens right after the events in Part 3 (which happens right after part 2), but how Jason manages to survive the ax-wound to the head in addition to the grievous bodily machete-cut on the day before is beyond me. After his body is taken to the nearby hospital, Jason wakes up and kills a bunch of doctors and nurses, then heads back to the lake. On yet another part of the woods around camp Crystal lake, the Jarvis family is living next to a bunch of kids who rented the cabin next door. One by one, the teenaged party animals die, and then Jason goes after the Jarvis family. Tommy Jarvis, a young boy addicted to video games and who makes his own horror masks, is scared so badly by Jason that he goes apeshit, shaves his head bald, and hacks Jason to death with his own machete. Tommy Jarvis was played by a young Corey Feldman, who is now deceased. Watch this one to see how Jason finally shuffles off his mortal coil, and the origin of Jason's arch-nemesis, Tommy Jarvis.
Friday the 13th (part 5), A New Beginning (1985) - Tommy Jarvis, now a mentally disturbed teenager, is attending a rehabilitation camp with a bunch of other teen-aged nuts when a death among their number gets Tommy Jarvis worried about Jason returning from the grave. Things get even worse when Jason starts killing off more kids, and Tommy can't tell whether he's hallucinating and doing the killings himself, or whether it's actually Jason, back from the grave. I don't like this movie much, not only because the teen-aged Tommy Jarvis is kind of a messed up dork who doesn't resemble his earlier self at all, but because Jason isn't actually doing any of the killings. Turns out an ambulance driver got pissed and put on a hockey mask to cut up the crazy kids before getting killed at the end. Generally following a similar pattern to the other movies, this movie felt like a bunch of filler that just gets you to part 6, OR it was supposed to start a whole string of movies where the killers were just Jason copycats. Instead, part 6 happened, and really WAS a new beginning...
Friday the 13th (part 6), Jason Lives! (1986) - Tommy Jarvis, now an adult, is finally released from his long incarceration at a mental facility. Still plagued by nightmares, Tommy tracks down Jason's grave, intending to dig up Jason's remains and burn them to ashes. Instead, a sudden lightning storm manages to bring Jason back to life. Oh, shit! :-o Zombie-Jason kills Tommy's friend, and heads back to the lake, stronger and tougher than ever. After killing a bunch of deputies and the local sheriff, Zombie Jason is finally imprisoned at the bottom of Crystal Lake by Tommy Jarvis and the sheriff's daughter. This movie marks the last appearance of Tommy Jarvis, who apparently runs off with the incredibly hot sheriff's daughter and is never seen again. Worth watching to see the first appearance of Zombie-Jason, who returns for the rest of the movies from here on out.
Friday the 13th, part 7, New Blood (1988) - A young girl gifted with telekinesis, the ability to move things with her mind, accidentally killed her father at Crystal Lake with her emerging powers. Years later, her psychologist tries to bring her back to the lake in an attempt to make her powers come out, hoping to record them and make a bundle off proof of the paranormal. Instead, the girl accidentally releases Zombie-Jason from his prison at the bottom of Crystal Lake, and Jason proceeds to kill everyone off. In a showdown with the telekinetic girl now in better control of her awesome powers, Jason gets the crap beat out of him and is once again imprisoned at the bottom of the lake. Worth watching for the final fight scene alone, the Zombie makeup in this movie is also very good. Zombie-Jason not only looks dead and rotting, but supremely pissed off by his inability to take down one teen aged girl.
Friday the 13th, part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) - A bunch of rich school-kids head out on a yacht from Crystal Lake to Manhattan. Somewhere along the way, Jason hitches a ride, and proceeds to kill everyone on the boat before it makes it into port. As the boat goes up in flames, the survivors paddle to shore, only to have Jason follow them ashore and track them down. Not one of the better films, Jason ends up getting washed away by (possibly toxic?) sewer water. Maybe worth a watch if you like to see Jason get the shit kicked out of a him by a boxer, only to win the fight in the final round by knocking the other fighter's head off. Literally.
Jason Goes to Hell (Friday the 13th, part 9), The Final Friday (1993) - Jason is brought out into the open by a police sting operation, and is blown apart after being shot to death. While the coroner is examining what's left of Jason's body, some surviving part of Zombie-Jason enters the coroner, who proceeds to go on a killing spree. Jumping from body to body, the supposedly demonic part of Jason is eventually banished to hell. Only worth watching to see Erin Gray, otherwise known as Wilma Deering from the Buck Rogers TV series, because you were wondering what happened to her after all these years, weren't you? I know I was.
Jason X (2001) - After being captured, Jason manages to escape while experiments are being performed on him, but the doctor in charge manages to cryogenically freeze him along with herself. Centuries later, a wandering spaceship salvages Jason's cryo-tube and unfreezes both Jason and the Doctor. Catapulted forward hundreds of years in time, Jason is stopped by an android, only to have his body re-formed by nanobots, who make him an even more unstoppable cyborg. While tracking down and destroying nearly every person on the space ship, Jason destroys the ship itself, and either burns up in re-entry on an alien planet that resembles earth, OR lands in a pond on a world colonized by humans. Has the new zombie-cyborg Jason found another Crystal Lake? Not really worth watching unless you need a decisive end to the series, or you really like Lexa Doig, who played the 20th-century doctor in charge of Jason.
I'm not even going to mention Freddy vs jason, because that one is just kind of weird. It doesn't fit the pattern, and has more a Freddy-movie feel to it. The crossover was likely set up to infuse some life into an otherwise dead Freddy, who hasn't been able to attract moviegoers to the theater in years. So, to sum up, parts 2 (maybe 3), 4, 6 and 7 are definitely worth watching. The rest of them, Eh. Only watch them if you are having a Friday the 13th marathon and you need to show something in between the good movies. The recent Friday the 13th remake? Well, that's even worse than the in-between movies that I didn't like. Only watch that if you're so high you can't find my blog page to tell you which movies to watch. Maybe you'll enjoy it better.
That's all for tonight! Might be back sometime this weekend with another review, if I see something good. If not, enjoy the... damn, Friday the 13th is now Saturday the 14th (which is also a good movie, but more for kids than adults). Don't fret. There's yet a THIRD friday the 13th this year, in November, I believe. Any month that starts on a sunday has a friday the 13th in it, so check your calenders. As long as there are fridays marked 13 on your calender, there's going to be Jason movies. :-D
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Review - Deliver Us From Evil (2014)
There's a lot of pretty crappy horror movies out there. And by pretty crappy, I mean, poor production values, shitty camera work, bad dialogue, and horrible acting. But even those movies can be entertaining sometimes.
Deliver Us From Evil (2014) is a movie with good production values. What the shit does good production values even mean? Hell if I know. Let's put it this way. They got veteran actors (if not necessarily good ones), they had good camera work, and there was a halfway decent plot. And they spent a few bucks on special effects. This movie is the story about a couple cops who get a domestic disturbance call and end up stumbling into a weird series of supernatural events.
I think it's a bad sign when I can sum up a movie in one sentence. This was a well-made movie. A lot of attention was paid to scary effects, some demonic-looking makeup, and some fairly decent fight scenes. Eric Bana (I know him from his stint as Dr. Banner in the 2003 Hulk movie with Jennifer Connelly) plays the lead, and there's a supporting cast of at least a few people, including Olivia Munn (recently of Newsroom 2.0 fame) playing his wife. I think this movie was one of those movies that might have been really good, if only they'd done just one thing perfectly. Instead, what you've got here is a collection of things that are fairly well-done, but don't add up to more than the sum of their parts.
Let me give you some examples. There's a scene where this demonic presence is stalking this little girl. And her toys are doing that whole demonic possession thing that toys do. There's this particularly creepy scene where the jack-in-the-box is playing Pop goes the weasel, while a stuffed animal of some kind slowly rolls towards the little girl while she watches. I was a little creeped out, but then, they basically resort to kidnapping the little girl and it turns into a hunt for the kidnapper. Way to ruin the whole supernatural factor.
I guess what this is, is a particularly well-done collection of demonic possession clichees that you have seen before, rolled into a semi-coherent plot. The plot by itself is fairly decent, and a lot of attention is paid to the various scenes involved. There's even some pretty good suspense early on. After that, the movie kind of falls apart. There's nothing new here. Is it rewatchable? Yea, sure. It's entertaining if you like demonic possession movies, or cop movies, or a mix of the two. However, it is pretty forgettable, too. Nothing really stands out as exceptional.
Bonus Review: Hellbenders (2012). This movie is about a bunch of priests who band together and use a loophole in the rules of demonic possession to send demons to hell. Basically, they sin. I know, that's thinking out of the box, right? They sin, they drink, they swear, they behave badly. Because they are going to hell. In fact, in a sort of suicide-bomber attitude, they think if they sin enough, that they will be more attractive to demons who are possessing otherwise innocent victims. So here's how this shit works. The priests sin. They get called to perform an exorcism. They invite the demon inside themselves, and then... They commit suicide, thus dragging the demon's spirit to hell along with their own soul. Technically, if you follow the convoluted logic of religion and sin, it's a fairly flawless method of exorcism. No demon can resist possessing a priest, and the priest's soul is automatically damned to hell for taking his own life. Once the possessed body dies, the demon's spirit is banished back to hell. VOILA!
Clancy Brown, one of my all-time favorite under-appreciated actors, actually STARS in Hellbenders. Which, is awesome (not the movie, that Clancy Brown actually stars in something). He plays a drunken priest who is literally going to hell, whenever he dies, because he sins so much on a daily basis that there is no way that heaven would accept him. And he's fine with that, as long as he takes a demon down to hell with him. The other priests in his Hellbenders unit (squad? group? cadre? I don't know!) are lazy, misanthropic dorks who try to be as good at sinning as Clancy Brown, but alas, they fall short. Then, sadly, Surtur, the Norse Fire-God that invokes Ragnarok, the end of the world, begins to rise again. Bibles don't really work on Norse demons, and the whole team has to step up their game to stop the end of the world. Even while the catholic church is trying to shut down the whole group.
Hellbenders is NOT one of those high-production-value movies. I am pretty sure the cast was actually drinking while they made this movie. They certainly acted pretty drunk, which actually worked. I'm not sure whether this movie was supposed to be a comedy, or a serious attempt at an anti-religious look at the bad logic of the rules of possession, but I found it entertaining. Probably not enough to watch twice, but it wasn't too bad the first time around. Robyn Rikoon (never heard of her before in my life) plays a female priest, one of the first I have ever seen. And, she's pretty hot. Either because she's playing a female priest, or just because she's hot, I am not quite sure.
So, to sum up, watch both movies at least once, because they aren't bad. Deliver Us from Evil is currently playing on Starz! and Hellbenders is playing on Showtime Beyond. You'll probably enjoy deliver us from Evil more if you like to be scared, and Hellbenders more if you like a good laugh.
In other news, Daylight Savings time kicked into effect on sunday. Just as John Oliver asked in his weekly news show on HBO sunday night, "How is This Still a Thing?" I honestly don't know. I was watching the news last week friday when my local newscaster announced that the clocks would be turning ahead in two days, and she said "The day is an hour longer," which it's not. Every day is 24 hours long. They don't get longer, no matter what time of year it is. And then she corrected herself, and said "We get an hour more of daylight,." Which, is also completely untrue. We don't get an hour more of daylight, either, just because we set our clocks ahead an hour. The sun still rises and sets at the usual intervals.
Now if she had said, "we lose an hour of sleep on sunday morning," then that might have been true, but even that's debatable. Here's what also happens when we lose an hour of sleep. Not only are we all tired, but we're all basically suffering from an hour of jet lag. Ever had jet lag? It sucks. Let me tell you what jet lag does. They took a bunch of stewardesses (flight attendants, whatever), and had them do some mental evaluation tests. The ones who typically flew in the same time zone, generally had about average intelligence. The ones who routinely flew across the country, changing time zones on a daily basis? They registered at around retard level. True story, actual scientific results that tell you jet lag, or the resetting of your body's internal clock, basically messes up your brain so bad that it kills your ability to reason. And that's totally in addition to the normal effects the week after DST kicks in. Proven facts, people have more car accidents. They also die more often of heart attacks this week. I think I also heard that people die in hospitals more, the week after the clocks change. So enjoy your spike in accidental deaths every time you change your clocks.
Personally, I don't really get it. Supposedly, it was invented around the time of WW2 to save oil or some shit, but I don't get that. Regardless of whether it was effective then or not, it's certainly not having much effect on our economy now, except to make us all more prone to accidental death in a number of ways for about a week. As well as making us all stupider by giving us all jet lag twice a year. According to John Oliver's newscast about this, it was actually invented by the Nazis, so why we're all still clinging to it as if it makes sense, I really don't know.
I can only personally say two things about daylight savings time. One, whenever I have to change my clocks, it makes me goddamn sleepy for about a week. Second, in the summer, if we didn't have DST, the sun would probably be rising about 5 am. Which, does sound way too damn early, but by no means makes up for the whole "making me more likely to die of a heart attack twice a year" deal. I'm pretty sure all of us in the States complain about having to change our clocks twice a year, and there's a fair number of other countries that do it too. So why do we still do it? I got nothin. Moving on.
Yet another Friday the 13th coming up! And I'm back to reviewing horror in my blog, instead of action movies. Spring on the way. I think things are looking up around here. :-) Catch you guys in a few days with a Friday the 13th horror review. If I have time.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Review - Godzilla (2014)
When I was a young kid, things weren't like they are today. There weren't channels devoted to horror. No Syfy. No Cloo. No Chiller network. There was 2, 4, 7 and 29. And 29 was the 'new' channel. There weren't any horror movies on saturday nights. There wasn't even much on TV on saturday nights, and if there was, nobody watched it. Because everyone was out on saturday night. Terminator wasn't around. Friday the 13th hadn't become a movie series. Freddy Krueger wasn't stalking kids on elm street, alive or dead. HBO wasn't even invented yet, let alone any other premium channels. Sure, Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman were still around, but by that point, they were more like guest stars for Abbott and Costello (a pair of old comedians) than they were scary.
There was one thing new. Godzilla. After getting bombed at the end of World War 2, Japan was really freakin' scared of one thing. Atomic power. Can't blame them, really. They are, as far as I can recall, the only country that has ever actually had atomic bombs dropped on them. And yet, in 1954, only nine years after World War 2, they came up with an idea. Godzilla. A giant lizard that was not only created by atomic power, but was determined to prevent Japan from using it, at least according to what the movies seemed to be saying. Japan, or more specifically, Toho studios (I think they created him), poured all their fear of atomic power into one creature. Godzilla. Or Gojira, in the original Japanese. The King of All Monsters.
In time, as Japan quickly grew in technological know-how and made more and more Godzilla films, the giant lizard stopped being a terror, and became an ally. Monster after monster attacked Japan, and Godzilla was always there to take them down. Sure, Godzilla was a bit tricky to deal with, at times. Much like nuclear power itself, or perhaps, the element of fire, it can be a useful tool when properly used and respected, and really dangerous when it isn't. Godzilla even spawned his own genre, Kaiju, which, i guess, means 'giant monsters that try to kill tokyo and are eventually eaten by godzilla.' Roughtly translated.
Godzilla (2014) is the latest iteration of the giant lizard. In this particular movie, Godzilla is something of a myth. Giant monsters are not the norm, but a geological disturbance in a nuclear power plant in 1999 causes a man to lose his wife. Fifteen years later, the man has lost his job, because he believes there is something more to the accident that cost him his wife. His son believes his father is a bit of a lunatic, and comes out to Japan to retrieve his dad after his father has been arrested for trespassing. His dad asks him for an hour, just one hour, so that they can sneak into the home they had to evacuate 15 years earlier, so he can retrieve a photo of his dead wife. The son agrees. But... a lot can happen in an hour.
I can't say I particularly liked this Godzilla movie. For one thing, there wasn't a japanese guy looking up at the sky and screaming GOJIRAAAAAA! and running for his life. Which, is just a tradition. I kid. Seriously, they totally revamped Godzilla, for one thing. His appearance has changed over the years, but he's never looked this... I don't know, odd. Instead of an agile-looking lizard, who breathes fire and bites things alot, this Godzilla looks like a pudgy american kid with tiny arms and head, and back-boobs. So, like Chris Farley in a lizard costume. I would take this moment to do a Chris Farley impression, and sing "Fat Man in a Lizard Suit," but my impression would be so horrible that Zombie Chris Farley would return from the grave to Great White Ninja me to death. So I will pass.
Aside from Godzilla looking a little off, the whole focus of the movie seems to have changed. Instead of giant monsters beating the snot out of each other, which was the focus of every other Godzilla movie (even the one with Matthew Broderick had Godzilla on-screen more), they focus more on what the humans are doing. And seriously, if I wanted to see humans running around acting important, I'd watch CSPAN or something. I watch Godzilla movies to see Godzilla, and the other monsters. There's a whole lot of blather-all about the man who lost his wife, and the relationship with his son, and his son coming to terms with his father not actually being crazy, and so on and so forth, and who really cares? Godzilla only finally comes out of the water with like 20 minutes left in the movie, and then, they keep cutting away from him duking it out with the monsters to show some idiot army guy trying to do his job, that he never actually does, because there's debris flying everywhere. In fact, if I remember correctly, Godzilla popped out of the water like an hour into the movie, and he stands up to face off against the other beastie, and then...! They cut to the ocean, where Godzilla is back in the water, chasing the thing down. Wait, what? Was there a fight? What happened? They never say. They just jump to the next scene. More humans. Running around. Acting important. Like humans do.
Everything was pretty much CGI, as far as I could tell. Computer Generated Godzilla just doesn't look as good as old rubber-suit Godzilla, sad to say. The acting was reasonably good, or at least, the acting talent was mostly composed of veteran actors. I don't really understand the point of having a movie about a giant lizard-monster trying to focus on the human actors, but hey, I don't write these things. Suffice it to say, that this particular Godzilla movie was pretty bad, in my humble opinion.
Bonus review, Robocop (2014). Short summary, since my hand hurts because I think it's broken. Basically a remake of the Peter Weller film back in the 80's, but with a slightly different script, Robocop is gunned down in the line of duty, remade into a cyborg, and put out on the streets to patrol Detroit. As in the first movie, Omni-Consumer Products, or OCP, is pretty corrupt, and interested only in the almighty dollar. They take every shortcut, and circumvent every law, to try and prove their robots are better for law enforcement than actual police officers. Eventually, they seem to prove their point, but they piss off Robocop in the process.
Robocop has Michael Keaton in the role of the president of OCP. He doesn't get much screen time, but Michael Keaton is pretty awesome as an actor, so he does a decent villain in this movie. Samuel L. jackson plays an OCP-funded TV shill who lambastes anything and everything that gets in the way of OCP's interests. I think it's gary oldman, that plays the doctor that revives Robocop this time? He does a pretty good job playing a conflicted scientist.
All in all, the acting was pretty decent, but much like in the Godzilla film, they put the good actors in the supporting roles, and the young, inexperienced (read: bad) actors in the pivotal roles. I don't really understand why Hollywood thinks that attractive = good actor. Have they never seen a Gene Hackman movie? I mean, Gene Hackman looks like he could stop a bus with his face. And has. But he can act like a goddamn supermodel if he wanted to, and pull it off. However, you cannot take a supermodel, and have them act like Gene Hackman. Sorry. Just doesn't work that way. Never has, never will. Please, stop trying. Your box office results will thank you for it. Trust me.
Robocop is on Netflix, and Godzilla is on Cinemax, if you want to see them. As always, feel free to watch these films for yourself, and make up your own mind about whether you want to watch them again or not. I may be just an idiot who wouldn't know fine art if you shoved a Monet up my ass and lit it on fire. But seriously, who wants a movie about fine art? I'm a guy. Old-school. We want tits, ass, guns, explosions and monsters. Period. At least, I hope there's a "we." I'd hate to think I was the only one left.
That's all for this weekend, unless I come across something awesome tomorrow and just have to post about it. March starts tomorrow, and spring officially begins a few weeks later. I still have mounds of snow 5 feet high next to my driveway. Pfeh.
There was one thing new. Godzilla. After getting bombed at the end of World War 2, Japan was really freakin' scared of one thing. Atomic power. Can't blame them, really. They are, as far as I can recall, the only country that has ever actually had atomic bombs dropped on them. And yet, in 1954, only nine years after World War 2, they came up with an idea. Godzilla. A giant lizard that was not only created by atomic power, but was determined to prevent Japan from using it, at least according to what the movies seemed to be saying. Japan, or more specifically, Toho studios (I think they created him), poured all their fear of atomic power into one creature. Godzilla. Or Gojira, in the original Japanese. The King of All Monsters.
In time, as Japan quickly grew in technological know-how and made more and more Godzilla films, the giant lizard stopped being a terror, and became an ally. Monster after monster attacked Japan, and Godzilla was always there to take them down. Sure, Godzilla was a bit tricky to deal with, at times. Much like nuclear power itself, or perhaps, the element of fire, it can be a useful tool when properly used and respected, and really dangerous when it isn't. Godzilla even spawned his own genre, Kaiju, which, i guess, means 'giant monsters that try to kill tokyo and are eventually eaten by godzilla.' Roughtly translated.
Godzilla (2014) is the latest iteration of the giant lizard. In this particular movie, Godzilla is something of a myth. Giant monsters are not the norm, but a geological disturbance in a nuclear power plant in 1999 causes a man to lose his wife. Fifteen years later, the man has lost his job, because he believes there is something more to the accident that cost him his wife. His son believes his father is a bit of a lunatic, and comes out to Japan to retrieve his dad after his father has been arrested for trespassing. His dad asks him for an hour, just one hour, so that they can sneak into the home they had to evacuate 15 years earlier, so he can retrieve a photo of his dead wife. The son agrees. But... a lot can happen in an hour.
I can't say I particularly liked this Godzilla movie. For one thing, there wasn't a japanese guy looking up at the sky and screaming GOJIRAAAAAA! and running for his life. Which, is just a tradition. I kid. Seriously, they totally revamped Godzilla, for one thing. His appearance has changed over the years, but he's never looked this... I don't know, odd. Instead of an agile-looking lizard, who breathes fire and bites things alot, this Godzilla looks like a pudgy american kid with tiny arms and head, and back-boobs. So, like Chris Farley in a lizard costume. I would take this moment to do a Chris Farley impression, and sing "Fat Man in a Lizard Suit," but my impression would be so horrible that Zombie Chris Farley would return from the grave to Great White Ninja me to death. So I will pass.
Aside from Godzilla looking a little off, the whole focus of the movie seems to have changed. Instead of giant monsters beating the snot out of each other, which was the focus of every other Godzilla movie (even the one with Matthew Broderick had Godzilla on-screen more), they focus more on what the humans are doing. And seriously, if I wanted to see humans running around acting important, I'd watch CSPAN or something. I watch Godzilla movies to see Godzilla, and the other monsters. There's a whole lot of blather-all about the man who lost his wife, and the relationship with his son, and his son coming to terms with his father not actually being crazy, and so on and so forth, and who really cares? Godzilla only finally comes out of the water with like 20 minutes left in the movie, and then, they keep cutting away from him duking it out with the monsters to show some idiot army guy trying to do his job, that he never actually does, because there's debris flying everywhere. In fact, if I remember correctly, Godzilla popped out of the water like an hour into the movie, and he stands up to face off against the other beastie, and then...! They cut to the ocean, where Godzilla is back in the water, chasing the thing down. Wait, what? Was there a fight? What happened? They never say. They just jump to the next scene. More humans. Running around. Acting important. Like humans do.
Everything was pretty much CGI, as far as I could tell. Computer Generated Godzilla just doesn't look as good as old rubber-suit Godzilla, sad to say. The acting was reasonably good, or at least, the acting talent was mostly composed of veteran actors. I don't really understand the point of having a movie about a giant lizard-monster trying to focus on the human actors, but hey, I don't write these things. Suffice it to say, that this particular Godzilla movie was pretty bad, in my humble opinion.
Bonus review, Robocop (2014). Short summary, since my hand hurts because I think it's broken. Basically a remake of the Peter Weller film back in the 80's, but with a slightly different script, Robocop is gunned down in the line of duty, remade into a cyborg, and put out on the streets to patrol Detroit. As in the first movie, Omni-Consumer Products, or OCP, is pretty corrupt, and interested only in the almighty dollar. They take every shortcut, and circumvent every law, to try and prove their robots are better for law enforcement than actual police officers. Eventually, they seem to prove their point, but they piss off Robocop in the process.
Robocop has Michael Keaton in the role of the president of OCP. He doesn't get much screen time, but Michael Keaton is pretty awesome as an actor, so he does a decent villain in this movie. Samuel L. jackson plays an OCP-funded TV shill who lambastes anything and everything that gets in the way of OCP's interests. I think it's gary oldman, that plays the doctor that revives Robocop this time? He does a pretty good job playing a conflicted scientist.
All in all, the acting was pretty decent, but much like in the Godzilla film, they put the good actors in the supporting roles, and the young, inexperienced (read: bad) actors in the pivotal roles. I don't really understand why Hollywood thinks that attractive = good actor. Have they never seen a Gene Hackman movie? I mean, Gene Hackman looks like he could stop a bus with his face. And has. But he can act like a goddamn supermodel if he wanted to, and pull it off. However, you cannot take a supermodel, and have them act like Gene Hackman. Sorry. Just doesn't work that way. Never has, never will. Please, stop trying. Your box office results will thank you for it. Trust me.
Robocop is on Netflix, and Godzilla is on Cinemax, if you want to see them. As always, feel free to watch these films for yourself, and make up your own mind about whether you want to watch them again or not. I may be just an idiot who wouldn't know fine art if you shoved a Monet up my ass and lit it on fire. But seriously, who wants a movie about fine art? I'm a guy. Old-school. We want tits, ass, guns, explosions and monsters. Period. At least, I hope there's a "we." I'd hate to think I was the only one left.
That's all for this weekend, unless I come across something awesome tomorrow and just have to post about it. March starts tomorrow, and spring officially begins a few weeks later. I still have mounds of snow 5 feet high next to my driveway. Pfeh.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Lucy (2014), Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014)
It's Scarlett Johansson night on the scrolls of wisdom blog! Yay!
I won't go into how awesome her career has been, or how great an actress she is, because I am mostly impressed with how hot she is. But I'm a heterosexual male, so, of course that's what I'm impressed with. Duh. Moving on.
Let's start with Lucy (2014). Lucy is a pretty basic story that can easily be gleaned from the few previews they've released about the movie. To make the lead-in story short, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a college co-ed trying to get back to her studying when she's roped into being a drug mule for a Japanese drug syndicate by her friend Richard. When the drugs Lucy is carrying start leaking into Lucy's system after a beating, Lucy's consciousness is altered, so to speak. Since many narcotic drugs alter the consciousness to begin with, this isn't a real surprise. In this case, the drug CPH-4 is supposedly a synthetic copy of a hormone produced in miniscule quantities by pregnant women. According to the movie, this hormone is enough to trigger the development of the brain, nervous system, and the growth of the limbs in the fetus, so it's apparently quite powerful even in tiny quantities. The drug triggers Lucy's brain to begin using more than the 10% that most human brains use, and as her brain expands, so do her abilities. The japanese drug cartel, however, is now after Lucy, trying to recover the bag of drugs she was carrying. Can Lucy expand her brain to use 100% of its capacity before they kill her?
This is one of those race-against time movies, I suppose. First, I'm not really fond of this movie for a number of reasons. One, it falls into using the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. This is bunk. We only use 10% to 15% of our brains at a time, because each section of our brain serves a different purpose, and we don't do everything our brains are capable of at once. For instance, how often are we called upon to solve complex mathematical equations while eating dinner, juggling, laughing at a funny joke, and having sex with the person we are in love with? Exactly. All parts of our brain are used, just at different times, and for different purposes. With this understanding of the brain, it's actually better to use less of our brains at a time, because this would mean we are capable of many different tasks, instead of just ten or so. The second problem I have with this movie is, it isn't very good. There's a little action at the beginning, than a lot of talking, then some action at the end, and there isn't very much action in between. Also, Scarlett's acting goes from over the top emotion (apparently portraying your typical freaked-out dumbass co-ed, I guess), to emotionless pretty much in less than a minute. I guess it sort of fits in with the story line, but why the expansion of intellect should dampen emotion is beyond me. Since emotion comes from the mind in the first place, wouldn't expansion of the brain capacity improve the capacity for emotion, as well? Meh, that makes sense to me, but I guess they didn't go that way. My third problem with this movie is that the drug that leaked into Lucy's system is apparently going to kill her in a day or two. Which, given her evolved abilities as her brain capacity grows, how does this make sense? She can stop pain, heal her own wounds, tell what's wrong with everyone around her, shift herself through time and space, and alter her DNA and appearance to anything she wants, but she can't stop a drug from killing her? Seems, I don't know, counter-intuitive, somehow.
I didn't quite enjoy Lucy. There's a lot of scene-jumping, where you're watching Scarlett going about her activities, and suddenly there's a leopard stalking its prey. I guess this is supposed to mean that someone is stalking Lucy, or that her actions are that of your typical frightened animal, or something like that, but it really doesn't add to the movie in any noticeable way. In fact, it's rather distracting. As Lucy's brain escalates it's "percentage" the actual number keeps popping up on the screen to let you know how much she's using. Great. thanks for keeping me updated. Now show some actual action so I don't doze off. As Arsenio Hall used to say in his monologue, this is basically one of those things that make you go "Hmmmmmm." Supposedly, this movie is supposed to make you think. I'm not sure what about. I was pretty much thinking I'd like to see Scarlett naked, but I'm not sure if that's the point the movie was trying to get across. Morgan Freeman was in this movie too, but his role was brief and supporting at best.
I thought Scarlett was much better in Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014). To sum this movie up, Captain America is out pal-ling around with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) when they discover a plot within SHIELD. If you've been following Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (the TV series), then you know that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD years ago and has been bending its assets to their will almost since its inception. The events in the TV series are pretty much intended to coincide with the events of this movie, but I hadn't seen this movie until just now because I never go to the movies. In any case, Black Widow and Captain America have to work together to stop HYDRA's plot before HYDRA kills millions in a plot to rule the world.
This movie was tons better than Lucy for a number of reasons. One, it shows off Scarlett much better than in Lucy. Not in the sense that it reveals more of her body, as much as I would have liked that. Instead, Black Widow just sort of pals around with Steve Rogers (Captain America) undercover through most of the movie, giving scarlett a chance to show off just how good she looks just standing around, walking through a mall, or chatting with old Steve-a-rino. Her dress was casual, and her attitude was spunky, and it really made her seem all the more dangerous that she didn't have to "suit up" to kill you. Nor get particularly angry. Between her resourcefulness, combat skills and the sheer fact that she doesn't even have any superpowers, Black Widow still manages to hold her own with everyone from well-armed HYDRA agents to cyborg killing machines. It doesn't surprise me that they paired Captain America with Black Widow in this movie, because she's tons better at kicking ass than Steve Rogers. There was plenty of action, lots of intrigue, and a few surprises along the way, too. And of course, shit-tons of explosions.
You want my advice? Give Natasha Romanoff a superpower or two (not that she needs any) and give her her own movie series, or TV series. And for crying out loud, Scarlett, you're gorgeous. Use the sexuality inherent in your character to help you get the job done. If a sexy dress or a bikini will distract the guards a little more than usual, show off some skin! Maybe you don't want to show off that incredible body of yours, but wouldn't your character use every asset at her disposal to get the job done? Yes, yes she would, and you know I'm right. Not only will it make the Black Widow character all the more effective, but you'll gain a few more viewers along the way, as well. (shrug) Just an idea.
So, to recap. Lucy, no, not so good. Skip it. Captain America: Winter Solder, yes. Good. Watch it. Winter Soldier was showing on Starz!, and Lucy, I managed to catch on DVD, but I am sure it'll make the rounds on the premium channels pretty soon.
The only real drawback is that neither movie had any nudity in it, and yea, I know, there's tons of nudity on the internet if I want it, but why relegate such a natural human condition to the relative shadows and secrecy of the internet? Bring it out in the open! Yea, I know my attitude is more European than the American norm, but it just makes more sense to me to reveal a normal aspect of the human condition than trying to hide it all the time. If it makes movies more enjoyable along the way, where's the harm? (shrug)
Ah, well. That's enough for tonight. Two movie reviews for the price of one. And you didn't have to spend a dime! What a deal! Catch you guys next weekend, or whenever.
I won't go into how awesome her career has been, or how great an actress she is, because I am mostly impressed with how hot she is. But I'm a heterosexual male, so, of course that's what I'm impressed with. Duh. Moving on.
Let's start with Lucy (2014). Lucy is a pretty basic story that can easily be gleaned from the few previews they've released about the movie. To make the lead-in story short, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a college co-ed trying to get back to her studying when she's roped into being a drug mule for a Japanese drug syndicate by her friend Richard. When the drugs Lucy is carrying start leaking into Lucy's system after a beating, Lucy's consciousness is altered, so to speak. Since many narcotic drugs alter the consciousness to begin with, this isn't a real surprise. In this case, the drug CPH-4 is supposedly a synthetic copy of a hormone produced in miniscule quantities by pregnant women. According to the movie, this hormone is enough to trigger the development of the brain, nervous system, and the growth of the limbs in the fetus, so it's apparently quite powerful even in tiny quantities. The drug triggers Lucy's brain to begin using more than the 10% that most human brains use, and as her brain expands, so do her abilities. The japanese drug cartel, however, is now after Lucy, trying to recover the bag of drugs she was carrying. Can Lucy expand her brain to use 100% of its capacity before they kill her?
This is one of those race-against time movies, I suppose. First, I'm not really fond of this movie for a number of reasons. One, it falls into using the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. This is bunk. We only use 10% to 15% of our brains at a time, because each section of our brain serves a different purpose, and we don't do everything our brains are capable of at once. For instance, how often are we called upon to solve complex mathematical equations while eating dinner, juggling, laughing at a funny joke, and having sex with the person we are in love with? Exactly. All parts of our brain are used, just at different times, and for different purposes. With this understanding of the brain, it's actually better to use less of our brains at a time, because this would mean we are capable of many different tasks, instead of just ten or so. The second problem I have with this movie is, it isn't very good. There's a little action at the beginning, than a lot of talking, then some action at the end, and there isn't very much action in between. Also, Scarlett's acting goes from over the top emotion (apparently portraying your typical freaked-out dumbass co-ed, I guess), to emotionless pretty much in less than a minute. I guess it sort of fits in with the story line, but why the expansion of intellect should dampen emotion is beyond me. Since emotion comes from the mind in the first place, wouldn't expansion of the brain capacity improve the capacity for emotion, as well? Meh, that makes sense to me, but I guess they didn't go that way. My third problem with this movie is that the drug that leaked into Lucy's system is apparently going to kill her in a day or two. Which, given her evolved abilities as her brain capacity grows, how does this make sense? She can stop pain, heal her own wounds, tell what's wrong with everyone around her, shift herself through time and space, and alter her DNA and appearance to anything she wants, but she can't stop a drug from killing her? Seems, I don't know, counter-intuitive, somehow.
I didn't quite enjoy Lucy. There's a lot of scene-jumping, where you're watching Scarlett going about her activities, and suddenly there's a leopard stalking its prey. I guess this is supposed to mean that someone is stalking Lucy, or that her actions are that of your typical frightened animal, or something like that, but it really doesn't add to the movie in any noticeable way. In fact, it's rather distracting. As Lucy's brain escalates it's "percentage" the actual number keeps popping up on the screen to let you know how much she's using. Great. thanks for keeping me updated. Now show some actual action so I don't doze off. As Arsenio Hall used to say in his monologue, this is basically one of those things that make you go "Hmmmmmm." Supposedly, this movie is supposed to make you think. I'm not sure what about. I was pretty much thinking I'd like to see Scarlett naked, but I'm not sure if that's the point the movie was trying to get across. Morgan Freeman was in this movie too, but his role was brief and supporting at best.
I thought Scarlett was much better in Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014). To sum this movie up, Captain America is out pal-ling around with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) when they discover a plot within SHIELD. If you've been following Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (the TV series), then you know that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD years ago and has been bending its assets to their will almost since its inception. The events in the TV series are pretty much intended to coincide with the events of this movie, but I hadn't seen this movie until just now because I never go to the movies. In any case, Black Widow and Captain America have to work together to stop HYDRA's plot before HYDRA kills millions in a plot to rule the world.
This movie was tons better than Lucy for a number of reasons. One, it shows off Scarlett much better than in Lucy. Not in the sense that it reveals more of her body, as much as I would have liked that. Instead, Black Widow just sort of pals around with Steve Rogers (Captain America) undercover through most of the movie, giving scarlett a chance to show off just how good she looks just standing around, walking through a mall, or chatting with old Steve-a-rino. Her dress was casual, and her attitude was spunky, and it really made her seem all the more dangerous that she didn't have to "suit up" to kill you. Nor get particularly angry. Between her resourcefulness, combat skills and the sheer fact that she doesn't even have any superpowers, Black Widow still manages to hold her own with everyone from well-armed HYDRA agents to cyborg killing machines. It doesn't surprise me that they paired Captain America with Black Widow in this movie, because she's tons better at kicking ass than Steve Rogers. There was plenty of action, lots of intrigue, and a few surprises along the way, too. And of course, shit-tons of explosions.
You want my advice? Give Natasha Romanoff a superpower or two (not that she needs any) and give her her own movie series, or TV series. And for crying out loud, Scarlett, you're gorgeous. Use the sexuality inherent in your character to help you get the job done. If a sexy dress or a bikini will distract the guards a little more than usual, show off some skin! Maybe you don't want to show off that incredible body of yours, but wouldn't your character use every asset at her disposal to get the job done? Yes, yes she would, and you know I'm right. Not only will it make the Black Widow character all the more effective, but you'll gain a few more viewers along the way, as well. (shrug) Just an idea.
So, to recap. Lucy, no, not so good. Skip it. Captain America: Winter Solder, yes. Good. Watch it. Winter Soldier was showing on Starz!, and Lucy, I managed to catch on DVD, but I am sure it'll make the rounds on the premium channels pretty soon.
The only real drawback is that neither movie had any nudity in it, and yea, I know, there's tons of nudity on the internet if I want it, but why relegate such a natural human condition to the relative shadows and secrecy of the internet? Bring it out in the open! Yea, I know my attitude is more European than the American norm, but it just makes more sense to me to reveal a normal aspect of the human condition than trying to hide it all the time. If it makes movies more enjoyable along the way, where's the harm? (shrug)
Ah, well. That's enough for tonight. Two movie reviews for the price of one. And you didn't have to spend a dime! What a deal! Catch you guys next weekend, or whenever.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Review - Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead (2014)
Friday was Friday the 13th. And I thought, hey, here's what I'll do, I'll watch a Friday the 13th movie in honor of Friday the 13th. But then I looked through all the Friday the 13th movies on Netflix (they have almost the entire series), and couldn't make up my mind which one I wanted to review. Then, I went out to dinner, watched Grimm and the season finale of Constantine, and started feeling ill. Not because of watching Constantine, as you might think, but because I've come down with a nasty cold. Sadly, I ended up not watching a Friday the 13th movie, despite loving the entire Friday the 13th series of movies. And yes, that means part 8, jason takes manhattan, too.
Then came Saturday the 14th. Valentine's Day. And I thought, Oh my fucking god, I feel like shit. Not because I had a girlfriend and I forgot to get her something, because I don't. And I didn't feel bad because it was valentine's day and I didn't have a mate, either, because that's just ridiculous. A holiday shouldn't make people feel guilty because they don't have someone to spend money on flowers and chocolates for. No, I felt bad because I have a cold and it's nasty and I feel awful. Still, I was going to try and track down Return of the Living Dead 3, the greatest Zombie Love Story ever told. And yes, it was even better than Warm Bodies (2013), because the Zombie turns back into a human at the end of that movie and then it's technically just a love story, with zombies as a backdrop. So, despite how hot Teresa Palmer is in Warm Bodies, Melinda Clarke in Return of the Living Dead 3 is better. Return of the Living Dead 3 is like the '50 Shades of Grey' version of zombie love stories. There's pain, and emo chicks, and masochism, all in the name of love, and goddammit, I cried at the end of that movie, and I still do, every time I see it! But, alas, I couldn't find it anywhere but on Amazon, and I'm not spending $3.00 just to watch the movie once, or $9.00 to buy it because I'm broke. So screw that shit.
So what you're getting, is quite possibly the 2nd or 3rd greatest Zombie Love story ever made. Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead. If you remember from watching Dead Snow (or my review of it), a group of college kids head up to a mountain cabin and manage to wake up a bunch of Nazi zombies who tear them to pieces. One guy manages to escape, a guy named Martin, and in Dead Snow 2, we pick up his story right where we left off. Martin found himself with his right arm chopped off (by his own hand), and covered in blood, trying to start his car and get away, when it was swarmed by zombies. Martin manages to get away from the zombies, just in time to have a car accident, and wake up in the hospital in police custody. The police, having found the bodies of his friends, have pegged poor martin for the murder of his friends, because come on, who's going to believe the old "Nazi zombies killed them" story? Still, there's good news (and bad news)! Doctors have reattached Martin's severed limb, that was found with him in the wreck of his car! The bad news is, it wasn't HIS severed limb. It was the severed limb of one of the zombies, which proceeds to go apeshit and kill the very doctor that reattached it, landing Martin in even more trouble. And the REALLY bad news? The Nazi zombies, who just wanted their gold back, are marching down the mountain, intending to kill every single person in the nearby town, and raise of an army of zombies. This just isn't Martin's day.
I liked this movie even better than Dead Snow. Much like Alien and Aliens, where Alien is about a small group of people fighting off a single Alien and Aliens is about a large group of well-armed people fighting a war against a whole army of Aliens, Dead Snow 2 is about a whole group of well-armed people fighting a war with a whole group of zombies. I can't say the quality of Dead Snow 2 matched the quality of Aliens by any stretch of the imagination, but Dead Snow 2 was at least as funny/scary/witty as Dead Snow, and very similarly styled. And, in honor of Valentine's Day, Martin seeks revenge for the loss of Hanna, Martin's girlfriend from the first movie (whom, well, he technically killed, but dammit, he thought she was a zombie sneaking up on him, which he never would have thought if there wasn't an army of man-eating Nazi zombies after him in the first place, so it was all the Nazi zombies' fault, anyway)! You just KNOW there's going to be a titanic battle between Martin and his Zombie Squad and the Nazi Zombie Leader, and this movie doesn't disappoint!
You know, it's funny, I tried to think of what was wrong with this movie, and the only thing I could come up with, was the low budget. And, we're not even talking, shoestring, early Evil Dead budget here, We're talking good quality, low-cost special effects that aren't CGI, but actual, in-your-face blood and guts and human entrails! This is OLD SCHOOL zombie effects! And this movie is all the better for it., if you ask me. So the minus, is actually a plus! There is not, however, any nudity in this flick that I can recall, so, there's that. But I don't think there was any nudity in the first movie, either. (shrug) On the plus side, the Norwegian scenery is gorgeous.
I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but I will say this. The scene at the end, if that's not true love, well, fuck me, I don't know what is. It's creepy and it's a bit frightening, and honestly, it reminds me of that scene in Evil Dead 2, right after Ash cuts off his hand, where Ash loses his shit and just starts laughing hysterically along with every demon-possessed piece of furniture, book and stuffed animal head in the entire cabin. I mean, let's face it, if the loss of your own sanity isn't scary, then you're already insane, and it's too late for you. The final scene in Dead Snow 2 is truly creepy, and depicts just exactly how crazy love makes you. And if that's not romantic, AND jesus-my-balls-just-crawled-up-into-my-body scary, then you and I didn't watch the same movie.
So if you liked Dead Snow, or Zombie movies, or just want to know what the fuck I am talking about when I say 'Zombie Love Story,' then check out Dead Snow 2 on Netflix. I don't know if I'd watch it twice, but it was funny, and creepy, and scary the first time around and damn it, if I don't drag it back out next Valentine's day for another viewing, then maybe a squad of Nazi zombies should come after me, too. I'm just kidding. Please don't send a squad of nazi zombies after me. I'm sick. At least wait til I'm feeling better. (sneeze, hack, cough, sniffle) At this rate, could take decades before I'm up to it.
In other news, it's colder than a witch's tit out there. Our high temperature today was -3. Fahrenheit. It's now -11, and if we're not lucky, we'll break the -16 record set in 1943. Also, it's windy out there, so we've got that to deal with, too. Bleh. March is like two weeks away, and then Spring comes, and do you think it'll warm up then? Nope! Won't get warm around here til May, most likely. I don't think we've even been above freezing but one or two days so far since Xmas. Blech. I'd say I'd make an igloo out of snow to try and keep warm, but since our house is already covered in snow, I'm pretty sure I'm already technically living in an igloo.
Netflix also has The Interview (2014). I must say that I was surprised to see Netflix get this movie so quickly, and I was mildly tempted to watch and review it for my blog. As Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation might say, I was tempted for approximately 0.014 seconds, which is nearly an eternity to an android. Then, I remembered it had Seth Rogen and James Franco in it, neither of whom I can stand to watch for more than 0.014 seconds. Also, I think that whole 'internet hack attempt and terrorist warning' about the movie was just a publicity stunt by Sony to get people to see an otherwise crappy film, so I'm not going to bother even watching the thing to see how god-awful it may or may not be. It's just not worth it to find out it really WAS awful, and I really DID just waste two hours watching Seth's Rogen's hairy belly flab. So, no. Just say no, as Nancy Reagan used to say.
Instead, stay warm by watching Dead Snow 2 with your Valentine, and I'll catch you guys next week. Til then.
Then came Saturday the 14th. Valentine's Day. And I thought, Oh my fucking god, I feel like shit. Not because I had a girlfriend and I forgot to get her something, because I don't. And I didn't feel bad because it was valentine's day and I didn't have a mate, either, because that's just ridiculous. A holiday shouldn't make people feel guilty because they don't have someone to spend money on flowers and chocolates for. No, I felt bad because I have a cold and it's nasty and I feel awful. Still, I was going to try and track down Return of the Living Dead 3, the greatest Zombie Love Story ever told. And yes, it was even better than Warm Bodies (2013), because the Zombie turns back into a human at the end of that movie and then it's technically just a love story, with zombies as a backdrop. So, despite how hot Teresa Palmer is in Warm Bodies, Melinda Clarke in Return of the Living Dead 3 is better. Return of the Living Dead 3 is like the '50 Shades of Grey' version of zombie love stories. There's pain, and emo chicks, and masochism, all in the name of love, and goddammit, I cried at the end of that movie, and I still do, every time I see it! But, alas, I couldn't find it anywhere but on Amazon, and I'm not spending $3.00 just to watch the movie once, or $9.00 to buy it because I'm broke. So screw that shit.
So what you're getting, is quite possibly the 2nd or 3rd greatest Zombie Love story ever made. Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead. If you remember from watching Dead Snow (or my review of it), a group of college kids head up to a mountain cabin and manage to wake up a bunch of Nazi zombies who tear them to pieces. One guy manages to escape, a guy named Martin, and in Dead Snow 2, we pick up his story right where we left off. Martin found himself with his right arm chopped off (by his own hand), and covered in blood, trying to start his car and get away, when it was swarmed by zombies. Martin manages to get away from the zombies, just in time to have a car accident, and wake up in the hospital in police custody. The police, having found the bodies of his friends, have pegged poor martin for the murder of his friends, because come on, who's going to believe the old "Nazi zombies killed them" story? Still, there's good news (and bad news)! Doctors have reattached Martin's severed limb, that was found with him in the wreck of his car! The bad news is, it wasn't HIS severed limb. It was the severed limb of one of the zombies, which proceeds to go apeshit and kill the very doctor that reattached it, landing Martin in even more trouble. And the REALLY bad news? The Nazi zombies, who just wanted their gold back, are marching down the mountain, intending to kill every single person in the nearby town, and raise of an army of zombies. This just isn't Martin's day.
I liked this movie even better than Dead Snow. Much like Alien and Aliens, where Alien is about a small group of people fighting off a single Alien and Aliens is about a large group of well-armed people fighting a war against a whole army of Aliens, Dead Snow 2 is about a whole group of well-armed people fighting a war with a whole group of zombies. I can't say the quality of Dead Snow 2 matched the quality of Aliens by any stretch of the imagination, but Dead Snow 2 was at least as funny/scary/witty as Dead Snow, and very similarly styled. And, in honor of Valentine's Day, Martin seeks revenge for the loss of Hanna, Martin's girlfriend from the first movie (whom, well, he technically killed, but dammit, he thought she was a zombie sneaking up on him, which he never would have thought if there wasn't an army of man-eating Nazi zombies after him in the first place, so it was all the Nazi zombies' fault, anyway)! You just KNOW there's going to be a titanic battle between Martin and his Zombie Squad and the Nazi Zombie Leader, and this movie doesn't disappoint!
You know, it's funny, I tried to think of what was wrong with this movie, and the only thing I could come up with, was the low budget. And, we're not even talking, shoestring, early Evil Dead budget here, We're talking good quality, low-cost special effects that aren't CGI, but actual, in-your-face blood and guts and human entrails! This is OLD SCHOOL zombie effects! And this movie is all the better for it., if you ask me. So the minus, is actually a plus! There is not, however, any nudity in this flick that I can recall, so, there's that. But I don't think there was any nudity in the first movie, either. (shrug) On the plus side, the Norwegian scenery is gorgeous.
I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but I will say this. The scene at the end, if that's not true love, well, fuck me, I don't know what is. It's creepy and it's a bit frightening, and honestly, it reminds me of that scene in Evil Dead 2, right after Ash cuts off his hand, where Ash loses his shit and just starts laughing hysterically along with every demon-possessed piece of furniture, book and stuffed animal head in the entire cabin. I mean, let's face it, if the loss of your own sanity isn't scary, then you're already insane, and it's too late for you. The final scene in Dead Snow 2 is truly creepy, and depicts just exactly how crazy love makes you. And if that's not romantic, AND jesus-my-balls-just-crawled-up-into-my-body scary, then you and I didn't watch the same movie.
So if you liked Dead Snow, or Zombie movies, or just want to know what the fuck I am talking about when I say 'Zombie Love Story,' then check out Dead Snow 2 on Netflix. I don't know if I'd watch it twice, but it was funny, and creepy, and scary the first time around and damn it, if I don't drag it back out next Valentine's day for another viewing, then maybe a squad of Nazi zombies should come after me, too. I'm just kidding. Please don't send a squad of nazi zombies after me. I'm sick. At least wait til I'm feeling better. (sneeze, hack, cough, sniffle) At this rate, could take decades before I'm up to it.
In other news, it's colder than a witch's tit out there. Our high temperature today was -3. Fahrenheit. It's now -11, and if we're not lucky, we'll break the -16 record set in 1943. Also, it's windy out there, so we've got that to deal with, too. Bleh. March is like two weeks away, and then Spring comes, and do you think it'll warm up then? Nope! Won't get warm around here til May, most likely. I don't think we've even been above freezing but one or two days so far since Xmas. Blech. I'd say I'd make an igloo out of snow to try and keep warm, but since our house is already covered in snow, I'm pretty sure I'm already technically living in an igloo.
Netflix also has The Interview (2014). I must say that I was surprised to see Netflix get this movie so quickly, and I was mildly tempted to watch and review it for my blog. As Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation might say, I was tempted for approximately 0.014 seconds, which is nearly an eternity to an android. Then, I remembered it had Seth Rogen and James Franco in it, neither of whom I can stand to watch for more than 0.014 seconds. Also, I think that whole 'internet hack attempt and terrorist warning' about the movie was just a publicity stunt by Sony to get people to see an otherwise crappy film, so I'm not going to bother even watching the thing to see how god-awful it may or may not be. It's just not worth it to find out it really WAS awful, and I really DID just waste two hours watching Seth's Rogen's hairy belly flab. So, no. Just say no, as Nancy Reagan used to say.
Instead, stay warm by watching Dead Snow 2 with your Valentine, and I'll catch you guys next week. Til then.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Review - The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014)
First, let me preface this by saying, I did not see the original movie, the one made in 1974. However, this movie references that movie so much that I feel like I've seen it, without having ever watched it.
Here's the back story, according to the introductory narrative by Addison Timlin (the actress who plays Jami, the lead role): Back in the 1940's, there were some murders in Texarkana, a town that straddles the border between Texas and Arkansas. The killer stalked young couples who had wandered out at night hoping to get some privacy, as young couples are wont to do. Come to think of it, I think that's the same as every killer in every horror movie ever made, certainly the friday the 13th movies, which, I guess are based on the original Texarkana killings and/or the original movie made back in 1974. Now, I haven't actually fact-checked any of this, so I'm just going by what I can recall from the movie. To sum up, the killer was never caught.
Flash forward to 2014, when this movie opens. In Texarkana, they are screening The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1974) every Halloween. A young couple watching the movie decides to leave the drive-in early, to find a nice place to park and get away from the crowd, as young people are wont to do. While they are getting frisky, the girl sees a hooded man in the woods, watching them. The man thinks it's just a peeping tom, but then the killer smashes their window with a gun before they can drive away. Forcing the couple out of the car at gunpoint, the killer savagely stabs the man in the back, and then chases the girl through the woods. Before she can get away, he catches her, and gives her a message, He wants her to remind them, to make sure they remember...
I'm not quite sure what to make of this movie. Between the references to the 1940s murders and the references to the 1974 movie, there's a lot of flashbacks and cuts out of the action. There's no monsters and no nudity, so it's not one of my favorite kinds of horror movies, but I guess it got a little twisty at the end there, so it's kind of surprising? Meh. The acting is decent and the supporting cast is excellent. You've seen most of these actors before. There's Edward Herrmann as the preacher, Ed Lauter as one of the police officers, and Veronica Cartwright as Jami's (Addison Timlin's) Grandmother. There's only a few dead bodies, and most of the kills mimic the ones from the 1974 movie. This is on purpose, as the killer is trying to remind people of the 1940's murders.
An interesting curiosity is that Addison Timlin constantly reminds me of Jill Schoelen in this movie. Jill Schoelen, if you recall, was a scream queen back in the 1980's who starred in the original Stepfather movie, as well as Cutting Class (one of Brad Pitt's first acting roles). She's since retired from acting, but she and Addison Timlin have very similar facial bone structure, and with Addison's hair appearing (dyed?) dark brown in the movie, and having a cut similar to Jill's, she's practically Jill Schoelen's twin. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? I don't know. Just thought it was interesting.
So, if you've seen The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1974), or you haven't, or you like watching movies that are sort of about movies that were kind of about murders, then this is the movie for you. I think I just gave myself a headache typing out that sentence. Or, if you like slasher flicks, then give this one a shot. Not very bloody, not too many bodies, nothing particularly horrifying. Perhaps like the original Friday the 13th, then? The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014) is available on Netflix, and the original 1974 version WAS available there, but I think they pulled it from the streaming service sometime last year. Which, doesn't help you a damn bit, does it?
Another interesting side note, we have 3 friday the 13ths this year! One next week, one in march, and one in november! Sounds lucky! heh
Bonus review, since I missed posting last week. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) with Tom Cruise. Yea, I'm definitely not a Tom Cruise fan, but I like Science fiction, and this sort of qualifies. If you thought The Town That Dreaded Sundown had a lot of flashbacks and cut scenes, HOLY SHIT are you in for a surprise. Let's sum up Edge of Tomorrow. Tom Cruise stars as some non-combat army spin doctor in the midst of an alien invasion. Although humanity is losing the war, Tom Cruise manages to spin it so millions of people sign up to die on the front lines. I'm not sure why they decide to throw him into the thick of combat, but unfortunately for his character, Tom is tossed into the thick of it. I guess they didn't have enough cannon fodder and Tom seemed like an easy target? Probably. In any case, somehow, Tom Cruise's character (and I really didn't care enough about him to recall the guy's name) manages to kill an 'Alpha' or a blue alien (they look like animated hairballs, honestly) and is somehow tripped back into time so that he relives each day, much like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Only instead of ending up in bed with Andie Mcdowell, Tom Cruise's goal to kill the evil alien overmind before he loses the ability to snap back into time when he dies. Sounds easy enough, right?
Edge of Tomorrow, aside from sounding like the next James Bond 007 movie, has a LOT of flashbacks, or, flash-forwards, or whatever you want to call them. There's a lot of the same scene over and over again, in other words. Bill Pullman makes an appearance as an overzealous Master Sargeant, and another appearance, and another, in the same scene. Also in this movie as General Brigham is Brendan Gleeson, who many of you monster movie fans will recall as the Sheriff in Lake Placid. Emily Blunt stars as the heroine of the war.
As alien invasion movies go, this one wasn't that good. There's a lot of scenes done over and over, especially the beach scene, and this cuts down on the actual scenes where they would normally go into the alien back story. Instead, Tom Cruise uses his ability to snap back in time to try and seduce Emily Blunt. Which, I guess I can't blame him overmuch? But instead of getting lucky, he only manages to get her killed a lot. Like I said, the aliens look more like animated hairballs than anything else, and the alien overmind looks like one of those Bloomin' Onions from the Outback restaurant. So. If hairballs and bloomin onions make you hungry (and why wouldn't they?), then don't watch this movie while you're on a diet. Edge of Tomorrow is on HBO if you want to see it, but why would you? I mean, it's Tom Cruise. Mostly. And no nudity. So. Blech.
That's all for this week, kiddies. I've been shovelling so much snow I'm going to need arm replacements when I am done. And.. I have more shovelling to do. Til next weekend!
Here's the back story, according to the introductory narrative by Addison Timlin (the actress who plays Jami, the lead role): Back in the 1940's, there were some murders in Texarkana, a town that straddles the border between Texas and Arkansas. The killer stalked young couples who had wandered out at night hoping to get some privacy, as young couples are wont to do. Come to think of it, I think that's the same as every killer in every horror movie ever made, certainly the friday the 13th movies, which, I guess are based on the original Texarkana killings and/or the original movie made back in 1974. Now, I haven't actually fact-checked any of this, so I'm just going by what I can recall from the movie. To sum up, the killer was never caught.
Flash forward to 2014, when this movie opens. In Texarkana, they are screening The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1974) every Halloween. A young couple watching the movie decides to leave the drive-in early, to find a nice place to park and get away from the crowd, as young people are wont to do. While they are getting frisky, the girl sees a hooded man in the woods, watching them. The man thinks it's just a peeping tom, but then the killer smashes their window with a gun before they can drive away. Forcing the couple out of the car at gunpoint, the killer savagely stabs the man in the back, and then chases the girl through the woods. Before she can get away, he catches her, and gives her a message, He wants her to remind them, to make sure they remember...
I'm not quite sure what to make of this movie. Between the references to the 1940s murders and the references to the 1974 movie, there's a lot of flashbacks and cuts out of the action. There's no monsters and no nudity, so it's not one of my favorite kinds of horror movies, but I guess it got a little twisty at the end there, so it's kind of surprising? Meh. The acting is decent and the supporting cast is excellent. You've seen most of these actors before. There's Edward Herrmann as the preacher, Ed Lauter as one of the police officers, and Veronica Cartwright as Jami's (Addison Timlin's) Grandmother. There's only a few dead bodies, and most of the kills mimic the ones from the 1974 movie. This is on purpose, as the killer is trying to remind people of the 1940's murders.
An interesting curiosity is that Addison Timlin constantly reminds me of Jill Schoelen in this movie. Jill Schoelen, if you recall, was a scream queen back in the 1980's who starred in the original Stepfather movie, as well as Cutting Class (one of Brad Pitt's first acting roles). She's since retired from acting, but she and Addison Timlin have very similar facial bone structure, and with Addison's hair appearing (dyed?) dark brown in the movie, and having a cut similar to Jill's, she's practically Jill Schoelen's twin. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? I don't know. Just thought it was interesting.
So, if you've seen The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1974), or you haven't, or you like watching movies that are sort of about movies that were kind of about murders, then this is the movie for you. I think I just gave myself a headache typing out that sentence. Or, if you like slasher flicks, then give this one a shot. Not very bloody, not too many bodies, nothing particularly horrifying. Perhaps like the original Friday the 13th, then? The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014) is available on Netflix, and the original 1974 version WAS available there, but I think they pulled it from the streaming service sometime last year. Which, doesn't help you a damn bit, does it?
Another interesting side note, we have 3 friday the 13ths this year! One next week, one in march, and one in november! Sounds lucky! heh
Bonus review, since I missed posting last week. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) with Tom Cruise. Yea, I'm definitely not a Tom Cruise fan, but I like Science fiction, and this sort of qualifies. If you thought The Town That Dreaded Sundown had a lot of flashbacks and cut scenes, HOLY SHIT are you in for a surprise. Let's sum up Edge of Tomorrow. Tom Cruise stars as some non-combat army spin doctor in the midst of an alien invasion. Although humanity is losing the war, Tom Cruise manages to spin it so millions of people sign up to die on the front lines. I'm not sure why they decide to throw him into the thick of combat, but unfortunately for his character, Tom is tossed into the thick of it. I guess they didn't have enough cannon fodder and Tom seemed like an easy target? Probably. In any case, somehow, Tom Cruise's character (and I really didn't care enough about him to recall the guy's name) manages to kill an 'Alpha' or a blue alien (they look like animated hairballs, honestly) and is somehow tripped back into time so that he relives each day, much like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Only instead of ending up in bed with Andie Mcdowell, Tom Cruise's goal to kill the evil alien overmind before he loses the ability to snap back into time when he dies. Sounds easy enough, right?
Edge of Tomorrow, aside from sounding like the next James Bond 007 movie, has a LOT of flashbacks, or, flash-forwards, or whatever you want to call them. There's a lot of the same scene over and over again, in other words. Bill Pullman makes an appearance as an overzealous Master Sargeant, and another appearance, and another, in the same scene. Also in this movie as General Brigham is Brendan Gleeson, who many of you monster movie fans will recall as the Sheriff in Lake Placid. Emily Blunt stars as the heroine of the war.
As alien invasion movies go, this one wasn't that good. There's a lot of scenes done over and over, especially the beach scene, and this cuts down on the actual scenes where they would normally go into the alien back story. Instead, Tom Cruise uses his ability to snap back in time to try and seduce Emily Blunt. Which, I guess I can't blame him overmuch? But instead of getting lucky, he only manages to get her killed a lot. Like I said, the aliens look more like animated hairballs than anything else, and the alien overmind looks like one of those Bloomin' Onions from the Outback restaurant. So. If hairballs and bloomin onions make you hungry (and why wouldn't they?), then don't watch this movie while you're on a diet. Edge of Tomorrow is on HBO if you want to see it, but why would you? I mean, it's Tom Cruise. Mostly. And no nudity. So. Blech.
That's all for this week, kiddies. I've been shovelling so much snow I'm going to need arm replacements when I am done. And.. I have more shovelling to do. Til next weekend!
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