No, I already reviewed the original many times, I'm talking about the remake! Yes, it came out in 2011.
So the plots are pretty similar. Basically, a vampire moves in next door to a fairly average teen and the teen gradually becomes aware that the new guy is a vampire. Unlike the original, Peter Vincent is played in this one by some nobody who seems to be a total douche. I realize Roddy McDowall can't reprise his role in this movie, due to him being dead and all, but honestly, couldn't they have found someone better than a Criss Angel wannabe (or whoever that magician is)? Also, instead of the classy, cultured vampire, they've got the likes of Colin Farrell, who is like the opposite of the cultured, european-esque Chris Sarandon (who at least made a cameo appearance in this movie) who was the vampire in the 1985 version. However, this movie didn't try to be the original.
It played to its strengths. Colin Farrell was a cheesy, bloody, low-class rock star of a vampire. The peter vincent of this movie was a trashy, drunken mess of a vampire killer. Amy, charlie's girlfriend, was actually pretty damn hot this time around. lol The only character I truly liked was Peter Vincent's live-in girlfriend / assistant. She had some serious attitude. lol However, the movie worked pretty well. There was lots of action, it totally departed from the first movie fairly early on, and the last half hour was pretty much one big long climax. Not in a sexual sense, but in the story sense. I won't say i was on the edge of my seat, but it definitely kept my interest despite the bad acting.
Now the bad points. The acting wasn't very good. i didn't really get the feel of colin farrell being a centuries old vampire. He acts more like a horny 13 year old than anything else. None of the other actors made up for the lack of a strong villain. I didn't empathize with any of them. Even Charlie Brewster, instead of the geeky horror movie fan he was in the 1985 version, is basically an asshole in this movie. Also, his hot girlfriend wants to have sex with him and Charlie is the one who's shy about it this time. Bit of a role reversal there. Confusing and doesn't help the plot any. "Evil" Eddie was more pitiful than anything else, and not even pitiful in the good pitiful way, like in the first movie, where you empathize with his character and feel bad when things go wrong for him. In this movie, i was kind of glad when bad things happened to him, because he was also kind of an asshole. So. Everyone in this movie was pretty much an asshole. lol Toni Collette was actually pretty decent as charlie's mom, but her presence was insufficiently engrossing to save the overall lack of acting.
The CGI effects were pretty lame. I was more scared by the prosthetic makeup of the actors in the 1985 film than i was by the computer generated images here. I don't think hollywood understands the importance of the actual acting involved in these movies. CGI doesn't scare anyone. It's a cheap and easy way to generate beasties, and that's it. It doesn't generate fear. Actors do that. If you absolutely need to use CGI effects, use them in the dark and replace them as quickly as possible with real actors in prosthetic makeup. I'm pretty sure Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi with a pair of plastic fangs and some decent acting skills were hellaciously more frightening than some computer generated image. That's why those movies are classics, and the 2011 version of Fright Night went almost directly to video.
The plot was a good point. It departed from its predecessor in many ways, but i think it played to the strengths of the actors to make you vaguely disgusted by them and want them to die horribly. Of course, i pretty much felt that way about the whole cast, and they didn't all die, so I felt unsatisfied at the end of the movie. lol Another drawback, no nudity! It almost looked like a disney film version of the original Fright Night when it first started and it didn't seem to shed that image as the film strolled along. There were some pretty hot babes in there and it would have been pretty nice to see some of them naked... Oh well.
In other news, the new season of Dexter has started and I don't like it already. Watching it right now. Deb was supposed to have caught Dexter last season and I was all like FINALLY! The secret is out! Only it's not, and now things are all messed up and Laguerta (the poltically-minded police captain), who is NEVER at a crime scene, manages to show up at the one crime scene dexter messes up and finds EVIDENCE? What a pile of shit. I'm not buying it already and it's only the first episode. However, Deb ... Scratch that. She just found out. I'm good. Moving onto Homeland.
Holy Shit, I just saw claire danes bent over the garden on Homeland and I wanted to do her right there. Uh... yea. Sorry, I don't get out much. Homeland seems about right as far as the plot goes. After Carrie's mental breakdown last season we needed something to get her back on track and she seems to be playing it perfectly, the whole "i'm a batshit crazy ex cia agent" thing. She's a pretty decent actress, totally believable as far as I am concerned. And kind of hot, in a "i'm a batshit crazy excia agent" sort of way. lol Nothing too dramatic in the season opener but makes me look forward to the rest of the season. I know once these actresses have "made it" into the juicy roles, they no longer need to do nude scenes, but would it be too much to ask? :-D
Okay, that's it for now, people. Fright Night is currently playing on Showtime. See you guys tomorrow with another movie review!
Monday, October 1, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
TV fall Season Reviews
Okay, the fall TV season has officially started!
I certainly haven't seen everything the new fall season has to offer, but let me give you my impressions of things I have seen...
Grimm: Grimm premiered it's fall season back in august, for those of us in the know. Renewed from last season, it's a grittier take on the whole Grimm's fairly tales than the likes of "Once upon a time." And before I get arguments about how gritty that show may or may not be, let me first say, I've never seen it. All I know is, once upon a time is based on american fairy tales, whereas Grimm is based on the german ones. The german ones, as you may or may not know, are tales designed to scare the shit out of kids so they stay out of the forest and safe in their beds. For instance, Red Riding Hood, in german fables, actually resulted in the death of little Red. Grandma's teeth are the better to eat you with, and all that. Note that the helpful woodsman with an ax never happens to appear anywhere else in the story... he just happens to show up at the end to kill the big bad wolf. German version, little red is wolf food. In any case, Grimm had an excellent season last year, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this one. Grimm is on hiatus until tomorrow, when it returns with the rest of it's season, if I am not mistaken.
NCIS: The new season premiered tuesday, along with it's spinoff show, NCIS.. uh... los angeles? I think that's the one. NCIS has been around forever. It's a show full of strong characters, and I love every one of them. The geeky technical experts, the macho agents, the knowledgeable forensics people, even mark harmon as the badass head of the department. My only problem is, I don't actually like the show. Yea, the NCIS premise is kind of done to death at this point. It's cops with navy badges instead of ... uh.. whatever kind normal cops carry. So it's just another CSI clone. Sure, the characters are great and likeable and I wish Ziva and tony would just bump uglies and get it over with, but how much longer are these people going to be stuck working together? It's been 8 years! A normal department would have had tons of personnel changes by now. Ziva would be back in israel, Mcgee would be in forensic technology, Abby would be ... well, probably on unemployment because she's too quirky to hold a real job, and Jethro would probably be a hired assassin working for the government. Which, would probably be a better show than NCIS. Also, I don't like anyone in the spinoff except the director, the tiny little aged woman. She's awesome. They should drop everyone else on the show with the exception of her, and the hot techie geek girl, and start over.
Person of Interest: With the addition of... Amy Ackerman? I think that's her name. To the show last season, things got spicy. Now it turns out she's a hired killer with an insane zest for the next step in human evolution. But she's wrong, of course. Humans have not stopped evolving. Supposedly over the last 3000 years we have had so many changes to human DNA that scientists are still trying to map them all. I think we're evolving into the Borg (yes, from star trek) but nobody believes me. Or, is intimidated when I tell them "resistance is futile." Especially not the women. Sigh. In any case, I love any show where there's a guy going around killing people, especially people who deserve to get killed.
On a side note, did you ever notice how popular shows are that show someone who deserves to die getting killed? I think it's pretty much in every show on every network, there's someone who deserves to die, and Oh, he dies! Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Wholly unlike life, where the people who deserve to die usually are rich, self-involved bastards who own your entire ass because you are living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to lose your job. Like the movie Horrible Bosses. Where Jennifer Aniston was just ... one very hot boss. But I digress. There's a lot of righteous anger in this country, methinks. Probably for good reason. Sometimes I am almost glad I am still unemployed.
Last Resort: This new show is about the crew of a nuclear attack sub that goes rogue. Basically, they are ordered to launch nuclear weapons at an unsuspecting country and want to confirm these orders since they seem so suspicious. So a battleship launches a missile at them and nearly destroys them. Which pisses them off. It'd piss me off too. So they head south, put in at some tropical locale and take over an island with a NATO listening post so they can monitor stuff while trying to hold off the US navy. This show seems ridiculous. There's lots of action, yes. The acting is superb. I like the actors and characters. But holding off the entire US is just silly. I am pretty sure they'd just nuke the island to cover things up, call it an accidental explosion and sweep the dust under the rug. But can the action carry it when there's just not enough of a human element to the show? Basically, it's all about corrupt politics and military personnel at this point, which is nothing I can relate to. I may enjoy the action, but I won't keep watching if that's all there is to it.
I am sure I missed a show or two, but I'll catch up on what I missed next week, in between horror movie reviews. They start monday night! october first! I can't wait. I had to watch a couple horror movies this week because netflix was clearing them out, but they weren't worthy of a review.
Of slight disdain (not interest) was the prequel to the prequel of the Scorpion King (scorpion king 2, maybe?), where a very young actor plays a very young matthias. This movie was pretty crappy. Oh it wasn't cheaply made or anything, but the acting was sub-par and the actors were almost all unknowns, or just poor actors. I guess they spent all the money on special effects. Supposedly this young boy joins the "black scorpions," an army of vicious mercenaries, to learn how to fight so he can avenge his father's death. So when he graduates, never having seen actual combat, as far as I can tell, he should be the equal of any green recruit, right? Wrong! This guy kicks black scorpion ass all up and down this movie. How he became so superior to every hardened veteran is never explained, but not only can he kick black scorpion ass, but his girlfriend (who was never trained) and some random chinese guy they pick up along the way, can also kick black scorpion ass after ass. For the most feared and well trained army of mercenaries in the entire kingdom, these guys don't seem to be very good at their job! And, what's up with the girlfriend? When they are shown as kids in the movie, they appear to be of similar age, and then when they are adults, she looks 30 and he looks 18. lol Unless she spent her formative years as an opium-whore, I doubt the 6 years little matthias spent away at camp learning to be a good soldier would have aged her so horribly. Also, the plot didn't make a lick of sense, but there were mythical beasts, magic swords, and shit like that, so that's forgivable. However, the total lack of female nudity was a glaring flaw. How can you have a swords and sorcery movie and not have female nudity in it? That's like having a dentist's office without a drill!
That's all for now. Four days til the horror movie marathons begin! (sings) I'm so excited... and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it! Uh, yes. I sing the pointer sisters when i get excited. So? The pointer sisters are very manly. Shut up.
I certainly haven't seen everything the new fall season has to offer, but let me give you my impressions of things I have seen...
Grimm: Grimm premiered it's fall season back in august, for those of us in the know. Renewed from last season, it's a grittier take on the whole Grimm's fairly tales than the likes of "Once upon a time." And before I get arguments about how gritty that show may or may not be, let me first say, I've never seen it. All I know is, once upon a time is based on american fairy tales, whereas Grimm is based on the german ones. The german ones, as you may or may not know, are tales designed to scare the shit out of kids so they stay out of the forest and safe in their beds. For instance, Red Riding Hood, in german fables, actually resulted in the death of little Red. Grandma's teeth are the better to eat you with, and all that. Note that the helpful woodsman with an ax never happens to appear anywhere else in the story... he just happens to show up at the end to kill the big bad wolf. German version, little red is wolf food. In any case, Grimm had an excellent season last year, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this one. Grimm is on hiatus until tomorrow, when it returns with the rest of it's season, if I am not mistaken.
NCIS: The new season premiered tuesday, along with it's spinoff show, NCIS.. uh... los angeles? I think that's the one. NCIS has been around forever. It's a show full of strong characters, and I love every one of them. The geeky technical experts, the macho agents, the knowledgeable forensics people, even mark harmon as the badass head of the department. My only problem is, I don't actually like the show. Yea, the NCIS premise is kind of done to death at this point. It's cops with navy badges instead of ... uh.. whatever kind normal cops carry. So it's just another CSI clone. Sure, the characters are great and likeable and I wish Ziva and tony would just bump uglies and get it over with, but how much longer are these people going to be stuck working together? It's been 8 years! A normal department would have had tons of personnel changes by now. Ziva would be back in israel, Mcgee would be in forensic technology, Abby would be ... well, probably on unemployment because she's too quirky to hold a real job, and Jethro would probably be a hired assassin working for the government. Which, would probably be a better show than NCIS. Also, I don't like anyone in the spinoff except the director, the tiny little aged woman. She's awesome. They should drop everyone else on the show with the exception of her, and the hot techie geek girl, and start over.
Person of Interest: With the addition of... Amy Ackerman? I think that's her name. To the show last season, things got spicy. Now it turns out she's a hired killer with an insane zest for the next step in human evolution. But she's wrong, of course. Humans have not stopped evolving. Supposedly over the last 3000 years we have had so many changes to human DNA that scientists are still trying to map them all. I think we're evolving into the Borg (yes, from star trek) but nobody believes me. Or, is intimidated when I tell them "resistance is futile." Especially not the women. Sigh. In any case, I love any show where there's a guy going around killing people, especially people who deserve to get killed.
On a side note, did you ever notice how popular shows are that show someone who deserves to die getting killed? I think it's pretty much in every show on every network, there's someone who deserves to die, and Oh, he dies! Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Wholly unlike life, where the people who deserve to die usually are rich, self-involved bastards who own your entire ass because you are living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to lose your job. Like the movie Horrible Bosses. Where Jennifer Aniston was just ... one very hot boss. But I digress. There's a lot of righteous anger in this country, methinks. Probably for good reason. Sometimes I am almost glad I am still unemployed.
Last Resort: This new show is about the crew of a nuclear attack sub that goes rogue. Basically, they are ordered to launch nuclear weapons at an unsuspecting country and want to confirm these orders since they seem so suspicious. So a battleship launches a missile at them and nearly destroys them. Which pisses them off. It'd piss me off too. So they head south, put in at some tropical locale and take over an island with a NATO listening post so they can monitor stuff while trying to hold off the US navy. This show seems ridiculous. There's lots of action, yes. The acting is superb. I like the actors and characters. But holding off the entire US is just silly. I am pretty sure they'd just nuke the island to cover things up, call it an accidental explosion and sweep the dust under the rug. But can the action carry it when there's just not enough of a human element to the show? Basically, it's all about corrupt politics and military personnel at this point, which is nothing I can relate to. I may enjoy the action, but I won't keep watching if that's all there is to it.
I am sure I missed a show or two, but I'll catch up on what I missed next week, in between horror movie reviews. They start monday night! october first! I can't wait. I had to watch a couple horror movies this week because netflix was clearing them out, but they weren't worthy of a review.
Of slight disdain (not interest) was the prequel to the prequel of the Scorpion King (scorpion king 2, maybe?), where a very young actor plays a very young matthias. This movie was pretty crappy. Oh it wasn't cheaply made or anything, but the acting was sub-par and the actors were almost all unknowns, or just poor actors. I guess they spent all the money on special effects. Supposedly this young boy joins the "black scorpions," an army of vicious mercenaries, to learn how to fight so he can avenge his father's death. So when he graduates, never having seen actual combat, as far as I can tell, he should be the equal of any green recruit, right? Wrong! This guy kicks black scorpion ass all up and down this movie. How he became so superior to every hardened veteran is never explained, but not only can he kick black scorpion ass, but his girlfriend (who was never trained) and some random chinese guy they pick up along the way, can also kick black scorpion ass after ass. For the most feared and well trained army of mercenaries in the entire kingdom, these guys don't seem to be very good at their job! And, what's up with the girlfriend? When they are shown as kids in the movie, they appear to be of similar age, and then when they are adults, she looks 30 and he looks 18. lol Unless she spent her formative years as an opium-whore, I doubt the 6 years little matthias spent away at camp learning to be a good soldier would have aged her so horribly. Also, the plot didn't make a lick of sense, but there were mythical beasts, magic swords, and shit like that, so that's forgivable. However, the total lack of female nudity was a glaring flaw. How can you have a swords and sorcery movie and not have female nudity in it? That's like having a dentist's office without a drill!
That's all for now. Four days til the horror movie marathons begin! (sings) I'm so excited... and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it! Uh, yes. I sing the pointer sisters when i get excited. So? The pointer sisters are very manly. Shut up.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Review - The Grey
In preparation for my month-long horror fest movie review next month, I thought I better get in the habit of blogging more and actually reviewing some movies. Luckily, Netflix served up a big heaping dish of something I wanted to watch for a while, in the form of "The Grey" starring Liam Neeson, now available on Netflix.
I'm not really sure how old Liam is at this point in his life, but it seems he's "taken" (geddit, geddit?) on new life in his acting career in the form of an action hero. Unlike the likes of sylvester stallone or arnold schwarzenegger, Liam is the type of action hero who is, shall we say, more mentally prepared for life's little hurdles than the average man, but physically looks just like the rest of us. For those of us watching his films, unlike being buffed up like your average commando, which most viewers can't really manage, Mr. Neeson makes you feel like you could survive the action in his movies just by thinking like he does.
Of course... as the wise men know, changing the way you think is a lot harder than changing the way you look.
"The Grey starts out pretty bleak in setting. Alaskan wilderness. Oil drilling/processing rig, I should think. We meet the main character right off, and his job is obvious. He's been hired by the oil company to protect the riggers from wolves. Now I know it's already a stretch to go that far, I mean, for an oil company to spend money on an actual hunter to protect their workers just seems silly to start with, since I'd think they'd just put up a big fence around the compound and leave it at that, but the acting in this film is so good that that did not even occur to me until just now. In any case, our main protagonist, in the form of Liam Neeson, is having a rough time getting over the death of his wife. You can pretty much figure that out in the first two minutes. But in any case, and they never really tell you why, Liam boards a plane back to civilization. Maybe he's decided to give living with people another try? Who knows. They never say. And then... the plane ices over and goes down in the wilderness.
There's a funny sort of brain teaser joke my sister asked my mom a few days ago. She couldn't figure it out. It went: "A plane crashes between the borders of this country, and that country. According to international law, where do they bury the survivors?" No, don't bother going to Google and looking up international law on plane crashes. All you really have to do to figure out the answer is know how to listen. A skill my mother hasn't managed to master yet. She probably won't ever try. In any case, you don't bury the survivors, unless you are trying to cover something up. lol
To be honest the beginning of this movie was almost as depressing as the Jesse Stone movies with Tom Selleck. Check those out only if you have the positive attitude of a Pollyanna with an infinite supply of cocaine, because watching a few of those in a row will drive you to suicide. Not because the movies are bad, because they aren't. They are made for TV, so they aren't exactly great, but the mood is just the somber "i'll barely make it through winter" attitude of the people of the far northeast, and of course, the colder northern regions. Talk about seasonally affected depression! Mr. Selleck does a great impression of a man barely managing not to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
Which, of course, means he's a good actor, and isn't that really what the movies are all about? I saw a review on netflix by someone who tore apart the way the wolves acted in this movie, and the poor special effects they used to portray them. Apparently, they made him laugh. I'm not sure what he expected? I mean, it's not like the wolf packs are hiring themselves out to film crews in the hopes of eating whole casts of movies. They have to fake it somehow. Suspension of disbelief wasn't even a problem for this movie, at least not for me. Sure the wolves weren't real. I mean, let's be serious here. You get a bunch of real wolves and real people, take them into the real alaskan or canadian wilderness, put them in real life or death situations in the middle of the real woods, and you're really going to lose some damn fine actors. lol
The acting is what makes the film. The writing makes the book, the dialog makes the screenplay, but the acting is what makes the movie. I don't care if you are in "Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes" or not, if you are acting like the tomatoes are lethal, and you are a good enough actor to get that feeling across to the audience, the movie is going to be well received. I only mention that movie in particular because I remember seeing George Clooney in it years ago and he stops in mid scene and looks at the camera as if to say "Yep, the stagehands just rolled a bunch of tomatoes past my feet." Totally destroyed the rest of the movie for me. I stopped watching it right then and there. I'm not going to say I was on the edge of my seat in suspense over that one, but if the actors can't even try to take it seriously, then neither is your audience. The Hammer films of the late 60's are an ideal example of this. I mean, you give Christopher Lee a pair of plastic fangs and some fake blood, give Peter Cushing a wooden stake and a cross, and you've got two hours of entertaining film. You don't need great special effects. You just need good actors.
"The Grey" had excellent actors, was well written, was chock full of action, and pretty much left me slightly stirred, unlike a martini for Mr Bond. Seriously, they should get Liam Neeson to play James Bond. He'd be a thousand times better than Daniel Craig. Of course, they probably can't afford him now that the bond movies have gone into the toilet. I can't think of one part of "The Grey" that was slow except the first couple minutes. It's one of those movies where you think "Oh, this is going to be one of those long mental movies where you have to think about what's going on." And it is that kind of movie. You do think. You think JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME because that's what happens. It's not a movie about thinking. You get glimpses into the thoughts of the characters in this movie. They don't last long. Usually because that person dies while in mid-thought. lol Al the thinking goes on in the mind of the audience. You wonder "What the fuck would I do if I was in that situation? How long would I last?" In my case, I probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to be cast as an extra in the film. I'd have been like "Fuck this guys. It's too damn cold out here. I'm going home, keep the money." lol
Definitely one to watch again. I'm sure it'll survive the rewatchability test. My deceased father used to love good action movies, and I swear this is the first one since his death 6 years ago that i thought "I'm sorry my dad didn't live long enough to see this movie. He would have loved it." And he would have. It's a great action movie, with great acting, decent enough special effects that I didn't laugh, and it certainly didn't give me enough time to critique the film while I was watching it. lol
Just a tip, you'll want to watch this one past the end of the credits. I'm not sure exactly what I saw at the end there, but it gave me hope for a sequel. lol
In other news, the exceedingly hot and dry summer here has come to an end. We dropped back into the normal temperature range two weeks ago, and I've been chilly ever since. I can already tell there's a hard winter coming. So, all I have to do is survive the next 8 months until the temps warm up again. Wheee! lol I am gearing up for horror movie month in October! Be sure to check back here every day for new horror movie reviews starting october first! I've been saving up all my horror movies in my netflix queue. It's 500 movies strong and bursting at the seams with new arrivals. With any luck I'll find 31 movies I've never seen before, but at the very least, I'll try to make them movies I haven't reviewed before, just to keep things interesting here. Sure, the rest of the year my blog sucks, but so what? It's good in october! lol
I'm not really sure how old Liam is at this point in his life, but it seems he's "taken" (geddit, geddit?) on new life in his acting career in the form of an action hero. Unlike the likes of sylvester stallone or arnold schwarzenegger, Liam is the type of action hero who is, shall we say, more mentally prepared for life's little hurdles than the average man, but physically looks just like the rest of us. For those of us watching his films, unlike being buffed up like your average commando, which most viewers can't really manage, Mr. Neeson makes you feel like you could survive the action in his movies just by thinking like he does.
Of course... as the wise men know, changing the way you think is a lot harder than changing the way you look.
"The Grey starts out pretty bleak in setting. Alaskan wilderness. Oil drilling/processing rig, I should think. We meet the main character right off, and his job is obvious. He's been hired by the oil company to protect the riggers from wolves. Now I know it's already a stretch to go that far, I mean, for an oil company to spend money on an actual hunter to protect their workers just seems silly to start with, since I'd think they'd just put up a big fence around the compound and leave it at that, but the acting in this film is so good that that did not even occur to me until just now. In any case, our main protagonist, in the form of Liam Neeson, is having a rough time getting over the death of his wife. You can pretty much figure that out in the first two minutes. But in any case, and they never really tell you why, Liam boards a plane back to civilization. Maybe he's decided to give living with people another try? Who knows. They never say. And then... the plane ices over and goes down in the wilderness.
There's a funny sort of brain teaser joke my sister asked my mom a few days ago. She couldn't figure it out. It went: "A plane crashes between the borders of this country, and that country. According to international law, where do they bury the survivors?" No, don't bother going to Google and looking up international law on plane crashes. All you really have to do to figure out the answer is know how to listen. A skill my mother hasn't managed to master yet. She probably won't ever try. In any case, you don't bury the survivors, unless you are trying to cover something up. lol
To be honest the beginning of this movie was almost as depressing as the Jesse Stone movies with Tom Selleck. Check those out only if you have the positive attitude of a Pollyanna with an infinite supply of cocaine, because watching a few of those in a row will drive you to suicide. Not because the movies are bad, because they aren't. They are made for TV, so they aren't exactly great, but the mood is just the somber "i'll barely make it through winter" attitude of the people of the far northeast, and of course, the colder northern regions. Talk about seasonally affected depression! Mr. Selleck does a great impression of a man barely managing not to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
Which, of course, means he's a good actor, and isn't that really what the movies are all about? I saw a review on netflix by someone who tore apart the way the wolves acted in this movie, and the poor special effects they used to portray them. Apparently, they made him laugh. I'm not sure what he expected? I mean, it's not like the wolf packs are hiring themselves out to film crews in the hopes of eating whole casts of movies. They have to fake it somehow. Suspension of disbelief wasn't even a problem for this movie, at least not for me. Sure the wolves weren't real. I mean, let's be serious here. You get a bunch of real wolves and real people, take them into the real alaskan or canadian wilderness, put them in real life or death situations in the middle of the real woods, and you're really going to lose some damn fine actors. lol
The acting is what makes the film. The writing makes the book, the dialog makes the screenplay, but the acting is what makes the movie. I don't care if you are in "Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes" or not, if you are acting like the tomatoes are lethal, and you are a good enough actor to get that feeling across to the audience, the movie is going to be well received. I only mention that movie in particular because I remember seeing George Clooney in it years ago and he stops in mid scene and looks at the camera as if to say "Yep, the stagehands just rolled a bunch of tomatoes past my feet." Totally destroyed the rest of the movie for me. I stopped watching it right then and there. I'm not going to say I was on the edge of my seat in suspense over that one, but if the actors can't even try to take it seriously, then neither is your audience. The Hammer films of the late 60's are an ideal example of this. I mean, you give Christopher Lee a pair of plastic fangs and some fake blood, give Peter Cushing a wooden stake and a cross, and you've got two hours of entertaining film. You don't need great special effects. You just need good actors.
"The Grey" had excellent actors, was well written, was chock full of action, and pretty much left me slightly stirred, unlike a martini for Mr Bond. Seriously, they should get Liam Neeson to play James Bond. He'd be a thousand times better than Daniel Craig. Of course, they probably can't afford him now that the bond movies have gone into the toilet. I can't think of one part of "The Grey" that was slow except the first couple minutes. It's one of those movies where you think "Oh, this is going to be one of those long mental movies where you have to think about what's going on." And it is that kind of movie. You do think. You think JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME because that's what happens. It's not a movie about thinking. You get glimpses into the thoughts of the characters in this movie. They don't last long. Usually because that person dies while in mid-thought. lol Al the thinking goes on in the mind of the audience. You wonder "What the fuck would I do if I was in that situation? How long would I last?" In my case, I probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to be cast as an extra in the film. I'd have been like "Fuck this guys. It's too damn cold out here. I'm going home, keep the money." lol
Definitely one to watch again. I'm sure it'll survive the rewatchability test. My deceased father used to love good action movies, and I swear this is the first one since his death 6 years ago that i thought "I'm sorry my dad didn't live long enough to see this movie. He would have loved it." And he would have. It's a great action movie, with great acting, decent enough special effects that I didn't laugh, and it certainly didn't give me enough time to critique the film while I was watching it. lol
Just a tip, you'll want to watch this one past the end of the credits. I'm not sure exactly what I saw at the end there, but it gave me hope for a sequel. lol
In other news, the exceedingly hot and dry summer here has come to an end. We dropped back into the normal temperature range two weeks ago, and I've been chilly ever since. I can already tell there's a hard winter coming. So, all I have to do is survive the next 8 months until the temps warm up again. Wheee! lol I am gearing up for horror movie month in October! Be sure to check back here every day for new horror movie reviews starting october first! I've been saving up all my horror movies in my netflix queue. It's 500 movies strong and bursting at the seams with new arrivals. With any luck I'll find 31 movies I've never seen before, but at the very least, I'll try to make them movies I haven't reviewed before, just to keep things interesting here. Sure, the rest of the year my blog sucks, but so what? It's good in october! lol
Friday, August 31, 2012
Review - Super 8
First, let me apologize for a distinct lack of posts lately. I've barely been home, let alone been at my computer much, so obviously that would preclude a large number of postings. No, i haven't found work or jesus, but I did pick up a social life somewhere. I immediately dropped it, though. I mean, you never know where those things have been. Yes, I washed my hands. Hopefully I didn't pick up a socially transmitted disease or something.
Super 8 is a movie I have been waiting to see forever. Or at least, it felt like forever. Supposedly the movie only came out in 2011 but that makes absolutely no sense to me, since I was waiting to see it come out on HBO or something all last summer (since i THOUGHT it had come out the summer before that), but instead I find it pop up on netflix on the rare occasion that I am home. In any case, I thought this movie was pretty decent.
Yes, I know the last thing steven spielberg or george lucas or art garfunkel or whoever the hell produced this thing needs is any more money, but since I didn't really pay for it, I can't complain. Sure, the $8 a month netflix subscription is one thing but i get TONS of movies for that, not just Super 8. I don't know why these summer blockbusters never hit the premium channels anymore. HBO played iron man ONCE a few years back after it came out and then I NEVER SAW IT AGAIN EVER until i got the DVD. oh sure, a piece of crap movie comes out, and it's splashed all over HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and a month later it's on TNT and ABC and then they replay it ever 2 hours on one channel or another, and a good movie comes out and they play it ONCE. wtf is up with that shit? Ah, don't get me started, I'll go on for hours.
So super 8 is technically a coming of age love story. Sure, there's a monster in there somewhere. Would have to be, I really don't review things without monsters in them, so you KNOW there's a monster. I didn't really like the special effects in this movie. And the beastie was pretty much easy to spot even though they supposedly tried to keep it off camera as much as possible, ut for the most part, this is basically a teen love story with a few explosions thrown in.
Let's take a few pieces of the movie that I liked. One is, the movie starts with school letting out for the summer. As I've mentioned in numerous blogs before, the last day of school is an awesome feeling. Even catching a glimpse of that in a movie brings back great memories for me, so I was pretty much hooked immediately. Then, you've got a bunch of, well, geeks basically, and they are filming a monster movie for a contest. hey! I'm a geek, too! I immediately identified with the main character, who's basically a special effects guy, and a total geek who has the hots for some girl from the, shall we say "wrong" side of the tracks, that is, the "love interest" for the main character.
Enter Elle Fanning as the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. If the name sounds familiar, it's Dakota Fanning's little sister. So here's another part I liked, they go to this old train station in the middle of the night to film part of the movie the kids are making for the contest, and this girl wows all the geeks with her acting talent. It almost seemed self advertising to me at this point, I mean, Elle Fanning, the actress, is acting the part of an aspiring actress, but i guess it works for the movie. In any case, that's not the part I am talking about. Right about here is where all hell breaks loose and we get to the actual meat of the monster movie, not just the useless drivel leading up to it to establish character motives and that sort of shit. I loved the fact that they are doing something completely unrelated to the impending doom and just chance upon what's going to happen next.
It's almost like one of those stories that starts out "it was a routine patrol..." Just on a side note, by the way, never ever, in your entire life, if you are asked to go on a "routine patrol," say Yes. ALL THE BAD SHIT HAPPENS THEN. Yea. It was a routine patrol, and then the aliens probed us. It was a routine patrol, and then the jungle exploded. it was a routine patrol, and then charlie told us all about how he likes to masturbate to the sounds of barry Goldwater's testimony before congress. You know what I mean? if a sentence starts out, "it was a routine patrol..." Just remember, it's NEVER A ROUTINE PATROL. You know why? because on a routine patrol, no one is ever PREPARED for the bad shit that happens. It's all a total surprise. Now... if someone says "hey, me and a bunch of navy seals are about to go on the MOST DANGEROUS MISSION EVER, with tons of explosives and millions of bad guys coming after us, and none of us are expected to return alive. want to tag along?" you say YES! Because that is where you are going to be prepared. No one on that mission is going to say "aw man, if only we had brought explosives." or "oh man, we didn't bring enough ammo" or "if only we had a knife or some other sharp implement we could use to cut our way through the hundred enemy combatants between us and our freedom." You know why? because they'd have all those things. They would be PREPARED. Sure, you may still not make it out alive, but it won't be for lack of foresight.
That's why I keep a tube of super glue on me, just in case I get kidnapped by aliens. They ain't probing my anus! I'll seal that shit up TIGHT.
Erm, anyway... Super 8 wasn't the best movie ever. Decent special effects, a nice coming of age love story thing, involving geeks, which gives it extra points in my book, and it's an entertaining story. No nudity, a little too wholesome, and not enough gore for my personal taste, but in general, not bad. I was tempted to watch it twice to see if it passed the rewatchability test, but I had like 9 movies that were expiring in my netflix queue I had to watch instead.
Luckily I've got rid of that whole social life thing before it got too hairy. Now all i need is a job/income, a new computer, a few hundred million dollars and a supermodel who likes fat balding older men who can only get it up once every 3 weeks. Then I'm set for life!
Well, october is coming up in a couple months, at least. That's right horror fans, it's HORROR MOVIE MARATHON season again. I will try and screen and review ALL NEW MOVIES for you guys. No promises now, but I'll scroll through my 500 movie strong netflix queue and pick out a new horror movie to watch each day for the month of october and see if I can't bring some new blood to the blog! HAH! See what I did there? NEW BLOOD! geddit geddit? heee heeeee Only 30 days away now! Full moons, werewolves, vampires and ghouls, here we come! :-D
Super 8 is a movie I have been waiting to see forever. Or at least, it felt like forever. Supposedly the movie only came out in 2011 but that makes absolutely no sense to me, since I was waiting to see it come out on HBO or something all last summer (since i THOUGHT it had come out the summer before that), but instead I find it pop up on netflix on the rare occasion that I am home. In any case, I thought this movie was pretty decent.
Yes, I know the last thing steven spielberg or george lucas or art garfunkel or whoever the hell produced this thing needs is any more money, but since I didn't really pay for it, I can't complain. Sure, the $8 a month netflix subscription is one thing but i get TONS of movies for that, not just Super 8. I don't know why these summer blockbusters never hit the premium channels anymore. HBO played iron man ONCE a few years back after it came out and then I NEVER SAW IT AGAIN EVER until i got the DVD. oh sure, a piece of crap movie comes out, and it's splashed all over HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and a month later it's on TNT and ABC and then they replay it ever 2 hours on one channel or another, and a good movie comes out and they play it ONCE. wtf is up with that shit? Ah, don't get me started, I'll go on for hours.
So super 8 is technically a coming of age love story. Sure, there's a monster in there somewhere. Would have to be, I really don't review things without monsters in them, so you KNOW there's a monster. I didn't really like the special effects in this movie. And the beastie was pretty much easy to spot even though they supposedly tried to keep it off camera as much as possible, ut for the most part, this is basically a teen love story with a few explosions thrown in.
Let's take a few pieces of the movie that I liked. One is, the movie starts with school letting out for the summer. As I've mentioned in numerous blogs before, the last day of school is an awesome feeling. Even catching a glimpse of that in a movie brings back great memories for me, so I was pretty much hooked immediately. Then, you've got a bunch of, well, geeks basically, and they are filming a monster movie for a contest. hey! I'm a geek, too! I immediately identified with the main character, who's basically a special effects guy, and a total geek who has the hots for some girl from the, shall we say "wrong" side of the tracks, that is, the "love interest" for the main character.
Enter Elle Fanning as the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. If the name sounds familiar, it's Dakota Fanning's little sister. So here's another part I liked, they go to this old train station in the middle of the night to film part of the movie the kids are making for the contest, and this girl wows all the geeks with her acting talent. It almost seemed self advertising to me at this point, I mean, Elle Fanning, the actress, is acting the part of an aspiring actress, but i guess it works for the movie. In any case, that's not the part I am talking about. Right about here is where all hell breaks loose and we get to the actual meat of the monster movie, not just the useless drivel leading up to it to establish character motives and that sort of shit. I loved the fact that they are doing something completely unrelated to the impending doom and just chance upon what's going to happen next.
It's almost like one of those stories that starts out "it was a routine patrol..." Just on a side note, by the way, never ever, in your entire life, if you are asked to go on a "routine patrol," say Yes. ALL THE BAD SHIT HAPPENS THEN. Yea. It was a routine patrol, and then the aliens probed us. It was a routine patrol, and then the jungle exploded. it was a routine patrol, and then charlie told us all about how he likes to masturbate to the sounds of barry Goldwater's testimony before congress. You know what I mean? if a sentence starts out, "it was a routine patrol..." Just remember, it's NEVER A ROUTINE PATROL. You know why? because on a routine patrol, no one is ever PREPARED for the bad shit that happens. It's all a total surprise. Now... if someone says "hey, me and a bunch of navy seals are about to go on the MOST DANGEROUS MISSION EVER, with tons of explosives and millions of bad guys coming after us, and none of us are expected to return alive. want to tag along?" you say YES! Because that is where you are going to be prepared. No one on that mission is going to say "aw man, if only we had brought explosives." or "oh man, we didn't bring enough ammo" or "if only we had a knife or some other sharp implement we could use to cut our way through the hundred enemy combatants between us and our freedom." You know why? because they'd have all those things. They would be PREPARED. Sure, you may still not make it out alive, but it won't be for lack of foresight.
That's why I keep a tube of super glue on me, just in case I get kidnapped by aliens. They ain't probing my anus! I'll seal that shit up TIGHT.
Erm, anyway... Super 8 wasn't the best movie ever. Decent special effects, a nice coming of age love story thing, involving geeks, which gives it extra points in my book, and it's an entertaining story. No nudity, a little too wholesome, and not enough gore for my personal taste, but in general, not bad. I was tempted to watch it twice to see if it passed the rewatchability test, but I had like 9 movies that were expiring in my netflix queue I had to watch instead.
Luckily I've got rid of that whole social life thing before it got too hairy. Now all i need is a job/income, a new computer, a few hundred million dollars and a supermodel who likes fat balding older men who can only get it up once every 3 weeks. Then I'm set for life!
Well, october is coming up in a couple months, at least. That's right horror fans, it's HORROR MOVIE MARATHON season again. I will try and screen and review ALL NEW MOVIES for you guys. No promises now, but I'll scroll through my 500 movie strong netflix queue and pick out a new horror movie to watch each day for the month of october and see if I can't bring some new blood to the blog! HAH! See what I did there? NEW BLOOD! geddit geddit? heee heeeee Only 30 days away now! Full moons, werewolves, vampires and ghouls, here we come! :-D
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Review - Nightwing
There's nothing like watching an old movie.
And in this case, by "Old," I mean 1979. Nightwing is the story of a man who loves to kill bats, and a couple of indians duking it out with magic. This movie is almost as old as I am, so let me just sum it up for you. Youngman Duran, Sheriff of the Maski indian territory, is a man with problems. His girlfriend is thinking about leaving him, his tribal chieftain is a greedy double dealing backstabber, and the crazy old indian shaman who raised him has decided to end the world. Oh, and there have been some odd animal mutilations in his territory. Aside from the overpowering odor of ammonia and the numerous small wounds on the bodies of the dead cattle, there's not much to go on. Oh, and they've been drained of blood. And on top of all that, his surrogate father, Abner, the crazy old indian shaman, becomes the first human victim to die the same way as the cattle.
Duran tries to bury Abner, but the body begins to bleed after death, and then the body disappears from the grave overnight. Duran suspects his tribal elders, priests of the same Fire Clan as Abner, because they feared his power. But all the elder priests of the Fire Clan are now dead, and they aren't the only ones. People begin to die the same way as the cattle, attacked by swarms of Vampire Bats, as Duran's girlfriend soon discovers, much to her horror! :-o
So now Duran has even more problems. He's got to go rescue his girlfriend, kill the swarm of bats, and counter Abner's final spell, the one that summoned Yehwah, the Maski god of Death, and he's not even a shaman! And he has to do all this while Chee, the greedy corrupt tribal chieftain, has put a phony warrant out for his arrest to shut him up long enough to allow a mining deal in the sacred indian territory of the Maski canyons. Which... is also where the bats are hiding out! :-o
I've loved Nightwing ever since I was a kid. It's a horror movie that is steeped in the ancient indian traditions of the southwest. At least, I think it is. I don't actually know if any of it is made up or not, because I'm too damn lazy to check, but it feels like it is. As far as I know, they cast spells using pictograms, rendered in dyes and paints and powders, which are used in this film, and they used to live in pueblos, houses and villages cut into the sides of mountains, and these are featured in this movie as well. The only other movie I know of that features as much indian symbolism is Manitou, a movie with Tony Curtis, probably either the only, or one of the only, horror movies that Tony Curtis ever appeared in. In Nightwing, Nick Mancuso played Duran, the lead. Kathryn Harrold played his love interest, and David Warner plays the doctor who absolutely hates Vampire Bats.
Besides the battle of wills between Duran and Abner (who was powerful enough to fight Duran even while he was dead), there's the whole Vampire bat aspect of things going on. David Warner does an excellent job portraying the cute fuzzy little devils as... well... devils. The climax is both weird and exciting, and the movie certainly doesn't leave many pauses between the action. The desert southwest is featured prominently, the mythology of the area colors everything that happens, and the characters are well portrayed and acted. There have been several horror movies with bats made since, but none have been as good.
There are two ways to view this movie. There is the way portrayed by David Warner, the way of the scientist tracking and killing the Vampire bats. They've been migrating north, he says, and they are the epitome of evil, they take everything from their victims by way of their life's blood, and give only toxic pools of ammonia in return. He's destroyed swarms of these things, and he's going to track and kill this one because that's what he does. He doesn't need money. He does it because no one else can. The vampire bats are simply vicious animals that need to be put down before they kill more people, and also because they carry a virulent strain of bubonic plague. Or there is Duran's way. Abner summoned the Vampire bats to kill the white man, but yehwah, the Maski god of Death, isn't discriminating. He's killing everyone, Maski indians included, and Duran just can't let it continue. Which one is true?
Don't worry gentle readers! If I find any more old horror movies laying around the internet, I'l let you know! :-)
And in this case, by "Old," I mean 1979. Nightwing is the story of a man who loves to kill bats, and a couple of indians duking it out with magic. This movie is almost as old as I am, so let me just sum it up for you. Youngman Duran, Sheriff of the Maski indian territory, is a man with problems. His girlfriend is thinking about leaving him, his tribal chieftain is a greedy double dealing backstabber, and the crazy old indian shaman who raised him has decided to end the world. Oh, and there have been some odd animal mutilations in his territory. Aside from the overpowering odor of ammonia and the numerous small wounds on the bodies of the dead cattle, there's not much to go on. Oh, and they've been drained of blood. And on top of all that, his surrogate father, Abner, the crazy old indian shaman, becomes the first human victim to die the same way as the cattle.
Duran tries to bury Abner, but the body begins to bleed after death, and then the body disappears from the grave overnight. Duran suspects his tribal elders, priests of the same Fire Clan as Abner, because they feared his power. But all the elder priests of the Fire Clan are now dead, and they aren't the only ones. People begin to die the same way as the cattle, attacked by swarms of Vampire Bats, as Duran's girlfriend soon discovers, much to her horror! :-o
So now Duran has even more problems. He's got to go rescue his girlfriend, kill the swarm of bats, and counter Abner's final spell, the one that summoned Yehwah, the Maski god of Death, and he's not even a shaman! And he has to do all this while Chee, the greedy corrupt tribal chieftain, has put a phony warrant out for his arrest to shut him up long enough to allow a mining deal in the sacred indian territory of the Maski canyons. Which... is also where the bats are hiding out! :-o
I've loved Nightwing ever since I was a kid. It's a horror movie that is steeped in the ancient indian traditions of the southwest. At least, I think it is. I don't actually know if any of it is made up or not, because I'm too damn lazy to check, but it feels like it is. As far as I know, they cast spells using pictograms, rendered in dyes and paints and powders, which are used in this film, and they used to live in pueblos, houses and villages cut into the sides of mountains, and these are featured in this movie as well. The only other movie I know of that features as much indian symbolism is Manitou, a movie with Tony Curtis, probably either the only, or one of the only, horror movies that Tony Curtis ever appeared in. In Nightwing, Nick Mancuso played Duran, the lead. Kathryn Harrold played his love interest, and David Warner plays the doctor who absolutely hates Vampire Bats.
Besides the battle of wills between Duran and Abner (who was powerful enough to fight Duran even while he was dead), there's the whole Vampire bat aspect of things going on. David Warner does an excellent job portraying the cute fuzzy little devils as... well... devils. The climax is both weird and exciting, and the movie certainly doesn't leave many pauses between the action. The desert southwest is featured prominently, the mythology of the area colors everything that happens, and the characters are well portrayed and acted. There have been several horror movies with bats made since, but none have been as good.
There are two ways to view this movie. There is the way portrayed by David Warner, the way of the scientist tracking and killing the Vampire bats. They've been migrating north, he says, and they are the epitome of evil, they take everything from their victims by way of their life's blood, and give only toxic pools of ammonia in return. He's destroyed swarms of these things, and he's going to track and kill this one because that's what he does. He doesn't need money. He does it because no one else can. The vampire bats are simply vicious animals that need to be put down before they kill more people, and also because they carry a virulent strain of bubonic plague. Or there is Duran's way. Abner summoned the Vampire bats to kill the white man, but yehwah, the Maski god of Death, isn't discriminating. He's killing everyone, Maski indians included, and Duran just can't let it continue. Which one is true?
Don't worry gentle readers! If I find any more old horror movies laying around the internet, I'l let you know! :-)
Monday, July 16, 2012
Reviews - Transformers 3, Conan
It's summer! And summer usually means poor TV viewing, so I've been watching a lot of movies lately.
Transformers: Dark side of the moon was something I watched a few nights ago. Now, this is not the greatest of movies. And I got flamed for saying Transformers 2 was ok, but I don't really care, because let's be perfectly honest, here... It's a movie about giant robots based off of a cartoon about giant robots. And as someone who grew up watching the original cartoon, there WAS a teenage boy in the series who was good buds with Bumblebee, the snazzy-looking yellow muscle car transformer. The transformers movies have been EXACTLY what the cartoons were about. The fight between the autobots and the decepticons. The cartoon only rarely featured the teenage boy, and frankly, to my way of thinking, he was shown much more than was absolutely necessary. Much, as I am sure some of you agree, like Shia Lebuffy or whatever his name is, was shown in transformers. Let me try and explain why this is.
To my way of thinking, featuring giant robots fighting each other in the context of earth as a background is completely sufficient for a cartoon, movie series or TV show. I personally would not require the addition of a teenage boy to goad the story along, to become a focus for the conflict, or to scream like a girl as many times as humanly possible. The mere fact that the Autobots represented good and the decepticons represented evil was sufficient for me. The conflict between good and evil is exemplified in thousands of movies, TV shows, and cartoons to great effect. I need no further explanation for a faction's actions than to say "This side is good." or "this side is evil." Sure, if the actions they take exemplify the archetypes of good and evil, such as evil killing innocents or good defending same, that just demonstrates what I've already understood from the concept, but I don't need that. I just enjoy watching the battles.
The addition of a teenage boy, however, was probably done for one reason and one reason only... To try to appeal to a wider audience of people who could NOT identify with the giant robots based on good and evil alone. To add a human element to an otherwise completely perfect story about good and evil robots fighting each other. Of course, when you have giant robots that transform into trucks and cars, you'll need earth as a backdrop (because trucks and cars don't fly well in outer space), and humans are going to come into the equation somewhere. In the movies, the government responds with a military task force designed to work with the autobots to fight the decepticons wherever possible, which makes sense. In the cartoons, if I remember correctly, the autobots were pretty much on their own.
So let me sum up. The transformers series of movies is almost identical to the cartoon in all respects, except for the updating of the technology and special effects. There was a teen boy in the cartoon that screamed almost as much as Shia Lebouffy does in Transformers 3. So as far as staying true to the original concept, the movies were dead on. Shia Lebouffy's acting, well, hey, I don't cast these things. I personally would have tossed a teenage girl into the role and solidifed the primarily male viewership with some tits and ass, which they tried to do with Shia's love interests, but i think failed miserably. Simply said, if what you were looking for was giant robots beating the fucking crap out of each other, you were satisfied. And since I was looking for that, I am satisfied. If you could cut shia out of the entire movie, I think the movies would be even better, but I think a lot of people agree with me on that one. Honestly, despite megan fox's acting talents (or lack thereof), I don't think they should have replaced her. She was nice eye candy, much better than Rosie Huntintin-whitely, or whatever her name is. At least, that's my opinion on the subject
As for the overall plot, where here's how it goes. There was some Autobot scientist who had a plan to defeat the decepticons (voiced by leonard nimoy, which was very cool), and his escape ship crash landed on earth's moon ages ago. The autobots learn of this (with some sneaky prodding by the decpticons), they recover the artifacts within the ship, and then all hell breaks loose on earth as both sides fight to control the technology. Happily, Optimus does not die like a bitch in this movie like he did in 2. That's one thing I always liked about the cartoons. Optimus was always one good goddamn ass-kickin robot. Decepticons might have all been planes and guns and tanks and shit like that, but Optimus truck-lookin ass whipped them all so bad they were afraid to face him. You got to respect a guy who can hold his own in a fight.
Conan, well, that movie is a slightly different story. To anyone who's ever watched the conan movies or read the books, there are tons of monsters, demons and magic in the conan story lines. That's why I liked them. The movies done with Arnold schwarzenegger a couple decades ago were quite good in that respect. Rife with monsters and magic, there was still the human element involved. The second conan movie (with Arnold) had much more in that department, but the first movie was the story of conan's beginnings and his quest to destroy the demi-god who slaughtered his village. Basically, it's the story of how conan slays the shit out of the monsters and saves humanity, usually in the form of a hot female sacrifice, which certainly sums up the plot of the second conan movie.
Now, the recent conan remake is a little different. They make a big deal about how conan was born in battle and he manages to kill a bunch of evil-looking raiders when he's like 12 or something, and then all of a sudden, things seem to change. His father's trying to teach him the ways of the sword and conan's failing and getting his ass kicked. Now I understand that conan's supposed to have respect and love for his old man, otherwise, he's not going to feel a thing when the old man gets killed (conan's old man always gets killed, otherwise, conan doesn't go off into the world to learn how to kick ass and become a thief and have other adventures), but why would you apparently show what a badass the kid is and then immediately slap down his legend again by saying conan's not smart enough to learn how to handle a sword? Just confusing, if you ask me. Then they leap forward to conan's adult life (where he's apparently had tons of adventures already), and sort of rewrite who he's after for killing his people. In this case, it's just an evil warlord. There's little or no magic involved, no demons are summoned, there's no giant serpents, and conan doesn't kill any monsters. Nope, it's just good old fashioned human on human violence.
See, here's the point of the conan movies, and where i think the movie would have done superbly well, is that conan's best efforts fail and the demon, evil god, or dark sorceror manages to GAIN whatever power he was after, or comes to our world. And then conan has to kill the shit out of him anyway. And conan does. And that's what made conan great. He was one helluvan ass-kicker. This conan? Not so much. This conan has a hard time fighting off one old scarred up warlord. And he gets his ass kicked by the guy several times. Not just once. SEVERAL TIMES. Doesn't really make much sense to me. Bah. Poor remake, if you ask me. And very little magic and almost no monsters... certainly no monster deaths. There's one monster, looks like some giant squid type thing, but it doesn't die at all. The real conan would have killed the thing just for killing's sake. Not this conan! He's more monster-friendly, I guess.
In other news, there ARE things to watch on TV. In order on sunday nights, I watch The Glades on A&E at 9, then Longmire right after it, then I pop over to HBO for True Blood and Newsroom. The Glades is a cop show, as is Longmire, just different locations. One is set in the everglades area in florida, and the other is set in.. wyoming, maybe? There's a lot of open land, what they'd call Big-Sky country, I guess. Anyway, both cop shows, different focuses. The Glades is more of a borderline comedy, because the main character tends to have fun solving crimes and catching the bad guy, and Longmire is more serious, it's main character being more along the lines of Jesse Stone in the Tom Selleck series of murder-movies. True Blood is about vampires, werewolves and supernatural beings of all kinds trying to co-exist with humans (but mostly vampires), and Newroom is a look at what happens behind the scenes of a news show that's trying to actually report the News. Facts, not what is supposed to bring in viewers.
I watch The Glades mostly because the main character seems to be an instinctual crime-solver. He makes leaps of intuition that lead him to the bad guy and then has a blast of a time anticipating and countering the bad guy's moves. Longmire I've only seen a couple times, and I'm really only watching it at this point because it's got a lot of decent actors in it. I haven't seen it enough to get invested in the characters yet. True Blood i mostly watch for Anna Paquin. Enough said. Newsroom, now that one surprised me. I thought it was going to be serious. And it honestly plays itself off that way. But I end up laughing my ass off during most of the show. The situations these poor newspeople end up getting themselves into are just too funny not to laugh at, and the one liners and dialogue is exceptional. They've got a couple decent actors in main spots, but most of the cast is unknowns (to me, at least) who end up doing an excellent job portraying a quirky, but very competent group of morally good people trying to put out a decent news show. It's still funny as hell.
As a quick aside... Ever notice how it's always the professions in our society who need the most good press, that are always the stars of movies and TV shows? Think about it. Isn't there a joke about what you'd call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean being a good start? And aren't cops beating up innocent people always making the news headlines? And politicians seem to be universally corrupt as far as the news goes, and in the movies there's always that one guy who's trying to just fight for the people? And yet who is always the hero of the story? A good cop. An honest politician. A lawyer who's not morally corrupt. And now news people and journalists are in such bad regard as a profession that we see a story about a newscaster who's NOT just a gossip-chasing fear-peddler and it's... well.... news. lol
Transformers: Dark side of the moon was something I watched a few nights ago. Now, this is not the greatest of movies. And I got flamed for saying Transformers 2 was ok, but I don't really care, because let's be perfectly honest, here... It's a movie about giant robots based off of a cartoon about giant robots. And as someone who grew up watching the original cartoon, there WAS a teenage boy in the series who was good buds with Bumblebee, the snazzy-looking yellow muscle car transformer. The transformers movies have been EXACTLY what the cartoons were about. The fight between the autobots and the decepticons. The cartoon only rarely featured the teenage boy, and frankly, to my way of thinking, he was shown much more than was absolutely necessary. Much, as I am sure some of you agree, like Shia Lebuffy or whatever his name is, was shown in transformers. Let me try and explain why this is.
To my way of thinking, featuring giant robots fighting each other in the context of earth as a background is completely sufficient for a cartoon, movie series or TV show. I personally would not require the addition of a teenage boy to goad the story along, to become a focus for the conflict, or to scream like a girl as many times as humanly possible. The mere fact that the Autobots represented good and the decepticons represented evil was sufficient for me. The conflict between good and evil is exemplified in thousands of movies, TV shows, and cartoons to great effect. I need no further explanation for a faction's actions than to say "This side is good." or "this side is evil." Sure, if the actions they take exemplify the archetypes of good and evil, such as evil killing innocents or good defending same, that just demonstrates what I've already understood from the concept, but I don't need that. I just enjoy watching the battles.
The addition of a teenage boy, however, was probably done for one reason and one reason only... To try to appeal to a wider audience of people who could NOT identify with the giant robots based on good and evil alone. To add a human element to an otherwise completely perfect story about good and evil robots fighting each other. Of course, when you have giant robots that transform into trucks and cars, you'll need earth as a backdrop (because trucks and cars don't fly well in outer space), and humans are going to come into the equation somewhere. In the movies, the government responds with a military task force designed to work with the autobots to fight the decepticons wherever possible, which makes sense. In the cartoons, if I remember correctly, the autobots were pretty much on their own.
So let me sum up. The transformers series of movies is almost identical to the cartoon in all respects, except for the updating of the technology and special effects. There was a teen boy in the cartoon that screamed almost as much as Shia Lebouffy does in Transformers 3. So as far as staying true to the original concept, the movies were dead on. Shia Lebouffy's acting, well, hey, I don't cast these things. I personally would have tossed a teenage girl into the role and solidifed the primarily male viewership with some tits and ass, which they tried to do with Shia's love interests, but i think failed miserably. Simply said, if what you were looking for was giant robots beating the fucking crap out of each other, you were satisfied. And since I was looking for that, I am satisfied. If you could cut shia out of the entire movie, I think the movies would be even better, but I think a lot of people agree with me on that one. Honestly, despite megan fox's acting talents (or lack thereof), I don't think they should have replaced her. She was nice eye candy, much better than Rosie Huntintin-whitely, or whatever her name is. At least, that's my opinion on the subject
As for the overall plot, where here's how it goes. There was some Autobot scientist who had a plan to defeat the decepticons (voiced by leonard nimoy, which was very cool), and his escape ship crash landed on earth's moon ages ago. The autobots learn of this (with some sneaky prodding by the decpticons), they recover the artifacts within the ship, and then all hell breaks loose on earth as both sides fight to control the technology. Happily, Optimus does not die like a bitch in this movie like he did in 2. That's one thing I always liked about the cartoons. Optimus was always one good goddamn ass-kickin robot. Decepticons might have all been planes and guns and tanks and shit like that, but Optimus truck-lookin ass whipped them all so bad they were afraid to face him. You got to respect a guy who can hold his own in a fight.
Conan, well, that movie is a slightly different story. To anyone who's ever watched the conan movies or read the books, there are tons of monsters, demons and magic in the conan story lines. That's why I liked them. The movies done with Arnold schwarzenegger a couple decades ago were quite good in that respect. Rife with monsters and magic, there was still the human element involved. The second conan movie (with Arnold) had much more in that department, but the first movie was the story of conan's beginnings and his quest to destroy the demi-god who slaughtered his village. Basically, it's the story of how conan slays the shit out of the monsters and saves humanity, usually in the form of a hot female sacrifice, which certainly sums up the plot of the second conan movie.
Now, the recent conan remake is a little different. They make a big deal about how conan was born in battle and he manages to kill a bunch of evil-looking raiders when he's like 12 or something, and then all of a sudden, things seem to change. His father's trying to teach him the ways of the sword and conan's failing and getting his ass kicked. Now I understand that conan's supposed to have respect and love for his old man, otherwise, he's not going to feel a thing when the old man gets killed (conan's old man always gets killed, otherwise, conan doesn't go off into the world to learn how to kick ass and become a thief and have other adventures), but why would you apparently show what a badass the kid is and then immediately slap down his legend again by saying conan's not smart enough to learn how to handle a sword? Just confusing, if you ask me. Then they leap forward to conan's adult life (where he's apparently had tons of adventures already), and sort of rewrite who he's after for killing his people. In this case, it's just an evil warlord. There's little or no magic involved, no demons are summoned, there's no giant serpents, and conan doesn't kill any monsters. Nope, it's just good old fashioned human on human violence.
See, here's the point of the conan movies, and where i think the movie would have done superbly well, is that conan's best efforts fail and the demon, evil god, or dark sorceror manages to GAIN whatever power he was after, or comes to our world. And then conan has to kill the shit out of him anyway. And conan does. And that's what made conan great. He was one helluvan ass-kicker. This conan? Not so much. This conan has a hard time fighting off one old scarred up warlord. And he gets his ass kicked by the guy several times. Not just once. SEVERAL TIMES. Doesn't really make much sense to me. Bah. Poor remake, if you ask me. And very little magic and almost no monsters... certainly no monster deaths. There's one monster, looks like some giant squid type thing, but it doesn't die at all. The real conan would have killed the thing just for killing's sake. Not this conan! He's more monster-friendly, I guess.
In other news, there ARE things to watch on TV. In order on sunday nights, I watch The Glades on A&E at 9, then Longmire right after it, then I pop over to HBO for True Blood and Newsroom. The Glades is a cop show, as is Longmire, just different locations. One is set in the everglades area in florida, and the other is set in.. wyoming, maybe? There's a lot of open land, what they'd call Big-Sky country, I guess. Anyway, both cop shows, different focuses. The Glades is more of a borderline comedy, because the main character tends to have fun solving crimes and catching the bad guy, and Longmire is more serious, it's main character being more along the lines of Jesse Stone in the Tom Selleck series of murder-movies. True Blood is about vampires, werewolves and supernatural beings of all kinds trying to co-exist with humans (but mostly vampires), and Newroom is a look at what happens behind the scenes of a news show that's trying to actually report the News. Facts, not what is supposed to bring in viewers.
I watch The Glades mostly because the main character seems to be an instinctual crime-solver. He makes leaps of intuition that lead him to the bad guy and then has a blast of a time anticipating and countering the bad guy's moves. Longmire I've only seen a couple times, and I'm really only watching it at this point because it's got a lot of decent actors in it. I haven't seen it enough to get invested in the characters yet. True Blood i mostly watch for Anna Paquin. Enough said. Newsroom, now that one surprised me. I thought it was going to be serious. And it honestly plays itself off that way. But I end up laughing my ass off during most of the show. The situations these poor newspeople end up getting themselves into are just too funny not to laugh at, and the one liners and dialogue is exceptional. They've got a couple decent actors in main spots, but most of the cast is unknowns (to me, at least) who end up doing an excellent job portraying a quirky, but very competent group of morally good people trying to put out a decent news show. It's still funny as hell.
As a quick aside... Ever notice how it's always the professions in our society who need the most good press, that are always the stars of movies and TV shows? Think about it. Isn't there a joke about what you'd call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean being a good start? And aren't cops beating up innocent people always making the news headlines? And politicians seem to be universally corrupt as far as the news goes, and in the movies there's always that one guy who's trying to just fight for the people? And yet who is always the hero of the story? A good cop. An honest politician. A lawyer who's not morally corrupt. And now news people and journalists are in such bad regard as a profession that we see a story about a newscaster who's NOT just a gossip-chasing fear-peddler and it's... well.... news. lol
Friday, July 13, 2012
Rich Folk and Animal Crackers
So I'm mulling about in my house after getting back from my sister's house, and the temps are well into the 80's and 90's around here. And I don't have a pool, because I am one-relative-who's-in-jail away from being poor folk. Now I'm not saying that I have relatives who should be in jail, or are going to be, I'm just saying, rich folk don't go to jail often, for whatever reasons. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more.
So i figure, what the fuck. I'll have a bag of animal crackers, so I can feel like a rich person.
Now, before you get all uppity about it, you young folk today don't know what it was like back in the old days. When animal crackers first came out, they were like $100 a bag. Of course, that was back in the old days, when $100 could buy you a house, a car, and a russian girlfriend and still have enough left over for a root-beer float at the soda stand. Nowadays, the miraculous, seductive and secretive means by which animal crackers are made is much cheaper. I think they got kids over in china working their fingers off baking them, or however they are made. I sure don't know. I am just glad us poor folk can afford to buy them now.
No, don't start arguing with me. I'm talking about good, old fashioned original animal crackers. Not animal cookies. Not crackers, like saltines. ANIMAL CRACKERS. They taste like jesus sauteed over an open flame and served to a starving religious man. Only without the meaty part. I don't know whether technically they are a cookie or a cracker, because there's no salt on them and they taste like the nectar of the gods to me, but there it is. They are called animal crackers because they come in animal shapes, so I can pretend I am eating an elephant or a giraffe or a llama when i eat one. I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just go eat a llama, I mean, they are pretty plentiful down south america way, but there it is. Animal Crackers.
So I'm sitting here eating my bag of animal crackers, and it comes to me... Shit! Do rich folk hold up one pinky when they eat animal crackers, like when they drink champagne or wine or whatever? I asked my nephew, but he told me he didn't know and to quit bugging him because he was jacking off to japanese anime, and then I decided to google that shit. So I asked the Google: Do rich people hold up one pinky when they eat animal crackers?
And you know what the google said to me?
It said: Did you mean: do rich folk hold up your pinky when they eat animal crackers?
And I bout damn near laughed my arse off. Google, you knucklehead! Why the fuck would rich folk hold up MY pinky when they eat animal crackers? That's good-goddamn-ridiculous! I mean, even if that was the custom, to hold up some poor person's pinky when they ate animal crackers, wouldn't they pay someone to do that for them? I mean I'm pretty goddamn sure I ain't never seen no Warren Buffet or Bill Gates coming with a bag of animal crackers in his hand and asking "Hey, you mind if I hold up your pinky whilst I devour this entire bag of animal crackers?" in the same sort of voice they'd ask "do you happen to have any Grey Poupon?" Because i'd bout damn near shit a brick if anyone came up to me and asked me that. I mean that's just durn silly! And while they can probably afford to hire people to hold up my pinky, who keeps someone around just for that? I don't think I've ever seen a rich person even touch one of us poor folk, let alone hire someone to hold up their pinky.
But I don't want to get bogged down in the Google's asininity. Apparently they aren't quite rich enough to get that whole "holding up a pinky while eating animal crackers" thing. Not cultured enough, apparently. A little too nouveau-riche, if you get my meaning, wink wink nudge nudge say no more. Is there like a european version of the Google I can ask? The old country version of the Google, where the Google first began, they'd probably know. So how do I ask the old-country-Google? is it pronounced like Google' over there, with like a cute little accent mark over it, pronounced GoogLAY? Probably. Damn snotty frenchmen probably copyrighted that shit as soon as there was an EU to copyright shit in, and now it's pronounced GoogLAY. They're just pissed because they lost the dot com wars of the 90's. Damn beret-wearing sonsofbitches.
And don't even get me started on sweden!
So, I tried it. I tried holding up one pinky while eating a whole bag of animal crackers. It's not easy. I dropped a bunch. My hand is sore now. And I nearly knocked over my water bottle with my extended pinky while trying to adjust the volume on the japanese anime, but I guess that makes sense. If being rich was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?
Right.
So i figure, what the fuck. I'll have a bag of animal crackers, so I can feel like a rich person.
Now, before you get all uppity about it, you young folk today don't know what it was like back in the old days. When animal crackers first came out, they were like $100 a bag. Of course, that was back in the old days, when $100 could buy you a house, a car, and a russian girlfriend and still have enough left over for a root-beer float at the soda stand. Nowadays, the miraculous, seductive and secretive means by which animal crackers are made is much cheaper. I think they got kids over in china working their fingers off baking them, or however they are made. I sure don't know. I am just glad us poor folk can afford to buy them now.
No, don't start arguing with me. I'm talking about good, old fashioned original animal crackers. Not animal cookies. Not crackers, like saltines. ANIMAL CRACKERS. They taste like jesus sauteed over an open flame and served to a starving religious man. Only without the meaty part. I don't know whether technically they are a cookie or a cracker, because there's no salt on them and they taste like the nectar of the gods to me, but there it is. They are called animal crackers because they come in animal shapes, so I can pretend I am eating an elephant or a giraffe or a llama when i eat one. I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just go eat a llama, I mean, they are pretty plentiful down south america way, but there it is. Animal Crackers.
So I'm sitting here eating my bag of animal crackers, and it comes to me... Shit! Do rich folk hold up one pinky when they eat animal crackers, like when they drink champagne or wine or whatever? I asked my nephew, but he told me he didn't know and to quit bugging him because he was jacking off to japanese anime, and then I decided to google that shit. So I asked the Google: Do rich people hold up one pinky when they eat animal crackers?
And you know what the google said to me?
It said: Did you mean: do rich folk hold up your pinky when they eat animal crackers?
And I bout damn near laughed my arse off. Google, you knucklehead! Why the fuck would rich folk hold up MY pinky when they eat animal crackers? That's good-goddamn-ridiculous! I mean, even if that was the custom, to hold up some poor person's pinky when they ate animal crackers, wouldn't they pay someone to do that for them? I mean I'm pretty goddamn sure I ain't never seen no Warren Buffet or Bill Gates coming with a bag of animal crackers in his hand and asking "Hey, you mind if I hold up your pinky whilst I devour this entire bag of animal crackers?" in the same sort of voice they'd ask "do you happen to have any Grey Poupon?" Because i'd bout damn near shit a brick if anyone came up to me and asked me that. I mean that's just durn silly! And while they can probably afford to hire people to hold up my pinky, who keeps someone around just for that? I don't think I've ever seen a rich person even touch one of us poor folk, let alone hire someone to hold up their pinky.
But I don't want to get bogged down in the Google's asininity. Apparently they aren't quite rich enough to get that whole "holding up a pinky while eating animal crackers" thing. Not cultured enough, apparently. A little too nouveau-riche, if you get my meaning, wink wink nudge nudge say no more. Is there like a european version of the Google I can ask? The old country version of the Google, where the Google first began, they'd probably know. So how do I ask the old-country-Google? is it pronounced like Google' over there, with like a cute little accent mark over it, pronounced GoogLAY? Probably. Damn snotty frenchmen probably copyrighted that shit as soon as there was an EU to copyright shit in, and now it's pronounced GoogLAY. They're just pissed because they lost the dot com wars of the 90's. Damn beret-wearing sonsofbitches.
And don't even get me started on sweden!
So, I tried it. I tried holding up one pinky while eating a whole bag of animal crackers. It's not easy. I dropped a bunch. My hand is sore now. And I nearly knocked over my water bottle with my extended pinky while trying to adjust the volume on the japanese anime, but I guess that makes sense. If being rich was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?
Right.
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